The Philadelphia Phillies’ legendary second baseman Chase Utley, is now in that stage of his career where he’s trying to get elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
It’s not going to happen this year, with the results announced Tuesday night.
But Utley’s tracking numbers point to a potential future induction.
“Chase Utley has the third-highest vote percentage of the 27 players on this year’s ballot,” writes MLB.com’s Brian Murphy. “He’s currently at 68.2% in the tracker, which would be a massive leap from his 2025 total of 39.8%. It’s likely that Utley’s vote percentage will settle somewhere in the low-to-mid-60s — last year’s final total was about 7 percentage points less than his tracker support — but the longtime Phillies second baseman has time on his side; he will be eligible for the next seven BBWAA ballots.”
One of the other committees has already elected Jeff Kent into this year’s class, and Utley had a career Wins Above Replacement 10 higher than Kent, for whatever worth you want to place in that.
Utley had a career .823 OPS (.847 in Philadelphia).
In a five-year stretch from 2005-2009, Utley averaged 39 doubles, 29 homers, 101 RBI and 15 steals per season while batting .301 with a .388 on-base percentage, a .535 slugging percentage and a .922 OPS. His OPS+ was 135, meaning he was 35% better than a league average hitter in that span.
Utley was a six-time All Star and won the 2008 World Series with the Phillies.
Fans in Philadelphia will certainly always view Utley as one of the best to ever do it. And maybe in a year soon to come, the Hall of Fame will acknowledge that, too.
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