Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Cooperstown NY
This year’s class of inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame has been announced. Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner all surpassed the 75% vote threshold for induction. They wil be honored alongside Dave Parker and the late Dick Allen, who were elected by the Classic Baseball Era Committee last month in Dallas.
Ichiro, 51, is the first Japanese player elected to the Hall. He received 393 votes or 99.746 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility and missed being unanimously selected by one vote. The only player in the 81 year history of the HoF to be selected unanimously was Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera.
After spending nine seasons in Japan to start his professional career, during which he amassed 1,278 hits with a .353 batting average, he came to Major League Baseball. In 2001, his first season stateside, he won Rookie of the Year and MVP while helping the Mariners to an MLB-record 116 wins. In parts of 19 MLB seasons, he would rack up 10 All-Star Games, 10 Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, two batting titles, 3,089 hits, 1,420 runs and 509 stolen bases. Ichiro spent time in Yankee and Marlin uniforms but will enter the Hall as a Mariner.
CC Sabathia was also in his first year of eligibility. He got 342 votes or 86.8% of the vote.
Sabathia, 44, began his 19-season career in Cleveland as the runner-up to Suzuki for the AL Rookie of the Year Award in 2001 and went on to post a 251-161 record with a 3.74 earned run average and 3,093 strikeouts – 18th all-time and third among left-handers behind Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton. Sabathia won the AL Cy Young Award in 2007. A year later, a mid-season trade to Milwaukee resulted in his finishing sixth in National League MVP voting after going 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA and seven complete games, including three shutouts, in 17 starts for the Brewers. The next year, he anchored the Yankees’ staff enroute to a World Series title and was the 2009 AL Championship Series MVP (2-0, 1.13 ERA). Sabathia is one of only six pitchers in history with at least 250 victories, a .600 winning percentage and 3,000 strikeouts.
Billy Wagner was in the last of his 10 years of eligibility for the Hall. He wound up with 325 or 82.5% of the vote.
Over 16 seasons with the Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves, Wagner, 53, had a 47-40 record with 422 saves, the eighth-highest career total in history and the second highest among left-handers, just two saves behind John Franco. Wagner’s 2.31 career ERA is the lowest among retired left-handed pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched in the live-ball era (post 1920). His career walks-plus-hits-per-innings-pitched ratio (WHIP) of 0.998 is lowest among all retired relievers with at least 700 innings pitched.