Scott Rolen Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame!

Yesterday, Scott Rolen was elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame in his 6th year of eligibility. He and Fred McGriff (who was elected to the Hall of Fame by an era committee in December) will be officially inducted into the Hall this summer. I am very pleased that both Rolen and McGriff are now in the Hall of Fame!

Scott Rolen is eminently merits his election, and it's great that he got in after several years of rising vote counts. Todd Helton and Billy Wagner made huge gains this year and should be joining the Hall in 2024. Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield also made huge gains, although Sheffield is in his last year of eligibility for election by the writers in 2024 and is likely to instead be elected later by an era committee. It now looks like Andruw Jones will likely be elected by the writers in the next few years (but probably not in 2024) after getting under 8% of the vote (!) in his first year of eligibility. Jeff Kent, who was in his 10th and final year of eligibility, surged to 46.5% of the vote and is likely to be elected later by an era committee. Carlos Beltrán debuted on the ballot with 46.5% of the vote (matching Kent). I expect that Beltrán will get up to the high 50s in 2024, have some chance (but unlikely) of election in 2025, and probably be elected in 2026.

A strong set of players is debuting on the Hall ballot for the 2024 cycle. This set of players is led by Adrián Beltré, who will surely be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Joe Mauer also is debuting on the ballot, but I think it will take 2 or 3 years (most likely 2, in my view) for him to get in. Chase Utley is also debuting in 2024. He'll make it eventually, but his counting stats don't stand out, so it's going to take a few years for him to get in (but I think that he will eventually.)

As in each of the past several years, I was closely tracking the Hall of Fame tracker during the past couple of months as writers released their ballots to the public.

Here is Jay Jaffe's recap of the voting results.

Here are some "way too early" predictions (from Bradford Doolittle David Schoenfield) of Hall of Fame results for the next few cycles. For the most part, my views are far closer to Schoenfield's than the Doolittle's.

Update (1/26/23): Jay Jaffe has written his annual ballot round-up of the candidates on this year's ballot.

Update (1/30/23): Jay Jaffe has written his 5-year Hall prognostication.