Ichiro Suzuki became the first Japanese-born player elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and he’ll be joined in the Class of 2025 by starting pitcher CC Sabathia and closer Billy Wagner.
Suzuki got 393 of 394 votes in balloting of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. He would have joined Yankees great Mariano Rivera (2019) as the only unanimous selections. Instead, Suzuki’s 99.746% of the vote is second only to Derek Jeter’s 99.748% (396 of 397 ballots cast in 2020) as the highest plurality for a position player in Hall of Fame voting, per the BBWAA.
Suzuki collected 2,542 of his 3,089 career hits as a member of the Seattle Mariners. Before that, he collected 1,278 hits in the Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan, giving him more overall hits (4,367) than Pete Rose, MLB’s all-time leader.
Sabathia, who was 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA, also was on the ballot for the first time, and he earned 86.8% of the vote. He was the 2007 AL Cy Young winner while with Cleveland, won a World Series title with the Yankees in 2009 and was a six-time All-Star selection over 19 seasons that included a stop with Milwaukee.
His 3,093 career strikeouts make him one of 19 members of the 3,000-strikeout club, and he ranks third among left-handers on that list behind Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton.
