By Jayson Stark / The Athletic
It’s that time again: Hall of Fame election time.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2025 ballot was announced Monday, featuring one guy destined for an all-time landslide (Ichiro Suzuki) and 27 other names you know all too well.
We’ll learn who made it — besides Ichiro, that is — in two months. So as the suspense builds, here are a few questions about the ballot.
A unanimous decision?
After nine decades of voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Mariano Rivera remains the only player elected unanimously. But zero unanimous position players in almost a century? Think how hard it has been to pull that off.
Just last winter, I thought Adrian Beltré had an outside shot to be unanimous. Nope. He somehow was left off 19 ballots. Nineteen!
Before that, I figured Derek Jeter was almost a lock to be unanimous in 2020. He missed by one vote. Then there was Ken Griffey Jr. in 2016. How could he not show up on every ballot, I thought. But his name went unchecked on three of them.
So now it’s Ichiro’s turn. Everyone from Topeka to Tokyo knows Ichiro is a Hall of Famer. So what reason could any voter possibly have not to vote for a guy who collected a staggering 4,367 hits on two continents — with 3,089 of them coming on this side of the Pacific (all after age 27)? What logical justification would any voter have for not checking the name of the only player in history to spin off 10 seasons in a row with 200 hits and a Gold Glove Award? Nobody else who ever lived even had five seasons in a row like that.
History tells us we should always take the “under” if the category is “unanimous Hall of Famer.” But if Ichiro Suzuki doesn’t get there, it’s not just embarrassing. It’s practically an international incident waiting to happen.
10 and in or 10 and done?
Five votes away. That’s where smoke-balling closer Billy Wagner stood when the voting dust had settled after last year’s election. Five votes from the plaque gallery. So of course he’s going to round up those five votes this time.
Or is he?
Logic would tell us that we have put him through enough torture. It’s his 10th (and final) year on the writers’ ballot. Nobody needs to remind him that the climb to the summit of Mount Cooperstown can feel more precarious than a jaunt up Mount Kilimanjaro.
In his first three orbits on this ballot, Wagner never got more than 47 votes in any election. In his past three, he reeled in 201, 265 and 284. That means he has added 158 votes just in the past four elections. So how could he not attract five more votes to reach the necessary 75% threshold this time, when everyone knows his Hall of Fame legacy is on the line?
When my fellow voters look at closers, they have been known to apply a whole different set of standards.
On one hand, Wagner’s claims to historic greatness haven’t changed. He still ranks No. 1 in the modern era among all left-handed pitchers with at least 900 innings in ERA, WHIP, strikeout rate, opponent average and opponent on-base plus slugging percentage. Is that good enough for the Hall? Seems like it. That’s why I vote for him, anyway.
On the other hand, all those voters who ask, “How did he do in October?” haven’t gone away, either. They’re stuck on Wagner’s 10.03 postseason ERA, and they can’t get past it.
Is there another Hall of Famer in the field?
I know the premise of that question assumes that we’ll even have a second Hall of Famer (Wagner) elected from this ballot. But let’s look at whether anyone among the remaining 26 candidates has a shot to get to 75%.
It feels as if there are only three realistic possibilities: Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltrán and CC Sabathia.
Andruw Jones
61.6% — 62 votes short last time
It’s Jones’ eighth year on the ballot this year, and the good news is that he got more votes last time than any returning position player. And if you’re a modern-metrics kind of voter, you can’t help but have noticed that, according to Baseball Reference, Jones rolled up more career wins above replacement (62.7) than two of the three guys who got elected in 2024, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer.
But Jones’ dramatic decline after age 30 is shaping up as a mammoth roadblock for those 148 voters who still aren’t checking his name. After adding more than 200 votes and zooming from less than 8% to more than 58% in just four years, he added only 11 votes last year (and 3.5 percentage points).
It seems significant that this was the smallest jump of anyone on the upper tier of the ballot.
Carlos Beltrán
57.1% — 69 votes short last time
It’s Year 3 of this derby for Beltrán. So what did this guy’s first two rides on the ballot tell us?
In Year 1, Beltrán got 46.5% of the vote — a clear indication that many, many voters could still hear those Houston Astros trash-can lids banging.
But then a funny thing happened in Year 2: He soared to 57.1%. That happened to be the largest jump (10.6 percentage points) of any returning player.
So does that mean he’s now going to be treated like a “normal” candidate? Does it say that lots of voters were just imposing a temporary purgatory on him for that messy (but brief) Houston portion of his career, but now they’re over it?
Over the past 50 elections, five other players have debuted on the ballot at 40% or higher and then jumped by at least 10 percentage points the next year. Those five: Jeff Bagwell, Ryne Sandberg, Barry Larkin, Ferguson Jenkins and Catfish Hunter. All five were eventually elected.
CC Sabathia
First year on the ballot
I can’t wait to see Sabathia’s Year 1 vote total. I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s 76%. I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s 46% — or pretty much any other number you would like to pick out of his cap.
That’s because it’s hard to think of any candidate quite like him.
If you close your eyes and don’t spend any time looking at his Baseball Reference page, Sabathia feels like a Hall of Famer. He walks and talks like a Hall of Famer. And he definitely has the spectacular highlight reel of a Hall of Famer.
But does he have the actual numbers of a Hall of Famer? It depends.
If you’re a yes, maybe it’s because he’s one of only three left-handed pitchers in the live-ball era (since 1920) in the 250-Win, 3,000-Strikeout Club. The others: Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton.
But if you’re a no, it may be because you’re staring at Sabathia’s 3.74 career ERA. Incredibly, that would be the highest of any left-handed starter in the Hall of Fame (and the third-highest overall, behind Jack Morris’ 3.90 and Red Ruffing’s 3.80).
Then there’s also his place on this ballot alongside two other left-handers who blew past 200 wins and had long, distinguished, reliable careers: Andy Pettitte and Mark Buehrle.
Did it feel, as you were watching them, that there was that little separation between those three guys? I would say no. But there they are, on the same ballot all of a sudden. And who knows what that will mean.
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