Baseball Hall of Fame: Best of the one-vote guys since 1988
These are best players at each position to receive one solitary vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame over the last 30 years.
On January 24, baseball fans will learn which players on this year’s ballot have earned a plaque on the walls of the Baseball Hall of Fame. We already know Jack Morris, and Alan Trammel will be inducted this summer. It’s possible five more players will join them,
Twitter user Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot) uses the Hall of Fame ballot tracker and previous year’s voting patterns to adjust the final percentage for each player. He explained his methodology in this article last January. He is currently projecting Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome, Trevor Hoffman, and Edgar Martinez will make the Hall of Fame, although Edgar just squeaks in with a projected 75.2 percent of the vote. These five plus Morris and Trammel would set the record for living inductees.
We’ll also find out if the baseball writers extend their 30-year streak of having at least one player get a single, solitary vote for the baseball Hall of Fame. Every year since 1988, there has been at least one player who was named on only one ballot. These players range from the accomplished Chuck Finley, who won 200 games in the big leagues and was worth 56.9 WAR (FanGraphs WAR), to Mark Davis, who essentially had just two good seasons and was worth 7.1 WAR.
One of this year’s potential one-vote guys is Jamie Moyer, who I wrote about recently. Nearly 47 percent of the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballots have been released to the public so far, and Moyer is the only player with just one vote. Of course, he could get another vote or two and get bumped off the one-vote guy list or another player could get one vote. We won’t know until January 24. For now, he’s our best hope.
In the meantime, we can remember the 68 players in the last 30 years who have earned just one vote in the Hall of Fame balloting. Starting pitchers make up almost 30 percent of the one-vote guys. Shortstops and center fielders are the least represented, at just four percent for each position. Here is a look at the best of the one-vote guys at each position.