Former Toronto Blue Jays infielder enters 9th year on HOF Ballot

We've already spoken about former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Mark Buehrle.

Vizquel, the longtime Cleveland shortstop and one of only a handful of players to play in four different decades, spent the final year of his career with the Blue Jays in 2012.

As recently as 2020, Vizquel - one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all time - was polling at 50%, and looked to be in a good position to get elected once the backlog cleared.

However, his numbers have plummeted in recent years thanks to a number of controversies related to his time coaching in independent and minor league ball.
His total last year was roughly 18%.

The Hall of Fame has a controversial morality clause, where players' conduct (aka bad behaviour) both on and off the field, can impact their candidacy It's what kept players like Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling out of the Hall. It's also what turned voters against Vizquel.

For the unaware, Vizquel was accused of sexually assaulting a verbally abusing a bat boy while he was a minor league manager. To make matters worse, his alleged victim reportedly has down syndrome.

It's an ugly situation for sure, and one that could keep Vizquel out of the Hall for good.

If that situation is removed however, Vizquel's numbers, at least his defensive ones, could put him over the top.

One more interesting note. While most players decline in percentage once the private ballots are added to the publicly-released ones, Vizquel's numbers actually increase, meaning that older voters are more likely to vote for him than newer ones.

With a very week incoming class, it's possible Vizquel could see an increase in votes.

But he still has a long way to go.