With the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame class expected to be announced Wednesday, Phillies alumnus Jim Thome will likely be selected.
The Baseball Writer’s Association of America will announce the 2018 Hall of Fame class Wednesday night at 6 p.m. on MLB Network. Most of the ballots that will be announced publicly have been, with 213 of the estimated 424 (51.2 percent) ballots known according to Ryan Thibodaux’s tracker. As it stands now, one former Phillies player will be inducted.
Jim Thome has been voted for on 201 of the 213 public ballots, the third-highest percentage of the vote (92.6 percent) behind only Vlad Guerrero and Chipper Jones. He has been notably left off several Boston sportswriters’ ballots, but Thome has still garnered a large percentage of the vote.
Thome’s name needs to be on 56.5 percent of the remaining ballots to maintain the 75 percent threshold, which he should have no trouble doing. It is extremely likely that Thome will be inducted this year, perhaps in the largest group since the 1936 class of Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson.
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Other former Phils have not fared as well in the vote. Curt Schilling is the only other one that still has a chance to make it this year. He has received 62.2 percent of the vote on public ballots, a significant rise from his 45 percent total in 2017. Schilling would have to be on 183 of the remaining 207 ballots to be inducted. However, he continues to trend upwards in his sixth year of eligibility and could make his way to that 75 percent mark in the next few years.
Billy Wagner and Scott Rolen have been mathematically eliminated from being inducted this year, receiving 10.6 and 12 percent of the vote, respectively. Wagner has received about the same percentage of the vote as he did last year, while this is Rolen’s first year on the ballot. They both have enough votes to remain eligible, so they can try their luck again next year.
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The other three eligible Phillies haven’t appeared on any ballot. Brad Lidge, Jamie Moyer, and Kevin Millwood will likely be eliminated from the ballot after this year. Moyer and Lidge will be remembered fondly in Philadelphia for their role on the 2008 World Series team, but it doesn’t appear they will have a chance to make it to Cooperstown.