Four elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame

Jeff Idelson announced live on the MLB Network that were four players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Congratulations goes out to Randy Johnson (97.3%), Pedro Martinez (91.1%), John Smoltz (82.9%), and Craig Biggio (82.7%).

More from St Louis Cardinals News

Leading up to the afternoon’s announcement, there was talk that there could be as many as five players joining baseball immortality in Cooperstown. In the end, we have the first class of four since the 1955 induction. There was a minimum of 412 (75%) votes required out of 549 voters in the BBWAA.

The fact that four players went in speaks to just how deep the ballot was this time around.

Catcher Mike Piazza fell just short of joining what would have surely been an historic class with 69.9% of the vote. He’ll likely join Ken Griffey, Jr. and maybe Trevor Hoffman in the Class of 2016.

Jeff Bagwell (55.7%), Tim Raines (55.0%), and Curt Schilling (39.2%) are trending up. Raines jumped up nine points from last year. Schilling rebounded to where he was on his first ballot before taking a nose dive in 2014. He will be the biggest starting pitcher on next year’s ballot.

Both Roger Clemens (37.5%) and Barry Bonds (36.8%) have picked up about the same amount of support in each go around. Next year’s ballot won’t be as stacked so it will be interesting to see if the numbers go up or down.

Lee Smith (30.2%) is proving that there is a higher standard for relievers. He’s grandfathered in with the 10-year rule but peaked with 50% three years ago. Will he make up for the loss of support with four big names and then some dropping off the ballot?

Edgar Martinez (27.0%) is showing that it’s hard to get elected to the Hall as a designated hitter.

Alan Trammell (25.1%) isn’t getting the support that he should for being one of the best in his era.

Mike Mussina (24.6% should expect to benefit in 2016 with three pitchers off the ballot.

Jeff Kent (14.0%), Fred McGriff (12.9%, and Larry Walker (11.8%) aren’t getting as fair of a look from the writers as they ought to.

Gary Sheffield (11.7%) Mark McGwire (10%), Sammy Sosa (6.6%), and Nomar Garciaparra (5.5%) manage to stay on the ballot after garnering at least five percent of the vote. Amongst those dropping off, Carlos Delgado was the big notable with 3.8% of the vote.

Troy Percival, Aaron Boone, Tom Gordon, and Darin Erstad received four votes or less.

Don Mattingly finishes his 15 years on the ballot with 9.1% of the vote.

Home/St Louis Cardinals News