2018 Hall of Fame Ballot
On January 24, 2018, the National Baseball Hall of Fame released the results from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voting for the Hall of Fame. Shortly after the ballot was initially released, on November 20, 2017, I released my predictions for how the vote would go.
So, how did I do?
The next table compares my predictions with the final results.
Bold - Predicted vote > 75% needed for election
Italics - Predicted vote < 5% needed to remain on ballot
If you break the prediction down to the most basic question - Which players are going to be elected to the Hall of Fame - I was perfect. I correctly predicted the four players who were elected to the Hall of Fame: Chipper Jones, Trevor Hoffman, Jim Thome, and Vladimir Guerrero. But that's probably being a bit too generous to me. In fact, I missed in my predicted vote percentages on two of these four players - Thome and Guerrero - by more than on any other player.
At the other end of the ballot, my predictions of who would remain on the ballot, having received at least 5% of the vote in this election, were slightly less accurate. I under-estimated support for Andruw Jones. I predicted that he would miss the 5% target by a handful of votes (six votes given the number of actual votes, 422). In fact, he survived the ballot by nine votes.
I correctly predicted the other two first-year players who broke 5%, Omar Vizquel and Scott Rolen. Both Vizquel and Rolen did better than I predicted, with Vizquel being the third-largest difference between my prediction and the actual vote.
And how did I do in-between? There were 12 players making at least their second appearance on the ballot who finished below 75%. That portion of the table is excerpted below.
Seven of these twelve players received a lower percentage of the vote than I predicted, with the differences ranging from 2.4% (Jeff Kent) to 7.6% (Barry Bonds). Five of these seven players have been associated with performance-enhancing drugs - the only five such players on the ballot. It appears that the support for these players may be at or near its ceiling, which makes the potential eventual election of Bonds and Roger Clemens seem fairly unlikely.
The other five players received a higher percentage than I predicted with differences ranging from 0.7% (Fred McGriff) to 5.7% (Curt Schilling and Larry Walker).
Adding up the differences for all twelve of these players, the total difference was 14.9%, an average error of a bit more than one percent less support for these players than I predicted.
Not bad.
2019 Election: Early Preview
So, what can we expect in 2019?
The top returning candidate is Edgar Martinez, who finished 4.6% shy of the 75% needed for induction. Over the last three elections, Martinez's vote percentage has increased by 16.4%, 15.2%, and 11.8%. Adding an additional 4.6% on top of that would seem well within reach.
The next-closest returning candidate to election is Mike Mussina, whose 63.5% showing leaves him 11.5% short of 75%. Over the last three elections, Mussina's vote percentage has increased by 18.4%, 8.8%, and, this year, 11.7%. Certainly, the next 11.5% gain may be more difficult to achieve than this year's 11.7% but Mike Mussina seems very well positioned to make a serious run at election next year.
It seems extremely unlikely that any additional returning candidates could reach 75% of the vote as soon as next year. There are, however, two first-year candidates who I think have at least some chance of being elected in their first year on the ballot: Mariano Rivera (who seems a sure bet) and the late Roy Halladay, who won two Cy Young awards in his illustrious career (in 2003 and 2010).
If all of Rivera, Halladay, Martinez, and Mussina are elected next year, that would be the second consecutive year and the third time in five years of four BBWAA electees with a rather remarkable 20 candidates elected by the BBWAA in six elections. Here's hoping!
All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.
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