2017 MLB HOF ballot released

Plympton91

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How in God's name is Casey Blake on the ballot? I thought there was an initial screen for "barely even plausible?" I'll give Melvin Mora credit for that threshold, but not Blake.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Ballot is determined by a committee of six - two of which rotate out every year, serving three year terms - with new candidates needing to receive two votes from that group. I would imagine the people who have no realistic shot but get on - like Stairs or Blake - happened to catch it right with guys being one of those six that they had some kind of history of a good working relationship with and it's a tip of the cap, much like a tenth place MVP vote or the random down ballot HoF vote.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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It's baffling that they even need a nominating committee to determine who among first-year eligibles gets added to the ballot. Is there such a crush of guys who meet all the criteria (10 years of service, 5 years retired) that they need to be culled every year? While they're not Hall of Fame worthy by any stretch, it's ridiculous that guys like Vazquez and Chan Ho Park (last year) get left off the ballot while inferior players get on. Let them all on to get their no-votes.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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It's not ten years service time, it's simply played in ten seasons. So yeah, while it seems stupid, I'd guess if you took the time to look, there's a lot of people every year that meet the criteria. So players like Manny Alexander - who went up and down a lot and amassed a whopping 594 games over an 11 year career - were once eligible.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I understand that. My mistake on the semantics, but my point still holds. What would be the harm in having players like Manny Alexander on the ballot once? I think better that than guys who had distinguished but not Hall-worthy careers snubbed, especially if less distinguished players inexplicably do get on the ballot.

Is it really as dumb as fitting the ballot on one sheet of paper or something?
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I understand that. My mistake on the semantics, but my point still holds. What would be the harm in having players like Manny Alexander on the ballot once? I think better that than guys who had distinguished but not Hall-worthy careers snubbed, especially if less distinguished players inexplicably do get on the ballot.

Is it really as dumb as fitting the ballot on one sheet of paper or something?
I would imagine your last sentence there is the most likely answer.
 

InstaFace

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Why on earth would politics enter into it? As if Schilling is the only moron or jerk on the list. Not everything is political. Goddamn.

Seems like an entirely reasonable ballot. Though I might argue for Mussina and/or Hoffman, any objection would be a quibble. I save 80% of my bile for those who vote for fewer than 10 players, and the remainder for those who won't vote for anyone who was ever accused of PEDs by anyone in the Witch Hunt Era (because of some horrifically disfigured sense of "principles" or something).

Here's the full list of eligible names from that ballot who were ever suspended for PEDs:
- Mike Cameron (2007, 25 games, not steroids)
- Manny Ramirez (2009, 50 games, and then 2011, 100 games)

There was the Sammy Sosa suspension for a corked bat, for 7 games. Anyone else, it's a witch hunt.
 

E5 Yaz

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More than a third of the votes have now been recorded

Bagwell 93.8%
Raines 91.1%


Both seem likely, although it's best to remember that for each, the non-public votes last year moved their overall percentages down. Still, they look safely above the threshold

Rodriguez 85.6%
Guerrero 76.7%


These are two extremely solid showings for first-timers. Even should they drop below 75% eventually, a secure base would have been established that they would seem certain to get in over their 10 years on the ballot.

E Martinez 70.5%
Hoffman 70.5%


Edgar currently has net gained the most voters from those who didn't list him previously (25). He has only two more years on the ballot after this. A "final years" swell of support might get him there; or, he could be this generation's Nellie Fox or Ron Santo, and fall just short. Hoffman's case is far more complex. It's only his second year on the ballot, but the "counting stats" vs "value" argument over relievers not named Mariano Rivera could keep him treading water. If he's still on the ballot when Rivera becomes eligible in two years, Hoffman's candidacy could fade in comparison.

Bonds 70.5%
Clemens 70.5%


They're in lockstep at this point. Solid gains among previous non-votes in their fifth year on the ballot, the voting change next year that identifies all voters ballots, and the narrative that Selig's election opens the door would seem to indicate eventual election. If I had to guess, I'd say these are the two whose percentages might rise as we get closer to the announcement.

Mussina 64.4%
Schilling 54.8%


Mussina has a net gain of +12 this time around, while Schilling has a net loss of -10 ... and Mussina has an additional year of eligibility working in his favor as well.

Next year's newbies include Chipper Jones, jim Thome, Andruuw Jones and Scott Rolen. The next year, Rivera, Roy Halladay (whose votes in relation to Mussina/Schilling will be a test) and Todd Helton join the ballot.
 

Spiskins

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May 29, 2015
4
Bagwell
Bonds
Clemens
Guerrero
McGriff
Ramirez
Rodriguez
Schilling
Sheffield
Sosa

Just missing:
Hoffman
Kent
Martinez
Mussina
Wagner
Walker

I'm a "big stars" proponent. Also, Manny was the most feared righty hitter of the last 70+ years. I don't care about the character clause. If Selig and Gammons, the two great enablers of their time, are in, all the steroid guys with numbers should be in.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Something that hasn't really been talked about here is who is going to be dismissed from the ballot after this year due to either hitting the expiration date or falling below the minimum percentage required to secure a spot on the ballot next year. There are some interesting names among the group, including Lee Smith (final year) and Jorge Posada, who is currently at 4.8%, who does not seem like he's going to get in on the strength of his wins behind the plate and in the postseason or the fact that he did it wearing pinstripes, which is a fun change of pace. But more interesting are Sheffield, Sosa, Wagner, McGriff and Kent. Right now all of them are well over the threshold in the publicly cast ballots that are all or partially known, but not so much that any of them are guaranteed to survive.

Of that bunch, who gets the axe? I'm guessing that Posada will somehow make it to next year and so will Sosa and Sheffield. The others, though, I'm not so sure about. McGriff isn't getting in at this point - none of them are, really - unless it's via the Veterans' Committee, but seems to have enough of the sentimental vote to have hung on for 8 years. I think he and Wagner are the two most at risk of being eliminated from contention. Kent, as always, remains an enigma.
 

E5 Yaz

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McGriff isn't getting in at this point - none of them are, really - unless it's via the Veterans' Committee, but seems to have enough of the sentimental vote to have hung on for 8 years. I think he and Wagner are the two most at risk of being eliminated from contention.
McGriff needs four more votes to remain on the ballot. Wagner needs five. With two-thirds of the ballots unaccounted for at this point, they're virtual locks to stay on the ballot
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Hey, he only needed 7 more homers to reach 500 and that never happened. And with such a crowded ballot, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't at least four more people willing to include him. Same with Wagner, who has less of a case than McGriff.
 

InstaFace

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Thanks for adding that, always the most fascinating part of following the HOF voting.

Can @soxhop411 or a mod correct the link in the OP of this thread? The link there is bad, and I'm sure nobody wants to have to dig through the thread, as I did, to find the good one.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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He only needed 7 more home runs to reach 500 with two-thirds of his career at-bats to go?
I'm not sure what that means...McGriff is in his 8th year of eligibility, so if he makes it past this year he'll only have a max of two years before he is removed from the ballot. And, no, but he has about as much a chance of being voted into the Hall by the BBWAA as he does of hitting those 7 home runs now.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Maybe decide what you're speculating on - if he will be eliminated from the ballot (as you mentioned in your first post, which is what E5 responded to; or if he will get in, which no one is debating.
 

E5 Yaz

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McGriff is now two votes away from remaining on the ballot
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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I think he only needs 6 now!

He might stay on. He might not. The point I was trying to make, albeit apparently poorly, was that a lot of people assumed he'd hit the 500 mark when he was still playing when he was within a few but he never did. He might get the votes to stay on and he might get zero to one more vote. If he stays on, I was wrong and good for him. I'm just not assuming that two more BBWAA voters will put him on their ballot. That's all I was trying to say.
 

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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I think he only needs 6 now!

He might stay on. He might not. The point I was trying to make, albeit apparently poorly, was that a lot of people assumed he'd hit the 500 mark when he was still playing when he was within a few but he never did. He might get the votes to stay on and he might get zero to one more vote. If he stays on, I was wrong and good for him. I'm just not assuming that two more BBWAA voters will put him on their ballot. That's all I was trying to say.
Just say what you're trying to say. The comparison to his HR total really doesn't work at all.
 

soxhop411

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Thanks for adding that, always the most fascinating part of following the HOF voting.

Can @soxhop411 or a mod correct the link in the OP of this thread? The link there is bad, and I'm sure nobody wants to have to dig through the thread, as I did, to find the good one.
DONE
 

E5 Yaz

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McGriff is now eligible to return to next year's ballot
 

InstaFace

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Looking at the ballot tracker, 113 of the 114 people who have thus far disclosed a vote for Bonds also voted for Clemens.

...Except Jon Heyman, who voted for Bonds but not Clemens.
 

E5 Yaz

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Looking at the ballot tracker, 113 of the 114 people who have thus far disclosed a vote for Bonds also voted for Clemens.

...Except Jon Heyman, who voted for Bonds but not Clemens.
Heyman's explanation:

I am tough on the steroid guys because it’s tough to prove the roids didn’t put someone over the top, and maybe impossible, and so I lean strongly toward a “no” on players who made the call to take an advantage in a needle or a pill or a cream. But I do consider every player case by case, and the reason I have begun making the one exception in the case of Barry Bonds is that I believe the narrative out there that Bonds was clean, at least until seeing McGwire and Sosa surpass him, and was well on his way to the Hall when he made the call to join the crowd.

Thanks mostly to the wonderful reporting of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams when they were at the San Francisco Chronicle, there can be little doubt that at some point Bonds decided to take steroids. But my guess here is – and admittedly, it’s only an educated guess – that Bonds’ transformation to roided-up superhuman didn’t occur until sometime after 1998. By that time, to me, he was already a Hall of Famer.

A similar case could be made for Roger Clemens, and perhaps someday I will vote for him, though it would probably be with some reluctance. To this point there are only a handful of voters who separate the two, and I am one of them.

But basically the difference comes down to this for me: 1) Clemens’ career seemed to he headed toward the twilight, as it was famously pointed out, when he left Boston with 198 victories, and started doing steroids (and again, there is zero doubt that he did them – see the Mitchell Report), and 2) on the integrity/character issue, Bonds finishes above Clemens, at least for me. Clemens was accused of lying under oath with no regard to his trainer or his trainer’s life, and he and his well-paid lawyers threw dirt all over the guy who had no choice but to tell the truth to investigators — that Clemens was a product of steroids for quietly likely the last half of his career.

http://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/heymans-hall-fame-thoughts-bonds-bagwell-ballot/
 

InstaFace

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With 162 ballots (37.2% of expected totals) captured, here are the latest standings:

Name, Current% (# years on ballot, +/- from last year)

Jeff Bagwell, 92.0% (7th, +14)
Tim Raines, 91.4% (10th & last, +22)
Ivan Rodriguez, 84.6% (1st)
Vlad Guerrero, 76.5% (1st)
---
Trevor Hoffman, 72.2% (2nd, +10)
Barry Bonds, 70.4% (5th, +20)
Roger Clemens, 69.8% (5th, +21)
Edgar Martinez, 69.1% (8th, +28)
Mike Mussina, 61.7% (4th, +11)
Curt Schilling, 53.7% (5th, -10)
Manny Ramirez, 28.4% (1st)
Lee Smith, 26.5% (15th & last, +1)
Larry Walker, 24.7% (7th, +11)

(everyone else is under 15%)

The most surprising number to me, other than Vlad's extremely strong first year of candidacy, is the sheer number of gains from last year among returning voters for Bonds and Clemens. Perhaps the oldschool, moralizing anti-PED crusaders are truly aging off the voter rolls.
 

jsinger121

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With 162 ballots (37.2% of expected totals) captured, here are the latest standings:

Name, Current% (# years on ballot, +/- from last year)

Jeff Bagwell, 92.0% (7th, +14)
Tim Raines, 91.4% (10th & last, +22)
Ivan Rodriguez, 84.6% (1st)
Vlad Guerrero, 76.5% (1st)
---
Trevor Hoffman, 72.2% (2nd, +10)
Barry Bonds, 70.4% (5th, +20)
Roger Clemens, 69.8% (5th, +21)
Edgar Martinez, 69.1% (8th, +28)
Mike Mussina, 61.7% (4th, +11)
Curt Schilling, 53.7% (5th, -10)
Manny Ramirez, 28.4% (1st)
Lee Smith, 26.5% (15th & last, +1)
Larry Walker, 24.7% (7th, +11)

(everyone else is under 15%)

The most surprising number to me, other than Vlad's extremely strong first year of candidacy, is the sheer number of gains from last year among returning voters for Bonds and Clemens. Perhaps the oldschool, moralizing anti-PED crusaders are truly aging off the voter rolls.
I'm not surprised about this since the biggest enabler the steroid era "Bud Selig" got into the hall of fame this year.
 

E5 Yaz

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I think the biggest surprise is how little support Posada is getting. I never expected him to be a HoFer, but he's mired in the single digits percentage-wise
 

coremiller

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Edgar Martinez at +28 is pretty notable too. I wonder if all the hoopla over Ortiz's retirement has led to a reevaluation of DHs and a consequent boost for Edgar.
 

Plympton91

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What a dick. He just said he has proof that recent inductees used steroids. Put up or shut up shithead. And, if you know now, you knew then. So, you're part of the coverup Bob. You were a reporter who didn't do the most important aspect of your job while games were being decided more by which team had fewer cheaters than anything else.

Heyman's explanation:

I am tough on the steroid guys because it’s tough to prove the roids didn’t put someone over the top, and maybe impossible, and so I lean strongly toward a “no” on players who made the call to take an advantage in a needle or a pill or a cream. But I do consider every player case by case, and the reason I have begun making the one exception in the case of Barry Bonds is that I believe the narrative out there that Bonds was clean, at least until seeing McGwire and Sosa surpass him, and was well on his way to the Hall when he made the call to join the crowd.

Thanks mostly to the wonderful reporting of Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams when they were at the San Francisco Chronicle, there can be little doubt that at some point Bonds decided to take steroids. But my guess here is – and admittedly, it’s only an educated guess – that Bonds’ transformation to roided-up superhuman didn’t occur until sometime after 1998. By that time, to me, he was already a Hall of Famer.

A similar case could be made for Roger Clemens, and perhaps someday I will vote for him, though it would probably be with some reluctance. To this point there are only a handful of voters who separate the two, and I am one of them.

But basically the difference comes down to this for me: 1) Clemens’ career seemed to he headed toward the twilight, as it was famously pointed out, when he left Boston with 198 victories, and started doing steroids (and again, there is zero doubt that he did them – see the Mitchell Report), and 2) on the integrity/character issue, Bonds finishes above Clemens, at least for me. Clemens was accused of lying under oath with no regard to his trainer or his trainer’s life, and he and his well-paid lawyers threw dirt all over the guy who had no choice but to tell the truth to investigators — that Clemens was a product of steroids for quietly likely the last half of his career.

http://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/heymans-hall-fame-thoughts-bonds-bagwell-ballot/
To me, one could make the argument that Roger Clemens used steroids for his entire career except for 1993-1995 when he had a guaranteed contract that paid him regardless of how well he performed.
 

E5 Yaz

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Gammons discusses his ballot (with references to eddie Vedder and a bazillion other things):

A decade ago, a player known to smoke marijuana was labeled a pothead and likely traded (after putting private investigators on the road with the Red Sox late in the 1976 season, a half-dozen players thought to be smoking dope were traded or dumped in the next two seasons).

http://www.gammonsdaily.com/peter-gammons-the-hall-of-fame-ballot/
 

Hendu At The Wall

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Jeff Bagwell, 92.0% (7th, +14)
Tim Raines, 91.4% (10th & last, +22)
Ivan Rodriguez, 84.6% (1st)
Vlad Guerrero, 76.5% (1st)
---
Trevor Hoffman, 72.2% (2nd, +10)
Barry Bonds, 70.4% (5th, +20)
Roger Clemens, 69.8% (5th, +21)
Edgar Martinez, 69.1% (8th, +28)
Mike Mussina, 61.7% (4th, +11)
Curt Schilling, 53.7% (5th, -10)
Manny Ramirez, 28.4% (1st)
Lee Smith, 26.5% (15th & last, +1)
Larry Walker, 24.7% (7th, +11)

(everyone else is under 15%)
After last year, things looked bleak for Edgar Martinez; now 2018 looks like a possibility. (This is also good news for Papi.)

With 2 weeks to go, 2017 is shaping up to be an interesting induction year:
* Bagwell & Raines will get in.
* Pudge is strong now but I think he'll be on the cusp. Too close to call. Probably needs to hold above ~80% during next couple weeks to be safe.
* Hoffman will get the anonymous/late voter closer bounce, so if he can stay above 71-72%, he may squeak in.
* Vlad will almost certainly have to wait.

I am guessing it'll be Bagwell, Raines & Hoffman.

So 2018 could see 4 hitters: Chipper, Pudge, Vlad, and maybe Edgar (though I think it's more likely Edgar goes in '19).
 

moondog80

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Gammons discusses his ballot (with references to eddie Vedder and a bazillion other things):

A decade ago, a player known to smoke marijuana was labeled a pothead and likely traded (after putting private investigators on the road with the Red Sox late in the 1976 season, a half-dozen players thought to be smoking dope were traded or dumped in the next two seasons).

http://www.gammonsdaily.com/peter-gammons-the-hall-of-fame-ballot/
Fergie Jenkins pitched 402 innings with an ERA+ of 122 and was traded for John Poloni and cash. There's one. Bill Lee is obviously another. The Cecil Cooper (for the back end of the careers of Bernie Carbo and George Scott) trade has always looked odd to me. Anyone else?
 

E5 Yaz

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Fergie Jenkins pitched 402 innings with an ERA+ of 122 and was traded for John Poloni and cash. There's one. Bill Lee is obviously another. The Cecil Cooper (for the back end of the careers of Bernie Carbo and George Scott) trade has always looked odd to me. Anyone else?
Reggie Cleveland comes to mind
 

Spacemans Bong

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The Buffalo Heads getting traded for being the Buffalo Heads isn't exactly a secret, no? Lee, Jenkins and Cleveland were certainly in that group.

Carbo was dumped before the PIs, according to Gammons, but surely they knew he was on some stuff when they got him back for Cooper.
 

lexrageorge

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Fergie Jenkins pitched 402 innings with an ERA+ of 122 and was traded for John Poloni and cash. There's one. Bill Lee is obviously another. The Cecil Cooper (for the back end of the careers of Bernie Carbo and George Scott) trade has always looked odd to me. Anyone else?
Looking at the list of players on the 1976 Sox that were no longer with the team a couple of years later, you have:

Denny Doyle: Released after the 1977 season after putting up an OPS+ of 55; the Sox had just acquired Jerry Remy. Out of baseball after that.

Rick Miller: Left as free agent after the 1977 season. He came back 3 years later as part of the Burleson/Hobson trade, so probably unrelated.

Rico Petrocelli: Released after the 1976 season during which he had an OPS+ of 67 at the age of 33.

Steve Dillard: Utility infielder traded to the Tigers after the 1977 season for a pair of minor league players.

Doug Griffin: Released in 1977 after appearing in only 5 games. Never played again; IIRC, he had lingering affects of a concussion resulting from a Nolan Ryan fastball.

Bobby Darwin: 34 y/o journeyman utility player traded to the Cubs for bullpen flotsam (Ramon Hernandez).

Bob Heise: Another journeyman, sold to the Royals the following offseason.

Deron Johnson: Yet another journeyman player. Released in June of 1976 at the age of 37, and out of baseball after that.

Luis Tiant: Left as free agent after 1978 season.

Rick Wise: Traded for Dennis Eckersley.

Rick Jones: Drafted by the Mariners in the 1977 expansion draft.

Jim Willoughby: Sold/dumped by Boston to the White Sox after a subpar (92 ERA+) year in 1977. Was 28, but played only one season with Chicago before being out of baseball for good.

Dick Pole: Claimed by the Mariners in the expansion draft.

Tom Murphy: Fungible reliever sold to the Blue Jays in 1977 at the age of 31.

Tom House: Sold to the Mariners in 1977.

Rick Krueger: Traded to Cleveland for Frank Duffy after the 1977 season.

Jenkins, Lee, Cooper, and Cleveland were already noted upthread; that Cecil Cooper trade really deserves to be near the top of all time bad trades by the Sox. Nearly all of the players above were at or close to the end of their careers. Steve Dillard is probably a candidate for the list: utility fielder, with decent stats for a UT at the time, dumped for a pair of minor league players at the age of 27. Willoughby was also dumped for nothing after 3 seasons of an ERA+ of 118, 141, and 92 with Boston. The other moves seem more the typical churn of the flotsam and jetsam of that time.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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McGriff up to 15% now, so I was wildly wrong on that one. Good thing I didn't play the lottery that day.

At nearly 40% if the known ballots all or partially tabulated, it's looking very much like a three-man class with a possible fourth as a dark horse in Vlad or Hoffman. Still a long way to go but the trends are holding for the three who have 80% or better at this point.
 

Hendu At The Wall

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At nearly 40% if the known ballots all or partially tabulated, it's looking very much like a three-man class with a possible fourth as a dark horse in Vlad or Hoffman. Still a long way to go but the trends are holding for the three who have 80% or better at this point.
Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot on twitter) projects 5 at this point, but I think his methodology on this is off base. I don't see any way Vlad gets in.

I think Hoffman at 73% actually has a pretty good chance this year, while Pudge at 83% looks doubtful based on the drop off Raines saw on the tracker during January 2016. Pudge may be at 79% or so on the eve of the announcement (which is 1/18), and at that point it could go either way.

I'm going out on a limb to say Hoffman in, Pudge out -- but I'd happily be wrong.
 

E5 Yaz

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I think Hoffman at 73% actually has a pretty good chance this year, while Pudge at 83% looks doubtful based on the drop off Raines saw on the tracker during January 2016. Pudge may be at 79% or so on the eve of the announcement (which is 1/18), and at that point it could go either way.
I agree with this assessment. History tells us that ballots that don't make the spreadsheet can easily tip a borderline total one way or the other. Hoffman's votes go up with the post-spreadsheet ballots, and that might help him. Bagwell and Raines are pretty much locks ... but with less than 40% of ballots counted, nothing else is even close to certain