Kicking Off Our Big Baseball Hall of Fame Breakdown

Happy New Year, everybody!

Now, let’s have some Hall of Fame fun. The Baseball Hall of Fame announcement is scheduled for Jan. 23—about three weeks from now. And over those three weeks, we here are JoeBlogs will bring you a position-by-position breakdown of the Hall of Fame candidates and where everyone currently stands.

This will include a look at this year’s ballot as well as an analysis of the JoeBlogs Baseball Hall of Fame survey that about 4,000 of you filled out over the last couple of weeks.

Hold on tight. It should be a wild ride.

And we will start, as all dates do, at first base.*

*I regret this joke already—the first dud of 2024! The year is off to a roaring start.

First Base

Fully qualified candidates (based on your votes):

1. Albert Pujols, 99.1% (to appear on 2028 ballot)

2. Miguel Cabrera, 98.2% (to appear on 2029 ballot)

3. Dick Allen, 75.4% (veterans committee ballot)

Strong candidates:

1. Mark McGwire 65.3%

2. Keith Hernandez, 64.8%

Fringe candidates:

1. Don Mattingly, 48.5%

2. Rafael Palmeiro, 45.3%

Admirable but not Hall of Fame careers:

1. Carlos Delgado, 25.9%

2. Will Clark, 24.0%

3. Al Oliver, 21.3%

4. Steve Garvey, 20.9%

5. John Olerud, 18.9%

6. Lance Berkman, 18.6%

7. Norm Cash, 10.7%

8. Jason Giambi, 7.7%

First base candidates on this year’s ballot: