Buster Posey takes center stage among the newcomers for next year's Hall of Fame ballot

These days, Buster Posey's focus is on trying to build a winner as president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants.

Eleven months from now, however, writers will be evaluating an earlier part of his career.

Posey is expected to be the top newcomer on the 2027 Hall of Fame ballot. There are no first-ballot inductees this year after the results were announced on Tuesday night. Holdover candidates Carlos Beltrán and Andruw Jones were the only ones voted in.

Beltrán and Jones were the top returning vote-getters from 2025, so it wasn't a shock when they received the necessary 75% approval from members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. It helped that the newcomers to the ballot didn't draw too much attention. Of that group, only Cole Hamels even cleared the 5% threshold to avoid being dropped from future votes.

Next year, Posey has a chance to make the Hall on his first try. A seven-time All-Star who led the Giants to three World Series titles, the star catcher was the National League batting champion and MVP in 2012.

Catcher can be a tough position to predict when it comes to Hall voting, but Joe Mauer made it two years ago on his first opportunity.

''I remember doing like a poll before that ballot came out, just gauging what people thought would happen with Mauer, and the results were all over the place," said Ryan Thibodaux, who runs an online ballot tracker prior to the announcement of each year's results. "Some people thought he'd get like 20% and some people thought he'd get elected. I think the sense with Posey, maybe because of Mauer a little bit, is that he could very well get in on the first ballot.''

Andy Pettitte's vote jumped from 27.9% to 48.5% this year, and Félix Hernández's increased from 20.6% to 46.1%. That does not mean their chances of being inducted are that similar. Pettitte only has two more years on the ballot before exhausting the 10-year limit. Hernández, on the other hand, has only been on it twice and has plenty of time.

Lately, voters have been quite open to considering the top starting pitchers on the ballot. CC Sabathia was a first-ballot inductee last year, and now Pettitte and Hernández have had big jumps in approval. And Hamels earned 23.8% support in his first time on the ballot.

A concern for Hamels is the fact that eventually, the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer — each of whom has three Cy Young Awards — will be on the ballot. It'll be harder for other starters if they're being compared directly to those three.

But Hernández might get in before that becomes an issue.

Top returner

''It looks like Utley got himself into a position where he might be elected as soon as next year, although a 16% gain is not easy," Thibodaux said. "He'll probably get close if he doesn't actually get all the way.''

Last chance

Only one player will be in his 10th year on the ballot next time. That's Omar Vizquel, who received only 18.4% approval this year.

The slick-fielding shortstop was at 52.6% in 2020, but he was accused of domestic violence by his ex-wife and his support cratered. He was also sued over claims of sexual harassment by a former minor league bat boy.

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