39 ballots out of 309 are publicly available so far.  It is a very small and early sample, and likely not representative of the eventual full vote, but still fun to look at.

Jeter is on all of them (100%).

Larry Walker is on 33 (85%)

Schilling is on 31 (80%)

Clemens and Bonds are on 30 (77%)

Jeter is a lock to get in on his first time on the ballot.  My gut tells me that Walker will also get in on this, his 10th and final year on the ballot, although it will be close.  He is helped by he fact that other than Jeter no one else who is untainted by steroids is on the ballot this year.

Schilling is an interesting case.  He is roundly disliked as being a jerk.  While that is not an official stat, I am certain it drags down his votes each year.  Then there is the fact that he has a low win total (216) and high ERA (3.46) compared to other HOF starters.  But if taken in context he is probably a HOF pitcher.  He pitched more innings that most, has the best K-BB ratio in over 100 years, won some huge games in pressure situations, and pitched in hitter friendly parks for much of his career.  Like Walker, this may be a year where the competition is thin enough that Schilling gets in, Trump-loving attitude and all.

I do not see Clemens or Bonds getting in this year, or even by their 10th years, although they both will get closer and closer to 75% as the voting electorate changes with the generations.  They likely will both get in at some point through the Veterans' selection committee in the future.

The two others who I think should get more votes but won't are Kent and Sheffield.  Kent's excellence developed later in his career than most, so he did not have the HOF sheen early on as did, say, Alomar or Sandberg.  But his eventual career stats line up well with them.  Two knocks on him are that he batted behind Bonds and then Bagwell for years, which helped him see good pitches; and he was not a stellar defensive second baseman which dragged down his WAR.  But if you look at defensive WAR, Alomar's is about the same, and Biggio's was far worse.  If I were voting, he would be on my ballot.

For Sheffield, it is all about two things:  Steroids and Fielding.  Sheff admitted to taking steroids, claiming he was duped (uh-huh).  And he was a pretty poor right fielder compared to others in his class.  Oh, and he could be controversial at times, which the press both loves and hates--loves for the quotes, but secretly disparages as not being proper for baseball.   His hitting was pretty damned good for a long time, but will not be enough, ever, to overcome the steroids taint.  

To me, Kent is also a question of steroids.  He had his prime years in his 30s during the peak of the steroid era.  While he was never connected to the steroids investigations, the timing of his best years is very suspicious.  Plus he was teammates with Barry Bonds during his best years in SF.

I don't think the steroids should keep someone out.  Just too many players were using and in the early days of steroids most were doing with the knowledge of the team.   Some were taking supplements that turned out to have steroids and there is some reason to believe the players were not aware.  The agents who signed them were sending them to trainers who admitted to not even telling the young players to just follow their advice if they wanted to make it to the show.  

I was never a big fan of Kent and do not see him as HOF worthy.  

I would say yes to Sheffield.  

and yes to Clemens and Bonds.  

Jeter is a lock.  

Schilling is indeed an interesting case.  He's borderline, but on the stats alone he'd probably have my vote.  But I wonder if a lot of the voters are like me regarding Schilling -- I really don't want to have to listen to his induction speech.  And it's not just his politics.  He's an *******.

My take on the steroids era is that it is impossible to know who was using and who was not.  While I hate to reward cheaters, the reality is that baseball as an institution knew what was going on and knew how to stop it.  The Union and Owners chose to ignore it while watching interest in the game soar along with all those home runs.

We will never truly know who used and who did not.  But it is a safe bet that many were using, and so those players who excelled in that era did so on an uneven but not radically uneven playing field.  Simply put, they did better than their peers, many of who were doping.  Further, I am not even certain that doping alone made Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens THAT much better.  They still had to hit a round ball with a round bat each moving in different planes, with the ball going between 85 and 100 miles per hour.  They still had to throw that ball with enough movement to beat those hitters.  You could have juiced me to the gills and I would not have been able to break onto a high school team, let alone be a star in the Bigs.  

So, in general, I am willing to treat the steroids era like the dead ball era--comparing players in that era to players of that era.  In that light, Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield all get in, just as Piazza got in even though he is less directly linked to steroids.  I see no reason to not vote for Kent on these grounds.

On a statistical basis, in many offensive categories he is among the top 10 or top 20 all time for second basemen.  He was instrumental in several winning teams.  I would vote for him.

As odious as I find him, I can't justify keeping out Schilling if Mike Mussina is in. 

With 24% of the ballots known it is still Jeter at 100%.   Walker is still up there at 87%--and may get a bounce from a very favorable analysis in the NY Times this weekend that made the case for him as much more than just a Coors Field hitter.  Schilling also hanging tough at 82%.

Clemens and Bonds are still just over the 75% threshold (76.8% each).  As more and more voters report their votes I think we will see them once again sink into the low 70% range.  

Vizquel and Rolen are inching up towards 50%.  I kind of see the case for both of them.  Rolen has a great WAR of 70.2 due as much to his fielding prowess as his hitting.  He played in the shadow of better players and so did not get a lot of attention, but he lines up pretty well against other third basement in the HOF, if still behind them in statistics.  I can see why he is getting more attention this year with a fairly thin group of strong players on the ballot.  On the other hand, he was not a truly dominant player of his era and if you think that it is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good but Not Great players, then he will not make the cut.

Vizquel is an even harder case to make.  Like Rolen he was an exquisite fielder, and he played long enough to get to 2,877 hits--behind only Jeter, Wagner, Ripken, and Yount for shortstops.  But his WAR was a measly 45.6, even with his great glove, which says a lot about how little his bat impacted on the game.  Another tough call.  

I likely would put both Rolen and Vizquel on my ballot, along with Jeff Kent.  But, then again, I am for a bigger Hall than a smaller one.

mfpark said:

Vizquel and Rolen are inching up towards 50%.  I kind of see the case for both of them.  Rolen has a great WAR of 70.2 due as much to his fielding prowess as his hitting. ...

Vizquel is an even harder case to make.  Like Rolen he was an exquisite fielder, and he played long enough to get to 2,877 hits--behind only Jeter, Wagner, Ripken, and Yount for shortstops.  But his WAR was a measly 45.6, even with his great glove, which says a lot about how little his bat impacted on the game.  Another tough call.  

Gaps in career WAR between players like Rolen and Vizquel always remind me that the differences may be as much about the choices made and weight given to various factors by the sabermetricians who created the formulas as they are about the players themselves. 

Yes, I have wondered about that as well, especially given how I am not really clear on how WAR is calculated (let alone the even more "advanced" WAR ratings).

But it is another way of comparing players and I do like that it attempts to wrap in more dimensions than more traditional static measures.  

mfpark said:

We will never truly know who used and who did not.  But it is a safe bet that many were using, and so those players who excelled in that era did so on an uneven but not radically uneven playing field.  Simply put, they did better than their peers, many of who were doping.  Further, I am not even certain that doping alone made Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens THAT much better.  They still had to hit a round ball with a round bat each moving in different planes, with the ball going between 85 and 100 miles per hour.  They still had to throw that ball with enough movement to beat those hitters. 

That's what makes Bonds and Clemens cases very frustrating. They were both clearly on track for the HOF before they started juicing.  It was unnecessary but they both clearly have huge egos and couldn't resist. 

32% of the votes known.  Jeter (100%) and Walker (85%) and Schilling (80%) still looking good.  Bonds and Clemens dropped slightly to 75%.  Rolen hovering around 50%.

It may get interesting next year when there are few to no strong candidates joining the ballot.  The strongest will be Mark Buehrle and Torii Hunter and both are marginal candidates.  Maybe toss in Aramis Ramirez as a potential vote for some.  Assuming Jeter and Schilling get in (Walker is off the ballot either way, as this is his final year of eligibility for the BBWAA ballot), this may open the door for Rolen and Vizquel and perhaps even one or two of the steroid monsters.  Or we could see a lot of voters simply not choosing 10 to vote for (perhaps not even choosing one).

In 2022, Ryan Howard and David Ortiz will get long looks (Ortiz an admitted doper).  And then there is Alex Rodriguez...........

There will not be a mortal lock until 2024 when Adrian Beltre is on the ballot, followed by Ichiro in 2025 (CC Sabathia is also up then but will likely take a number of years to get the requisite 75%, if ever).

First glance had me read it as “storied monsters.”

Hard no on Howard here. One of my favorite Phillies, but no. (Ditto Utley and Rollins.)

Could 2021 be a repeat of 2013?

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/8828339/no-players-elected-baseball-hall-fame-writers

Voters pitch Hall of Fame shutout

Jan 9, 2013

NEW YORK -- Steroid-tainted stars Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa were denied entry to baseball's Hall of Fame, with voters failing to elect any candidates for only the second time in four decades.

mfpark said:

In 2022, Ryan Howard and David Ortiz will get long looks (Ortiz an admitted doper).  And then there is Alex Rodriguez...........

mfpark said:

32% of the votes known.  Jeter (100%) and Walker (85%) and Schilling (80%) still looking good.  Bonds and Clemens dropped slightly to 75%.  Rolen hovering around 50%.

It may get interesting next year when there are few to no strong candidates joining the ballot.  The strongest will be Mark Buehrle and Torii Hunter and both are marginal candidates.  Maybe toss in Aramis Ramirez as a potential vote for some.  Assuming Jeter and Schilling get in (Walker is off the ballot either way, as this is his final year of eligibility for the BBWAA ballot), this may open the door for Rolen and Vizquel and perhaps even one or two of the steroid monsters.  Or we could see a lot of voters simply not choosing 10 to vote for (perhaps not even choosing one).

In 2022, Ryan Howard and David Ortiz will get long looks (Ortiz an admitted doper).  And then there is Alex Rodriguez...........

There will not be a mortal lock until 2024 when Adrian Beltre is on the ballot, followed by Ichiro in 2025 (CC Sabathia is also up then but will likely take a number of years to get the requisite 75%, if ever).

Is Ortiz an admitted steroid user? Obviously, there has been a great deal of suspicion and he was said to be listed on the Mitchell Report in an NYT story the morning the report was issued, but then wasn’t.

chalmers said:

Is Ortiz an admitted steroid user? Obviously, there has been a great deal of suspicion and he was said to be listed on the Mitchell Report in an NYT story the morning the report was issued, but then wasn’t.

 Yeah, I kind of jumped the shark on that one.  And I am a Red Sox fan.  But he was pretty likely doping.

ml1 said:

 

 Just saying there are some who will vote for him, not that he is qualified to be in the Hall.  On the plus side, he was the fastest to 1,000 RBIs.  For four straight seasons he had 45 homers and 135 RBIs--only Babe Ruth and Sammy The Raging Roid can match that.  He was the most dominant hitter in baseball during that span.  

Yes, one does not get into the Hall based on four years or a fast start to a career.  And between the advent of the overshift and injuries, he descended into late-George Scott territory.  All I am saying is that there will be more than a few votes for him over the years on the ballot, but that he will not get in.

I am also saying that this is how thin the talent pool is in the next few elections that he will be part of some of the discussion.

mfpark said:

 Just saying there are some who will vote for him, not that he is qualified to be in the Hall.  On the plus side, he was the fastest to 1,000 RBIs.  For four straight seasons he had 45 homers and 135 RBIs--only Babe Ruth and Sammy The Raging Roid can match that.  He was the most dominant hitter in baseball during that span.  

Yes, one does not get into the Hall based on four years or a fast start to a career.  And between the advent of the overshift and injuries, he descended into late-George Scott territory.  All I am saying is that there will be more than a few votes for him over the years on the ballot, but that he will not get in.

I am also saying that this is how thin the talent pool is in the next few elections that he will be part of some of the discussion.

I don't think he'll get many votes.  To put it in perspective, if you vote for Howard based on five dominant seasons in a career cut short by injuries, don't you have to vote for David Wright, who was an All-Star seven times, won two Gold Gloves, and two Silver Sluggers?  If you care about WAR, Howard's career number was 15.0, while Wright's was 50.4.  And Wright's 7-year peak WAR was 40.7, just below the HoF average of 43.0 for 3B.  And practically nobody talks about Wright being in anyone's HoF conversation.

ml1 said:

mfpark said:

 Just saying there are some who will vote for him, not that he is qualified to be in the Hall.  On the plus side, he was the fastest to 1,000 RBIs.  For four straight seasons he had 45 homers and 135 RBIs--only Babe Ruth and Sammy The Raging Roid can match that.  He was the most dominant hitter in baseball during that span.  

Yes, one does not get into the Hall based on four years or a fast start to a career.  And between the advent of the overshift and injuries, he descended into late-George Scott territory.  All I am saying is that there will be more than a few votes for him over the years on the ballot, but that he will not get in.

I am also saying that this is how thin the talent pool is in the next few elections that he will be part of some of the discussion.

I don't think he'll get many votes.  To put it in perspective, if you vote for Howard based on five dominant seasons in a career cut short by injuries, don't you have to vote for David Wright, who was an All-Star seven times, won two Gold Gloves, and two Silver Sluggers?  If you care about WAR, Howard's career number was 15.0, while Wright's was 50.4.  And Wright's 7-year peak WAR was 40.7, just below the HoF average of 43.0 for 3B.  And practically nobody talks about Wright being in anyone's HoF conversation.

 Not to mention Donnie Baseball ! Sorry for introducing a Yankee note into this, but compared to Howard.....

Mattingly should have received more HoF consideration than he has.  His peak years were better than Howard's IMHO because he hit for much higher average and OBP, and the number of extra base hits was off the charts, compared to Howard, who mostly hit HRs.   And even after injuries took away his extra base hit power, Mattingly still won four more Gold Gloves (for a total of nine).  One of my beefs with the HoF is that they don't reward great fielders the way I think they should.  If a one-dimensional hitter can make it to the Hall, why isn't Keith Hernandez in as the greatest fielding 1B, possibly of all time (who was a pretty good hitter, too)?  Why is Omar Vizquel and his 11 GGs still being shut out?  It's my opinion that if you're the best of the best at half the game, you belong in the Hall, unless you were a really terrible hitter (I'm looking at you Mark Belanger).

I agree that I would vote for Mattingly if I could, as well as Vizquel.

BTW, David Wright is also coming up for eligibility and he is a better player than Howard on many levels.

My only point is that the pickings are so thin that Howard will get more votes than he would in many other classes.

mfpark said:

I agree that I would vote for Mattingly if I could, as well as Vizquel.

BTW, David Wright is also coming up for eligibility and he is a better player than Howard on many levels.

My only point is that the pickings are so thin that Howard will get more votes than he would in many other classes.

 agree that he'll get more votes than in other years. Still don't think he'll get much more than about 20% though. 

37% of the ballots revealed, and it is:

Jeter  100%

Walker 85%

Schilling 80%

Bonds 75.3%

Clemens 74%

Going to be interesting if Bonds or Clemens make it in.

The Doobie Brothers are a guilty pleasure.

Whoops. Wrong Hall.

DaveSchmidt said:

The Doobie Brothers are a guilty pleasure.

Whoops. Wrong Hall.

Matty and Felipe Alou deserve consideration, but Jesus was just alright.

there will now be a missile defense consultant in the rock & roll hall of fame

Votes announced today at 3 PM.

With 51.7% of the votes known, it is Jeter, Walker and Schilling all over 75%. 

Clemens and Bonds just above 70% and 71% respectively.

Vizquel flirting with 50%.  Rolen at 47%

Of course, the remaining 48.3% of the voters could change this picture.

I hope that Bonds or Clemens will get over 75% to put a dent in the de facto steroids ban.

mfpark said:

Votes announced today at 3 PM.

With 51.7% of the votes known, it is Jeter, Walker and Schilling all over 75%. 

Clemens and Bonds just above 70% and 71% respectively.

Vizquel flirting with 50%.  Rolen at 47%

Of course, the remaining 48.3% of the voters could change this picture.

I hope that Bonds or Clemens will get over 75% to put a dent in the de facto steroids ban.

Bonds and Clemens are trending the wrong way and now would have to get approximately 80% of the remaining votes, which is highly unlikely.  However, they are making significant progress and probably will make it before their eligibility is over.

I have a batch of cool photos I took at a Yanks-Sox game in 2007. I think the attached is my favorite. Pretty much always been agreed that the Yankees "Mount Rushmore" is Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle. Yogi always the odd man out. While one can maybe argue against Mariano since he's a relief pitcher, I think there's a strong case for Jeter, although I don't know who would come off.