The following article first appeared in El Nuevo Dia, a daily Puerto Rican newspaper. It was translated and edited for our readers to also enjoy. The article was written by sports reporter, Antolín Maldonado Ríos – antolin.maldonado@gfrmedia.com
Ten years ago, the overwhelming majority of voters in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) denied Puerto Rican Carlos Delgado a vote in his first appearance on the ballot to be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame.
Then began a long wait that could come to an end in the fall of this year.
Delgado, a former first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball and concluded his career in 2009 as the Puerto Rican with the most career home runs in that circuit, with 473, was considered by many experts as a strong candidate to be considered, but nevertheless he only got 21 votes out of a maximum of 549 ballots that were delivered in the winter election of 2014, corresponding to the class that would be inducted in 2015.
To be immortalized by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, a candidate must receive a minimum of 75% of the votes in one of his 10 years on the ballot. If the 10 years pass and he never receives that percentage, he is automatically removed from the ballot and his only option is to be considered later by one of the three committees of the different eras of baseball.
The eras are divided into classic and contemporary baseball. The contemporary era of baseball, which covers the period from after 1980 to the present, is subdivided into two processes that conduct separate votes. One considers former players, and the other votes on former managers, executives and other figures.
In other words, there are three committees, one for classic baseball that covers the period before 1980, and two for the contemporary era. And each of those three committees meets and votes in alternating years, every three seasons. The committee that evaluates former players from the contemporary era last met in 2022, so it is on schedule to meet again this year starting in the fall.
Under the process, members hold initial meetings around November. In 2024, the committee that met was the classic baseball committee, and by early that month they announced a ballot with eight candidates to consider. Of those, the committee chose Dick Allen and Dave Parker, as announced a month later, on Dec. 8. Allen and Parker will be inducted in July 2025, joining the former players elected by BBWAA writers. The results of the vote by the writers will be announced on January 21.
Puerto Rican Carlos Beltran is one of those who is on the BBWAA ballot for a third year, after not receiving the required percentage of 75%.
According to the rules of the Hall of Fame, if a candidate does not receive 75% of the votes to enter the hall, he must receive at least 5% or more to remain on the ballot for the following year’s vote. If within his years of eligibility he falls below that percentage, he is automatically removed from the ballot even if he has not reached the maximum number of years of eligibility.
In the case of Delgado, with just 3.8%, he was removed after his first year. And to be considered by the committees of the baseball eras, he had to wait for all 10 votes, as if he had remained on the ballot until exhausting his years of eligibility, according to the regulations.
If he had remained on the ballot until the end, the former Aguadilla slugger would have appeared for the last time in December 2023, with a view to induction in 2024. In other words, when the contemporary era committee meets at the end of 2025, it will be the first time that its members will be able to at least consider the Puerto Rican, first to include him on the ballot and then take him to a vote.
“We will be attentive”
“When the committee meets, which I do not know exactly the date, we will obviously be attentive. And as I have said before, it would be a great honor, and a great privilege to be able to obtain that support from the committee. We will be attentive and hopeful that it is a positive position,” Delgado answered to questions from El Nuevo Día on the matter.
Of the 16-member panel, candidates must also receive a majority vote of 75% to be inducted. In other words, the candidate must receive the votes of three out of four committee members.
If considered to appear on the ballot at least, Delgado could be in a position to be elected to the Class of 2026 at the same time as Beltrán, his former teammate on the New York Mets during the second half of the 2000s.
That is a possibility if Beltrán, as has been projected, does not get inducted this year either. At the moment, the Manati native appears with 76% of the votes that have been made public, but the final results are not released until the end of January, and three-quarters of the voters have not yet made public how they marked their ballots.
“In the case of Carlos (Beltrán) we hope that he can obtain 75% this year and that he enters the Hall of Fame as he deserves. He put up his numbers; it was an extraordinary career. Like all Puerto Ricans, I am hopeful that this will happen, and we will celebrate it together. And if it doesn’t happen for me, we will celebrate for him. But we will be attentive to those events.”
