Chase Utley leads former Phillies in 2026 BBWAA Hall of Fame voting
Chase Utley appeared on 59.1% of 2026 Baseball Writers’ Association of America Hall of Fame ballots, the National Baseball Hall of Fame announced on Tuesday. Utley’s percentage led the group of six former Phillies who appeared on the ballot.
The other former Phillies who appeared on the ballot were Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels, Bobby Abreu, Howie Kendrick and Hunter Pence.
Rollins, in his fifth year on the ballot, received 25.4% of the vote. Hamels received 23.8% of the vote in his debut year. Both will remain on the ballot for 2027.
Abreu, who’s been getting some recognition as an underrated player in recent years by some, will also remain on the ballot in 2027 after appearing on 30.8% of the ballots cast in his seventh year of eligibility.
Kendrick, currently a member of the Phillies’ front office, and Hunter Pence were in their debut years on the ballot and didn’t receive enough votes to stay on.
Moving forward, Utley’s chances to reach Cooperstown appear to be the strongest between himself, Rollins, Hamels and Abreu. Support for him has grown each year since appearing on the ballot for the first time in 2024. New-age voters like Utley because of his peak production; they don’t worry about his lack of durability and limited counting stats.
During his prime, Utley was one of the best players in baseball, according to Baseball Reference’s version of wins above replacement. Finishing with a career 64.6 WAR, Utley finished top five in that category among National League position players every season between 2005 and 2009. He finished eighth in 2010, appearing in 115 games that season.
Utley’s WAR7 — a Baseball Reference stat that weighs the best seven years of a player’s career in terms of WAR — is 49.3. The average second baseman in the Hall of Fame has a 44.1 WAR7.
Rollins’ case is the opposite of Utley’s. His career WAR (47.9) and WAR7 (32.6) aren’t all that great, but he’s a franchise icon and former NL Most Valuable Player with strong counting stats.
Rollins leads the Phillies in career hits with 2,306. Also, as The Athletic’s Jayson Stark pointed out in his 2026 Hall of Fame ballot column, Rollins is the only shortstop in baseball history to record at least 2,400 hits, 200 homers, 400 steals and 800 extra-base hits.
Rollins was also a strong defender, durable throughout his career and never moved off shortstop, even in his twilight years — something not many shortstops can claim.
As for Hamels and Abreu, their cases are different than those of Utley and Rollins.
Hamels was never considered one of the best pitchers while he played; he only finished top-five in Cy Young Award voting once (2011). But he did have durability. The left-hander failed to make 30-plus starts just twice between 2007 and 2018. And, during that stretch, Hamels ranked fourth in baseball in WAR among pitchers (53.0), falling behind three future Hall of Famers: Clayton Kershaw (62.1), Justin Verlander (60.9) and Zack Greinke (56.3).
Hamels’ career WAR (59.0) is strong, but not having a true peak of dominance where he was a top-five pitcher in his league or having the some of the counting stats voters like make his chances of enshrinement hard to gauge moving forward.
Abreu’s case is rather interesting when considering the fact that there are just three players ever to have a career stat line with at least 2,470 hits, 574 doubles, 288 home runs, 400 stolen bases and a 60.2 WAR. Those are Abreu’s career totals. So he’s one. The other two? Barry Bonds and Craig Biggio.
The problem for Abreu is that he’s not gaining enough traction. He has three years of eligibility left, and there may not be enough time for his support to grow from this year’s 30.8% of the vote to the necessary 75% to be inducted.
While no former Phillies got in, the BBWAA did vote in two players to the Hall of Fame in Carlos Beltrán (84.2%) and Andruw Jones (78.4%). Beltrán and Jones join Jeff Kent in this year’s Hall of Fame class. Kent was voted in by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee in December.