Five things to watch on the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot: Jayson Stark (2024)

Sadly, it isn’t baseball season anymore. But fortunately, Monday was Opening Day of my second-favorite season of the baseball year:

Hall of Fame season.

On Monday, the names on the 2021 Hall of Fame ballot were revealed. And my best advice is: Get acquainted with them!

That’s because my least-favorite baseball season, Lockout Season, is almost certainly arriving next week. So debating the fate of the 30 players on this Hall ballot is going to be the only current baseball talk worth having for way too many days in the next two months.

And what is there to debate? I appreciate your asking. I can help with that – with this year’s edition of the Five Things to Watch on the Hall of Fame Ballot.

1. Could the voters pitch another shutout?

Everybody remember which beloved candidate the Hall of Fame voters elected last year? Of course you don’t, because there was no such candidate.Not even Nick Swisher!

Yes, to refresh your memory, for only the fourth time in the last half-century, the writers elected nobody. So now it’s worth wondering: Could they actually (gulp) make it two shutouts in a row?

It hurts to type the word,Y-E-S, but that’s way too possible. That hasn’t happened in back-to-back elections since 1958 and ’60, when the voting system was very different from this one. But if you run through the candidates who theoretically might have the best chance, are any of them getting 75 percent? I’m having trouble seeing it.

Curt Schilling?He missed by 16 votes last year. Sixteen. That computes to a mere 3.9 percent. If these were normal times in a normal world, and if Schilling were just any old normal candidate, he could probably start scribbling his speech on a notepad tomorrow. But somehow, “normal” doesn’t feel like the right word to describe any of this.

It’s Schilling’s 10thand last year on the ballot. And there has never been a candidate who was already this close heading into his final election anddidn’tget elected. But after all the affectionate stuff Schilling had to say a year ago about the people who are getting ready to vote on him, is there any shot that 16 of them will change their mind? I’ll take the under.

David Ortíz? There are 13 first-time candidates on this ballot. None of them have a better shot at getting elected than Big Papi. Here’s the list of everyone in previous Hall history with at least 540 homers, 2400 hits and a .900 career OPS whohasn’tbeen elected: Barry Bonds … Manny Ramírez … and that’s that.

Even the commissioner has taken great pains to make clear that Ortíz doesn’t belong in the same PED quicksand that those two guys are drowning in. But will that be enough to earn him 75 percent of the vote? We’re about to find out!

Omar Vizquel? Not happening. Vizquel topped 52 percent of the vote two elections ago – but he was already a shaky candidate, purely for baseball reasons. Then, just before last year’s election, The Athletic published a powerful story on domestic violence allegations against Vizquel that prompted 32 “yes” voters to leap off his bandwagon, according to a tracking of public ballots by Ryan Thibodeaux’s Hall of Fame tracker. Since then, he has also beensued for sexual harassment by a former minor league batboy. So there undoubtedly will be more voters steering clear of him this year – maybe many more.

Scott Rolen?He reached 52.9 percent last year, and I think he’s headed for Cooperstown someday. (More on that shortly.) But is he going to take yet another massive jump, of the 90 votes or so he would need to make it this year? Seems like a tall bar to clear.

Barry Bonds/Roger Clemens?They finished second and third, respectively, last year, with just south of 62 percent of the vote. Now it’s their last ride on this ballot express, and is anybody feeling that big Bonds/Clemens surge coming? Right.

We’ll discuss that momentarily, too. But suffice it to say these two have spent the last four elections hunting for those final 50 to 60 votes that would get them to the podium. By now it seems clear they don’t exist, except for one shot-in-the-dark question I can’t stop pondering…

2. Could A-Rod and Big Papi help Bonds and Clemens?

I don’t know why this could happen. I don’t know how this could happen. But am I ruling out the remote possibility that it could happen?How can I? How can anybody?

Start imagining what the baseball conversations of the next couple of months are going to sound like. We’ll have two choices: A) Have some laughs as we reminisce about our favorite lockouts, or B) devote all our time to rehashing the PED glory days of the ‘90s and early 2000s.

I’m guessing that “B” will wind up as a popular choice. So aren’t we in luck that here comes Alex Rodriguez, for his first election go-round, to keep Barry and Roger company while they endure one last public thrashing on their final year on this ballot.

I can’t predict where that’s leading. But the Bonds/Clemens half of that debate never seems to change. So maybe A-Rod steps in and somehow makes them look pure and pristine by comparison? Wait. Whaddaya mean, no?

Or maybe it’s the opposite, now that A-Rod is the adorable Fox/ESPN Face of Baseball his TV friends keep trying to spin him into. Is it somehow possible he could make Barry and Roger look even harder to vote for? I have no idea. Just askin’.

What’s most likely, to be honest, is that Ortiz is the one who could make an impact. As I mentioned, Rob Manfred has tried multiple times to exempt him from the usual PED tarring, thanks to the odd circ*mstances around the 2003 survey testing in which Ortiz ostensibly tested positive. So with the commissioner (sort of) in his corner, Ortiz seems almost certain to attract hundreds of votes, even if it’s not enough to get him elected.

Is it conceivable that there are voters who will feel the need to justify their vote for Ortiz by also checking the Bonds and/or Clemens box on the ballot? Hmmm. Maybe? I could see it filling hours of talk-show dead time this winter, at the very least.

But one more time, let’s ask: Would even that be enough to help Bonds and Clemens find those 50-60 votes standing between them and Cooperstown? How exactly? Over the last four elections, they’ve gained a total of justeightnew votes from existing voters. So wish them luck. Or whatever else you might wish them.

(Source: Ryan Thibodeaux’s Hall of Fame Tracker)

3. Will the Rolen/Helton trains to Cooperstown keep rolling?

Hey, why don’t we talk about two players on this ballot whoarebound for that plaque gallery one of these summers: Scott Rolen and Todd Helton. So why would I make a prediction that bold? Because it’s happening. That’s why.

Take a look at the two biggest high-jumpers on last year’s ballot:

In Rolen’s fourth year on the ballot, he cleared the 50-percent bar. In Helton’s third year, he catapulted to almost 45 percent, by scooping up an eye-opening 64 more votes than in 2020. And over the last half-century, literallyeverybodywho has reached those thresholds at this stage has gone on to get elected. The last player in both those groupings who didn’t? Gil Hodges, more than 50 years ago.

I guess I should mention that that doesn’t include players who are still on this ballot. And it won’t be long, apparently, before Vizquel, Bonds and Clemens make us revise that history. But let’s put them aside. There are way too few third basem*n in the Hall of Fame. And we’re only now, thanks to Larry Walker, beginning to understand the Coors Field effect. Well, you know who are lurking on this ballot to remind us of all that? Scott Rolen and Todd Helton. Hey, thanks!

4. Was there a Hall of Famer on the 2008 Phillies?

It’s Jimmy Rollins’ first year on the Hall of Fame ballot. It’s also Year One for his longtime amigo and Phillies teammate, Ryan Howard.They were both MVPs, all-time greats in the history of a 130-year-old franchise, and cornerstones of the 2008 World Series champions.

Ah, but were they Hall of Famers? We can debate the merits of their cases some other time. In the meantime, here’s another question hanging over their presence on this ballot:

Are those 2008 Phillies about to become the rare World Series champs who producednoHall of Famers?

My friend, Chris Isidore, has been fascinated by that question for years. Now he has me just as obsessed with it.

The World Series began in 1903. From 1903 through 2005,everywinner produced at least one Hall of Fame Player or manager except the 1997 Marlins and 2002 Angels. But even those teams could escape this list, along with nearly every other World Series champ through 2012. Check it out and see what you think.

(*managers)

I left the 2008 Phillies off that list, but now it’s their time. We’ll learn more about Rollins and Howard this year. Chase Utley (2024) and Jayson Werth (2023) arrive on the ballot in the next two years. Cole Hamels still considers himself “active,” so it’ll be a while before he takes a spin on this ballot. And then there’s the manager, Charlie Manuel.

Utley and Rollins seem likely to stick around the ballot for years. But is there a slam-dunk Hall of Famer on that roster? Not unless Utley catches Edgar Martinez-type fire. But remember, Hall of Fame elections have been surprising us for more than 80 years. I doubt they’ll stop now.

5. What becomes of all these former MVPs and Cy Youngs?

There’s a word we often overlook when it comes time to assess the names on this ballot:Fame.

And that especially applies this year. There may not be a first-ballot Hall of Famer anywhere on that list of 13 first-timers. But there’s no shortage of guys who pass the “fame” test.

Five former MVPs:Howard, Rollins, Prince Fielder, Justin Morneau and, of course, that A-Rod guy.

Two former Cy Youngs:Tim Lincecum and Jake Peavy.

Not to mention:Mark Teixeira was a Gold Glove/Silver Slugger first baseman for 14 seasons … A.J. Pierzynski caught (and had a way of announcing his presence) for 19 big-league seasons … Carl Crawford stole 50-plus bases five times … Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon saved 745 games between them … and while I’m distraught that he didn’t make the cut, can we make it unanimous that Billy Butler should at least be inducted into the Nickname Hall of Fame (for “Country Breakfast”)?

It’s possible none of those guys will ever have his plaque chiseled in Cooperstown. But it’s still worth asking: Who among them will collect enough votes to see another election, let alone another nine?

I’ll take Rollins and Teixeira in the pool. You never know until the votes are counted – and that day is two months away. But this day, when they roll out the names on another Hall ballot, is always one of my favorites of the whole baseball year. And especially this year!

(Top Photo of Ortiz: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

Jayson Stark is the 2019 winner of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award for which he was honored at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Jayson has covered baseball for more than 30 years. He spent 17 of those years at ESPN and ESPN.com, and, since 2018, has chronicled baseball at The Athletic and MLB Network. He is the author of three books on baseball, has won an Emmy for his work on "Baseball Tonight," has been inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame and is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania Sportswriter of the Year award. In 2017, Topps issued an actual Jayson Stark baseball card. Follow Jayson on Twitter @jaysonst