Final Predictions for Ichiro, CC Sabathia and 2025 MLB Hall of Fame Voting Results
The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame voting results will be revealed Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on MLB Network, and it is far from certain who will earn induction once the full balloting results are released.
Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki is trending at 100 percent support with over 40 percent of ballots made public, while pitcher CC Sabathia is also comfortably over 90 percent support in his first year of eligibility.
That duo is a safe bet to join Dave Parker and Dick Allen who were selected by the Classic Baseball Era Committee, but will anyone else be joining them?
Holdovers Billy Wagner and Carlos Beltrán are both currently above the 75 percent threshold, while Andruw Jones is also knocking on the door, but all three could slip once private ballots are tallied. This is the 10th and final year of eligibility for Wager, so it's a make-or-break vote for him.
Before the results are released, it's time for one final round of predictions on how the voting will play out this year.
These predictions could not have been made without the early voting data tirelessly compiled by Ryan Thibodaux and his team at Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker and his data from past years.
Let's get to the predictions.
Dustin Pedroia Will Be the Only Fringe Newcomer to Stick Around for Another Year
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Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia were always strong candidates to be first-ballot inductees, while Félix Hernández was a safe bet to garner the five percent support necessary to hang around for another year.
Of the 11 other first-time eligible candidates, Dustin Pedroia (24 votes) is the only player who has clinched another year on the ballot. With an estimated 392 voters this year, it will once again take 20 total votes for players on the cut line to survive another year.
Here's a quick rundown of the newcomers poised to go one-and-done:
- Russell Martin (7 votes)
- Brian McCann (6 votes)
- Ian Kinsler (4 votes)
- Carlos González (0 votes)
- Curtis Granderson (0 votes)
- Adam Jones (0 votes)
- Hanley Ramírez (0 votes)
- Fernando Rodney (0 votes)
- Troy Tulowitzki (0 votes)
- Ben Zobrist (0 votes)
Outfielder Torii Hunter (3 votes) is also in serious danger of slipping off the ballot in his fifth year of eligibility, while Francisco Rodriguez (14 votes) still has some work to do to earn a fourth go-around. On the flip side, Mark Buehrle (22 votes), Omar Vizquel (21 votes) and David Wright (20 votes) have each already punched their ticket for another year.
Félix Hernández Will Lay a Strong Foundation for Future Induction
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Félix Hernández is going to be an interesting case study in how the BBWAA views the new age of starting pitching candidates.
He doesn't have 300 wins.
He didn't reach 3,000 innings pitched.
He didn't even get to 50.0 career WAR over 15 seasons in the majors.
However, for an eight-year run at the peak of his career, he was squarely in the "best pitcher in baseball" conversation, and that status relative to his peers is the most compelling case for his Hall of Fame induction.
During that peak stretch, he went 113-76 with a 2.90 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 1,724 strikeouts in 1,796.2 innings, racking up 41.9 WAR while finishing in the top 10 in Cy Young balloting six times, including a pair of runner-up finishes and 2010 AL Cy Young honors.
With 25.0 percent voting support through 161 public ballots, he has secured another year of consideration and set a solid foundation to make a push toward enshrinement in the coming years.
It might seem like an uphill battle, but recent inductee Mike Mussina started off with just 20.3 percent support in his first year on the ballot and ended up getting to the 75 percent mark by his sixth year of eligibility, so it's not impossible by any means.
Manny Ramirez Will Fail to Make Progress in His Penultimate Year of Eligibility
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One of the biggest storylines on a weak 2026 ballot is sure to be Manny Ramirez in his 10th and final year of eligibility.
After receiving less than 30 percent support in each of his first six years of eligibility, he has started to build some momentum, but it's shaping up to be far too little, too late for him to reach the 75 percent line.
- 2022: 28.9 percent
- 2023: 33.2 percent
- 2024: 32.5 percent
- 2025: 36.0 percent
With 555 home runs, 1,831 RBI and 69.3 WAR, Ramirez is one of the most prolific offensive players in MLB history, but a pair of PED suspensions toward the end of his playing career effectively slammed the door to Cooperstown.
Slugger Gary Sheffield made it all the way to 63.9 percent support in his 10th and final year of eligibility in 2024 after failing to reach 20 percent in his first five years on the ballot, and he is an admitted PED user, so there is still some hope for a final-year push.
However, Sheffield also made it to 55.0 percent in his penultimate year on the ballot, so Ramirez faces a much steeper climb from his 2025 voting base.
Chase Utley Will Break the 50 Percent Threshold
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Chase Utley laid a decent foundation in his first year of eligibility last season when he received 28.8 percent of the vote, and he is on track to make a major leap forward in his second year.
With 64.5 WAR over his 16 seasons, Utley ranks 14th all-time among second basemen, just ahead of a trio of Hall of Famers in Jackie Robinson (63.9), Billy Herman (57.4) and Joe Gordon (55.6).
This will not be the year he adds his bust to the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, but the road ahead might not be as long as it looked at this time a year ago
He is currently sitting at 53.5 percent voting support, and with no clearly deserving first-year candidates on the 2026 ballot, he is poised for another spike in support next season.
Could he get the nod in 2026?
If nothing else, it now looks more like a "when" rather than an "if" as far as his Hall of Fame chances are concerned.
Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltrán Will Be on Track for 2026 Induction
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It looked like Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones might get over the hump in 2025 after another solid bump in support a year ago, but both standout center fielders will likely have to wait until 2026 to get the call.
Beltrán is one of only five players in MLB history with 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases, while Jones is one of the greatest two-way players to ever man center field with 434 home runs and 10 Gold Glove Awards during his 17-year career, so there is little doubt both have a worthy case.
As it stands, Beltrán is actually over the 75 percent threshold, but he had a wide 21.9 percent support gap between public and private ballots a year ago, so expect his final total to be quite a bit lower than where things currently stand. That said, he is still trending in the right direction.
- 2023: 46.5 percent
- 2024: 57.1 percent
- 2025: 80.2 percent
Meanwhile, Jones had an even larger 27.3 percent gap between his public and private balloting support in 2024, and he is just shy of the 75 percent mark in this year's public balloting results.
- 2018: 7.3 percent
- 2019: 7.5 percent
- 2020: 19.4 percent
- 2021: 33.9 percent
- 2022: 41.4 percent
- 2023: 58.1 percent
- 2024: 61.6 percent
- 2025: 72.1 percent
Similar to Chase Utley, both players stand to benefit greatly from a thin class of 2026 newcomers, so 2026 should be their year.
Billy Wagner Will Be a Hall of Famer in 2025
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Current 2025 Voting Percentage: 84.9 percent
Billy Wagner was a mere five votes shy of being part of the 2024 Hall of Fame class, and now he faces a make-or-break vote in his 10th and final year of eligibility.
The flame-throwing closer has come a long way since failing to reach 20 percent support in each of his first four years on the ballot. Here's how his voting support has unfolded over the last nine years:
- 2016: 10.5 percent
- 2017: 10.2 percent
- 2018: 11.1 percent
- 2019: 16.7 percent
- 2020: 31.7 percent
- 2021: 46.4 percent
- 2022: 51.0 percent
- 2023: 68.1 percent
- 2024: 73.8 percent
With a 2.31 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 11.9 K/9 over 16 seasons while tallying 422 saves to rank sixth on the all-time list, Wagner is the greatest left-handed reliever in MLB history, and he will finally take his rightful place in Cooperstown in 2025.
CC Sabathia Will Be a Hall of Famer in 2025
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Current 2025 Voting Percentage: 93.0 percent
CC Sabathia made his MLB debut as a 20-year-old in 2001 and finished 17-5 with a 4.39 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 180.1 innings as a rookie.
Can you imagine a team letting a 20-year-old starter pitch 180.1 innings today?
The imposing 6'6" left-hander spent the better part of two decades as a top-of-the-rotation workhorse, and at his peak there is little doubt he was one of the best pitchers in baseball and a true ace.
He won 2007 AL Cy Young, and the following year he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers at midseason where he put together one of the most impressive runs ever for a rental starter, going 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA in 130.2 innings while logging seven complete games and three shutouts in 17 starts to lead the Brew Crew to their first playoff berth in 26 years.
After that impressive playoff push, he joined the New York Yankees in free agency and spent the final 11 seasons of his career in the Bronx, going 134-88 with a 3.81 ERA and 1,700 strikeouts in 1,918 innings.
He ranks among the all-time leaders in wins (251, 47th), strikeouts (3,093, 18th), innings pitched (3,577.1, 64th) and pitcher WAR (61.8, 55th), and is on track to be a deserving first-ballot inductee.
Ichiro Suzuki Will Be a Hall of Famer in 2025, Receive 100 Percent of the Vote
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Current 2025 Voting Percentage: 100 percent
The question for Ichiro Suzuki has never been whether he would be a first-ballot selection, but whether he would join Mariano Rivera as the only players to ever receive 100 percent voting support.
So far, so good.
Despite not making his way stateside until his age-27 season following a stellar nine-year run in the Japanese League, Suzuki still racked up 3,089 hits over a 19-year MLB career, hitting .311/.355/.402 in 10,734 plate appearances.
He rattled off 10 straight seasons with 200 hits and a .300 batting average to begin his big league career, becoming the second rookie in MLB history to win MVP honors in 2001 and setting the single-season record with 262 hits in 2004.
He was a 10-time All-Star, 10-time Gold Glove winner and two-time AL batting champ, and he remained a productive part-time player into his 40s.
Beyond his on-field success, which alone is enough to make him a first-ballot selection, he also paved the way for an entire generation of players as the first Japanese-born position player to appear in a MLB game.
He is one of the most universally beloved players of the last 25 years, was one of the faces of baseball during the 2000s, and should cruise into Cooperstown with 100 percent voting support.
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