2025 HOF -- Early Thoughts

[todeen]

I'm very excited for the 2025 HOF voting. First, Ichiro will be on the ballot. I live in WA, and I was here when he debuted. Sodo Mojo.

But the rest of the ballot will be very intriguing as well! Billy Wagner narrowly missed election this year, so there is a chance we could be talking about a class of 4! Wagner, Ichiro, Sabathia, and maybe Andruw Jones.

In addition, I am very interested to see how voters respond to Felix Hernandez. Here is a comment from Jayson Stark and the changing role of starting pitchers. "Speaking of prodigious peaks, King Félix has a fun, big-peak case himself. Check out his seven outrageously great seasons from 2009-15: 104-65, a Cy Young Award, two other top-two Cy Young finishes and a 136 ERA+. Sadly, he was never the same after that. But he has a certain Johan Santana-ish appeal, except with a longer career. He’s also a litmus test of how we’ll look at modern aces in the future. So it wouldn’t shock me if he got elected at some point." You can find the article here in THE ATHLETIC. It's worth a read to see the wandering thoughts of Stark, Gammons, and Rosenthal about the HOF.

And Rosenthal's comments: "Hernández is an interesting case. From 2006 through ‘15, he won a Cy Young Award and finished in the top eight five other times. His ERA-plus in that span was 27 percent above league average. But he also threw the most innings of any pitcher in the majors, and eventually he wore down, his career ending at 33. Should it be held against him that the Mariners rode him too hard?"

https://theathletic.com/5208807/2024...me-roundtable/

I think with the evolving use of starting pitchers, that Felix Hernandez might get in one day with a veterans committee. He played on some teams that were absolutely horrible and affected his counting stats. We've had this conversation about Hernandez before, but IMO with each decade that passes with fewer workhorse pitchers, Felix Hernandez's peak numbers will stand out even more.