Baseball Hall Of Fame Nominees

It rolls around every year, the nominees for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The list has come out for people that are going to be on the ballot for 2018. In order to get into the hall, one needs to get 75% of the votes in order for induction and more then 5% to stay on the ballot. The official announcement won't be made until January 2018, but because the list has been announced now, lets get the debate going as to who should be in and who will miss out.

There are 19 new names on the ballots and 14 holdovers from previous years, including Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez. The entire ballot is listed below, including how many years holdovers have been on the ballot and their percentage of votes received last year. Some other notable names that are still held over for this years ballot, including Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Jeff Kent, Edgar Martínez, Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Billy Wagner, and Larry Walker.

Here's the list of the new names on the ballot (a lot I know but stick with us): Rod Barajas, Miguel Batista, Geoff Blum, Miguel Cairo, Chris Carpenter, Aaron Cook, Francisco Cordero, Juan Cruz, Johnny Damon, Brian Fuentes, Bill Hall, Willie Harris, Liván Hernández, Orlando Hudson, Aubrey Huff, Jason Isringhausen, Nick Johnson, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Adam Kennedy, Carlos Lee, Brad Lidge, Rodrigo López, Mike MacDougal, Hideki Matsui, Kevin Millwood, Guillermo Mota, Jamie Moyer, Will Ohman, Vicente Padilla, Carl Pavano, Scott Podsednik, Juan Rivera, Scott Rolen, J. C. Romero, Johan Santana, Brian Schneider, Ben Sheets, Jeff Suppan, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, Kip Wells, Dan Wheeler, Jack Wilson, Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano.

Quickly, lets look at the guys who are back on the ballot. Vlad and Hoffman have the best chance to get in. Hoffman, who's second on the all time saves list, was one percentage point away from getting into the Hall last year and should not have a problem getting in this year. Same thing, too can be said for Vlad. He hit 449 home runs and drove in 1459 runs, all while hitting. 318 for his career. He was the best bad ball hitter I've ever seen and was one of the more consistent hitters I've ever seen.

For the new guys on the list, I can really only see two getting in on their first shot, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome. Chipper hit .303 over his career with 468 home runs and drove in 1,623 runs. He won MVP once and an eight time all-star.  He was one of the best overall hitters and all around 3rd baseman to ever play the game. Jim Thome is the other guy I can see making the hall this year. He was a .276 lifetime hitter, as he cracked 612 home runs, all while driving in 1,699 runs. He was one of the top power hitters in the game, and the numbers reflect that.

The official announcement will be made in early January as to who gets into the Hall!