When Billy Wagner signed with the Atlanta Braves before the 2010 season, it was at the end of a long and illustrious career. He would end up finishing his time in MLB with 422 saves, a career 2.31 ERA, and an objectively insane 11.9 K/9 for his career. While that seems like an easy case for induction into the Hall of Fame, it turns out that Wagner's road to Cooperstown has been anything but easy.
Wagner's Hall of Fame candidacy has encountered two primary problems. First, there just seems to be a bloc of HOF voters that really, really doesn't like voting for relievers not named Mariano Rivera in general. The other problem is that Wagner played at the same time as two of the best relievers ever in Rivera and Trevor Hoffman which has made his career feel lesser given that he often wasn't the best reliever in the league at any given time (depending on who you talk to of course).
As a result, Wagner has been on the outside looking in when it comes to getting inducted into Cooperstown for nine ballots now including a brutal close call last year where he finished just five votes shy of getting in. Fortunately, everything we know right now suggests that Wagner has a great chance to finally make it in in his last year of Hall of Fame ballot eligibility.
Billy Wagner's Final Save.
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) January 2, 2025
Stats in Wagner's last season:
1.43 ERA (+275 ERA+)
13.5 K/9
.865 WHIP
4.9 H/9 [.159 BAA] pic.twitter.com/I6OMZHCZVS
Latest update has Billy Wagner in strong position for induction into Hall of Fame
According to the incredibly helpful Hall of Fame tracker put together by Ryan Thibodaux and his team, Wagner is in a great spot in his 10th and final year on the Hall of Fame ballot. With 139 ballots publicly revealed, Wagner sits on 84.5% of those ballots which is well above of the 75% threshold for induction into Cooperstown.
There are some caveats here. First, it is a mortal lock that Wagner will appear on less private/anonymous ballots than on the public ones because that is true of nearly every player on the ballot. Second, there are still a lot of public ballots that have yet to be revealed, so his current percentage is going to fluctuate as those get revealed. For context, there were 306 Hall of Fame ballots that were made public in 2024 and Wagner appeared on 77.8% of them and still didn't get in.
Where supporters of Wagner should get the most excitement is in the change in ballots from returning voters. Among voters who have previously voted for the Hall of Fame and made their ballots known, eight more of them are voting for Wagner this year. While there are new voters to consider as wild cards, Wagner technically has already gotten enough new votes to get inducted if trends hold as he only missed by five votes last time.
Wagner has had to wait too long for induction already and the whole process has obviously been a source of stress for him. However, everything is currently pointing towards Wagner finally getting in when the results of the voting for Cooperstown are announced on January 21.