Orlando, FL — December 7, 2025
I love baseball, so hang in there with me. Sunday’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee vote produced exactly one Hall of Fame inductee: Jeff Kent, who received 14 of 16 votes. But it’s the players who didn’t make it—and the mechanism that now bars them from immediate reconsideration—that demands our attention.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and Fernando Valenzuela each received fewer than five votes from the 16-member committee. All of these players are arguably better than the one that got in. Under a rule implemented this year, that means none of them will be eligible for the next Contemporary Era ballot in 2028. The earliest they could return? 2031. And if they fail to reach five votes again, they’re done—permanently barred from future consideration.
Let that sink in for a moment.
The Statistical Absurdity
We’re talking about players whose on-field production is undeniable—regardless of how their reputations have been complicated or tarnished.
Barry Bonds is still the all-time home run leader with 762 and a seven-time NL MVP. Roger Clemens remains a 354-game winner with seven Cy Young Awards. Gary Sheffield hit 509 home runs and was one of the most feared hitters of his era. Fernando Valenzuela ignited Fernandomania and won both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young in 1981.
Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy, who earned six votes each, also fell far short of the 12 needed. Both are beloved MVPs who defined their primes. Both deserved more respect.
The Context That Makes This Worse
This marks the 12th time Bonds and Clemens have been denied baseball’s highest honor. This rejection is nothing new for Bonds and Clemens—but it’s far more severe. They were denied in all 10 years on the BBWAA ballot, finishing in 2022 with 66% and 65.2%, respectively—short of the 75% needed, but nowhere near the wholesale dismissal they just suffered.
In their first Era Committee vote in 2022, each received fewer than four votes. This second committee vote is even more decisive.
And consider who delivered this judgment: seven Hall of Famers, six MLB executives, and three veteran media members. A group that blends baseball’s traditionalists with its institutional gatekeepers.
The 16-member committee that delivered this verdict by name: Seven Hall of Famers (Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal, Tony Pérez, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell, Robin Yount), MLB executives Mark Attanasio, Doug Melvin, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins and Terry Ryan, and media members Steve Hirdt, Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark.
A Troubling Precedent
The Hall of Fame exists to preserve baseball’s full history—its greatness, its flaws, and the eras that shaped the sport. That includes confronting the steroid era honestly, not burying it.
This new five-vote minimum does the opposite. It doesn’t resolve the debate over PEDs, competitive integrity, or the morality of certain baseball eras. It avoids the debate entirely.
When players who were foundational to the game’s modern identity can be dismissed this easily, the Hall risks alienating the fans who actually lived through and loved those eras.
This isn’t about excusing steroid use or rewriting legacies. It’s about whether an institution claiming to tell baseball’s story is willing to include the uncomfortable chapters.
The Character Clause Conundrum
The Hall added its Character Clause to election rules in 1945, establishing that voting “shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
The problem? The Hall has never applied this clause consistently. Players with questionable or outright deplorable behavior off the field have been enshrined for decades. Many argue that Bud Selig, commissioner during the steroid era, is himself a Hall of Famer—a fact that underscores the selective application of “character” considerations.
If character truly outweighs accomplishment, let it apply to all eras and all forms of misconduct. If the Hall exists to tell baseball’s full story, then tell it—don’t redact it.
You can’t have it both ways.
What This Means Going Forward
Any candidate who receives fewer than five votes in multiple appearances on Era Committee ballots will not be eligible for future ballot consideration. If Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield, or Valenzuela return in 2031 and again fall short of five votes, their Hall of Fame cases are closed permanently.
The Hall has effectively created a mechanism to purge players from consideration without the prolonged debate that characterized their decade on the BBWAA ballot. The Hall cut the BBWAA eligibility period from 15 years to 10 specifically to avoid dealing with Bonds and Clemens for so long. Now it’s built an expedited process to eliminate them from committee consideration as well.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Baseball’s Hall of Fame is diminished when it excludes the all-time home run leader and one of the five greatest pitchers ever to play the game. Not because of a close vote or a legitimate debate about borderline credentials, but because fewer than five voters out of 16 were willing to even consider them.
The idea that the Hall of Fame would not include baseball’s all-time home run king and one of the top five pitchers ever, when both are eligible and both have official playing records that are intact, means it will forever be less than what it should be.
This isn’t protection of standards. It’s abandonment of responsibility. And it happened not through careful deliberation about whether these players meet the Hall’s criteria, but through a procedural mechanism that allows the institution to avoid confronting its own history.
The Hall should be where baseball tells its full story—the good, the bad, and the complicated. When it becomes a place where we sanitize that story instead, everyone loses.
Kent’s induction is well-deserved. But this vote will be remembered less for who got in than for who the Hall went out of its way to keep out.
What do you think? Does the Hall have an obligation to include the best players of every era, or does character outweigh accomplishment? Sound off in the comments.