Mike Schmidt has a horrible, horrible idea for changing the Hall of Fame voting

I missed this before, but Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt was on SiriusXm the other day talking about Hall of Fame voting. He thinks it’s time to change the voting procedures. You can hear his whole idea here. It won’t blockquote it because it’s kind of rambling, but here is the upshot of his comments:

• Getting voted in to the Hall of Fame is not just an honor, but it’s important to some players in terms of “subsidizing their current income.” This, I presume, refers to the very real notion that guys who are inducted can command much, much higher fees for autographed merch and appearances at baseball card shows and the like;
• The more recent players really don’t need the money like some of the other ones do;
• Writers often have personal grudges against players, have big problems with PEDs, etc., so maybe they shouldn’t vote on these guys;
• Instead, have the writers come up with a list of finalists for voting and then let a committee of current Hall of Famers make the final call.

Setting aside the idea that allowing current Hall of Famers vote is the reason why the old version of the Veterans Committee never elected anyone, does Schmidt not realize that his idea comes with an extreme conflict of interest?

Sure, the writers may have grudges and irrational ideas on some matters, but if you’re a current Hall of Famer, and you make a LOT of money selling yourself as a Hall of Famer — and notice that Schmidt says that before anything else — is it not in your best interest to ensure that there are far fewer Hall of Famers who might compete with you on the autograph circuit? Indeed, Schmidt’s seemingly random comment about some players not needing the money as much as others suggests that this is at the forefront of his mind.

Maybe he’s right that the voting system should be changed, but between the conflicts, the track record of the old Veteran’s Committee and the calcified “things were better in MY day” reasoning of a lot of former ballplayers, I think having them play a part in elections is the worst idea imaginable.