Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones Elected to Major League Baseball Hall of Fame

Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones have been elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. They join Jeff Kent (who was elected in December by an Era Committee) in the Hall's 2026 class.

Given the very weak candidate slate this year, many returning candidates gained a lot of votes. Chase Utley, Andy Pettitte, Félix Hernández, Bobby Abreu, and others made huge gains in votes. Félix's Hernández's one-year gain is the largest such gain since the Hall of Fame returned to annual voting in 1967. The baseball writers clearly are rethinking how to evaluate Hall of Fame pitchers in the modern era. Hopefully, pitchers like Kevin Brown and Johan Santana (who got almost no support from the baseball writers when they were on the ballot) will be considered at some point by an Era Committee.

Chase Utley got almost 60% of the vote, so he may even be elected in 2027, which is faster than I was thinking. I now think that a 2028 election for Utley is most likely, whereas previously I was thinking that it would take longer. Utley has the highest voe percentage among all candidates who will be on the ballot again next year. Cole Hamels, with just more than 23% of the vote, is the only new candidate who got the requisite minimum 5% to remain on the ballot next year.

See this website and especially this website for the annual Hall of Fame vote tracker, which I use to follow writers' ballots as they make them public. The sites have been very flaky this year, but they're really great when one is able to access them.

Update: Some ESPN pundits have discussed some implications from the results of this year's Hall of Fame voting.

Update: Here's a nice recap of the voting results by Jay Jaffe.

Update (1/22/26): Jay Jaffe has written his candidate-by-candidate breakdown for the results of this year's Hall of Fame cycle.

Update (1/26/26): Jay Jaffe has written his 5-year prognostication for upcoming Hall of Fame ballots.

Dodgers Sign Kyle Tucker to 4-Year Deal!

The Dodgers have struck again! We have signed top free agent Kyle Tucker to a 4-year deal. The Dodgers are the Evil Empire, and I love it!

It's important that this is a shorter-term contract, as Tucker is a bit too fragile to go beyond 4 years.

Some Other 2025 MLB Awards

Major League Baseball announced various other awards (such as the Comeback Players of the Year) today.

2025 MLB Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards

Major League Baseball announced it's 2025 Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards today, and here too there were no surprises.

In the American League, Aaron Judge of the Yankees win his 3rd MVP award in a close vote over Mariners' catcher Cal Raleigh. In the National League, Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers won his 4th MVP. This was also Ohtani's 4th unanimous MVP award, and nobody else in MLB history (or in any of the four major US professional sports) has won more than a single unanimous MVP award. In MLB history, Ohtani's four MVP awards is second all time to Barry Bonds' seven MVP awards. Ohtani's four MVP awards have come in a 5-year span, which David Schoenfield recently compared to other all-time 5-year spans in baseball history.

2025 also marks the first time in MLB history that both AL and NL MVP awards were repeat winners from the previous year.

You can see the full MVP voting on this page.

2025 MLB Cy Young Award Winners

Major League Baseball has announced its 2025 Cy Young Award winners, and again there are no surprises. Tarik Skubal beat out Garret Crochet in the American League (and did so slightly more handily than I was expecting) for his second consecutive Cy Young award, and Paul Skenes was a unanimous selection in the National League (with Christopher Sánchez receiving all 2nd-place votes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto finishing in 3rd).

You can see the full voting results on this page.

2025 MLB Managers of the Year

Baseball's 2025 Managers of the Year were announced today, and both winners are repeat winners from last year.

Stephen Vogt of the Cleveland Guardians won the American League Manager of the year award for the 2nd year in a row, and Pat Murphy of the Milwaukee Brewers accomplished the same feat in the National League.

You can see the vote totals for every manager that received a vote on this page

2025 MLB Rookies of the Year

Major League Baseball announced its 2025 Rookies of the Year today, and the results in both leagues were the expected ones. Namely, Nick Kurtz of the (West Sacramento) Athletics unanimously (as expected) won the American League Rookie of the Year award, and Drake Baldwin of the Atlanta Braves won the National League Rookie of the Year award.

Major League Baseball's 2025 Silver Slugger Awards

Major League Baseball has announced its 2025 Silver Slugger Awards for offensive excellence.

2025 Gold Gloves

Major League Baseball's Gold Glove Awards for defensive excellence were announced today.

Update (11/07/25): Fernando Tatis Jr. and Bobby Witt Jr. have been awarded Platinum Gloves as the best overall defenders. The Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs were awarded team gold gloves.

Dodgers Win 2025 World Series! (Back-to-Back!)

What an epic battle against the Blue Jays!!!!

Back-to-back World Series championships!!!! (the first time since the Yankees in 1998–2000)

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is obviously going to win the World Series MVP.

Will Smith caught the most innings ever in a single World Series.

There were many other records set, records tied, and epic performances. This was quite a series!

The Dodgers are Heading to the World Series Again!

The Dodgers have swept the Brewers in the National League Championship Series (NLCS) and are heading back to the World Series to try to repeat as World Champions.

In today's game, Shohei Ohtani pitched six dominant shutout innings and hit 3 home runs. Wow! For this effort, he was named NLCS Most Valuable Player.

With this win, the Dodgers are the first team to win back-to back pennants since the Phillies in 2008–2009. They are trying to become the first back-to-back World Series champions since the Yankees in 1998–2000.

Clayton Kershaw Records 3000th Career Strikeout!

In today's Dodger game, Clayton Kershaw became the 20th pitcher with at least 3000 career strikeouts. He is the fourth left-handed starter in that club and is the fifth pitcher to record at least 3000 strikeouts for one franchise.

Here is the rank-ordered list of Major League Baseball's sll-time strikeout leaders.

Bradford Doolittle did an interesting exercise to rank the 20 pitchers with at least 3000 strikeouts. (He puts Kershaw at 11th.)

Update (7/03/25): Jay Jaffe has written a nice article about Kershaw's accomplishment and its context.

Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner Elected to the Hall of Fame

Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner have been elected to Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. They join Dick Allen and Dave Parker, who were elected to the Hall by one of the era committees in December.

As one can see in the voting results, Suzuki was named on every ballot except for one. (Therefore, Mariano Rivera remains the only player who has ever been elected to the Hall unanimously by the baseball writers.) Suzuki and Sabathia are both in their first year of eligibility, and Billy Wagner is in his 10th and final year of eligibility. I initially thought that Sabathia would get about 50% of the vote in his first year, but I saw quickly from the vote tracker (which I follow religiously every year) that he was going to make it this year. For Suzuki, the only question is whether or not he'd be elected unanimously. Wagner missed election last year by a measly 5 votes, so it was clear that he'd make it this year.

The strong election of Sabathia, the stronger-than-I-expected debut of Féliz Hernández (who got 20.6% of the vote), and the big gains of Andy Pettite (who roughly doubled his vote percentage from last year to 27.9% after making essentially no progress for several years) illustrate that the writers are looking much more intelligently than they used to at what constitutes a Hall-of-Fame starting pitcher.

Carlos Beltrán made a lot of progress to reach 70.3% of the vote. The newcomers on the 2026 ballot constitute a weak field, so Beltrán will surely be elected in 2026 and the other holdovers should make strong progress. Andruw Jones improved a little bit to 66.2%, and he may well be elected next year. I think it's about 50/50 that Jones gets elected in 2026 — a selection of ESPN baseball writers are much more optimistic than I am — but I am confident that he'll make it in 2027 (his 10th and final year of eligibility) if he does not make it in 2026. Jones barely survived the 5% cut on the ballot in his first couple of years, so he's made a ton of progress since then. Chase Utley also made a lot of progress this year, going from 28.8% of the vote to 39.8% of it. I expect that he will surpass 50% next year, but I think that he's likely still a few years from election.

Update: Here is Jay Jaffe's post to summarize the voting results and his thoughts on them. The navigation bar at the top of that website gives hyperlinks to his other articles for the 2025 Hall of Fame voting cycle.

Update (1/23/25): Here is Jay Jaffe's extended rundown of the election results.

Update (1/27/25): Here is Jay Jaffe's 5-year forecast of upcoming Hall of Fame elections.

RIP Bob Uecker (1934–2025)

Former player, Brewer broadcaster, and legendary baseball personality Bob Uecker has died.

One of the great things when Baseball started broadcasting games over the internet many years ago is that I got a chance to hear Uecker broadcast a bunch of games. He was damn funny, an amazing broadcaster and storyteller, and a lifetime .200 hitter (as he sometimes pointed out with his wonderful self-deprecating humor).

You can read more about Uecker at his Wikipedia page.

RIP Rickey Henderson (1958–2024)

One of Baseball's all-time legends — both in terms of on-field performance (Wow!) and in terms of the many awesome stories — has left us. Inner-circle Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson has died.

You can read about his career, his personality, and a couple of his unreachable Major League records in this article. This article has a collection of 25 great stories (most of them true), and this article has a collect of 10 great instances of Rickey talking about Rickey in the third person. (There is some overlap in the stories in these two collections.)

As Tom Verducci wrote in 2003, "There are certain figures in American history who have passed into the realm of cultural mythology, as if reality could no longer contain their stories: Johnny Appleseed. Wild Bill Hickok. Davy Crockett. Rickey Henderson. They exist on the sometimes narrow margin between Fact and Fiction."

Rest in peace, Rickey.

Dick Allen and Dave Parker Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Dick Allen and Dave Parker have been elected to the baseball Hall of Fame. I strongly support Dick Allen's election (which is long overdue), but I don't think that Parker should be in the Hall of Fame. (In my view, he belongs instead to the Hall of Very Good.)

Of the people on this particular Veterans Committee ballot (though the name "Veterans Committee" was retired many years ago), I was most enthusiastic about Dick Allen's candidacy. I also think that Luis Tiant, Vic Harris, and Ken Boyer belong in the Hall of Fame. Jay Jaffe has written excellent summaries of the careers and Cooperstown (i.e., Hall of Fame) cases of the people on the ballot.

2024 Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards

Major League Baseball has announced the winners of the 2024 Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards. See this page for the complete distribution of votes.

Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees was the unanimous MVP in the American League, with Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royal receiving all 2nd-place voters. (I believe that the latter has never happened before.) The American League also had several other very strong candidates in an exceptional field. In the National League, Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers was the unanimous MVP. This was his third unanimous MVP. Nobody else in Major League Baseball history has won multiple MVP awards unanimously.

2024 Baseball Managers of the Year

The 2024 Managers of the Year in Major League Baseball are Stephen Vogt of the Cleveland Guardians and Pat Murphy of the Milwaukee Brewers.

2024 Baseball Rookies of the Year

The 2024 Rookies of the Year were announced today. Paul Skenes of the Pirates was the winner of an exceptionally strong rookie class (beating out the two Jacksons) in the National League, and Luis Gil of the Yankees was the winner (barely winning over Colton Cowser of the Orioles) of a much weaker rookie class in the American League.

Various Major League Baseball Awards

Various Major League Baseball awards were announced today. These awards include the Comeback Players of the Year — which were Garrett Crochet in the American League and Chris Sale in he National League — and several others.

The more significant awards — Most Valuable Player, Cy Young award, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year — will be announced next week. The three finalists for each award in each league were announced recently.