Baseball Hall of Fame: Eligible active players destined for Cooperstown

The 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting will be announced Jan. 26, but there are a number of current players who are assembling impressive resumes.

The highest honor is Major League Baseball is being elected to the Baseball Hall of
Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. There are expected to be roughly 400 ballots submitted and a player must be named on at least 75 percent of the submitted ballots to be elected.

The results for this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame will be released Jan. 26. This is a peculiar year because there are no guarantees with the 2021 ballot for Cooperstown. However, the 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame class of Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons and Larry Walker will be inducted July 25. Last year’s ceremony was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the voting period in particular, speculation about which current players have a chance to end up in the Hall of Fame inevitably follows.

To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, one must play at least 10 seasons in the majors. This article will only discuss players who have already met that threshold.

Nolan Arenado, Mookie Betts and Jacob deGrom are all distinguished young veterans that are building towards the Baseball Hall of Fame and have a decent chance, but none has the required service time to qualify.

Dustin Pedroia will not be considered in this conversation because he has played just nine games since the start of the 2018 season and did not play at all last season. The former MVP has had a great career, but will inevitably fall short of Cooperstown because of his late-career injury problems, similar to the plight of recently retired David Wright.

Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz will not be considered due to their past suspensions for violating baseball’s performance-enhancing drug policies.

There are certain levels of chances for the Baseball Hall of Fame:

• Some players are locks and will definitely make it; some in their first year of eligibility, five years after their careers end.
• Other players are borderline for the hall and there will be heavy discussion about their careers.
• Some players are building their resume more and will have a chance if they continue playing at a high level.

Here are the eligible active players broken down by those categories.