The 2017 Hall of Fame Tracker is up and running, with Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines doing well in the extremely early public voting. Daniel Marks at Bill James Online does some analysis (subscription required):
The really interesting thing to me is the change in individual votes vs. prior years. For example, one of the things the Tracker does is compare how players have fared with returning voters. Both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, so far, have gained 5 votes from voters who did not select them a year ago (they also both lost 1 vote from a returning voter).
Among the voters who have changed their minds on Bonds and Clemens, at least one has said that he’s tired of being the “morality police”, and another one referenced the fact that Bud Selig was just named to the Hall of Fame (through the recent “Today’s Game” committee selection), and felt that it was hypocritical to have Selig in the Hall but keep players such as Bonds and Clemens out. I think you’re likely to hear more and more voters express one or both of those sentiments as they continue to comment on their ballot selections.
In any event, I think the early voting on Bonds and Clemens implies that this will be their best years ever on the ballot, and I suspect that they will end up with more than 50% of the vote. I didn’t go quite that high in my contest entry (I had them both in the 47-48% range), but I think this may be the year that they cross over into the “majority” of ballots. That doesn’t mean they’ll get in this year or even before their time is up on the BBWAA ballots, but I do think the tide is turning.
My guess is that there are a number of voters who have wanted to vote for Bonds and Clemens for a long time, and now they have an excuse. If support keeps building this year, more voters might flip quickly, and we might see them race to the top in a couple of years.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2hzUCBQ
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