Four Major League Baseball players were inducted into the 2018 Hall of Fame class on Thursday: third baseman Chipper Jones, outfielder Vladimir Guerrero, first baseman Jim Thome and closer Trevor Hoffman. Noticeably absent from the list (for the sixth year in a row) are Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
Bonds, the second-greatest hitter of all-time as determined by fWAR, and Clemens, the best pitcher of all time by the same metric, have both failed to reach the 75 percent vote required by the BBWAA for entrance into the Hall. Clemens got 57.3 percent, while Bonds only garnered 56.4 percent - not much of an improvement on their previous years numbers.
One cannot help but speculate that their failure to move up the MVP ranks is tethered to their controversy of the doping era. Bonds, a seven-time MVP, became tangled up in the BALCO doping scandal while Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, spent millions fighting federal criminal charges that he lied to Congress in a 2008 hearing on steroids (allegations that were brought to light by his own personal trainer.)
It's getting down to the wire for these guys to get bumped up on the Baseball Writers Association of America ballots. This was the sixth year on the ballot for Bonds and Clemens, and as the years pass, it gets increasingly less likely the pair will make the Hall of Fame. Both former players' eligibility expires in the year 2022. Then again, stranger things have happened.
Jones, Guerrero, Thome and Hoffman will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in July with Alan Trammell and Jack Morris, who were voted in by the Modern Baseball Era Committee back in December.
