In O’s news: Kittredge is excited, Santander is thankful, and the East has been busy!
Good morning Birdland,
The 2025 Hall of Fame class has been announced, and it is (as usual) a good one: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, Billy Wagner, Dick Allen, and Dave Parker.
Ichiro fell just one vote shy of being a unanimous selection, ending up with 99.7% of the vote instead. The Hall of Fame should really think about taking away the ability to vote from the person that left him off of their ballot. I mean, come on. Ichiro dominated the first decade of the 2000s and is unquestionably one of the best hitters in MLB history.
Sabathia is also a first-ballot inductee. His individual stats don’t jump off the page quite like Ichiro’s do, but he was a consistently good arm for his entire 19-season career. He won a Cy Young in 2007 with Cleveland, finished in the top five of Cy Young voting four other times, and led the AL in wins twice with the Yankees.
Wagner becomes one of the few relief pitchers to get into the Hall, and it took a while to get it done. This was Wagner’s 10th and final year on the ballot. If he didn’t make it this year he would have had to wait for the Era Committee to consider him sometime in the future. Instead, he makes it with 82.5% of the vote this year.
Allen and Parker were picked by the Eras Committee back at the Winter Meetings.
The only notable former Oriole on the ballot this year was Adam Jones. As much as we love Jones around here, he clearly was not a Hall of Fame level player. But apparently that is not a universal opinion. Jones earned three votes for the Hall of Fame this year, representing 0.8% of the vote. Unfortunately, that will not be enough for him to remain on the ballot past this year. Still, it is an honor to be considered at all, and getting a vote is a lot more than many other players get. Hanley Ramírez, Fernando Rodney, and Ben Zobrist all got shut out on this year’s ballot.
Links
‘A lot to be really excited about’: Kittredge ready to fly with O’s | Orioles.com
Kyle Gibson is telling players that the Orioles are a good place to play. That feels like a good proxy to have out there in the world, lauding the culture that this regime has put in place.
Leftovers for breakfast | Roch Kubatko
Roch notes the “Thank you” that Anthony Santander penned for the Orioles and their fans. It is a nice gesture, and it is appreciated. Santander is going to be dearly missed, particularly for his personality. Hopefully he does a great job in Toronto, outside of when playing the O’s.
It has been a busy offseason in the AL East | The Baltimore Banner
This is true, but it doesn’t feel (to me, anyways) as if the power dynamics of the division have shifted all that much. The Red Sox are better than they were, but good enough to leap frog the Orioles? Eh, I’m not sure about that. Now, let me take off my orange-tinted sunglasses off…
Orioles birthdays
Is it your birthday? Happy birthday!
- Ubaldo Jiménez turns 41. One of the Orioles’ biggest free agent splashes in recent memory, Jiménez was a disappointment overall. Across four seasons from 2014-17 he had a 5.22 ERA.
- Aaron Rakers is 48 today. He pitched in 13 games for the Orioles between 2004 and ‘05.
- Dave Leonhard celebrates his 84th birthday. He spent his entire six-year MLB career in Baltimore, accumulating a 3.15 ERA over 337 innings.
- The late Bobby Young (b. 1925, d. 1985) was born on this day. The Maryland native was one of the players that came to Baltimore when the Browns moved from St. Louis and became the Orioles. He then spent part of the 1954 and ‘55 seasons with the O’s.
This day in O’s history
2006 – The Orioles trade pitchers Jorge Julio and John Maine to the Mets in exchange for pitcher Kris Benson.