Ichiro, Sabathia, Wagner elected to Hall of Fame

Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner were all named on enough BBWAA ballots to be elected to Cooperstown. A player must receive at 75% of the votes for induction. Ichiro and Sabathia both go in on their first ballot while Wagner had to wait until his tenth and final year.

It was widely thought that Ichiro would become the 2nd ever unanimous selection, but he ultimately fell one vote shy of this honour, finishing with 99.75%. It is currently unknown who the holdout was. Sabathia finished with 86% while Wagner garnered 82% of the vote.

Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones also fared well, with the centre fielders garnering 70.2% and 66.3% respectively. It was a 13% increase for Beltran and a 4% increase for Jones, who has climbed all the way from 7.3% his first year on the ballot. With a lighter incoming class in 2026, both are in a good position to be elected next year.

Five former Blue Jays found themselves on the ballot, three first-timers and two returnees. Both Omar Vizquel and Mark Buehrle survived another year, garnering 17.8% and 11.4% respectively. At one time, Vizquel had 50% of the votes, but his candidacy has been hurt by off-the-field issues. In his five years on the ballot, Buehrle has hovered between 8-15%.

Curtis Granderson, Russell Martin, and Troy Tulowitzki all failed to reach 5% and are eliminated from future ballots. Granderson received 0.8% while Tulowitzki got 1%. Martin finished with 2.6% of the vote. There had been a push from the analytics committee and new-school voters to give Martin and fellow catcher Brian McCann their due, as they were the superior pitch framers of the era. But with a bottleneck of borderline candidates, the votes were simply not there.

There is a further Jays connection as Billy Wagner is the father of current Blue Jays infielder Will Wagner.

The Hall of Fame induction ceremony takes place in July.