What to watch for on Hall of Fame election night

It's Hall of Fame announcement day, which means two things: Several of the greatest players in baseball history are about to become immortalized forever, and far more attention will be paid to those very good-to-great players who aren't elected this year, for a variety of reasons.

Personally, I think it's a real shame that we spend way more time and energy arguing over who didn't get in than celebrating who did get in. But that's the world we live in today. Why celebrate positives when we can complain about negatives?

I'll be publishing my ballot shortly after the official results are announced at 6 p.m. Eastern time, and I'm sure that will produce plenty of healthy debate. I'm also planning to take your questions tomorrow morning in a Q&A here on the blog.

Before any of that, though, let's preview what to watch for in tonight's announcement ...

HOW CLOSE TO 100 PERCENT DO JONES AND THOME GET?
There were two first-timers on the 33-player ballot this year who sure looked like automatic inductees: Chipper Jones and Jim Thome. Jones is one of the three greatest switch-hitters of all-time (with Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray). Thome is eighth all-time on the home run list and 18th all-time in OPS. So it's clear each will surpass the 75 percent threshold needed for election. The only question is by how much will each clear the bar. Jones is going to be the higher of the two, probably surpassing 95 percent. Thome likely won't be that high, but he could top 90 percent as he sails into Cooperstown.

HOW MANY OF LAST YEAR'S NEAR-MISSES GET IN THIS YEAR?
Trevor Hoffman (74 percent) and Vladimir Guerrero (71.7 percent) came oh-so-close to election last January. The good news is that history shows nearly every player who gets that close and still has eligibility to return to the ballot the following year does get in. So there's every reason to believe both Hoffman and Guerrero are going to make it. There's less certainty about Edgar Martinez. The great Mariners DH received only 58.6 percent of the vote last year, but he has remained above the magic 75 percent mark among the more than 200 publicly released ballots prior to tonight's announcement, according to Ryan Thibodaux's outstanding Hall of Fame Tracker. The hunch here is that those who don't make their ballots public in advance are less inclined to vote for Martinez than those who do, meaning he falls a little short this year and is now positioned to clear the bar next year. But it's probably going to be close, and certainly not written in stone.

WILL BONDS AND CLEMENS MAKE SIGNIFICANT GAINS?
There's no question both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have been on a steady, upward track for three years now. Each received roughly 37 percent of the vote in 2015, 45 percent in 2016 and 54 percent in 2017. And each were named on about 64 percent of the pre-announcement released ballots. The final number tonight almost certainly will be lower than that - again, those who don't publicly release their ballots tend to be harsher toward players connected to performance-enhancing drugs - but it's clear both Bonds and Clemens are inching toward the day when they have a real shot at getting in. If they're well into the 60s this year (their sixth out of 10 on the ballot) we're probably looking at the reckoning in either 2019 or 2020.

WHO ARE THE OTHER BIG GAINERS?
None of these players will be elected this year, but several have quietly seen their support rise over several years and appear to be gaining the kind of traction that eventually results in enshrinement. Mike Mussina started out at 20.3 percent in 2014; he had 70.9 percent support among voters who revealed their ballots in advance. Curt Schilling, despite ups and downs no doubt related to the offensive things he has said and published post-retirement, was at 61.4 percent on pre-announcement balloting. And Larry Walker, who bottomed out at 10.2 percent in 2014, was at 39 percent in pre-announcement balloting. Can any of the three gain enough votes this year to but put into prime position for election next year?

HOW MANY OTHER FIRST-TIMERS STAY ON THE BALLOT?
Perhaps the most tangible drawback of the rule that limits every participant to a maximum of 10 votes is the unfortunate position it leaves several first-time candidates who don't have obvious cases for induction right now but do merit a further look in future years. Problem is, in order to return to the ballot the following year, a player must receive at least five percent of the vote. And that leaves Omar Vizquel, Scott Rolen, Andruw Jones and Johan Santana in a precarious spot tonight. Vizquel shouldn't have trouble clearing the 5 percent bar, but the others are in danger of falling off the ballot after only one try. Given how many others have seen their support steadily rise from afterthought to near-induction or even induction over the years, that would really be unfortunate.