With Pete Rose and ‘Shoeless’ Joe eligible, how does the Baseball Hall of Fame voting process actually work?

Commissioner Rob Manfred’s decision Tuesday to remove Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, among others, from baseball’s permanently ineligible list was a requisite first step toward these two legends of the game potentially being enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Still, this development far from guarantees that either will be inducted — let alone anytime soon. While Manfred’s verdict opened a previously sealed door, it’s important to understand that Rose’s and Jackson’s candidacies are now in the earliest stages of a process slated to unfold over the next several years. This is not an express lane to election by any means.

Let’s take a look at how the Baseball Hall of Fame voting process works.

No, Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe aren’t going on the writers ballot

The most prominent and well-known path to induction into baseball’s Hall of Fame is via the BBWAA ballot. In order to appear on that ballot, candidates need to have played in a minimum of 10 major-league seasons, and they cannot appear on the ballot until five years after their final season. Once on the ballot, a player must accrue 75% of the vote from an electorate made up of roughly 400 writers in order to earn induction.

If a player receives less than 5% of the vote in any year, they fall off the ballot. But as long as they clear the 5% threshold, players stay on the ballot for up to 10 years to be reconsidered annually by voters. Some candidates cruise into Cooperstown on the first ballot, like Ichiro Suzuki and Mariano Rivera, while others, such as recent inductees Todd Helton and Billy Wagner, gradually climb to the necessary 75% over the years.

Without the associated scandal, Rose’s overwhelming on-field credentials would’ve warranted immediate induction in his first year of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot in 1992. Instead, baseball’s hit king was banned in 1989, before he could appear on the writers’ ballot, leaving him on the outside looking in on the entire Hall of Fame process for decades.

Now that there is no league-sanctioned obstacle in the way of election — banned players are ineligible to be considered for the Hall of Fame — will Rose and Jackson be swiftly added to next year’s BBWAA ballot, to be considered alongside the likes of Carlos Beltran, Chase Utley and new candidates such as Cole Hamels?

Not quite. Because it has been (way) more than 15 years since the end of their careers, Rose and Jackson aren’t eligible to be added to the writers’ ballot. Instead, their candidacies will go through an alternate process colloquially referred to as the veterans committee.

How does the veterans committee work?

While the BBWAA ballot is the most common vehicle for former players to be selected for induction, it’s not the only way to end up in Cooperstown. For other notable figures throughout the game’s history — from managers to executives to even umpires — and for players who have fallen off the writers’ ballot but are deemed worthy of further opportunity to be considered, there are committees organized by the Hall of Fame that convene at regular intervals to review candidacies and vote on possible enshrinement.

The form and function of the Hall of Fame’s veterans committee have evolved over the years, with the majority of revisions focused on defining time periods within the game’s lengthy history as a way to narrow the number of candidates being considered on an annual basis. In 2016, the Hall announced that candidates would be evaluated from four eras and that each era’s candidates would be reviewed with varying frequency:

• Early Baseball (1871–1949) — once every 10 years

• Golden Days (1950–1969) — once every 5 years

• Modern Baseball (1970–1987) — twice every 5 years

• Today’s Game (1988–present) — twice every 5 years

This convoluted format did not last long. In 2022, the Hall introduced a new structure that simplified the era breakdown and introduced an annual rotation among three subcategories, known as Eras Committees. As described on the Hall of Fame’s website:

Three ballots for consideration have been consolidated into two timeframes:

The Contemporary Baseball Era, consisting of the period from 1980 to present day.

The Classic Baseball Era, consisting of the period prior to 1980 and including Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues stars.

The Contemporary Baseball Era will split into two separate ballots — one ballot to consider only players who made their greatest impact on the game since 1980, and another composite ballot consisting of managers, executives and umpires whose greatest contributions to the game have come since 1980.

So what’s the timeline for Rose and Jackson?

Because Rose and Jackson’s candidacies fall under the scope of the Classic Baseball Era, which met in 2024, they won’t be considered until the next time their ballot comes around: 2027. This is simply a result of where we are in the Eras Committees’ three-year cycle.

“Major League Baseball’s decision to remove deceased individuals from the permanently ineligible list will allow for the Hall of Fame candidacy of such individuals to now be considered,” Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark said in a statement Tuesday. “The Historical Overview Committee will develop the ballot of eight names for the Classic Baseball Era Committee — which evaluates candidates who made their greatest impact on the game prior to 1980 — to vote on when it meets next in December 2027.”

In 2022, in the first year under the new system, the veterans committee elected first baseman Fred McGriff, who most notably starred for the ‘90s Braves, as part of the first edition of the Contemporary Baseball Era/Players ballot. In 2023, the committee elected legendary manager Jim Leyland as part of the Contemporary Baseball Era/Managers-Executives-Umpires ballot. And last December, 1978 NL MVP Dave Parker and 1960s Phillies slugger Dick Allen were elected as part of the Classic Baseball Era ballot.

Going forward, the three-ballot rotation will continue:

• December 2025 (for inclusion in the Class of 2026): Contemporary Baseball Era/Players ballot

• December 2026 (for inclusion in the Class of 2027): Contemporary Baseball Era/Managers-Executives-Umpires ballot

• December 2027 (for inclusion in the Class of 2028): Classic Baseball Era ballot — This is when Rose and Jackson will be considered.

More specifically, Eras Committee ballots are voted on in advance of baseball’s Winter Meetings and announced on the first night of the annual offseason gathering. This is a different timeline from the BBWAA ballots, which are submitted until Jan. 1, with results announced in late January. Ultimately, electees from both ballots are inducted together the following summer.

It’s worth noting that 2027 will be the first year that players such as Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina and David Price — whose final major-league seasons were in 2022 — will appear on the BBWAA ballot. Pujols in particular is an absolute lock to be inducted on his first ballot, meaning he could be joined in the Hall of Fame Class of 2028 by Rose, Jackson and/or others who were removed from the ineligible list on Tuesday.

Who votes on the Classic Baseball Era committee?

Now that we’ve cleared up the sequencing, let’s talk about who is on these committees. If a few hundred veteran baseball writers won’t be tasked with assessing Rose’s and Jackson’s candidacies for Cooperstown, who will? The committee is composed of representatives from three categories: 1) Hall of Famers, 2) executives and owners (current and former) and 3) media and historians.

But before we get into the who, it’s important to understand the size of the electorate, because it’s a much smaller number than the roughly 400 ballwriters who submit an annual ballot. Just 16 members make up each Eras Committee. Candidates still need the requisite 75% to be elected, meaning a candidate needs a dozen votes to be enshrined in the Hall.

The exact makeup of the committee changes annually, so we likely won’t know the 2027 voters for two years, but we can get a sense of who could be involved by looking at who voted on the Classic Baseball Era ballot last year. Among the 16 were former greats Paul Molitor, Tony Perez and Ozzie Smith, a former executive in Sandy Alderson, a current owner in Angels head man Arte Moreno and Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau.

Whether it ends up being some of these voters (Smith, for example, has served on multiple committees over the years) or a similar collection of baseball lifers, each committee member will have their own opinion about Rose’s controversial candidacy, and those are guaranteed to range wildly. All of which is to say: Just because a path exists for Rose to enter the Hall does not mean the requisite portion of this ultra-small electorate is guaranteed to support his induction. But he will get his chance to be considered.

For decades, Rose’s supporters rallied for his inclusion in Cooperstown, while his detractors insisted he belonged nowhere near it. As long as Rose remained banned, it was merely a highly contentious stalemate. Now, a different kind of waiting game commences, with the possibility of induction on the table, albeit still years in the future.

It has already been a long road to get to this point, but the reality is the process is only just beginning.