New Baseball Hall of Famers

Baseball's new Hall of Famers were announced last night: first-time candidate Ken Griffey Jr. was voted in with the highest percentage ever (99.3%, with 437 of 440 possible votes), and Mike Pizza was elected in his 4th year of eligibility.

Naturally, Piazza should have already been voted in 3 years ago, but such is life. (Other luminaries --- such as Carlton Fisk, Yogi Berra, and many others, also had to wait --- so it's not like that is new, though the back-acne McCarthyist steroid allegations are a different reason than in the past.) Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Mike Mussina, and Curt Schilling made significant gains. Bagwell got over 70% of the vote and Raines got 69.8%, so I expect that they will both finally be elected next year. It's long past time. Trevor Hoffman also debuted on the ballot this year, and his 67.3% of the vote makes it very likely that he'll get elected in the next couple of years. (There is a good chance for next year, but I am not so sure.) Edgar Martinez made especially large gains, reaching a voting percentage of 43.4%, but he's running out of time. Then we have Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds...

Alan Trammell surpassed 40% of the vote in his last year on the ballot. It was also Mark McGwire's last year on the ballot. Unfortunately, Jim Edmonds didn't get the 5% of the vote needed to stay on the ballot next year; this is a shame, as he deserves a lot more consideration for the Hall than he got.

David Schoenfield discussed the winners and losers in this year's ballot.

Griffey is the first #1 overall draft pick to enter the Hall of Fame. By contrast, Piazza (1,390th pick, 62nd round, 1998) is the lowest ever draft pick to make the Hall. Griffey will presumably be enshrined as a Mariner, and Maybe Piazza will enter the Hall as a Marlin? ;) (I hope it will be the Dodgers, but I suspect it may well end up being the Mets.)

You can take a look at the Hall of Fame vote tracker to see many more details on the voting.

This page details newcomers who are eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot starting in 2017. Notable ballot debuts in 2017 include Vladimir Guerrero, Jorge Posada, Manny Ramirez, and Ivan Rodriguez. Of those, Rodriguez has the best chance of making it next year. No major new pitchers debut on the ballot until 2019, so that gives Mussina and Schilling a got chance to make additional major gains by then. Both of them are massively overqualified for the Hall of Fame.