Washington Nationals: Who will be first in the Hall of Fame as a National?

With the 2019 Hall of Fame announcement today, we rank some of the candidates who could be the first to go in as a member of the Washington Nationals.

Today, at 6pm Eastern Time, the next group of Hall of Famers will be announced as they join the immortals of the game in Cooperstown. However, there are currently no players in the hall with a Washington Nationals cap on just yet, so we look at who could be the first.

This year’s ballot has the likes of Mariano Rivera and Roy Halladay who are set to become first-ballot entrants into the Hall of Fame. Edgar Martinez and Mike Mussina are also looking likely to join them based on the current voting numbers tracked by Ryan Thibodaux.

Currently, the Hall of Fame does have a few players who have been associated with either baseball in the D.C. area, or with the franchise itself. Ivan Rodriguez and Frank Robinson both donned the current Curly W as a player and manager respectively in their career, but their plaque rightly has other teams’ caps.

The Washington Senators also have six members currently in the Hall of Fame, headlined by one of the all-time greats in Walter Johnson, who still likely holds the crown of the best to ever play baseball in the nation’s capital. But there are still no players on the ballot likely to go in as a National.

Therefore, we took a look at some of the most likely candidates to be the first to make it into the hall sporting a Curly W on their cap. First up is the completely overwhelming favorite for that honor, Max Scherzer.