David Ortiz Elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame!

The Baseball Hall of Fame results were announced today, and David Ortiz is the only person who was elected by the writers this year. As usual, you can see all of the ballots that have been made public so far at this website. You can also see a discussion of winners and losers from this year's results.

Two of the era committees elected several Hall of Famers last month.

This year, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa were all in their 10th and final years of eligibility. Clems and Bonds crept up to 65% of the vote, but that's still below the 75% that is needed for induction. Schilling, given his repeated crap, lost many votes. With Clemens, Bonds, Schilling, and Ortiz no longer on the ballot next year and few newcomers of note joining the ballot, holdover Scott Rolen (who went up to around 63% of the vote this year) will likely be elected in 2023 (yay!). Newcomer Carlos Beltrán is the only new person on the ballot next year with any chance. The weak ballot will help him, but we'll see how the Astros cheating scandal affects his vote total. Todd Helton and Billy Wagner finally surpassed 50% of the vote this year, and I expect Todd Helton to make another big jump next year. Both merit election, but it it may take some time for Wagner and I think that Helton is more likely to be elected in 2024 than in 2023. Andruw Jones surpassed 40%, so he's also trending upward. Support for Omar Vizquel tanked because of his shenanigans, and he doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame anyway. Jimmy Rollins and Alex Rodriguez were the only other newcomers to the ballot besides David Ortiz to get at least 5% of the vote.

We will see how the era committees deal with Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling. They'll get into the Hall eventually (as they should, even with their horseshit), but it may take a while.

Update (1/26/22): Also see the voting round-up from Jay Jaffe.

Update (1/27/22): Here is Jay Jaffe's candidate-by-candidate breakdown of the 2022 voting.

Update (1/31/22): Here is Jay Jaffe's five-year outlook of the Hall of Fame balloting in the writers' ballot.