Next time, Forever Giant.
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America released their Hall of Fame ballots on Tuesday, deciding the fates of the Class of 2025. And there will be no San Francisco Giants headed to Cooperstown this year.
Just three players were elected to the Hall: outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, starting pitcher CC Sabathia, and reliever Billy Wagner. Some [redacted] voter decided Ichiro wasn’t deserving, so he only finished with 393 out of 394 votes, meaning that reliever Mariano Rivera remains the only unanimous Hall of Fame inductee in history, once again proving how utterly silly and stupid the institution is.
While the Giants didn’t have any player get the call for the Hall, they did have one almost make it: outfielder Carlos Beltrán, who was sensational as a third-of-a-season rental for the Giants in 2011 before ownership decided it wasn’t worth spending to retain the star slugger they’d traded hot prospect Zack Wheeler for.
Beltrán received votes on 70.3% of the ballots, making him the first runner-up (75% is needed for induction). Since the BBWA has unofficially decided that you’re supposed to play hard ball with candidates and slowly give them more votes, as though they’re a bottle of wine getting better with each year, it seems an inevitability that Beltrán will get elected. This was just his third year on the ballot (you get 10 years of eligibility), and I’d expect him to probably be elected in 2026, or 2027 at the latest. Wagner is proof of this silliness: he received a meager 10.5% of votes in his first year on the ballot, and finally was elected in on his 10th and final attempt.
Another former Giant, Omar Vizquel was on the ballot, though he received just 17.8% of the vote in his eighth year, so the writing is kind of on the wall there.
It’s all a bit silly if you ask me.