Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, and Trevor Hoffman have
been elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame! This follows the
pre-announcement polling, which I have been following carefully. They join
Alan Trammell and Jack Morris, who were inducted last month by the Modern Era Committee.
Jones and
Thome were in their first year of eligibility,
Guerrero was in his second, and
Hoffman was in his third. I thought Thome might squeak through this year, but I wasn't sure if he'd make it in his ballot debut, and he ended up sailing through with close to 90% of the vote. Jones was on 97.2% of the ballots; this is one of the highest totals in history and doesn't come as any surprise at all. Guerrero jumped to more than 90% of the vote (similar to Roberto Alomar's 2nd-year entry to the Hall years before), so it seems there were a bunch of writers who feel he's a Hall of Famer but not somebody who should enter on the first ballot. Trevor Hoffmann ended up with 79.9% of the vote.
Several people made great gains. Importantly,
Edgar Martínez squeaked just past 70% of the vote, and it looks like he'll finally make it in 2019, his last year of eligibility through election by the writers.
Mike Mussina jumped from the low 50s to 63.5%, and I think he has an outside shot to make it next year (and he'll certainly make it in 2020). Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds went up a bit, and the only reason they're not in already is because of their extracurricular activities. They will have to wait for some other mechanism, as they're only inching upward.
Curt Schilling got back over 50% of the vote, and he'll eventually make it. Both he and Mussina should have been elected to the Hall of Fame years ago, but the writers seem not to be very good at recognizing the quality of many starting pitchers.
Omar Vizquel, who got about 37% of the vote, will get to become the new Jack Morris, so people will be arguing about him for many years. He'll eventually make the Hall, but I don't think he deserves it.
Larry Walker got a nice jump to 34.1%, but he's in his 8th year of eligibility, so I think he'll have to wait for some sort of veterans committee. I think he'll make it eventually, and his path is resembling that of Alan Trammell, though it looks like Walker is on the way to doing slightly better than Trammell on his final vote totals.
Among the newcomers who are expected to be in the
2019 Hall of Fame ballot, Mariano Rivera will obviously make it on the first ballot. He's the only newcomer who clearly is going to get elected next year. Roy Halladay deserves to make it and will get a bunch of votes, but I think he'll have to wait a bit, especially with his relatively low win total and how tough it's usually been for starting pitchers to get elected during the past couple of decades. It will be interesting to see how many votes Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt get. I think Roy Oswalt, who doesn't deserve entry, will not even get the 5% to stay on the ballot. I suspect that Berkman will be underappreciated, but I think he had a Hall of Fame peak (though he falls short on peak length and counting numbers). Miguel Tejada is another interesting player to watch; I think he'll get enough votes to stay on the ballot, though I think he falls short of meriting a spot in the Hall. I think that Todd Helton belongs in the Hall of Fame, but I suspect it's going to take some time. (He may end up with a similar road as Larry Walker, and I think both will ultimately enter the Hall of Fame.) There's also Andy Pettitte, who will probably get a nontrivial (though not horribly high) number of votes, though I don't think he deserves to make it. Maybe he'll become the new Jack Morris?
Update: Here is David Schoenfield's list of
winners and losers from today's Hall of Fame results.
