The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday announced the winners of its annual ballots, and the hall’s reputation as a popularity contest was confirmed for another year.
For the first time since it was created in 2008, the player’s division voters failed to elect anyone as last year’s runner-up, Shingo Takatsu, fell seven votes short of selection. Popular DeNA BayStars manager Alex Ramirez, the only imported player with 2,000 hits shot up the leaderboard to finish second in the ballot with 233 of the 266 votes needed for selection.
Tuffy Rhodes, easily the best player on the player’s division ballot, took a slight step backward. A year ago, he was named on 29.6 percent of the ballots, this year on 28.8 percent.
Ramirez is a deserving candidate and this is not a slur on his reputation, but as a player, he didn’t have as big an impact as Rhodes. Ramirez was a popular player with the Giants, while Rhodes’ time with the Giants was curtailed by injury and marred by an argument with a coach.
HOF Players Division results 2020
| Name | Votes | 2020 Pct | 2019 pct | Career Win Shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shingo Takatsu | 259 | 73.3 | 60.6 | 120 |
| Alex Ramirez | 233 | 65.8 | 40.4 | 248 |
| Masahiro Kawai | 218 | 61.6 | 50.7 | 148 |
| Shinya Miyamoto | 206 | 58.2 | 41.2 | 201 |
| Kenjiro Nomura | 127 | 35.9 | 37.2 | 244 |
| Masumi Kuwata | 121 | 34.2 | 31.5 | 191 |
| Hiroki Kokubo | 104 | 29.4 | 32.1 | 311 |
| Tuffy Rhodes | 102 | 28.8 | 29.6 | 320 |
| Tomonori Maeda | 102 | 28.8 | 29.6 | 262 |
| Takuro Ishii | 87 | 24.6 | 24.8 | 299 |
| Atsunori Inaba | 72 | 20.3 | NA | 302 |
| Kenji Jojima | 61 | 17.2 | 15.1 | 294 |
| Takeshi Yamasaki | 41 | 11.6 | 11.3 | 241 |
| Shinji Sasaoka | 39 | 11.0 | 10.5 | 172 |
| So Taguchi | 34 | 9.6 | 10.2 | 170 |
| Norihiro Akahoshi | 32 | 9.0 | 8.9 | 146 |
| Norihiro Nakamura | 28 | 7.9 | NA | 305 |
| Shinjiro Hiyama | 16 | 4.5 | 3.2 | 138 |
| Kazuhisa Ishii | 14 | 4.0 | 7.5 | 166 |
| Akinori Iwamura | 4 | 1.1 | NA | 222 |
| Makoto Kaneko | 3 | 0.8 | NA | 180 |
Two longtime inoffensive shortstops Masahiro Kawai and Shinya Miyamoto continued to build support, being named on 61.6 percent of the ballots and 58.2, respectively.
At the other end, Akinori Iwamura and Makoto Kaneko both dropped off the ballot on their first try, having failed to be named on 2 percent of the ballots.
HOF Experts Division Results 2020
| Name | Votes | 2020 Pct | 2019 pct | Career Win Shares |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koichi Tabuchi | 109 | 80.7 | 64.7 | 292 |
| Randy Bass | 89 | 65.9 | 63.2 | 133 |
| Masayuki Kakefu | 62 | 45.9 | 30.8 | 303 |
| Keishi Osawa | 49 | 36.3 | 30.1 | |
| Isao Shibata | 40 | 29.6 | 26.3 | 261 |
| Tokuji Nagaike | 37 | 27.4 | 17.3 | 216 |
| Hideji Kato | 28 | 20.7 | 19.5 | 286 |
| Masayuki Dobashi | 27 | 20.0 | 24.1 | 155 |
| Mitsuhiro Adachi | 21 | 15.6 | 14.3 | 204 |
| Shigeru Takada | 17 | 12.6 | NA | 167 |
| Masataka Nashida | 17 | 12.6 | 19.5 | 103 |
| Akinobu Okada | 16 | 11.9 | 10.5 | 208 |
| Kiyoshi Nakahata | 15 | 11.1 | 10.5 | 148 |
| Yoshinori Sato | 14 | 10.4 | NA | 175 |
| Hiromu Matsuoka | 12 | 8.9 | 7.5 | 233 |
| Mitsuo Tatsukawa | 11 | 8.1 | NA | 110 |
In the expert’s division, slugging catcher Koichi Tabuchi got his overdue reward, while another popular former Hanshin Tiger, two-time triple crown winner Randy Bass, moved to the top of the division’s pecking order with 65.9 percent of the vote.
The good news from Japan’s equivalent of the veteran’s committee was that Masayuki Kakefu moved up from an embarrassing 30.8 percent of the vote last year to 45.9 percent and will be poised to go in after Bass is elected a year from now.
