Hall of Fame 2017: The five biggest storylines heading into results day

The day is upon. Results for this year’s National Baseball Hall of Fame vote will be announced at 6 p.m. ET and, if you watch this show every year, you know there will be shortage of news, opinions and grandstanding.

Nobody does the Hall of Fame quite like baseball, where the day results are announced is damn near as contentious and dramatic as the actual presidential Election Day. Baseball’s Hall of Fame day comes with big helpings of outrage and hand-wringing. It’s a given at this point.

Results at 6 p.m. Outrage at 6:05 p.m. Set your watch by it.

There have been a lot of storylines zooming around these past few months, from whether this is finally the year Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell get in, to how the players linked to steroids will fare. Then there are the interesting new names on the ballot, among them: Vladimir Guerrero, Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Jorge Posada.

Ahead of the results announcement (which you watch live on MLB Network), we’re looking at some of the major storylines and giving our best insight/analysis about how they’ll be wrapped up by the time the cameras turn off.

1. So let’s get right to it: Who’s getting in?
At this point, it seems like a pretty good bet that Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell are finally get in. It would be a surprise if neither gets the necessary 75 percent of the vote. According to the Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker run by the great Ryan Thibodaux, which collects all the ballots made public by voters, Raines is at 88.5 percent with a bit more than 50 percent of the ballots being counted (at the time of this writing). Bagwell, meanwhile, is at 88.1 percent. Both of those numbers will come down, inevitably, but even if they drop 10 percent, both would still get in.

Trevor Hoffman earned 67.3 percent last year and is polling higher, at 73 percent. At this point the question with Hoffman is more about when he’ll get in, not if. He could get in this year, as ballot trends in the past say that relief pitchers have done better on private ballots. Still, he’s totally on the bubble. His case, like a few more we’ll talk about below, could come down to just a couple of votes.

2. What about the first-year guys?
Well, Manny Ramirez isn’t getting in, that’s for sure. Based on the public ballots, he’s already mathematically eliminated. But Pudge Rodriguez and Vlad Guerrero are right with Hoffman on the bubble. Their public ballot numbers show that every vote will matter. Vlad is at 71.7 percent and Pudge is slightly higher at 79.1.

It’s harder to factor in ballot trends with first-year players, so both could get in, both could miss out or one could get in. There’s actually some drama here.

If five players manage to get in — don’t bet on it necessarily, but it’s possible — it would be the biggest class elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since the very first class in 1936, which featured Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson and Christy Mathewson.

3. Will Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens be any closer to enshrinement?
This question might actually be more exciting than who gets in. The Hall of Fame’s best subplot for years now has been how voters reconcile Bonds and Clemens, two of the steroid era’s biggest villains, but also two of the game’s greatest players.

Both made significant strides this year on the public-ballot front. They’re not expected to get in, but they should be closer. Both are polling at nearly twenty percent higher than last year’s final result. Bonds is at 63.9 percent compared to last year’s 44.3. Clemens is at 63.1 percent, compared to 45.2. Even if those see big drops — which they most certainly will — there’s a chance each gains 10 percent this year. Bonds has gained 23 votes this year while Clemens has gained 24.

The reason? Well, the electorate is changing, as voters who aren’t covering baseball anymore have been exiled while new blood is making its way in. And the enshrinement of Bud Selig has made some voters change their opinion on what to do with players from the steroid era.

4. Is Curt Schilling falling as much as everybody says?
It seems like it, but we’ll have to wait and see. Last year, Curt Schilling’s pre-reveal percentage was 60.2 (the final result was 52.3). Right now, he’s at 50.8, the result of losing a net of 12 votes so far this year.

Schilling has been quite vocal about this, saying it’s all because of his politics and that if he’d said Donald Trump should be lynched, he’d be doing much better. That seems a little extreme, but we will say that Schilling doesn’t do himself any favors by being so outspoken.

Regardless, Schilling isn’t getting in this year. Instead, we’re waiting to whether he actually falls 10 percent or if the private ballots help him. Either way, we’re bound to hear about it — from Schilling, especially.

5. Are we expecting any significant players dropping off the ballot?
It’s bound to happen. The ballot is full of players this year. Many voters have written about how it’s tough to pick just 10. But other voters have been far stingier with their votes, and those three-player and four-player ballots might mean a player gets bounced from the ballot earlier than expected.

Candidates for falling off this year include Sammy Sosa, Jorge Posada, Gary Sheffield and Billy Wagner. Of those four, it’s Posada, in his first year on the ballot, who might legitimately not get the five percent of the vote it takes to stick around. He’s polling at 4.2 percent. And Sosa, who finished at seven percent last year, is up slightly at 9.6 percent, but that’s not entirely solid footing, considering his history and his link to PEDs.

For further Hall of Fame reading, here are the 15 previews The Stew did the past two weeks:
• Jeff Bagwell
• Barry Bonds
• Roger Clemens
• Vladimir Guerrero
• Trevor Hoffman
• Edgar Martinez
• Mike Mussina
• Jorge Posada
• Tim Raines
• Manny Ramirez
• Ivan Rodriguez
• Curt Schilling
• Lee Smith
• Other Returnees: Jeff Kent, Fred McGriff, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Billy Wagner and Larry Walker
• One-and-Done? Mike Cameron, Jason Varitek, Magglio Ordonez and others

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz