Baseball HOF voters got it right this year but..
Will there be any inductees in 2026?
The biggest news following the announcement of the 2025 Hall-of-Fame inductees was that first-timer Ichiro Suzuki was not a unanimous choice. When HOF president Josh Ravich was immediately asked if it was unanimous he was almost sheepish in admitting that Ichiro wasn’t. The BBWA writer/voter has not come forward to ‘own’ their “no” vote. That was also the case in 2020 when Derek Jeter fell one vote short of being a unanimous selection, something that only his teammate Mariano Rivera has been able to achieve.
What surprised me more than a little was how much it appeared to BOTHER Ichiro. Usually stoic, and not because he’s Japanese, Ichiro tongue-in-cheek suggested out loud that he and that voter have a drink together. Wait, Ichiro drinks? Maybe that was the biggest news regarding this year’s Hall-of-Fame vote?
Billy Wagner got it at the 10th hour since it was his final appearance on the ballot as a player. I’ve written about Wagner and have nothing else to add except for, FINALLY!
C.C. Sabathia flew in as a first-time ballot inductee. It’s not that I don’t feel C.C. Sabathia is a bona-fide Hall-of-Famer, but first ballot was something I personally did not expect since HOF voters are too often persnickety.
Let’s talk about first-ballot HOF status
So many of the greatest players in baseball history have missed being first ballot Hall-of-Famers. For this reason alone, that status does not have much intrigue or interest for me. Cy Young, Rogers Hornsby, Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra were not elected in their first year of eligibility. So why is it so important to be a first ballot Hall-of-Famer? The answer is simple. The players think it’s important! But for fans it shouldn’t be so important. It is fine whenever it happens but Billy Wagner had to wait 10 agonizing years to finally gain induction and his reaction was both poignant and emotional. 10th ballot is cool too.
On our podcast this week we were joined by The Athletic writer Daniel Brown to discuss his votes this year. He too was aggravated by the one unnamed voter that passed on voting for Ichiro. Last week I saw one non-voter mention that had he a vote for the HOF, he would also not have voted for Ichiro since Ichiro was a lock and there were 10 other players he wished to recognize as HOF worthy. The idea being that keeping Dustin Pedroia on the ballot for another year (hypothetically) was more important than a vote for Ichiro. It’s an unusual stance but at least if you are voting for 10 already it’s an argument. However, it’s an indication that while the BBWA writers mostly got it right this year, there’s something very wrong with the entire voting process. The voters got it right this year, and Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran will be the top candidates to make it next year but are not guaranteed and we may have zero HOFers elected in 2026. Ugh.
Why not vote for as many candidates as you want?
Ten years ago in 2015, the Hall-of-Fame reduced the numbers of years a player could be on a HOF ballot from 15 to the current 10 years. At that time of the 115 players previously elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA, 102 were voted in within their first 10 years on the ballot, while only 13 needed those extra five years. Jim Rice attained the Hall in his 15th year in 2009 and Bert Blyleven in his 14th year in 2011.
Limiting the number of players that can be voted for to 10 is too restrictive. As a member of the IBWAA* collectively we writers have a ballot for the HOF. But the IBWAA allows 12 names to be included and even those two extra slots make a difference. Granted that I am a ‘big hall’ guy and feel that so much about HOF voting could be cleaned up if 30+ players who were unfairly passed over (Kenny Lofton, Lou Whitaker, etc.,) were inducted and we could argue about Torii Hunter and Felix Hernandez with less noise in the background.
We talked with Dan Brown about the agony of waiting to learn if the player got in or not. If the player just fell short – like Billy Wagner did, or Jim Rice did for 14 straight years, you must answer media questions about how you are feeling and what it might mean to you. Every single year. Ugh. My son Gordon posed the idea that perhaps in year one all a player needs to do to remain on the ballot is receive one vote. Then in year two and beyond some percentage stipulations could be added – not necessarily 5%.
One other thing of interest from our conversation with Dan was when we talked about football, (as it was NFL championship game Sunday), he noted that he felt Opening Day and April represented the best baseball on the calendar even over the World Series. I believe what he meant was the anticipation of the coming season, the opportunity for unheralded teams to surprise and delight, makes that first month so exciting with possibilities and fun! Baseball also signifies the arrival of spring and the portent of summer. Football is about the playoffs and run to the Super Bowl, and the opening of the NFL season shows the way to autumn and winter and feels very different. This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the NFL playoffs this year but man I can hardly wait for April!
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.