On Tuesday night, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) announced the players elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2024. The three players elected this year are Todd Helton, Adrian Beltré, and two-time MLB The Show cover athlete Joe Mauer. The accolades among these players include batting titles, an MVP, along with multiple All-Stars, Gold Gloves, and Silver Sluggers.
Class of 2024
Adrián Beltré
Adrián Beltré headlines the Class of 2024, with the most votes of anyone on this year’s ballot. In his first year on the ballot, Beltré received 366 votes, which came out to 95.1% of potential votes. It wasn’t surprising to see Beltré go into the Hall of Fame on his first ballot. Throughout his 21 year career, Beltré racked up 3,166 hits, 477 HRs, 636 2Bs, and 93.5 WAR. During that time, he was named to 4 All-Star teams, and won 5 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers. At the time of his retirement in 2018, Beltré was the only 3B to have 3,000 hits and 400 HRs. His No. 29 jersey was retired by the Texas Rangers in 2019.
Joe Mauer
Joe Mauer was elected to this year’s Hall of Fame Class with 293 votes or 76.1%. Mauer, who was also in his first year on the ballot, spent his entire 15-year career with the Minnesota Twins after being selected as the number one overall pick in the 2001 MLB Draft. During that time, he won 3 Gold Gloves, 3 AL Batting Titles, 5 Silver Sluggers, and was named to 6 All-Star teams. His peak came in 2009 when Mauer won AL MVP. That season, Mauer had a slash line of .365/.444/.587 with a 1.031 OPS and a 171 OPS+. He also hit 28 HRs, 30 2Bs, and drove in 96 runs. Mauer was also selected as the cover athlete for both MLB 10 The Show and MLB 11 The Show, making him the only player to be on the cover of the series twice.
Todd Helton
Finally, Todd Helton was elected with 307 votes or 79.7%. Like Mauer, Helton spent all 17 years of his MLB career with the Colorado Rockies. Helton was a 5-time All-Star and won 3 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers. He also won the NL Batting Title in 2000. That year, Helton finished 5th in NL MVP voting, despite leading the league in hits, doubles, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and total bases. Helton finished his career with 2,519 hits, 369 HRs, 592 2Bs, and 61.8 WAR. The Rockies retired Helton’s number 17 in 2014. Helton holds Rockies team records for games played, hits, runs, doubles, home runs, RBIs, and walks. Helton now makes it into Cooperstown in his sixth year on the Hall of Fame ballot.
Other Candidates
One of the candidates came so close to finally making it to Cooperstown. Reliever Billy Wagner received 284 votes, or 73.8% of the vote. This means he came just five votes shy of getting the needed 75% to be elected into the Hall of Fame. This was Wagner’s ninth year on the ballot. This means next year will be his final shot at being selected as a Hall of Famer.
Gary Sheffield received 246 votes, or 63.9% of the vote, on his tenth and final year on the ballot. The 9-time All-Star got the best voting results of his time on the ballot. However, he still came up well short of what he needed to become a Hall of Famer.
Joe Mauer wasn’t the only video game cover athlete on the ballot this year. MLB 2002 cover athlete Andruw Jones received 237 votes, 61.6%, in his 7th year on the ballot. MLB 07 The Show cover athlete David Wright made his debut on the ballot this year. Wright received 24 votes, which comes out to 6.2% of the vote. This was just enough to keep Wright on the ballot another year.
Two former cover athletes sadly will not be returning to the ballot next year. Players must receive at least 5% of the vote to remain on the ballot for another year. MLB 12 The Show cover athlete Adrián Gonzalez received only three votes in his first year on the ballot, which comes out to 0.8% of the ballots. MLB 2K8 cover athlete José Reyes did not receive any votes in his first year on the ballot.
