Over the last month or so, some diligent folks have tracked the publicly disclosed Hall of Fame ballots. Carson collected that information for us earlier today, and looking at it, one couldn’t help but feel dread at the possibility of some deserving candidates being axed from the ballot for failure to garner five percent of the vote. Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa and Gary Sheffield were among the players who had to be sweating the technique of the assembled electorate. Or, if they weren’t, certainly there were some concerned fans.

As it turns out, those fears went mostly unwarranted. The only player with a legitimate-ish case for inclusion in the Hall who fell under the threshold was Blue Jays great Carlos Delgado. While Delgado certainly has a case, Jay Jaffe didn’t have him making it in via JAWS, and he would have faced an uphill climb whether he had remained on the ballot or not. At 43.5 WAR, he was definitely at the bottom of the pack of players getting legitimate consideration.

This turn of events is, to be perfectly honest, a neat trick. While more than four members of this class were deserving, to see four players elected and only Delgado actually fall off the ballot is a pretty remarkable balancing act by the voters. In years past, that has not been the case (Kenny Lofton and Kevin Brown say hi). Hopefully next year, the logjam will continue to clear, and those deserving candidates who were at the bottom of the ballot this year will begin to gradually accumulate more votes.

Before I leave you, I have a special treat. Thanks to the hard and timely work of FanGraphs intern Morris Greenberg, here are four custom Hall of Fame leaderboards:

• Position players in the Hall of Fame (updated to include Biggio)
• Position players still eligible for the Hall of Fame
• Pitchers in the Hall of Fame (including Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz)
• Pitchers still eligible for the Hall of Fame