Skip to content

Posada dropped from HOF ballot after 1st try

Alex Gallardo / Reuters

Jorge Posada, one of the best catchers of his era, won't get another shot at the Hall of Fame for a while.

The New York Yankees legend was making his first appearance on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot this year, but only garnered 3.8 percent of the vote from writers. Because he failed to reach the minimum five percent, Posada will be dropped from the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot going forward.

OTHER NOTABLES DROPPED FROM BALLOT

PLAYER VOTES PERCENTAGE
Magglio Ordonez 3 0.7%
Edgar Renteria 2 0.5%
Jason Varitek 2 0.5%
Tim Wakefield 1 0.2%
Corey Blake 0 0%
Pat Burrell 0 0%
Orlando Cabrera 0 0%
Mike Cameron 0 0%
J.D. Drew 0 0%
Carlos Guillen 0 0%
Derrek Lee 0 0%
Melvin Mora 0 0%
Arthur Rhodes 0 0%
Freddy Sanchez 0 0%
Matt Stairs 0 0%

Posada and his supporters now have to hope that the Hall's Eras Committee will consider him when the Today's Game Committee (covering the era from 1988-present) meets again in two years' time.

Although he went one-and-done on the ballot, Posada put together an excellent 17-year career with the Yankees as one of the "Core Four" players of their late-1990s dynasty. Posada made five All-Star appearances and won five Silver Sluggers while guiding the Yankees' often star-studded pitching staffs, and his 275 home runs are second only to Yogi Berra among Yankee backstops. He was the starting catcher on four championship teams - collecting three straight titles from 1998-2000 - and won a fifth ring as a September call-up in 1996.

Posada already had his No. 20 retired by the Yankees in 2015, during a ceremony in which he was also enshrined in Monument Park. Despite the honors from his team, Posada seemed to know he faced an uphill battle to reach Cooperstown, and said before the election that getting a few check marks next to his name would be more than enough for him.

"I just hope that I get votes," he told Sweeney Murti of WFAN earlier in January. "I know it's going to be hard. I know my numbers don't pop 'Hall of Fame.' I just hope people vote (for me). It's not like I'm Ivan Rodriguez.

"I'm very happy with my career. I think I had a helluva career. We won a lot of championships. We did a lot of things together as a team."

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox