Current Projections Predict Larry Walker Will Fall Literally One Vote Short of Hall of Fame

In his 10th and final year on the Hall of Fame ballot, Larry Walker has picked up quite a bit of steam. After garnering 54.6% of the vote last year, the former NL MVP is featured on 84.9% of the ballots that have already been revealed this time around.

But it looks as though it won't be enough. Based on current projections, Walker is slated to grab 74.8% of the vote, meaning he'll be one painful vote away from making it to the 75% required for enshrinement.

"Brutal" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Walker has long been unfairly penalized for spending the majority of his career playing at Coors Field, a notoriously hitter-friendly ballpark. The argument against him has always been that his career statistics, such as his .965 OPS, were inflated by the 10 years that he played for the Colorado Rockies.

Fans and writers alike have done a superb job of putting that unfair notion to rest by emphasizing his 68.7 career fWAR and park-adjusted 140 wRC+, but it seems as though it will all be for naught.

If he doesn't make it this year, he'll have to wait until he crops up as an option on the Today's Game committee in 2022.

If he had even one more year left on the ballot, then he'd practically be a shoe-in. Now, though, he and his supporters will just have to wait and hope that the projections turn out to be wrong, even just slightly.