2021 Election
Balloting for the 2021 election is now open! Follow the balloting here, or join in the project yourself. Below is a look at the top newly eligible players and the top backloggers from the 2020 election.
BBTF welcomes new voters for the Hall of Merit (and Most Meritorious Player) elections, but be sure to follow the guidelines set out for these elections. *
2021 Newly Eligible Players
Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle headline the newly eligible class for 2021. Neither seems likely to be elected this year, but either or both may have a chance in future years. More likely, they will be middle or down-ballot for a minority of voters (and off-ballot for a majority) and face an interesting path for election. Both players topped 55 bWAR (Hudson 57, Buehrle 60), and nearly identical bWAA at just under 30. As a shorthand, these numbers would not be out of place in the HOM, but the backlog is full of players with similar or better credentials.
None of the other candidates are likely to make any 15-man ballots, as great as they were at times during their careers. Dan Haren had a 7-year run of 31 WAR from 2005-2011, making him a darkhorse candidate to make a few ballots for peak-oriented voters. Unfortunately, that span was essentially the entirety of his productive career.
2021 Top Backloggers
My best guess is that all three electees for 2021 will be from the backlog (and my guess is it will be three from that top row). Kenny Lofton seems certain to be elected this year. He missed election last year by the very slim margin of 7 total points (i.e., one 13th place vote would have gotten him elected), and had a sizable advantage over the rest of the backloggers listed here. Prediction: the 9th time is the charm for Lofton.
After Lofton, the picture gets cloudier. Johan Santana was next in line last year (they're listed in order), and has a sizable contingent of voters who admire his monstrous peak performance, often comparing to Sandy Koufax. My guess is he also gets elected, in his 4th year of eligibility.
Sammy Sosa is a divisive candidate, and not just because of PEDs and corked bats (which aren't really supposed to be counted against him in HOM voting). He was next in line in last year's voting, but there may be a plateau to the support he can gather among the electorate. The problem is that the same may be true of every guy behind him in line as well. This is Sosa's 9th year of eligibility.
Jeff Kent is also a bit divisive, in that there's a broad range of perception about his value, even though everyone is largely considering the same information. All time leader in HR by a second baseman (legitimately a good offensive player for a second baseman) has some voters putting him near the tops of their ballots, but a sizable chunk of voters don't have him in the top-15 at all. It's extremely precarious, but my prediction is he is the 3rd electee of this class in his 8th year of eligibility. You can see that many of these backloggers have been the top backloggers for years - the electorate is very split on their candidacies, by and large.
Berkman and Abreu are similar, and for that matter they are very similar to Bonds as well. Corner outfielders (Berkman had a sizable chunk of play in CF as well) who were well-rounded in their production. The problem for candidates in this mold is that there are too many to choose from all bunched up in this range of the rankings. One voter thinks Berkman is the best of the three, another likes Abreu, a third thinks Bonds is the frontrunner - and the voting is simply fractured among them, making their path to election difficult. Year of eligibility: Berkman 3, Abreu 2, Bonds 36.
Bell and Bando, as it happens, also have a very similar issue of voter fracturing. Their particular issue is that a sizable chunk of voters believe that third base as a position is given too much defensive credit in the 70s (by WAR), and therefore Bell and Bando are short of election standards. As of right now, this hill is too steep for them to climb, and they will almost certainly not be inducted this year. Bell is in his 28th year, and Bando in his 36th.
Wally Schang has been garnering support among a devoted section of the electorate for a long time. This is his 86th year on the ballot, and he continues to be among the top backloggers, but not in serious contention for election yet. There are a few other players in history who follow this pattern - sometimes they break through (e.g., new stats, analyses, evidence become available, or voters coalesce in opinion for other reasons), sometimes they don't.
* There are several steps to take if you would like to participate in voting. The preliminary step is to post your ballot in the 2021 ballot discussion thread on BBTF. As mentioned in the guidelines, this is more than a mere formality. Voters are expected to display thoughtfulness and logical/internal consistency on their ballots, and first time voters are required to post a preliminary ballot in the discussion which they may be asked to defend (seasoned voters are asked to defend as well, sometimes!). Ballots that are inconsistent or that do not follow the voting guidelines won't be counted.
In short, the HOM asks for voters who take the project seriously and put more than passing thought into the ballot. In particular, it requires being able to appropriately rank or appraise historical players fairly (this is usually the hard part), so unless you are a walking baseball encyclopedia, research is going to be a necessary part of the process. If you're passionate about baseball past and present, then hopefully that sounds like more fun to you than it does work, and the HOM looks forward to your contributions and perspective. Start here: