The Baseball Writers Association of America elected David Ortiz to the Hall of Fame Tuesday. He received 77.9% of the vote on his first time on the ballot.
He will be the only of the seven new Hall of Famers to be elected via the BBWAA. In December, the Golden Days Era committee elected Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso and Tony Oliva. Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil were elected via the Early Baseball Era committee.
The full election results can be found here.
Ortiz was one of the America League’s most feared sluggers throughout his career, ranking 17th all-time with 541. The 10-time All-Star was also one of the best postseason hitters of all-time, posting a higher OPS in the playoffs (.947) than in the regular season (.931), leading the Red Sox to World Series titles in 2004, 2007 and 2013. He was a career .286 hitter who finished his 20 year career with 1,768 RBIs and 55.3 WAR.
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Missing the ballot, for a 10th and final time, are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa. All four are controversial figures within the game, with Bonds, Clemens and Sosa being linked to steroids and Schilling for using his platform to make bigoted remarks.
Bonds, the all-time home run leader, finished with 66% of the vote, 36 short of reaching the 75% threshold. Clemens finished 39 votes short. After falling 16 votes short last year, Schilling requested to have his name taken off the ballot so he could instead be potentially elected through a committee. He fell to just 58.6% of the vote.
They will all be potentially eligible for another crack at the Hall through the Today’s Game committee, which will hold an election in December and in 2024.
Also receiving at least 50% of the vote were Scott Rolen (63.2% in his fifth year), Todd Helton (52% in his 4th year) and Billy Wagner (51% in his 7th year). Alex Rodriguez, another great player who is linked to steroids and was actually suspended in 2013, received 34.3% of the vote.
Tim Hudson was the only returning player on the ballot to fall off by not reaching the 5% vote threshold, receiving 4.3% in his second year of eligibility. Also falling off by not receiving enough votes are first year candidates Tim Lincecum, Ryan Howard, Mark Texeria, Justin Morneau, Jonathan Papelbon, Prince Fielder, A.J. Pierzynski, Carl Crawford and Jake Peavy.
Our Dejan Kovacevic had a ballot again this year. Here is his column explaining why he voted the way he did.
