Baseball Hall Makes Call

This July, the Baseball Hall of Fame will grow by three. The 2025 hall of fame was announced its three newest members in Ichiro Suzuki, C.C Sabathia and Billy Wagner. They join Classic Baseball Era Committee electees Dave Parker and the late Dick Allen in enshrinement.

Ichiro got 99.7%  C.C got 86.8%. Wagner got 82.5%.

Ichiro had a great second career after a solid career to start in Japan. He played 19 years in the Majors, 14 years in Seattle, three with the Yankees and three in Miami. He played 2,653 games, collecting  3,089 hits, 117 home runs, 780 RBI, scored 1,420 runs and stole 509 bases, finishing as a .311 hitter. He won AL Rookie of the year and AL MVP in the same season in 2001. He was a ten time all star, won ten gold gloves and a pair of batting titles. Ichiro could do it all. He had a little bit of power, but lets face it, the guy was one of the best pure hitters that the game has ever seen. Oh yeah and lets not forget his defense in right. Outstanding glove and just as good of a throwing arm.

Then we have CC Sabathia, who also spent 19 years in the big leagues, 11 with the Yankees, 8 in Cleveland and a half a season in Milwaukee. In 560 career starts, CC picked up 251 wins, 38 complete games and 12 shutouts. He had 3,093 strikeouts in 3,577 innings pitched and a 3.74 lifetime ERA. He got a 2009 World Series title with the Yankees, won the Cy Young in 2007 with Cleveland and a six time all star. If you needed a big pitching performance, Sabathia could come up when he needed to. Look what he did in half a season in Milwaukee.

Then there was Billy Wagner. Wagner spent 16 years in the majors, nine years in Houston, four with the Mets, two in Philadelphia, one in Boston and one in Atlanta. He appeared in 853 games, earned a 47-40 record and 422 saves. He had a career ERA  of 2.31 and 1,196 strike outs. Nine times he had 30 or more saves in a season, two of which were 40 or more save seasons. His 225 saves in Houston are the most in the history of that franchise. He won Rolaids relief man of the year in 1999 and was a seven time all star. What makes Wagner induction more impressive is that he did all of this with 903 innings pitched are the fewest innings pitched among any of the relief pitchers in the hall of fame. Which speaks to how solid of a relief pitcher Wagner really was.

What do you think? Did the hall snub anybody for getting in this year?