\n
My Prediction<\/em><\/strong>: No! Of course not! Unless you\u2019re absolutely new to the game of baseball, you know the problems and controversies surrounding Bonds. You think the Hall is going to let him in? After he topped out at receiving 66% of the writers\u2019 votes? No way. I\u2019m convinced that Bonds is the main, if not sole, reason for the rule change disallowing players from remaining on the ballot if they don\u2019t receive five votes, and getting rid of them for good if that happens a second time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
The Hall of Fame not only for the best, but for the greatest human beings. It cannot be defiled having Bonds in it beside the likes of Ty Cobb!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: Yes, he\u2019d have it. Not only did he dominate, but he did so in an entertaining fashion\u2014via strikeout. He pumped out innings as well as swings-and-misses on his journey to two World Series, one MVP Award, and seven Cy Youngs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
I\u2019m particularly enamored with his two-year Toronto stint in 1997 and 1998: two Cy Youngs, 41-13, 498-and-2\/3-innings pitched, 563 strikeouts, 2.33 ERA (196 ERA+), 2.44 FIP, and 1.061 WHIP over 67 games started.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
My Prediction<\/em><\/strong>: No, he won\u2019t get in, which is another same. He spent just as long as Bonds on the regular ballot\u201410 years\u2014and topped out at 65.2%. The committee should<\/em> vote him in. A player of his prestige belongs alongside the other greats, most of whom are his lesser. But I\u2019m not counting on it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: No. I\u2019m somewhat surprised Delgado made this list. While both Bonds and Clemens spent 10 years on the writers\u2019 ballot, Delgado appeared just once, in 2015, receiving 3.8% of the vote. You\u2019re telling me the writers missed that badly?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
No, I don\u2019t buy it. Delgado had a very solid career, but outside of a trio of Silver Slugger Awards, never won another major award, made only two All-Star Games, and only led the league in a major statistical category a handful of times throughout his 17-year career.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
A great career, sure, but not one for Cooperstown.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: No. And I love Jeff Kent! First of all, such a cool, direct name: Jeff Kent. But he also played for some memorable teams (to me, at least): particularly that 1996 Cleveland squad, his years with Bonds in San Francisco, and as a menace to the Cardinals while an Astro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
He won the NL MVP in 2000, but I\u2019m not sure why. Yes, he had a great season, which, by bWAR, was the best of his career, but he didn\u2019t lead the league in anything, including said bWAR (7.2). Bonds posted a higher bWAR as did several others, including Andruw Jones, Randy Johnson, and Todd Helton, who led the NL with 8.9. I know the MVP isn\u2019t based solely off WAR, nor should it be, nor was it even much of a consideration 25 years ago, but that\u2019s a stark difference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Like Delgado, Kent had a very good career, not a great one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
My Prediction<\/em><\/strong>: Yes. And here\u2019s why: they need to vote in somebody! And after Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield, who I\u2019ll get to soon, Kent\u2019s the best of the bunch. MLB isn\u2019t going to announce these votes live on its flagship show, MLB Tonight, on December 7 without announcing at least one new member. That would be rather embarrassing. A huge letdown. What would even be the point of this era committee?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: No. Mattingly had an incredible three-year stretch from 1984 through 1986, but the rest of his career lacked. He was good, don\u2019t get me wrong, and he still had another couple top-20 MVP finishes in him (including seventh in 1987), but the numbers aren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: No. Murphy broke into the league young and had an excellent stretch beginning between 1982 and 1987, but outside of those six years, he didn\u2019t accomplish enough. Much like Mattingly, he considerably wore down after his peak years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: Yes. Sheffield rocked. I\u2019ve told this story several times\u2014the hardest hit ball I\u2019ve ever personally seen or heard came off the bat off Gary Sheffield. A Tiger then, he annihilated the offering from a Kansas City Royals pitcher, blasting the ball out of the park to left field. Such a violent swing, the sound truly startled me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
A career .907 OPS certainly helps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
My Prediction<\/em><\/strong>: No. This is making me sad. See Bonds and Clemens for the reasoning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
My Vote<\/em><\/strong>: No. Did anyone else realize that he last pitched in 1997? I had no idea his career lasted that long. Nonetheless, he did very little after 1986. His first full year, 1981, was incredible, as he guided the Dodgers to the World Series. He won awards for both Rookie of the Year and<\/em> Cy Young that season. He followed it up with three more top-five Cy Young finishes in the next five years, including ending as the runner-up to Houston\u2019s Mike Scott in 1986.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
That, unfortunately, was pretty much it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
There you have it. If I voted, the following players would get in:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Gary Sheffield.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
And I predict the only player that will actually get the call is one Jeff Kent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
What\u2019s everyone else think?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.royalsreview.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I love baseball\u2019s offseason. Not only do we have teams making moves, trying to either get better in the now or for the future, but there\u2019s a ton of other stuff going on that we can discuss. Awards are being handed out, there\u2019s the upcoming draft lottery, and then there\u2019s perhaps the biggest thing of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2177770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[340874],"class_list":["post-2177769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-royals-editorials-reactions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/My-2025-Contemporary-Baseball-Era-vote-and-predictions.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2177771,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177769\/revisions\/2177771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2177770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}