The peculiar thing about the Baseball Hall of Fame is that people who are the best in the world at what they do are evaluated - and ultimately honored or not - by a handful of people who may or may not be any good at what they do.

Odd.

For example, Phil Rogers gets a say as the lead baseball writer for a major American daily. But does he have any idea what he is talking about?

Rogers has displayed his baseball acumen by developing the landmark plus/minus system to gauge the quality of a team's offseason. This system deems a team's moves successful if they add more starters than they lost. So, if the Cubs lost Derek Lee, Mike Fontenot and Reed Johnson but acquired Albert Pujols, they would be minus two - and therefore had a negative offseason.

Rogers also is on record saying the Cubs should have kept Mark Prior and gotten rid of Carlos Zambrano. Among other lunacies.

Phil Rogers is a Hall of Fame voter.

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Then there's Bill Conlin of the Philly News. Before the 2008 World Series, Conlin named his All-Star team made up of players from Phillies World Series teams. He placed Mariano Duncan, Manny Trillo and Mickey Morandini on the team at second base ahead of one Chase Utley. Hilarity ensued.

Bill Conlin is a Hall of Fame voter.

Or Pedro Gomez, who last year voted for Jay Bell in his first (and only) time on the ballot. Jay. Bell. He did not vote for Tim Raines.

Pedro Gomez is a Hall of Fame voter.

So, for those of you who get upset by the Hall of Fame vote, it's useful to remember that the likes of Phil Rogers, Bill Conlin and Pedro Gomez are keeping Tim Raines out (none voted for him this year). And more than 25 percent their buddies in the baseball writing fraternity didn't see fit to include Roberto Alomar this year. And so on.

It's an imperfect system controlled by highly flawed people. And it isn't changing.