I’m not sure what for. Membership package perhaps?

In case anyone is interested, here’s the list of “founding fathers”

The founding fathers of the IBWAA, who voted in the first elections, are as follows: Ed Attanssio, editor, ThisGreatGame.com; Bijan Bayne, BleacherReport.com; Kevin Braun, freelance writer and former copy editor at Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Tim Brown, YahooSports, Howard Cole, editor, BaseballSavvy.com; Tom Hoffarth, Media/General Columnist, Los Angeles Daily News; Tony Jackson, former Dodgers reporter, Los Angeles Daily News; Keith Sharon, L.A. Angels Editor, Orange County Register; David Pinto, owner/author, BaseballMusings.com; and Gary Warner, Travel Editor, Orange County Register.

I could see a few levels of voting. First, nomination. Second, approval voting to pare the list down to a bunch of qualified people (50? 200? 500?). Lastly, those people vote among themselves to pare the list down to a core group that really knows their stuff, electoral college style. Then that final group, which could be re-elected on a yearly basis, does the actual voting and takes it quite seriously.

Other ideas?

I don’t want a new group to do things the same way as the old one, just for the sake of it…

The IBWAA will send out ballots on the same day as the traditional writer’s union, we’ll use the same deadlines, and each writer will get one vote. We’ll water our little association and watch it grow.

We will not limit the amount of entries per publication, we will encourage comments, and we’ll publish the results before the old guys do. An hour before. And we will publicize the hell out of it. In fact, it’s an objective of ours to have media outlets publishing our vote results in a news cycle ahead of the BBWAA….think People’s Choice Awards before the Oscars.

Some things, like the HoF, should stay. (Although I’m not against changing the structure of the vote.) Some things should be better defined (MVP, All-Star, etc.) if we think that will make our results more meaningful and less full of BS. The voting structure should be changed where appropriate (more than a few people on a Cy Young or RoY ballot, and the point values per ballot). And we should give less weight to some current votes and create some new awards. For example, I think it’s time that a post-season All-Pro style team is created, which is more meaningful than basing the All-Star team on half-year performances.

This shouldn’t appear like some dang kids trying to play house. This should be an attempt to do something better, our own way.

I’ve always thought that the two purposes of the BBWAA didn’t really go together:

1. Protect the interests of each other
2. Act as the guardians of awards and the HoF

People who have the best interests of number two can be left out because of number one.

I’d prefer to see these two things separated, especially if we’re going to do something for just internet writers. If we want to promote each other, great. If we want to hand out better awards, great. But don’t make the same group do both. Better awards are going to require non-internet-writers getting involved.