Well, Dan Le Batard accomplished one thing: He got the Hall of Fame and Baseball Writers Association of America to enact a new rule because of the stunt he pulled last year after handing over his ballot to Deadspin.

From Barry Bloom at MLB.com:

The Hall will now require an Internet registration of the approximately 625 eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and those voters will be notified about a specific code of conduct regarding the handling of that ballot. Voters will be asked to formally agree to a stipulation that their ballot is non-transferable with a penalty of permanently losing that vote.

Not sure that rule would have stopped Le Batard last year. He knew he was going to lose his vote by breaking the unwritten code. But at least now it is in writing.

The BBWA and the Hall also announced that it will release the list of all 600-plus voters. Hall president Jeff Idelson said this is being done because of “transparency.”

However, the Hall and BBWAA stopped short of opting to publish all votes. It still will be up to the writers whether they want to disclose their choices.

The extra step needed to be taken. Journalists fight for transparency on a daily basis in their coverage. It seems a bit hypocritical not to do the same with Hall of Fame voting.

Fans deserve to know if someone votes for Jacques Jones or doesn’t vote for Greg Maddux, as was the case last year.