Going into the Baseball Hall of Fame announcement on Tuesday evening, it did not look great for any other Atlanta Braves were going to be joining Fred McGriff in this year’s Hall of Fame class. A cursory look at Ryan Thibodaux’s fantastic Hall of Fame Ballot tracker showed that Andruw Jones had appeared on below 70% of Hall of Fame ballots and Billy Wagner at just above the mark on public ballots. Gary Sheffield was below 63% and no other former Braves were close after that.
Given trends in recent years, players typically appeared less on non-public ballots, so it was always going to be tough to see any more Braves in the class. The results of the voting were announced tonight and only Scott Rolen was elected to the Hall of Fame.
Scott Rolen got into the Hall of Fame by 5 votes, finishing at 76.3 pct. Todd Helton missed by 11 votes, (72.2 percent). Billy Wagner climbed from 51 pct to 68.1. Andruw Jones (58.1)/Gary Sheffield (55) also received more than half the votes. Kent/Beltran finished at 46.5.
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) January 24, 2023
Rolen just barely got enough votes for induction and he will join Fred McGriff in getting inducted this year. Todd Helton took a bad beat in falling 11 votes short of getting into Cooperstown. Former Brave Billy Wagner made some big gains in the voting this year.
Andruw Jones falls short of induction again
Despite being one of the best defensive centerfielders in the history of the game and some impressive counting stats (with a less than impressive end to his career), Andruw Jones fell short of induction again as he appeared on 58.1% of ballots. It was a big jump, though, for Andruw as he got just over 40% last year.
The way things are trending, Wagner has a decent shot at getting in during his final two years being on the ballot assuming his detractors can be convinced that a reliever deserves induction. As for Andruw, he has several years of eligibility left and is trending up, so Atlanta Braves fans still have hope of getting him in via the writers’ ballots.
And with that, Hall of Fame voting season comes to an end and spring training and the regular season is just around the corner, so stay tuned.