Baker, Piniella, Maddon face Hall of Fame vote

Dusty Baker, Lou Piniella, and Joe Maddon appear on the eight-person list for the Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Baseball Era ballot. A committee will review their careers and vote on their eligibility for next year’s Hall of Fame class. The committee plans to announce its final decisions on December 6.

All three men served as managers for the Chicago Cubs during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The organization hired each of them with the specific goal of ending a championship drought that had lasted since 1908. While their tenures differed in length and success, each manager led the team to postseason play at Wrigley Field.

Baker was the first of the group to take the job, arriving ahead of the 2003 season. He guided the Cubs to a division title for the first time since the 1980s. That season ended in the National League Championship Series against the Marlins, a run famously interrupted by the incident involving fan Steve Bartman.

Piniella followed Baker and led the Cubs to division titles in 2007 and 2008. The 2008 season produced 97 wins, marking the franchise’s highest win total since the 1945 pennant-winning campaign. Piniella’s final season as a major league manager was 2010, the fourth year of his tenure in Chicago.

Maddon managed the Cubs from 2012 to 2016 and remains the only one of the three to win a World Series title with the team. He achieved that feat in 2016. He spent roughly five seasons with the Cubs, which was about half the time he managed the Tampa Bay Rays, a team he led to its first World Series appearance in 2008.

The other former managers on this year’s ballot include Bruce Bochy, Sandy Alderson, Brian Sabean, Ted Turner, and Bill White. Bochy holds the strongest statistical case among the group, having won four World Series titles as a manager for the Giants and the Rangers.

Baker won a World Series with the Houston Astros in 2022 after managing for the Reds and Nationals. Piniella won the 1990 World Series as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He also managed a 116-win Seattle Mariners team in 2001, a record that still stands in major league history.