HOF Ballot including BBWAA. Returning BBWAA candidates from last year, only 14:
Curt Schilling (8th), 60.9%
Roger Clemens (8th), 59.5%
Barry Bonds (8th), 59.1%
Larry Walker (10th), 54.6%
Omar Vizquel (3rd), 42.8%
Manny Ramirez (4th), 22.8%
Jeff Kent (7th), 18.1%
Scott Rolen (3rd), 17.2%
Billy Wagner (5th), 16.7%
Todd Helton (2nd), 16.5%
Gary Sheffield (6th), 13.6%
Andy Pettitte (2nd), 9.9%
Sammy Sosa (8th), 8.5%
Andruw Jones (3rd), 7.5%
The bottom 3 are certainly candidates to drop off this year, and the top 3 are certainly candidates to get in, although a deeper analysis of the trends suggest that Clemens and Bonds may never reach their threshold. Schilling has done an admirable (for him) job of staying out of the public eye the last few years, he may trend better. All 3, for my part, clearly deserve it, and I'm not sure anyone downballot of that would get my vote.
Newcomers who will get some votes:
- Derek Jeter (72.4 WAR, 337 HOF Monitor where 100 = average HOFer)
- Bobby Abreu (60.0, 95)
- Jason Giambi (50.5, 108)
- Cliff Lee (43.5, 72)
Farther down the list includes Josh Beckett, Alfonso Soriano, Adam Dunn, and various other curiosities and it's-an-honor-to-be-nominateds.
This is the lightest list in a while, the first time in at least half a decade that nobody, even a Big-Hall voter, ought to have trouble getting all the worthy candidates onto their ballot. So likewise, it's clearly the best chance for several of them to either gain a lot of momentum or even have a meteoric rise to clear the 75% bar. You could certainly see that happening with Walker or Vizquel, or even Abreu getting a good first ballot that gets people to re-evaluate him.