Let me explain: There are two outcomes I really want to see happen this year. I want to see Tim Raines, the greatest modern day leadoff hitter among those who don’t charmingly refer to themselves in the third person as Rickey, elected in his final year on the ballot. And I want to see Manny Ramirez, one of the most electrifying, entertaining and yes, enigmatic Red Sox sluggers we will ever see, to get a second year on the ballot.

Baseball Hall of Fame ballots don’t have to be postmarked until Dec. 31. The Cooperstown class of 2017 won’t be announced until Jan. 18. Voters are just starting to receive their ballots in the mail, which means there’s still plenty of time and room to debate this year’s potential electees. The Hall of Fame debate is perhaps my favorite annual sports topic. Yet I already find myself prepared for a disappointing outcome and ticked off about how I suspect the voting might go. I’m pre-peeved.


There’s a decent chance of the former happening. Raines received 69.8 percent of the vote last year, a significant leap from 55 percent the year before. Presuming there’s a final year bump, he’ll get his just rewards. But man, it’s going to be close. It’s a deep ballot, and a few panderers will waste votes on the likes of Jorge Posada, and in that environment asking for a 5.2 percent leap in the final year feels like a steep request right now.

Yes, Jim Rice got a 4.2 percent bump in 2009, his final year, going from 72.2 percent to 76.4 percent. But it was a thinner and less contentious ballot then, and remember: if Raines gets a matching 4.2 percent bump, he doesn’t make it. As a New England child of the ’70s, I’m glad Rice is in, but he was inferior to Raines as ballplayer in at least a half-dozen ways. I’ve got this sinking feeling Raines is going to fall two or three votes short, and that will include a few dingbats who voted for him last year but couldn’t squeeze him on the ballot this year. Sure hope I’m wrong. I worry that I’m not.


As for Manny, it speaks to the do-it-your-way state of interpreting the PED era that one of the greatest hitters and most compelling players of his generation has about as much chance of getting elected this year as Casey Blake. Manny made the mistake — or I should say, the mistakes — of failing multiple PED tests after Major League Baseball and the union got around to implementing testing in 2003. Never mind that steroids had been on the banned substances list since 1991. The timing and perceived brazenness of Ramirez’s failed tests have conveniently eliminated him from consideration for some voters — and I suspect there is some overlap there with voters who continue to check names like Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and perhaps even Sammy Sosa. It’s a cop out to rationalize one similar choice over another.

Putting a post-testing timestamp on Ramirez’s candidacy is conveniently hypocritical, which is also an apt description of judging every qualified player who has been linked, with or without conviction, proof or fairness, to PEDs. We have a fraction of knowledge about who did what and to what degree in the PED era — tell me again who the other 99 names were on the 2003 list of positive tests beyond Ramirez, Sosa, David Ortiz, and Alex Rodriguez. That’s right, we don’t know. But I bet it would change perceptions, and I guarantee you there are multiple PED users already in the Hall of Fame. We just don’t know who they are yet, though suspicions are easily produced. I honestly hope an earth-shattering name of an already inducted player is revealed in the next couple of years. The chaos might be beneficial.


I say this as a completionist, of course. I’m the kid who coveted ’78 baseball cards of Kiko Garcia and Gene Pentz to complete a set rather than hoarding Eddie Murray rookies. To me, a Hall of Fame without Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds, among others, has vacancies it should not. Acknowledge their travails and scandals on their plaque. Put an asterisk on their giant cap. But they should be there. A Hall of Fame with Craig Biggio, Bruce Sutter, and Tony Perez but without Bonds, Clemens, or Manny feels woefully and arbitrarily incomplete.

For those of you who don’t want any PED users inducted and would prefer to unjustly leave a clean player out on suspicion and speculation rather than induct a “cheater,” you’ll be glad to know I do not have a vote, and won’t for a few years. I’m entering my third year as a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, which I believe means I’ll have my first vote in 2024. I’m already curious about who might be on the ballot then — maybe there will be a few guys already on the ballot still hanging around, like Gary Sheffield. I suppose Ichiro will still be playing.


It doesn’t stop me from thinking about what I’d do now, though. For posterity’s sake — and to give you some ammunition — here’s who would make my ballot this year:

Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Jeff Kent.

A couple of thoughts on that Hypothetical 10:

Schilling: In real life, I wouldn’t vote for him for anything other than dogcatcher in a town full of rabid strays, but it would be a shame if his personality costs him his due in the Hall of Fame balloting. He should be in already, and hopefully will be again someday. Excuse me while I mute the speech.

Bagwell: To me, the warped and arbitrary thought-processes on the Hall of Fame are no more embarrassingly evident than this: Craig Biggio is in the Hall of Fame and Bagwell is not simply because Bagwell looked like he might have used steroids. There is no one — no one — outside of Biggio’s immediate family and perhaps a stray Lou Gorman apologist or two who thinks of Biggio before Bagwell when considering those excellent ’90s Astros teams.

Martinez: The Mariners’ exquisite designated hitter isn’t getting elected this year. He got 43.4 percent of the vote last year, seventh-most among returnees. But I expect he will someday, and by the time David Ortiz is eligible in 2021, Martinez will have paved the way to Cooperstown for DHs.


Pudge Rodriguez: He’s this year’s Damaged Candidate of Petty Suspicion. That paragon of virtue Jose Canseco said he was a PED user in his 2005 book, and he did have an eye-opening muscle-mass fluctuation after testing was implemented. But as far as we know he never failed a test. But the 13-time Gold Glove winner is on the short list of the greatest defensive catchers of all-time, and he hit 311 homers in a 21-year career. He belongs in the Hall of Fame, and on the first ballot.

As for the Honorable Mentions:

Close but no plaque this time around: Larry Walker, Trevor Hoffman, Vlad Guerrero, Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield.

I don’t have an issue with any of these guys being on another voter’s ballot. Guerrero and Sheffield each hit more than 400 homers and had an identical adjusted OPS of 140. (Have to wonder how Red Sox history might be different had George Steinbrenner preferred Guerrero to Sheffield after the ’03 season.) Hoffman is the all-time saves leader, though beyond being a superior compiler I’m not sure he was better than down-ballot candidate Billy Wagner. Walker was a superb all-around player who was overlooked in Montreal and gets punished for playing in hitter-haven Coors Field. (Loved John Smoltz’s comparison of Kris Bryant to Walker during the World Series.) And Sosa is eighth all-time in homers (609) yet has never received more than 12.5 percent of the vote. Are we sure he doesn’t deserve more consideration? Maybe he wasn’t a total fraud?

As for a couple of interesting if underqualified names that made the exclusive cut of 19 newcomers who join the 15 holdover candidates on the ballot:

Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield: They’re locks for the Red Sox Hall of Fame, having played a combined 32 years for the franchise during the most fulfilling modern period in its history. Heck, they’re the type of very-good-but-not-great-mainstays for which the Red Sox shrine was created. But if you think either is worthy of celebration at Cooperstown, you should take off the carmine-colored glasses before checking out the ballot. Bet Varitek gets a vote or two, a waste of a tribute in a year in which so many candidates are deserving of real consideration.

Edgar Renteria, Orlando Cabrera, and Julio Lugo: Three of the post-Nomar Red Sox shortstops are on the ballot for the first time this year. Renteria had the highest career WAR (32.4), but Cabrera is the one who would get any theoretical thank-you-for-your-service votes from the Boston precinct.

J.D. Drew: Wouldn’t vote for him this year, but only because he deserves to be inducted the same year as his brother Stephen, a still-thriving major leaguer. Hey, we’ve all got our biases.

Chad Finn can be reached at finn@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeChadFinn.