David Ortiz elected to Hall of Fame; Mark Buehrle gets enough votes to stay on ballot

David Ortiz

David Ortiz is going to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are not.

Ortiz, the former Boston Red Sox designated hitter, received 77.9% of the votes by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He was the only eligible player to clear the 75% threshold required for induction, and he becomes the 58th player elected in his first year of eligibility.

Bonds, baseball's all-time leading home run hitter, appeared on 66% of the ballots. Clemens, a 354-game winner, received 65.2% of the vote. Both Bonds and Clemens now fall off the ballot for next year, as this was their 10th and final year of eligibility.

Ultimately, suspicions about performance-enhancing drugs doomed the candidacies of both Bonds and Clemens. The same could be said of former Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa, who received only 18.5% of votes in his 10th and final year on the ballot. Sosa has more than 600 career home runs, but it's clear that only a small percentage of voters see his career accomplishments as legitimate.

Ortiz getting in on the first ballot is a bit of a surprise, just because he also has been the subject of PED speculation. A 2009 story in The New York Times reported that Ortiz was among 104 players who tested positive for PEDs during a round of tests conducted in 2003. Those test results were supposed to remain anonymous. 

Let's be fair to Ortiz and point out that he played through the 2016 season, and he no doubt was tested for PEDs on numerous occasions. He never tested positive. Ortiz finished his career with 541 home runs, and he is a three-time World Series champion. He is tied for first all-time in go-ahead postseason hits with 17, and he is tied for first all-time in walk-off postseason hits with three. There's little question his playoff accomplishments resonated with voters.

Farther down the voting totals, former White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle received 5.8% of votes, just enough to clear the 5% threshold to remain on the ballot for another year. Next year will be Buehrle's third season of eligibility.

It will be interesting to see if Buehrle's support grows in coming years with less of a logjam on the ballot. As most people know, writers can vote for a maximum of 10 players. For the past 10 years, Bonds and Clemens have gotten a lot of votes -- just never enough to secure induction. Sosa, Curt Schilling and Tim Hudson have also fallen off the ballot.

One other White Sox player of note: Former catcher A.J. Pierzynski received 0.5% of the vote and fell off the ballot in his first year of eligibility. Other players who failed to get 5% of the vote included Joe Nathan, Tim Lincecum, Ryan Howard, Mark Teixeira, Justin Morneau, Jonathan Papelbon, Prince Fielder, Carl Crawford and Jake Peavy.

(Yes, I know Peavy played for the Sox, but I still think of him as a San Diego Padre.)

Here are the vote totals for notable players: Ortiz 77.9%, Bonds 66%, Clemens 65.2%, Scott Rolen 63.2%, Schilling 58.6%, Todd Helton 52%, Billy Wagner 51%, Andruw Jones 41.1%, Gary Sheffield 40.6%, Alex Rodriguez 34.3%, Jeff Kent 32.7%, Manny Ramirez 28.9%, Omar Vizquel 23.9%, Sosa 18.5%, Andy Pettitte 10.7%, Jimmy Rollins 9.4%, Bobby Abreu, 8.6%, Buehrle 5.8%, Torii Hunter, 5.3%.