2022 BBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot Features 30 Former Players

(COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.) – Players who combined to win six Most Valuable Player and three Cy Young Awards as well as the most decorated designated hitter in the game’s history are among the group of 13 new candidates appearing on the 2022 National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot that is being mailed this week to approximately 400 voting members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Infielders Álex Rodríguez, Justin Morneau, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins; pitchers Tim Lincecum and Jake Peavy; and DH-first baseman David Ortiz will join 17 holdovers from the 2021 balloting which failed to produce a new Hall of Famer. Candidates must be named on 75 percent of ballots cast by selected BBWAA members with 10 or more consecutive years of MLB coverage to gain election and be part of Induction Weekend July 22-25, 2022, in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Falling 16 votes shy of election last year was pitcher Curt Schilling, whose total of 285 votes represented 71.1 percent of the electorate. The only other players who received more than 50 percent of the vote in the 2021 election were outfielder Barry Bonds (61.8), pitcher Roger Clemens (61.6) and third baseman Scott Rolen (52.9). Players may remain on the ballot for up to 10 years provided they receive votes on at least five percent of all ballots cast.

This will be the final year on the ballot for Schilling, Bonds, Clemens and outfielder Sammy Sosa. Other holdovers from the 2021 ballot are pitchers Mark Buehrle, Tim Hudson, Andy Pettitte and Billy Wagner; first baseman Todd Helton; second baseman Jeff Kent; shortstop Omar Vizquel, and outfielders Bobby Abreu, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Manny Ramírez and Gary Sheffield.

Rodríguez was a three-time American League MVP, in 2003 with the Texas Rangers and in 2005 and ’07 with the New York Yankees, during a 22-season career in which he played shortstop in Seattle and Texas and third base in New York. The 14-time All-Star added 10 Silver Slugger Awards, two Gold Glove Awards and four Hank Aaron Awards to his hardware while producing league-high totals in home runs and runs five times each, slugging percentage and total bases four times each, runs batted in and on-base plus slugging percentage twice each and a batting title. His career totals rank fourth in RBI (2,086) and home runs (696), seventh in extra base hits (1,275) and total bases (5,813), eighth in runs (2,021), 19th in at-bats (10,566) and 22nd in hits (3,115). A-Rod was a member of the Yankees’ World Series championship team of 2009 and won the New York Baseball Writers’ Babe Ruth Award as the outstanding player in that year’s postseason.

Howard is one of only four players, along with Cal Ripken Jr., Dustin Pedroia and Kris Bryant, to win an MVP Award the year after having won the Jackie Robinson Rookie of the Year Award. Howard’s victories came in 2005 (Rookie) and 2006 (MVP) in a 13-year career, all with the Philadelphia Phillies. The slugging first baseman had major-league-leading totals in home runs (58), RBI (149) and total bases (383) in his MVP season. Howard also led the National League in homers (48) and RBI (146) in 2008, the Phillies’ World Series championship season. He followed that with a 45-homer, 141-RBI season in 2009 and was the MVP of the NL Championship Series. The three-time All-Star is one of only 13 players in big league history with at least three 140-RBI seasons.

Rollins, Howard’s teammate on the 2008 World Series champion Phillies, took MVP honors the previous season after batting .296 with 212 hits, including 30 home runs, and league-leading figures in runs (139) and triples (20). In a 17-season career that also included time with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, Rollins amassed 2,455 hits and 470 stolen bases. He led the NL in triples and at-bats four times each and runs and stolen bases once each. Among players who appeared in at least half their games at shortstop, Rollins is the only one in history with at least 500 doubles, 400 steals and 200 homers.

Morneau, a British Columbia native, became the first Canadian in the AL to win an MVP Award, in 2006 with the Minnesota Twins, and the second overall, joining 1997 NL winner Larry Walker. Morneau was the runner-up to Pedroia in the MVP race in 2008. Morneau had four consecutive seasons of 100 or more RBI and was batting .345 81 games into the 2010 season when a concussion ended his season in early July. Neck surgery and concussion-related ailments limited his play for several seasons before Morneau made an impressive comeback in 2014 when he won the NL batting title with a .319 average for the Colorado Rockies.

Morneau’s time with the Twins was hastened by Minnesota’s release of Ortiz after the 2002 season, but the slugger known as “Big Papi” went on to have an extraordinary career with the Boston Red Sox for which he played on World Series title teams in 2004, ’07 and ’13. Ortiz hit .455 with three home runs and 14 RBI in 14 World Series games and was the MVP in 2013 when he batted .688 with two homers and six RBI in 16 at-bats. An eight-time winner of the Edgar Martinez Award as the outstanding designated hitter (even Martinez won it only five times), Ortiz bashed 541 home runs among his 2,472 hits over 20 seasons. The 10-time All-Star and seven-time Silver Slugger winner led the AL in RBI three times, and his 1,192 extra-base hits rank eighth all-time. Ortiz had one of the greatest final seasons of any player when in 2016 at age 40 he batted .315 with 38 home runs and league-high figures in doubles (48), RBI (127), slugging percentage (.620) and OPS (1.021).

Lincecum is one of 11 pitchers to have won the Cy Young Award in consecutive seasons, which he did in the NL with the San Francisco Giants in 2008 and ’09. The four-time All-Star, who started the 2009 game at St. Louis, topped the NL in strikeouts and strikeouts-per-nine-innings three times each and complete games, shutouts and winning percentage once apiece. Lincecum was 5-2 with a 2.40 ERA in 13 postseason games, including 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA in five World Series outings on the Giants’ championship teams of 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Peavy was the unanimous winner of the NL Cy Young Award for the San Diego Padres in 2007 when he won pitching’s triple crown by leading the league in victories (19), strikeouts (240) and earned run average (2.54), one of two seasons in which he led in the latter two categories. Peavy was a three-time All-Star and the starting pitcher in the 2007 game at San Francisco. He won a Gold Glove in 2012 with the White Sox and pitched on consecutive World Series champions with the Red Sox in 2013 and the Giants in 2014.

Also new to the ballot are relief pitchers Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon, first basemen Prince Fielder and Mark Teixeira, outfielder Carl Crawford and catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Nathan had four seasons of 40 or more saves and won the AL Rolaids Relief Award in 2009. Papelbon had eight seasons of 30 or more saves and did not allow a run in his first 17 postseason outings covering 26 innings. Fielder was the youngest player (23) to hit 50 home runs in a season, in 2007 for the Milwaukee Brewers, and had the same career homer total (319) as his father, Cecil Fielder. Teixeira, a switch hitter, is tied for the record for most games homering from both sides of the plate with 14. Pierzynski squatted behind the plate in 1,936 games and is one of only 10 career catchers with 2,000 or more hits. Crawford was a four-time All-Star who led the AL in triples and stolen bases four times apiece.

Voters must return ballots by a Dec. 31 postmark. Votes are counted jointly by BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O’Connell and Ernst & Young partner Michael DiLecce. Results will be announced by Hall of Fame president Josh Rawitch at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022, live on MLB Network.

The ballot: Bobby Abreu, Barry Bonds, Mark Buehrle, Roger Clemens, Carl Crawford, Prince Fielder, Todd Helton, Ryan Howard, Tim Hudson, Torii Hunter, Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent, Tim Lincecum, Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan, David Ortiz, Jonathan Papelbon, Jake Peavy, Andy Pettitte, A.J. Pierzynski, Manny Ramírez, Álex Rodríguez, Scott Rolen, Jimmy Rollins, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa, Mark Teixeira, Omar Vizquel, Billy Wagner.