No one is elected to the Hall of Fame on the 2021 ballot

Ah yes, the time of year when folks from far and wide decide to share their “methodologies” about who is and isn’t worthy of the Hall of Fame and share their ballots. Some of these ballots lack zero weight at all as the person sharing it is not an actual voter, but in recent years we have also seen a good number of ballots being shared by those actually casting votes. Those ballots have been ably tracked by Ryan Thibodaux, so if you want breakdowns of the public/non-public balloting from the last few years, he is your guy.

The general consensus this year was that the most likely outcome of balloting this year was that no one would get in. There were no easy cases amongst the new guys on the ballot and the guys who, by the numbers, are the best candidates like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling have PED and/or character issues that have kept them out of the Hall.

As it turns out, that is exactly what happened.

Again, the first time guys like Mark Buehrle and Tim Hudson were always very, very suspect cases so it came down to whether guys who have some years on the ballot were going to be able to garner any meaningful support and they weren’t. Bonds and Clemens remained roughly where they have been for a while now. Schilling finished with 71.1% and based on the scorched earth campaign he has waged on, well, everyone....his support seems more likely to fall than rise next year.

With this year in the books, it joins 2013, 1996, and 1971 as empty Hall of Fame classes, although we do still get to see Derek Jeter, Larry Walker, and Marvin Miller inducted because last year’s ceremony was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Oh yeah, and next year we get A-Rod and David Ortiz on the ballot, too. That should be fun....right?