The Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2026 was announced on Tuesday night, with outfielders Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones earning their way into Cooperstown after receiving the support of at least the necessary
75% of voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Shocking no one, another goes by without any Orioles connection among the inductees. It is likely to be quite a while before that changes.
Great Oriole Nick Markakis falls off the ballot after one year on it. Markakis received exactly one vote, far short of the 5% threshold necessary to qualify for future ballots. This is one year after Adam Jones was a one-and-done player on the ballot. Jones got three votes. It’s no surprise. Each of these guys is a classic “Hall of Very Good,” players who were pretty good for one team for a while and who will be fondly remembered by those who were invested in those teams, but who were not anywhere close to being among the greatest players of their era.
Orioles fans have not had any team-related reason to care about the Hall of Fame ceremonies since 2019, when enough voters got their heads out of their butts to elect Mike Mussina in his sixth year of being eligible. It’s going to be a while before another comes along. Next year’s ballot won’t even have an Oriole making it as obvious one-and-done fodder. The screening committee might decide to put Jake Arrieta on the ballot, but even if he had a Hall case, it’s certainly not as an Oriole.
When will the next great Oriole make it into the Hall of Fame? The simple answer to this question is: Whichever comes first out of “Manny Machado retires and five years go by for him to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot” and “the relevant committee recognizes the decades-long oversight of not having Bobby Grich in Cooperstown and fixes that problem.“
After a 2024 where it looked like he might be stalling out a bit, Machado rallied late in that season and continued to play well into 2025, adding another 4.1 bWAR to cross over the 60 WAR line that is now close to being a slam dunk induction. Obviously, Machado won’t be going in with an Orioles cap, which is no reason that Orioles fans can’t still get excited. Grich finished with 71.1 bWAR. His greatness was unrecognized in his time since it wasn’t built around elite offense or any notable counting stat milestones, but it deserves to be recognized now.
I used to view the 70 bWAR line as the automatic line. A new wave of voters arrived this year after putting in their ten years of work. That group is pushing some previously-borderline guys in the 60-70 range – including Chase Utley, Andy Pettitte, and Bobby Abreu – towards the 75% threshold. If this trend continues on into future years, it might be that the 60 bWAR line is where it starts being largely automatic. Félix Hernández, an almost-Oriole one spring, also made a big jump with his strong peak/little longevity case.
In last year’s version of this article, I considered three current Orioles and what their career trajectories might have to look like to eventually be inducted. Those were Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Jackson Holliday. As we all know, the 2025 Orioles stunk and their key players not living up to hopes or expectations was part of why that happened. It’s not even worth looking at Rutschman as a possibility this time around. I’m sad to say it.
Henderson still managed to add 5.3 bWAR in an unquestionably-disappointing 2025 campaign. We have since learned Henderson was playing through a shoulder impingement while doing this. Future HOF voters won’t care about that. The injury, assuming a smooth offseason recovery (which we know from Rutschman is not guaranteed), does offer reasonable hope that he can bounce back to racking up, let’s say, 20 WAR between now and when he becomes a free agent after the 2028 season.
That would have Henderson at about 41 WAR heading into his age 28 season. This wouldn’t be automatic yet, but he would be on about as smooth a path as any under-30 position player can be towards Cooperstown, giving him a decent chance of being over 50 WAR before age 30 and then needing maybe 10-12 WAR more in his 30s. Let us all resolve not to dwell too long on the percentage chance that Henderson will be in an Orioles uniform for much of that time.
For Holliday, the 2025 season went better than the one before as he added 125 points onto his OPS. Unfortunately for him, that was still a below-average .695 OPS. He’s started out young, debuting in his age 20 season, but hasn’t made much of that advantage yet.
Consider Holliday against Andruw Jones, one of this year’s inductees. Jones debuted in his age 19 season and in age 20, his first full year, he posted 3.3 bWAR, with 7.4 more in his age 21 season. Jones had 10.9 WAR at this point on the way to an eventual 62.7; Holliday’s at 1.1. It won’t make Holliday a bust if he doesn’t suddenly have a 7 WAR season in 2026. There are many possible outcomes where he could be pretty good and help the Orioles win games while not being one of the game’s elite players.
One of the notable aspects of this year’s voting results is an apparent shift in attitudes around starting pitching, as an increasing percentage of the electorate is ready to move on from older ideas of judging pitchers by wins. Along with Pettitte and Hernández making strides this year, longtime Phillie Cole Hamels had a strong first-year debut, and even longtime White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle showed a strong gain in his sixth year on the ballot. If these pitchers gain further next year, that would reflect a recognition that this is what greatness looks like for 21st century pitchers.
Not that there are any 21st century Orioles starting pitchers who are in much of a position to take advantage of this potential evolution of standards. Even a guy like Kevin Gausman, who has notched an additional 16.4 WAR onto his career totals in his 30s so far, is nowhere close to these newer numbers. It would be close to miraculous if he equaled that age 30-34 WAR total in his age 35-40 seasons and even that generous assumption would get him to 44 WAR.
Gausman just wasn’t good enough in his early years with the Orioles, not even managing 10 WAR over six seasons before he got traded in 2018. Exactly who should be blamed for that is fodder for a long-running debate in these parts. He would have to do something like Randy Johnson, dropping 60 WAR starting in his age 35 season. This included four Cy Youngs in a row. I don’t think Gausman is going to do that.
Returning to the question of when the next great Oriole will make it to Cooperstown: It’s Machado, and he’s signed through 2033. If he plays until then and retires, the five-year waiting period would put him on the ballot in 2039. That is so far in the future that the Orioles will be done paying deferred money to Chris Davis. After Machado, well, maybe some day beyond that, we’ll get to enjoy a piece of Henderson’s bronze plaque.
