Is this Billy Wagner\u2019s year?<\/p>\n
Will Chase Utley take another step forward?<\/p>\n
Can Jimmy Rollins and Bobby Abreu push past their collective stalls?<\/p>\n
National Baseball Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch will announce the results of the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America\u2019s Hall of Fame vote at 6 p.m. ET on Jan. 21 on MLB Network. Four former Phillies are on the ballot: Abreu, Rollins, Utley and Wagner.<\/p>\n
Get Phillies tickets for the 2025 season
\nPlayers need to appear on 75 percent of ballots for enshrinement in Cooperstown, N.Y. Those named on at least five percent of ballots are eligible for a maximum of 10 years.<\/p>\n
Wagner, who pitched for the Phillies from 2004-05, fell five votes short last year, finishing at a painfully close 73.8 percent.<\/p>\n
It was an excruciating result, especially because this is Wagner\u2019s 10th and final year of BBWAA eligibility. If he falls short again, he won\u2019t get another chance at Cooperstown until he appears on a veterans\u2019 committee ballot in the future.<\/p>\n
Because of that, Wagner recently said he won\u2019t be sitting by the phone waiting for a call on Jan. 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to know,\u201d Wagner said on The Phillies Show. \u201cThat\u2019s too hard. I know my kids will be keeping up with it. I know I\u2019ll be very anxious because I know what this is. I know what\u2019s on the line right here. It\u2019ll be difficult to find a way to get through 6 o\u2019clock, to be honest with you. I\u2019ve had conversations with the Hall of Fame going, \u2018Hey, you know, it looks like this, we need to have a conver–.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Nope, kiss of death. I\u2019m not talking to nobody.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be that guy, but my lifestyle, growing up has always been waiting on the other shoe to fall. I\u2019m not going to sit here and put myself in such a situation where it\u2019s so disappointing that I have to apologize for being upset. And so, the less people who are around me, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Monday, the BBHOF tracker has Wagner on 85.6 percent of known ballots cast, which could be a good sign. Of course, he tracked at 78.3 percent before the 2024 results were announced.<\/p>\n
Wagner needs to build a nice cushion entering the official announcement because voters who don\u2019t publicly reveal their ballots (it is optional for BBWAA voters) haven\u2019t voted for him at a 75 percent clip. At least they didn\u2019t last year.<\/p>\n
Utley is tracking at 51 percent in his second year of eligibility. He got 28.8 percent of the vote last year, which was a solid number for a first-year candidate not considered a shoo-in like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in recent years and Ichiro Suzuki this year.<\/p>\n
A good bump for Utley this year could put him on a Scott Rolen path. Rolen appeared on 10.2 percent of ballots in his first year of eligibility in 2018, but he climbed to 17.2 percent (2019) to 35.3 percent (2020) to 52.9 percent (2021) to 63.2 percent (2022) before he got to 76.3 percent in 2023.<\/p>\n
Rollins and Abreu have more work ahead of them. They are both tracking at 23.1 percent in the BBHOF tracker, but they stalled in the teens in recent years Rollins is in his fourth of eligibility after receiving 14.8 percent last year, 12.9 percent in 2023 and 9.4 percent in 2022. Abreu is in his sixth year of eligibility. He received 14.8 percent last year, 15.4 percent in 2023, 8.6 percent in 2022, 8.7 percent in 2021 and 5.5 percent in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is this Billy Wagner\u2019s year? Will Chase Utley take another step forward? Can Jimmy Rollins and Bobby Abreu push past their collective stalls? National Baseball Hall of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n