2025 Election
The discussion thread for the 2025 HOM class is active now. Preliminary ballots and reasoning should be posted to the discussion thread before voting.
BBTF welcomes new voters for the Hall of Merit (and Most Meritorious Player) elections but be sure to follow the guidelines set out for these elections. *
2025 Newly Eligible Players
2025 has another deep debut class. It is likely that two of these newcomers - CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki - will join the Hall of Merit on their first try. Ian Kinsler, Russell Martin, and Félix Hernández are likely to get strong support and may take the third spot, while Dustin Pedroia and Brian McCann will certainly have backers as well. While perhaps none of the newly eligible would rank in the upper half of the HOM, all are legitimate. In fact, it is possible that all ten of these new candidates could receive votes, making this class historically deep in viable candidates. And even spots 11 and 12 - Hanley Ramírez and Adam Jones - would not be shocking on a ballot. They had very strong careers, though not HOM worthy.
The next few elections for the HOM will be very interesting as lots of borderline careers hit the ballot from the modern era which needs more representation. How will the electorate sort through the frontlog?
2024 Top Backloggers
Buddy Bell, Sal Bando, and Tommy John return as top backloggers for yet another year. Thurman Munson, Bob Johnson, David Ortiz, Kevin Appier, and Tim Hudson return and shuffle positions in the middle of the backlog. Joining them are Vic Wilis and Urban Shocker. Willis pops on and off the top-10 returnees, but Shocker is...I won't say a shocker, but does not appear as frequently.
2025 is an elect-three year, with two of those slots likely going to first-time candidates Sabathia and Ichiro. That leaves one likely spot for a returning candidate, and with Buddy Bell only losing in the last election to a completely unforeseen MLE update (and only in the narrowest tiebreaker at that), he sure seems like he is on the doorstep of election. That said, Kinsler, Martin, Pedroia, and Hernández ae very interesting wild cards among the newcomers and may have enough support to make Bell continue waiting. Or there could be another MLE revelation.
* There are several steps to take if you would like to participate in voting. The preliminary step is to post your ballot in the 2025 ballot discussion thread on BBTF (or the HOM shelter). As mentioned in the guidelines, this is more than a mere formality. Voters are expected to display thoughtfulness and logical/internal consistency on their ballots, and first time voters are required to post a preliminary ballot in the discussion which they may be asked to defend (seasoned voters are asked to defend as well, sometimes!). Ballots that are inconsistent or that do not follow the voting guidelines won't be counted.
In short, the HOM asks for voters who take the project seriously and put more than passing thought into the ballot. In particular, it requires being able to appropriately rank or appraise historical players fairly (this is usually the hard part), so unless you are a walking baseball encyclopedia, research is going to be a necessary part of the process. If you're passionate about baseball past and present, then hopefully that sounds like more fun to you than it does work, and the HOM looks forward to your contributions and perspective. Start here: