The Modern Era Committee ballot released last month has 10 candidates on it: nine players whose careers spanned a good chunk of the era from 1970-87, plus the late Marvin Miller, the labor leader who put an indelible stamp on the game.
The players include Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant and Alan Trammell.
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On Monday, the National Baseball Hall of Fame announced the composition of the 16-person panel appointed by its board of directors and charged with the responsibility of making that selection.
The vote is slated to be announced Sunday live on MLB Network and MLB.com at 6 p.m. ET as the Winter Meetings open this year in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Any electees will be introduced at a news conference there the next day.
The induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., next year is July 29, and it will also include any inductees from the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot, which is currently under consideration.
First-timers Chipper Jones, Jim Thome and Omar Vizquel, plus returnees Trevor Hoffman and Vladimir Guerrero, are the top candidates. Hoffman missed by five votes and Guerrero by 15 earlier this year.
The Modern Era panel includes eight Hall of Fame inductees: George Brett, Rod Carew, Bobby Cox, Dennis Eckersley, John Schuerholz, Don Sutton, Dave Winfield and Robin Yount.
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston, Reds president Bob Castellini, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt, Royals chairman David Glass, veteran BBWAA members Bob Elliott and Jayson Stark and historian Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sport Bureau make up the remainder of the group.
"The Modern Baseball Committee is comprised of 16 individuals with extensive knowledge of the era in which these 10 candidates made their greatest impact in the game," John Shestakofsky, the Hall's vice president of communications and education, said Monday. "The committee is composed of veteran baseball writers, Hall of Famers and longtime baseball executives."
The 16 members of the committee can vote for a maximum of four candidates, a total of 64 votes. As in any Hall of Fame vote, a candidate needs 75 percent to be elected. In this case, his name must appear on at least 12 of the 16 ballots. The process is difficult, and mathematically a maximum of five of the 10 candidates could be elected.
Only two players have been enshrined through the Eras Committees process since Joe Gordon was elected in 2009: Cubs third baseman Ron Santo in '12 and Deacon White, a 19th-century catcher who played with no equipment, in '13.
The committee setup was shuffled again last year in an attempt to correct that shortcoming.
"This is not unusual. It's about staying relevant," Hall president Jeff Idelson said at the time. "There's now stronger emphasis on players who have recently fallen off the BBWAA ballot. No group of candidates is being left out. We've always left the door open."
Of the nine players being considered, all were rejected during their 15-year tenures on the BBWAA ballot.
Only Morris scored as high as 67.7 percent in 2015, his next-to-last year on the ballot. Among the others, Garvey reached a high of 41.6 percent in his first year of 1993, Trammell hit an apex of 40.9 percent when his eligibility expired earlier this year, John peaked at 31.7 percent in 2009 (his last year) and Tiant went as high as 30.9 percent in 1988.
The other four never broke the 30 percent mark. Simmons, in fact, didn't reach the necessary 5 percent to again qualify, logging 3.7 percent in 1994, his only year on the BBWAA ballot.