JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Local products Howie Kendrick and Daniel Murphy are eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time, showing up on the ballot Monday night.
Kendrick and Murphy were among the first-time players for the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Kendrick, a West Nassau High School graduate and later St. Johns River State College, and Murphy, an Englewood and Jacksonville University player, is also eligible. The last local player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame was Bolles product Chipper Jones in 2018.
Murphy was a .296 career hitter and three-time all-star player (one with the Mets, two with the Nationals). He finished second behind Kris Bryant for the NL MVP in 2016 after leading the league in slugging (.595) and on-base plus slugging (.985) and 19th in MVP the following year. Murphy played 12 years and swatted 138 homers.
Kendrick was a career .294 hitter across 15 seasons in the big leagues. He spent nine of those years with the Angels with his best season coming in 2014. He had a career high in WAR (6.1) while hitting .293 and driving in 75 runs. He finished 18th in balloting for MVP. Kendrick made his lone all-star appearance in 2011.
That local duo is joined by Cole Hamels, Ryan Braun, Matt Kemp, Rick Porcello, Shin-Soo Choo, Edwin Encarnación, Gio González, Alex Gordon, Nick Markakis and Hunter Pence are among the first-timers on the ballot.
Results will be announced on Jan. 20.
Carlos Beltrán heads 15 holdovers after falling 19 votes shy in 2025 balloting.
Other holdovers include steroids-tainted stars Alex Rodriguez (146 votes, 37.1%) and Manny Ramirez (135, 34.3%) along with Andruw Jones (261, 66.2%), Chase Utley (157, 39.8%), Andy Pettitte (110, 27.9%), Félix Hernández (81, 20.6%), Bobby Abreu (77, 19.5%), Jimmy Rollins (71, 18%), Omar Vizquel (70, 17.8%), Dustin Pedroia (47, 11.9%), Mark Buehrle (45, 11.4%), Francisco Rodríguez (40, 10.2%), David Wright (32, 8.1%) and Torii Hunter (20, 5.1%).
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story
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