- JoeBlogs
- Posts
- Smoke Signals from the Hall of Fame
Smoke Signals from the Hall of Fame
They’ve changed the Hall of Fame eligibility rules again. What does it mean this time?
Joe Posnanski
March 07, 2025
Every now and again, the Baseball Hall of Fame — in its own version of Conclave* — will send out smoke through its Cooperstown chimney and let the rest of us try to figure out what the heck it means.
*Conclave was really fantastic. Like, it might have been my favorite movie of 2024 fantastic. I expected it to be fine, you know, as fine as a well-made and well-acted movie about picking a new pope could be. But something about it really spoke to me. I guess I just enjoy watching movies and television shows about essentially good people trying to make their way through the world. And, for me at least, there just don’t seem to be nearly enough of them.
We got some Baseball Hall of Fame smoke this week.
From MLB.com:
Beginning in 2025, any Hall of Fame candidate on an Era Committee ballot who does not receive at least five votes from the 16-member Era Committee panel will not be eligible to be placed back on the ballot in its next three-year cycle.
A candidate can still return to an Era Committee ballot after skipping one cycle. But any candidate who does not receive five votes on multiple Era Committee ballots will no longer be eligible for any future ballots.
I don’t know how much of this I need to explain before we get to the juicy speculation but just so we’re all on the same page: The Hall of Fame selects 16-member committees annually to look at Hall of Fame candidates. Those candidates either:
(A) Do not fall under the purview of the main Baseball Writers Association of America vote — we’re talking managers, umpires, executives, pioneers (like Negro Leaguers), etc. Recent selections under this umbrella include Jim Leyland, Buck O’Neil, Marvin Miller, Bud Selig and John Schuerholz.
(B) Were considered by the BBWAA but, in the end, did not get enough support to be elected. Recent players elected include Dave Parker, Dick Allen, Fred McGriff, Ted Simmons and Harold Baines.
Before this week, there were few limitations on who could appear on these ballots. This year (and for all ballots for the foreseeable future), there were eight players on the ballot. The votes went as followed — with 12 being the magic number for election:
Reply