The results of this year’s National Baseball Hall of Fame voting were revealed tonight, as the BBWAA announced there will be three members of the 2025 class: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner. We all knew that Ichiro and Sabathia would get in this year in their first try, and they’ll be joined by Wagner, who gets in on his 10th and final try. Pretty cool.
You know what’s NOT cool, though? The fact that LITERALLY JUST ONE VOTER left Ichiro off of their ballot. He comes up one, single, solitary, inexplicable vote shy of unanimity. I get that it’s not THAT important – only Mariano Rivera has been voted in unanimously, and, uh, there are some pretty obvious Hall of Famers out there who weren’t – but it would’ve been cool. And, more importantly, it would’ve been deserved.
Carlos Beltran, who is a clear Hall of Famer by the numbers, continues to get closer and closer to that 75% threshold as we get further and further from the Astros’ cheating scandal. Andruw Jones is the only other player who even reached the 40% mark.
Ben Zobrist, who revolutionized what it meant to be a utility player, did not get a single vote.
The full results, via the BBWAA: