Hall of Fame Breakdown: Third Base

We’re 13 days away from the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement, and based on the Hall of Fame tracker results—more than one-third of the estimated ballots are in—we can make a few reasonable predictions, including this: Four players have a reasonable shot this year. FOUR!

I don’t think all four will get in. But let’s offer up a very brief update:

• Adrián Beltré is in. We knew that already, but it now seems clear that he will get in the mid- to high-90s-percentage range, placing him with all-timers. More on him below.

• Todd Helton is probably in. He’s polling at 81.6% as I write this, and while that’s no guarantee that he’ll get the necessary 75%—last year, he did much poorer among those who didn’t reveal their ballots—I think he will get the extra 11 votes he needs coming off last year.

• Joe Mauer, I think, might be in, guys. This is so exciting. He’s polling at 83.1% right now, which I have to admit is a much stronger showing than I was anticipating. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why he would do a lot worse among the private voters. As a huge Mauer fan—some of you old-timers might remember the Joe Mauer Power Hour posts I used to write?—I just couldn’t be more jazzed about the possibilities.

• Billy Wagner has a shot. I’d say it’s still a bit of a long shot because he’s a guy who does get a lot less support among the private voters, but he’s up near 79%, so there’s a real possibility here.

In addition, right now Gary Sheffield is at exactly 75%. We’ll see how that number moves as we get closer to the actual announcement day, but that’s a pretty big jump from the 55% he got last year. I’m rooting for Sheffield for a lot of reasons, which we can get into later when we talk about the corner outfielders.

OK, let’s move on to third basemen*! Once again, the percentages listed below are from the JoeBlogs Hall of Fame survey:

*Oh, you should know that below I took 20 minutes to list the greatest every-day player ever for all 30 teams. I’ll probably build on that in the coming days. Just mentioning in case, you know, you thought this might be a good time to subscribe! And if you do think this is a good time to subscribe, hey, here’s 20% off! I’ll keep this offer going until the end of the week!