Most expansions in the past have introduced new player options that could encourage a player to roll a new character. Burning Crusade, Cataclsym, and Mists of Pandaria gave us new races (and one should recall that before Blood Elves and Draenei, there was no way to have an Alliance Shaman or Horde Paladin.) Wrath of the Lich King, Mists of Pandaria, and Legion each gave us a new class. The only real exception here was Warlords of Draenor, which focused on revamping old race models rather than giving us new races to play.
Mists of Pandaria and Warlords kind of upset a pre-established pattern, which was that the game would alternate between new races and new classes. In fact, if you ignore the Pandaren (or shifted them over to Warlords) but kept the Monk, you could argue that the pattern sort of survived.
If this pattern has any merit to it, this would mean that we're more likely to see new races than a new class. And I think that, given the massive class revamp in Legion, I would bet the developers are more interested in tweaking and refining existing classes at least for now than dropping a new one into the mix (while Pandaren came in right after Worgen and Goblins, there's never been two new classes in a row.)
I could certainly speculate on new classes, but I'm going to make a fairly confident assumption that that there will not be one with expansion seven.
I should also note that there are other ways they could introduce new character options without adding a new race or class. For example, sub-races like Dark Iron Dwarves or Mag'har Orcs could be implemented, providing a cosmetic alternative.
But let's assume for now that the new addition will be playable races.
The first thing to consider is what the expansion will actually be about.
The general consensus is that it will have something to do with the Void and the Old Gods. There are tons of references to them in Legion, even as we're fighting a separate threat. And the spoilers about the end of the Antorus raid suggest that there might be a real opportunity for the Old Gods to strike out and possibly escape their prisons (or at least N'zoth. We don't really know how dead C'thun and Yogg-Saron are.)
Given the potential prominence of the Old Gods, it seems highly possible that Azshara and her Naga will also play a big role. That could be anything from the first raid tier to Azshara being the final boss, or even for her to be a kind of Garrosh/Gul'dan figure that pulls us into the subsequent expansion.
So let's go through potential races:
Naga:
Blizzard has floated the idea of playable Naga for a long time. Yes, there are anatomical questions to deal with (like how pants and boots work on snake bodies and also how you deal with the fact that female naga seem to have four arms) but story-wise, a rebel group of Naga could be really interesting. (You'd also get another race that could reasonably be Demon Hunters, which would be cool.) I actually put this at a somewhat high probability, though if the Naga are center-stage to the expansion, it seems it would only be fair to make them a Pandaren-style neutral race lest one faction be left with a less relevant race.
Ethereal:
This is another perennial favorite. Ethereals would work fine anatomically, though aesthetically you'd have to do some creative work to make them distinct from one another. The Ethereals are connected to the Void pretty directly, though more on the Cosmic "Void Lord" side of things - though that could be an interesting note in an otherwise slimy Old God expansion. The story might be a little similar to the Draenei, but they'd replace piety with a kind of scrappy and perhaps reckless instinct for survival.
Arrakoa:
The right time for these guys was probably Warlord of Draenor, but the broken Arrakoa were an early example of the good guys using void while the bad guys were using the Light. You'd have to work to get them in there, but the connection is not entirely imagined.
Ogres:
Again, would have been a great Horde race for Warlords. The Ogres have always seemed ready to be a Horde race, and Cho'gall's connection to the Void is definitely something you could explore. Too bad we've killed both versions of Cho'gall, so it would be kind of crazy to bring him back.
Vrykul:
I'm just kind of tossing this in here. Frankly, I think Vrykul would fit better in a resurgent Scourge expansion, where you could also explore their connection to Helya and the Shadowlands, though I think a lot of this is a ship that has sailed. Also, even more than the Ogres, you run into a size problem. I think Blizzard isn't likely to make any playable races bigger than Tauren or smaller than Gnomes.
Broken Draenei:
This might be better as a subrace, and is probably not in the cards given that we've had two expansions with some pretty serious Draenei stuff (as someone who has loved them since their introduction in BC, I've been overjoyed to see them finally getting some time in the spotlight, though I think it's probably time for them to step aside so Worgen or Gnomes could get some attention.) Still, the Broken have an interesting and mysterious connection to the Void. It's strongly hinted that the Blood of Sethe, which crippled the Arrakoa Outcasts, was what the Horde used to poison the Draenei who would become Broken, and Sethe seems like he might have some connection to the Void (let's not dive down the rabbit hole of his similarities with Hakkar the Soul Flayer.) We also found Broken on Argus, who have turned to some kind of power to ward off the Legion... which I will bet has something to do with the Void (see the Broken who went crazy with it in Mac'aree.) It's a connection, though again, this might work better as a subrace.
Beyond these, I don't really have any obvious suggestions for new races.
It is, of course, possible that we won't get new races. But given that "balancing" a new race, at least from a gameplay perspective, is not terribly difficult, I imagine Blizzard is happy to add new ones to get people excited about a new expansion.
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