The Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2018 will be announced Wednesday night. Will anyone with ties to the Boston Red Sox be voted in?
We’re about to find out if any former Boston Red Sox players will be enshrined in Cooperstown in 2018.
The results of the Baseball Writers Association of America’s ballots for this year’s Hall of Fame inductees will be announced Wednesday night at 6 p.m. ET live on MLB Network. The announcement can also be streamed on MLB.com.
Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, and Jim Thome are the biggest locks to be inducted this year.
Several players on the ballot have ties to the Red Sox organization, although it seems less likely any of them will reach the 75 percent of votes required for induction. According to the most recent updates from Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker, every player on the ballot who once played for the Red Sox is projected to fall short.
The closest case will be former Red Sox ace, Roger Clemens. The stigma of performance-enhancing drugs that hangs over his career has thus far kept one of the greatest pitchers in major league history out of Cooperstown. However, the perception of suspected PED users may be changing. Clemens appears on 64.2 percent of the known ballots at this time, up from 54.1 percent last year.
Barry Bonds has seen a similar leap in support. If the two poster children of the steroid era get inducted then it will open the floodgates for other suspected cheaters to get in. Whether or not they deserve it is a hot topic of debate. Personally, I think the Hall of Fame is a museum dedicated to the history of the sport. The steroid era was a tainted time in baseball’s history but we can’t ignore that it happened. They should be forced to sweat it out a few years but eventually get in. Not all votes are accounted for yet so it’s possible a late push can get them to 75 percent but it seems unlikely at this point.
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Manny Ramirez is a bit of a different case. Unlike Clemens and Bonds, who we strongly suspect of cheating, Manny actually tested positive after strict drug testing was put in place. His career numbers are worthy of induction but voters seem to be treating him differently than those who cheated at a time when MLB was willing to look the other way. Ramirez is only at 22.2 percent, so no chance he gets in this year.
Curt Schilling doesn’t have the PED cloud hanging over his head but his controversial post-career antics have held him back. He’s not exactly on the best of terms with the media, who happen to be the ones casting ballots. He’s currently at 60.1 percent, up from 45 percent last year. He deserves to get in but the writers he’s irritated over the years won’t make it easy.
Johnny Damon is only at 1.2 percent in his first year on the ballot. It’s going to be difficult for him to reach the necessary 5 percent to remain on the ballot next year, so it could be one-and-done for Captain Caveman. Fans who remain bitter that he bolted to the Yankees won’t mind if he can’t stick on the ballot.
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We won’t find out officially if any of these former Red Sox players are going to be inducted until later this evening but it’s looking like we’ll have to wait until next year for any of them to get another shot at the Hall.