David Ortiz: Lone BBWAA Inductee to the Hall of Fame Class of 2022

David Ortiz, one of the greatest hitters in the history of the postseason, was elected today to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum by the members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America). Ortiz, who got 77.9% of the vote in his first appearance on the BBWAA ballot, was the only player to surpass the minimum of 75% support required to get a plaque in Cooperstown.

Ortiz hit 541 home runs in the regular season (along with the 8th most doubles in baseball history) but it was in October that he became an obvious Hall of Famer. Ortiz was a key contributor to three World Series titles with the Red Sox (in 2004, 2007, and 2013). For players with at least 50 career plate appearances in the World Series, Ortiz has the highest batting average (.455), the highest on-base percentage (.576),  and the second-highest slugging percentage (.795). Ortiz, a ten-time All-Star, is the fourth Dominican-born player to make it to the Hall of Fame, joining Juan Marichal, Vladimir Guerrero, and his Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez, who was with Big Papi in person to celebrate the news.

As for the rest of the candidates, Barry Bonds (66.0%), Roger Clemens (65.2%), and Curt Schilling (58.6) all fell short of the 75% needed to make it into Cooperstown in their 10th and final appearances on the ballot. Bonds, Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Schilling all have been shrouded in controversy. For Bonds, Clemens, and Sosa, it’s been their suspected use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), for Schilling it’s been his outspoken political views.

Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling all earned over 50% of the vote for the third consecutive ballot but, when it comes to baseball’s Hall of Fame, over 50% doesn’t cut the mustard. 75% is required. Normally when players get over 50% there is momentum behind their candidacies and the BBWAA members who had previously voted “no” switch their votes to “yes” in order to help that player cross the 75% finish line. However, with Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling, there was no groundswell of goodwill that helped them get that plaque. As for Sosa, he never had the “all-time great” status that Bonds and Clemens had and never got remotely close to the Hall. Sosa finished with 18.5% of the vote in his final turn on the ballot.

Meanwhile, a quartet of players (Scott Rolen, Todd Helton, Billy Wagner, and Andruw Jones) continued to make incremental gains in their quest for Cooperstown while Gary Sheffield clocked in at 40.6%, remaining stuck in neutral in his 8th turn on the ballot.

Besides Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez was also a first-time nominee on the BBWAA ballot. However, despite also being an all-time great player, his one-year suspension in 2014 for his role in the Biogenesis PED scandal and his admitted use of PEDs from 2001-03 put him at just 34.3%, in the same situation as Manny Ramirez, who was suspended twice by MLB for PED use.

In his 9th year on the ballot, Jeff Kent has remained stuck in proverbial quicksand. He’ll be eligible for the last time in 2023. Meanwhile, Omar Vizquel suffered the worst one-year drop in the modern history of the Hall of Fame vote, earning just 23.9% of the vote this year, one year after getting 49.1%. Vizquel has been tarnished by two scandals involving domestic violence and sexual harassment.

One other first-time candidate (besides A-Rod) who will be back on the 2023 ballot is another shortstop, Jimmy Rollins, a former MVP who was a member of the 2008 World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies. Rollins was well above the 5% needed to remain on future ballots but still far away from being a serious candidate for Cooperstown. He’s in the same down-ballot doldrums with Andy Pettitte, Mark Buehrle,  Torii Hunter, and Bobby Abreu.

In the meantime, one candidate who earned over 5% a year ago (Tim Hudson) fell short of the 5% needed to remain on the ballot in 2023.

And, so, for the record, here are the final results of the 2022 BBWAA Hall of Fame balloting.

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Congratulations to David Ortiz for making the Hall’s Class of 2022. He’ll join two other living inductees (Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva), who were elected by the Modern Baseball Eras Committee last month. Four other Hall of Famers will be inducted posthumously: Minnie Minoso and Gil Hodges along with Negro Leagues legends Buck O’Neil and Bud Folwer, elected by the Early Baseball Committee.

For more on what makes Ortiz an obvious Hall of Famer to this author, please click here.

Cooperstown Cred: David Ortiz (DH)

• Elected to the Hall of Fame Class of 2022 with 77.9% of the vote
• Twins (1997-2002), Red Sox (2003-16)
• Career: .286 BA, 541 HR, 1,768 RBI, 2,472 Hits
• Career: 141 OPS+, 55.3 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 632 career doubles (12th most all-time)
• 1,192 career extra-base hits (8th most all-time, behind Aaron, Bonds, Musial, Ruth, Mays, Pujols, A. Rodriguez)
• 10-time All-Star

(cover photo: AP/Elise Amendola)

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Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, and Sosa Fall Short

In 2013, a star-studded array of players hit the BBWAA ballot for the first time. Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Schilling, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio,  and Kenny Lofton all made their debuts on that ballot and none of them were elected to the Hall; the BBWAA pitched a proverbial shutout. That ballot was so jam-packed that Lofton didn’t even make it to 5% and has been excluded from every ballot since then. Then, from 2014 to 2020, the BBWAA went on a proverbial rampage, electing 22 players, including Piazza and Biggio. But, now, in two voting cycles, Oritz has been the lone selection.

The newly minted Hall of Famer believes that he should have gone into Cooperstown with Bonds and Clemens.

“Barry Bonds was special. He separated himself from the game at the highest level. I know a lot of things are going on, but to me the guy’s a Hall of Famer. Same with Roger, The Rocket. I can’t even compare myself to them. Not having them join me at this time is something that’s very hard for me to believe.”

— David Ortiz (video press conference), Jan. 25, 2022

Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and Schilling will all be eligible for the 2023 “Today’s Game” Eras Committee ballot. The 16-member committee will convene this December to vote on players, managers, or executives from 1987 until 2007. Lofton will also be eligible for that ballot for the first time, as will Fred McGriff and Bruce Bochy, who managed the San Francisco Giants to three World Series titles.

Both Bonds and Clemens made some modest gains among the overall BBWAA electorate but not enough to get to 75%. Until recently, players had 15 years of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot but the Hall shrunk that timeline to 10 years in the summer of 2014.

Here is the year-by-year progression for the two legends.

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As for Schilling, his fall was in many ways self-inflicted. When he finished 16 votes short of the Hall of Fame one year ago (with a 71.1% total), he announced that he would rather not be on the 2022 ballot, preferring to be judged by his peers on the Eras Committee. Many members of the BBWAA granted him that wish.

In the history of the Hall of Fame voting, almost every player who gets 70% or more of the vote crosses the finish line in the next year, if they’re still eligible for the ballot. The only exception in the last 35 years is pitcher Jim Bunning, who had the misfortune of getting 74.2% the year before two better pitchers (Gaylord Perry and Fergie Jenkins) hit the ballot, along with legends Carl Yastrzemski and Johnny Bench.

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It might surprise some of you to know that it’s actually quite rare for a player to get more than 50% but less than 75% in his last year on the BBWAA ballot. This happened to Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling this year but it’s only happened to six players since 1968. The most recent was Gil Hodges, whose family had to wait 39 years. Hodges appeared on 19 Veterans or Eras Committee ballots before getting elected last month.

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As for Sosa, if Bonds and Clemens couldn’t even get two-thirds of the vote, he had no shot whatsoever.

Vizquel’s Fall from Grace (23.9%)

On the 2020 ballot, Omar Vizquel got 52.% of the vote, an improvement of nearly 10% from the previous year, in which he got 42.8%. Normally when a player makes a gain like that, it means that they’re building momentum towards an inevitable plaque in Cooperstown. However, last December came the revelation that Omar’s ex-wife had accused him of domestic violence. The news came after many writers had already submitted their ballots but it still softened his support to 49.1%. This summer, however, more bad news came to light, that Vizquel had been accused of sexual harassment by an autistic man, a batboy for the Birmingham Barons, a minor league team that he was managing.

Given both pieces of troubling news, over 100 writers fled for the hills. A year ago, Vizquel had 197 “yes” votes for the Hall; this year it was just 94. The percentage drop of 25.2% is the biggest in the modern history of the Hall of Fame voting (since 1966).

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If you’re wondering why three of the other biggest drops are from 1988, you already have the answer. It was the year that Perry, Jenkins, Yaz, and Bench hit the ballot.

Unless Vizquel is exonerated in these two troubling cases (especially the one involving sexual harassment), he has no chance at the Hall.

Future Prognosis for Others on the 2022 Ballot

As we’ve seen, several players (Scott Rolen, Todd Helton, Billy Wagner, and Andruw Jones) made significant gains on the 2022 ballot. There is only one Hall of Fame-worthy player joining the ballot in 2023, Carlos Beltran. Given that Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, and Schilling will no longer be on the ballot, there’s plenty of room for overlooked candidates to make bigger improvements in 2023. Remember, the BBWAA voters are limited to 10 selections.

Rolen (63.2%), Helton (52.0%), and Wagner (51.0%) all have reached a magic number of sorts. With the exception of the players on the 2022 ballot, every player in the history of the BBWAA Hall of Fame who has reached at least 50% of the vote has eventually been elected to receive a plaque in Cooperstown, either by the writers or the Eras/Veterans Committee. Here’s a brief look at the prognosis for some of the other 2022 candidates who will return in 2023.

Scott Rolen (63.2%)

Rolen has made the kind of big jumps in the past few years that almost always portend a Hall of Fame plaque in the short-term future. Rolen got a mere 10.2% in his first year of eligibility but that ballot was jam-packed. There were several other strong first-time candidates (Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vizquel, and Andruw Jones) along with two returnees (Trevor Hoffman and Vladimir Guerrero) who had earned over 70% in the previous year. Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Larry Walker, Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling were still on the ballot.

In 2018, it was a basic math problem. Writers are only allowed to vote for ten candidates and candidates like Rolen got squeezed. The BBWAA successfully elected Chipper, Thome, Hoffman, and Guerrero in 2018, clearing the logjam a bit. However, the 2019 ballot had several strong first-timers as well (Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, Todd Helton, and Andy Pettitte). Rolen did better (17.2%) but still was many writers’ 11th or 12th choice.

The writers, in their collective wisdom, unclogged that ballot even more in 2019, electing Rivera, Halladay, Martinez, and Mussina. And, so, with Derek Jeter the only obvious new candidate in 2020, Rolen surged to 35.3%. Jeter was elected, of course, along with Walker. Then, in 2021, there were no especially strong first-time candidates, so Rolen moved up to 52.9%. Finally, this year, with Ortiz and A-Rod the only strong new candidates, there was plenty of space for writers who liked Rolen to flip from “no” to “yes.”

Because of his career WAR of 70.1, Rolen is a strong sabermetric candidate, similar to Martinez and Walker (and Tim Raines before them). Of the 27 newly eligible BBWAA members who have joined the rolls of Hall of Fame voters in 2021 or 2022, Rolen got a positive response from 23 of them (85%). When a player has the kind of voting momentum that Rolen now has, there becomes an air of inevitability. I’d say it’s a better than 50-50 chance that he’ll be elected to get a plaque in Cooperstown next year. If he doesn’t make it, he’ll be close enough to be a shoo-in in 2024.

Todd Helton (52.0%)

Helton joined the BBWAA ballot party in 2019, a member of that crowded ballot year in which Rivera, Halladay, Martinez, and Mussina made it to Cooperstown. Due to the logjam, he got just 16.5% of the vote. The next year, in 2020, his longtime teammate with the Colorado Rockies (Larry Walker) barely made the Hall of Fame in what was his 10th year of eligibility. Walker had for a long time languished at the bottom of the ballot due to the skepticism many writers had about his career statistics due to the benefits of hitting at Coors Field. Helton hit the ballot with the same concerns since he spent his entire career in the Mile High City.

However, now that Walker has a plaque in Cooperstown, the Coors effect is clearly not being held against him anymore. Helton has improved to 29.2% in 2020, 44.9% in 2021, and now 52.0% in 2022. Given that he still has six years of eligibility with the BBWAA, it’s extremely likely that he’ll make it to the Hall of Fame. It may take Helton a little longer than Rolen, however. His momentum may stall in 2024.

There are several strong candidates hitting the 2024 Hall of Fame ballot: Adrian Beltre (a lock for a first-ballot plaque), Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, and David Wright. In 2025, Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Dustin Pedroia will become eligible.

Anyway, the presence of so many big names in 2024-25 could create some difficult choices for the writers, making it harder for a player to make significant jumps. Still, Helton will probably be in the high 50’s or low 60’s in 2022 so he’ll have enough of a base built up that he’ll make it to the Hall eventually.

Billy Wagner (51.0%)

Wagner is a popular candidate due to his superb rate stats. For pitchers with a minimum of 750 innings pitched, his 2.31 ERA is the second-lowest in the last 100 years to Rivera. His career WHIP (walks + his per inning) is 0.998 is the second-best all-time to Hall of Famer Addie Joss. However, he does encounter resistance from many writers (including this one) in that he only pitched 903 innings, which would be the lowest of any pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame. Like most closers today, Wagner was a one-inning wonder However, the eye-popping statistics he authored have been matched by three active 9th-inning closers (Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, and Aroldis Chapman).

Wagner only made a modest improvement this year, from 46.4% in 2021 to 51.0% in 2022. He only has three more years on the ballot so, unless he makes a massive positive move in 2023, he’ll run into crowded ballot problems in his final two years of eligibility plus a strong contingent of voters who feel like relief pitchers are overrated in general.

I’d be surprised if Wagner makes the Hall in the next three years but he’ll likely be a popular candidate with the Eras Committee, who elected Lee Smith unanimously for the Class of 2019.

Andruw Jones (41.1%)

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. So, with that elevator pitch, why did Jones get just 41.1% of the vote in his 5th turn on the ballot? It’s because his career fell off a cliff in the final five seasons of his career.

The stench of those last five seasons, when he was still relatively young (his age 31-35 seasons), still resonates with a lot of writers (including this one). On the crowded ballots of 2018 and 2019, Jones didn’t even get to 10% support (earning 7.3% in ’18 and 7.5% in ’19).

Still, in the less packed ballots that followed, he surged to 19.4% in 2020, 33.9% in 2021, and 41.1% this year. If Jones were to precisely match his linear forward progress from 2021 to 2022 (an increase of 7.2%) in his final five turns on the ballot, he’d sneak over the finish line at 77.1% in 2027, his final year of eligibility. Of course, that kind of consistent growth never happens in real life.

Overall, I’d consider Jones’ 41.1% tally this year a disappointment. Jones was sitting at 49.8% on the publicly revealed ballots on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame tracker before today’s results were announced.

There’s a decent chance that Jones will make it to Cooperstown via the BBWAA but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. However, given that there are several of his Atlanta Braves teammates already in the Hall (Chipper, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz), he may have friendly advocates when it’s his turn to hit the Eras Committee ballot if he doesn’t make it with the writers.

Sheffield (40.6%), A-Rod (34.3%), and Manny (28.9%)

Gary Sheffield, in his 8th turn on the BBWAA ballot, got precisely the same percentage of voting support as he did in 2021. Given that he only has two more years on the ballot, there is no chance that he will get elected to the Hall of Fame by the writers. Sheffield admitted using PEDs shortly after he was named in the Mitchell Report but claims he took them unwittingly. Clearly, to a majority of the writers, that doesn’t matter.

Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, of course, both were suspended by Major League Baseball after the 2005 drug-testing plan was put into place. A-Rod was a much better player than Manny overall, which explains his slightly higher vote total. However, neither 34.3% nor 28.9% isn’t close to being enough in an election requiring 75% for a plaque in Cooperstown.

The only chance for any of these three elite sluggers to make it into the Hall will be if Bonds is elected first, by the Eras Committee.

Jeff Kent (32.7%)

I remained baffled by why Kent continues to struggle in the BBWAA balloting. Given that 2023 represents his 10th and final year of eligibility, he’s not going to make it to Cooperstown on the writers’ ballot. Still, given that next year’s ballot is uncommonly weak, he has a chance to make the kind of final-year surge that will make him a more attractive candidate to the Eras Committee. Given that he has a relatively simple case (most home runs ever by a second baseman), I think it’s more than likely that he has a Cooperstown plaque in his future.

The Five Other Remaining Candidates

There are five other candidates coming back to the 2023 BBWAA ballot who earned between 5.3% and 10.7% this year.

Andy Pettitte (10.7%): Pettitte was a prolific postseason pitcher and his 256 career wins are unlikely to be surpassed by many (or any) active pitchers but he’s stuck in BBWAA quicksand. He 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 Rivera, Jeter, and Joe Torre being possible future committee members.

Jimmy Rollins (9.4%): 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 (8.6%): like Rollins, Abreu was durable. He played in 150 or more games in 13 consecutive seasons, The only other player to ever do it was Willie Mays. Abreu had power and speed and was prolific at drawing walks, leading to a high career on-base percentage. Given that he had a 60.2 career WAR, it wouldn’t surprise me if he made a big gain next year on the light ballot. But his odds at a plaque in the Hall are pretty dim right now.

Mark Buehrle (5.8%): on the 2021 ballot in which no Hall of Famers were elected, Buehrle got a surprising 11.0% of the vote. The presence of Ortiz, A-Rod, Rollins, and a few other newcomers in 2022 took away nearly half of that support. Buehrle never felt like a Hall of Famer. It’s possible that his career will look better a decade or two from now when 200-winners become extinct. His case is better than you might think. It may be harder for him to survive the 2024 ballot when Beltre, Mauer, and Utley join the party, although Kent will no longer be there.

Torii Hunter (5.3%): Hunter barely re-qualified for the 2023 ballot, clearing the 5% bar by just two votes, this a year after getting 9.5%. He may return in 2024 because of the light ballot next year but seems likely to fall short that year. He 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.

Looking Ahead to 2023:

As previously mentioned, Carlos Beltran is the only newcomer to the 2023 ballot who is a realistic candidate for the Hall of Fame. Beltran has a strong case for Cooperstown (70.1 WAR, 435 HR, 2,725 Hits, 9-time All-Star, 1.021 postseason OPS). On a ballot in which the top returning vote-getter is Scott Rolen, he would seem well-positioned to be a first-ballot inductee. However, given the taint of his role in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal, many writers may want to make him wait a year or more.

For the record, here are the best of the other first-time candidates for 2023.

• Francisco Rodriguez (RP)
• John Lackey (SP)
• Jered Weaver (SP)
• Matt Cain (SP)
• Jacoby Ellsbury (CF)
• Jhonny Peralta (SS)

I’d be stunned if any (with the possible exception of Rodriguez) get the 5% needed to remain on future ballots. Given that K-Rod saved more games than Billy Wagner (437 to 422), he may get more than 5% on the weak ballot.

The bigger drama for 2023 will be the composition of the “Today’s Game” Eras Committee ballot. As mentioned earlier, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa are all eligible for that ballot. Other potential first-time eligible candidates include Fred McGriff,  Rafael Palmeiro, Kenny Lofton, Kevin Brown, and Bruce Bochy. Additionally, Lou Piniella will likely return to that ballot; Piniella fell one vote shy of the Hall in 2019.

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