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The Big Questions About The 2026 Bbwaa Hall Of Fame Ballot

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the big questions about the 2026 bbwaa hall of fame ballot

After a bit of a dry spell — two honorees in three years — the last two BBWAA Hall of Fame ballots have yielded bumper crops, with trios elected each year. Last year, Ichiro Suzuki fell one vote short of unanimity, while fellow newcomer CC Sabathia and 10th-year holdover Billy Wagner were elected as well. In 2024, it was newcomers Adrian Beltré and Joe Mauer, joining holdover Todd Helton. Alas, we’re in for a comparatively slow cycle this time around, as the 2026 BBWAA ballot — which was released on Monday — lacks a single newcomer who’s likely to be elected, at least... If the writers are going to honor anyone, it will be a holdover candidate, or perhaps two. That’s my quick read on the new ballot, which contains 27 candidates (12 newcomers and 15 holdovers).

Over the next six weeks, I’ll profile all of the candidates likely to wind up on voters’ ballots ahead of the December 31 deadline, with a handful of profiles — the “one-and-dones” — trickling... I’ll be examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ve used to break down Hall of Fame ballots as part of an annual tradition that as of last... The series debuted at Baseball Prospectus (2004-12), then moved to SI.com (2013-18), which provided me an opportunity to go into greater depth on each candidate. In 2018, I brought the series to FanGraphs, where my coverage has become even more expansive. Today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle, but first… To be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA ballot, a candidate must have played in the majors for parts of 10 years (one game is sufficient to be counted...

Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, that means that this year’s newcomers last appeared in the majors in 2020. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility on the ballot, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect for several decades. The last candidate grandfathered into getting the full 15 years was Lee Smith, whose eligibility expired in 2017, while the last to have his eligibility window truncated mid-candidacy was Jeff Kent, who fell off... Coincidentally, Kent might be the best bet for election on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, but that’s a whole different process. To be elected, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the ballots cast, and in this case, they don’t round up; 74.9% won’t cut it. Likewise, candidates who don’t receive at least 5% fall off the ballot and can then only be considered for election by the aforementioned Contemporary Baseball Era Committee — but not until what would have...

The ballot for the BBWAA portion of the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame class was revealed on Monday, featuring 15 returning players along with 12 newcomers. The full list is Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Ryan Braun, Mark Buehrle, Shin-Soo Choo, Edwin Encarnación, Gio González, Alex Gordon, Cole Hamels, Félix Hernández, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Matt Kemp, Howie Kendrick, Nick Markakis,... Players who receive at least 75% of the Hall of Fame vote are inducted into the Hall of Fame. Of those remaining, players need to receive at least 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot. After 10 tries, a player would then lapse off the BBWAA ballot. That doesn't mean their Hall of Fame hopes are permanently off the table, however.

Here's a lot more to know about the Baseball Hall of Fame discussion we'll be having the next several weeks. I'll go more in depth on every single point, and more, before the results are revealed on Jan. 20, 2026. There are two separate Hall of Fame votes every single year. The BBWAA vote is the one generally most discussed and the one that gets you labels like "first ballot Hall of Famer." Once players are retired for five years, they are eligible for this... Once they've fallen off the BBWAA ballot, however, they go into a pool of potential candidates to join via the Era Committee ballots, which also can include non-players like umpires, managers, executives, pioneers, etc.

This offseason, the Contemporary Era Committee will evaluate eight former players whose greatest contributions came from 1980-present: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela. For induction, players must appear on the ballot of 12 of the 16 voters. Those results will be announced on Dec. 7. The countdown to the biggest moment of the baseball year is officially underway. On Jan.

20, the results of the 82nd Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame election will be revealed live from the Hall of Fame Plaque Gallery in Cooperstown. Debuting on the BBWAA ballot in 2026 are Ryan Braun, Shin-Soo Choo, Edwin Encarnación, Gio González, Alex Gordon, Cole Hamels, Matt Kemp, Howie Kendrick, Nick Markakis, Daniel Murphy, Hunter Pence and Rick Porcello. Players may remain on the ballot for up to 10 years provided they receive at least five percent of the vote. Among the players returning to the BBWAA ballot, Carlos Beltrán received votes on 70.3 percent of all ballots cast in 2025 — the most of any returnee. Beltrán is on the ballot for the fourth time in 2026. Andruw Jones (66.2 percent) is the only other returning candidate who received at least 50 percent of the BBWAA vote in 2025.

The BBWAA ballot for the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame election was released today. Here's what to look for in this voting cycle. The 2026 BBWAA National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot has officially been released. Twelve newcomers join the 15 returners, as Cooperstown awaits its newest residents. For the next two months, you will see a slew of writers publishing their picks on your Twitter or Bluesky timeline. All of it will culminate in an election, with the results announced on Tuesday, January 20 at 6:00 p.m.

EST. Some candidates on this year’s ballot are looking to put the finishing touches on their climb to the immortal 75% threshold and earn their induction. Others will look to continue their journey, while others still are just hoping to earn more time on the ballot. Here are some of the stories to watch for in this year’s election cycle. Ever since Carlos Beltrán debuted on the BBWAA ballot by getting 46.5% of the vote in 2023, it appeared clear that he was destined for the Hall of Fame. It seems like 2026 will be that year.

After gaining more than 10% of the vote in both his second and third years on the ballot, he finished 2025 with a strong 70.3%, missing induction by just 19 votes. In just a matter of hours, we'll find out which players the Baseball Writers’ Association of America deemed worthy of spots in the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025. For now, Ichiro Suzuki and C.C. Sabathia are going to be first-ballot Hall of Famers, and deservingly so. The only question about Ichiro is whether he'll be the second unanimous Hall of Famer selected. As of this writing, he's at 100 percent on Ryan Thibodaux's Hall of Fame tracker.

Billy Wagner is trending towards getting in on his final chance on the ballot, which is also well-deserved for one of the best relievers in MLB history. Once the Class of 2025 is announced, attention will begin to shift toward the 2026 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot. That ballot will include several big names, but none as big as Ichiro or Sabathia. For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop... The biggest names entering their first years of eligibility are Cole Hamels and Ryan Braun. Those two players are likely the only ones with any sort of realistic shot at making the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, it's hard to see either crossing the finish line. Ballbug spotlights the most buzzed-about baseball news from thousands of web sites. It auto-generates a summary page every 5 minutes, drawing on local news sites, national sports media, and baseball bloggers of various stripes. View the current page or another snapshot: The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here.

For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated. Last week, for the second year in a row, BBWAA voters elected a trio of players to the Hall of Fame, namely first year candidates Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia, plus 10th-year candidate Billy... Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones both finished within 10 points of election as well, setting themselves up for 2026. With that in mind, it’s time to look ahead to what the next five ballots have in store. This is the 12th time I’ve broken out my crystal ball in such a manner, dating back to the wrap-up of my 2014 election coverage at SI.com.

As of last year, I’ve now done this more times at FanGraphs than Sports Illustrated. That first edition was so long ago that candidates still had 15 years of eligibility instead of 10, and so I could afford to project Tim Raines for election in 2018, his 11th year... The Hall’s unilateral decision to truncate candidacies to 10 years would come just months later, though thankfully voters accelerated their acceptance of Raines, who was elected in 2017. This exercise has always been more art than science, requiring some amount of imagination and speculation. Changes to the election process over the past decade have rendered some of my research into the candidates, as well as the history and mechanics of the voting, less useful for prognostication purposes. The dynamics of Hall candidacies have certainly changed, as evidenced by the elections of slow-starting candidates such as Wagner.

From 1966 to 2005, only three candidates recovered from debuts below 25% and eventually reached 75%, even with 15 years of eligibility: Duke Snider (17.0% in 1970, elected in ’81), Don Drysdale (21.0% in... With Wagner’s election, seven players have made it to 75% since 2006 despite such slow starts, including five in the past decade. From the 15-year eligibility period came Bruce Sutter (23.9% in 1994, elected in 2006) and Bert Blyleven (17.5% in 1998, elected in 2011), and then once the eligibility window was shortened — less to... With 7.3% in 2018 and 66.2% this year, Jones has a real shot at not only joining this group but at supplanting Rolen. Revising this annually is a necessity because I am routinely wrong, sometimes happily so, as in those instances where I’ve underestimated how quickly a given candidate might gain entry. Circa 2019, I estimated that David Ortiz would need until ’23 to gain entry, and didn’t foresee Rolen getting elected within five years.

A year later, I projected Rolen to gain entry in 2025. In 2022 and ’23, I projected Joe Mauer for ’25 election. On the other hand, in 2019 and ’20 I still believed — albeit with some caveats — that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling stood at least some chance of election before their... Regardless of which direction it goes, every incorrect assumption has a ripple effect. The presence of a high-share holdover means less space for and less attention paid to the mid-ballot guys, so clearing one from the ballot can have ramifications that won’t be felt for a few...

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