Potential Virginia Baseball’s Inaugural Hall of Fame Class Inductees

On Wednesday, Virginia Baseball announced that it would be releasing its inaugural class of the new Baseball Hall of Fame on Thursday.

With the announcement came the news that the inaugural class would be a 15 member group. To say that 15 is a big class is an understatement. By comparison, the initial class elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown was only five deep (Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Mathewson, and Johnson).

To be perfectly honest, when the Hall of Fame was announced a few months ago, we thought for sure the first class would only be five or so members, as an homage to Cooperstown. Fifteen caught us off guard.

The announcement also got us thinking of who could possibly be in this initial class. They will have to make a splash, and given the recent success that the program, even picking just 15 worthy candidates was difficult. This task is also difficult given we don’t know the parameters for selection. Do you have to wait a few years after leaving UVa? Did they have to graduate from UVa (probably not)? Did they have to receive All-America honors at least once? Is Coach O’Connor eligible since he is still an active coach? Will they make a mistake and not include the greatest walk-on catcher to wear the UVa uniform? We just don’t know at this point.

We’ll do deeper dives into the 15 of the inaugural class after they are formally announced, but here is who we think might be worthy of induction:

- Eppa Rixey
- Ryan Zimmerman
- Danny Hultzen
- Sean Doolittle
- Joe Koshansky
- Seth Greisinger
- Mike Cubbage
- Tyler Cannon
- Tyler Wilson
- Matt Thaiss
- Jeff Kamrath
- Javier Lopez
- Jarrett Parker
- Pavin Smith
- Brian Buchanan

Also considered: Casey Lambert, Dennis Womack, Brandon Waddell, Kevin Arico, Phil Gosselin, Steven Proscia, John Hicks, Adam Haseley, Tim Lavigne, Kyle Crockett, Kenny Towns.

Who would you in the inaugural class? Who would you leave out?