The Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2025 has been decided. Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, pitcher CC Sabathia and reliever Billy Wagner have all been elected, each earning at least 75% of votes from eligible members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Ichiro was nearly unanimously elected, but he missed that mark by just a single vote. Suzuki and Sabathia were both first-timers on the ballot. Wagner was in his 10th and final year. Sabathia received 86.8% of the vote, and Wagner received 82.5%. Carlos Beltrán was the first man out on this year’s ballot, with 70.3%.
While each player’s election is special and monumental, Suzuki’s rises above the rest. He’s Japan’s first Baseball Hall of Famer, and he was nearly the second player in history to be elected unanimously. Legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera (elected in 2019) remains the only inductee with that distinction.
Ichiro Suzuki
Suzuki, 51, had a lengthy, unprecedented career that spanned three decades in two countries. His pro career began as an 18-year-old in Japan after he was drafted by the Orix BlueWave. He spent nine years playing for Orix, many as a standout, before making the move to MLB by signing with the Seattle Mariners.
Once Ichiro arrived in the U.S., there was no stopping him. In 2001, he won AL Rookie of the Year as a 27-year-old, won the AL MVP, went to his first of 10 consecutive All-Star Games, won his first of 10 Gold gloves and won his first of three Silver Sluggers. He’s the only MLB hitter in the past 126 years to hit 200-plus singles in a year, and he did that two separate times. He retired after 19 seasons in MLB with a lifetime triple slash of .311/.355/.402, 509 stolen bases and 3,089 hits, which he collected while playing for the Mariners, Yankees and Marlins.
Beyond his longevity, supernatural talent and tireless dedication to his craft, story after story describes Suzuki’s incredible sense of humor, his love of wings (he ate them before every single home game in the same chair using the same plate) and his impeccable fashion sense. Few athletes are as loved as he is in one country, but he’s beloved in two.
CC Sabathia
Sabathia, 44, spent 19 years as a starting pitcher for Cleveland, the Milwaukee Brewers and the New York Yankees. Cleveland drafted him in the first round of the 1998 MLB Draft, and he immediately made an impact after his debut in 2001, coming in second in AL Rookie of the Year voting (behind Suzuki). He spent eight years in Cleveland, winning the 2007 AL Cy Young award, before the team traded him to the playoff-hungry Brewers in 2008, with whom he pitched for just half a season. His regular-season performance was spectacular, but he got shellacked by the Phillies (who won the World Series that year) in his only postseason start.
FIRST BALLOT HALL OF FAMER!!!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!
— CC Sabathia (@CC_Sabathia) January 21, 2025
He signed with the Yankees in 2009 and made it to the mountaintop with them, making three great playoff starts as New York beat Philly to win the 2009 World Series. It was the start of a 10-year run with the Yankees, which had some ups and downs (2009-2012 was his best four-season run in the majors by a long shot, while 2013-2015 were three of the worst years of his career), but it was clear from the moment Sabathia arrived that New York was where he belonged.
In October 2015, Sabathia entered into rehab for alcoholism, a disease his father also fought. His return to baseball at the start of the 2016 season marked the beginning of a late-career resurgence that saw him put up his best numbers since the late 2000s. He retired with a lifetime ERA of 3.74 and 3,093 strikeouts over 3,577 1/3 innings. Over his long career, Sabathia pitched at least 200 innings in a season eight times and more than 175 innings 14 times.
Billy Wagner
Wagner, 53, is being inducted on his 10th and final try on the ballot. Relievers (aside from Mariano Rivera) typically have a tough time getting elected, but Wagner’s statistics, as well as an influx of younger voters, helped him steadily build support over the past decade. A Division III athlete who was drafted in the first round out of Ferrum College, Wagner was a reliever and lights-out closer for 16 years in MLB, spending the most time with the Houston Astros (nine seasons) and shorter stints with the Phillies, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves.
With 422 career saves, Wagner is eighth on the all-time list and second among left-handers. His 2.31 ERA over 903 innings is the second-lowest since 1900 by a pitcher with at least 900 innings. Incredibly, until the Astros called him up the first time in 1995, he’d been a starting pitcher though his entire career. Even so, his transition to reliever went seamlessly, and he ended up saving a club-record 225 games for Houston.
Wagner was just five votes short of Hall induction in 2024, something he learned while taking a break from practice with the Charlottesville, Virginia, baseball team he coaches. He told The Athletic that he had to fight back the emotions of his close call in front of 30 kids and an NBC Nightly News camera crew (which had shown up uninvited). He called the situation “embarrassing.”
There are no such emotions this time around. Wagner is headed to Cooperstown.
