Chase Utley off to strong start in BBWAA Hall of Fame voting

Former Phillies second baseman Chase Utley is doing well in his first year on the Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame ballot.

With 84 votes, or 23.2% of the vote revealed, Utley has 39 votes, according to Ryan Thibodaux’s ballot tracking team. He’s already clear of the 5% threshold needed to stay on the ballot for another year.

Utley is unlikely to be elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He needs to appear on 84.4% of remaining ballots (about 249 votes) in order to reach the 75% vote threshold needed for election this year. Candidates who receive at least 5% of the vote each year have 10 years to reach the 75% threshold for election.

Utley was never going to get elected in his first year on the BBWAA ballot, but the support for his candidacy in year one is encouraging.

Thibodaux’s team recently made a chart comparing Utley’s numbers through 60 ballots with Scott Rolen’s last five years on the ballot between 2019 and 2023. Utley has more votes than Rolen did through 60 ballots revealed in his third year in 2020. Utley’s raw vote total of 39 is already higher than Rolen’s entire first-year vote total of 38 in 2018. Rolen was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2023 with 76.3% of the vote.

Utley and Rolen are very similar Hall of Fame candidates. Both players are strong defenders whose cases are boosted by the use of advanced metrics in the voting process. With more and more of the electorate valuing advanced metrics like WAR over more traditional counting statistics, Utley, like Rolen, will likely receive a higher percentage of the vote in subsequent years as more voters give his candidacy a much closer look.

Utley is figured to do much better among the more forward-thinking voters who tend to release their ballot early as opposed to the more traditional voters who are more likely to reveal their votes after the Hall announces this year’s results on Jan 23.

That’s because Utley finished his career 115 hits short of 2,000. The BBWAA has yet to elect a position player candidate from the expansion era that does not have 2,000 hits. Though it should be noted that Andruw Jones, who received 61.4% of the vote in his sixth year on the ballot in 2023 and has 1,933 hits, is on track to eventually get elected to the Hall of Fame.

Utley, however, was one of the best players in baseball during his peak. As Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs

wrote, Utley’s 59.7 fWAR from 2005-2014 trails only Albert Pujols’ 67.7.

Utley posted five consecutive 7 fWAR seasons from 2005 to 2009, including two 8 fWAR seasons from 2008 to 2009.

His peak might ultimately be too good for voters to ignore. Don’t expect Utley to get in this year, but judging by the early results, Utley has a good chance of eventually getting elected in the next five years.

Utley is one of five former Phillies on the 2024 BBWAA ballot. Jose Bautista is likely a one-and-done candidate while Utley’s former teammates, Bobby Abreu (fifth year) and Jimmy Rollins (third year), are on track to remain on the ballot for another year. Billy Wagner (ninth year) is at 76.9% and has a chance to earn election to the Hall of Fame this year.

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