Several former Phillies were on the Hall of Fame ballot. What will we learn from the voting results?

Barry Bonds is gone from the Hall of Fame ballot. Roger Clemens, too. Manny Ramírez and Alex Rodríguez remain as all-time greats stained by performance-enhancing drugs, but their candidacies don’t provoke nearly as much rancorous debate. A decade of combing through Bonds’ and Clemens’ baggage like a TSA agent has left everyone with PED fatigue.

That’s fine. There’s still plenty of intrigue over this year’s Hall of Fame election, and for a change, the discourse is centered on baseball over BALCO, stats over steroids.

And as a bonus, many of the top candidates are former Phillies.

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The Hall of Fame voting will be revealed at 6 p.m. Tuesday. It’s possible, maybe even probable, that none of the 28 former players on the ballot will get the 75% required for election. In that case, it would mark the second time in three years that the roughly 400 voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America pitched a shutout — and dealt an unintended blow to the tourism department in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Here, then, is some of what we expect to learn from the election results:

Maybe. But it will be close.

Thisclose.

In most elections, victory hinges on a simple majority. That isn’t the case here. Rolen won over 63.2% of voters last year, remarkable considering he started with 10.2% in 2018, but he was still 47 votes short of the 75% mark.

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Most Hall of Fame candidates who come this far get over the finish line ... eventually. Save for Bonds and Clemens, the only players to reach 60% without getting elected by the writers since 1995 are Jack Morris and Curt Schilling. (Morris later got elected by a veterans committee.)

But so many minds have changed on Rolen over the last four years that it’s worth wondering if another 50 or so can be converted. Through Thursday, Rolen, who spent the first 6½ of his 17 major league seasons with the Phillies, received 11 new votes and was tracking at 79.6% on 158 disclosed ballots, according to industrious ballot collector Ryan Thibodaux. But Thibodaux’s accounting shows that players often fare better on public ballots and percentages typically decrease in the final tally.

Perhaps other holdouts checked Rolen’s name if they considered this: The eight-time Gold Glove winner and World Series champion with the 2006 Cardinals had the second-most homers (296) among third basemen from 1997 to 2010, trailing only Hall of Famer Chipper Jones.

Most Hall of Famers were franchise icons. But should every franchise icon automatically be a Hall of Famer?

Herein lies the J-Roll dilemma.

Rollins’ importance to the Phillies would be undeniable even if he wasn’t their all-time hits leader and a four-time Gold Glove winner. He was a soothsaying league MVP in 2007, a World Series champion in 2008, and the best shortstop in club history. The 140-year story of the Phillies can’t be told without him.

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But the same could be said for Dale Murphy with the Braves, Dwight Evans with the Red Sox, Lou Whitaker with the Tigers, Don Mattingly with the Yankees, and other franchise cornerstones who haven’t gained entry to Cooperstown. Rollins’ impact was measured more by intangibles than numbers, including a below-league-average OPS+ (95).

Many voters, including yours truly, have struggled to reconcile those things, which explains why Rollins polled at only 9.4% last year and was tracking at 11.4% through Thursday (5% is needed to stay on the ballot).

It would be nice if we got at least another year to think it over.

Two knocks on Wagner: He pitched less than 1,000 innings over his 16 seasons and had a 10.03 ERA in 14 playoff appearances.

OK, but Wagner also struck out 33.2% of the batters he faced and posted a 2.31 ERA that rivals Mariano Rivera (2.21). Simply put, he ranked among the most dominant closers of his era, including two seasons with the Phillies (2004-05).

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Momentum for Wagner’s candidacy is building. He went from 10.5% in 2016 to 10.2%, 11.1%, 16.7%, 31.7%, 46.4%, and 51% last year. Through Thursday, he picked up 26 new votes and was tracking at 72.9% in public ballots.

“I’m very hopeful,” Wagner said two weeks ago.

With two more years of ballot eligibility, it feels as if Wagner will need at least one more cycle to close it out.

Pop quiz: Name the players with at least 900 extra-base hits and 1,400 walks.

Answer: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Jeff Bagwell, Chipper Jones.

Oh, and Bobby Abreu.

How’s that for good company?

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Abreu had an 18-year major-league career, and for much of that time, it felt as if he was an excellent player, not an all-time great. Maybe it was because he played for six teams. Maybe it’s because he had rotten timing. The Phillies won the World Series two years after he got traded; the Yankees won it one year after he left in free agency.

Could it be, though, that Abreu merits greater consideration for the Hall of Fame?

Some voters seem to think so. After barely staying on the ballot with 5.5% of the vote in 2020 and holding steady at 8.7% and 8.6% in the last two years, Abreu picked up 11 votes through Thursday and was tracking at 19.2%.

Jeff Kent will drop off the ballot after falling short of the 75% mark for the 10th consecutive year. But this is what really stands out: He didn’t do better than 32.7% in the previous nine election cycles despite leading all second basemen with 351 career home runs at the position.

That wouldn’t seem to bode well for Chase Utley.

The iconic Phillies second baseman will make his ballot debut next year. Kent’s detractors dinged his defense; Utley was a better all-around player. Kent has an MVP award (2000) and five All-Star selections; Utley has a 2008 World Series ring and six All-Star nods.

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Kent has the edge in most offensive numbers, albeit with the advantage of more at-bats.

Will Utley get the voter traction that eluded Kent? The writers have elected only two second basemen (Craig Biggio and Roberto Alomar) since 2006.

It may be time to add another.

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