The official results of the BBWAA vote for the 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame class are set to be announced on Tuesday, January 26, on MLB Network.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, there are no veterans committee inductees for this Hall of Fame class.

In fact, the only way to Cooperstown this year, is to be included on at least 75 percent of eligible ballots.

Currently, the number of players meeting that requirement stands at… Wait for it… Zero.

That is, according to the most recent update from Ryan Thibodaux and his HOF Ballot Tracker.

With close to 45 percent of the expected ballots counted publicly, here’s a look at the top ten players, only five that are over 50 percent.

Curt Schilling 74.4%
Barry Bonds 72.2%
Roger Clemens 71.6%
Scott Rolen 62.5%
Todd Helton 51.1%
Billy Wagner 46.6%
Gary Sheffield 46.6%
Andruw Jones 40.9%
Omar Vizquel 40.3%
Manny Ramirez 33.0%

Last month, I was honored to cast my first ballot with the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA).

Honestly, I find the members of the IBWAA to be much more knowledgeable and more in tune with today’s game than many of the BBWAA writers.

Some of the best and most insightful baseball writers in the game can be found at the IBWAA including Mark Simon, Eno Sarris, Julie DiCaro, Dayne Perry, Ken Rosenthal and Mike Petriello to name a few.

Last week, the IBWAA announced its 2021 Hall of Fame results and not surprisingly, we didn’t elect one player. Curt Schilling came closest with 65% of the vote, but still fell short of the 75% threshold.

So far, it appears that the official BBWAA voting is trending in the same way.

I wanted to share my first ever IBWAA Hall of Fame ballot with all of you, because I’m a glutton for punishment.

A quick note though, both Barry Bonds and Rogers Clemens did not appear on our ballot because they were already elected by the IBWAA in 2018. (Like I said, more knowledgeable!)

While I could’ve voted for ten players, I ended up selecting just five players. So with apologies to Jeff Kent and Gary Sheffield — who almost made the cut — here are the five players I voted for…

  1. Andruw Jones – 434 HR, 1,289 RBI, 10 GG, 62.7 WAR,  54.6 JAWS 
  2. Todd Helton  – .316/.414/.539, 592 2B, 367 HR, 61.8 WAR, 51.2 JAWS 
  3. Billy Wagner – 422 Saves, 2.31 ERA, 0.998 WHIP, 27.7 WAR, 23.7 JAWS 
  4. Scott Rolen – 517 2B, 337 HR, .855 OPS, 8 GG, 70.1 WAR, 56.9 JAWS 
  5. Curt Schilling – 216 W, 3,116 K, 1.137 WHIP, 79.5 WAR,  64.1 JAWS

Okay, so before you start chucking rotten eggs and tomatoes at me, please hear me out…

I do not deny that Curt Schilling is a first class douche bag. His inflammatory remarks about the Capitol riot were certainly reprehensible. The terrible things he has said about women and transgenders, and journalists too, are well documented on social media. He’s an awful, awful, awful person… But one thing Curt Schilling is not, is a cheater.

We can argue the pros and cons of players who cheated being denied enshrinement all you want, but we cannot and should not turn the Hall of Fame voting into a check on one’s morality and integrity. Schilling has a right to his views –no matter how extreme and offensive they may be.

Schilling’s Hall of Fame credentials speak for themselves. One of the game’s best postseason performers, he boasts an 11-2 record, 2.23 ERA, 120 strikeouts and only 25 walks in 133 1/3 innings over 19 starts — an incredible accomplishment.

Before documenting his regular season achievements, which are quite impressive as well, Schilling has a JAWS of 64.1 for his career.

JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness. A player’s JAWS is their career WAR averaged with their 7-year peak WAR.

Since 1900, all 24 pitchers with at least a 64.1 JAWS are in the Hall of Fame except for one pitcher — Roger Clemens.

A six-time All-Star, Schilling ranks 15th all-time in strikeouts (3,116) and is one of only five pitchers with at least 3,000 career strikeouts and fewer than 1,000 walks. He ranks eighth all-time in strikeout-to-walk ratio (4.383) and first in that category among non-active pitchers who pitched after 1900.

Schilling set a single-season postseason record with 56 strikeouts in 2001, and shared the World Series MVP Award with Randy Johnson that year.

He wrapped up his career with 216 wins, a 3.46 ERA, 1.136 WHIP, and an astonishing 79.5 WAR.

Former Met Tom Glavine was asked by ESPN to weigh in on applying a “character clause” toward Schilling.

“Maybe you think a guy used PEDs, or maybe he didn’t. Or you think, ‘He’s a guy I never really liked or got along with.’ If you’re looking for a reason to justify not voting for somebody when their numbers are on the cusp, you can say, ‘Let’s go with the character clause.’

“It’s funny. There’s a lot of discussion you can have on the merits of Curt Schilling. But I don’t think his political views should play into that. That had nothing to do with his baseball career.”

I believe it would be very regrettable if we were to start applying a litmus test for decency to get into the Hall of Fame.

Schilling has said and done some incredibly awful things over the last few years, that have offended plenty of people including myself.  I wish that in good conscience I could be a dissenting voice against his enshrinement… but I can’t.