Baseball Hall of Fame 2017 announcement: Time, TV schedule, and how to watch online

Tomorrow the BBWAA make their announcement of who they voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Because of Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker we have an idea of who is likely to make it. Ryan has tallied 218 public ballots and 7 more ‘anonymous’ ballots (51.7% of all ballots). Likely to make the Hall are Tim Raines (on 89.8% of the ballots) and Jeff Bagwell (88.4%). Ivan Rodriguez is just above the line (78.2%), he needs to be on 71.9% of the ballots remaining. I have a feeling it will be tight, I’m guessing the ones that have not made their ballots public are ones that are more likely to have fewer names on their ballots.

Vladimir Guerrero (72.0%) and Trevor Hoffman are just short of the 75% needed. They each will need to be on about 79% of the ballots left to make it this year. It is Guerrero’s first time on the ballot, so if he is just short, I’d expect him to make it in the future. It’s Hoffman’s second time, it looks like he will make a pretty decent jump from last year, when he was on 67.3% of the ballots.

I’d be thrilled if Raines makes it. He was one of my favorites when I was first getting into baseball. If Guerrero makes it too, we have a full outfield of Expos, with Andre Dawson already in the Hall. In fact we’d have a center fielder (Dawson), a left fielder (Raines) and a right fielder (Guerrero). Add in a catcher (Gary Carter), and the Expos are fairly well represented. Unfortunately, that’s where it is going to end.

Maybe there will be a surge for Larry Walker. Ryan has him on 23.1% of the known ballots, and this is his 7th time on the ballot. He would have to have a huge surge in votes to make it.

Others of note:

• Barry Bonds is on 62.7% of the known ballots. Last year he was on 44.3%. This is his 5th year.
• Roger Clemens is on 61.8% of the known ballots. He was on 45.2% last year.
• Edgar Martinez is on 66.2%. This is his 8th time on. He’ll need a push in his last 2 years.
• Mike Mussina is on 59.1%. Last year he was on 43.0%. It is his 4th time on.
• Curt Schilling is on 51.1%, pretty close to his 52.3% last year. It is his 5th time on. He is an interesting case, he seems to be doing a reverse campaign, trying to piss off the guys voting. We’ll see how that works out for him.

2017 Baseball Hall of Fame announcement

When: 3-7 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Jan. 18 (announcement at 6 p.m.)

Channel: MLB Network

Stream: MLB.com