HOF ballot
 

It takes 75% percent of the vote to get in. Assume a player is on the ballot for the first time and doesn't get to 75%. What I'm wondering is, what (approximate) percent of the vote do you think he needs in order to have a real chance of eventually getting in (years 2-10)? I know there's exceptions, one offs, veteran committee, etc,....but what's your initial gut response?

Without looking up past votes and calculating the approximate odds at each threshold, I guess 30% is generally the cutoff. 30% I think is likely to get in, 20-25% has a chance, and under 20% I think is generally unlikely to make it except by a Veterans Committee (or whatever they are called now) vote many, many years later.