Former Phillies closer Billy Wagner elected to Hall of Fame, joining Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia

Billy Wagner had 422 saves in his 16-year career, including 59 with the Phillies. Read more Once more, for baseball immortality, Billy Wagner closed it out. Wagner, the dominant closer who played a two-season sliver of his 16-year career with the Phillies, got elected Tuesday night to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his 10th and final year on the ballot. He will be joined in the Class of 2025 by all-time hit king Ichiro Suzuki and lefty workhorse CC Sabathia, both first-time candidates. Suzuki, the first player born in Japan to make it to the Hall of Fame, was a landslide choice, as expected, appearing on all but one of 394 ballots cast by long-standing members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Sabathia received 86.8% of the votes, while Wagner came in with 82.5%. A three-quarter majority is required for election. » READ MORE: Let's chat the Baseball Hall of Fame: Scott Lauber and Matt Breen answer your questions on Cooperstown, their ballots, and the next Phillie to enter. It marked the second year in a row — but only the second time since 2019 — that the writers elected as many as three players. Suzuki, Sabathia, and Wagner will be inducted — with late former Phillies slugger Dick Allen and Dave Parker, who got voted in last month by a Hall of Fame special committee — on July 27 in Cooperstown, N.Y. Wagner, who is expected to request an Astros cap on his plaque, was among four former Phillies on the writers’ ballot. Chase Utley, a second-year candidate, climbed to 39.8% of the vote after getting 28.8% last year. Bobby Abreu and Jimmy Rollins made more modest gains to 19.5% and 18%, respectively, in their sixth and fourth go-rounds. Utley, Rollins, and Abreu will be up for consideration again next year, with former Phillies ace Cole Hamels poised to be added to the ballot. The call from Cooperstown was 10 years in the making for Wagner, who described the highs and lows of the drawn-out process as a “nightmare.” He debuted on the ballot in 2016 and received only 10.5% support, but leaped to 31.7% in 2020 and 68.1% in 2023. Then came last year. Wagner was coaching his high school baseball team at the Miller School of Albemarle in Charlottesville, Va., when an NBC camera crew showed up to capture his reaction when the Hall of Fame results were announced live on MLB Network in anticipation that he would finally get over the 75% mark. » READ MORE: Rethinking Andy Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case and what it might mean for Cole Hamels’ chances in 2026 Wagner, 53, planned to keep a lower profile for his Hall of Fame cliff-hanger. Through Monday, he was trending at nearly 85% with roughly half of the voters having revealed their ballots, according to Ryan Thibodeaux’s tracking data. But he wasn’t about to get overconfident, either. The case for Wagner was compelling. Since 1920, he leads all pitchers in opponent batting average (.187) and strikeout rate (33.2%), making him effectively the most difficult pitcher to hit. He ranks second in WHIP (0.994) and opponent OPS (.558) and has the eighth-most saves (422), trailing three Hall of Famers (Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and Lee Smith), one pitcher who is on the ballot (Francisco Rodríguez), two active relievers (Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel), and former closer John Franco. But some writers withheld their vote, citing mostly Wagner’s 10.03 ERA in eight postseason series. Wagner also pitched only 903 innings, less than contemporary Hall of Fame closers such as Rivera (1,283⅔) and Hoffman (1,089⅓). Other voters tended simply to be biased against closers. Wagner was at the peak of his powers in two seasons with the Phillies. Acquired in a November 2003 trade with the Astros for pitchers Brandon Duckworth, Taylor Buchholz, and Ezequiel Astacio, he posted a 1.86 ERA, 59 saves, and 146 strikeouts in 126 innings in 2004 and ‘05. But the Phillies narrowly missed the playoffs both years, and Wagner was critical of teammates and management. He blew a save down the stretch against the Astros, and the Phillies finished one game behind Houston in the wild-card race. Wagner signed with the rival Mets as a free agent and spent 3½ seasons in New York before getting traded to the Red Sox in August 2009 and finishing his career with the Braves in 2010. He will be the ninth pitcher inducted to the Hall of Fame as primarily a reliever, joining Rivera, Hoffman, Smith, Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Bruce Sutter, and Rich Gossage. “My kids on my baseball team make fun of me all the time about crying with emotion, but the game has given me so much,” said Wagner, who broke down several times in an MLB Network interview that preceded a Zoom call with reporters. “It’s given me everything that I could possibly have. I’m very grateful.” » READ MORE: Billy Wagner says the Hall of Fame process is ‘a nightmare.’ But it offers a lesson for his high school team. Suzuki, 51, came to MLB for the 2001 season as a 27-year-old after a distinguished career in Japan and made an immediate impact. He won the batting title (.350), stolen-base crown (56), Rookie of the Year, and was named MVP in his first season and led the Mariners to 116 victories. In 2004, he set a single-season record with 262 hits. He had 10 seasons in a row with at least 200 hits. And he was identifiable by one name: Ichiro, making him the Prince or Madonna of baseball. Here’s the list of players with 3,000 career hits and 500 steals: Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Lou Brock, Rickey Henderson, Paul Molitor, and Ichiro. Add in his nine seasons in Japan, and Ichiro piled up 4,367 hits (111 more than MLB leader Pete Rose) and 708 steals. The question, then, was less about Ichiro’s worthiness as a first-ballot Hall of Famer than whether he would join Rivera as the only unanimous selections. Like Derek Jeter in 2020, he fell short of that distinction by a single vote on a ballot that hasn’t been publicly revealed. Only five years removed from his last game, Sabathia is a dinosaur, a starting pitcher who, at his peak, racked up 230-plus-inning seasons and complete games, often pitching on short rest when the stakes were highest. Sabathia, 44, finished with 251 wins and 3,093 strikeouts. He won the Cy Young Award in 2007 and had five consecutive top-five finishes in the voting, and pushed the Yankees to their last World Series championship in 2009. But Sabathia was never better than in 2008. After a midseason trade to the Brewers, with free agency (and a then-record contract) looming after the season, he completed seven of 17 starts, won 11 of 13 decisions, posted a 1.65 ERA, and made his final three regular-season starts on three days’ rest to carry Milwaukee into the playoffs. » READ MORE: After 20 misses, late Phillies star Dick Allen is finally a Hall of Famer: ‘It should’ve happened so long ago’ There was one near-miss in this voting cycle: center fielder Carlos Beltrán. Beltrán, 47, might have already gotten elected if not for his role as a ringleader of the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal. But the writers appear to be softening. Beltrán’s total rose to 70.3%, up from 57.1% last year and 46.5% in 2023. He stands an excellent chance of climbing over 75% next year. Curt Schilling is the only candidate ever to get to the 70% mark and not get in. Fellow center fielder Andruw Jones has more work to do. In his eighth time on the ballot, Jones came in at 66.2%, a small increase from 61.6% last year.