General Forum

Edgar Martinez

Chipper Jones

Jim Thome

The rest have to fight gladiator style with the winner being inducted

With a day to go, it looks like there will be three to five inductees in 2018 (aside from Morris and Trammell). Thome, Jones, and Guerrero look to be locks. Hoffman and Martinez are going to be right on the edge. No Clemens or Bonds this year, but next year Mariano Rivera is the only new addition to the ballot who's a lock. So next year could see Clemens, Bonds, Mussina, Hoffman, Martinez, and Rivera, which is too many people in one year, in my opinion (it should be two or three per year), but after that it might calm down.

Here are the votes so far: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!8063&ithint=file,xlsx&app=Excel&authkey=!AAAsz3uDsmqy_Vw

v3

Thanks for that link.  Cool to see the stats.

More than half of the reported ballots select 10 members for the HoF.  Some of those even mention that they would have added up to 4 more players if not restricted to 10.  Seriously?  How about a little bit of exclusivity to the club?!

I'm a little big surprised Vlad is such a lock.  Excellent player, and deserving of the hall, but wouldn't expect to see his name penciled in on 90%+ of the ballots.

I suspect that Hoffman and Edgar will drop below 75% when actual announcement is made.  I could be wrong, but the type of person likely to be stingier with their vote is probably the exact type of person that wouldn't release his vote to the public.

Vvvergeer wrote:

With a day to go, it looks like there will be three to five inductees in 2018 (aside from Morris and Trammell). Thome, Jones, and Guerrero look to be locks. Hoffman and Martinez are going to be right on the edge. No Clemens or Bonds this year, but next year Mariano Rivera is the only new addition to the ballot who's a lock. So next year could see Clemens, Bonds, Mussina, Hoffman Martinez, and Rivera, which is too many people in one year, in my opinion (it should be two or three per year), but after that it might calm down.

Here are the votes so far: https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=F2E5D8FC5199DFAF!8063&ithint=file,xlsx&app=Excel&authkey=!AAAsz3uDsmqy_Vw

v3

Yeah, that's what people have been saying as far as the private voters being stingier. But I'm calling it for Hoffman. I think he'll be in this year. Still too close to call for Martinez. I predict he just misses.

v3

Vladimir Guerrero

Barry Bonds

Curt Schilling

Johnny Damon is in danger of not gettingthe 5% required to be on the ballot again next year.

Yeah, that sucks.  Again, I'm not even saying he deserves to be in the Hall, but he should get enough so he could be seriously considered.  Many former players would love to have the numbers he had throughout his career.

Well, 4 ain't bad when it's all said and Done. Chipper, Vlad, Trevor and Thome all made it in. Can't wait for the rest of the %'s to be released to see how close others were. Mussina and Martinez for example.

Update: So some of the %'s are out now. Martinez missed by 20 votes and Mussina was at 63.5%. Seems like Martinez will make it next year. Mussina should too as there is less competition on next year's ballots. Well, newcomers incl. Rivera, Halladay, Helton, Pettite and Berkman. For those wondering, Bonds and Clemens were in the high 50's.

I must not have had proper postage on my ballot.

Did you accidently mail it to ranfordfan? Maybe you got your Christmas card to him and the ballot mixed up?