The 2019 Hall of Fame Ballot

The BBWAA have released this year’s Hall of Fame ballot.

There are 20 new names on the ballot. The most interesting to us is, of course, Roy Halladay. Roy won Cy Young awards in both the AL and NL (and really should have won more). He had a 203-105 record and a 3.38 ERA in 16 MLB season, with 416 games, 390 starts. He led his league in innings pitched 4 times, complete games 7 times, played on 8 All-Star teams and is 42nd in baseball history among pitchers with a 65.5 bWAR. Knowing the voters, whether he makes it into the Hall this year is an open question, but he should make it at some point.

I’m pretty sure Mariano Rivera will get voted in. He’s the career leader in saves, and it won’t hurt his vote that he was a Yankee. He’ll be in on his first ballot. Andy Pettitte is a good candidate too, with 256 wins over 18 seasons.

Todd Helton and Michael Young are on the ballot for the first time too. They’ll get some votes, but I’m expecting they won’t make it this year.

Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff are on the ballot for their 10th, and last, times. I’m thinking that Martinez will make it this time.

And Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are on the ballot for the 7th time. They were both in the high 50s, for percentage of the vote, last year. I’d expect they will be in the low 60s this time around. They will have 3 more chances to get up to the 75% needed.

Mike Mussina was at 63.5% last year, his 5th time on the ballot, he’ll likely be close to 75% this year.

And Curt Schilling was on 51.2% of the ballots last year. He seems to have been a bit quieter of late, maybe trying not to piss off too many of the writers to help his chances.

We’ll do our own series of polls, likely starting in late December. Or sooner if the off season continues to be as slow.

Here is the ballot. Included is their vote count and percentage to those not on the ballot for the first time and their ballot year.