The Baseball Hall of Fame revealed their 2021 announcement on Tuesday evening. There had been a lot of speculation leading up to the event on who is going to make it. The debate has been hot for a long time and it is only going to continue for years to come.
David Ortiz was the only player elected. He is well-deserving of the honor thanks to his three World Series titles (and a World Series MVP), 10 all-star games, and seven Silver Sluggers along with outstanding career statistics. He slashed .286/.380/.552 for an OPS of .931 with 541 home runs and 1768 RBIs.
David Ortiz is well-deserving of the Hall with those numbers. However, Barry Bonds not making it is a complete joke. His statistics, steroids or not, are well deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. He will not fall off the ballot as his ten years are up.
The voters who didn’t select Bonds should be ashamed of themselves. He is one of the greatest players who ever lived. At this point of it all, there is no point to hold anything from the past against him. It isn’t fair to him when many other “questionable people” before him are in the Hall.
Luckily, Mark Buehrle is going to stay on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
The good news for Chicago White Sox fans is that Mark Buehrle received 5.8 percent of the vote (23 total votes) and will remain on the ballot for another year. It is a drop-off from the year before which isn’t great but we will see his name on there again next year.
Buehrle isn’t likely to make it to the Hall of Fame because it doesn’t seem like the support for him is there nationally. We in Chicago know how good he was but that doesn’t seem to matter. If he slips at all next year that should be enough to remove him from the ballot (slipping below 5 percent).
The opposite could also happen. He is going to be on the ballot for the third year next year. It seems like the discussion (in a positive way) about Buehrle’s career accomplishments is growing so we shall see if he ever gets more support as years go on. He certainly deserves it.