The results of this year’s Hall of Fame voting by the Baseball Writers Association of America will be announced at 2 p.m. EST on Tuesday, January 10. Odds are high that, for the first time since 1996 and only the eighth time in voting history, no one will be elected.

Based on past voting history, the man with the best chance at election is relief pitcher Bruce Sutter, the National League’s 1979 Cy Young Award winner. He is the top returning vote getter among 15 holdovers from last year’s ballot, having received 344 votes and 66.7 percent support from the writers in 2005, third-best behind Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg, both of whom were elected.

Beyond Sutter are three other holdovers with an outside chance at election, outfielders Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, plus reliever Goose Gossage – the only others to garner as much as 50 percent support in last year’s voting. Among those three, Rice received the most support in 2005 (307 votes for 59.5 percent), followed by Gossage (285, 55.2 percent) and Dawson (270, 52.3 percent). The 11 other ballot holdovers include Bert Blyleven (211 votes, for 40.9 percent support last year), Lee Smith (200, 38.8 percent), Jack Morris (172, 33.3 percent), Tommy John (123, 23.8 percent), Steve Garvey (106, 20.5 percent), Alan Trammell (87, 16.9 percent), Dave Parker (65, 12.6 percent), Don Mattingly (59, 11.4 percent), Dave Concepcion (55, 10.7 percent), Dale Murphy (54, 10.5 percent) and Willie McGee (26, 5.0 percent).

This year’s ballot includes 14 newcomers: first basemen Will Clark, Gregg Jefferies and Hal Morris, shortstops Gary DiSarcina, Ozzie Guillen and Walt Weiss, third sacker Gary Gaetti, outfielder Albert Belle, starting pitchers Alex Fernandez, Dwight Gooden and Orel Hershiser, plus relievers Rick Aguilera, Doug Jones and John Wetteland. On the whole, it’s a weak class of ballot freshmen, none of which has a prayer of election this year and only three of whom – Clark, Belle and Hershiser – appear likely to receive the 5 percent minimum approval required to stay on the ballot for 2007.

Last year’s freshman class was another weak group from which Boggs along with holdover Sandberg were elected. McGee was the only other member to (just barely) achieve the five percent support minimum, and 10 others – Jim Abbott, Darryl Strawberry, Jack McDowell, Chili Davis, Tom Candiotti, Jeff Montgomery, Tony Phillips, Terry Steinbach, Mark Langston and Otis Nixon – were dropped from future consideration for failure to achieve the minimum support needed.

The net effect of last year’s weak class was improved support for the ballot holdovers, as reflected by the fact that the mean support percentage for all candidates rose from 16.5 in 2004 to 29.7 last year. Also, among the 15 holdovers on the 2005 ballot, 12 of them received more support than they had in 2004, and the only three whose percentage declined (marginally in each instance) were Garvey, Mattingly and Concepcion.

Given another weak freshman class, a similar trend should manifest in this year’s results, meaning slightly more votes for most of the holdovers. But it will probably not be strong enough to get any of this year’s candidates elected, as no one on this ballot has anything approaching the overall credentials of either Boggs or Sandberg. Discounting the three candidates whose support declined, the average support increase for 2005 was just 5.7 percentage points, and almost half of the total percentage gain was made by just two candidates – Sandberg who jumped 15.1 percentage points from 61.1 percent support in 2004 to 76.2 in 2005, and Gossage, up 14.5 percentage points, from 40.7 in 2004 to 55.2 in 2005.  andberg’s big increase was no surprise, as many had expected him to be a first-ballot electee in 2003.

To gain election, Sutter needs to boost his support figure from the 66.7 percent he earned last time to the required 75, an additional 8.3 percentage points overall. Since the Cooperstown voting began in 1936, there have been 26 occasions when a player jumped from 66.7 percent support or less one year to 75 percent or better the next. But only three of those incidents have occurred since 1980, involving Don Drysdale (1983), Tony Perez (2000) and Sandberg (2005). The prospects are even more daunting for Rice, Gossage, Dawson and the other holdover candidates below them. There have been only eight occasions since 1936 that a candidate with 59.5 percent support or less the previous year achieved 75 percent or better in the following election, and the most recent of those was Joe Cronin, way back in 1956.

The recent absence of big jumps to election is symptomatic of a growing conservatism among the BBWAA voters. In roughly the first three decades of Cooperstown voting, the average BBWAA ballot included nine names out of a possible 10. But that average fell below seven names for the first time in the early 1990s, and was only 6.1 per ballot for the 14 elections from 1992 to 2005, including an all-time low of just 5.4 names per ballot in 1998 and four other occasions when the yearly average was below six.

A major cause of this conservatism has been a growing fixation upon anointing players who achieve one of Cooperstown’s de facto standards for election (500 home runs, 3,000 hits or 300 pitching victories) while refusing – relative to voters from previous eras – to support other men with less-obvious credentials. Among the 21 players elected by the scribes during 1992 and 2005, 13 of them (61.9 percent) achieved at least one de facto standard, and all but two of them were elected in their first year eligible. In contrast, the 25 men enshrined during the 14 elections of 1978 to 91 included only 11 de facto qualifiers (44 percent), eight of whom were first-ballot electees. Consistent with growing favoritism for de facto candidates, the 1978-91 period included six men elected in their first year on the ballot who were not de facto qualifiers (Bob Gibson, Brooks Robinson, Willie Stargell, Johnny Bench, Jim Palmer and Joe Morgan), while the 1992-2005 period saw only three (Kirby Puckett, Ozzie Smith and Dennis Eckersley). The upshot is that first-year election is becoming ever more reserved for 500-homer, 3,000-hit and 300-victory men.

Reinforcing that trend, the highest percentage of available votes cast during the 1992-2005 period came in 1999, when the scribes elected three de facto candidates, each in their first time on the ballot. The Hall’s front-line electors averaged 6.8 names per ballot that year, but 1,364 of the 3,364 votes cast (40.5 percent) went to Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount. The inevitable result of this trend, if it hasn’t totally manifested already, must be that it will become increasingly difficult for any candidate who lacks de facto numbers to gain first-year election (and perhaps anointment by the BBWAA altogether).

As evidenced by the table below, the trend favoring de facto qualifiers also may have spawned an era of increased reluctance by many BBWAA electors to re-evaluate the credentials of holdover candidates on an annual basis. The table compares the voting performance of all players elected by the BBWAA during the periods 1936-91 and 1992-2005, with both eras broken into subgroups comprising de facto and non-de facto qualifiers. The first four data columns include the number of years during each period when elections were held (Yrs), the total number of players elected during each period (Plyrs), the average number of times each Hall of Famer appeared on the ballot prior to his election (TOB), and the number of men elected in the first-year eligible (1YE). The final three columns compare the average support percentage received in the first year on the ballot (1Yr%) to the average support percentage received upon election (EYr%), and the average per-player percentage points improvement (Change) between those first and last years. Note that the data does not include numbers for Lou Gehrig or Roberto Clemente, who were enshrined by special elections in which their successful voting percentage is currently unknown.

Era		Yrs	Plyrs	TOB	1YE	1Yr%	EYr%	Change
1936-1991	De Facto	47	30	2.2	17	67.2	85.6	18.4
1936-1991	Non-De Facto	47	50	6.3	10	35.0	82.9	47.9
1936-1991	Overall	47	80	4.8	27	47	83.9	36.9
1992-2005	De Facto	14	13	1.6	11	86.8	89.8	3
1992-2005	Non-De Facto	14	7	3.3	3	66.4	81.1	14.7
1992-2005	Overall	14	20	2.2	14	79.7	86.8	7.1

If the BBWAA voters are diligent about annually re-evaluating the credentials of each man on the ballot, relative to ongoing changes in the Cooperstown roster, then players who begin their Hall of Fame candidacy with relatively low-support scores on their first ballot will have a better chance to gain election in the long run. Evidence of that improved chance will manifest in a high average for the support-percent change between their first year eligible and their election. Commensurately, a low average-percent change is indicative that players with low support in their first year eligible improve their scores only marginally over time and therefore receive little re-evaluation from voters.

The data above could not be much more clear-cut. The average Hall of Famer elected prior to 1992 saw his support percentage increase by 36.9 percentage points between his first year on the ballot and the year of his election. In stark contrast, those elected during 1992-2005 saw their support percentage rise, on average, just 7.1 percentage points. Note also that the dramatic differences in average support-percentage change are consistent for each era, regardless of whether or not a given candidate possessed de facto credentials. As an aside, note also that the recent preference for de facto candidates is also evidenced by the fact that the average number of ballots it took to elect each of them declined from 2.2 during 1936-91 to just 1.6 during 1992-2005.

Some of these changes obviously reflect the fact that, in the early years of Cooperstown voting, there was no strong consensus about what, precisely, constituted legitimate credentials for a Hall of Famer, and that – as time has passed – the definition has become more clear-cut, perhaps requiring less ongoing evaluation for each candidate. But, all the same, the growing failure to annually re-evaluate each candidate’s credentials violates the spirit of the Hall’s 15-year period of ballot eligibility, which is intended to serve as a window of changing perspective as each player’s relative credentials are clarified by the passage of time.

Coupled with continued failures to elect anyone at all by the reconstituted Veterans Committee, the end result of these voting trends could well prove to be a climate in which only de facto qualifiers get elected by the writers, reduction or elimination of the 15-year period for BBWAA eligibility, and elimination of the VC altogether – as, after all, why continue an expensive process which seems capable only of rubber-stamping the BBWAA’s presumed “collective wisdom?” But, if any of those results should come to pass, it will be a great injustice to many players who slip through the BBWAA process unrewarded.

Beyond the four top candidates from last year, the most interesting person on this year’s ballot should be pitcher Blyleven. In his first year on the ballot (1998), he received just 17.5 percent support, which dropped to 14.1 in 1999. Since then, however, his number has climbed steadily –17.4 percent in 2000, 23.5 in 2001, 26.3 in 2002, 29.2 in 2003, 35.4 in 2004, and 40.9 in 2005 ── so it’s clear that some of the BBWAA voters have re-assessed his credentials on an annual basis, with increasingly positive results. All the same, it seems doubtful that Blyleven can do much better than break into (or, more likely, approach) the 50 percent support level in 2006, as there is no reason to expect a major shakeup in the relative pecking order from 2005.

Among the newcomers, either Clark or Belle figures to receive the most support. But neither seems likely to earn as much as 25 percent of the possible votes, probably considerably less; and Belle’s support will no doubt be diminshed by his history of confrontation with the press. It will be marginally interesting to see whether Clark, who (rightly or wrongly in 1987 and 1989) never won an MVP, scores better or worse this time than fellow first sacker and one-time MVP Garvey, who received 41.6 percent support in his first year (1993) but has declined ever since. As noted earlier, in addition to Clark and Belle, the only other newcomer who seems likely to receive 5 percent support or better is pitcher Hershiser – and his chances for remaining on the ballot in 2007 seem no better than about 60-40. Among the other newcomers, only Gaetti and Gooden appear likely to receive slightly more than token votes, but don’t look for either on the 2007 ballot.