A 2025 Hall of Fame Ballot of Your Own – and a Schedule of Profiles
Hall of Fame season is underway, and after reviewing all eight candidates on the Classic Baseball Era Committtee ballot, I’ve gotten a start on the annual BBWAA ballot. With the latter, it’s time to launch what’s become a yearly tradition at FanGraphs. In the spirit of our annual free agent contract crowdsourcing, we’re inviting registered users to fill out their own virtual Hall of Fame ballots using a cool gizmo that our developer, Sean Dolinar, built a few years ago. I’m also going to use this page to lay out a tentative schedule for the remainder of the series, as well as links to the profiles that have been published.
To participate in the crowdsourcing, you must be signed in, and you may only vote once. While you don’t have to be a FanGraphs Member to do so, this is a perfect time to mention that buying a Membership does help to fund the development of cool tools like this — and it makes a great holiday gift! To replicate the actual voting process, you may vote for anywhere from zero to 10 players; ballots with more than 10 votes won’t be counted. You may change your ballot until the deadline, which is December 31, 2024, the same as that of the actual BBWAA voters, who have to schlep their paper ballot to the mailbox.
The ballot is here and contains all 28 candidates (and no, you still can’t write in Pete Rose or Barry Bonds). We’ve got tables of career stats for the ballot’s position players and pitchers, if that helps, as well as a checkbox on our leaderboards that allows you to see the stats of those already enshrined. As with last year, I’ll write up the crowdsourcing results sometime before the announcement of the official results on January 21.
As for the schedule, I’m still piecing it together, so what is sketched out below is incomplete and should be regarded as tentative. I do anticipate several first-year candidates with no shot at election — the one-and-dones — running sometime in early January, which allows me to focus on the stronger cases before the ballot deadline while continuing to pitch in with our coverage of free agent deals and other offseason news. This also lets me go a bit longer with the profiles of those one-and-done candidates, for whom just appearing on the ballot after an impressive career is its own reward. In order to free up space for contemporary coverage, I plan to group together brief summaries and updates of a few down-ballot candidates, such as those of pitchers Mark Buehrle and Andy Pettitte, or PED-linked sluggers Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, as relatively little has changed in their cases since last year.
Rest assured that I’ll be covering every candidate at length or in brief, in keeping with what I’ve done since the start of my JAWS-flavored coverage in 2004 (I celebrated the 20th anniversary back in January). I’m not about to miss any now. New profiles below are denoted with asterisks.
Nov. 18: Intro
Nov. 22: Billy Wagner
Nov. 25: Ichiro Suzuki*
Nov. 26: Carlos Beltrán
Nov. 27: Manny Ramirez/Alex Rodriguez
Dec. 2: Chase Utley
Dec. 3: Andruw Jones
Dec. 4: Andy Pettitte/Mark Buehrle
Dec. 5: CC Sabathia*
Dec. 6: Bobby Abreu
Dec. 9: Era Committee Results
Dec. 10: David Wright
Dec. 11: Torii Hunter/Jimmy Rollins
Dec. 13: Omar Vizquel/Francisco Rodríguez
Dec. 16: Félix Hernández*
Dec. 18: Russell Martin*
Dec. 20: Brian McCann*
Dec. 23: Dustin Pedroia*
Dec. 27: Ian Kinsler*
Dec. 30: Jay’s Hall of Fame Ballot
Jan. 6: Hanley Ramirez*
Jan. 8: Troy Tulowitzki*
Jan. 10: Carlos González*
Jan. 13: Ben Zobrist*
Jan. 15: Curtis Granderson*
Jan. 17: Fernando Rodney*
Jan. 20: Adam Jones*
Jan. 21: Crowdsource and Results
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
I am curious if others feel this way, but I would find it fascinating to see a history on JAWS for utility players like Ben Zobrist, and where he stacks relative to others. Perhaps you could classify Craig Biggio as a similar utility player, though in my view, it’s not apples to apples, as he was a catcher for 3.5 seasons, then a 2B for 11 seasons, then an outfielder for 2, and then back to 2B for the final 3 (so he is more like Mookie Betts in my view than Zobrist positionally, who played multiple positions per season once he became a starter).
While his career WAR isn’t quite up to the hall of fame standard, it feels like there is something to be said for how much flexibility he could provide his team day-to-day in a way existing WAR metrics do not fully state, and in a lot of ways, he was the poster-child of the sabermetric Joe Maddon Rays teams (not to mention, he won world series with both the Royals and Cubs too).
Zobrist is obviously not a HOF player by the numbers but he absolutely occupies a place in baseball history. Showed how a “superutilityman” can gain value, was at the forefront of the popular sabermetric revolution as you stated, and played a key role in ending the longest championship drought in the history of North American sports. Additionally, with the Rays’ relocation seemingly inevitable, he and Longoria will be remembered as the icons, really the sole icons, of that franchise. Is that worthy of a plaque? Probably not, but whether or not he gets one doesn’t change his role in the history of this game.
Similar to the unmeasured-by-WAR value that positional flexibility adds to a team…I often wonder how valuable reliability is from a team-building perspective. A guy who randomly has 2-WAR seasons interspersed with 7-WAR seasons, vs a guy who has a steady and predictable career arc. It’s hard to build a team as a GM when you go “all-in” and spend a lot of resources to sign or trade for a guy who then has a bad season. Then one or two years later, that guy goes back to having a great season, but the team is in a different part of their plan, or he’s on another team now. Whereas a guy who consistently delivers 4.5-WAR seasons is someone you can plan around.
Unfortunately, players are only truly consistent until they aren’t. They is really no way to know for sure whose those players are until looking back at the end of their career.
Tony Phillips is the player you’re looking for. 50.9 career BWAR while playing multiple positions in the same year. JAWS ranks him 26th at 2nd base but only about 1/3 of his career innings were at second.
I voted for the following:
Bobby Abreu
Carlos Beltran
Andruw Jones
Andy Pettitte
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
C.C. Sabathia
Ichiro Suzuki
Chase Utley
Billy Wagner
My ballot was exactly the same
Almost but Hernández over Pettitte here.
People I considered: Buehrle, Granderson, Martin, McCann, Francisco Rodriguez, Rollins, Zobrist.
I had the exact same ballot, minus Abreu.
I have the same except Brian McCann and Felix Hernandez instead of Arod and Manny. I actually think Arod should be in, but at this point I just think it’s hopeless. I’d have voted for him if given 11 votes. Manny isn’t the transcending player Arod was; it does feel a little weird, but unlike character issues that really go to the core of a person, I think what you accomplished on the field can be weighed against unlawful PED use. Don’t blame those that disagree.
I’d like to see McCann and Martin get longer looks, but especially McCann, who may have been an elite player for a decent stretch, depending on how you consider his defense.
I did McCann/Buehrle/Martin over Abreu/Arod/Manny.
My exact ballot. With more room I would have voted for Martin, McCann, Buehrle, and K-Rod, and would have at least giving consideration to Felix
I went smaller ballot:
Andruw Jones
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
CC Sabathia
Ichiro
Billy Wagner
Beltran and Pettitte were juuuuust a hair below my cutoff and would have been my 7th and 8th choices; with a more expansive ballot I would also consider Utley 9th and Abreu 10th.
I honestly don’t see any daylight between Beltrán and CC/Manny/Andruw, on a pure performance basis.
Ichiro, Sabathia, and Utley are easy. Still not certain what to think of Beltran’s cheating or Jones’s DV incident but otherwise they would be easy votes. Go back and forth on Hernandez. I think I’ve decided against Abreu now. I would like to find a reason to vote for Granderson or Buehrle because they were two players I loved but there is no reason to believe they should get into the hall on the merits.
I can’t believe Vizquel is still on the ballot. Just thinking about him makes my skin crawl thanks to his behavior while managing the Birmingham Barons.
What about Martin and McCann? Both compare favorably to Yadier Molina by fWAR, and Martin’s fares better w/o framing by bWAR too (38.8 WAR in 6648 PAs vs 42.1 in 8554 PAs for Molina). Don’t see how someone could vote for Molina but not Martin.
Personally, I think framing is a tad bit overvalued and Molina was transcendently good at controlling the running game. That’s why I’d take Yadi over Martin.
bWAR doesn’t use framing and Martin rates better than Molina. Neither’s close to a HoF by that measure though.
I think I would probably vote for them just so they could stay on the ballot long enough for a comparison with Molina. There definitely are not enough catchers in the Hall, but there’s a lot of weirdness in the stats for catchers that I’d need to dig deep.
My ballot:
Abreu, Beltran, Buehrle, Hernandez, Kinsler, Martin, Pedroia, Sabathia, Ichiro!, Utley
Could we vote on an era committee ballot too?
I’m a small hall guy who doesn’t care much about PED guys (my belief is that it was/is way, way more widespread than is believed and we’ve made pariahs out of a select few).
Carlos Beltran
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
C.C. Sabathia
Ichiro Suzuki
Chase Utley
There’s a few guys I waffle on, notably the catchers and Pettitte, but I’ll take my lumps for my weird tapestry belief set.
And what could have been with Tulo and Wright…
I’m with you on a smaller Hall. I voted for:
Beltran
CC
Ichiro
Utley
Wright-peak
Rollins- I think advanced stats underrate him.
Granderson- personal fav, so since I had room. Great player, greater person.
No’s-
A-Rod & ManRam- due to being busted for roids, multiple times. Big difference between them & the 90’s/early 2000’s guys that were before testing.
Andruw- defensive metrics are still wonky & he played 25-30 years ago & most of his case is based on them. (I.E., if he’s not best CF EVER, he’s not close) Add in some of the other stuff & how his career ended & he falls on the No line.
Abreu- just short to me.
Wagner- Very dominant, but, not enough innings, poor postseason record puts him on the wrong side.
McCann/Martin- short to me. Not sure how to evaluate the framing #’s (or if we’ll look back in 10 years & realize they’re not accurate) since it’s so new & it’s not fair to push their WAR forward when we can’t do it for guys like Munson, Freehan, etc.
Pettitte- he’s close, his HGH use was before the penalties were in place. Take away his run support, which gave him a great record & not sure he’s even talked about.
How exactly do advanced stats underrate Rollins? And how do you vote for Wright for “peak” but not Jones and Hernandez, who had better peaks and better careers?
In order-
Wright vs Felix- Wright was worth 5 rWAR per 162, Felix was worth 4 rWAR per 162. To me, that makes Wright better. I’ll also add, Wright decline not being able to play was due to terrible injuries, Felix’s decline was just not aging well & a significant part of that was conditioning (while $25M+ per year). Narrow line, I think Wright is just above, Felix just below.
Jones- Again, the peak is all due the same defensive metrics. He had 39.8 career offensive rWAR in 8662 PA’s, Wright is at 51.9 offensive rWAR in 6872. If you discount the defensive #’s, I don’t think the peak is there.
Rollins- 43.7 offensive rWAR (more than Jones, again). 15.9 defensive rWAR..but, total rWAR is 47.6. (I know they don’t just “add up”, but, that seems really wonky)He was a good baserunner, too. 470 SB at an 82% clip. IMO, the overall package is enough- great defensive SS, good hitter, good baserunner. Good citizen, too, unlike Andruw, who has warts there.
& here I thought I was gonna get grief over Granderson!!
You admitted that Granderson was just a homer pick, so what else is there to say?
Wright’s “peak” is a little weird as he had two two-year stretches of 5+ WAR but a three year gap. Felix was easily considered a top-3 pitcher in baseball over a 6-7 year period. I’ll admit that if you squint that is defensible, but I don’t understand not even mentioning him.
You don’t have to assume Jones is the best CF ever (he was, but let’s put that aside), but you’re just completely disregarding that Wright was known to be a mediocre defensive third baseman, and there are only stupid arguments that Jones was not an elite defensive centerfielder. There’s not really a defensible reason to pick Wright over Jones unless you’re simply disqualifying him for character reasons, which is fair, though I do think it’s wrong to weight non-baseball character issues against playing accomplishments. The idea that a guy can do X but if he’s just so amazing at baseball instead of kind of amazing then he deserves induction, seems wrong to me (not saying you’re saying this, it’s just sometimes said and it bothers me).
I voted for Jones, but I *do* think that a reasonable person can look at his TZ numbers and say “I don’t think he was twice as good as Willie Mays,” while also averaging his DRS and UZR numbers…and knock like 10 wins off of his peak, relative to where fWAR has him.
I’d still think he belongs, but I’d also understand someone knocking him into the Wright/Pedroia category.
(There’s no rationale to put Wright over him, though!)
Offensive and defensive bWAR both include a positional adjustment, so it’s not a good statistic to use as a baseline like that. It’s not measuring raw offensive ability, it’s double counting position which is why you can’t just add them together.
Andruw Jones was much better offensively than Rollins. Rollins is at 25.5 runs above average, Jones is at 116.3 per FG.
I should also give a friendly reminder that Alex Rodriguez never tested positive for PED use other than the “anonymous survey” that caught Ortiz, among others. I’m not a big fan of the dude personally, but after reading what the investigators did to get to him, I think he got unfairly targeted and scapegoated by MLB.
That said, we all know Rodriguez used PEDs: he has admitted it himself, and yet not a single positive test. Think about any/all other players who never tested positive, and how sure we are that they were “one of the clean ones” before we draw some moral line in the sand.
So yes, I’d have Bonds and Clemens in as well.
There’s basically no bad deed in existence for which all responsible parties are caught. To me this isn’t a very strong argument for letting in PED users. This is especially so for the pre-suspension era when baseball pretty clearly wanted and almost encouraged PED use. Bud Selig should not be in the Hall while Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens are not (and I’d also put Sammy Sosa in).
Totally agree with Selig. He’s in the hall of “made the owners gobs of money” fame, but threw aside a whole lot of morals to get there.
My point is that PEDs were used by lots and lots of players. Keeping out 3 of the best 20(?) players in 130+ years of history just because they got caught (likely got caught *because* they were so good!) is not a stance I agree with.
I’d put all three in the hall, too. Arod is the only one I’d think twice about, since he broke the rules and really made a spectacle of himself. But the whole “using PED is the worst crime possible against baseball” narrative is overblown. I would exclude guys who I think only had good enough careers because of roids, especially if they got caught after testing started; and egregious cheaters. That’s mostly just Rafael Palmeiro. And Manny Ramirez. It would have been Ryan Braun, too, but he’s just not good enough anyway. I don’t think I’d be a “no” for sure on Tatis Jr., though he needs to be better than a borderline candidate.
I would add McGwire & Sosa to the “No” list.
If Sosa stays at 35-40 HR a year, I don’t think he’s good enough to get in. Maybe would have cracked 500 HR, but, just not sure there was enough else there.
Really need to discount McGwire’s 1995-2000 stats. Felt like he was breaking down in 1993-94, then all of a sudden at age 33, he starts cranking out 155 games & career best #’s. If his insane all time power drops from 8 AB per HR to 11 AB per HR (which is what it was from 87-94) & then he misses more time, he’s not close.
Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod- no issue at all with them getting in. All “proved” to be all-time greats way before they supposedly started using.
If Sosa never uses roids, he never gets to 35 HR a year.
The roids gave him enough pop to stick around until he fixed his approach.
I feel like Sosa is FAR more of a poster boy for only being good because of roids than Palmeiro or Manny.
I voted for A-Rod but declined to vote for Beltran, Andruw, and Manny. I do not think PEDs are disqualifying, but I do believe what the Astros did + domestic violence are.
I had Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltran, Mark Buehrle, Felix Hernandez, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Ichiro, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner.