Hall of Fame Wrap-Up

Our Hall of Fame wrap-up for 2025 is here… if you feel like watching, here’s the hour-long YouTube Live instant reaction video I did immediately after the Hall announcements. It’s exactly as professional as you would expect it to be! This is going to be some YouTube Channel… you’ll definitely want to subscribe, right?

Let’s go through the latest Hall of Fame news:

Ichiro Elected (Obviously) but Not Unanimously

OK, so there were 394 BBWAA voters this year… and 393 of us voted for Ichiro Suzuki. One person did not. I do not expect that one person to come forward—the one person who didn’t vote for Derek Jeter never did—and in the end, the non-vote doesn’t matter, the reason doesn’t matter, the whole thing is pointless trivia.

But I will say again: I simply do not get what anyone would get out of being a Baseball Hall of Fame voter if it means not voting for Ichiro Suzuki, maybe the coolest ballplayer of all time. Maybe there’s some Mariano Rivera superfan out there* who has made it a life mission to make sure that nobody else ever gets voted in unanimously. Maybe there’s some sort of obtuse joy in forever looking at Ichiro’s 99.7% vote percentage and knowing that you’re the one who cost him that .003.

*This doesn’t feel like the best time to be a Mariano Rivera superfan.

There used to be a time when a handful of voters honestly seemed to believe that nobody should be elected unanimously. I didn’t exactly agree with their reasoning, and still don’t… but I do think I understand it: That argument is that there is no perfect ballplayer, and that if Babe Ruth wasn’t elected unanimously, if Stan Musial wasn’t elected unanimously, if Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson and Bob Feller and Willie Mays and Henry Aaron weren’t elected unanimously, well, nobody ever should be.

I think that sort of thing is misguided—why double down on mistakes of the past?—but I also think there is at least a dignity to that logic, a nod to the fallibility of baseball. Willie Mays made 136 errors. Babe Ruth never won the Triple Crown. Ted Williams struck out 709 times. Perfection cannot be achieved in baseball.

And so, I kind of thought of those “nobody gets into the Hall unanimously” people like the Grail Knight in “Indiana Jones” who dedicated his long life to protecting the Holy Grail. I wouldn’t want the job, but I kind of understand why they took it on.

Slowly, the Unanimity Knights aged out, leaving behind a younger and leaner and much more open Hall of Fame voting class. The BBWAA, whatever complaints people might have, is the most open voting bloc in professional sports, maybe in American life. The voters for other Halls of Fame, across the board, reveal nothing. But the BBWAA gives out vote totals. The vast majority of us not only tell you exactly who we voted for but offer detailed reasons why.

There’s good and not-so-good that comes from that. One of the not-so-good parts, in my view, is that such openness motivates groupthink. You can see it in the annual awards; almost all of the Cy Young and MVP awards given out these days are unanimous choices. Nobody wants to be the one publicly shamed for honestly believing that Francisco Lindor was more valuable than Shohei.

And that groupthink is absolutely invading the way the BBWAA votes for the Hall of Fame. The most obvious example of that is the super-high vote percentages of the great players—all four of the players voted with at least 99% of the vote have been expected since 2016, (Rivera 100%; Derek Jeter 99.7%; Ichiro 99.7%; Ken Griffey Jr. 99.3%)—but the real story is how quickly voters now coalesce around players who had almost no support at all.

• Larry Walker, 11.8% in 2015, elected in 2020.

• Scott Rolen, 10.2% in 2018, elected in 2023.

• Billy Wagner, 10.2% in 2017, elected in 2025.

That kind of ultra-speedy consensus used to never happen.

I’m certainly not going to grant noble intentions to the voter who left Ichiro off the ballot. Maybe it really was a rebellion against Hall of Fame groupthink. Just as likely, it was a chance to draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa. Just as likely, it was a dumb mistake (though I do imagine the BBWAA called the person to be sure they meant to leave off Ichiro). I’ll be impressed if the person comes forward and explains. I’ll also be shocked. This definitely feels like a shot from the dark.

Anyway, again, it doesn’t matter. Ichiro is in the Hall of Fame. The celebration in July is going to be epic.

CC Elected on the First Ballot

Yep, CC Sabathia is the first starting pitcher elected on the first ballot since Roy Halladay back in 2019. I would guess the next one will be Zack Greinke in 2029? I would hope so, anyway.

I’ve got a fun bit of trivia for you. It goes like this:

Wait, you say: That can’t be right. I mean, right off the top of your head, you must know that Randy Johnson struck out 3,000 batters, and so did Steve Carlton. You would be right about that—those are the only three lefties in baseball history to strike out at least 3,000 hitters.

BUT… Big Unit and Lefty are not in the 3,000-strikeout club. Each of them struck out at least 4,000—4,875 for Unit, 4,136 for Lefty. So they’re members of the 4,000 strikeout club.

Only Sabathia, with 3,093 Ks, is a lefty member of the 3,000-strikeout club.

Billy Wagner Makes It on His Last Ballot

It was quite a rise for Billy the Kid. His first four years on the ballot, from 2016 to 2019, he topped out at 16.7% of the vote. Then—because so much of the Hall of Fame is about timing—the following happened in short order:

1. In 2018, Trevor Hoffman was elected to the Hall of Fame.

2. In 2019, Mariano Rivera was elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame.

3. In 2020, with the two 600-saves guys off the ballot, voters began to look more closely at Wagner and started to realize that, yeah, maybe Mo Rivera was his own thing, but Wagner was probably every bit as good as Hoffman. His vote percentage doubled to 32%.

4. In 2021, nobody was elected—Curt Schilling fell 16 votes shy—and Wags was by far the best reliever on the ballot. His vote percentage jumped again, now to 46.4%

5. In 2022, Joe Nathan came on the ballot. Joe Nathan was a top-notch reliever, but Wagner’s numbers—his ERA, his WHIP, his strikeouts, his batting average against—towered over Nathan’s. Nathan barely missed the 5% needed to stay on the ballot. Wagner jumped over 50%.

6. In 2023, Francisco Rodriguez came on the ballot. K-Rod sparked a bit of interest because he set the single-season saves record, but once again Wagner’s unhittability numbers separated him. Wagner fell just 27 votes shy of election.

7. In 2024, Wagner fell five votes short—the voters were somewhat distracted by a couple first-ballot Hall of Famers, Adrían Beltré and Joe Mauer.

8. In 2025, Wagner gets elected.

That’s some kind of climb. In the above livestream, people asked me who would be the next reliever elected to the Hall of Fame. And, being honest, I don’t see anyone on the horizon. Craig Kimbrel was well on his way to Hall of Fame glory, but it’s been a rough road since he turned 30. Kenley Jansen is someone who might draw some attention, and I like Jansen a lot, but I don’t quite see it. Aroldis Chapman has a case, I suppose, but I’m not sure who will want to make it.

I think Billy Wagner will be the last reliever to be elected to the Hall of Fame for a long time… unless the veterans committee, for some reason, rallies behind someone like Dan Quisenberry or John Hiller or Kent Tekulve or someone like that.

Beltrán and Andruw Fall Short, but They’re in Next Year

With more than half the votes accounted for on the Hall of Fame Tracker, it looked pretty decent for Carlos Beltrán—he received 81.5% of the public votes. But the blind votes are always stingier, and in the end, he fell 19 votes shy of election at 70.3%.

Andruw Jones finished with two-thirds of the vote; he was 35 votes shy of election.

Both will definitely get elected next year.

Why do I say that? Well, next year will be the lightest ballot in, probably 17 years. In 2008, there were only two players with 70-plus WAR on it—Bert Blyleven and Alan Trammell—and the voters weren’t thrilled about either of them. That was the year Goose Gossage finally got elected, and the year that Jim Rice and Andre Dawson and even Blyleven himself took huge leaps forward in the voting.

Next year, there will be two players with 70-plus WAR, and one of them is A-Rod, who doesn’t count, since he ain’t getting the votes. The other is Beltrán, and he will finally get elected on his fourth ballot, as the voters will believe he has paid enough of a price for being involved in the Astros scandal.

Jones will need to pick up those 35 votes… I predict, on this light ballot, he’ll get there easily. I don’t even think it will be close. He might top 80%.

The most interesting player to watch, actually, is Chase Utley. He jumped up to 40% this year, he definitely seems to be building the Scott Rolen Momentum, and as the highest WAR guy on the ballot next year after Beltrán (again, ignoring A-Rod), he might absolutely soar in the voting.

Here’s the funny thing about Utley—I talk about this also in the livestream: He was an old-school player, but if were still in old school times, I sincerely doubt he would have made a second Hall of Fame ballot. I’m completely serious. If this were 1993 or some time like that, Utley would have NO chance of getting to the Hall of Fame.

I mean, look at his career. He’s a .275 hitter. He didn’t get to 2,000 hits. He didn’t hit 300 home runs. He never won a Gold Glove. He not only never won an MVP award, he never even finished in the top five. He didn’t even play 2,000 games.

In 1993, just to keep the example going, four-time batting champion and lifetime .305 hitter Bill Madlock came on the ballot. He didn’t make it to a second ballot.

The Penguin, Ron Cey, a six-time All-Star who mashed 300 home runs and was a key figure on those outstanding Dodgers teams of the 1970s, came on the ballot. He got eight votes.

Cecil Cooper, a lifetime .298 hitter with almost 2,200 hits, two RBI titles and a couple top-five MVP seasons, came on the ballot. He didn’t get a single vote.

I’m telling you: Before WAR was invented, NOBODY would have voted for Chase Utley.

But now, I think he’s got a smooth-sailing path to Cooperstown.

It’s just fascinating how the way we talk and think about baseball changes.

Here’s a Depressing Thought: Six More Years of A-Rod

A few years ago, the Hall of Fame changed the eligibility rules so that a player can spend only 10 years on the ballot. You might remember, it used to be 15.

I don’t recall being against the change itself, but I was against the motivation—it seemed bluntly obvious to me that they made the move simply to make sure that Bonds and Clemens didn’t get enough momentum to make it to Cooperstown. And it worked: In 2022, his last year on the ballot, Barry Bonds got 66% of the vote. Clemens got 65.2%. With five more years, they both very well might have been elected. In fact, I’d say it’s even probable they would have been elected.

Now, with their fate in the hands of veterans committees, they will not get elected for a long, long, long time—maybe never. So, I do believe the Hall got exactly what it wanted.

But, beyond that… the 15-year window did seem pretty ridiculous. I’m not sorry to see it go. In fact, as I’ve written before, I’d be all for a rising percentage requirement. OK, 5% might be enough to get you onto a second ballot, but it should not be enough to get you onto a fourth or fifth or eighth ballot. At some point, you should have to top 25% and 50% to stay on the ballot.

Álex Rodriguez has been on the ballot for four years and here are his percentages:

• 2022: 34.3%

• 2023: 35.7%

• 2024: 34.8%

• 2025: 37.1%

Really? We’re going to keep doing this for another SIX YEARS? I just don’t know who that serves. We get it—a little more than a third of us believe that A-Rod, as flawed as he might be as a person, was one of the greatest players who ever lived, and, as such, should have a plaque in the baseball museum in Cooperstown. A little less than two-thirds of us believe that A-Rod, as great as he might have been as a player, cheated the game and lied about it and, as such, should never be honored in the plaque room of immortals.

Maybe the Hall of Fame can arrange a battle of wits. We need some way to get out of this A-Rod loop.

The 2026 Ballot

Here are some of the top players who will be coming on the ballot in 2026:

Cole Hamels

I’m very curious to see what the response is to Hamels. King Félix got 20.6% of the vote in his first year on the ballot, and they have scary-similar numbers:

• Félix Hernández: 169-136, 3.42 ERA, 3.52 FIP, 2,729 innings, 2,524 K, 805 BB

• Cole Hamels: 163-122, 3.43 ERA, 3.68 FIP, 2,698 innings, 2,560 K, 767 BB

I mean, there’s nothing to choose between those numbers. King Félix’s peak might have been slightly higher, maybe, but Hamels has the added bonus of postseason greatness. He was the NLCS and World Series MVPs in 2008. It will be very interesting to see how the voters come down on both Cole and the King.

Ryan Braun

The 2011 MVP (though I really think it should have been Matt Kemp, who’s also on the ballot), Braun finished top-three in the MVP voting two other times and hit 350 homers in his career. A Brewers fan asked if he has a shot at a second ballot. I mean, it’s possible—Torii Hunter keeps making the ballot—but I doubt it because of the PED stuff.

Edwin Encarnación

I’m reminded that well into the 1980s, every single member of the 400-home run club (and all the above clubs) was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. There was some consternation, in fact, when Dave Kingman joined that club in 1985. What would the voters do? It seemed clear that Kingman was not a Hall of Famer, and yet… he hit 400 home runs! What if he hit 500 home runs? A crisis seemed to be building.

Of course, it was no crisis at all—there was no LAW stating that just because a player hit 400 or even 500 home runs, you had to vote them into the Hall of Fame. And of course, the voters just stopped voting for 400-home run hitters when they turned out to be Dave Kingman or Darrell Evans. Similar panics emerged around Johnny Damon as he approached 3,000 hits. So silly.

Anyway, Edwin Encarnación hit 424 home runs in his career.

Nick Markakis

Not long after the Johnny Damon 3,000-hit panic, there was a brief “Oh my gosh, Nick Markakis might get 3,000 hits” panic. Things ended rather quickly after that, but he did end up with 2,388 hits—127th on the all-time list.

Alex Gordon

Alex is obviously not a Hall of Famer, but he was a darned good player. He’s a Royals Hall of Famer.

There are more—Cy Young winner Rick Porcello, World Series hero Howie Kendrick, everybody’s fave Hunter Pence and so on. As you can see, though, there’s nobody who will draw any major Hall of Fame support.