Derek Jeter and Larry Walker gained admission into Cooperstown Tuesday. Jeter got 99.7 percent of votes cast and Walker in his 10th and final year of eligibility crossed the line with 76.6 percent (a candidate needs 75 percent of votes cast to enter the Hall) and will be inducted in late July alongside Marvin Miller and Ted Simmons, who were elected by the Modern Era Committee in December. Nick Cafardo will receive the J.G. Taylor Spink Award posthumously and Ken The Hawk Harrelson will be honored as the Ford C. Frick Award winner for excellence in baseball broadcasting.

Schill one of the most dynamic and controversial figures in Red Sox history will have to wait another winter. In his eighth year on the ballot, the Big Lug garnered 70 percent of the vote, 5 percent and 20 votes shy of induction. This means that Schilling one year from now will be the top vote-getter and stroll into Cooperstown.

Schills case for the Hall is complex. The myth of him not getting into Cooperstown a fable Schilling prefers is that he is being denied because of his political opinions.

Bogus. Schills latter-day, off-the-rails rants and social media posts are not singularly what has kept him out. He is simply not a slam-dunk Hall candidate.

Schilling is not in the Hall yet because he is a borderline candidate in terms of baseball achievement. Put Schillings numbers up against those of Luis Tiant and Orel Hershiser. Tiant and Hershiser are not in the Hall of Fame. Is Schilling clearly better than them? No, he is not.

Schilling was a starting pitcher with a sparse 216 career wins. Sorry, but only guys such as Sandy Koufax (165 career wins) and Pedro Martinez (219 wins) get into the Hall with that kind of win total. And Schill is neither Koufax nor Pedro. Schillings win total is fewer than that of Jerry Reuss (220). His ERA (3.46) is higher than that of Kevin Browns (3.28). None of those pitchers are in the Hall of Fame.

Go to Schillings page on the trusty Baseball Reference website. In the similarity scores section, Schill is compared with pitchers with equitable numbers. None of the first nine listed (including Bob Welch, Brown, and Hershiser) are in the Hall of Fame.

Schilling gets bonus points for being 11-2 in the postseason (opportunity was greater in his era thats how Bernie Williams got to be the guy with the most postseason homers for a while). Schilling also was quite possibly the greatest strike machine of the 20th century (his walk-strikeout ratio is off the charts), but he is by no means a Cooperstown lock. He has not been denied because of his opinions. He has been denied because he is a bubble candidate.

And as a borderline candidate, he has given on the fence voters reasons not to give him the benefit of the doubt. It doesnt help when you call Adam Jones a liar because you dont believe any fan at Fenway would drop the N-word on Jones. It doesnt help when you state that a tweet that favors lynching journalists is so much awesome. It doesnt help when you get fired from ESPN for offensive comments and tweets. It doesnt help when have to explain your Nazi memorabilia collection.

But that isnt likely to matter next year. Next year, his ninth on the ballot, Schilling will be the returnee with the highest number of votes from the year before. And there are no Hall-worthy new candidates on next years ballot (Tim Hudson, Torii Hunter, Barry Zito, Aramis Ramirez). This means that BBWAA members who vote for the best 10 players on the ballot (misguided voting, in my view) rather than the true Hall of Famers on the ballot are going to check the box next to Schillings name.

He is getting in next year. Unless he sets himself on fire.

Curt Schilling will be honored in Cooperstown.

Swell.

Think Ill sit this one out.

Original post:
Curt Schilling misses out on Hall of Fame, but hell get in next year - The Boston Globe