Bonds, Clemens come up short in HOF vote again

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will have to wait at least one more year before being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Annual Hall of Fame voting percentage

Four players were elected into the Hall on Tuesday, but Bonds and Clemens came up short. Both made moderate progress, though neither saw their support improve by more than three percent.

Bonds was the most fearsome hitter of his era if not the history of baseball. Over 22 seasons split between the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates, the seven-time MVP slashed .298/.444/.607 with 762 home runs (an MLB record), 1,996 RBIs, and 2,558 walks.

Clemens pitched 24 seasons while playing for the Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros. He won seven Cy Young Awards while posting a 354-184 record and a 3.12 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, and 8.6 K/9.

Both players have the specter of performance-enhancing drugs looming over their Hall of Fame credentials. Based on the numbers alone, they would have easily been elected to Cooperstown in their first years of eligibility. Neither player has admitted to PED-use, nor were they ever suspended for testing positive.

Still, they have each seen their support gradually rise over the last few years, with both players reaching their highest watermark in voting percentage in 2019. With three years of eligibility remaining from the Baseball Writers' Association of America, Bonds and Clemens still have an uphill battle to the requisite 75 percent threshold for induction.