The 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot was officially released last Monday. There are both 14 returning players and 14 newcomers on this year’s ballot. Just like 2024, it includes four former Phillies: Billy Wagner (10th year), Bobby Abreu (6th year), Jimmy Rollins (4th year), and Chase Utley (2nd year). For the next few months leading up to when we find out who gets into Cooperstown in late-January, I’ll be previewing every former Phillie on this year’s ballot by taking a look at how they’ve done in past elections & their chances for enshrinement in a few months.
Billy Wagner (Phillies tenure: 2004-2005)
We start with Billy Wagner. He was only a Phillie for two seasons, but in that short time he was as dominant of a closer as he was with Houston the first nine years of his career. His first season with Philadelphia was limited because of a hand injury, but he still put up great numbers: 45 G, 2.42 ERA, 21 saves, 2.45 FIP & an 11.0 K/9 in 48.1 IP. His second year, he pitched a full season and was incredible. He had 70 games finished (career-high), a 1.51 ERA, 38 saves, 0.837 WHIP, and a 0.7 HR/9. Overall, Wagner finished with great numbers as a Phillie, ending his tenure with a 1.86 ERA & 2.59 FIP in 126.0 IP. The southpaw left for the Mets in free agency after the 2005 season.
Rest of Wagner’s career
I’ve already mentioned Wagner being in Houston for the first nine seasons of his career. His first four seasons as an Astro were great (2.67 ERA & 62 saves), but 1999 was the year that he established himself as one of the true elite closers in baseball. He finished that season with a 1.57 ERA, 124 strikeouts (14.9 K/9), 1.65 FIP & 39 saves that all led to finishing fourth in National League Cy Young voting that year. Aside from a rough 2000 season that saw him only pitch in 28 games due to a left elbow injury, the rest of his time in Houston he remained one of the top closers, averaging 39 saves to go with a 2.29 ERA from 2001-2004. We’ve talked about what he did with the Phillies, so let’s move on to his time as a Met. He remained dominant with New York. In 2006, he had a 2.24 ERA, 40 saves and finished 6th in that year’s N.L. Cy Young voting as he helped the Mets get to that year’s NLCS, where they would lose to that year’s World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. The rest of his time in New York was up and down. He made the All-Star teams in both 2007 & 2008, but had Tommy John Surgery in ‘08 after suffering an elbow injury to his throwing arm. He would end up missing the last two months of that season and most of 2009. The Mets would actually trade Wagner to the Red Sox in late August of ‘09, but only threw in 13.2 IP for Boston that season. His swan song was in 2010 with the Atlanta Braves, after they signed him to a one-year deal. At age 38, he had one of his best seasons of his MLB career in Atlanta, with a career-low ERA (1.43), 37 saves, and his fourth triple-digit strikeout season (104).
The Virginia native had quite a dominant career, from start to finish. He had one season with his ERA ever going above 3.00, and it was a year in which he dealt with an elbow injury that limited him to less than 30 appearances. After 16 years in the big leagues, he finished with 422 saves, a 2.31 ERA, and 1196 K while making seven All-Star teams.
Many of his numbers stack up among the greatest relievers in the game’s history. His 422 saves are eighth all-time, 2.31 ERA is the second-lowest of the Live Ball Era (min. 750 IP), and 1,196 strikeouts are seventh all-time among relievers. He owns the highest K/9 of all time (11.9) & K% (33.2%) (both min. 900 IP). The advanced numbers have him right up there with the best as well. Reliever JAWS score, which was created by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe, combines career WAR averaged with their 7-year peak WAR. Wagner is sixth all-time when it comes to reliever JAWS, and the five in front of him are all Hall of Famers. (Rivera, Eckersley, Wilhelm, Gossage & Hoffman) There’s also ERA+, a stat that takes a player’s ERA and adjusts it for ballpark factors and opponents to a league average of 100. Wagner had a career ERA+ of 187, which meant he was 87% above league average for his career. Only Mariano Rivera, the only player to ever get in the Hall of Fame on a unanimous vote, had a higher ERA+ (205).
What to expect for Wagner on this year’s ballot
So, having looked at Wagner’s career and numbers, where does he stand going into the 2025 election? This is his last shot to get into Cooperstown via the BBWAA vote, as this is his 10th year on the ballot. In his nine tries prior to this year, he received 10.5%, 10.2%, 11.1%, 16.7%, 31.7%, 46.4%, 51.0%, 68.1%, and then got 73.8% (1.2 % away from 75% needed for election) in 2024. There currently are only eight relievers in the Hall: Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Lee Smith, Rollie Fingers and Bruce Sutter.
History is on Wagner’s side to be elected. Since 1996, 14 out of 15 players who received 68.3 percent wound up being enshrined the following year, according to MLB.com. The most recent of this case was Todd Helton, who was elected last year after collecting 72.2% the year prior. The odd man out is Curt Schilling, who’s percentage actually dropped more than 10% in his final shot try, after garnering 71.1% in his ninth year, even having 70.0% in the election before that. But Schilling may have been an outlier as one could speculate the reason he didn’t get was due to public comments he made in the mid-2010’s that weren’t baseball-related. But combine the fact that Wagner has undeniable career numbers to go along with him being 1.2% shy in his penultimate year on the ballot, and he should have no problem being elected.