Seattle Mariners legend Félix Hernández is making big strides in his bid for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his second year on the ballot. And now you can add another vote to his tally.

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MLB Network insider Jon Morosi revealed his own ballot for the 2026 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday during his weekly visit with Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob, with Hernández among his maximum 10 votes. Morosi’s full ballot looks like this:

• SP Félix Hernández
• OF Carlos Beltrán
• OF Andruw Jones
• SP Mark Buehrle
• SS Jimmy Rollins
• 2B Chase Utley
• SP Cole Hamels
• OF Torii Hunter
• 2B Dustin Pedroia
• SP Andy Pettitte

After his reveal, Morosi went into detail why he voted for “King Félix” this time around after leaving him off of his ballot for the class of 2025, and pointed out why he’s in great shape to make the Hall before his eligibility is ultimately up after 10 years.

“I always use the big example of Scott Rolen, who debuted at 10.2% and went on to be a Hall of Famer,” Morosi said, referring to the former All-Star third baseman. “… I think it was the sixth time on the ballot that Scott got in. Félix last year started at 20.6%, so he started at twice the number as Scott Rolen.”

Hernández has been gaining steam in the voting this year, as the unofficial Baseball Hall of Fame tracker run by Ryan Thibodaux had him at 58.6% before Morosi’s reveal.

Morosi said the 2025 ballot was a bit stronger than this one as it included three players who were voted in: Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner. That allowed him to fit in some new players on his ’26 ballot, one of which was of course Hernández.

What could hold Hernández back is that his career ended in 2019 after his age-33 season, which was his 15th in MLB. That means his case is relying on how dominant he was in his prime.

“Obviously we all know that the longevity wasn’t there for him,” Morosi said. “He had a better strikeout rate than CC Sabathia, but he finished like 500 strikeouts shy of CC because he didn’t have the bulk. So that’s going to be an issue for people where he didn’t have Sandy Koufax’s career. But he had a very strong peak.”

Hernández had a dominant eight-year period from 2007-15 where he finished each season with an fWAR of 3.6 or higher, including five of 5.1 or higher.

“I think the biggest argument in favor of Félix, he finished among the top 10 in the Cy Young vote six times in a seven-year span, which included winning it once and finishing second twice. That’s pretty amazing,” Morosi said. “So if you are voting for him now, which again, I have, is you’re believing in a great but relatively short peak. And was that peak long enough? Was it great enough? There are no postseason numbers to boost him. So I think he’s one of the most fascinating cases on the ballot.”

Players have to receive 75% of the vote in a given year to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, so Hernández is unlikely make the cut this year – especially since percentages tend to be a bit lower than what is seen on the tracker when the final tally is revealed as not all voters reveal their ballots publicly. But comparing Hernández to his contemporaries should only help his case in the long run, though the lack of postseason appearances could be a hindrance.

“The four big names that I’m focusing on right now are Félix, Hamels, (Adam) Wainwright and (Jon) Lester, and Wainwright and Lester are going to be on (the ballot) relatively soon,” Morosi said. “And so I started thinking to myself, they feel like Hall of Famers to me within this vintage. And then I started comparing the numbers I said, wait a minute, Wainwright and Lester’s numbers are almost identical in some ways to Félix’s numbers, and then Félix is very comparable to Hamels.

“The big difference there is that Hamels has an extensive postseason track record, was the World Series MVP in ’08, NLCS MVP in ’08, and I believe his career postseason ERA is under 4.00 in 100 innings, which is pretty good when you consider the competition that you’re facing there.”

Morosi isn’t sure there will always be a spot for Hernández on his ballot because there are always new candidates being added.

“I was glad I had room to vote for him this year,” Morosi said. “I can’t make any promises for next year because you’ve got to take every ballot on its own.”

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