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It’s Baseball Hall of Fame results day!
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes Hall of Fame results, what makes a Cooperstown closer, and an appreciation of those falling off the ballot.


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If you love the Baseball Hall of Fame, then today is a good day, as you’ll learn just who was elected to it at 6 p.m. ET. If you hate the Baseball Hall of Fame, today is a good day, as we’ll learn just who was elected to it at 6 p.m. ET, people will argue for a couple of days, and then the din will die down until early January of 2018. The announcement might be at 6 on MLB Network, but coverage begins at 3 p.m. and will go until 7.
While we’re just guessing at who is likely to be elected, it’s an educated guess, thanks to Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame ballot tracker. As of this writing, Jeff Bagwell has received nearly 89 percent of the vote on the 232 public ballots that make up 55 percent of the whole electorate. Tim Raines, who is in his final year of candidacy, is at nearly 90 percent on those ballots. Chances are good that those who are still keeping their ballots secret to this point will drop those percentages when the full results are revealed, but both Bagwell and Raines have a pretty good cushion, and their chances of exceeding the 75 percent threshold necessary for election feels high.
They might be the only two, however, given Ivan Rodriguez is just under 79 percent, giving him only a little wiggle room, while another first-timer, Vladimir Guerrero, sits at 72 percent. Trevor Hoffman is in his second year of candidacy and has pulled in 72 percent as well: Maybe the still-anonymous ballots have voted for these three players in great numbers than the revealed ones and we’re going to have a whole mess of inductees come July, but it’s more likely that this year’s results are just letting us known that Vlad, Pudge, and Hoffman will be inducted inevitably. And with the jumps in voting that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Edgar Martinez have potentially made if the known ballots are any indication, they’ll have plenty of company within the next few inductions, too.
- It finally happened: Jose Bautista signed, and it’s because the Blue Jays brought him home.
- What makes a Hall of Fame closer? Grant Brisbee thinks he’s got it figured out.
- Even with all of the potential good news on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, we’re still going to have a ton of players fall off, many of them one-and-done. While not Hall of Famers, they deserve a moment of your attention all the same.
- Barack Obama and the Cubs shared a historic day no one saw coming.
- Speaking of Obama, the Cubs weren’t his only foray into the baseball world this week, as he also pardoned Hall of Famer Willie McCovey for his 1995 tax evasion. McCovey had already been put on probation, but this move clears his record.
- Danny Duffy says he didn’t want to leave Kansas City, so it’s good to learn that he didn’t sign his five-year extension under some kind of duress.
- These two Rule 5 picks could play a huge role for the Orioles. Depending on your mood, that is either encouraging or demoralizing news.
- Russell A. Carleton is wondering whether we’ve been too quick to dismiss pitcher/batter matchup data.
- Are Reds fans overlooking Arismendy Alcantara?
- Here are three fascinating stories about women who played baseball in the 19th century.
- This story is about the baseball teams of the Pokémon universe and you either already clicked that link after a giddy exclamation or you have no idea why it’s being shared with you.











