Astros Legend Up for Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Again

Is this the year that former Houston Astros reliever Billy Wagner gets his call from Cooperstown?

Wagner was one of 26 players on the 2024 ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame on Monday, and the closer will take his ninth shot at enshrinement.

Wagner is a holdover candidate from last year’s ballot and received the second-most percentage of votes among players that weren’t inducted. Wagner received 68.1 percent of the vote. The only holdover candidate who received more is Todd Helton, who received 72.2 percent of the vote.

Wagner also played for Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta and the New York Mets, but he is most closely associated with the Astros, where he played the first nine years of his career.

With Houston, he went 26-29 and had 225 saves, as he made it to the All-Star Game three times. He was also named the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year in 1999 with Houston, a year in which he had 39 saves, went 4-1 and finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting.

By the end of his career he was a seven-time All-Star and pitched part of a combined no-hitter on June 11, 2003, with Houston. He is also a member of the Houston Astros Hall of Fame.

His 422 career saves is second-highest among left-handed relievers and sixth overall. His career 2.31 ERA is the lowest among retired left-handed pitchers with at least 500 innings pitched in the live ball era. At the time of his retirement his 14.95 single-season-strikeout-per-nine innings was the highest among relievers.

Other returning candidates include Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltrán, Álex Rodríguez, Manny Ramírez, Omar Vizquel, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu, Jimmy Rollins, Mark Buehrle, Francisco Rodríguez and Torii Hunter.

New candidates include Adrian Beltré, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, José Bautista, Bartolo Colon, Adrián González, Matt Holliday, Brandon Phillips, José Reyes, James Shields and David Wright.

The complete class will be announced on Jan. 23, with voting to be completed by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America by Dec. 31. In December, a select panel will determine, if any, finalists on the Contemporary Baseball Era Managers/Executives/Umpires ballot advance to next year’s ceremony, which is set for July 21 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

A player requires 75 percent of the votes from the BBWAA for induction.