Predicting Baseball's 2019 Hall of Fame Class

Who's bound for the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019? We won't know until January, when voting results are announced.

While we wait, here are some educated guesses, based on trends, stats and a dollop of gut feeling. But before we get to the presumed inductees, let's examine...

New Notables

A number of notable players will get their first crack at enshrinement in 2019. Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, Lance Berkman and Andy Pettitte, among others, will appear for the first time.

Helton should warrant consideration, but in a world where Larry Walker doesn't have a plaque—presumably at least in part because of the perceived Coors Field effect—it's hard to imagine he gets in, and certainly not on the first try.

Berkman, too, is worthy of consideration. But, fair or not, the fact that he fell shy of 2,000 hits (with 1,905) and 400 homers (with 366) dampens his chances.

Pettitte might be the most interesting case. With 256 career wins and five World Series rings, he carved his place in baseball history.

Bill Kostroun/Associated Press

He also never won a Cy Young Award, was named in the infamous Mitchell Report and admitted to using human growth hormone.

Speaking of which...

The Holdovers

Oh, here we go.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens both belong in the Hall of Fame.

Bonds is the all-time leader for career and single-season home runs next to a raft of other accolades and accomplishments. Clemens is a seven-time Cy Young Award winner and ranks third on the list of all-time strikeout leaders.

Counterargument: Both players were implicated in baseball's steroid era and should be kept out of the Hall of Fame for moral reasons.

You already know where you come down in that particular debate, so we're not going to try to convince you one way or the other.

Last year, Bonds got 56.4 percent of the vote and Clemens got 57.3 percent. As an aside, if you're a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America who cast a "yes" for Clemens and a "no" for Bonds, you need to turn in your credentials now. Like, seriously.

At any rate, Bonds and Clemens figure to hang around, short of induction but well above elimination, while MLB wrestles with its history of performance-enhancing drugs.

Uncredited/Associated Press

"Things are definitely turning around for the better," Bonds said in January, per MLB.com's Barry M. Bloom. "I only have so many years left. So, 2021? That's going to be fun. And they're going to put us in together? That'd be great."

Beyond the PED conundrum, voters will consider Edgar Martinez, the greatest designated hitter of all time, along with Mike Mussina and Curt Schilling.

All three surpassed 50 percent of the vote in 2018, but none is a shoo-in for enshrinement. Schilling appears to have been dinged for his controversial political leanings and borderline statistical case. Mussina might be stuck in good-not-great purgatory, though his vote total rose to 63.5 percent in 2018.

Martinez, meanwhile, is the test case for whether a DH can gain HOF entry, and his 70.4 percent vote total in 2018 put him on the doorstep.

The Inductees

So, who's getting a plaque in Cooperstown in 2019?

Rivera, the all-time saves leader with 652, has all the trappings of a first-ballot lock. He's a lifetime New York Yankee, a postseason legend and the platonic ideal of a closer. In a world where it took Trevor Hoffman only three years, Rivera should do it in one.

Martinez got close enough in 2018 to suggest he might vault over the 75 percent threshold. It's also his final year of eligibility, though there are other avenues for future induction.

Instead, we'll pick a different player to join Rivera in the '19 class.

That would be Halladay, whose 203 wins, 2,117 strikeouts, two Cy Young Awards, perfect game and postseason no-hitter compose a strong if not unimpeachable HOF resume.

Pouya Dianat/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images

With Halladay's tragic death in November still fresh in the minds of voters, his induction may come sooner than previously expected.

Martinez could make it a trio, but it says here it'll be Rivera and Halladay in 2019, while the Bonds/Clemens PED can gets kicked down the road.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball Reference.