The Envelope Please: Our 2026 Corridor of Fame Crowdsource Poll Outcomes and a Preview of Election Day

The next article is a part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing take a look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 Corridor of Fame poll. For an in depth introduction to this yr’s poll, and different candidates within the sequence, use the software above; an introduction to JAWS may be discovered right here. For a tentative schedule, see right here. All WAR figures consult with the Baseball Reference model except in any other case indicated.

On Tuesday night, the Nationwide Baseball Corridor of Fame will announce the outcomes of this yr’s BBWAA balloting. On this age of poll monitoring, we’ve solely a gentle little bit of suspense on our fingers, one thing lower than a real cliffhanger. Based mostly on the printed ballots in Ryan Thibodaux’s Tracker (which sadly has been experiencing outages because of site visitors throttling), each Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones are more likely to be elected, although there’s nonetheless a little bit of uncertainty for the latter. If the FanGraphs readers who participated on this yr’s crowdsource poll had their approach, Beltrán could be the one one who would make the lower.

I’ll take a better learn of the tea leaves primarily based upon the writers’ ballots which were revealed, however first, let’s think about the readers’ entries. Registered customers who participated in our ballot have been every allowed to submit one poll with as much as 10 candidates by the tip of the day on December 31, identical to over 400 BBWAA voters did for this yr’s precise election — solely we ink-stained wretches needed to get to a mailbox with a pay as you go envelope, the place our customers voted electronically. For the third yr in a row, we had a document degree of participation, with a 6.1% improve in votes over final yr and a 28.2% improve over two years in the past:

Befitting a poll whose crop of first-year candidates is the weakest in a few many years, our record-sized crowd really used fewer slots per poll than at any time since we started this train, and “elected” fewer candidates than ever. When this train started with the 2019 poll (the primary one I lined after becoming a member of the FanGraphs workers), our crowd was extra beneficiant than the BBWAA voters, however that phenomenon was primarily based upon the group’s constant assist for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, each of whom fell quick on the writers’ ballots because of their hyperlinks to performance-enhancing medicine. Within the cycles since they and the additionally PED-linked Gary Sheffield aged off the poll, our readers have been much less beneficiant than BBWAA voters when it comes to those reaching 75%, with 2024 honoree Todd Helton not making their lower (although he did the yr earlier than) and final yr’s honoree, Billy Wagner, falling quick as properly. This has occurred even supposing our readers have uniformly used extra slots per poll than the precise voters, 0.96 extra in 2024 (the one yr the distinction has been beneath 1.0), and 1.15 greater than in ’25. If these current outcomes are any information, we should always anticipate to see one thing within the neighborhood of 5.5 names per poll from the writers, which might be the bottom mark since 2009 (5.38).

When it comes to the extremes, simply 23.4% of our voters used all 10 slots, surpassing the earlier low of 29.6% from 2023; that’s fairly a drop from final yr’s 41.8% and the excessive of 59% from 2022. Twenty-three voters (1.1%) forged clean ballots, up from three final yr. On the Tracker, 4 clean ballots have been submitted this yr, whereas there have been none final yr.

As for the crowdsource outcomes, right here’s the complete rundown, with comparisons to every holdover candidate’s shares within the final two cycles — not simply final yr, but additionally 2024:

Each holdover posted a acquire from 2025, even when it was minuscule; the identical was true final yr save for Hunter. Jones missed election from our crowd by simply 14 votes; apparently sufficient, he was nearer in 2023 (74.5%) than in both ’24 or ’25, and the identical was true for Beltrán (72.4%). That sample in all probability owes one thing to a sample-size subject, as we had unusually small turnout in 2023 for causes I can’t absolutely clarify.

Each candidate acquired at the very least one vote from our crowd. Gonzalez acquired only one, 0.047% of the vote, and it wasn’t even from the consumer who forged an eight-man poll that included 5 different one-and-dones (Choo, Encarnación, Gordon, Kemp, and Kendrick) together with Beltrán, Hunter, and Pettitte; it was from a voter who in any other case included solely Beltrán. We had 15 completely different one-man ballots, a few of which have been slightly unusual, particularly single cases of Abreu, Choo, Gordon, Hamels, and Murphy being the one field checked. Cherrypicking among the different oddities: a five-man poll that included three of the big-name gamers linked to PEDs (A-Rod, Manny and Pettite) plus Hunter and Porcello; a four-man poll with Markakis becoming a member of Beltrán, Jones, and Utley; and a three-man Mets-only poll that had Ok-Rod, Murphy, and Wright (however no love for Beltrán). 5 different voters matched my eight-man poll (Abreu, Beltrán, Buehrle, Hamels, Hernández, Jones, Pettitte, Utley), and 42 voters forged the preferred poll, a 10-man slate that included all of these plus A-Rod and Manny. The subsequent-most in style poll, with 15 cases, swapped out Wright for Buehrle however stored the opposite 9 from that group. We acquired 291 completely different 10-man slates in all, approach down from 518 final yr however nonetheless a dizzying quantity. Our complete of 1,191 distinctive ballots was a lot nearer to final yr’s complete of 1,274.

The most important gainer on our poll, Hernández, seems poised for the most important acquire of any candidate since BBWAA voters returned to annual balloting in 1967. Whereas his share right here approximates what was within the Tracker as of 8 AM ET on Tuesday (55.5%), his acquire amongst our readers is far smaller as a result of final yr our voters gave him greater than double his precise degree of assist from the writers (20.6%). Buehrle and Pettitte made the third- and fourth-largest good points in our crowd’s vote, which inserts in with the development of voters (together with this one) rethinking beginning pitching requirements. I voted for Hernández final yr primarily to ensure he didn’t fall off the poll the way in which two-time Cy Younger winner Johan Santana did in 2018, and with the debut of Hamels, I reviewed my positions on Pettitte (whom I included as my tenth vote in 2024) and Buehrle, deciding I’d vote for all of them and proceed what’s grow to be an enchanting dialogue.

Turning to the Tracker and the place issues stand as of 8 AM ET on Tuesday, 10 hours earlier than the outcomes are introduced, with 229 ballots (an estimated 54% of the citizens) printed:

As ordinary, there’s a excessive correlation between the voting shares from the 2 sources; the truth is, 18 of the 27 candidates are off by 4.2 share factors or much less in a single course or the opposite. The biggest gaps on the optimistic aspect present the writers — or at the very least those who’ve printed their ballots — as being extra strongly supportive of the top-polling candidates, which in all probability owes one thing to the transparency of the method; in spite of everything, practically all of these voters have hooked up their names to their alternatives. The biggest optimistic hole between the writers and our crowd is for Pettitte, whereas Buehrle, Hamels, and Hernández have acquired barely much less assist from them than from our crowd. For the second yr in a row, a few candidates whose credentials enchantment extra to old-school voters than new-school ones — Vizquel (ugh) and Rollins — have the fourth- and fifth-largest gaps between their precise and crowd shares. This tracks, provided that the voters are usually extra mainstream than the typical FanGraphs reader. Curiously, the writers have flip-flopped the Pedroia-Wright pair relative to our crowd, favoring the Boston dynamo.

On the different finish of the spectrum, the writers are far much less supportive than our crowd in the case of the 2 PED-linked heavyweights, A-Rod and Manny, each of whom have been suspended for violating the sport’s drug coverage. For presumably completely different causes, they’re additionally far much less supportive of Abreu, a stathead favourite. From amongst each our crowd and the writers, the one first-year candidate match for subsequent yr’s poll is Hamels, with the twice-suspended Braun (whose first suspension was overturned by an arbitrator) apparently toast.

As for what all of it means for Tuesday, traditionally talking, till final yr, each candidate from 2014 onward who had polled above 80% on the ballots printed pre-results was elected that yr. Beltrán, who was at 80.5% earlier than the announcement, broke that streak, and since he had the second-largest non-public vs. public differential (-21.1%, together with the ballots printed after the outcomes have been revealed), it wasn’t notably shut; he missed election by 19 votes, receiving 70.3% general. The biggest non-public vs. public differential belonged to Jones (-26%), however he was polling round eight factors beneath Beltrán earlier than the announcement, so the suspense wasn’t over whether or not he’d get in however how properly he’d set himself up for this yr; he acquired 66.2% general.

Each middle fielders are in higher form this time round, although as Thibodaux identified final yr, a number of current candidates with round 83% pre-election cleared the bar by lower than three factors, particularly Larry Walker in 2020 (83.2% pre-election, 76.6% last), David Ortiz in 2022 (83.4%, 77.9%), and Joe Mauer in 2024 (83.4%, 76.1%). In my very own quick-and-dirty examine of current Tracker outcomes, I discovered that from 2022–25, candidates receiving 80% or larger pre-announcement skilled a median drop of 4.8 factors; if Jones follows that sample, he’ll are available in at 77.7%. I went again solely to 2022 as a result of the writers didn’t elect anyone in 2021 (the very best pre-election mark within the Tracker was Bonds at 73.7%) and since one of many two honorees in 2020 was Derek Jeter, who obtained 100% pre-election and famously missed unanimity by only one vote. If I recalculate for 2022–25 by excluding Ichiro Suzuki (who skilled the identical state of affairs as Jeter) and Adrian Beltré (99.1% pre-election, 95.1% last), the typical drop-off for the seven candidates within the 80-95% band pre-election is 5.5 factors. That’s nonetheless excellent news for Jones.

For the ultimate phrase on Jones’ possibilities of getting elected, we’re all higher off turning to the forecasting work of Jason Sardell, whose probabilistic mannequin has been probably the most correct predictive system within the business for a number of years operating. Sardell teams voters primarily based upon the variety of candidates they embrace on their ballots (“small Corridor” and “giant Corridor” voters) and their electoral stance on PED customers, so his mannequin is extra delicate to the way in which some candidates fall off additional than others in the case of non-public vs. public ballots. As of this writing, his most up-to-date projection was primarily based upon 223 votes within the Tracker, when Jones was at 83%.

Lower than 24 hours to go till the outcomes of this yr’s Baseball Corridor of Fame election are revealed. If traits with public voters maintain, we’ll be welcoming two new members: Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones. My newest projections with 223 ballots in @notmrtibbs.com’s Tracker.

— Jason Sardell (@sardell.bsky.social) 2026-01-20T00:44:10.503Z

Even when Jones has misplaced a number of factors off these odds, a 90-ish % probability of being elected isn’t precisely a nail-biter. That stated, it’s not computerized both, and so we’ll dangle tight and see what’s within the envelope that Corridor president Josh Rawich opens this night. I’ll be again afterward Tuesday with my fast tackle the outcomes, adopted by a candidate-by-candidate breakdown within the coming days.