Bonds, as expected, falls short of getting call to Cooperstown BONDS’ RETURNS
The National Baseball Hall of Fame announced its 2020 class on Tuesday and for the eighth straight season, the all-time home run king failed to receive the votes needed for enshrinement.
Barry Bonds will not join Derek Jeter and Larry Walker at a ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, this summer, but the San Francisco Giants legend did inch slightly closer to the 75 percent threshold.
Bonds received votes from 60.7 percent of the electorate, up from 59.1 percent a year ago and 36.2 percent in 2013, the first year he appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. The slight uptick is a positive sign for Bonds, but it remains unlikely that he’ll gain enough ground in the final two years he’s slated to appear on the ballot.
A pair of Bonds’ former Giants
teammates, Jeff Kent and Omar Vizquel, also received a higher percentage of votes this year, and while Vizquel appears to be within striking distance of enshrinement, Kent has a long way to go to be elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Kent received 27.5 percent of votes, up from 18.1 percent in 2019 while Vizquel jumped from 42.8 percent last year to 52.6 percent this year.
Voters’ reluctance to overwhelmingly support Bonds doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed his candidacy closely, but the tide might be turning ever-so-slightly in Bonds’ favor. While a certain percentage of voters have vowed to never vote for Bonds or pitcher Roger Clemens due to their ties to baseball’s steroid scandal in the 2000s, younger voters who have recently joined the electorate have typically checked the box next to each player’s name on the ballot.
The BBWAA electorate isn’t expected to substantially change over the next two years, but a handful of new voters plus a variety of other factors could create a path for Bonds to be enshrined in 2022, which is when he will appear on the writers’ ballot for the final time.
The strides Walker, a former Expos, Rockies and Cardinals outfielder, made in his final year on the ballot show what’s possible when voters consider
a player’s candidacy for the final time. In 2018, Walker’s name was checked on just 34.1 percent of ballots, but that total climbed by 20.5 percent last year and 22.2 percent in 2020, which earned him just enough support to clear the 75 percent barrier.
A strong social media push for Walker, a seven-time Gold Glove Award winner and threetime batting champion, aided his cause, and so did a ballot that didn’t include as many players who boasted superior talents. Having more talent than his peers, however, has never been Bonds’ issue, so it’s unrealistic to expect Bonds’ non-voters will convert into voters at a similar rate over the next two seasons.
What Bonds needs is a change of heart from a significant portion of the electorate, which might be more likely than it once was.
As a new cheating scandal rocks baseball, three managers — AJ Hinch, Alex Cora and Carlos Beltran — have lost their jobs due to the fallout from sign-stealing schemes that provided unfair advantages. Beltran stepped down from his position with the New York Mets before he ever had the chance to manage a game, and there’s little doubt that his upcoming Hall of Fame candidacy will be impacted by the fallout from his role in helping the Houston Astros steal signs.
Beltran, a nine-time All-Star with 436 career home runs and 20 seasons of playing experience,
isn’t the only Astros player who will be perceived differently due to his role in baseball’s latest scandal. It’s fair to wonder how voters will judge the careers of stars such as Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve, who clearly benefitted from a scheme that has called the integrity of Houston’s 2017 World Series title into question.
As some major league pitchers have insisted on social media, they would rather face a batter who knowingly took steroids than a batter who knows what pitch is coming next.
Some voters will ultimately decide that no player ever tied to a serious scandal is worthy of Hall of Fame support, but others may say it’s impossible to tell the story of baseball at the Hall of Fame without including players such as Bonds, Clemens and Beltran.
It’s difficult to know exactly how many voters will be open to reconsidering Bonds’ candidacy when his last turn on the ballot arrives in 2022, but we do know that being elected by BBWAA voters is not the only path for the Hall of Fame.
A 16-person Today’s Game Committee comprised of members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, executives, and veteran media members will meet in December 2023 to weigh the candidacies of players who were overlooked during their time on the ballot. If Bonds isn’t elected by the voting body in 2022, he stands a chance to be enshrined anyway.