It's Baseball Hall of Fame season, a process that becomes increasingly less fun with each passing year.
Nonetheless, the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was unveiled on Monday. It's a ballot that includes four Phillies — Billy Wagner, Bobby Abreu, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley — all of whom are returning to the ballot.
The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot as announced moments ago (baseballhall.org/news/2025-bb...). Results will be announced Jan. 21st.
The 2025 BBHOF Ballot Tracker is live: tracker.fyi
[image or embed]— Ryan Thibodaux (@notmrtibbs.com) November 18, 2024 at 12:08 PM
Former players appear on the ballot for Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voters for 10 years, and need votes from 75% of writers to get elected. While I'm in the BBWAA, you need to be in for a certain number of years before getting a Hall of Fame vote. I'm nine years away, so I don't yet have a vote. But this is my analysis of where things stand currently.
- Billy Wagner: This is the final year on the ballot for Wagner, who was the closer for the Phillies in 2004 and 2005. He got 73.8% of votes last year, so he's on the cusp of election. His 422 saves are eighth in MLB history. If he's elected, that bodes well for future candidates like Craig Kimbrel and Kenley Jansen.
- Bobby Abreu: He was an on-base machine, drawing 100 or more walks every year from 1999-2006. If he played now, he probably would have been more appreciated than he was in the Steroid Era. But defensive shortcomings and a lack of accolades — he was only an All-Star twice — will probably keep him in ballot purgatory. This is his sixth year and he got 14.8% of the vote a year ago.
- Jimmy Rollins: There's a lot of support locally for the 2007 NL MVP, but he hasn't gained a ton of traction nationally. He got an identical 14.8% to Abreu a year ago. It was Rollins' third year on the ballot, so he still has time. Some have compared him to Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, but Larkin was a career .295 hitter with an .815 OPS and 67 WAR, per FanGraphs. Rollins was a career .264 hitter with a .743 OPS and 49.7 WAR. It's probably time to try a different angle.
- Chase Utley: In his first year on the ballot, Utley received 28.8% of the vote. That's not a terrible starting point, but Utley obviously has to make up some ground. His case will come down to whether you think his peak was dominant (and long) enough to overcome his relatively low counting stats. He has only 1,885 career hits. But his WAR 7 — a stat that combines your top seven single-season WAR totals to show how valuable you were at your peak — was 49.3. That's ninth among all second basemen in MLB history, above Hall of Famers like Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar and Craig Biggio.
Phillies fans may not like to hear this, but Wagner — who many locally associate more as a member of the division-rival New York Mets — is clearly the most likely to be elected in 2025 of this quartet.
Abreu seems destined to spend all 10 years on the ballot, but never get particularly close to election. So far, there's no evidence that Rollins will be much different.
Utley is the one to watch. 28.8% might not seem like a lot, but Scott Rolen got just 10.2% in his first year on the ballot in 2016. By 2023, he got 76.3% of the vote, with years of more analytically-minded voters explaining how Rolen had been under-appreciated and was arguably one of the 10-best third basemen in MLB history. With a similar campaign behind him, Utley has a shot.
