MLB: What Might the 2017 Baseball Hall of Fame Class Look Like?
Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Trevor Hoffman
The Hall of Fame cases for each of Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Trevor Hoffman are varied, and all three narrowly missed out on election this go around. Each has a good chance of being among those enshrined in 2017.
Bagwell fell just 15 votes shy this year, his sixth on the ballot, and is likely the victim of the era in which he played. Though no evidence of PED use has ever linked the former Houston Astros first baseman to artificial enhancement, just about every player from the 1990s and early 2000s tends to be guilty until proven innocent. Bagwell slashed .297/.408/.540 in his 15 seasons, good for a career OPS+ mark of 149 and 79.6 bWAR. He currently sits tied for 38th all-time with 449 home runs, drove in over 1,500 runs, was the unanimous National League Most Valuable Player in 1994, and boasts Gray Ink, Hall of Fame Monitor, and Hall of Fame Standards rankings that bode well for induction.
The former Montreal Expos great Raines, who will be in his tenth and final year on the regular ballot, appears to have had his candidacy suffer from comparison to Rickey Henderson, his contemporary and competition for the title of greatest leadoff hitter of his generation. Raines had a career slash line of .294/.385/.425, good for a 123 OPS+ and 69.1 bWAR in 23 seasons, and ranks fifth all-time with 808 stolen bases. The Rock missed out on election in 2016 by just 23 votes, and while his Hall of Fame metric scores are slightly below average, he could well join Andre Dawson and the late Gary Carter as the third player to be inducted in an Expos cap.
Unlike Bagwell and Raines, Hoffman was a newcomer to the ballot, and garnered 67.3 percent in the voting, falling 34 votes short. A beneficiary of former closers who have reached the Hall in the recent past, Hoffman spent 18 years in the big leagues and sits second all-time in saves, just behind Mariano Rivera, with 601. Known for his devastating changeup, he was seven times an All-Star and has a Hall of Fame Standards ranking that points to his future in Cooperstown.
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