Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, and Todd Helton are Elected to the Hall of Fame

This evening, Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, and Todd Helton were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. The 385 voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) elected Beltre with 95.1% of the vote, Helton with 79.7%, and Mauer with 76.1% in an election that requires 75% or more for a spot in the Hall.

Beltre and Mauer were both on the ballot for the first time, while Helton was appearing on his 6th BBWAA ballot. Beltre’s 95.1% represents the 17th highest percentage ever for a Hall of Famer, while Mauer becomes just the third catcher in the history of the voting to make the Hall on his first ballot.

Beltre, Mauer, and Helton will join longtime manager Jim Leyland on stage in Cooperstown this July. Leyland was elected to the Hall of Fame last month by the Contemporary Baseball Non-Players Committee.

Billy Wagner nearly made it a quartet of BBWAA inductees for 2024, falling just five votes shy of 75%, earning 73.8%. Gary Sheffield, in his 10th and final year on the BBWAA ballot, got the 5th most votes but came up well short of 75% with 63.9%.

The other two players who earned between 50% and 74.9% were Andruw Jones (61.6% in his 7th year on the ballot) and Carlos Beltran, who jumped from 46.5% in 2023 to 57.1% in his second year of eligibility.

Two of the greatest hitters of their generation (Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez) remained stuck in BBWAA quicksand. Both players were suspended for the use of Performance-enhancing Drugs (PEDs), making them a non-starter for the Hall for approximately two-thirds of the writers.

The 10th-highest vote total went to Chase Utley, who got a respectable 28.8% in his first turn on the ballot. This might seem counterintuitive, but in the history of the BBWAA voting, a significant percentage of players who debuted with a tally of 25% or higher eventually made it into Cooperstown.

Eight other players (Bobby Abreu, Jimmy Rollins, Andy Pettitte, Mark Buehrle, Omar Vizquel, Francisco Rodriguez, David Wright, and Torii Hunter) earned between 5% and 20% of the vote, which means they’ll be back on the 2025 ballot. However, there is no indication that any of them will ever get the kind of support that would allow them to surge in the upcoming years.

There are also eight first-time candidates who earned less than 5% of the vote, disqualifying them from future BBWAA ballots. Those players (Jose Bautista, Matt Holliday, Victor Martinez, Bartolo Colon, James Shields, Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Reyes, and Brandon Phillips) all had excellent careers but didn’t have the longevity or (in Colon’s case) the consistency to merit serious consideration for Cooperstown.

So, for the record, here are the final vote tallies for the 26 candidates on the 2024 Hall of Fame ballot:

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Reyes and Shields did not earn a single vote. A previously noted, the players who received less than 5% of the vote will not be eligible for future ballots.

Here is a recap of the vote for each of the players who did earn at least 5% of the vote. At the end of the piece, I’ll share a look-ahead to the 2025 through 2029 ballots.

Adrian Beltre – 3B (95.1% in his 1st year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Los Angeles Dodgers (1998-2004), Seattle Mariners (2005-2009), Boston Red Sox (2010), Texas Rangers (2011-19)
• Career: .286 BA, 477 HR, 1,707 RBI, 3,166 Hits
• Career: 116 OPS+, 93.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 2nd in 2004 N.L. MVP voting (.334 BA, 48 HR, 121 RBI, 163 OPS+, 9.6 WAR)
• 4-time All-Star, 5-time Gold Glove Award Winner, 4-time Silver Slugger

In yesteryear, BBWAA voters were especially stingy when it came to conferring “first-ballot” status on any Hall of Fame candidate. If you can believe it, Hank Aaron got “only” 97.8% of the vote in 1982, with nine voters deeming him unworthy of Cooperstown. 23 writers didn’t check the name Willie Mays.

In recent decades, that has changed, and Adrian Beltre, an obvious choice for the Hall of Fame, benefitted with 95.1% of the final tally, although, frankly, I was surprised that there were 19 writers who did not deem the brilliant third baseman worthy of the Hall.

Regardless, Beltre is in fine company. Only 16 players in the history of the voting earned more than Beltre’s 95.1%, and his total matched the first-year total of Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner, who were a part of the original Class of 1936.

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Beltre becomes the fifth native of the Dominican Republic to make it to the Hall of Fame, joining Juan Marichal, Pedro Martinez, Vladimir Guerrero, and David Ortiz.

For more on Beltre’s Hall of Fame career, please click here.

Todd Helton – 1B (79.7% in his 6th year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Colorado Rockies (1997-2013)
• Career: .316 BA, .414 OBP, .539 SLG, 369 HR, 1,406 RBI, 2,519 Hits
• Career: 133 OPS+, 61.8 WAR
• 5-time All-Star, 3-time Gold Glove, 4-time Silver Slugger

When Todd Helton first hit the ballot in 2019, he got just 16.5% of the vote in an election requiring 75% for a plaque in Cooperstown. Although he had superb offensive statistics and was known for brilliant defense at first base, there was clearly some initial skepticism due to the fact that he had spent his entire career calling Coors Field his home. His teammate with the Rockies (Larry Walker) was on the ballot for the 9th time and earned 54.6% of the vote.

That should have been a leading indicator that Helton’s fortunes would improve, but Walker was a different (and, arguably, better) player. Walker’s and Helton’s offensive statistics were remarkably similar, but Walker spent several seasons in the less-friendly hitting environments of Montreal and St. Louis, he had an MVP Award, he could run, and he had seven Gold Gloves (compared to Helton’s three).

Walker surged to 76.6% of the vote in 2020, making it to the Hall of Fame, and Helton has drafted off his coattails ever since. Take a look at the year-by-year vote percentage for Helton:

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As you can see, Helton made a big jump a year ago. The 2023 BBWAA ballot was the weakest one since 2012. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Curt Schilling all exhausted their eligibility the year before, while there was only one new strong candidate to join the party (Carlos Beltran). Thus, many players watched their vote totals increase.

In the vast majority of cases, when a player gets to 70% of the vote or higher, they make it to the Hall of Fame one year later, as we’ll see in detail shortly.

For more on why Todd Helton is a worthy Hall of Famer, please click here.

Joe Mauer – C (76.1% in his 1st year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Minnesota Twins (2004-18)
• Career: .306 BA, .388 OBP, 143 HR, 923 RBI, 2,123 hits
• Career: 124 OPS+, 55.2 WAR
• 2009 A.L. MVP (28 HR, 96 RBI, led A.L. with .365 BA, .444 OBP and .587 SLG)
• 3-time A.L. Batting Champion
• 6-time All-Star, 3-time Gold Glove Award winner, 5-time Silver Slugger Award winner

Joe Mauer’s 76.1% is the second-highest first-ballot total for a Hall of Fame catcher in the history of the Hall of Fame balloting, behind Johnny Bench. He’s only the third catcher ever to make the Hall on his first try, with Bench and Ivan Rodriguez being the others.

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Mauer also becomes the third player to make the Hall of Fame who played his entire career with the Minnesota Twins, joining Kirby Puckett and Tony Oliva. Additionally, Mauer is just the fourth player to be selected #1 overall in the player draft to make it to Cooperstown, joining Chipper Jones, Ken Griffey Jr., and Harold Baines.

Finally, Mauer, a native of St. Paul, becomes the fifth Minnesotan to earn a plaque in the Hall, joining Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, and Charles Bender in Cooperstown. Winfield, Molitor, and Morris all spent time with the Twins in the latter years of their careers; Bender pitched in the early part of the century, decades before Major League Baseball came to the Twin Cities.

I was pleasantly surprised that Mauer was a first-ballot selection for the Hall, considering that his career ended with five mediocre campaigns as a first baseman. Clearly, his brilliant first ten years as a three-time batting champion and six-time All-Star at a premium defensive position won the day over both the analytically minded and “old school” writers.

For more on what makes Joe Mauer a Hall of Famer, please click here.

The More than 50% but Less than 75% Club

Four players on the 2024 BBWAA ballot earned more than 50% but less than 75%. In most elections, a majority win rules, but not when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Still, in the entire history of the voting, almost every player who has gotten 50% or more on the writer’s ballot has eventually made it to Cooperstown, either via a subsequent BBWAA election or through one of the various versions of what is now known as the Era Committee (formerly the Veterans Committee).

Billy Wagner -RP (73.8% in his 9th year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Career: 422 Saves (86% success rate), 2.31 ERA, 0.998 WHIP
• Career: 187 ERA+, 27.8 WAR
• 7-time All-Star

One of the most painful aspects of the Hall of Fame voting process is that, very often, a player barely falls short of the Hall of Fame. This happens with both the BBWAA and the Era Committee. On last month’s Era Committee vote for non-players, manager Lou Piniella fell just one vote shy of Cooperstown, the second time this has happened to Sweet Lou. Piniella’s fate was based on getting just 11 votes in an election where he needed 12 (out of a possible 16 votes).

In Billy Wagner’s case, he fell five votes short in an election where he needed 289 writers (out of 385) to check his name. This is why I checked his name on my “virtual” ballot for the first time. The case that I made in this piece was that if a player’s eventual election is inevitable, I’d rather help him cross the finish line rather than hold him back a year.

The hard-throwing lefthanded closer has come a long way from his early years on a clogged ballot when he was barely able to clear 10% of the vote.

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Generally, when a player falls just short on the BBWAA vote, they make it the next year. As you can see from the next chart, the controversial Schilling was the exception to the rule, while Todd Helton followed the normal script, and I would be shocked if Wagner is not elected one year from today.

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For more on Billy Wagner’s Hall of Fame case and why I’ve been a long-term skeptic (this is one of my favorite pieces on Cooperstown Cred), please click here.

Gary Sheffield – OF (63.9% in his 10th year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Brewers (1988-91), Padres (1992-93), Marlins (1993-98), Dodgers (1998-2001), Braves (2002-03), Yankees (2004-06), Tigers (2007-08), Mets (2009)
• Career: .292 BA, 509 HR, 1676 RBI, 2,689 Hits
• Career: 140 OPS+, 60.5 WAR
• 9-time All-Star, 5-time Silver Slugger

Gary Sheffield made substantial gains in his final two years on the BBWAA ballot. The fearsome right-handed-hitting slugger earned 40.6% of the vote in 2022 before surging to 55.0% in 2023 and 63.9% today. Because this was his final ballot, Sheffield’s next opportunity for the Hall of Fame will be next December when the Era Committee meets for the Contemporary Players ballot.

Given Sheffield’s BALCO connection and the fact he was named in the Mitchell Report on steroids, the big question that I have is this: will the Era Committee look more favorably on Sheffield’s candidacy than it did thirteen months ago when they nearly unanimously rejected two of the greatest players of all time (Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens) and also Rafael Palmeiro?

I suspect that the answer is that Sheffield won’t be able to get 12 out of 16 voters to sign on to his candidacy, but I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility. The reason that I consider it “possible” is that Sheffield is the rare player who admitted that he used PEDs in real-time (accidentally, he claims) and that he was an early advocate for drug testing in the sport.

For more on Sheffield’s case, please click here.

Andruw Jones – CF (61.6% in his 7th year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Braves (1996-’07), Dodgers (’08), Rangers (’09), White Sox (’10), Yankees (2011-12)
• Career: .254 BA, 434 HR, 1,289 RBI
• Career: 111 OPS+, 62.7 WAR
• 5-time All-Star, 10-time Gold Glove Award winner

Andruw Jones has a very strong basic Hall of Fame case: 10 Gold Gloves and 434 home runs at a premium defensive position (center field). On the sabermetric side, the defensive metrics that go into WAR anoint him as the greatest defensive center fielder in baseball history. That elevator pitch is clearly resonating with the writers, based on the amazing gains Jones has made since earning less than 8% of the vote in his first two turns on the ballot.

Still, Jones only gained 3.5% from his 2023 tally. He has to keep gaining and only has three years left on the ballot. That’s plenty of time to make up less than 14% but it’s possible that he’ll meet resistance from writers unimpressed with his .254 career batting average and how his career fell off a cliff when he left Atlanta.

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There’s a decent chance that Jones will make it to Cooperstown via the BBWAA. If he falls short, however, given that there are several of his Atlanta Braves teammates already in the Hall (Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz), he may have friendly advocates when it’s his turn to hit the Era Committee ballot if he doesn’t make it with the writers.

For the reasons why I’m not sold yet on a plaque in the Hall of Fame for Andruw Jones, I invite you to take a look at this piece.

Carlos Beltran – OF (57.1% in his 2nd year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Royals (1998-2004), Astros (2004), Mets (2005-11), Giants (2011), Cardinals (2012-13), Yankees (2014-16), Rangers (2016), Astros (2017)
• Career: .279 BA, 435 HR, 1,587 RBI, 1,582 runs, 2,725 hits, 312 SB
• Career: 119 OPS+, 70.1 WAR
• 9-time All-Star, 3-time Gold Glove winner, 2-time Silver Slugger Award winner
• Career post-season: .307 BA, .412 OBP, .609 SLG, 16 HR, 42 RBI in 256 PA

Carlos Beltran has the fourth most home runs (435) and fourth most RBI (1,587) among all center fielders. He stole 312 bases with a success rate (of 86.4%) which is the best in baseball history for players with at least 200 steals. He also has the fourth most HR and third most RBI for any switch-hitter in MLB history.

When a player passes 50% in the voting, they almost always make the Hall of Fame eventually. Given the fact that he’s only been on the ballot for two years, a plaque via the BBWAA is very likely. The question is whether he has a “ceiling.” How big is the bloc of voters who won’t ever forgive Beltran for his role in the Astros sign-stealing scandal in 2017?

For more on Beltran’s Hall of Fame case, please click here.

The 11 Players with Under 50% but more than 5% of the vote

There are 11 players who got anywhere from 6.2% to 34.8% of the vote and will return to the ballot for 2025. Although history has shown that dozens of players have climbed from under 50% to over 75% in the years to follow, there are reasons to doubt it will happen for these august eleven, save perhaps for the first player on the list.

Chase Utley – 2B (28.8% in his 1st year on the BBWAA ballot)

• Philadelphia Phillies (2003-15), Los Angeles Dodgers (2015-18)
• Career: 259 HR, 1,025 RBI, .275 BA, .358 OBP, .465 SLG
• Career: 117 OPS+, 64.5 WAR
• 6-time All-Star, 4-time Silver Slugger Award winner

Chase Utley’s 28.8% tally on today’s BBWAA vote is one of the biggest disappointments of the day. Before the results were announced, Utley was sitting at 39.4% based on the first 218 votes that were publicly reported on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame vote tracker. To break down that number, it means that Utley only got 15.0% of the 167 votes that were not publicly revealed prior to the announcement.

Generally speaking, the writers who choose to keep their votes private are a bit stingier and a bit more “old school,” relying on traditional counting statistics, while the writers who share their ballots publicly are more likely to rely on sabermetrics. Utley’s case relies on extraordinary defensive metrics, which gave him a 64.5 career WAR. His traditional stats (.275 BA, 259 HR, 1,025 RBI, 1,885 Hits) do not leap off the page.

There are plenty of players to debut with between 25% and 30% of the vote who went on to earn a spot in the Hall of Fame on a future BBWAA ballot. As we’ve already discussed, three players to debut at 20% or less (Larry Walker, Scott Rolen, and Todd Helton) have recently made it over the 75% finish line, and Billy Wagner is poised to do it next year.

Key stat: in the last 50 years of the BBWAA vote, there have been 18 other players to earn between 20% and 35% of the vote on their first ballot. 11 of those 18 made the Hall of Fame in the years (decades) since their first year on the ballot. Three of the seven who haven’t made it are PED-linked (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire).

Still, I now think it will take Utley quite a while to climb the balloting hill. Walker, Rolen, Helton, and Wagner all debuted on ballots that were clogged with elite players. Bonds and Clemens were sucking up two votes year after year by a segment of the BBWAA electorate who felt that these all-time greats deserved to make the Hall. (Remember, each BBWAA writer is limited to ten votes). The 2024 ballot was not of the same quality as the early ballots that the aforementioned quartet had to compete with.

I’m a writer who is not a member of the BBWAA and, thus, do not have an official vote, but I spend more time thinking about and writing about Hall of Fame candidates than all but a handful of the actual BBWAA members. I’m not sold yet on Chase Utley because I don’t trust the defensive metrics that are the cornerstone of his Cooperstown candidacy. You can see why by clicking here.

Alex Rodriguez (34.8%) and Manny Ramirez (32.5%)

A-Rod and Manny are the two candidates on the current ballot who were actually suspended from Major League Baseball for using PEDs. As a result, they are in voting quicksand.

Two other outfielders tainted by scandal (Carlos Beltran, for the 2017 Astros cheating scheme, and Gary Sheffield, for his BALCO ties) each gained more than 30 new votes this year. A-Rod and Manny lost four votes each. Writers are “dug in” with these great hitters. They’re not going to make it to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA, not this year, not ever.

A-Rod was clearly a much better player than Ramirez was, which explains why his vote tally is slightly higher. Still, it’s clear that the writers have put them in the same PED-loser bucket.

In December 2022, as previously mentioned, the Eras Committee thoroughly rejected two of the greatest players of all time (Bonds and Clemens). Each superstar received fewer than 4 out of 16 committee votes in a process that required at least 12 votes for a plaque in Cooperstown. Meanwhile, Fred McGriff went 16 for 16, while Bonds and Clemens did so poorly that the Hall did not even release their exact vote tallies.

The point here is that there is an obviously institutional position at the Hall of Fame (and with the living Hall of Famers) that PED users are not welcome in Cooperstown. A-Rod and Manny aren’t going to get in either via the BBWAA or the Era Committee anytime soon. Perhaps decades later, there will be a re-evaluation, but for now, they’re all out.

The Other Eight Remaining Candidates (all under 20%)

There are eight other candidates from the 2024 BBWAA ballot who earned between 6.2% and 17.7% of the vote. They’ll all be back on the ballot in 2025, but there are no leading indicators that portend a plaque in the future via the writers.

Omar Vizquel (17.7% in his 7th year on the ballot): in his third year on the ballot (in 2020), Vizquel got 52.6% of the vote, representing a gain of nearly 10% from the previous year. It seemed inevitable that Vizquel was destined for a plaque in Cooperstown. However, in the last couple of years, Vizquel has been tarnished by two scandals (domestic battery and sexual harassment). As a result, his voting support has plummeted.

Unless there is a satisfactory exoneration of Vizquel in the two cases, it’s unlikely he’ll make it into the Hall in his final three years of eligibility. In this writer’s opinion, Vizquel didn’t deserve a Hall of Fame plaque anyway.

Jimmy Rollins (14.8% in his 3rd year on the ballot): Rollins has a weak career WAR (47.6) and OPS+ (95), which makes it unlikely that he’ll ever break through with the writers. I do consider him, however, a strong future Eras Committee candidate because he’s a popular player who was a cornerstone of a team that won five consecutive N.L. East titles. Additionally, he was unusually durable for a shortstop.

I’ll surprise some people by saying that Rollins has a better than 50% chance of making the Hall eventually.

Bobby Abreu (14.8% in his 5th year on the ballot): Abreu combined power, speed, and durability. He played in 150 or more games in 13 consecutive seasons. The only other player to ever do it was Willie Mays. Abreu was also prolific at drawing walks, leading to a high career on-base percentage (.395).

Given that he had a 60.2 career WAR, he’ll stick around on the BBWAA ballot for his full 10 years of eligibility. But his odds at a plaque in the Hall are pretty dim.

Andy Pettitte (13.5% in his 6th year on the ballot): Pettitte was a prolific postseason pitcher, and his 256 career wins are unlikely to be surpassed by many (or any) more active pitchers, but he needed to take advantage of the weaker ballots in the last two years and is going nowhere.

Pettitte admitted to once using human growth hormone, so he has the PED taint. Additionally, his career record is easy to diminish because he always pitched for top-tier teams. He’s not going to make the Hall via the BBWAA. There’s a chance that the Eras Committee will smile more favorably, with Mariano Rivera, Jeter, and Joe Torre being possible future committee members.

Mark Buehrle (8.3% in his 4th year on the ballot): Buehrle was fun to watch. He worked fast, pitched to contact, and was unusually durable, but he never felt like a Hall of Famer. It’s possible that his career will look better a decade or two from now as 200-game-winners start to become extinct.

His case is better than you might think. But it may be harder for him to survive on future ballots now that his BBWAA fate is clearly sealed.

Francisco Rodriguez (7.8% in his 2nd year on the ballot): K-Rod will return to the 2025 ballot thanks to having the 4th most saves (437) in baseball history. It’s clear, however, that the writers have (accurately) concluded that he’s not in Billy Wagner’s league.

Rodriguez was brilliant in his tenure with the Angels (2002-08) and set the all-time single-season saves record (with 62 in ’08) but he was not an elite reliever in the years since then. Also, by the time the writers vote again in December, he’ll have likely dropped to 6th on the all-time saves list, behind Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel.

Torii Hunter (7.3% in his 4th year on the ballot): Hunter barely re-qualified for the 2023 ballot, clearing the 5% bar by just two votes in 2022. He’s got a small but loyal group of supporters, though, and is back for a fifth try in 2025. However, as we’ll see, the ballot is going to get a bit more crowded a year from now.

Hunter has some nice basics for an elevator pitch (353 HR, 2,452 Hits, 9 Gold Gloves), so it wouldn’t shock me if a future Eras Committee smiled upon his candidacy.

David Wright (6.2% in his 1st year on the ballot): I’ll admit that I’m biased when it comes to David Wright. I’m a lifelong Mets fan, and he is to us what Joe Mauer is to Minnesota Twins fans or Todd Helton to Colorado Rockies fans. Wright’s career was cut short due to injury, and, in fairness, his case is a little light. I’m glad he survived to be on another ballot, but I doubt he’ll make it to a third.

For more on David Wright’s career with the Mets and why I gave him my “virtual” vote, please click here.

 

Coming Attractions to the BBWAA Ballot

Besides the first-time players who earned less than 5% of the vote, there are four players who were on the 2024 BBWAA ballot who won’t be back in 2025: it’s the three inductees (Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, and Todd Helton) and Gary Sheffield, who has exhausted his 10 years of eligibility.

Thus, for any writer who checked the maximum amount of allowed names (10) on this year’s ballot, they’ll have up to four more open slots this December. One of those slots will be filled on pretty much every writer’s ballot by Ichiro Suzuki. Because of his 3,089 career hits, 10 Gold Gloves, and 10 All-Star nods, Ichiro is widely considered a shoo-in.

It’s interesting, however, that his career WAR is 60.0, which is less than Chase Utley, Andruw Jones, Sheffield, Bobby Abreu, and Andy Pettitte. I suppose it’s possible that some WAR-mongers will withhold a vote for Ichiro for that reason, but he seems so obvious that he’ll get 95% or more.

Joining Ichiro as a first-time candidate in 2025 is CC Sabathia, who is a likely Hall of Famer, although probably not on the first try. There is also a very strong supporting cast of players. The two that are most likely to get significant support are Dustin Pedroia and Felix Hernandez, both of whom looked to be on the Hall of Fame path before being derailed by injury or ineffectiveness.

The other first-time candidates, all likely to be “one and done” (under 5%), are Ian Kinsler, Curtis Granderson, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Zobrist, Hanley Ramirez, Russell Martin, and Brian McCann.

The BBWAA Hall of Fame Class of 2025 will be Ichiro (for sure), Billy Wagner (most likely, given he fell only five votes shy this year), and (possibly) Sabathia.

The first-time candidate pool for 2026 is exceptionally weak: the strongest potential candidates are Cole Hamels, Ryan Braun, and Edwin Encarnacion. This might be the year that Carlos Beltran makes it to the Hall, with Andruw Jones and Sabathia possibly getting in as well. Also, if Chase Utley is to have a massive surge to pre-position himself for the Hall, this is the year he’ll need to have it.

In 2027, the top new candidates will be Buster Posey and Jon Lester. Posey will likely get the Joe Mauer treatment and make the Hall on his first try. If Jones doesn’t make it in 2026, he might make it in ’27, which will be his final year on the ballot.

Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Robinson Cano become eligible in 2028. Pujols will be a high-90% pick. Molina, who has a relatively low WAR (42.3) but 9 Gold Gloves and 10 All-Star berths, will be a controversial case. Miguel Cabrera is set to join the ballot in 2029 and is an easy first-ballot choice.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on X @cooperstowncred.