The World Series can be classical, the July 31 trade deadline energizing and the start of Grapefruit and Cactus League action renewing.
The Hall of Fame’s announcement of inductees from the writers’ ballot, however, arguably has turned into Major League Baseball’s most anticipated, explosive day of the year. That day, for 2015, is Tuesday, and it might be a historically plentiful event for the Cooperstown museum and its many enthusiasts.
We figure to get at least three new honorees when Hall President Jeff Idelson makes the announcement at 2 p.m. Eastern time, on the MLB Network, and we could see as many as five. The Baseball Writers Association of America last saw four people cross the 75 percent threshold in 1955, when Joe DiMaggio, Ted Lyons, Dazzy Vance and Gabby Hartnett made the cut. Only once have five people occupied the stage courtesy of the writers, and that occurred in the Hall’s very first ceremony, when Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson formed the inaugural class.
Thanks to the website Baseball Think Factory, which tallies all of the public votes; last year’s results; and general beliefs about the BBWAA voters, we can not only speculate the ultimate winners, but also project whose candidacies look promising for 2016 and beyond and whose don’t.
Here’s a look at the field:
Definitely in: Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. The freshmen pitchers, the former nearly 7-feet tall and quiet and the latter under 6-feet tall and chatty, shared few qualities beyond these: They both spent time with the Expos, and they both dominated on the mound. Now they’ll forever be linked.
Very promising: John Smoltz and Craig Biggio. Smoltz, a first-year candidate like Johnson and Martinez, has scored very well in the early returns, easily surpassing contemporary comparables Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling. Biggio fell just two votes short last year, and you’d think that would spur some “No” voters from 2014 to hop aboard his bandwagon (though I didn’t).
On the bubble: Mike Piazza. The Mets icon picked up 62.2 percent of the vote last year, and of the first 181 publicized ballots, 121 voters supported him, for 76.6 percent; there were 571 submitted ballots in 2014. I’m guessing he falls short, with another leap forward. I think suspicion of illegal performance-enhancing drug usage is the primary reason people don’t vote for him, so I don’t see how he would suddenly receive a wave of new love, even accounting for turnover of the voting body.
Hope for next year: Tim Raines and Curt Schilling. The only elite newcomer joining the 2016 ballot will be Ken Griffey Jr., with Jim Edmonds and Trevor Hoffman also notable. That should create some room on ballots (where there’s a maximum of 10 slots, for now) for guys who are highly regarded yet fell short of many voters’ top 10.
Raines, a favorite of the sabermetric folks as well as anyone who has met him, scored 46.1 percent last year and leaped up to 63.5 percent in the early showing. He has just two more chances after this year, so he needs a good jump. Schilling, in his third year, has enjoyed an even bigger surge, from 29.2 percent to 50.8 percent.
Uniquely cloudy forecast: Jeff Bagwell. His case is most similar to Piazza’s, in that questions loom about his past even though there is a lack of public evidence. He tallied 54.3 percent last year and gathered 63 percent of early showings; that he received 59.6 percent in 2013 makes his case even murkier.
The doomed duo: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Both in their third year, their accomplishments legendary and their off-field turbulence notorious, Bonds and Clemens seem destined to play out the string in the 35 percent range.
So much longer to go: Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez and Jeff Kent. Like Raines and Schilling, Mussina (20.3 percent to 34.8 percent) and Martinez (25.2 percent to 27.6 percent) are trending upward.
Nevertheless, I’m not sure enough voters regard these guys as Hall of Famers to get them all the way. Kent, meanwhile, shows a dip from 15.2 percent to 13.8 percent.
Too late, too little: Alan Trammell, Lee Smith, Fred McGriff and Don Mattingly. This is Mattingly’s 15th and final time on the ballot. We’ll see if he makes the Expansion Era’s ballot in fall 2016. Trammell is on Year 14 and Smith in Year 13. McGriff, in Year 6, has just four more left thanks to the new rules.
On the bad bubble: Larry Walker, Gary Sheffield, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. It’s much better to be on Piazza’s bubble. Sheffield might not make it past his first year, a potentially stunning rejection of a great career. The cases of McGwire and Sosa, connected like Bonds and Clemens, could be put out of their misery Tuesday.