A lot of people out there are complaining that the National Baseball Hall of Fame is getting a little watered down. Bruce Sutter may or may not be worthy, but the place that relievers will have in the history of the game is still being written. It is probably too early to pass judgment on relievers in the Hall.

But there’s little denying that the Hall doesn’t have the cache that it once did. There are a bunch of players who have busts in Canton who shouldn’t. Names such as Joss, Bender, Chesbro, Welch, Haines, and Marquard don’t conjure up the same magic as Aaron, Mays, Mantle, Williams, Ruth, and Cobb. The Hall should be hallowed grounds for the best of the best, not just players who were very, very good.

So let’s fix the voting process! Sutter was on the ballot for the thirteenth time when he was elected. The popular thing to ask these days is if a player hasn’t thrown a pitch or got a hit since that first election when he wasn’t elected, what makes him deserve being in the Hall now? And if voters need that much time to debate his credentials, then I don’t think he should be in. Hall of Famers should stick out from the crowd.

A simple solution would be a single vote, but that makes no sense. There is a higher level of respect for players who got in on their first ballot, and voters purposefully will not vote for players appearing on their first ballot despite how inevitable their election might be. And there’s also something to be said that time needs to pass in order to fully appreciate what a player accomplished. But nearly twenty years is somewhat ridiculous.

Here’s what I would do: for every year a player was on the Hall of Fame ballot and didn’t get voted in, he needs to get voted in as many times. So if a player gets voted in on their sixth ballot (with five failures), they need to get voted in another four times before finally making it. ‘No’ for five years needs ‘yes’ for five years.

This means that a player can be voted in during either of their first two years without a second vote. We can keep the prestige of a “first ballot Hall of Famer,” while those who aren’t quite of that pedigree can be voted in the second time around. Anybody beyond that will need multiple votes to get in.

The thing is, if voters need a decade before realizing they should have voted for a player, perhaps they also need time to review their ‘yes’ votes as well. It’s a problem when voters don’t choose a Hall of Fame caliber player, but it’s a bigger problem when they select a player who isn’t.