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It was an eventful holiday weekend. Well, not for the Nationals, who were quiet. But there was no shortage of news elsewhere, in the baseball world, in both the professional and collegiate football world and of course in the world in general.
And if you can stomach any more, there’s going to be significant baseball news later today. It’s Hall of Fame election day, when we find out which former players earned enough support from members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to secure enshrinement in Cooperstown this summer.
As always, I’ll publish my ballot and explainer column after the official announcement at 6 p.m. Eastern. But to whet your appetite for what’s to come – or if you simply haven’t had a chance to pay much attention leading into tonight’s announcement – here’s a quick primer on the 2025 ballot and what to watch for this evening …
* HOW CLOSE TO 100 PERCENT DOES ICHIRO GET?
The most obvious, slam-dunk candidate on this year’s ballot is Ichiro Suzuki, who should have no trouble getting elected in his first attempt. The only real question is if the Japanese hitting machine gets unanimous support, or something really close to it. Who wouldn’t vote for Ichiro? Perhaps someone who holds it against him that his major league career didn’t begin until 27 (even though he still surpassed 3,000 hits with the late start following his time at home in Japan). But there can’t be too many holdouts. Mariano Rivera remains the only player ever elected with 100 percent support. Maybe Ichiro joins him tonight?
* DOES WAGNER FINALLY GET OVER THE HUMP?
Billy Wagner appears on the BBWAA ballot for the 10th time. He’s not allowed to appear an 11th time. Way back in 2016, he received only 10.5 percent support. By 2024, he was all the way up to 73.8 percent, a mere 1.2 percent shy. It would be an awfully cruel twist to get that close and then still come up short in his 10th and final attempt. Voting history suggests that won’t happen. Pretty much everyone who gets that close eventually gets over the hump. But it’ll still make for a high-stress afternoon for Wagner as he awaits that long-awaited call.
There was a point late this summer when it looked like there was a legitimate two-man race for National League MVP. Yes, Shohei Ohtani was doing his usual thing in Los Angeles, but Francisco Lindor was playing out of his mind as well for a Mets club making a surprise run at the postseason.
Could Lindor actually beat out Ohtani for the most prestigious individual award in baseball?
In the end, the answer was a clear no. While Lindor did help get New York into the playoffs, he missed eight key games down the stretch with a back injury. Ohtani, meanwhile, had a closing stretch for the ages: seven homers, 11 stolen bases and an insane .547/.586/1.057 slash line over his final 12 games, during which he became the first player in major league history in the 50/50 Club.
So it came as no surprise Thursday night when Ohtani was named the 2024 NL MVP in a unanimous vote. It’s the third MVP of his illustrious career, and he joins the immortal Frank Robinson as the only players in history to win MVP in both leagues.
That historic performance made Ohtani an easy decision for me on my MVP ballot, which I was fortunate enough to receive this year as one of two designated voters from the Baltimore/Washington chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. I’ve voted for MVP several times before, and sometimes it’s been a tough call. I remember waiting until the final day of the 2007 season before picking Jimmy Rollins over Matt Holliday. This one really wasn’t a tough call in the end.
Brandon Hyde is respected by his peers, who twice have voted him The Sporting News’ Manager of the Year in the American League. For shocking the industry with an 83-win season in 2022 and by leading the Orioles to 101, a division title and the best record in the league in 2023.
That’s two ways to do it. Be the manager of a team that wasn’t expected to do anything or surprises again by taking the AL East and the top seed in the playoffs.
The BBWAA gave the award to Cleveland’s Terry Francona last year, and supporters pointed to the Guardians’ having the youngest roster and winning their division, while the Orioles missed the playoffs. I didn’t agree with it. The Orioles went from 110 losses to 79 and competed in a much tougher division. They contended until the final week.
Hyde is viewed as the favorite tonight. Analysts on MLB Network revealed the finalists last week and noted the lack of drama surrounding the winners, as if the first-place finishers were obvious.
Is that the case with AL manager?
Every Hall of Fame ballot is different. Some years, they’re stacked with qualified candidates, leading at times to a forced paring down of choices to adhere to the Hall’s longstanding rule against voting for more than 10 players. Some years, they’re lacking in obvious choices, which can lead to only a handful of votes and unfortunately no new inductees.
The 2023 ballot leaned more toward the latter description than the former.
Of the 28 names up for consideration – a big drop from the 35-player ballot of 2019 – there were no absolute, slam-dunk choices, no clear first-time electees who don’t even require a moment of research before placing a checkmark next to their name.
There were 14 newcomers to this ballot, and the most notable of them (Carlos Beltran) carried with him the stigma of the 2017 Astros’ electronic sign-stealing scandal. There were 14 returning players who received at least 5 percent support last year, and the best among those were longtime hopefuls Scott Rolen, Todd Helton and Billy Wagner. There were better players than those eligible for election, but each was tainted by the stain of performance enhancing drug usage (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield).
The end result of all that: Rolen was the only player who crossed the sacred 75 percent threshold this year. And he barely did, named on 76.3 percent of ballots. Helton came up just short, receiving 72.2 percent support, with Wagner following him at 68.1 percent.
Awards Week wraps up tonight with the announcement of the two leagues’ MVP winners, and you’re forgiven if you haven’t been paying attention to this stuff. Because, really, why would you this year?
Unless some rogue writer gave Joey Meneses a 10th place MVP vote, the Nationals will have been shut out entirely from discussion about the four major awards handed out annually by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America: Most Valuable Player, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year and Manager of the Year. Not a single member of the team will have received a vote on anybody’s ballot for any of the awards (unless you want to count Juan Soto or Josh Bell, who spent four months in D.C. before they were traded to San Diego).
That simply hasn’t been the case around here in a very long time.
How long? Not since 2008 have the Nationals failed to receive at least one down-ballot vote for National League MVP. In fact, at least two players had received votes each of the last six years, with three or more players receiving votes in three of those years.
The Nats have had only one actual MVP in their existence: Bryce Harper, the unanimous selection in 2015 despite the team’s disappointing record. But they’ve always found themselves in the discussion, with top-three finishes in several other years and almost always at least one top-10 finisher.
The Orioles’ rise from 110-loss team in 2021 to playoff contender this summer, their record settling above .500 to shock the industry, couldn’t launch manager Brandon Hyde toward another award.
Hyde was runner-up tonight to the Guardians’ Terry Francona for the American League’s Manager of the Year in voting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He finished first last month in The Sporting News balloting.
In his fourth season with the Orioles, Hyde guided the Orioles to an 83-79 record for one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history. He received nine first-place votes, nine second and seven third for 79 points.
Francona, who won the AL Central with the youngest roster in the league, received 17 first-place votes and nine second for 112 points. The Mariners’ Scott Servais was third with one first-place, eight second and 14 third.
Dusty Baker, whose Astros won the World Series, was fourth with three first-place, three second and seven third. The Yankees’ Aaron Boone was fifth with one second and one third. The Rays’ Kevin Cash, who won it the past two seasons, was sixth with one third-place vote.
