Bonds, Clemens Cutting It Close For HOF Election
Now just a week away from the final results of Hall of Fame balloting being revealed, let’s check in one last time on where votes currently stand for this year’s election.
All data is from Ryan Thibodaux’s Baseball Hall of Fame Tracker.
As of Wednesday morning, 171 ballots are known, or about 43.6 %. So who is getting elected?
Right now only three players, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and David Ortiz, have received over 75% of the vote needed for election on public ballots. But voting trends based on prior years for writers who elect to make their ballots anonymous or unknown until January 25 don’t bode well for anyone.
“The question that remains for Ortiz is whether his drop from what the Tracker shows on announcement day resembles what we’ve seen from Bonds and Clemens (they dropped more than 11 percent last year) or less (Andruw Jones, for example, dropped 5.1 percent, while Todd Helton only fell 2.4 percent),” Thibodaux told MLB.com. “If the post-results public voters and private voters treat Ortiz like they treat Bonds and Clemens, Ortiz is likely to fall short of 75 percent. If they treat him more charitably as they tend to do for most other candidates, then he has a real chance to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
Four names are in their final year of eligibility. Bonds, Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa are trying to get elected for the 10th time. Bonds and Clemens are presently at 77.2% and 76.0%, respectively. Schilling and Sosa are significantly lower at 59.6% and 24.6%. Schilling finished 2021 with 71.0% of voters putting him in.
The chances for their election still seem slim.
“The wild card for Bonds and Clemens is that since they do so poorly historically among private voters, that also means they have the chance to pick up more votes there than they do among the early public voters who already overwhelmingly support them,” Thibodaux said. “If the private voters come closer to matching the public voters this year, then Bonds and Clemens still have a chance.”
Four players have gained a significant amount of votes. Scott Rolen has added 12 votes, Andrew Jones has gained seven, Todd Helton 11 votes, and Billy Wagner has nine more votes. The biggest losers are Omar Vizquel (-43), Schilling (-21), and Andy Pettitte (-8).
Seven players might not reach the 5% threshold needed to remain on the ballot. First-year candidates include Ryan Howard (1.8%), Tim Lincecum (2.9%), Joe Nathan (2.3%), Jonathan Papelbon (0.6%), and Mark Teixeira (0.6%). Tim Hudson (2.9% and Torii Hunter (1.8%) are the only second-year and beyond candidates.
Results will be released on Jan. 25. Hopefully this season there will be at least one new member of the Hall of Fame.
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