Barry Bonds shut out of Hall of Fame again, gains a little ground

Barry Bonds, one of the all-time greatest players in baseball history, is still not in the Hall of Fame, a museum dedicated to honoring the all-time greatest players in baseball history. The Pirates and Giants legend fell well short of the 75 percent of the vote needed to join Ken Griffey, Jr. and Mike Piazza in the 2016 Hall of Fame class.

However, there is slightly positive news. Here are the vote totals Bonds has picked up over the years:

• 2013, 36.2%
• 2014, 34.7%
• 2015, 36.8%
• 2016, 44.3%

This Hall of Fame vote was marked with all sorts of Bonds-related reevaluations, from John Shea to Ken Rosenthal. That, combined with a purging of former baseball writers who haven't covered the sport in 10 years or more, brought Bonds closer than he's ever been. Jeff Passan covered the shift in momentum well here.

The uptick bodes well for Bonds, who still has six years remaining on the ballot. Players with close to 45 percent in their fourth year on the ballot tend to do well by the end of their eligibility. However, this is the first set of candidates to deal with the new 10-year eligibility, and there's still the backlog and PED weirdness to sort through. I'll guess that Bonds won't be voted in, but he'll be in the Hall of Fame eventually. Possibly before most of us die. We'll see.

Roger Clemens got more votes than Bonds again, getting over 45 percent. This still makes absolutely no sense.

In other news, Jeff Kent picked up 16.6 percent, staying on the ballot, but still not picking up a ton of support.

Randy Winn did not get a vote, but he's still pretty cool.

Congratulations to Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey, Jr., both worthy additions to the Hall of Fame. Hopefully future ballots will be kinder to history than it will be to malformed righteousness.