NEW YORK (AP) — Adrián Beltré, Todd Helton and Joe Mauer were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame on Tuesday while Billy Wagner and Gary Sheffield fell short.
Beltré was picked on 366 of 385 ballots from the Baseball Writers' Association of America in his first ballot appearance for 95.1 per cent.
Helton received 307 votes for 79.7 per cent in his sixth appearance, 18 more than the needed 289 for 75 per cent after falling 11 votes short last year.
Mauer got 293 votes for 76.1 per cent and like Beltré was elected on his first try.
Wagner was five short at 284 votes and 73.8%, but up from 68.1 per cent last year. He will appear on the ballot for the 10th and final time in 2025, when Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia are newly eligible.
Beltré, Mauer and Helton will be inducted at Cooperstown on July 21 along with Jim Leyland, elected last month by the contemporary era committee for managers, executives and umpires. There are 273 players among 346 people in the Hall.
Sheffield got 246 votes for 63.9 per cent in his final appearance on the BBWAA ballot, up from 55 per cent last year and 11.7 per cent in 2015. He is eligible for consideration by the contemporary baseball player committee, which meets next in December 2025.
Beltré, a four-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove third baseman, hit .286 with 477 homers and 1,707 RBIs for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1998-2004), Seattle (2005-09), Boston (2010) and Texas (2011-18). His 2,759 games at third base are second to Brooks Robinson’s 2,870 and his 636 doubles are 11th on the career list.
Helton received 16.5 per cent support in 2019, his first year on the ballot. A five-time All-Star first baseman and the 2000 major league batting champion, he hit .316 in 17 seasons for Colorado with 369 homers, 1,406 RBIs and 1,401 runs. He had widely divergent home/road statistics, batting .345 with 200 homers and 791 RBIs in the mile-high air of Coors Field and .287 with 142 homers and 547 RBIs on the road.
Mauer was a six-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner and the 2009 AL MVP during 15 seasons with Minnesota. He is the only catcher to win three batting titles, and he became just the 20th player in the Hall who was primarily a catcher. He hit .306 with 143 homers and 906 RBIs with Minnesota from 2004-18.
Voters included an average of seven names per ballot, up from 5.86 last year, and 24.4 per cent of the voters checked the maximum 10 candidates, an increase from 13.9 per cent. Just 10 eligible voters failed to return ballots.
Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramírez again lagged, hurt by suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez received 34.8 per cent and Ramírez 32.5 per cent.
Among other first-time candidates, Chase Utley (28.8 per cent) and David Wright (6.2 per cent) will remain on next year’s ballot.
José Bautista, Bartolo Colon, Matt Holliday, Adrián González, Victor Martinez, Brandon Phillips, José Reyes and James Shields all were under five per cent and will be dropped.
Bautista, a six-time all-star while playing with the Toronto Blue Jays from 2008 to 2017, received six votes, or 1.6 per cent.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
