Ringo: Hall-worthy players still overlooked

The early projections for this year’s induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame are promising.

There could be as many as five players enshrined by the vote of eligible members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, which would make the biggest group of BBWAA selections since five inductees were honored in the first Hall of Fame ceremony in 1936.

The idea that first-time eligible Ivan Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero along with holdovers Tim Raines, Trevor Hoffman and Jeff Bagwell could be honored July 30 in Cooperstown would emphasis that the voting members are beginning to back down from a hard-line approach that saw no players inducted in 2012, setting up a log jam of candidates.

It, however, would still leave a lengthy list of worthy candidates who have come up short of the necessary 75 percent support from the voters to be enshrined, although a strong increase in the vote total for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, victims of a boycott because of suspicions about performance-enhancing drug use, provides reason to believe in the next year or so the best hitter and pitcher of their generation will finally be honored.

With the possibility of five inductees this summer, the 10 most worthy but so far overlooked Hall of Famers include:

Current BBWAA ballot

• Bonds. The game’s all-time home run leader had a career WAR of 162.4, second-highest in history to Babe Ruth according to Baseball Reference’s formula. He was a seven-time NL MVP, 14-time All-Star, eight-time Gold Glove winner and 12-time Silver Slugger honoree.

• Clemens. He ranks eighth all-time in WAR, second to Bonds among eligible players not enshrined. He was an 11-time …

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