Welcome to 2026 and the eleventh year of 210Sports, and in what has become a New Year’s tradition here on the blog, I’ll begin the year by casting my completely unofficial Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
To be eligible to cast an official ballot, a person must be a Baseball Writers’ Association of America member for at least 10 years and cover baseball for 10 consecutive years for an accredited outlet. Obviously, I have neither qualification nor will ever get to cast an official ballot. However, I do watch a lot of baseball and have a blog where I can write about sports, so that must count for something.
Within the rules determined by the Baseball Hall of Fame, BWAA writers can vote for up to ten players on the ballot and may use any criteria they see fit in selecting which players from the ballot to vote for. I am a huge fan of the way Bill Ballou, formerly of the Worcester Telegram, decides who to vote for: “You would buy a ticket just so you could tell your grandchildren you saw him perform”. That’s as great a reason to vote for anyone as I have ever heard.
As it does every year, the subject of performance-enhancing drugs will come up. To be honest, how I deal with that is very easy: if a player is eligible, I’ll vote for him if I think he’s worthy of the Hall of Fame. I understand that some people think they shouldn’t be enshrined, but if they’re on the ballot, the Hall of Fame has determined that player is qualified to be inducted.
The first part of my ballot is easy; it’s the players I voted for last year that are still on the ballot this year. Those players are:
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Neither of those guys got any better or worse on the field, so I’m not sure why a voter wouldn’t just copy over the ballot they had the previous year. I guess you could see voters dropping some players because those players turned out to be really sketchy people since their inclusion on the ballot, but short of being a physical menace to society, I try to let their on-field careers decide if they’re worthy.
For the same reason, I also won’t make any additions to any players I left off before. For me to add a player I omitted before, someone would have to make a very convincing argument that I got it wrong, leaving him off the first year he was eligible. That happened just once before when I added Edgar Martinez in 2019. Looking at who is on this year’s official ballot again from previous seasons, there’s no chance of it happening for any of those players.
Of the first-time candidates, if any real voters include them, I’d love to know why. Are there some really good ball players on that list? Sure. And would I have loved to have most of them on the Red Sox at some point? Of course. But are any of those guys Hall of Famers? Absolutely not.
While we’re on the subject of Hall of Fame players, no one can be a borderline Hall of Famer. Being a Hall of Famer in any sport is like being pregnant; either you are, or you aren’t. And if you have to think about whether a certain player is or isn’t a Hall of Famer, then they’re not. The key difference is that eventually, no matter how, you’re no longer pregnant.
That’s not true of being a Hall of Famer.
On January 20, 2026, the BBWAA will announce the results of its 2026 Hall of Fame balloting, and those who get the required 75% for enshrinement will join Contemporary Baseball Era Committee pick Jeff Kent at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony on July 26, 2026, in Cooperstown, New York.
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