5 former Red Sox eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot in 2023

These former Boston Red Sox are Hall of Fame eligible in 2023

The Baseball Hall of Fame ballot will be drastically different next year in the aftermath of the Class of 2022, with several former Boston Red Sox players being added and removed.

David Ortiz clearly won’t be on the ballot since he was elected into the Hall of Fame by receiving 77.9% of the vote this year.

Former Red Sox pitchers Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling fell short of the percentage of votes required for induction in their 10th and final year on the ballot. Neither will be getting an invitation to Cooperstown and they are no longer eligible. In Schilling’s case, that’s what he wanted all along, right?

Jonathan Papelbon, A.J. Pierzynski, Carl Crawford and Jake Peavy received less than five percent of the vote, which means these former Red Sox players will drop off the ballot next year.

That eliminates most of the candidates with ties to the Red Sox. Manny Ramirez is the most notable holdover but his chances of being elected already appear doomed. Billy Wagner, who had a very brief stay in Boston near the end of his career, reached 51% in his eighth year of eligibility.

While there aren’t many former Red Sox returning to the ballot next year, there are a handful who will be eligible for the first time in 2023. This doesn’t include infielder Aaron Hill, who spent an underwhelming 47 games with the Red Sox near the end of his career.

Baseball-Reference has a Hall of Fame monitor created by Bill James that attempts to measure the chances that a player will be elected. A score over 100 is likely while anything under 100 is less likely. This metric ignores any association with PEDs or off-field behavior, which is why Clemens and Schilling have high scores despite falling short of election. Ortiz had a score of 171.

We’ll be ranking the five new additions with ties to the Red Sox in order of their HOFm score.