Nate Silver makes the argument that the Hall of Fame is too small:

Other than the indulgences that the veterans committee made for players from the Depression era, the number of Hall of Famers is reasonably consistent from the birth of the American League in 1901 onward — provided that one accounts for the fact that many players who were active from about 1980 onward have yet to exhaust their eligibility. Generally, there have been about 30 or 35 Hall of Famers active in the majors at any given time.

But is this how it should be? Until 1960, there were 16 major league teams; now there are 30. Today, 35 Hall of Famers would reflect around 5 percent of the player population (assuming a roster of 25 players per team). In 1960, it would have been closer to 9 percent.

So if this is a problem, how does the BBWAA fix it? The current balloting system forces voters to make a binary decision on each players, yes or no. Since voters are limited to 10 players, there may be yes votes that won’t be cast. I personally think a ranking vote would be better. Instead of yes/no, rank the players 1 to X. This probably solves the Jack Morris/Bert Blyleven problem, since ranking is a more thought provoking task than yes/no. Score the ballot as X for a first place vote, one for a last place vote, then anyone with 75% (or whatever percentage seems reasonable) of the vote gets in. Or maybe there is a yes/no vote on the top three, because some years there won’t be anyone Hall worthy on the ballot.

Thanks to Tom Andersen for the pointer.