Don Mattingly is set to learn his Hall of Fame fate on Sunday night.
That’s when the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee will unveil its class of 2026 from a ballot of eight former players who are no longer eligible for the more traditional pathway of being voted in by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).
Mattingly is joined on the ballot by Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Dale Murphy, Jeff Kent, Fernando Valenzuela and Carlos Delgado.
Although Mattingly never came close to receiving the requisite 75% of votes during his 15 years on the BBWAA ballot — he maxed out at 28.2% in 2001 during his first year of eligibility — the former Yankees captain will be considered again Sunday by a much smaller group.
The Contemporary Baseball Era Committee includes 16 voters, and 12 of them (75%) need to include Mattingly on their ballot for him to be elected for Cooperstown.
The voters include former players such as Fergie Jenkins, Jim Kaat, Juan Marichal and Ozzie Smith; MLB executives such as Kim Ng; and media members such as Tyler Kepner and Jayson Stark of The Athletic.
The committee meets every three years to consider former players whose greatest contributions have come since 1980, with every voter allowed to vote for up to three candidates.
Fred McGriff was the only one elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee in 2022, receiving 100% of the vote.
Mattingly received the second-most votes that year by appearing on eight of the 16 ballots, or 50%.
Murphy received six votes (37.5%), while Bonds and Clemens both finished with fewer than four apiece.
That’s why Mattingly and Murphy — a two-time National League MVP with the Atlanta Braves — have received the bulk of the attention leading up to Sunday’s announcement.
Mattingly’s peak years were certainly Hall of Fame worthy, though his relatively short playing career prevented him from compiling the overall stats that would bolster his candidacy.
In his 14 seasons from 1982-95, all with the Yankees, Mattingly batted .307 with 222 home runs, 1,099 RBI and an .830 OPS. He won nine Gold Gloves at first base.
Supporters often compare Mattingly’s numbers to those of Hall of Fame center fielder Kirby Puckett, who batted .318 with 207 home runs, 1,085 RBI and an .837 OPS and won six Gold Gloves over 12 seasons, all with the Minnesota Twins.
However, Puckett won two World Series, while Mattingly is the rare Yankees great to never win a championship.
Mattingly did not appear in the playoffs until his final season, though he did bat .417 during his five-game postseason career.
“I got to play for the greatest organization in professional sports, which was just a great, great experience and allowed me to do all kinds of things,” Mattingly told the Daily News in October. “I remember one day late in ’85, I was standing at first base in Yankee Stadium and looking across the field and saw this guy in the third base box seats holding up a sign that said, ‘Don Mattingly, the Chosen One,’ and I wondered to myself, ‘What does that mean?’
“But sometimes in life, you don’t get what you want. You can work hard for it. You can try your hardest and do everything you think you need to do to get there, and sometimes you still don’t get there because you’re not supposed to get there. Maybe I was just chosen to be the one guy who never gets there.”
The strength of Mattingly’s résumé are his 1984-89 seasons, during which he earned all six of his All-Star selections, batted at least .303 every year and recorded at least 110 RBI in five of them.
Mattingly won a batting title in 1984 by hitting .343; won the American League MVP and led the majors with 145 RBI in 1985; and batted a career-best .352 with an MLB-high .967 OPS in 1986.
Chronic back problems dogged Mattingly during the latter part of his career, and he played his final game at age 34.
He finished with 42.4 wins above replacement (WAR), according to Baseball Reference — just shy of the 46.5 WAR that Murphy posted over 18 seasons.
Murphy’s counting stats were superior to Mattingly’s, as he finished with 398 home runs and 1,266 RBI during his career with the Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies from 1976-93.
The outfielder was the back-to-back NL MVP in 1982 and 1982; won all five of his Gold Glove awards between 1982-86; and stole 161 bases.
But Murphy’s .265 average and .815 OPS paled in comparison to Mattingly’s numbers.
It’s possible both Mattingly and Murphy are elected Sunday night, though neither is a sure thing.
Clemens and Bonds would be surefire Hall of Famers if not for their links to performance-enhancing drugs, and Sheffield likely would have been voted in by the BBWAA already, too.
Bonds maxed out at 66% during his final year on the BBWAA ballot in 2022, while Clemens finished with 65.2% that year in what was also the end of his eligibility.
Sheffield received 63.9% of votes in 2024, which was his final year.
A new rule states that a candidate will fall off of future Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballots if they don’t receive at least five of the 16 votes.
That, too, figures to affect how committee members distribute their precious votes on Sunday.
