Stark: My 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot — the 10 players I voted for, and why

Ichiro! How many votes will he get — and how many flights are there from Tokyo to Cooperstown?

Billy Wagner! The last time he threw a pitch was in 2010 … when he struck out the side in the ninth. But will he strike out Tuesday, in his final appearance on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot?

CC Sabathia! Dustin Pedroia! Félix Hernández! They’re all on the ballot for the first time. Not so long ago, they were beloved faces of their franchises. But did all three get my vote? It took me a while to answer that question.

I filled up all 10 slots on my Hall of Fame ballot this year. This is that column where I let you in on which 10 boxes I checked.

This is also that column, as I like to remind you, that I don’t have to write. But I’ve always thought you deserve this column — and the transparency that I believe is a big part of our responsibility as voters.

Of all the columns I write every year, none gets the passionate reaction that this one gets. Hey, it’s great to know how much you care about the Hall of Fame. Me, too.

There might be a slight possibility you’ll disagree with one or two of these votes. Not sure how that could happen. But if it does, feel free to express that. Before you unload on me, though, I just want you to know two things:

I spent hours and hours thinking about this. Remember that, OK — no matter how strongly you think I don’t know a baseball from a beach ball.

But also, because I’ve taken that time, I’m here to explain — and even defend — every vote … and at some point down the road, I’ll be happy to do that with the players I didn’t vote for, too. If I can’t, I shouldn’t be voting … and you wouldn’t be reading this.

So how did I vote this year — and why did I vote the way I did? Let’s dive in now.

The 10 names I voted for

I voted for 10 players last year, too. Three of them — Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer — got elected. A fourth — Gary Sheffield — has used up his 10 years on the ballot. So it was no sure thing that I’d vote for 10 again this year, but I did. Here’s how they lined up:

Three first-timers

Ichiro Suzuki
CC Sabathia
Dustin Pedroia

Six returnees from last year

Billy Wagner
Carlos Beltrán
Andruw Jones
Jimmy Rollins
Chase Utley
David Wright

Voted for him this year, for the first time

Andy Pettitte

Couldn’t quite get there 

Bobby Abreu
Mark Buehrle
Torii Hunter
Russell Martin
Brian McCann

Appreciate their great careers, but sorry

Troy Tulowitzki
Ian Kinsler
Adam Jones

How I vote — and where the Hall is headed

When I first became a voter, it felt like we had legendary members of the 3,000-hit or 300-win clubs roaring at us practically every year. What a great time to be a Hall of Fame voter. We love those Magic Number Clubs. They’re the best. Nothing has saved us more hours of deliberation through the years than those good old-fashioned magic numbers.

So I’d like to thank Beltré and Ichiro for reviving those days by supplying us with back-to-back years of 3,000-hit men on the ballot. We haven’t seen anything like this since 2003-07, a run that delivered five 3,000-hit men in five elections. Those five: Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor and Eddie Murray.

We have two more coming in 2028-29, when Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera join this parade. But after that … ha. No active player is within 700 hits of 3,000. Nobody under 30 is within 1,800 hits. So it’ll be a while!

And if Justin Verlander doesn’t find a way to grind out 38 more wins, we might never see another 300-game winner roam the face of this planet again. That seems hard to comprehend. But only one active starter under 35 is within 150 wins of 300. (That’s 33-year-old Gerrit Cole, with 153.) And no active starter who will be under 30 on Opening Day has even reached 65 wins. (Shane Bieber leads that crowd, with 62.)

So what’s my point? I don’t know how many voters are left who still use those magic counting numbers as their central guidepost. But it’s time to start thinking up a whole new set of guideposts — because as baseball evolves, we’ll have no choice but to evolve along with it.

A year ago, when I wrote this column, I explained how that evolution had already led me to vote for players like Utley, Rollins, Wright and Andruw Jones. This year, Pedroia came along to push me even further down that path.

As we approach a time when the Magic Number Club seems practically headed for extinction, I think future generations of Hall of Famers will be a very different group of stars — players who …

A) Had big, unmistakable peaks of greatness.

B) Had a clear impact on winning.

C) Had a period in their career when they were among the elite players at their position.

Doesn’t that describe Utley, Wright and Pedroia in particular? None of them made it to within 100 hits of 2,000 — let alone 3,000. But they were Stars, with a capital “S.” They were big, bold faces of those teams they played for. And they elevated everyone around them … until injuries slammed the brakes on their march toward Cooperstown.

So I voted for all three of them — and one big reason is that I see Buster Posey coming (with exactly 1,500 hits) in 2027, when he’ll be a heavy favorite to get elected. Then what? Well, when Posey rolls into the Hall, it’s going to mark a dramatic redefining of what a Hall of Famer will look like.

But just because I’m now moving in that direction, it doesn’t mean I don’t see a place in Cooperstown for the Andy Pettittes of this sport. In some ways, it means we should value longevity — and players with long, consistent records of dependable excellence — even more going forward.

So I voted for Pettitte with that in mind. In fact, I voted for him while facing an excruciating choice between him and King Félix for my 10th and final slot.

I recognize that sounds like a contradiction of the voting standards I just laid out. But I’ll explain it in more detail later. So stay tuned — because first, I think we have to talk about the one true legend on this ballot …

Ichiro (first year on ballot)

I asked this question in a column in November. I’ll ask it again. What reason could any voter possibly have to not vote for a guy who rattled off a ridiculous 4,367 hits on two continents — with 3,089 of them coming on this side of the Pacific (even though he didn’t get here until age 27)?

Seriously, are we really going to do this again? Are we really going to find some excuse not to make this man the first unanimous position player in the history of Hall of Fame voting?

Yikes. It’s embarrassing. Who cares if Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr. weren’t unanimous? Let’s move on. Let’s do better. Let’s think about who we’re talking about here, when we mull the candidacy of the great Ichiro Suzuki …

4,367 hits? That’s more than Joe DiMaggio (2,214) and Yogi Berra (2,150) combined! I know the 1,278 hits in Japan don’t “count.” But it’s not like Ichiro got them in Williamsport, right? They happened!

10 seasons in a row with 200 hits and a Gold Glove Award? You know how many players in history have ever done that? Only one player in history has ever done that. Guess who! For what it’s worth, nobody else even had five seasons in a row like that.

2,244 hits in his first 10 seasons in the big leagues? Does that seem like a lot? You should answer yes to that! Maybe because those 2,244 hits by Ichiro in that decade are the most anyone has ever gotten in his first 10 big-league seasons. Here’s the tiny group that’s even within 300 hits of him:

Paul Waner* — 2,036
Kirby Puckett* — 1,996
Al Simmons* — 1,996
Wade Boggs* — 1,965

(*Hall of Famer)
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)

But of course, Ichiro kept going … for another nine years. So …

3,089 hits, 509 steals and 1,420 runs scored? That’s a staggering trifecta. The only other members of the 500-Steal, 1400-Run Club with more hits than Ichiro won’t take long to rattle off: Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Paul Molitor and Eddie Collins. That’s another distinguished list of all Cooperstonians.

And just for fun, what if we counted Ichiro’s steals and runs scored from Japan? Then he’d have over 700 stolen bases and 2,000 runs. And, well, OMG! The only two men who ever stole and scored that many in American League/National League history? That would be Cobb … and Rickey Henderson … and that’s it. Or how about this …

84 Batting Runs above average, 121 Fielding Runs above average and 62 Baserunning Runs above average? According to Baseball Reference, that’s where Ichiro finished his career in MLB. And I know that sounds like analytics gobbledygook, but let me translate.

Only two outfielders in history had a career remotely like that — with at least 80 Batting Runs, 110 Fielding Runs and 50 Baserunning Runs. One was Ichiro. The other? Willie Mays.

So let me repeat what I asked in November: How is any voter going to explain why they didn’t vote for that guy — a global baseball icon, one of two men in AL/NL history to win an MVP and a Rookie of the Year award in the same season (the other: Fred Lynn) and … sorry, I can’t ignore this … the man who got more hits than anyone who ever played baseball in the two greatest leagues on Earth?

Ichiro Suzuki was the easiest Hall of Fame case on this ballot. So how about we discuss a guy who wasn’t so easy. Namely …

CC Sabathia (first year on ballot)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a Hall of Fame mailbag column. One question sticks with me more than any other: A reader called Sabathia “a compiler at best.” And all these weeks later, I can’t stop thinking about how bad a job that word, compiler, does of describing CC and his great career.

There are reasons to wonder whether this man was a classic first-ballot Hall of Famer. But there are so many reasons he was actually the opposite of a “compiler.” So let’s just lay out a few of them.

His Cy Young streak — You can find Sabathia’s name on a Cy Young Award trophy — but that’s not all. He was also a top-five Cy Young finisher five years in a row (2007-11). Is a guy who does that “a compiler”? The only active pitchers with a streak that long: Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer (seven in a row apiece, with three Cy Youngs each), plus Chris Sale (six in a row, from 2013-18, but didn’t win the award until 2024). Not a very compiler-esque trio, right?

A guy who led both leagues in shutouts in the same year — In one of the seasons in that streak, Sabathia finished fifth in the 2008 NL Cy Young voting … which was quite a feat, since he didn’t even throw a pitch in the National League that year until July 8. But the story of what he did that season, after getting traded from Cleveland to Milwaukee, is the stuff of legends.

He went on to tie for the NL lead in shutouts with three. Which would have been big time enough, except that he also tied for the AL lead in shutouts that year with two. And you know who else has led both leagues in the same year? Right. That would be nobody. And definitely not any “compilers.”

He wouldn’t let the Brewers miss the playoffs — Was Sabathia the greatest midseason pitching acquisition ever? One can make that case. He arrived in Milwaukee in July 2008 — and when the ship started to take on water, he said: We’re not sinking while I’m on this crew. He then made five straight starts on short rest, even though that meant ignoring the pesky downside that he was about to become a free agent and, if he’d blown out, would have cost himself who knows how many millions of dollars.

So how’d that go? The Brewers made the playoffs on the final day of the season. (Guess who pitched?) And nobody who witnessed that would ever say: Boy, was that guy “a compiler.”

He had an epic Bronx October — Then, before the 2009 season, the Yankees signed Sabathia to what was then the largest pitching contract in history (seven years, $161 million). How’d that work out? They won the World Series that year … as their new ace was rolling out a sub-2.00 postseason ERA over five starts. Every time he took the ball, you know what it felt like? An Event. You know what it didn’t feel like? Another episode of “Compiling.”

So I’m going to take the daring stance that CC’s inarguable run as one of this sport’s top starters — and warriors — ends the “compiler” conversation. But we still need to acknowledge the other side of this debate.

The back end of his career wasn’t exactly a mirror image of the front end. Who knows what it would have looked like if his knee cartilage hadn’t decided to erode? But all that wear and tear began to take its toll, especially over his final five seasons.

So I totally understand why someone would look at his 3.74 career ERA — which would be the highest of any left-hander in the Hall — and think he wasn’t first-ballot material. Plus, his candidacy raises another complicated subplot: If Sabathia is a Hall of Famer, what do we do about Andy Pettitte and Mark Buehrle?

Pettitte and Buehrle had been on the ballot for years before Sabathia showed up — and hundreds of voters have consistently managed to not check their names. Now those same voters have to ask themselves: How much better was CC than those two guys? It’s a tricky question.

I’m going to bet that Sabathia pulls those two upward more than they pull him downward. But it’s one more indication that his case isn’t as neat and clean as it looks before you dig into the fine print.

But if you keep digging, it’s also clear that Sabathia had a bigger, more impactful 10-year peak than Pettitte or Buehrle — or pretty much any left-hander of his generation.

From 2003-12, Sabathia had a 10-season run in which he averaged close to 900 batters faced and 190 strikeouts a year, with a 3.34 ERA. Here’s the list of all the left-handed starters in the division-play era (1969-present) who had a 10-season span with that workload, that ERA and that much swinging-and-missing:

Steve Carlton (1970s-80s)*
Randy Johnson (1990s-2000s)*
CC Sabathia (2003-12)

(*multiple overlapping 10-year spans)

Good group! And in a remarkable coincidence, there are also only three left-handed pitchers who wound up in the 3,000-Strikeout, 250-Win Club. Whaddaya know, their names are also Carlton, Johnson and Sabathia.

So why did I vote for CC? I think that covers it! But you know what doesn’t cover it? That word, “compiler!”

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Later in this column, I’ll explain why I voted for the other first-year candidate on my ballot — Pedroia. But first, let’s look at the six players I’ve voted for in the past.

As I’ve said and written many times, once I vote for a player one year, only a disqualifying development or some sort of intense ballot traffic jam would cause me not to vote for him every year. We’re not filling out a daily fantasy lineup here. We’re answering one powerful question: Was this player a Hall of Famer or not?

If that answer is yes, we should be voting for him every year. That’s how I go about this anyway. So if the cases for these next six players sound familiar, it’s because I’ve made them before!

Billy Wagner (73.8% last year)

It’s Year 10 for Wagner on the ballot, a year after he was just five votes short of crossing the 75 percent threshold needed for election. So that means it’s his final year on this ballot. But you know what else that means?

It means it’s the 10th time I get to fire up my favorite list of Wagner’s historic rankings among all the left-handed pitchers who have taken the mound in the last century or so. See if this impresses you at all.

(*minimum 900 innings pitched)
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)

I never get tired of that chart. You know why? Because it delivers the goods so much more efficiently than, say, GrubHub. What makes a player a Hall of Famer? Here’s a handy rule of thumb:

Our first question should be: Did this guy have a claim to historic greatness? And if the answer goes something like, Oh wait. I think he might have been the most unhittable left-hander who ever threw a pitch, then I think we’re cleared to go with: YES!

As my friend Brian Kenny, MLB Network’s resident Hall aficionado, likes to say, we’re not talking about a guy who ranks eighth on those lists. Or 12th. Or 45th. He ranks No. 1 — in pretty much everything.

How much more historically great would Wagner have had to be to prove he’s a Hall of Famer? Think about it, OK?

I recognize there are people out there shouting that ít’s only 900 innings — and that’s over 4,000 fewer than Warren Spahn. To those of you shouting that, I’ll graciously concede that Wagner did not shoulder the same workload as Lefty Grove or Clayton Kershaw or even Jamie Moyer. Maybe that’s because he had a different job.

And it’s possible there are still people who think “relief pitcher” shouldn’t even be considered a real job — not for Hall of Fame purposes anyway. But this is where I point out that relief pitchers got 53,337 outs in big-league games last season. And that’s nearly 10,000 more than just 10 years earlier. So that seems like it’s at least trending toward “real job” territory.

Finally, I’m also aware there are people who think no relief pitcher should ever get a plaque in Cooperstown unless his name is Mariano. So just for them, I’ll graciously concede that it’s perfectly cool to divide all relievers in history into two categories:

1. Mariano Rivera
2. Everyone else

Of course Wagner wasn’t Mariano … because no one was Mariano. But this is where I also get to re-post this little tidbit one more time.

Billy Wagner could return to the majors, surrender 100 consecutive hits, and have the same career opponent batting average as Mariano Rivera (.211).

Wagner could surrender 200 consecutive hits and still have a lower career opponent batting average than Lee Smith (.237).

— Austin J. Eich (@Eich_AJ) January 3, 2023

Thanks to Austin Eich for painting that important picture on X. But I know there is one more elephant in Wagner’s room. So let’s go there.

Yes, Wagner’s postseason ERA was a not-Mariano-like 10.03. I’m not saying anyone should pretend that never happened. But I’ve broken down Wagner’s postseason record, outing by outing. And what I learned was that his teams had an incredibly hard time delivering a lead to him in the late innings of those games.

In 16 seasons, he got only four postseason save opportunities. Rivera got 47. It’s even harder to comprehend that Wagner only got to face a total of 30 hitters with a lead in a postseason game. Mariano faced over 400. So is it even fair to compare those two men, even if both had a job description of “closer”?

What tells us more about any player — large samples or small samples? Isn’t it the larger the better? So what’s the larger sample — Wagner’s overpowering 900 regular-season innings or his 11 2/3 innings of postseason frustration?

All of my fellow voters can answer that question any way they want. But the guy I voted for was the most untouchable left-handed reliever of all time. What a wacky way to vote.

GO DEEPER

It’s closing time for Billy Wagner’s Hall of Fame case — and he’s feeling the weight of the wait

GO DEEPER

How a broken arm — and an unbroken spirit — took Billy Wagner to the doorstep of the Hall

Carlos Beltrán (57.1% last year)

Has it hit you yet that Carlos Beltrán is going to make it to the Hall of Fame? That’s happening. Probably not this year. But soon. You don’t have to be Steve Kornacki to read the trends in this precinct.

This is Beltrán’s third year on this ballot. He added more votes last time around (39) than any returning player. And if you check Ryan Thibodaux’s always revealing Hall of Fame Tracker, the candidate who has added the most votes so far this year is … yup, Beltrán (plus-20, with about 60 percent of the votes yet to be counted as of Wednesday night).

So what we know now is something we didn’t know when Beltrán debuted on the ballot two years ago: These voters are not looking at the Astros’ infamous Bang The Can Slowly scandal as a This Dude Must Never Enter the Halls of Cooperstown kind of “crime.”

Apparently, Astro-gate is not going to go down as PED Era 2.0. So if all that matters now is what Beltrán did on the field, then of course he’s a Hall of Famer. Take a look.

He was a 70-win player — Baseball Reference grades out Beltrán’s wins above replacement total at 70.1. Here’s the complete list of 70-win center fielders in history: Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Mickey Mantle, Mike Trout, Ken Griffey Jr. and Joe DiMaggio. You know what we call 70-win center fielders? Hall of Famers!

He was one of the greatest switch-hitters of all time — Here’s another list I never get tired of. It’s a rundown of every other switch hitter in history with as many hits (2,725), as many homers (435) and as good a career OPS+ (119) as Beltrán: Chipper Jones … Eddie Murray … and we’re done here. So the only debate is whether the greatest switch-hitting center fielder ever was Beltrán or Mantle. And even if the clear answer is Mantle, there’s a Cooperstown theme running through this whole note!

What couldn’t Beltrán do — When most players show up on the ballot, we ask: What about baseball was this man great at? That’s not a question anyone will ever ask about Beltrán — possibly because he was great at everything.

Here’s every outfielder since 1900 who was valued, by the metrics, at more than 250 Batting Runs Above Average, 40 Baserunning Runs Above Average and 25 Fielding Runs Above Average:

Willie Mays
Rickey Henderson
Joe DiMaggio
Henry Aaron
Barry Bonds
Larry Walker
Carlos Beltrán

(Source: Baseball Reference)

If it weren’t for Bonds’ misadventures with performance-enhancing drugs, you know what everyone on that list (other than Beltrán) would have in common? They’d all have given speeches in Cooperstown, N.Y.!

He loved that fall foliage — In the first postseason series of his career, with the 2004 Astros, Beltrán announced to the universe that October was his kind of month. He hit .455/.500/1.091 in that NLDS against Atlanta. And it was just the beginning.

His final postseason slash line? How about .307/.412/.609 — over a span of 65 games. With 16 homers and 11 steals (in 11 tries). Was that any good? I’m going to say yes, because …

Here’s the .300/.400/.600 Club among players who made it into at least 40 postseason games: Carlos Beltrán and Babe Ruth!

Here’s the .300 Average/1.000 OPS version of that club: Beltrán, Ruth and George Brett!

Or how about a .300 postseason average, with at least 15 home runs and double-digit steals? Beltrán … and Derek Jeter!

But also … Beltrán is one of only five members of the 300-Steal/400-Homer Club … and a guy who hit .389/.421/.556 in eight All-Star Games, reaching base in all but one. … How long was his period of greatness? He won a Rookie of the Year award at age 22 and was an All-Star at age 39. … Have I mentioned he also won three Gold Gloves in a row? … And beyond all that, it’s his impact on winning that’s his biggest selling point. Beltrán played baseball in October for five different teams — and all five of them would tell you that was not some kind of an accident.

So was this a Hall of Fame player? Now that the Trash Can Investigative Committee has adjourned, what’s left to even argue about?

Andruw Jones (61.6% last year)

If you’ve read this column before, you know I took a long time to come around to voting for Andruw Jones. I didn’t get there until last year, his seventh year on the ballot. So does seven years fit the definition of “a long time”? It does if you have to spend them getting thwacked around by the entire population of Georgia.

But now that all that’s over, and I’m a beloved figure in Atlanta again, you should know that, as a (cough-cough) perennial Jones voter, I think I’ve mostly managed to move past the second thoughts I had the first time I checked his box.

Here’s why: If I’m going to be a voter who honors players for their extraordinary peaks and for how they pumped up their teams’ chances of winning, then how can I not be an Andruw voter?

Does it still trouble me that from age 31 on, Jones accumulated a total of 1.7 WAR — and would have the lowest WAR in his 30s of any Hall of Fame outfielder? I won’t lie. That’s a thing I’ll always think about as long as he’s on the ballot.

But I also spent many days of my life watching Young Andruw — a phenom the Braves happily installed as a full-time major leaguer at age 20. And that guy had 10 years of being special. I’ve come around to the idea that I didn’t give him enough credit for those 10 seasons.

No outfielder I’ve ever seen made more doubles disappear than Andruw Jones. Was there any ball hit between Macon and Gwinnett that this man couldn’t catch? It didn’t seem like it.

And very few outfielders in the modern era blended Jones’ combination of power and leatherworking. How about this nugget I dug up since the last election:

MOST YEARS WITH GOLD GLOVE AND 30+ HR
(Outfielders only)

Willie Mays — 8
Barry Bonds — 7
Andruw Jones — 7

Plus all those gappers Jones swallowed up were a pivotal part of his pitching staff’s run of greatness — and his teams’ runs to October. That’s also official.

MOST OUTFIELD GOLD GLOVES FOR PLAYOFF TEAMS

Andruw Jones — 8
Torii Hunter — 6
Garry Maddox — 6

So there you go, Georgia. I’m now fully on board. See you in Cooperstown for Andruw Jones’ Induction Weekend. I’ve got 2026 in that pool!

Chase Utley (28.8% last year) and Jimmy Rollins (14.8%)

There’s something so perfect about Utley and Rollins taking this ride on the Hall of Fame roller coaster together. They’re the Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker of the 21st  century — a double-play tag team that played more games together, mostly in Philadelphia, than any other duo in NL history.

The funny thing is, if this were happening 25 years ago instead of today, I bet those voters would have said that Rollins had a better Hall of Fame case than Utley. But all you need to know about how voters process this stuff nowadays is that Utley got nearly twice as many votes as Rollins last year — and it looks as if he could pull away over the next few elections.

We’re a metrics-driven crowd now. And if that’s how the baseball writers are going to vote, no one on this ballot is going to benefit more than Utley. No one.

Are you looking for a guy with a dazzling peak? Are you looking for a guy with the metrics to prove he crushed it during that peak? Then folks, Chase Utley is your man.

Just check out Baseball Reference’s breakdown of the players on this ballot. You’ll find two columns that should be chiseled into Utley’s Hall of Fame plaque some day: WAR7 and JAWS.

WAR7 totals up a player’s seven best seasons. So it literally measures the peaks of the stars. Want to see where Utley ranks on this ballot?

1. Alex Rodriguez — 64.3
2. Chase Utley — 49.3

JAWS was an invention of the great Hall of Fame historian Jay Jaffe. It’s a blend of a player’s peak and career WAR totals. And once again, it’s right in Utley’s wheelhouse.

1. Alex Rodriguez — 90.9
2. Carlos Beltrán — 57.3
3. Chase Utley — 56.9

We know why A-Rod isn’t riding the JAWS/WAR7 Express into Cooperstown. But Utley and Beltrán couldn’t be better set up to enjoy this ride. And I get it.

When we have WAR7 and JAWS to go by, it’s so much easier for today’s voters to breeze right past those 1,855 hits Utley wound up with. In my time as a voter, there’s been no such thing as a player being elected by the writers with under 1,900 hits. But that’s about to change. I think it’s just a question of who gets there first — Posey or Utley. Maybe they’ll even go in together in 2027.

So if you can look past the meager counting numbers, a product directly tied to a series of injuries Utley kept trying to will himself to play through, then everything else about this man’s career screams Hall of Famer.

• He was the intense, turbo-driven meteor behind one of the most dominating teams of his era — the 2007-11 Phillies, who won a World Series, won their division five years in a row and averaged eight more wins per season than any other team in their league.

• He played with a brand of steel-jawed ferocity that gave off the vibe that he thought every inning of every game was the most important inning of his lifetime.

• He was a hit-by-pitch machine who jammed elbows, knees, thighs and ribs into the path of 204 baseballs, pretty much on purpose, just to wriggle his way on base. Did he ever wince once on the way to first? Not that I noticed.

• And there’s a good chance he would have won multiple MVP awards if the voters of his time voted like the voters of these times. Once again, the word of the day is metrics.

Oh, and how did his teammates feel about him? They couldn’t decide if they were terrified of him or in awe of him — or both. Behold this quote from Jayson Werth, his teammate on the 2008 World Series champs, from a column I wrote in 2018.

“He’s just got a master plan up there in his brain, always,” Werth said of Utley. “And that’s why, in my mind, he’s the best — the best player of his generation. Yeah, he’s had some injuries. And as he’s gotten older, some of those injuries have hit him a little harder. But mentally, and preparation-wise, he’s it. If anyone ever asks me, ‘Who’s the best player you played with?’ I mean, not to take anything away from the many other great players I played with. But he’s an easy choice.”

Yet, as their careers were winding down, I bet most of the population of Philadelphia would have told you that Rollins was an even easier choice for Cooperstown. If we were measuring these guys with the traditional Hall of Fame counting numbers of yesteryear, Rollins has a collection of those feats that no other shortstop in history can match.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that, either. No other shortstop who ever played had Jimmy Rollins’ career. That’s because …

• He won an MVP, a World Series and four Gold Gloves. You know how many other shortstops can say that? None!

• He’s the only shortstop in history with more than 2,400 hits, 200 homers, 400 steals and 800 extra-base hits.

• He owns the most hits in the history of his franchise (the Phillies).

• He strung together the longest hitting streak by a shortstop (38 games) since 1894.

• And when the lineup card got posted, you barely had to bother checking to see if he was in it. He started every game at short — and played all but 12 innings — in his spectacular MVP season in 2007. And he averaged 149 games played a year over 13 seasons (2001-13) at shortstop.

If we’re going to heap a big pile of extra-credit points on Utley’s case for all the winning those Phillies teams did, then we have to assemble a pile just as large for Rollins. He was The Energizer on those teams — but also a force for positivity with a whole different aura from his double-play partner.

“When I start feeling nervous,” one of his coaches once told me, “all I have to do is look at Jimmy and I think we’re gonna win.”

What Rollins doesn’t have is a collection of data points that connect with today’s voters. His total wins above replacement (47.6) are fewer than Utley rolled up just in his seven-year peak (49.3). So it’s hard to explain to voters who didn’t watch them that Rollins’ defensive impact, in particular, was so much greater than the public metrics of his time would lead you to believe.

But I lived in Philadelphia through every year of their careers. So I’m voting not just based on the invaluable information that jumps off my computer screen, but on the sights and sounds of many days watching two winning players play baseball — in a way that jumped off the field at me.

That’s how those of us who cover baseball should vote. And it’s why I vote for Rollins and Utley, two men who led their teams to the parade floats in their own distinctive ways.

David Wright (6.2% last year)

So if Utley is on the road to Cooperstown … and if Posey is about to approach the entrance ramp on that road … doesn’t that open the door for someone like Wright? I think it does.

Let’s stay away from the part of this discussion that involves World Series rings. Mets fans, you can thank me later for that part. But otherwise …

It was challenging enough that Utley doesn’t have 1,900 hits. Wright (1,777) never even made it to 1,800. But once we’re empowered to ignore the counting numbers, then whatever. So I’m doing my part to keep Wright on this ballot long enough for us to figure out whether we’re ready to elect players like him.

He was, after all, the third baseman on Mets Rushmore — the 21st-century face of the franchise whose number is about to be deservedly retired. But more than that, he’s a guy who spent the first 10 years of his career doing the kinds of things that Hall of Fame third basemen do. And we should honor those things.

Over his first 10 seasons, according to Baseball Reference, Wright racked up more WAR (46.5) than Adrián Beltré (35.8) or Brooks Robinson (26.0). And the other numbers on his stats page were just as picturesque.

.301/.382/.506/.888 slash line
222 HR
183 SB
137 OPS+
2 Gold Gloves

Among all full-time third basemen in the live-ball era, only Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Wade Boggs and Eddie Mathews beat that OPS+ through their first 10 seasons. Only Schmidt and Mathews topped both that on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

And if we leave out guys with PED shadows, only seven players at any position, whose careers began in the 2000s, made it into that neighborhood, in both WAR and OPS+, in their first 10 seasons:

Albert Pujols
Mike Trout
Mookie Betts
Aaron Judge
Joey Votto
Miguel Cabrera

And …

David Wright

In fact, there are only 17 Hall-eligible players whose careers began in the expansion era (1961-present) who reached those WAR and OPS+ levels over their first 10 seasons. Not counting guys with PED stains, you know what bonds them all together? They’re all in the Hall of Fame … except for David Wright.

After that, unfortunately, came the rest of Wright’s career — and debilitating injuries that jammed the brake pedal on his scenic trek toward Cooperstown. If this were any other era of Hall of Fame voting, he never would have gotten enough votes last year, his first on the ballot, to continue this debate in Year 2.

But that was then. This is 2025. And I suspect that in a few years, we’re all going to be looking at players like this very differently.

So as I did last year, I’m being 100 percent upfront about the fact that I’m voting for Wright to keep him on the ballot — and in this conversation. And you know who else I did that for? Keep reading …

Dustin Pedroia (first year on ballot)

Hall of Fame votes should be based on what did happen, not what might have happened. But boy, it’s tough not to think about the career Dustin Pedroia might have had in the What If World — the world that would have existed if Manny Machado hadn’t steamrolled into Pedroia, spikes high, at second base, on April 21, 2017.

Pedroia’s teammates in Boston still think about it.

“The only thing that stops him from being a first-ballot Hall of Famer,” Ryan Dempster told me, “is a slide in Baltimore (by) Manny Machado. That I can guarantee.”

That guarantee doesn’t come with his money back, of course. But who’s to say he’s wrong? Because until that slide, Pedroia had played 11 full seasons — and had won a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP trophy, four Gold Gloves and two World Series. Digest that for a moment.

Not to imply that that’s slightly amazing, but … only two players in history can say they did all those things (or more). One is Pedroia. The other? Johnny Bench.

Look, I understand that no one player gets credit for those World Series rings. Bench had the Big Red Machine around him. Pedroia had David Ortiz, Jon Lester and the Big Red Sox Curse Demolishing Machine. But even if you just paid minimal attention, you know the 5-foot-9 mini-mite second baseman on those Boston teams was not just another guy riding the bus.

His teammates still talk of how he’d show up for night games at 11 in the morning … how he’d be gobbling up 200 groundballs in an empty ballpark by noon … how he’d be sitting in the food room in full uniform an hour and a half before game time because he couldn’t wait for the first pitch of the night.

“His mental toughness was like nobody I’d ever seen before,” said former teammate Sean Casey. “It was just a constant ‘bring-it-on’ mentality. One of a kind!”

So we’re talking about one of the most fun, most inspirational and most charismatic players of the 21st century. But Pedroia was more than merely a motivational speaker, trying to cajole his friends to raise the Fenway bar every day of every season. He was also a fantastic baseball player, rolling up 53.3 WAR and nearly 1,800 hits in his first 11 full seasons.

Here’s the roll call of second basemen in the expansion era with that many hits and that many wins above replacement in their first 11 full seasons: Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, Robinson Canó … and Pedroia. So it’s safe to say that like Wright, Pedroia was cruising toward the plaque gallery …

Until that slide.

Sadly, from 2018 on, he would get just three more hits over the rest of his career. So he wound up with career numbers strikingly similar to Utley’s.

(*Bill James Hall of Fame Monitor: 100 is a likely Hall of Famer)

Now will he start gathering momentum like Utley, assuming he gets enough votes to stick around on this ballot? Or does he just need to tread water until some voters reassess after Posey’s Induction Day? Too soon to say. But what I can say is that I’m committed to doing for him what I’ve done for Wright, Utley and Rollins.

Dustin Pedroia got my vote. Let’s see how many more are out there for him someday.

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Why Dustin Pedroia has a checkmark on my Hall of Fame ballot

The last spot on my ballot — Pettitte or Félix? 

When my 2025 ballot showed up in the mail, I never would have guessed I’d be sending it back with Andy Pettitte’s name checked — but not Félix Hernández’s. But that’s why the Hall gives us a month and a half to think about these things. The most important word in that sentence is “think.”

So I thought about the starting pitchers on this ballot for hours, for days, for weeks. If you look back at that chart in the Sabathia section, you’ll see how he connects the think dots to Buehrle and Pettitte. I just didn’t expect that my deep dive into Pettitte’s career would then connect the dots back to Hernández.

But sometimes, that’s what happens. With all due respect to the year-in, year-out reliability of Buehrle, I didn’t see a case for potentially voting for him over Pettitte. But when I started this process, I had King Félix ahead of both of them — based on so much of the big-peak reasoning I’ve been writing about in this opus.

And Hernández’s peak was something to see, all right: In the six seasons between 2009-14, he collected a Cy Young Award and finished second twice. He had a 2.73 ERA in those six years and a 141 ERA+ — while averaging 232 innings a season. Just to put that in perspective, no pitcher has thrown 232 innings in any season since 2015 — and Félix was averaging 232 back then.

Clayton Kershaw was the best left-handed starter in baseball in that span, and the King was the best right-handed starter. And only Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander were even in the discussion behind him. So was prime-time Félix “an ace?” Yessir. In every way.

But was he an ace for long enough? I wanted to say yes. But was he? He actually had a very similar profile to Andruw Jones. From age 30 on, Hernandez’s career tumbled precipitously down Mount Rainier. He went 26-35 in his 30s, with an ERA just under 5.00, compiling minus-0.1 WAR.

That slide inflicted major damage to his final career totals across the board — but especially on an ERA+ that skidded from the 130s all the way down to 117. And you know why that number stuck in my brain? Because that was also Pettitte’s final career ERA+.

But when I began to compare those two pitchers, how could I ignore the fact that Pettitte had so much more volume? He piled up 103 more regular-season starts. And then there was October.

I’ve written a separate column laying out all the reasons I wound up voting for Pettitte. But it’s what he did over 44 postseason starts that sealed his spot on my ballot.

I won’t regurgitate everything here. But how about this claim to fame: He started eight games won by the Yankees to clinch a postseason series. No pitcher has started more series-clinchers than that.

And just so you know, he was great in those eight games. His ERA in those clinchers was 2.66. That’ll work!

I know it isn’t completely fair to compare Pettitte’s immense postseason accomplishments to Hernández’s lack thereof. It obviously wasn’t the King’s fault that the Mariners didn’t remind anyone of the Yankees.

But we’re talking 44 postseason starts by Pettitte — to none by Félix. Those 44 starts can lead to a ton of Hall of Fame bonus points for one guy, versus zero extra credit for the other.

Let me make clear that I’m not penalizing Hernández for his team’s futility. But as voters, we’re supposed to consider, well, everything. And Pettitte’s Octobers weren’t just some little sideshow. They helped shape his legacy.

So when it came time to send off that ballot, I gave my 10th and final vote to Pettitte … and hoped that King Félix would get enough votes to return for Year Two. It looks like that’s what’s going to happen.

I still don’t know if I got that one right. But I walked you through this just to illustrate how Hall of Fame voting can compel us voters to consume way more Tylenol than we’d gobble up if this were as easy as the second-guessers on the outside think it is.

I’ll be relieved if Hernández remains on the ballot, giving me a chance to go through all of this again next year. I’ll be thrilled if Pettitte makes as big a jump in the voting, as the Hall of Fame Tracker makes it appear he will.

And in the meantime, I’ll remind myself — and you guys — of the No. 1 rule of Hall of Fame voting: There’s no right ballot. And there’s no wrong ballot. There’s only my ballot.

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Hall of Fame ballot columns from The Athletic

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Baseball Hall of Fame ballots 2025: The Athletic’s voters explain their selections

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Rosenthal: Why CC Sabathia received my Hall of Fame vote this year and Andy Pettitte did not

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Kepner: Why Félix Hernández fell just short on my Hall of Fame ballot — and why I’m grateful he’s still in play

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Five things to watch on the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

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Will Ichiro Suzuki be the second unanimous selection to baseball’s Hall of Fame?

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A salute to Ichiro, CC Sabathia and the other 12 newcomers to the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

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Baseball Hall of Fame tiers: Which active players are on course for Cooperstown?

(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic. Dustin Pedroia: Elsa / Getty Images; CC Sabathia: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images; Ichiro Suzuki: Mark Cunningham / MLB Photos via Getty Images; Carlos Beltrán: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)