It is yet again that marvelous time of the year to cast the ballot on Major League Baseball’s hall of fame ballot. It is 2025 and that means the enlistment of 14 new names on the 2025 BBWAA ballot. In addition to the 14 prior names to garner five percent or greater of last year’s votes, we will take a gander at the new names and what their overall look is concerning voters.
Among the names that are entering yet another ballot, three seem to have a true shot. Billy Wagner entering his 10th and final ballot was able to accumulate 73.8 % on his ninth ballot. He is seemingly a lock this year and the only true crux to his game is playoff numbers. When October came around, Wagner probably wished he was throwing with his true dominant hand. That’s right he was actually right handed and you could evidently tell once October rolled around. Teams would’ve been better off rolling out their backup catcher to close out games. Despite that it could be argued that he is the best relief pitcher in the history of the game besides Mariano Rivera even sporting a similar ERA and better career FIP than him with significantly worse teams.
The second that seems to be an eventual cast is Andruw Jones. He enters his 8th year on the ballot and in his prior attempt he garnered 61.6 % of the vote. His crux being the complete lack of production after his age 30 season. By the time his 31st birthday came along he decided to identify as a vegetable. Albeit the first 12 being among the best in the history of the game highlighted by 10 successive gold gloves in center field with well over 400 career home runs.
The third that looks to find themselves in Cooperstown is third year entry Carlos Beltran. On only his second ballot he had a marked 57.1 %. With numbers across the board screaming first ballot, you’d wonder how he finds himself entering his third ballot. The Houston Astros cheating electronic sign-stealing scandal, which Beltran was one of the key figures behind, has surely tarnished his reputation. He looks to overcome that view as the years go by and it would be tremendously difficult to oversee his 70 career WAR with 3 gold gloves in center field. Just as difficult for a lot of us to oversee the countless clips containing the beautiful clunking of trash cans from the Astros clubhouse. Not to mention his tremendous postseason success with a career OPS over .1000 in 65 games. Maybe that sign stealing started earlier than initially thought.
Among the 14 new comers there are certainly guys that will get in undoubtedly. Ichiro and Sabathia fall among the two that are almost certainly first ballot entries. Ichiro does not need much of an explanation. He entered the MLB after destroying the Nippon Professional League at the age of 27. Despite this, he was able to reach 3,000 hits, win Rookie of the Year and MVP, and also obtain 10 gold gloves in a row. If that’s not a lock I don’t know what is. The only thing that could hold him back is leftover futility from Pearl Harbor. C.C., an absolute legend with an insanely impressive career seeing him win a CY Young in 2007, a World Series in 2009, and over 250 career wins. Not only just beating his opponents but also battles with alcoholism at the same time.
Of the new comers to the ballot, there are some interesting cases to note and take a gander at. Of the interesting cases, there is Dustin Pedroia, Jimmy Rollins, Brian McCann, Russell Martin, Ben Zobrist, and Felix Hernandez. The rest of the new names are not very interesting.
Pedroia is among the hall of very good. His longevity is non existent as after the age of 33 his career was over. An excellent hitter and fielder on championship teams with a Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player under his belt, he was a putrid playoff hitter unfortunately. His numbers prior to that point warrant a hall of famer and if not for that early exit, I do believe he would be a hall of famer.
Rollins might be interesting to most, however I think it’s simple to look at the hitting numbers throughout his career and easily say that he was a below average hitter with excellent however not historical defense. He does not quite hit the mark for me despite having an amazing career. McCann and Martin fall along similar lines. Both are pretty solid backstops that if you briefly browse you might miss the mark. Despite having whatever marks when it comes to their hitting stats and overall career numbers, they embody the era of catcher framing and the metrics that come alongside them. If those are accounted for you can see that both guys are among the most valuable catchers in the history of the game. Not to mention their hitting, while it may not be on the level of a Todd Helton or even a Frank Thomas, when juxtaposed with other catchers they greatly outweigh the competition. With that being said, I see that with time, Brian McCann may be a fringe hall of famer and Russell Martin deserves a deeper look and should at least signal the new era of catcher stats to view as a standard for future ballot comers.
Ben Zobrist by no means when viewing his numbers throughout his career would warrant a hall of famer. On the surface, I agree, however there is a case. Ben Zobrist ushers a new era of players known as the super-utility. Filling in wherever necessary to ensure no holes were left on defense. He not only plugged the hole but excelled at it. He even lead the league in WAR in 2009 and likely should have been the American Leagues Most Valuable Player. In that season he played every position except for catcher and pitcher. He did this throughout his career and likely suffered value because of it. Despite this he was able to win a World Series Most Valuable Player and accumulate an impressive 44.5 Wins Above Replacement in only 14 seasons. He had roughly 4,000 less at bats than Ichiro yet was able to emulate 75% of his value in that time. His contributions will and already have led to the mass growth of players that are known as super-utility. It is likely that if he stayed at a singular position for the length of his career his numbers would be tremendously improved. When it comes to changing the way we play and look at the game, Zobrist is a shining example. This matters because there are countless members of the hall of fame that did not necessarily get there via their career numbers. For example we have Candy Cummings who is in the Hall of Fame more than likely due to his credit for coming up with the curveball.