2026 Hall of Fame Results

First of all, congratulations to Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones on their election to the Hall of Fame.  It is well-deserved.  They will join Jeff Kent as the three players elected to the Hall this year.  I expect Kent to have a Giants cap on his plaque, Beltran with the Mets and Jones with the Braves.  

Now, I did want to raise a little bit of a gripe.  Beltran was the face of the Astros cheating scandal of 2017.  For him to get in and the PED guys to still be on the outside looking in, is kind of a ridiculous.  I don't think those guys did anything worse than the cheating scandal in 2017.  The Astros won the Championship that season, largely on their ability to cheat.  So, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez should all be in.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, let's look at my predictions from earlier:

1. Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones finally get elected.

Yes.  As said earlier, they both got in.

2. Dustin Pedroia, Chase Utley, Andy Pettitte and Felix Hernandez all get large gains as a result of being stronger cases on a very weak ballot.

Yes again.  Pedroia went from 11.9% to 20% (gained 38 votes).  Utley went from 39.8% to 59.1% (157 to 251).  Pettitte went from 27.9% to 48.5% (110 to 206 votes).  And King Felix went from 20.6% to 46.1% (81 to 196).  Those are some very large gains.  Utley has positioned himself to have an outside chance at election next year with Hernandez maybe a year or two later.  Pettitte is running very low on time, only having two more years on the ballot, but as I said in my earlier post, I think he gets in via an Eras Committee.  I will discuss Pedroia more in a later post, but he could easily build support over the next eight years.

3. Of the first-timers, only Cole Hamels makes it to a second year on the ballot.

Again, correct.  Hamels received 23.8% of the vote.  All of the other first-timers failed to receive the necessary five percent.  Rick Porcello shocked me by getting two votes.  Gio Gonzalez, Howie Kendrick and Daniel Murphy all got shut out.

4. Manny Ramirez makes a modest gain, but drops off the ballot due to being on for ten years.

Ramirez gained 30 votes, going from 34.3% to 38.8% and drops off the ballot.

5. Alex Rodriguez makes a modest gain.

A-Rod gained 24 votes and finished at 40%.

6. Torii Hunter and Omar Vizquel both manage to get headed in a positive direction. 

Hunter gained 17 votes and Vizquel gained eight.  Vizquel will be in his final year on the ballot next year.

Next year, the top newcomers will be Buster Posey and Jon Lester.  Neither player is a slam dunk for election in the first year.  Posey is often cited as a potential first year inductee, but he doesn't really have that much better of a case than Pedroia, which I will discuss in my future post.