The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s class of 2018 will be announced Wednesday, with Chipper Jones, Jim Thome and Vladimir Guerrero among those expected to be inducted into Cooperstown.
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The rest of the BBWAA voting results can be found here. Controversial candidates Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds again fell short of the threshold, getting 57.3 percent and 56.4 percent of the vote, respectively.
The problem obviously is that both are strongly suspected – OK, more than “suspected” – of using performance enhancing substances late in their careers, which helped them go from already great to off-the-charts historic.
The squeaky-clean and ever-classy Thome received 89.8 per cent of the votes.
This is a longwinded way of saying I turned in my vote more than a month ago. Jones will be the 10th Hall of Famer with at least 450 homers and 150 stolen bases, and only four Hall of Famers have more homers than Thome’s 612. The switch-hitter batted.303 with 468 home runs.
Jones was named on a robust 97.2 percent of the 422 ballots.
Hoffman, 50, ranks second with 601 career saves, trailing only Mariano Rivero (652). They tracked at a rate of about 65 percent, but the numbers always decrease slightly once all of the last-minute votes and the anonymous votes are counted.
It also doesnt look good for the other Tampa guy, Gary Sheffield, who dropped to 11.1 percent in his fourth year. Wagner had 1,196 strikeouts, compared to Hoffman’s 1,133. Martinez rose to 27 percent the following year, 43.4 percent in 2016 and 58.6 percent last year. They can stay on the ballot for up to 10 voting cycles and must receive at least 5 percent of the votes to remain on the ballot for the following year. Throughout his career, he played first, third and was a designated hitter. But it was a crushing loss for fans who became optimistic after seeing him make significant gains in ballot tracking.
Personally, I think it’s a real shame that we spend way more time and energy arguing over who didn’t get in than celebrating who did get in.
The Class of 2018 will officially be inducted on July 29 in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Jones was a force for most of the Atlanta teams that won 14 straight division titles.
My choices: Bonds, Clemens, Guerrero, Jones, Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina, Thome, Omar Vizquel.
Thome, 47, spent 12 1/2 of his 22 major league seasons with the Cleveland Indians. Other Indians players have entered Cooperstown since – Joe Sewell, Addie Joss and Larry Doby – but they were elected by the veterans committee.
Guerrero, a nine-time All-Star slugger, played half his career with the Montreal Expos. He had an impressive.318 batting average, and 449 home runs.
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The Hall of Fame Tracker that Ryan Thibodaux maintains – all percentages mentioned are from his work (and as of early Wednesday morning) – is an invaluable resource, though it also removes some of the drama from the announcement.
