Hall of Fame Class of 2020 Projected Vote

For those of us who are enthusiasts about the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, today is Christmas. At 6:00p ET on MLB Network Hall of Fame President Tim Mead will reveal the latest members of the Hall. Anywhere from one to three players will join last month’s Eras Committee inductees Ted Simmons and the late Marvin Miller to form the Hall’s Class of 2020.

New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter will headline the Class of 2020. The only suspense about Jeter’s Hall of Fame outcome will be whether he will be the second player to be inducted unanimously by the 400+ members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America). One year ago, Jeter’s longtime teammate (relief ace Mariano Rivera) became the first player to be elected without a single “nay” vote.

Based on the early publicly disclosed votes (recorded on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame vote tracker), the biggest “bubble” candidate is Larry Walker, the five-tool outfielder for the Montreal Expos, Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals. Walker appeared to have no chance at a Hall of Fame plaque just five years ago, when he received just 11.8% of the vote in an election that requires 75% for a Cooperstown call. What’s happened since is that Walker has had a nearly unprecedented surge in voting support, especially in the last two years. On the 2019 ballot, Walker got 54.6% of the vote. That’s still far from 75% but the early vote tallies are tracking him at 83.5%.

Curt Schilling, the postseason ace for the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox, is the only other candidate that appears to have a chance to make the Hall of Fame this year. The odds are significantly against it happening but it remains a possibility.

In this piece, I’m going to offer “Cooperstown Cred” predictions about the final vote totals for the 20 candidates that have at least one recorded vote thus far.

Before looking at these numbers, you should know that the early vote almost always over-estimates a player’s final vote total. Although this is a generalization, voters who keep their ballots private before the official announcement tend to be a bit stingier. Every BBWAA voter may check up to ten names on their ballot but are not required to do so. A healthy minority of writers vote for less than 10 players.

Cooperstown Cred 2020 Hall of Fame Projections

First, allow me to briefly share the methodology used to arrive at these numbers. In most (but not all) cases, the projections are for a lower vote percentage than the numbers reported by Thibodaux’s tracker. As mentioned earlier, this is because voters who choose to remain anonymous are (as a whole) a little bit more frugal with their votes than those who reveal their choices.

The other generalization about “private” vs “public” voters is that the voters who keep their ballots to themselves tend to vote in more of an “old school” fashion. These voters tend to favor simpler statistics and award hardware. The “analytics” voters, who study metrics such as WAR, OPS+ or ERA+, are more likely to be transparent in their votes than the old school voters.

By the way, when I point out that Thibodaux’s tracker over-estimates the final vote, that is not in any way meant as a criticism. Thibodaux and his interns are tracking what has actually happened. The only prediction that Thibodaux makes is that there will be 412 total ballots cast. This is his educated guess based on the normal average number of first time voters and his research tallying the writers who no longer are eligible to vote or who have passed away.

How did I arrive at the predicted totals? For returning players, it’s pretty simple. It’s a matter of counting how many voters a player has “flipped” from “no” to “yes” between 2019 and 2020. The “flip percentage” on the votes reported in the tracker can then be used to predict how that player will do among the private or yet-to-be-reported public votes.

For first-time players (notably Bobby Abreu), it’s more difficult to project because there are no “flips” to analyze. Anyway, here we go!!

WP Table Builder

There are an additional 12 first-time players on the ballot who have not received any votes on the currently reported ballots: Rafael Furcal, Josh Beckett, Brian Roberts, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Pena, Chone Figgins, Raul Ibanez, Brad Penny, Adam Dunn, J.J. Putz, Jose Valverde and Heath Bell. These players, along with Jason Giambi, Eric Chavez, Cliff Lee and Paul Konerko, will be well under 5% of the final vote and thus ineligible for future BBWAA ballots.

Anyway, here are some brief comments and conclusions to obvious questions.

Will Derek Jeter be elected unanimously?

In years past, I would have answered “no” to this question. However, since Jeter’s longtime Yankees teammate Mariano Rivera was inducted without any “nay” votes, it’s possible that the writers who used to deny players first ballot unanimity have either lost the privilege to vote or have passed away. Because Rivera is the only player in the history of the BBWAA vote to go in with 100% of the tallies, my default position is to guess that there will be a couple of writers who, for whatever reason, don’t check Jeter’s name on their ballot.

Will Larry Walker cross the 75% finish line?

This is the most important question and the one that will provide the most suspense to the Hall of Fame vote announcement tomorrow. I have projected Walker to surpass 75% because he has shown an extremely impressive net “flip percentage” of over 50%.

If Walker is able to maintain close to that flip percentage, he’ll clear with 75% bar with approximately 10 votes to spare. The danger is that the total number of voters who need to change their minds is still very high. A year ago, Walker got just 19 out of 68 votes cast by voters who never revealed their ballots publicly. That’s 38.5%, compared to the 59.7% he got from all other voters.

Of the eight projection models popular on Twitter, mine and Jason Sardell’s are the most optimistic for Walker. I don’t know if Jason’s model takes this into account (I think it does) but mine notes the relevance of 15 voters who are no longer eligible or have passed away. These 15 names are on the bottom of Thibodaux’s sheet. Of those 15, only 4 voted for Walker last year (including the late Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe). The other 11 voted “no.” Therefore, with the caveat that Thibodaux might not be aware of the name of every voter who is no longer eligible, there are only a maximum of 410 returning voters. From those voters, Walker earned 55.6% (compared to his actual 54.6%). It’s a small distinction, but the “flip” hill he actually has to climb is slightly less steep than it would otherwise appear. Every vote counts.

Here’s one final tidbit that bodes well for Walker. The last candidate who needed to surpass 75% in his 10th and final year of eligibility was Edgar Martinez (a year ago). Martinez had a flip rate of just over 50% in both the public ballots and the private ballots. The cases against Walker and Martinez are similar in that they didn’t reach the career milestones that Hall of Fame voters typically like to see in their candidates. If the remaining ballots to be tabulated follow the Martinez model, Walker’s going to be on stage this summer in Cooperstown.

Anyway, for more on makes Walker a worthy Hall of Famer, please take a look at this piece.

Is there any chance Curt Schilling will make it this year?

Since he’s polling at 77.5% in the tracker, I suppose that it’s possible he will make it this year but it’s highly unlikely. Schilling’s relatively low total of 216 career wins doesn’t inspire the “old school” voters who are more wont to keep their ballot choices to themselves. Schilling has always done poorly on the “private” ballots. It would be shocking if the private voters over-performed the flip rate of those who have already made their ballots public.

However, it’s likely Schilling will finish in the neighborhood of 70% of the vote, which is typically what I would call “scoring position” in that a player with that level of support usually crosses the 75% finish line a year later. I can predict right now that Curt Schilling will headline the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2021. For more on why Schilling deserves the honor, please click here.

What’s happening with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens?

What’s happening is not much at all for the two poster children of the steroid era. Bonds has gained a net of 2 new voters this year, Clemens just 1. They will need to do vastly better in 2021 or 2022 if they’re going to have any chance to make the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA. The positions of the vast majority of the voting electorate seem to have calcified.

I’m just spit-balling here but there are a couple of things that could turn the tide in the next two years:

• Does the cheating scandal involving the Houston Astros give any writers a second thought about denying two all-time greats plaques in the Hall of Fame? After all, most pitchers will tell you that an opponent knowing what he’s going to throw is a vastly more significant advantage than using Performing Enhancing Drugs.
• The 2021 ballot does not have any obvious first-ballot candidates. The top first-timers are pitchers Mark Buehrle and Tim Hudson and outfielder Torii Hunter. With the most wide-open ballot in years and Curt Schilling the only likely player close to 75% this year, might a handful of writers decide to create a “rogues gallery” Hall of Fame class of Bonds, Clemens and Schilling? (In case you’re confused, Schilling has never been accused of using steroids but he is a pariah to some writers for his espoused political views on Twitter).
• The 2022 ballot is the final year of eligibility for Bonds and Clemens. Are some writers deliberately making them wait the full 10 years as a form of punishment? Also, Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz join the ballot for the first time which might alter the decision-making calculus of some of the writers.

Anyway, for more on the voting history for Bonds and Clemens and why certain writers make the decisions they make, click here.

Will Bobby Abreu be on the 2021 ballot?

Based on the early voting results, outfielder Bobby Abreu (a first-time candidate in 2020) is the lone player who is “on the bubble” regarding whether he’ll be eligible for future ballots. The Hall of Fame’s rule is that a player must earn at least 5% of the vote in order to appear on future ballots. Abreu, currently polling at 6.2%, is right on that bubble. I’ve projected him just above the line because it’s more fun than putting him below it but the truth is that it’s a coin flip to me.

That’s all for now. I’ve have more thoughts on the rest of the players on the ballot, most of whom will make significant gains this year, in my vote announcement wrap-up piece tomorrow.

Thanks for reading. Please follow me on Twitter @cooperstowncred.