Dominican slugger Vladimir Guerrero has received 94% of the first 176 votes cast in this year’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. There are 453 members of the Baseball Writers Association that have voted, which means that 58% of the writers still have to vote.
Guerrero is second in the class of 2018 that is headed by Chipper Jones who has received 98% of the votes cast. Guerrero is next with 94% followed by Jim Thome who has received 93%. Edgar Martinez (80%) and Trevor Hoffman (78%) are the only others who so far have received more than the required 75% to enter the Hall of Fame.
According to Hall of Famer Tim Raines, it is possible that Vladimir Guerrero could make the Hall of Fame this very year. The Dominican slugger played 16 years in the Big Leagues, from 1996 to 2011. He played with the Expos, Anaheim Angels and the Baltimore Orioles.
Playing as an outfielder Guerrero batted .318 and hit 499 home runs and drove in 1,496 RBI and was named to the All Star team nine times.
According to the manager of the Angels, Mike Scioscia, who was Guerrero’s manager for six years, he was as “complete a baseball player as anyone could be.”
In spite of his numbers, Guerrero was not inducted in his first year on the ballot where he appeared on only 71.7% of the ballots. If inducted, Guerrero will be the first Dominican position player to reach the Hall of Fame and will follow Dominican pitching legends Juan Marichal and Pedro Martinez.
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Diario Libre
11 January 2018
