Voting has officially opened for the BBWAA ballot portion of the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame class. You can find this year's ballot here, along with a breakdown of eight things to know on the topic. Elsewhere, we have the classic era committee voting on nominees including Dick Allen, Tommy John, Dave Parker, and Luis Tiant.
Still, these might not cover everything, so I'm here to deal with those frequently asked questions. Let's get to it.
What are the voting rules?
The BBWAA vote is the traditional vote that most fans think of when they hear "Hall of Fame voting" in baseball.
- Players deemed ballot-worthy by the Hall of Fame see their names appear on the ballot once they've been retired for five seasons. The minimum service time is 10 years in Major League Baseball.
- BBWAA voters receive ballots in the mail and are permitted to vote for up to 10 players. There's no minimum, so blank ballots can be mailed back.
- Any player on the ballot receiving at least 75% of the vote will be enshrined into the Hall of Fame the following summer.
- Any player receiving less than 5% of the vote will be eliminated from the ballot for the next year.
- Players getting between 5-75% of the vote carry over to the following ballot and can do so for up to 10 years total on the ballot.
- Any player who remains on the ballot through 10 voting cycles but still falls short of 75% of the vote will be eliminated from the ballot heading to the next year.
Why are there two separate votes?
First off, the BBWAA ballot, as noted, only covers recently retired players. There are umpires, front office executives, pioneers, managers and even coaches who deserve consideration for the Hall of Fame. As such, there needs to be some sort of system to induct those people. Further, Negro Leagues players needed an avenue for induction. And, of course, there are players who deserve a second chance after having fallen off the BBWAA ballot for one reason or another.
This is where the Hall of Fame has appointed several different committees over the years. The most famous (notorious?) is the veterans committee. This year, it's the classic era.
Remember, the Hall of Fame is ultimately a museum, not just an incredibly exclusive list of who you might think are the 25 or so very best players ever. It's much more than that. We can distinguish tiers within Hall of Famers on our own, but the actual Hall needs to keep growing, both to draw new visitors and to continue representing the game.
Who gets to vote?
The easy answer here is BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) members in good standing who have been active for at least 10 years. Those who haven't primarily covered baseball can be purged from the voting rolls. There's a bit more to the process, but really all fans need to know is this is people who have covered MLB as members of the BBWAA for at least 10 years and are still actively covering baseball.
Personal note: This is my first year getting an official Hall of Fame ballot.
Why do voting totals change year to year?
Logic would tell you that voting totals shouldn't change year to year because a player's stats haven't changed. In a vacuum, that would be correct. See above with all the rules, though. First off, the voting body changes each year. For example, I'm a first-year voter here for the 2025 Hall of Fame class. Someone else will no longer be voting for one reason or another. There's a pretty good chance I'm going to have different candidates on my ballot than they did on theirs. Now realize this happens with dozens and dozens of people every single year. Of course totals can change there.
Not only that, but the ballot itself changes. The 2024 ballot saw Adrian Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer get inducted while Gary Sheffield fell off after his 10th and final go-round on the ballot. Let's say there's a voter out there who wanted to vote for 12 players. They can't. There are a maximum of 10 spots on each ballot. Now we move toward the 2025 vote and suddenly there are four extra spots for that voter. Maybe they decide only CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki are deemed worthy of a new vote. That leaves two spots for players like Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, who didn't get their vote last time.
Stuff like this happens every season and that's why votes change. There's nothing nefarious about it.
Where is Pete Rose?
Always a polarizing topic, the expectation is we'll have a lot more people wondering this year why Pete Rose isn't on the ballot, as he died on Sept. 30.
It's a pretty short answer.
Part of the rules for the Hall of Fame vote include the following (Rule 3E):
Any player on Baseball's ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate.
That's a Hall of Fame rule, not a BBWAA rule. The writers have never had a say on Pete Rose and that remains the case here. He was declared permanently ineligible by Major League Baseball back in 1989 and has never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot. He's not on this one, either.
An important distinction here is we'll often hear people incorrectly say that Rose was "banned for life" from baseball. The actual wording is "permanently ineligible," which means his ban didn't expire when he died. He's still ineligible.
Also, as noted in Rule 4B, no write-in candidates are allowed.
Simply, if you yell at the BBWAA voting body for not voting in Pete Rose, you have misdirected your complaint. We can't do anything about it.
Things could change down the road, of course, but for now: Pete Rose is still ineligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
How about Barry Bonds and/or Roger Clemens?
Now we get into the players who aren't ineligible but have fallen off the ballot.
The two best players to have recently fallen off were Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, both of who possess all-time, inner-circle great resumes. They were also connected to PEDs and that stain is ultimately what kept them out. Bonds topped out at 66% of the vote in 2022, his 10th and final time on the ballot. Clemens got 65.2% of the vote that year.
Now, as we discussed above, once players fall off the ballot, they could have a chance to get in via an Era Committee. Bonds and Clemens were on the contemporary baseball era ballot for the 2023 Hall of Fame class and neither made it.
If you're wondering about players you think should be in the Hall of Fame, the overwhelmingly likely answer is the player has already fallen off the ballot and will be holding out hope to get in via an era committee someday.
A few examples from recent years:
- Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and a few others were kept out likely due to the PED connection like Bonds and Clemens.
- Kenny Lofton and Johan Santana fell off after just one try on the ballot and probably deserve another shot. These are just two of dozens of examples of players who have a legitimate argument and didn't get to spend much time on the ballot.
- Fred McGriff, Jack Morris, Lee Smith and Alan Trammell are examples of players who recently fell off the BBWAA ballot but then were relatively quickly inducted into the Hall of Fame thanks to a committee. McGriff got 39.8% of the vote in his 10th year on the ballot (2019 vote) and then the contemporary baseball era committee voted him in the 2023 class.