So the National Baseball Hall of Fame just revealed the official writers ballot for this coming HOF class:
I can’t tell you what to do (or think, or vote for if you even had a vote), but for me I believe I would do the following, with hearty apologies to those who missed the cut:
- Bobby Abreu
- Carlos Beltrán
- Adrian Beltré
- Todd Helton
- Andruw Jones
- Joe Mauer
- Manny Ramírez
- Álex Rodríguez
- Gary Sheffield
- Billy Wagner
I can see a few guys get some token votes or the writers trying to strategically keep a few guys on the 5% threshold so they can look at them next year. Per Baseball-Reference, the ballot will get sort of re-crowded again when guys like Ichiro, CC Sabathia, and even former Cubs World Series legend Ben Zobrist hop onto the potential list of names. I do think based on their vote totals, Todd Helton and possibly Billy Wagner make it this year along with Adrian Beltré (maybe, he might have to wait a year), which would dump Sheffield to the mercy of various Veterans Committees. There’s a chance that A-Rod and Manny will just languish on the ballot until they drop off because eww steroids.
The HOF will announce the voting results on January 23rd, you can read a lot of words here.