The results of the BBWAA vote for the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame class will be revealed Tuesday night. Much of the intrigue in this vote will revolve around Scott Rolen’s chance of getting it, the wins that several players (specifically Todd Hilton) have and how Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran fare.
the The full 2023 ballot can be viewed here. Rules: A player has the right to be put on the ballot after five years of retirement. Players who receive at least 75 percent of the returned votes from eligible BBWAA voters earn entry into the Hall of Fame. Those who get less than five percent drop from the ballot papers. Those between five and 75 percent can remain on the ballot for up to 10 years. Active BBWAA members in good standing who have been BBWAA for at least 10 years can vote anywhere from zero to 10 players each year.
No matter what goes into the BBWAA vote, there’s already one new Hall of Famer in the class of 2023: Fred McGriff. I made it through The Contemporary Era Committee vote took place during the winter meetings.
Here are the details of Tuesday’s selection offer:
Announcement of the 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame class
- time: 6 p.m. ET | Date: Tuesday 24 January
- TV channel: MLB Network (coverage begins at 4 p.m. ET and lasts four hours)
- Live broadcast: fuboTV (try for free)
Here are six event lines to watch as the voting totals are revealed on Tuesday night. Note: When I mention “balloting,” I’m talking about it Poll tracker Ryan Thibaudoux (It’s not really balloting so much as ballot collecting, but that’s the easiest way to frame it succinctly.)
1. Is this Rolen’s year?
Scott Rollin’s rise in voting has a “when, not if” feel to it. It is actually more than just a feeling. Last month , I’ve been through recent historical voting trends To prove that Rolen is highly likely to enter.
It still doesn’t matter if it’s this year, next year, or the year after that. First, from a human perspective, Rollin is definitely excited to get in and if he just misses out, that’s another year of waiting. In terms of voting for the big picture Hall of Fame, it’s a spot on the ballot and purging every other legitimate candidate helps. Remember that voters only have a maximum of 10 points on their ballots, and some small hall voters artificially limit themselves after that. More succinctly, the faster Rolen gets off the ballot, the easier it will be for every other player to gain – including next year’s newcomers like Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Chase Utley.
Polls show Rolen has a good chance of reaching the required 75 percent, but he seems to have a very good chance of falling behind. He got 71 percent last year and the actual vote revealed he got 63.2 percent. Now, he sits at 80 percent in the ballot and if there were a similar shortfall in the private ballot, he would be only a few percent shy of making the ballot.
Like I said, it will be soon. This is where most of the drama on Tuesday night gets voted off.
2. Numbers still down for A-Rod?
A-Rod He has a polar state. We already know that. I firmly believe this is a huge year in the balloting for A-Rod. If he makes big wins, there’s a chance he could make the hall down the road. If he doesn’t, he will probably end up in Bonds Land. I delved more into the theory here.
The numbers at the moment do not bode well for A-Rod. Polls show he has only two votes compared to last year (when he was 161 votes shy of the honor). It’s always possible that there will be a cache of non-public sounds for A-Rod, but there wasn’t there last year. Right now, it looks like it will fall short of 40 percent, and if that’s the case, it’s hard to see it forming enough ground moving forward to get to 75 percent.
3. How does the signal theft scandal affect Beltran?
We’ve been able to get a general idea of how players connected to PEDs, in general, have been treated with the voting body for years. In Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, we have two of the all-time greats who have never tested positive during testing, but have been heavily linked. In Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez, we’ve had players post Hall of Fame offensive numbers but test positive. At A-Rod, well, you know.
However, we don’t have a good comparison of this voting body with Beltrán, and it may provide a roadmap for how things may develop for Jose Altuve and others in the future. here My lengthy discussion of his case and the matter of the sign-stealing scandal.
Polls show he’s 15 percent higher than A-Rod, so maybe that’s a good sign for Beltrán. There were a few voters who wrote that they withheld voting for him this year but would consider it again next year. If he can get around 50 percent of the vote, I’d estimate he has a chance of getting in the way. If it ends up near A-Rod, shall we say low 40’s, it’s probably going to be around 10 long years.
Aside from knowing whether or not Rolen gets in, this is the story that will grab my attention the most on Tuesday night.
4. Helton on the move
But what if Rolen wasn’t the only player with a chance at success?
Last year, Helton got 52% of the vote compared to Rolen’s 63.2%, but Helton has made big gains. He’s got 28 votes already and is polling just one behind Rollin, with 79.4 percent. It would be an amazing leap forward, but it really does seem like the voting body as a whole has warmed up to Hilton’s nomination.
His condition is kind of polarizing, but not for reasons of scandal. He played his entire career with Coors Field as his home. I checked it here.
If there was a major upset Tuesday night, it would be Helton becoming a Hall of Famer.
5. Watch the gains
Let’s keep an eye on the following players other than those mentioned above:
- Billy Wagner: After jumping nearly 30 points in two years to 46.4 in the 2021 vote, Wagner made a more modest gain, to 51 percent last year. However, polls show that he received 29 votes in this voting cycle. This is his eighth year and it’s a great opportunity, with all ballots cleared from the last voting cycle, to make a leap into real-life ground.
- Gary Sheffield: After a massive two-year jump to 40.6 in the 2021 vote, Sheffield has slumped to exactly 40.6 per cent again. This is his ninth year on the ballot and he needs a big jump so he can get a far shot next year. Polls show that he has 24 votes so far, so he may be on his way, although, realistically, the lack of gains last year doomed him.
- Andrew Jones: Little more than a lingering afterthought on the ballot in his first two years, Jones reached 19.4 percent in 2020, 33.9 percent in 2021, and 41.1 percent last year. Now on its sixth ballot, Tracer has 22 more votes. Looks like it’s going to top 50 percent or maybe 55 percent? If so, he’s on his way to eventual honors.
- Bobby Abreu: He only got 8.6 percent of the vote last year, but has 11 votes so far in the ballot. It’s his fourth attempt.
- Andy Pettitt: In his fourth round of voting last year, Pettitt received 10.7 percent of the vote and has 12 votes this time around.
- Jimmy Rollins: He received 9.4 percent of the vote in his debut last year and got three votes this time around.
- Mark Burley: He stayed above the threshold on both his first attempts (5.8 percent last year) and got eight votes.
Wagner and Jones will be big to watch while Buehrle and Rollins are likely still alive.
6. Who falls?
- Jeff Kent: It is his swan song. His tenth and final year. Even with a significant increase in polling data in the last year, it’s not likely to even reach 60 percent. I detail here that his case would probably fare better in committee and how that is a blessing in disguise for him.
- Tori Hunter: With just 5.3 percent last year on his first attempt, Hunter barely survived. Its overall gains are modest enough to believe there is a chance it could fall below 5 percent.
- Francisco Rodriguez: It’s K-Rod’s first year and it looks like he’ll survive, but it’s likely very soon. Polls showed him around nine percent, but as a closer, I think he lost some before the vote was revealed.
- Vizquel’s age: It is very likely that he will survive. He votes right with K-Rod, but Vizquel’s remaining voters are nearly all private. It gained nearly 14 percent last year between poll tracking and actual voting results. He’s still dead in the water on his chances of making it to the hall, though, here on his sixth attempt.
- None of the remaining remaining candidates on the ballot have received a public vote yet. These are Bronson ArroyoAnd Matt KaneAnd R DickyAnd Jacoby ElsburyAnd Andre EthierAnd JJ HardyAnd John LuckyAnd Mike NapoliAnd Johnny PeraltaAnd Houston StreetAnd Jared Weaver And Jason Wirth. Even if a few of them get one or two votes, they are all one-sided.
Of those facing the 5 percent threshold, I would expect Hunter to fall while K-Rod and Vizquel survive.
The only other person on the ballot that I haven’t mentioned yet is him Manny Ramirez. It is very likely that he is still in the no-man’s-land with Vizquel, albeit for different reasons. He received 28.9% of the vote last year and his polls show a slump.
7. Prediction
Again on November 22ndI expected this chapter to be McGriff and Rollin. You named the panel vote with McGriff coming in alone, so let’s make it two for two in getting one BBWAA right too. Rolen went and that’s it from this vote.