Exploring the 2026 Baseball Hall Of Fame ballot
and bonus Utley chasing!
Upon the news of Jeff Kent’s successful welcome to the Hall Of Fame and Museum (never forget, it’s a museum), I complete my initial study of the 2026 candidates. For this year, I combined 2 sets of stats, which I had formerly kept separate, all researched from the mighty Baseball Reference website, 16 categories in all.
I find it difficult at best to want to capture batter vs pitcher vs reliever so I separated them by percentage of ballot appearance. With 23 batters, 8 starters, and 2 relievers, that would translate to choosing 7, 2, and 1. 7-2-1, that reminds me of this TV commercial from the 1980s.
I chose the batters that ranked amongst each other in the top 7, giving one point for each and splitting points for absolute ties. I waited for last night’s initial Hall announcement to make a final adjustment. Jeff Kent is shown in the spreadsheet as a comparison to the other batters. He’s definitely one who fits in in this class had they been compared properly. In fact, in looking at the BR website, he is most comparable to Chase Utley in ages 32 and 33. It was this stat that tipped the scales of favorability for Chase a bit more in my spreadsheet. Not absolutely as a qualifier for the Hall, but certainly on the doorstep. Prior to the announcement, I had Pedroia in that position and Rollins out. Now that position is reversed.
As for the pitchers, Hamels and Hernandez are the best 2 of the 7, with Pettite just barely out. Francisco Rodriguez is definitely the better of the 2 RPs over Herrera.
Studying this over, along with the latest version of Ryan Thibodeaux’s Vote Tracker, I’m more enthused than before of the chances of Utley’s eventual induction at Cooperstown. 10 votes in, Beltran feels like a lock and I must feel rather positive, somewhat predictively, of Andruw’s likely induction as well. A-Rod and Pettite are probably in the proper spot in the very early going. Utley and Hernandez are curiously in the middle of it all but that should change.
Aside for Utley a moment:
Just to revisit my earlier post about him, I wanted to see which cards are currently the best to look at for further investing. Per gemrate.com, looking at a range of 40-49% possibility of scoring a 10 grade, here’s the short list:
2008 Topps Gold
2014 Topps Chrome Black Refractor
2015 Topps Chrome Green Refractor
2013 Topps Chrome Blue Refractor
2006 Topps Allen & Ginter base
2005 Topps base
Most popular gradeable cards per sportscardpro, including variants:
2024 Topps Archives
Same, as Black Foilboard
2001 Bowman Heritage (RC)
2001 Bowman Draft Picks
2002 Bowman Chrome Refractor
2016 Topps Chrome Sapphire
2024 Topps Chrome Legend Auto
2015 Topps Chrome Gold, and Green Refractors. The latter is about $20 and is the first to match up with the prior list. That might be the card worth pursuing now. There is one on eBay for $45.
I checked out deals on eBay to see about what I could find that’s more affordable. I did find and purchase a 2005 Topps Chrome Refractor card of Utley for $24 with shipping. It should arrive on 12/13. The card has comps of $40 raw, and even at Grade 8 for PSA it is above $50, so that should be a good investment by the time I pay for grading for it. This time, though, no more long waits. I’m going with SGC and willing to at least break even. I figure that Utley is 2-3 years away from induction and I feel the numbers will saturate well by then.