The MLB offseason has officially hit high gear, but that's not the only baseball news to talk about right now. We've also reached Hall of Fame season: While the Eras Committee already announced its election of second baseman Jeff Kent to Cooperstown, the BBWAA won't reveal the results of its ballot until Tuesday, Jan. 20.
And right now, it's anyone's guess whether any players clear the 75 percent of the vote required for induction; Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones, the two highest vote-getters among holdovers from the 2025 ballot, stand the best chance. But will they ultimately earn their spot in the Hall? And if they don't, how rare an occurrence will that be?
How are players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame
Since the Hall's creation, there are have been two different paths for baseball legends to make it to Cooperstown.
BBWAA vote
This is the the method that gets the most publicity each year, and the one we all most love arguing about. Members of the Baseball Writers Association of America hold an election by mail each year, with each voter allowed to select up to 10 players on their ballot and 75 percent of the vote required for induction into Cooperstown.
For the Hall's inaugural class back in 1936, any player from the 20th century could be considered. Within a few years, though, only players who had been retired for five years were eligible for the BBWAA ballot — a rule that remains in place today. Players can spend a maximum of 10 years on the ballot, and they automatically fall off if they receive less than five percent of the vote in a given year.
Era Committees
Originally, there was just one committee: the Veterans Committee, a combination of living Hall members along with former managers, executives and media members which was established to consider the candidacies of players from previous eras (or those who failed to earn induction via the BBWAA vote). For most of its existence, the committee consisted of 15 members total, with a six-man screening committee meeting to determine which players would make it onto the ballot each year. While the barrier to induction was lower at the start, the committee adopted the BBWAA's 75-percent mark from the mid-1970s until 2001.
The 21st century has brought a ton of change to how the committee works. For starters, the name has changed: It's now the Eras Committee. And it's now made up of two subcommittees, with a total of three ballots:
- Contemporary Baseball Era: 1980-present, with one ballot for players and another for managers, umpires and excutives
- Classic Baseball Era: Pre-1980
When was the last time the BBWAA failed to elect a new player to the Baseball Hall of Fame?
In the history of the Hall of Fame, the BBWAA has only failed to elect a new player seven times — and only three times since 1971. The most recent was just a few years ago, back in 2021, when a trio of controversial candidates — Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — all earned more than 60 percent of the vote but fell short of 75. The full list of years without a single BBWAA induction is below.
Year | Highest vote-getter (percentage of the vote) |
|---|---|
1950 | Mel Ott (68.5%) |
1958 | Max Carey (51.1%) |
1960 | Edd Roush (54.3%) |
1971 | Yogi Berra (67.2%) |
1996 | Phil Niekro (68.3%) |
2013 | Craig Biggio (68.2%) |
2021 | Curt Schilling (71.1%) |
But that's only half of the picture. What about the years in which the Veterans Committee also came back blank — and the Hall didn't induct any new members at all?
When was the last time no new players were selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame?
A complete shutout is a bit rarer; it's only happened four times in the history of the Hall.
- 1950 (no Veterans Committee election)
- 1958 (no Veterans Committee election)
- 1960 (no Veterans Committee election)
- 2021 (no Veterans Committee election)
It's also never happened in a year in which the Veterans Committee, in some form or fashion, held a vote. The Veterans Committee only met in odd years until 1962, leading to empty classes in 1950, 1958 and 1960 when the BBWAA vote failed to induct anyone. And in 2021, the Early Baseball committee and Golden Days committee (two subcommittees that have since been folded into the Classic Baseball Era committee; we told you this got complicated) had their meeting postponed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Will the BBWAA elect anyone to the Hall of Fame in the class of 2026?
That remains to be seen. This year is generally regarded as a down year for first-time candidates, meaning that it's basically down to the holdovers from 2025 to try and join Jeff Kent in Cooperstown this summer. Two players, Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran, cracked 65 percent of the vote last year, and both are hoping that this will be their moment for induction.
Thanks to the dogged efforts of Ryan Thibodaux and his staff at the BBHOF Tracker, we get a real-time glimpse into how the BBWAA vote is unfolding. With just over 50 percent of all ballots made public, both Beltran (88 percent) and Jones (81 percent) are tracking toward clearing 75 percent. But be warned: Players' vote shares tend to come down once non-public ballots are tallied, so while Beltran might be safe, Jones is squarely in the danger zone.
We'll know for sure on Tuesday, Jan. 20, when MLB Network broadcasts the full vote reveal at 6 p.m. ET.