Three former Cincinnati Reds get Hall of Fame votes in 2026

The 2026 Hall of Fame voting was announced on Tuesday night. Two men were elected – Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran. For the latter it was his 4th year on the ballot, while the former garnered enough votes to be elected on his 9th year. Way down the list you get to three former Cincinnati Reds – all in a row in terms of vote totals.

Among the former Reds players to get votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America were Edwin Encarnacion, Shin-Soo Choo, and Matt Kemp. Encarnacion got six votes, leading this group. Choo had half as many as he got three votes. Kemp wound up with two votes. None of the players got a large enough percentage of votes to remain on the ballot moving forward. Players need at least 5% of the vote to stay on the ballot and Encarnacion only got 1.4% of the vote, with Choo and Kemp being below 1%. You can see the full voting results here.

Edwin Encarnacion joined the Reds in June of 2001 when he came over from the Texas Rangers with Ruben Mateo in a deal for Rob Bell.

Encarnacion struggled defensively at times, and in his first full season he led the league with 25 errors despite playing in just 111 games at third base.That was his worst season with the Reds on the defensive side of things in terms of errors, but some more advanced metrics (and I caution to take defensive stats with a lot of skepticism, especially ones from seasons before 2015) suggest he was worse overall in two other seasons. No matter how you slice it – he was a very poor defender at third base. Cincinnati traded him at the deadline in 2009 to Toronto in a package with two pitchers for Scotto Rolen.

It didn’t happen immediately, but after leaving Cincinnati Encarnacion became one of the best power hitters in the game. From 2012-2019 he hit 297 home runs for Toronto, Cleveland, New York, and Seattle. In 2020 he’d finish his career with the White Sox and add 10 more home runs that season in 44 games. He finished with 424 home runs across parts of 16 seasons, hitting .260/.350/.496 along the way.

Shin-Soo Choo began his big league career with the Seattle Mariners in 2005 as a 22-year-old but the next year he was traded to Cleveland. He remained with them through the 2012 season. Following the year he was traded to Cincinnati in a 3-team deal that included nine players and on lump of cash. Choo only spent one season with the Reds but it was an All-Star caliber season (though his lone All-Star season came in 2018, which actually ranked as his 7th best season by WAR). Playing nearly every day in center he hit .285/.423/.462 in 712 plate appearances for the Reds while swatting 21 home runs, 34 doubles, and two triples.

Choo would sign a long term contract with Texas following the season and spend 2014-2020 with the Rangers before retiring. In his career that spanned parts of 16 seasons he would hit .275/.377/.447 with 218 home runs and 157 stolen bases. Among Major Leaguers he is easily the best player from South Korea. His 34.7 WAR is far and away the most, topping Hyun Jin Ryu and Chan Ho Park who both finished their careers at 20 WAR.  He has more than three times as many plate appearances as any other Korean-born player. His 1671 hits are nearly four times as many as the next closest player. Choo has 218 home runs. Every other Korean-born player has 287 and no one has more than 67 as an individual (Jiman Choi). He is also the only Korean-born position player to ever make an All-Star team. Pitchers Byung-Hyun Kim, Chan Ho Park, and Hyun Jin Ryu all made one All-Star team.

Matt Kemp began his career in Losa Angeles with the Dodgers. He played with them from 2006 until 2014 before he joined the San Diego Padres. His time there was short lived as he was traded to Atlanta. They then traded him to the Dodgers six months later. A year after that he was traded to Cincinnati in a deal that included seven players.

After hitting .290/.338/.481 in 2018 and making the All-Star team, expectations for Kemp were high as he joined the Reds. Instead he hit .200/.210/.283 and was released five weeks into the season. He would play in 43 games in 2020 with the Rockies where he did hit better than with the Reds, but those 43 games in Colorado would be the final ones of his career. He would finish his career as a .284/.337/.484 hitter in parts of 15 season that saw him hit 287 home runs and steal 184 bases.

And just for a bit of fun and weirdness, Nick Markakis got one vote. He was never a Reds player, but in 2001 and 2002 the club drafted him. He opted to not sign and continue his college career in both instances.  Three years later he would make his big league debut and he played in parts of five years with Cincinnati. Hitting was not a problem for the then infielder as in his five seasons he hit .262/.345/.449 with 71 home runs.