No Ichiro Suzuki? No CC Sabathia? No problem.
The 2026 ballot for baseball’s Hall of Fame came roaring at us Monday. And it’s not one of those ballots that will make us debate whether anybody on it should be unanimous. In fact, as first-year ballot classes go, this is one of the least star-studded of modern times.
But we still have Carlos Beltrán to debate. And Andruw Jones. And a cast of 27 players you have definitely heard of. We’ll find out in two months who will be propelled by this election onto a stage next July in beautiful Cooperstown, NY. But for now, we’ll just have to settle for these Five Things to Watch on the 2026 Hall of Fame ballot.
1. Who fills the no-first-ballot vacuum?
2025 was Ichiro’s year. The 2026 election’s storylines aren’t as straightforward. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
Maybe you noticed this. Maybe you didn’t. But for the last 12 years, we’ve been living in the golden age of first-ballot Hall of Famers.
The baseball writers have voted in an incredible 18 first-ballot rock stars in those 12 elections. And yessir, that would be a record. The previous high, over any 12-election span, was 13, from 1988 to 1999.
In fact, there have been only two years in that whole period — 2021 and 2023 — in which these voters didn’t elect at least one first-ballot Hall of Famer. So let’s just say that for a long time now, we haven’t had to go searching for election season storylines. It was Derek Jeter’s year! It was Mariano’s year! It was Ichiro’s year! They made it easy.
But now what?
Only two first-timers on this 2026 ballot arrive lugging more than 36 career wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference: Cole Hamels (59.0) and Ryan Braun (47.2). And with all due respect to those two, no one in Cooperstown is busy chiseling their plaques.
So in years like this, we get a whole different level of ballot intrigue. You’d think the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters would go into this process wanting to elect somebody. But what makes this interesting is wondering who — if anyone — will turn out to be that somebody.
It would sure make sense that Carlos Beltrán would fill that vacuum. He missed election by only 19 votes last year. It could be Andruw Jones, who fell 35 short. Or it obviously could be both. But it isn’t out of the question that it could be none of the above.
In two of the last three elections that featured zero first-ballot Hall of Famers, the writers looked at the rest of the field and said, Nah — and elected nobody. I’d bet against a repeat, but you never know.
In 2021, Curt Schilling led the pack with 71.1 percent. That’s a lot of votes, but it left him 16 shy of election. And as you might have heard, he’s still waiting for his election day to come around.
Then there was 2013, an even stranger year. There were 10 players on that ballot who have since been elected — plus Schilling and four other players who are on the upcoming Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy.
You know how many of them even made it to 70 percent in that election? That would be zero. It turned into one of the oddest shutouts in modern voting history.
Fortunately, I don’t see a shutout coming this year. So who does get in? Let’s look at the two men within clear striking distance ….
2. What are the odds this is the year of Beltrán and Jones? 
Andruw Jones fell 35 votes shy of election last time. Can he find enough new support to get elected? (Rob Tringali / Getty Images)
If the bigger-picture history of Hall of Fame voting tells us anything, there will not be an empty podium in Cooperstown next July.
This is the eighth time in the last 40 years that we’ve gone into a Hall election with multiple returning candidates who each topped 66 percent of the vote the year before. In every one of those previous seven elections, at least one of those players got elected the next year.
So is it Beltrán’s time? Is it Andruw’s year? Let’s break it down.
Beltrán’s 70-percent solution — Last year was Beltrán’s third spin on this ballot. In his first year, he got dinged by many voters for his high-profile spot on the 2017 trash-can pounders’ roster in Houston. Since then, though, he has jumped from 46.5 percent in Year 1, to 57.1 percent in Year 2, to 70.3 percent in Year 3. So is he now a lock to reach the 75 percent required for election? Here’s what history tells us.
In the six decades since the Hall went to annual voting, eight previous players have cleared 70 percent of the vote within their first three years on the ballot (without being elected). Check out how they fared the next year.
YEAR PLAYERPCT.NEXT YEAR?
2017
Trevor Hoffman
74.0
Elected
2017
Vlad Guerrero
71.7
Elected
2014
Craig Biggio
74.8
Elected
2010
Roberto Alomar
73.7
Elected
1990
Gaylord Perry
72.1
Elected
1983
Harmon Killebrew
71.9
Elected
1982
Juan Marichal
73.5
Elected
1975
Robin Roberts
72.7
Elected
Seeing a trend? I bet you do. So maybe there are still enough trash-can fanatics out there that Beltrán can’t flip those last 20 votes he needs. But I’ll take the “over.”
If not now, when for Andruw?
It’s pretty wild to look back on Jones’ first year on this ballot, in 2018, when he collected a whopping 7.3 percent of the vote. Would you believe 18 players got more votes than him that year? What about that said: Andruw Jones, future Hall of Famer?
No candidate in the history of this election has ever come that close to getting wiped off the ballot in Year 1 and then roared back to get voted in by those same voters. So is Jones going to be the first? I’m still not sure.
On one hand, it’s hard to bet against a guy who now has basically flipped 60 percent of these voters over to his corner. The question is: Where are his last 35 votes coming from? He added only 24 votes last year and just 11 the year before. So it’s possible that basically all of the longtime voters who were open to changing their minds have already done that.
But are there enough new voters to get him over the finish line? I’m not so sure of that, either. Ryan Thibodaux’s fabulous Baseball Hall of Fame vote tracker monitors that sort of thing — and found that only 62 percent of first-time voters were checking Jones’ name over the past two elections.
It’s Andruw’s ninth time on the writers’ ballot. So he’s running out of chances. But does he have one last surge in him? I’ll let you know in two months.
3. Is it time to cut to the Chase? 
Chase Utley got 39.8 percent of the vote last year, an 11.1 percentage point jump from 2024. (L Redkoles / Getty Images)
Want a fun game you can play someday to avoid doing actual work in your actual job? Run down the list of teams that won a World Series — just to see how few of them don’t have a Hall of Famer somewhere on the roster.
But is there a Hall of Fame player on Chase Utley’s 2008 Phillies? It’s a good year to ask, since three of the most important members of that team are on this ballot.
There is Utley … and there’s his longtime double-play partner, shortstop Jimmy Rollins … and now, for the first time, there is Hamels, the pitcher who started five of the 11 games those Phillies won that October. Those three players are as interesting as any candidates in the ballot real estate below Beltrán and Jones. So why don’t we assess their cases?
UTLEY — I’ve made this prediction before. I’ll make it again. One of these years, these voters are going to elect Chase Utley. It won’t be this year. But of all the down-ballot candidates, he’s the one who has That Look. We saw it again last January, when we had a chance to digest the position players who made the biggest jumps in last year’s election.
PLAYER INCREASE 20252024
Carlos Beltrán
+13.2%
70.3%
57.1%
Chase Utley
+11%
39.8%
28.80%
Andruw Jones
+4.6%
66.2%
61.60%
See what I mean? By the olden-day standards of Hall of Fame voting, there was no path to Cooperstown for a guy like Utley, who never even made it to 1,900 career hits or 300 homers, and never won a Gold Glove Award at second base.
But the world is changing, friends. So as the voting population grows more data-driven every year, and more open to players who made a big impact on their sport and on winning in their peak, a guy like Utley starts looking like the ultimate new-age Hall of Famer.
The data shines new light on his defense and base running. And don’t let his offensive counting numbers fool you. Did you know he’s the only second baseman in the last 85 years who has ripped off five straight seasons as an everyday player with a .900 OPS or better?
So if Utley can get his vote percentage into the 50s in this election, he’s perfectly positioned to make another sizable leap next year, when Buster Posey arrives on this ballot — with a Hall of Fame aura but only 1,500 career hits. I expect Posey to get elected. And if he does, he could have a huge impact on the other big-peak stars of his era … stars just like Chase Utley.
ROLLINS — How often do you see two double-play partners get to have a cool reunion on the Hall of Fame ballot? Thanks for asking. How about once every six decades or so.
Rollins and Utley are the first DP combo to play 1,000 games together and take a ride on the same Hall of Fame ballot since Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox, who last appeared in the same infield (with the White Sox) way back in 1962. So I keep wondering if, as Utley pushes toward election, he’ll take Rollins with him.
Your first instinct might be to say no, since Rollins was still lagging at just 18.0 percent of the vote last year, in his fourth orbit on this ballot. On the other hand, he has nearly doubled his votes, from 9.4 percent in his first year. So this jury is still out.
Here’s my annual reminder: Who’s the only shortstop in history with an MVP trophy, four Gold Gloves, 2,400 hits, 200 homers, 400 steals and 800 extra-base hits? His name is Jimmy Rollins. And when you add in that he was a franchise-changing figure on a team that rode in a World Series parade, he’s a better candidate than his vote totals have reflected — so far.
HAMELS — In 2008, on the way to the Phillies’ parade floats, the World Series and NLCS MVP awards did not go to Utley or Rollins. They were both awarded to Hamels, a swing-and-miss left-handed changeup machine who rolled off a 1.80 ERA in five starts that October — and a guy whose Phillies teams won nine of the 12 postseason games he started between 2008 and 2011.
With only one top-five Cy Young Award finish in 15 seasons, it’s hard to make a case that Hamels is a clear Hall of Famer. But there’s also this: Between 2006 and 2020, only three pitchers had at least nine seasons that were worth 4.0 bWAR or more: Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Cole Hamels.
So who’s the first-time candidate with the best shot at clearing the 5 percent threshold and returning to this ballot next year? What a great transition to our next question …
4. Is this the thinnest first-year Hall class since the 1980s? 
Howie Kendrick is one of 12 first-year candidates on this Hall of Fame ballot. (Bob Levey / Getty Images)
Baseball. What a crazy sport. It was just last year that the Hall of Fame ballot featured maybe the best group of first-timers in modern voting history. So it makes no sense that this year’s ballot features one of the thinnest crops in history. But here we are.
Last year’s group included Ichiro, Sabathia, Dustin Pedroia, Félix Hernández and a total of nine players who had at least two seasons as 6.0-WAR players, according to Baseball Reference’s formula.
But this year? Here are the only first-timers on this ballot who ever had any 6-win seasons, according to the same formula:
Ryan Braun — 3
Alex Gordon — 3
Hamels — 2
Matt Kemp — 1
Howie Kendrick — 1
Nick Markakis — 1
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)
So that’s only three players with multiple seasons that valuable. And that means it’s worth wondering if this could be the first election since 1984 in which no first-timer gets enough votes to make it to a second year on the ballot. In case you’re curious, Wilbur Wood was the leading first-year vote-getter in ’84, with 3.5 percent. No one else got more than four votes.
My gut tells me Hamels will top 5 percent and live to make another run. And if Braun had played in an alternate universe with no suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs, he probably would have joined him. But if only one of them advances, it would be just the sixth time in the last 40 elections that no more than one first-timer cleared that 5 percent bar.
YEAR FIRST-TIMERPCT.
2012
Bernie Williams
9.6
2009
Rickey Henderson
94.8
2008
Tim Raines
24.3
1987
Bobby Bonds
5.8
1986
Willie McCovey
81.4
I don’t have a feel for where Hamels’ vote total is heading. But if nobody in this first-time class gets at least 10 percent of the vote, this year will join only 1987 and 2012 in the single-digit portion of that list. Last year, for what it’s worth, four first-time players got over 10 percent: Ichiro and Sabathia, who both got elected, plus King Félix (20.6 percent) and Pedroia (11.9).
5. Is there a Hall of Fame starter in this house?
Is Andy Pettitte headed for the Hall? CC Sabathia’s candidacy appeared to boost him last year. (Rob Carr / Getty Images)
Here come the six starting pitchers on this ballot, along with their career win totals and career WAR (via Baseball Reference):
PITCHERW-LWAR
Andy Pettitte
256-153
60.2
Mark Buehrle
214-160
59.0
Félix Hernández
169-136
49.8
Cole Hamels*
163-122
59.0
Rick Porcello*
150-125
18.8
Gio Gonzalez*
131-101
28.3
(*first year on ballot)
Is there a Hall of Famer on that list? And if not, will any Hall of Fame starting pitcher get elected by these voters before Clayton Kershaw shows up on this ballot in five years?
I’d love to address that second question in a separate column one of these days. But for now, I’m going to wriggle out on a very steady limb and predict that if there is a Hall of Famer on this ballot, it isn’t Hamels, Rick Porcello or Gio Gonzalez, as much as I admire their excellent careers. So that leaves …
PETTITTE, BUEHRLE AND FÉLIX — If there’s a Hall of Famer in that trio, Pettitte is the clear favorite — for now at least. Guess which player on last year’s ballot made the biggest one-year jump? It wasn’t Beltrán. It wasn’t Jones. It wasn’t Utley. It was Andy Pettitte. And wasn’t that a fascinating development?
In his first six years on this ballot, he never topped more than 17.0 percent, and actually seemed to be trending downward. But then … he rocketed from 13.5 percent in 2024 all the way up to 27.9 percent in 2025. And there wasn’t much mystery as to what happened.
A dude named CC Sabathia happened! So in Sabathia’s first year on the ballot, it became A Thing to gawk at just how similar his career stats looked to Pettitte’s.
PITCHER W-LWARERA+
Pettitte
256-153
60.2
117
Sabathia
251-161
62.3
116
(Source: Baseball Reference)
Buehrle (who finished his career with a 117 ERA+) has a CC-esque case himself, just without the dominant Cy Young Award-contending peak. But it’s Buehrle’s sixth year on the ballot, and he has never topped 11.4 percent of the vote, which is what he got last year. So is he going to find 250 more votes hiding in plain sight over the next five years? It’s hard to see it.
Then there’s King Félix. He has eight years left on the ballot after this year. And that 20.6 percent he collected last year reminds us what a long road he’d have to travel to reach 75 percent. But here’s a question:
What happens if there’s a dramatic turn by these voters toward the big-peak stars of the 21st century? Then there’s hope for Hernández. That’s what.
In his transcendent peak, he spun off three top-two Cy Young finishes in the six seasons between 2009 and 2014. He also had a spectacular 141 ERA+ over those six years — while averaging 232 innings a season. If it’s brilliance along those lines that voters suddenly value more than anything else, then there might be a plaque in the King’s future after all. But for now? That future is hazier than the November views of Mount Rainier.
But even Pettitte has to find 200 more votes in his final three years on this ballot. And good luck to him. Bet you didn’t know that no left-handed starter in history has ever been elected in his eighth, ninth or 10th year on the ballot. Feel free to look that up!
So is there a Hall of Fame starter in this house? The writers elected eight of them in the 12 elections between 2014 and 2025. But when does the next one arrive? Not in two months. I’d bet my whole rosin-bag collection on that.