ORLANDO — The long wait just got a little longer for Don Mattingly.
The former Yankees first baseman once again failed to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, falling six votes short in the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, the results of which were revealed Sunday.
The eight players on the ballot – Mattingly, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela – needed to receive 12 votes from the 16-person committee to earn induction into Cooperstown next July.
Kent was the only member voted out.
This was the nineteenth time Mattingly had been considered for the Hall of Fame.
Three years ago, he fell short, receiving just eight votes while Fred McGriff was unanimously chosen for enshrinement.
In his 15 years of voting for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, Mattingly received 28.2 percent of the vote, well below the required 75 percent.
“If that doesn’t happen, it’s not going to change who I am, what I think about things,” Mattingly said recently on the podcast “The Show with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman.” “There will be no bitterness. But you hope to have that opportunity.”
Mattingly’s next chance to enter the Hall of Fame will come in 2028, when the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee votes again.
If not for a chronic back injury that ended his career, the 64-year-old Mattingly might have had a smoother, quicker road to Cooperstown.
In 14 big league seasons – in which he was a six-time All-Star, a nine-time Gold Glover and the 1985 American League MVP – the Yankee hit .307 with an .830 OPS, 2,153 hits, 222 home runs and 1,099 RBI.
Much of that production dates back to 1984-1989, when he was one of the best players in the game, before a degenerative disc in his back began to take its toll.
In addition to winning MVP in 1985 – when he hit .324 with 35 home runs, 145 RBI and a .939 OPS – Mattingly also placed second (1986), fifth (1984) and seventh (1987) in MVP voting during his prime.
Mattingly finished his career with a bWAR of 42.4, accumulating 33.0 from 1984 to 1989. Using JAWS – Jay Jaffe’s WAR-based scoring system that evaluates players’ candidacy for the Hall of Fame – Mattingly’s 39.1 ranked 40th among all first basemen, just ahead of Gil Hodges, the former Mets legend who was elected posthumously in 2021 by the Golden Days Era committee.
Mattingly’s seven-year WAR peak of 35.7 tied for 33rd, just behind McGriff (36.0).
After his injury-forced retirement following the 1995 season – made official in 1997, just before the Yankees entered their dynasty – Mattingly went on to serve as a manager for the Yankees and Dodgers before managing 12 seasons with the Dodgers and Marlins.
He re-entered the spotlight this fall as the Blue Jays’ bench coach, falling significantly short of what would have been his first World Series championship.
This year’s Contemporary Baseball Eras Committee — which decided the players whose greatest contributions came since 1980 — included Hall of Famers Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal, Tony Pérez, Ozzie Smith, Alan Trammell and Robin Yount; major league executives Mark Attanasio, Doug Melvin, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins and Terry Ryan; and veteran media members/historians Steve Hirdt, Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark.
Worth a look
