Last year was an enjoyable one on the Hall of Fame front. After a three-cycle stretch during which BBWAA voters elected just two candidates (nobody for 2021, David Ortiz for ’22, and Scott Rolen for ’23), they tabbed three for the 2024 ballot, namely first-year candidates Adrian Beltré and Joe Mauer, and holdover Todd Helton. While some of the debates were contentious, the end result felt like a return to the good old days of the 2014–20 stretch, when the writers elected an unprecedented flood of 22 honorees in seven years, an impressive lot that did nothing to dilute the caliber of the players elected. If that’s your idea of fun, I have good news, as the 2025 BBWAA ballot — which was released on Monday — offers another excellent opportunity to elect multiple high-quality candidates, with 3,000 hit club member Ichiro Suzuki and 10th-year holdover Billy Wagner the most likely honorees.
Over the next six weeks, I’ll profile all of the ones likely to wind up on voters’ ballots ahead of the December 31 deadline, with a handful of profiles trickling into January. I’ll be examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ve used to break down Hall of Fame ballots as part of an annual tradition that by the end of this cycle will be old enough to drink (I did a 20th-anniversary retrospective in January). The series debuted at Baseball Prospectus (2004-12), then moved to SI.com (2013-18), which provided me an opportunity to go into greater depth on each candidate. In 2018, I brought the series to FanGraphs, where my coverage has become even more expansive.
Today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle, but first…
The Basics
To be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA ballot, a candidate must have played in the majors for parts of 10 years (one game is sufficient to be counted as a year in this context), have been out of the majors for five years (the minors or foreign leagues don’t count), and then have been nominated by two members of the BBWAA’s six-member screening committee. Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, that means that this year’s newcomers last appeared in the majors in 2019; Suzuki’s eligibility was bumped back a year due to his two-game farewell with the Mariners at the Tokyo Dome. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility on the ballot, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect for several decades. The last candidate grandfathered into getting the full 15 years was Lee Smith, whose eligibility expired in 2017, while the last candidate who had his eligibility window truncated mid-candidacy was Jeff Kent, who fell off the ballot after the 2023 cycle.
To be elected, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the ballots cast, and in this case, they don’t round up; 74.9% won’t cut it. Likewise, candidates who don’t receive at least 5% of the vote fall off the ballot and can then only be considered for election by what’s now called the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, an entirely separate process — but not until what would have been their 10-year run of eligibility expires.
The voters, each of whom has been an active BBWAA member for at least 10 years and is no more than 10 years removed from active coverage, can list as many as 10 candidates on their ballots, a number that’s become a point of contention in recent years given the high volume of qualified candidates. In 2015, the Hall tabled a BBWAA proposal to expand the ballot to 12 slots (I was on the committee that recommended the change). Last year, the ninth since the Hall purged the rolls of voters more than 10 years removed from coverage, 385 ballots were cast, the fewest of any cycle since 1983. That’s a reduction of 33% over nine years.
Ballots must be postmarked by December 31 (yes, the BBWAA still does this by mail). Voters may reveal their ballots prior to the announcement, as 53% of voters did last year; you can track the reported ballots via Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker if you want (if you’re looking to follow along with the Tracker as ballots are revealed, Ryan has moved his crew’s base of operations from Twitter to Bluesky). Voters can also check a box on the ballot to authorize the publication of their choices via the BBWAA’s website two weeks after the election results are revealed (at the last Winter Meetings, the writers voted to change this from an opt-in to an opt-out, but I’ve been told by the Hall that the proposal didn’t reach the board in time for it to be considered, which, grrr). Between BBWAA.com and the Tracker, 82.1% of voters revealed their ballots in 2024, two points below the record of 84.1% from ’20.
I’ll be revealing my own ballot here at FanGraphs a few days before the deadline, taking readers through my thought process as I explain which boxes I’ll be checking. This will be my fifth year as a voter, and no, the novelty hasn’t worn off. For those who want to play along at home, registered FanGraphs users will be able to participate via our crowdsource ballot, which we will post soon.
The election results will be announced on MLB Network on January 21. Any players elected will join any honorees elected via the Classic Baseball Era Committee ballot, whose results will be announced on December 8, for the Induction Ceremony scheduled for July 27, 2025 on the grounds of the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York.
Are you going to tell us who’s actually on the ballot?
Hold your baserunners, I’m getting to it. The ballot released on Monday includes 14 holdovers from last year’s slate and 14 newcomers, noted in italics:
Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Mark Buehrle, Carlos González, Curtis Granderson, Félix Hernández, Torii Hunter, Adam Jones, Andruw Jones, Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, Brian McCann, Dustin Pedroia, Andy Pettitte, Hanley Ramirez, Manny Ramirez, Fernando Rodney, Alex Rodriguez, Francisco Rodríguez, Jimmy Rollins, CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, Troy Tulowitzki, Chase Utley, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner, David Wright, Ben Zobrist
Are any of the newcomers locks to be elected this year?
During a 19-year stateside career that didn’t even begin until he was 27 years old, Suzuki collected 3,089 hits, won AL Rookie of the Year and MVP honors, claimed two batting titles and the single-season hits record, made 10 All-Star teams and won 10 Gold Gloves. There’s no doubt that he’ll be elected during this cycle, but the question is whether he’ll become the first position player to be elected unanimously. No, he wasn’t a better player than Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, or Hank Aaron, all of whom fell short of 100% for no damn reason, but like Mariano Rivera, the only player to date to be elected unanimously, he has the combination of accomplishments and a certain universal popularity that makes me wonder if he could pull this off. He was not only beloved by fans and teammates, but he served as such an outstanding international ambassador for the sport that it’s difficult to anticipate objection to his entry. Then again, as the case of Derek Jeter showed, there’s always some petty and selfish voter willing to hide behind the cloak of anonymity to play the spoiler.
What about Sabathia?
With 251 career victories, 3,093 strikeouts (third-highest for a left-hander), six All-Star appearances, a Cy Young and a World Series ring, Sabathia has credentials that far surpass those of many Hall of Famers. His 50.8 S-JAWS is below the standard, but among those who debuted since the 1994 players’ strike, only Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke, and Roy Halladay rank higher. Throw in Sabathia’s compelling narrative arc, which included remaking himself as a finesse pitcher in the wake of chronic knee problems, a very public battle with alcoholism, and a role mentoring younger Black players, and I expect his candidacy to resonate with voters. I don’t know yet whether he’ll generate enough support for first-year entry, but at the very least I anticipate his election in the not-too-distant future.
Which holdovers have a chance to get elected this year?
Wagner, who ranks sixth all-time in R-JAWS, is in the 10th and final year of his candidacy on the writers’ ballot. He received 73.8% of the vote last year, missing by five votes. Though his 903 innings would be the lowest of any enshrined reliever, his sheer dominance and his underdog story — a 5-foot-10 natural righty who grew up in poverty and who learned to throw left-handed after breaking his right arm twice as a child — have put him on the precipice of election.
Updating numbers from last year as they related to Helton, of the last 24 times a candidate received at least 70% but less than 75% and still had eligibility remaining, that candidate was elected the next year 21 times, with the exceptions being Jim Bunning (twice) and Curt Schilling. The former was done in once by a barrage of blank ballots and once by a crowd of stronger candidates, while the latter found increasingly intricate and offensive ways to sabotage his own candidacy as he approached 75%.
Two other returning candidates received at least 50% of the vote last year, namely Andruw Jones (61.6% in his seventh year) and Beltrán (57.1% in his second). While I believe both are headed for eventual election — the latter gained over 10 points from his debut, suggesting some amount of forgiveness from his participation in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal — they’re not likely to jump to 75% from where they are, particularly with the top of the ballot already somewhat crowded. Over the past decade, just three candidates have crossed the 75% threshold after receiving less than 65% the year before: Mike Mussina (63.5% in 2018, 76.9% in ’19), Larry Walker (54.6% in 2019, 76.6% in ’20), and Rolen (63.2% in 2022, 76.3% in ’23). The situations of Walker and Rolen had some extra urgency attached, as the former was in his final year of eligibility and was one of two candidates elected (along with Jeter), while the latter was the BBWAA’s only honoree that year. Mussina, one of four honorees in 2019, therefore offers the closest potential parallel to the situations of Jones or Beltrán, but he had a slightly higher level of support going into that cycle.
Does anything else stand out to you among the newcomers?
Two subgroups of first-year candidates are worth noting. At some point in their careers, Hernández, Pedroia, and Tulowitzki all looked like Hall of Famers in the making, with the two position players in that trio both surpassing 40.0 peak WAR, a strong indicator of future election. Unfortunately, Hernández wore down due to overuse and conditioning issues, while Pedroia and Tulowitzki were derailed by injuries; all three are up for election while Verlander, who’s older than any of them, is still plugging away. Nobody from that trio has Hall-caliber numbers, alas, but I suspect that like Wright, they may generate enough support to stick around for another ballot.
Also catching my eye is the pair of catchers, Martin and McCann. While neither looks particularly impressive based on traditional catcher JAWS, they were among the elite pitch framers of their era, boosting their value to the point that they’re worth mentioning in a discussion that also includes Mauer, Buster Posey (eligible in 2027), and Yadier Molina (eligible in 2028).
Hold on, what’s “traditional catcher JAWS?”
That’s just JAWS using the standard inputs of career WAR and seven-peak WAR, with Total Zone and DRS for defense. We have pitch framing data for all of the aforementioned catchers’ careers through Baseball Prospectus — including their retroframing methodology from the pre-pitch tracking days — and our own methodology, and for those guys, it amounts to 12-18 extra points of JAWS. I’ve long held that we can’t do justice to any of their candidacies without considering this trove of data, whether or not the forthcoming automatic ball and strike technology reduces the importance of framing at some point. To that end, you’ll see references to framing-inclusive JAWS in my coverage of their candidacies, as was the case for Mauer last year.
How about those PED guys?
There isn’t much new to report, because nothing’s changed. Nobody suspended by Major League Baseball either for testing positive or incurring a non-analytic positive (i.e., identified as a user via a league investigation such as Biogenesis) since testing began in 2004 has been elected. Manny Ramirez received 32.5% in year eight while Alex Rodriguez received 34.8% in year three; for both, that represented a loss of support, albeit by less than a point. Their candidacies are stalled, as nobody is changing their mind about guys caught red-handed.
Are there any down-ballot candidates that you have hope for?
To these eyes, the one who stands out is Utley. Though he didn’t play 100 games or get 300 plate appearances in a season until he was 26, he made six-time All-Star teams, helped the Phillies to five straight division titles, two pennants, and a championship, and ranks 12th in JAWS among second basemen (56.9), 0.2 points below the standard, and ninth in peak (49.3), 4.8 WAR above the standard. He’s a stathead favorite who derived about 200 runs worth of value from his defense, baserunning, and double play avoidance, but due to his short career, he finished with just 1,885 hits. The writers haven’t elected anybody from the post-1960 expansion era with fewer than 2,000 hits, so I was concerned about how he’d fare when he debuted last year. Despite solid support on the early waves of published ballots — 39.2% heading into the day of the announcement — he brought home a modest 28.8% share. Obviously, that leaves him with a ways to go, but it’s well ahead of what Rolen (10.2% in 2018) or Helton (16.5%) drew in their first years, and about what former teammates Abreu and Rollins (both 14.8%) drew combined. Though he never won an MVP award or a Gold Glove, Utley’s numbers compare favorably to the two star second basemen debuting on this ballot, Pedrioa and Kinsler, and that should help.
While I have a few other candidates to cover on the Classic Era ballot, profiles of these candidates should begin rolling out here soon, and I’ll publish a preliminary schedule when our crowdsource ballot goes live.
