The Baseball Hall of Fame grew by three members on Tuesday, with Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia both getting in as first-ballot selections while Billy Wagner reached the 75% threshold in his 10th and final year of eligibility.
Coming close: Carlos Beltran (70.3%) and Andruw Jones (66.2%), both of whom fell shy of the threshold. With no slam-dunk first-timers on next year's ballot -- new names include Cole Hamels and Ryan Braun -- the buzz around the next election cycle will center around Jones and Beltran.
Will Beltran and Jones get in? Does anyone else have a chance? If not next year, then when?
While they say you can't predict the future, you can assign probabilities to it.
With that in mind, let's peek ahead at what the next five years of the Baseball Writers' Association of America's Hall of Fame voting might look like. We'll keep our focus on the players that I'm projecting will get in through the BBWAA balloting process (not through the Era Committees), listed in order of probable year of selection.
2026
Carlos Beltran
HALLAXE: 148
Peer count: 30
Hall of Fame peers: 26 (87%)
Hall odds: 90%
This is pretty close to no-brainer territory at this point. Beltran reached 70.3% support in his third season of eligibility, a mark that based on past evidence basically ensures he'll be selected next season.
The average percentage among Beltran's Hall peers in the year before they were elected was 65.9%, so he already has raced past that. All of his peers who reached his 2024 level of support were eventually selected by the BBWAA.
Overall, nine of Beltran's 30 peers made it to the Hall via committee, which is the only thing that holds back the odds noted above. Among those who had to wait for a committee selection were Richie Ashburn, Alan Trammell and, most recently, Dick Allen. None of them reached the level of support that Beltran has.
Of note among Beltran's peers is Edgar Martinez, who earned 70.4% support in his ninth year on the ballot. In Year 10, he got in. He was the closest to Beltran's figure. All six of the peers who landed between 70% and 75% (Martinez, Craig Biggio, Paul Waner, Bill Terry, Mike Piazza and Vladimir Guerrero Sr.) got in the very next year.
The only thing that gives one pause are the voters who might still hold the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal against Beltran. According to the Hall tracker, he lost 11.2% from the publicly acknowledged ballots to the final count. Will that continue? If so, will it be enough to keep Beltran in limbo?
Andruw Jones
HALLAXE: 151
Peer count: 18
Hall of Fame peers: 15 (83%)
Hall odds: 92%
With Jones reaching 66.2%, he's in the same boat as Beltran, but Jones' margin for error is much smaller. Not only does he have more support to attract, but Jones has just two more bites at the Hall apple. This was Year 8 for him.
Still, there are only three Hall omissions among Jones' peer group, two of which are clear oversights, in my opinion. Those are Ken Boyer and Bobby Grich (with Sal Bando being the other non-Hall Jones peer). Boyer topped out at just 25.5% during his 15 years on the writers' ballot. Grich and Bando were dropped after one shot. Boyer and Grich are cases for a future Era committee.
Two good precedents for Jones among his peer group are Lou Boudreau and Al Simmons. Boudreau hit 64.1% in his ninth year of eligibility then got in the following cycle. Simmons reached 60.3% in Year 7 then got in during Year 8.
Jones' peer group includes six first-ballot members, the most recent of which was Atlanta Braves teammate Chipper Jones. Twelve of Jones' 15 Hall peers got in via the BBWAA. Those who had to wait for committee selection were long-ago stars Home Run Baker, Dan Brouthers and Cap Anson.
2027
Chase Utley
HALLAXE: 156
Peer count: 20
Hall of Fame peers: 20 (100%)
Hall odds: 96%
Until the final results were released on Tuesday, I was sure Utley would be positioned to cross the threshold in 2026. Now, I'm not so sure. Utley was at a solid 52% in the publicly shared ballots but got a befuddling 25% on the shadow ballots. His final tally was just under 40%.
My system puts a lot of weight on peak values -- five-year and 10-year measures are included -- and so I have to assume the disconnect is simply that Utley doesn't meet some of the old standard counting stat milestones.
Even if Utley becomes a cause célèbre among Hall wonks, it feels like it's going to take a couple of years for this to get where it needs to go.
The writers don't always come around for players in Utley's elite peer group. While all 20 of his closest matches are in the Hall, five of them went in via committee. But if you ignore the dusty 19th-century guys, only Johnny Mize was overlooked by the writers.
Others had to wait awhile, with the median year for entry being the fifth year on the ballot for this group. Duke Snider and Harry Heilmann both had to wait until Year 11, which isn't even a thing anymore.
Time is on Utley's side. The median support gained after Year 2 for his group is 44.2%, which would be enough when tacked onto his present total. I remain certain Utley will get in. I just no longer think it'll be next year.
2028
Albert Pujols
HALLAXE: 174
Peer count: 18
Hall of Fame peers: 18 (100%)
Hall odds: 100%
Pujols' HALLAXE is at a level where I had to widen the range to get a decent sample size of peers, because there just haven't been many players this good.
All 18 of Pujols' peers are in the Hall, as you'd expect. All but two got in through the BBWAA's normal process, and the two omissions were the most special of cases -- Lou Gehrig and Roberto Clemente.
Of the rest, 13 were first-ballot selections. Two (Tris Speaker and Nap Lajoie) had to wait until the second year, but that was in the Hall's nascent stages. The others that waited a bit longer were Eddie Collins (Year 4), Mel Ott (Year 3) and Jimmie Foxx (Year 6).
Pujols will not have to wait. He should be a unanimous pick, but, well, you know how that goes.
Felix Hernandez
HALLAXE: 141
Peer count: 37
Hall of Fame peers: 10 (27%)
Hall odds: 47%
The selection of Sabathia in his debut on the ballot was a first step in what needs to be a major rethinking of how to evaluate Hall pitching candidates going forward. Hernandez, who earned 20.6% support in his second year of eligibility, faces an uncertain road.
Of King Felix's 10 Hall peers, just five got in via the BBWAA, the most recent of whom was John Smoltz in 2015. Smoltz and Dennis Eckersley were first-ballot picks, but the other three had to wait.
They were Ted Lyons (Year 9), Early Wynn (Year 4) and Herb Pennock (Year 7) -- all of whom pitched in very different pitching contexts.
For me, Hernandez doesn't reach the Hall medians in any of my career measures, but he isn't outside the range of some who have gotten in.
I think Hernandez's 10 years of excellence will stand out increasingly as we grow more acclimated to an evolving set of starting pitcher standards. My system thinks Hernandez is less than 50-50, but by 2028, we might see his career in a new light.
2029
Miguel Cabrera
HALLAXE: 151
Peer count: 30
Hall of Fame peers: 26 (97%)
Hall odds: 95%
Miggy's non-hitting career numbers drag down his metrics, but he's still a first-ballot, no-doubt Hall of Famer and a candidate to win unanimous support.
There is more to a player than WAR. Cabrera surpassed 3,000 hits and 500 homers, hit .306 for his career and won four batting titles, a Triple Crown and two MVP awards. He's in.
For the purposes of this system, it's worth noting the omissions, but they are pretty much the same as they were for Beltran. One new one in Cabrera's case is Kenny Lofton.
Lofton needs a thorough reconsideration the next time he's up for an Era ballot. Perhaps no one suffered more from the ballot backlog during the tumultuous years when players were getting crowded out with PED-related candidates. Lofton, as great as he was, was one and done in the balloting process.
Zack Greinke
HALLAXE: 149
Peer count: 15
Hall of Fame peers: 9 (60%)
Hall odds: 79%
The list of six omissions in Greinke's smallish peer group are fascinating: Urban Shocker, Wilbur Wood, Johan Santana, Rick Reuschel, David Cone and Dave Stieb.
Those are very different pitchers who pitched to very different standards. The WAR framework tries to compare them under the same umbrella, but it leads to some strange bedfellows.
As with Hernandez, I see Greinke's career only growing in acclaim as the years pass. He's in the generation that might be the last of the old-time workhorse starters -- Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander -- and while Greinke might be at the bottom of any list with those guys, he's on the list.
That makes him a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It's kind of maddening that Greinke's career ended with him 21 strikeouts shy of 3,000. It's the sort of thing that would make a numbers guy like me tear his hair out.
2030
Joey Votto
HALLAXE: 149
Peer count: 27
Hall of Fame peers: 23 (85%)
Hall odds: 88%
This would be Votto's second time on the ballot, which only is the case because injuries prevented him from making his regular-season debut with the Toronto Blue Jays last season. Otherwise, 2030 would be Votto's first time on the ballot. And he remains a one-team player, technically, which is worth noting for historical purposes (and for the Immaculate Grid).
Votto ended up a career .294 hitter with 356 homers and 2,135 hits. Thus, he's a little light in the old standards -- which isn't a reason to keep him out, but we're making forecasts here. I suspect he'll need a year on the ballot before getting over the top, and then we can all wait with much anticipation to find out what he says in his acceptance speech.
Only 14 of Votto's Hall peers got in through the BBWAA. We've mentioned two of the four who didn't get in at all: Bando and Lofton. Here are two new names: Graig Nettles and Jim Edmonds.
Edmonds is another player who, while he might not be a Hall of Famer, has enough of a case that he shouldn't have been one and done. But that's what happened back in 2016.