Welcome to the Hall of Fame: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner
The Class of 2025 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame will take place on July 27, 2025. A remarkable achievement for these three players who managed to overcome the demands of baseball voters to reach Cooperstown. The Hall of Fame remains one of the most difficult to access, especially through the BBWAA voting.
This trio stands out for their different trajectories. Ichiro Suzuki, grew up in Japan and was a star in Japan’s Pacific League at age 20, before becoming the first Japanese position player to play in the Major Leagues when he signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2001 at age 27. Sabathia, a California native, was a baseball and basketball star in high school in the Bay Area, who grew to be 1.98 meters tall and throw at 153 km/h. Cleveland drafted him in the first round and he reached the majors at age 20. Wagner grew up in rural Virginia and played at Ferrum College in Division III. He wasn’t big, but his fastball was. The Houston Astros drafted Wagner in the first round and he made his debut at age 24 before becoming one of the most dominant relief pitchers of all time.
The three are now Hall of Fame members. Let’s analyze three reasons why each player got there.
Why Ichiro Suzuki is a Hall of Famer
Ichiro was one vote away from becoming the second unanimous selection (Mariano Rivera did it in 2019). In a sense, perhaps it’s a bit surprising that he got so many votes; one could argue that Ichiro is perhaps a bit overrated. After all, he had 60.0 career WAR in the majors; Bobby Abreu, for example, was on this ballot with 60.2 career WAR and received only 26% of the votes. Ichiro’s career OPS+ of 107 is now the third lowest for any Hall of Fame outfielder, ahead only of Lloyd Waner and 19th-century speedster Tommy McCarthy. So, why Ichiro?
3,000 hits in his career
Ichiro was primarily a singles hitter, not hitting with much power with a maximum of 15 home runs in a season, but he turned the art of infield singles and hits up the middle into an art form. He reached 200 hits in his first 10 seasons with the Mariners, leading the league in seven of those years. In the last 10 seasons, all major league players combined have only had 17 seasons of 200 hits, and the best of them was Ronald Acuña Jr.’s with 217 hits in 2023, a total that Ichiro surpassed five times, including a record of 262 in 2004, a season in which he batted .372 (no one has batted an average that high since then).
Considering that he didn’t debut with the Mariners until his season at age 27, it’s still remarkable that Ichiro is one of the 33 players with 3,000 hits. The other 32 averaged 994 hits through their season at age 26, with Wade Boggs’ 531 hits being the lowest of the group. Of those who debuted after 1930, everyone who is eligible for the Hall of Fame and is not tainted by gambling or PED scandals was voted in on the first ballot, except Craig Biggio (who needed three attempts to be elected). Reaching 3,000 hits made Ichiro an automatic selection.
Two keys to Ichiro’s hit total: his remarkable durability and the fact that he didn’t walk much (which is why he only had a career OBP of .400). He averaged a remarkable 159 games played in his first 12 seasons, suffering only one brief stint on the injured list during that span. The image of Ichiro constantly stretching between pitches and in the outfield is as much a part of his enduring image as him sprinting full speed to first base or running into the corner to make another spectacular catch.
He was an inner-circle Hall of Fame talent
The above comparison to Abreu might suggest that Ichiro is a Hall of Fame player on the fringe. However, that belief underestimates how transcendent Ichiro was in his prime, and that seven of his peak seasons were in Japan before signing with the Mariners. While voters are voting on Ichiro’s achievements only in the Major Leagues, it seems fair to at least acknowledge that we only witnessed a portion of his greatness.
Let’s consider this: in his first four seasons in the majors, from 2001 to 2004, Ichiro batted .339 and averaged 6.5 WAR per season. In Japan, Ichiro was an immediate sensation, batting .385 in his first full season, as good at 20 as in his last season in Japan, when he batted .387. Therefore, we can assume that he would have produced similar results in MLB from ages 20 to 26 as he did from ages 27 to 30. That adds up to an additional 45 WAR, in addition to the 60 that Baseball-Reference credits him with during his time in the majors.
How impressive would 105 WAR be in a career? Since the expansion era in 1961, only six position players have reached 100 career WAR: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Rickey Henderson, Mike Schmidt, Albert Pujols, and Joe Morgan. This suggests that Ichiro belongs to that level of appreciation from the inner circle.
Much of his value came from his overall brilliance on the bases and as a right fielder (he won 10 Gold Gloves). Baseball-Reference credits him with more than 62 runs as a baserunner (18th all-time) and more than 121 runs on defense (18th among outfielders). He had two of the most efficient base-stealing seasons of all time, going 45-47 in 2006 and 43-47 in 2008, in addition to leading the league with 56 steals in his 2001 MVP/Rookie of the Year season. As a right fielder, Ichiro combined impeccable instincts with a strong and accurate arm. He excelled at charging the ball quickly and preventing runners from advancing, and he never seemed to make a mistake in the field; in fact, he was only charged with 38 errors in 19 seasons.
So, yes, Ichiro was overrated as a hitter. But his all-around skills and peak performance rightly placed him in a class among the elite of the elite.
Come on, it was Ichiro, an icon
In the end, sometimes “Hall of Famer” doesn’t need an argument; it’s just a description to explain the obvious: Ichiro is a Hall of Famer, no matter what the numbers say or don’t say. Who was cooler than Ichiro wearing his sunglasses, pointing his bat at the pitcher in his pre-pitch ritual, and then pulling on his right sleeve? Early in his first month in the majors, Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus made Ichiro an instant legend with his description of his famous throw to catch Terrence Long at third base: “I’m here to tell you that Ichiro threw some Star Wars out there at third base!” Ichiro was a throwback to a different era of hitting. He was a pioneer. Absolutely one of a kind. Unanimous? Certainly it should have been.
Why CC Sabathia is a Hall of Famer
Sabathia finished 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA, 61.8 WAR and a Cy Young Award with Cleveland in 2007. None of those numbers necessarily scream Hall of Famer on the first ballot and, in fact, only Sandy Koufax has a lower career WAR among starting pitchers elected on their first ballot. Here’s how Sabathia did it.
A high level of maximum performance
Sabathia had a five-year stretch from 2007 to 2011 in which he went 95-40 with a 3.09 ERA and 30.4 WAR, averaging 240 innings per season, which now seems like a herculean workload. He won the Cy Young Award and finished in the top five in voting in the other four seasons. During those seasons, only Roy Halladay had a higher WAR among pitchers, and there was a large gap between Sabathia and Cliff Lee, number 3 who had 25.0 WAR, and no one won more games.
On the way, Sabathia led the Milwaukee Brewers to the playoffs in 2008, their first playoff appearance at that time since 1982, starting with three days of rest for his last three starts, including pitching a complete game that secured the playoffs on the last day of the season. The following year, he signed with the New York Yankees and led them to the World Series title, going 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA in the postseason.
Sabathia fits more into an old-school definition of a Hall of Famer: Was he the best at his position for a prolonged period of time? His 251 victories are the same as Bob Gibson and more than quality Hall of Famers like Juan Marichal, Whitey Ford, Pedro Martínez or Don Drysdale. Those guys felt like Hall of Famers, as did Sabathia. And he did enough around that peak, another six seasons with at least 3 WAR and appearing in 10 different postseasons, to merit selection.
The best of a generation
In fact, Sabathia stands out along with Halladay (who was posthumously elected in 2019) as the bridge between the group of Martinez/Randy Johnson/Greg Maddux/Tom Glavine/John Smoltz and the still active trio of Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw, who arrived a few years after Sabathia. Verlander has 262 wins, but Scherzer has 216 and is running out of time. Kershaw has 212 and is coming off a two-win season in 2024. Zack Greinke finished with 225 wins. Even Halladay finished with only 203 wins.
Aside from Andy Pettitte, who debuted six years before Sabathia and won 256 games, and Sabathia’s former teammate Bartolo Colón, who won 247, other pitchers from Sabathia’s generation didn’t last long enough for Hall consideration: Johan Santana had an amazing peak but won only 139 games; Felix Hernandez was on the ballot for the first time and received enough votes to remain, but his last good season came at age 29; and Cliff Lee won 143 games and was injured. There are other 200-game winners, Tim Hudson (off the ballot) and Mark Buehrle (still on it), but Sabathia was the rarity of his generation, combining both peak value and longevity.
Time is everything
The number of votes for Sabathia was undoubtedly favored by the general weakness of this ballot, where only Ichiro was a sure candidate. Voters want to vote for players, so, in a sense, candidates are compared as much to the other players on the ballot as to Hall of Fame standards. If Sabathia were on the ballot in 2015, a ballot that included Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, and Mike Mussina, he would not get in. But his “competition” on this ballot was Pettitte, Buehrle, and Hernandez, the only other starting pitchers who were on the ballot. This is not to detract from Sabathia’s achievements, but it is a truth of Hall of Fame voting results: the ballot itself matters. Mussina, with 270 wins and 82.8 career WAR, took six times to be elected because he faced many crowded ballots. This ballot was not crowded.
Why Billy Wagner is a Hall of Famer
In his tenth and final appearance on the BBWAA ballot, Wagner finally made it after falling five votes short last year. He debuted with only 10.5% of the vote in 2016, so why now?
Once again… time is everything
As with Sabathia, much came down to time. Wagner’s first ballot in 2016 included 11 other players who are now Hall of Famers, in addition to Clemens, Schilling, Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent, and Gary Sheffield. Voters can vote for a maximum of 10 players, so in many cases, there simply wasn’t enough room to vote for Wagner. He was fortunate to receive more than 5% of the votes needed just to remain on the ballot.
As the ballot backlog slowly dwindled over the years, Wagner’s vote total increased. Rivera was elected in 2019, so it’s not surprising that Wagner saw his percentage increase from 16.7% in 2019 to 31.7% in 2020, which started his momentum toward eventual election. As Wagner got closer in 2023 and then last year, the final ballot push that players often receive (see Tim Raines and Edgar Martinez as two others who were elected on their 10th ballot) pushed him over the 75% threshold.
He was one of the most dominant closers of all time
Look, Rivera is on his own mountain among relievers, but Wagner has a strong argument for number 2. Yes, Wagner now ranks eighth in career saves, Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel have surpassed him, and non-Hall of Famers Francisco Rodríguez and John Franco also have more, but only Rivera can match Wagner’s dominance.
Compare Wagner to Trevor Hoffman, who is second with 601 saves in his career versus Wagner’s 422:
No, Wagner didn’t accumulate as many saves, but he also retired at the top of his game: in his last season, he had an ERA of 1.43, 37 saves, and 104 strikeouts in 69 innings. He still had a lot of energy left in that fastball.
To put Wagner’s career numbers in perspective, among pitchers with at least 900 innings since the live ball era began in 1920, he ranks:
Second in ERA, only behind Rivera’s 2.21
First in strikeouts per nine innings
First in lowest batting average allowed (.187)
Second in lowest OPS allowed to Rivera’s .555
That’s Wagner: possibly the toughest pitcher to hit in MLB history.
Voters have been kind to closers
It didn’t hurt Wagner that closers have become the easiest position to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Starting with the first modern Hall of Fame relievers of the 1970s, Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage, there are now eight closers in the Hall of Fame (counting Dennis Eckersley as a reliever, although he split his career between starter and reliever).
Among the players who produced most of their value in the 1970s or later, the positional breakdown is as follows (leaving aside starting pitchers):
Reliever: 8 (Fingers, Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Gossage, Hoffman, Lee Smith, Rivera, Wagner)
Catcher: 7 (Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodríguez, Ted Simmons, Joe Mauer)
Right Field: 7 (Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Tony Gwynn, Vladimir Guerrero, Larry Walker, Dave Parker, Ichiro Suzuki)
First Base: 6 (Tony Pérez, Eddie Murray, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Fred McGriff, Todd Helton)
Third Base: 6 (Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen, Adrian Beltre)
Shortstop: 6 (Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken, Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Derek Jeter)
Second Base: 5 (Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio)
DH: 5 (Paul Molitor, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martínez, Harold Baines, David Ortiz)
Left Field: 4 (Willie Stargell, Jim Rice, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines)
Center Field: 3 (Kirby Puckett, Andre Dawson, Ken Griffey Jr.)
Hmm. There seems to be a lesson here that can be interpreted either way: maybe there are too many relievers, or not enough players in the other positions.
