Red Sox great Roger Clemens was denied election into the Hall of Fame again Sunday.
He received fewer than five votes from the 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee, falling short of the 75% vote threshold needed.
Jeff Kent (14 votes) was the only nominee on this year’s Contemporary Era ballot to be elected. Carlos Delgado, Dale Murphy, Don Mattingly, Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela were rejected.
Delgado received nine votes while Murphy and Mattingly each received six. Clemens, Bonds, Sheffield and Valenzuela received fewer than five votes each.
This marks Clemens’ 12th time being denied. The seven-time Cy Young winner and 11-time All-Star fell short all 10 years (2013-22) on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot. The Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Era Committee has rejected him twice. He received fewer than four votes from the committee in 2023.
Clemens received 65.2% of the vote in 2022, his final year on the BBWAA ballot. Seventy-five percent of the vote is required.
The 63-year-old won the American League Cy Young three times and the AL MVP once as a member of the Red Sox from 1984-96.
He is third all-time in strikeouts (4,672) behind only Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan (5,714) and Randy Johnson (4,875). He ranks third all-time in pitcher WAR (138.7) behind only Hall of Famers Cy Young (165.6) and Walter Johnson (155.1).
He ranks ninth all-time in wins (354) and 16th all-time in innings (4,916 ⅔ innings).
Clemens has always maintained he never used performance-enhancing drugs but he was named in the Mitchell Report and implicated by former trainer Brian McNamee.
Clemens didn’t receive enough votes to be on the next ballot. “By rule, candidates who received fewer than five votes in this election are not eligible for consideration by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee in 2028,” according to the Hall of Fame. And so Clemens will have to wait until the December 2031 ballot for his next chance.
