Early 2026 Hall of Fame voting trends have a pleasant surprise for Mariners fans

Around this time last year, Seattle Mariners fans were crossing their fingers for Félix Hernández, but not exactly holding their breath in the process. Though he was on the ballot for the first time, him actually getting into the Hall of Fame in 2025 felt like a long shot.

In the end, he didn't even come close. "King Félix" debuted with 20.6 percent of the vote, safely above the 5.0 percent threshold to stay on the ballot, but well short of the 75.0 percent needed for a plaque in Cooperstown.

Now in his second year on the ballot, the odds remain against Hernández getting into the Hall of Fame in 2026. We're pleased to report, though, that they're looking better than even the most steadfast optimist might have anticipated.

Early 2026 Hall of Fame voting trends have a pleasant surprise for Félix Hernández

There are still many votes left to be counted between now and when the 2026 Hall of Fame class is revealed on January 20, but what votes are public have very good news for Hernández. Per Ryan Thibodaux's ballot tracker, the Mariners' longtime ace has appeared on 60.6 percent of ballots that have been made public so far.

Even if there's still a bit of distance between there and 75 percent, it's still a shocking increase over his share of the vote in 2025. And while his final percentage is sure to be lower, the difference might not be that drastic. To use last year as an example, there was only a 2.9 percent gap between his showing on public ballots and his final share once all the votes were counted.

Which brings us to the obvious question: What are BBWAA voters seeing with Hernández now that they didn't last time around?

It's already clear that quite a few voters have changed their minds about Hernández, who has gained 20 votes from voters who didn't support his cause in 2025. That could simply be a case of him benefiting from no longer sharing the ballot with Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner. It could also be that another phenomenon is taking hold of the voters.

By traditional standards, Hernández did not have a Cooperstown-caliber career. He had a record of 169-136 in his 15 seasons with the Mariners, and the Jaffe WAR Score System barely rates him as a top-100 starting pitcher. One of the guys ahead of him is Roy Oswalt, who got 0.9 percent of the vote in his first and only year on the ballot in 2019.

Yet things have changed since then. Mike Petriello of MLB.com and Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs are among those arguing that Hall of Fame standards for starting pitchers need to be recalibrated, specifically for how modern starters aren't expected to work as hard as their yesteryear peers.

"Pretending today's pitchers just aren't good isn't tenable," wrote Petriello. "It really is going to have to be more just 'best pitcher of your generation,' however you define that."

If one buys into this idea, then Hernández begins to look like a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame. He began his career with a run between 2005 and 2015 in which he averaged a 3.11 ERA and 206 innings per season. He was an All-Star six times, an ERA champion twice, and he won the AL Cy Young Award in 2010. Two other times, he was the runner-up for the award.

All told, the 50.0 rWAR and 52.4 fWAR that Hernández accumulated during that decade-long run were tops among all pitchers. That's obviously "best of his generation" stuff, even if it does feel in retrospect like he walked so that Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer could run off and have even better careers.

Given that he didn't work harder to stay in shape during his playing days, it is fair to say that Hernández is complicit in his own collapse after he turned 30 back in 2016. He was done pitching after his age-33 season, the same age at which two of the aforementioned trio (Verlander and Scherzer) were still competing for Cy Young Awards.

Nonetheless, there's nothing in the Hall of Fame voting guidelines that says voters must punish players who left prime years on the table. And even if he doesn't get into Cooperstown in 2026, Hernández should see the way things are trending as an excuse to begin writing his acceptance speech.