Closer Mariano Rivera, starting pitchers Roy Halladay, Mike Mussina and DH Edgar Martinez have been elected to the 2019 Hall-of-Fame Class. Rivera became the first player to be unanimously (100%, 425 ballots) voted into the Hall. Rivera was always going to be the no-brainer of the 2019 class, question was whether an old school voter or two would actually leave him off their ballot. The rest of the class has a ton of questions. Halladay maybe, but Mussina, Martinez never screamed sure fire Hall-of-Famers during the prime of their careers and this class follows the trend of leaving out the greatest players’ in the game. Barry Bonds the greatest offensive player of all-time getting 59.1% of the vote is a joke and a sure sign he’ll never get in with three years of eligibility remaining. Somehow Edgar Martinez who never picked up a glove, gets in with 85% during the final year of eligibility, while Fred McGriff who slashed a line of .284/.377/.509 with 493 home runs, 1550 RBIs falls flat in his final year on the ballot with 38% of the vote. Martinez is the classic sympathy vote from voters after coming so close last year.
January 22, 2019