None of those three reached 3,000 hits, which has long been an important consideration needed to gain entrance to the Hall as a batter.

There are only 32 players who reached that number. That would make for a pretty darn small hall.

And of course Ortiz cracked 500 HRs.

The purge certainly changed things. Beyond that though, the process of change is a slow one. You get only something like 12-15 new voters per year; they seem to lose about the same number although that bounces around more. But roughly, about 4% leaves and 4% joins. Over the course of a player's 10 years on the ballot, about 36% of the electorate would have turned over. That would presumably help somebody like Rolen or Helton (assuming new voters are more WAR friendly) but it's not enough turnover to help somebody like Abreu.

We can use Helton as an example. This year he's gotten votes from 8 of 12 new voters. While that's probably a "substantial" improvement relative to the number of votes he got last year from whoever is not voting this year, it's no more than maybe 4 "extra" votes and, importantly, his support among this year's newbies is still just 67%, short of 75%. It hasn't really changed anything for him. In his 2nd year on the ballot, Helton received just 1 of 9 votes from newbies; 6 of 13 the year after that; now 8 of 12 so far. He may have converted some of those previous newbies (or lost one or two) but that's a baseline of 15 out of 34 newbies in his time on the ballot. Conversions have been a much bigger component of his growth (as will be true for anybody who advances) adding 49 in 2020, 49 again in 2021 and 11 so far this year. (Some of those conversions probably being old newbies of course.)

Looks like Ryan started tracking 1st-time voters in 2015. 2017 was the first year B/C cracked 75% with the 1st-time voters and they've done that every year since but they've never hit 100%.

EDIT: actually looks like it's more 3% turnover per year, not 4%.

There's a ton of ballot real estate which is going to open up after this year (when Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and Schilling are off the ballot). Even moreso if Ortíz is chosen on the 1st ballot. And there's only one really solid candidate coming on the ballot in 2023 (Beltrán) and 2024 (Beltre).

Looking forward, the one player I am rooting for is Rolen, who seems like he should make it in, no later than 2024 (I wasn't particularly a fan of Rolen when he played, but he's the type of guy that I am excited to see being recognized nowadays).

Helton might get some serious traction out of this year, but I'm still fairly sanguine about his chances.

Helton might get some serious traction out of this year, but I'm still fairly sanguine about his chances.

I think he's doing really well, and all the benefits you cited will accrue to him as well. He's made excellent progress each year from his first. He stands at 57% right now, and he only lost 2.4% from his preliminary total last year. If Ortiz goes in, he'll be over 50% and the second highest guy returning to the ballot in his 5th year. That's a very good position to be in.

4, nothing against Helton.

It's just that he has a steeper mountain to climb due to playing in Denver (pun intended).

Once Rolen goes in, likely next year especially if Ortiz makes it this year, Helton is the next in line. I think he's in by 2025 at the latest.

At this point, probably the only way that Helton doesn't make it is if he has the bad luck to have big waves of 1st ballot guys over his last couple of ballots. Otherwise he'll likely plod along adding 5-7% of the vote until a big jump that puts him over. Even if he doesn't make it by the writers, he'll come close enough a VC is almost certain to put him in.

He's also in a good spot because 4 of the 5 voters who've dropped him this year are also B/C voters (and some Schilling/Sosa) and three of those 4 are full ballots so there's a very good chance they'll add him back next year. It would be interesting to look at whether (for non-Vizquel type examples) the number of adds or the overall +/- is a better measure of ballot momentum going forward -- i.e. whether there are any indicators of permanent vs temporary drops. Helton has the most adds of any player, his drops seem mainly about full ballots (i.e. he's 11th or worse on this ballot for those voters) and those ballots are opening up -- the 16 adds might well be more meaningful.

Andruw's similarly situated -- 5 of his 7 drops are full ballots with B/C/etc and the two non-full's are also at least B/C voters. Wagner is a full 5 for 5 in his drops. Both of those guys probably get most of those votes back next year. We could dig deeper but, the bizarre Juan Vene aside, the Helton/Andruw/Wagner drops are mainly the result of losing the battle for the 10th spot on the crowded B/C ballots.

Note, among non-B/C voters so far, there are no full ballots -- one 9, three 8s. The 9 has Helton, Hunter, Andruw, Kent, Ortiz, Schilling, Sheffield, Vizquel and Wagner.

6. SoSH U at work Posted: January 13, 2022 at 12:45 PM (#6060950)
Once Rolen goes in, likely next year especially if Ortiz makes it this year, Helton is the next in line. I think he's in by 2025 at the latest.

Yep, he's following a very typical path so far, and will have a good open road in front of him in the next few years.