Manny Ramírez rides out his 10th (and final) chance on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

Ramírez is all but guaranteed to fall off the Hall of Fame ballot this year with little fanfare

Manny Ramírez is on the ballot for the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame class. Again. It's his 10th time, which means it's his final chance. Spoiler coming: He won't make it. 

Ramírez debuted on the ballot for the 2017 Hall of Fame class and got 23.8% of the vote. He stagnated for three years before jumping to the 28% range for three years before he saw another jump to roughly one-third of the vote. He hit a new high last year, but that was only 34.3%. 

Players can typically see a final year bump, but not like this. The largest one in recent memory to make the Hall of Fame was Larry Walker, who saw a 22-point increase that saw him squeak into the Hall on his 10th and final try. Barry Bonds' final year bump only took him from 61.8% to 66%.

Bonds was a better all-around player -- by a decent margin -- and, though he was tied to PEDs, was never suspended by the league. Now consider that Ramírez was nailed by MLB twice and slapped with PED-related suspensions. In light of this, I feel extremely confident that Manny isn't going to see the 40-point jump to get to the required 75% for Hall of Fame induction. 

That means we're saying goodbye to him being on the ballot. 

In parts of 19 seasons, Ramírez hit .312/.411/.585 (154 OPS+) with 2,574 hits, 547 doubles, 20 triples, 555 home runs, 1,831 RBI, 1,544 runs and 69.3 WAR. His issues on the bases and in the field dragged down his overall WAR, but his offensive WAR is 34th in MLB history. He also sits 90th in average, 36th in on-base percentage, 12th in slugging, 12th in OPS, 31st in OPS+, 91st in hits, 34th in doubles, 15th in home runs, 20th in RBI, 61st in runs, 30th in total bases, 42nd in walks, 48th in times on base and 18th in extra-base hits. 

Aside: He also had the funniest cut-off in baseball history.

That's the dossier of one of the greatest sluggers the game has ever seen. The eye test matched it. He was feared and for those who either weren't alive or don't remember, he was a big deal. Huge. 

Additionally, Ramírez won two World Series with the Red Sox, including the 2004 title, one of the most famous in MLB history. He hit .285 with a .937 OPS in the playoffs and still holds the record with 29 postseason home runs. 

Even with the shortfall on defense and baserunning, Manny sits eighth among left fielders all-time in WAR, trailing only Bonds, Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose, Ed Delahanty and Tim Raines. He is above Hall of Famers Al Simmons, Fred Clarke, Goose Goslin, Billy Williams, Willie Stargell, Joe Medwick and plenty of others. 

It's the statistical resume of a Hall of Famer. And yet, we're saying goodbye to Ramírez without him having ever gotten close to induction. On May 7, 2009, he was suspended for 50 games for a violation of the Joint Drug Agreement. Ramírez at the time said he accidentally took a banned medication. The drug used was, reportedly, hCG, which is a women's fertility drug that has generally been used by steroid users to restart testosterone intake after a steroid cycle. On April 8, 2011, Ramírez was again busted by the league. Rather than serve his 100-game suspension, he retired.

This has all been enough to scare off well more than 60% of the BBWAA voting body, including yours truly. He did not get my vote this year either, and it'll be the final time we see his name on the ballot. Maybe Ramírez will fare better with an Era Committee down the road, but I wouldn't count on that happening any time soon. The best bet is that if Manny Ramírez ever gets into the Hall of Fame, it'll be decades from now. 

Happy Trails, Manny.