ORLANDO, FL — On Sunday, the dream of Chavez Gorge was dashed again.
Fernando Valenzuela was once again denied entry into the course National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Fourteen months before his death at age 63 in October 2024 and 27 years before the end of a pitching career measured by more than just wins, losses and ERA, Valenzuela was not elected to the 2026 Hall of Fame by the Modern Baseball Era Committee, a 16-member panel that every three years reviews players from the 1980s or later who were not elected to the Hall of Fame by traditional media voting.
To gain Hall of Fame status, Valenzuela needed 12 votes from that committee but instead received fewer than five.
Because Valenzuela did not receive five votes, he will not be able to return to the Modern Era Committee ballot in 2028. The next time the committee will be able to consider his case is no earlier than 2031.
Until then, his name will remain among the most notable snubs following his Hall of Fame induction.
In his first year of traditional Hall of Fame voting in 2003, Valenzuela received just 6.2% of the writers' vote, far short of the 75% threshold required for election. In 2004, his name fell off the ballot after polling just 3.8%.
The problem then was that Valenzuela didn't have typical Hall of Fame numbers. Although he was a six-time All-Star, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year winner in 1981 and a World Series hero for the Dodgers that season, the left-hander posted only a 3.54 ERA over his 17-year career with 173 wins and 2,074 strikeouts and amassed only 37.3 wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference.
Of the other 90 pitchers in the Hall of Fame, only one modern-era inductee (Jesse Haynes) had a career WAR below 40.0 and a career ERA above 3.50 (excluding players from the Negro Leagues).
However, Valenzuela's influence was defined by more than just performance and statistics – seemingly embodying Hall's motto of “preserving history, respecting excellence, connecting generations” with a career that changed the popularity of both the Dodgers and the sport.
Since his historic “Fernandomania” rookie season in 1981, which began with eight straight wins for the then-20-year-old left-hander and culminated with the Cy Young Award, Rookie of the Year and World Series honors, the Mexican-born hurler has been an enduring cultural icon.
Valenzuela's success greatly expanded the reach of baseball in Mexico and Latin America. His fame sparked a boom among Dodgers fans, especially among Los Angeles' Latinos.
Hopes for recognition of that legacy in Cooperstown were raised this winter when Valenzuela was named one of eight finalists to be considered by the Hall of Fame's Modern Era Committee.
He joined a panel that also included Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy and Gary Sheffield—all of whom were evaluated by a 16-person panel consisting of former Hall of Famers, former general managers, writers and statisticians, as well as two current MLB owners (one of them, Arte Moreno of the Angels).
In the end, only Kent (a former MVP and five-time All-Star who spent the final four years of his career with the Dodgers) received enough votes to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Bonds, Clemens and Sheffield joined Valenzuela among those receiving fewer than five votes.
Although Valenzuela never fully recaptured the heights of that unique 1981 campaign, he remained a celebrated and unifying figure throughout the remainder of his 11-year Dodgers career, as well as against the Angels and San Diego Padres, particularly during the latter half of his playing days.
And since he first put up the traditional Hall of Fame ballot 21 years ago, many in the baseball community – and especially Dodgers fans – have been pushing for Valenzuela to go to Cooperstown.
In 2023, the Dodgers even broke their unofficial rule of retiring only the numbers of Hall of Fame players by adding Valenzuela's No. 34 to their ring of honor as part of a long-overdue celebration.
But for now, it will remain the most visible reward for Valenzuela's contributions to the sport.
Once again the door to the Hall of Fame has closed.
