Only Ichiro and CC make it, with Mark Buehrle and Billy Wagner falling just short
A year ago the SSS electorate, free to vote for every player on the ballot if it wanted, ushered three players in and left Mark Buehrle just one vote short.
One year later, first-timers Ichiro and CC Sabathia both crossed our line for induction. Ichiro’s election was unanimous, while CC just skirted in, with 77.4%.
Meanwhile Buehrle again fell short by just one vote. Two years ago, we elected Mark, but because he remains on the BBWAA ballot, he’s back on ours — and for two straight votes, he’s fallen a single vote short of a repeat election.
- Ichiro becomes the first-ever unanimous South Side Sox honoree
- Three additional “no” votes for CC would have scuttled his SSS election
- 10th-year candidate Billy Wagner, expected to easily cross into Cooperstown via writers’ vote, finished fourth in our tally, far short, at 66.7%
- Hot 2025 candidate Carlos Beltrán, apparently fully forgiven for his cheating sins and expected to be right on the cusp of election from the BBWAA, fell far short with us, at 50.0%
- Brian McCann, Troy Tulowitzki and Torii Hunter, all in danger of falling short of 5% on the writers’ ballot and thus dropping off of the ballot for 2026, cleared the bar for SSS
- Félix Hernández and Dustin Pedroia, along with McCann and Tulowitzki, were the only first-time candidates clearing the 5% bar in the SSS vote but falling short of election (Ichiro and CC)
Overall we had 1,486 votes, with a yes/no ballot that could allow for skips. That’s down almost 1,000 from last year’s vote. We voted “yes” on candidates at a greater clip, however: 28.40% this year, 27.13% a year ago. The most votes this election were collected by Andruw Jones (63), the fewest were cast for Fernando Rodney and Hanley Ramírez (48).
Here’s a look at our final results, compared to the BBWAA ballot as currently tracked when our ballot went live, with 39% of the total votes revealed:
More notes from the vote:
- We had 422 yes votes, 1,064 nos
- Beyond Buehrle (we supported his candidacy at a rate 66.2% higher than the BBWAA electorate), we are much bigger fans of Andy Pettitte (+27.9%), David Wright (13.6%), Félix Hernández (11.8%) and Torii Hunter (+11.1%) than the general electorate. Overall, we supported players 2.5% more overall than the BBWAA voters.
- In contrast, we were not as on board with the candidacies of Carlos Beltrán (-16.5% from the BBWAA bloc), Chase Utley (-15.5%), CC Sabathia (-15.4%), Billy Wagner (-11.8%) and Andruw Jones (-10.4%).
- Among returning candidates, Pettitte (+17.9%) and Wagner (+15.3%) saw significant jumps in support from SSS from 2024 to 2025
- In contrast, 2024 to 2025 saw a big drop in SSS support only for Andruw Jones (-12.7%), who will be on his ninth ballot in 2026 in hopes of reversing those fortunes
- We were very close to the anticipated BBWAA final vote for many players: Ichiro was an identical vote, of course, but for 2026 returning candidates it our closest votes were Bobby Abreu (-2.7%), Dustin Pedroia (+1.6%) and Brian McCann (+2.1%)
The most fun vote is still to come, at the start of February: the seventh annual White Sox Hall of Fame vote.
Till then: Congrats, Ichiro and CC!