The coronavirus pandemic delayed the formal induction of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020. But will there be a Class of 2021 to join Derek Jeter, Larry Walker and Ted Simmons on the dais in Cooperstown this summer?

1. 5 Q's for Hall announcement (MLBN, 6 ET)
By Anthony Castrovince @castrovince
12:09 AM EST
The coronavirus pandemic delayed the formal induction of the National Baseball Hall of
Fame’s Class of 2020. But will there be a Class of 2021 to join Derek Jeter, Larry Walker and
Ted Simmons on the dais in Cooperstown this summer?
We will find out Tuesday, when MLB Network reveals the results of the 2021 Baseball Writers’
Association of America’s Hall of Fame ballot. The four-hour announcement show, presented
by Camping World, begins at 3 p.m. ET, with a 6 p.m. reveal. The show will be simulcast on
MLB.com and, for the first time ever, in the MLB app on connected devices.
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2. • Hall of Fame coverage
Last year, Jeter was voted into the Hall on his first BBWAA ballot and Walker on his last.
Simmons and late players’ union executive Marvin Miller were voted in by the Modern
Baseball Era committee. With the Golden Days and Early Baseball Era Committees having
postponed their votes until the winter of 2021-22, the BBWAA ballot was the only means to
create a Class of 2021. A player must appear on at least 75 percent of ballots cast to gain
entry to the Hall.
The 2021 ballot did not have any first-timers with clear-cut Cooperstown cases, and the
holdovers from past ballots -- fronted by Curt Schilling, whose name was checked on 70
percent of ballots cast last year -- have complicated cases of their own.
Here are five key questions that will be answered Tuesday night:
1. Will Schilling get over the line?
As a simple matter of math, Schilling, in his ninth and penultimate year on the BBWAA ballot,
has the best chance for entry this year. In the past 30 years, Jack Morris is the only player to
get shut out by the writers despite reaching at least 65 percent with at least two years
remaining on the ballot. (Morris eventually made it in via the Modern Baseball Era
Committee.)
But, of course, Schilling’s inflammatory political commentary over the years has done him no
Jan 23, 2020 · 3:12
Ride along with Jeter and Walker

3. favors in this process, and a number of voters have said they are not voting for Schilling after
voting for him in past years. It is worth noting that his recent public support of the U.S. Capitol
riot came after ballots were due to be submitted.
In Ryan Thibodaux’s tracking of publicly released ballots, Schilling is hovering around 75
percent support. Typically, players’ percentages go down in the actual results, as voters who
keep their ballots private have generally tended to vote for fewer players. Schilling, for
example, did 22.7 percent better on public ballots versus private a year ago, according to
Thibodaux’s data. (The exception to this phenomenon is players on their final year on the
ballot, like Walker last year, who saw a surge among “private” voters.)
2. Where does Omar Vizquel stand?
Omar Vizquel has made big strides on past ballots. He cleared the 50 percent mark last year,
in his third try.
But allegations of domestic abuse that were made by his ex-wife, Blanca, published by The
Athletic in December, will affect Vizquel’s tally this time. The Athletic story was published in
mid-December, by which point some voters had already submitted their ballots. But with a
Dec. 31 ballot due date, the allegations could still have made a major impact on Vizquel's
candidacy.
We know from the public ballots that at least 11 Vizquel voters from a year ago had gone the
other direction this year, though Vizquel, whose iffy offensive metrics have inspired significant
debate, had also gained at least eight votes. He’s sitting at around 40 percent on the public
ballots, which suggests he is losing support.

4. 3. Who will gain the most momentum?
Per the public tracking, we are seeing significant jumps for several holdovers on the 2021
ballot. As of this writing, Todd Helton (plus-30 votes), Scott Rolen (plus-29), Andruw Jones
(plus-29), Billy Wagner (plus-23) and Gary Sheffield (plus-18) had all seen a strong uptick.
Given that all of those players were south of 40 percent support on last year’s ballot, none in
that group are expected to get in this year. However, they are the players most positively
impacted by the less-crowded ballot, and they could be setting themselves up for future
induction. Rolen had the highest public percentage of that group at last check, with 62.1
percent support. As our own Mike Petriello wrote recently, there is a strong argument that
the Hall has been too stingy with players from the last 50 years, and the uptick of votes for
this group could be viewed as a response to this trend.
4. What about Bonds and Clemens?
As has become annual tradition, the results for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will be
watched closely. The performance-enhancing drug implications have impacted what would
statistically be slam-dunk Hall of Fame cases, and, even as a past ballot logjam has cleared,
Bonds and Clemens have made only incremental gains in their percentages (61.0 percent for
Clemens last year, 60.8 percent for Bonds).
Thibodaux’s tracking, at last look, had Bonds at 71.8 percent and Clemens at 71.2 percent. But
again, those percentages are likely to come down in the final tally.
As with Schilling, this is the ninth year out of a possible 10 on the ballot for Bonds and
Clemens.