Stark: My 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot — how I voted and why
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By Jayson Stark
Jan 20, 2023
There’s no such thing as an “easy” Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Not for me, at least.
So maybe it will surprise you to hear this — but this one, the 2023 ballot, turned out to be exceptionally tough.
We’re now on the other side of an incredible period (2014 to 2020) in which 13 slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famers cruised into Cooperstown and ate up thousands of spots on all of our ballots. But it’s years like this, with no first-year locks anywhere in sight, that cause voters like me to deliberate for hours … days … weeks. Here’s some of what I couldn’t stop thinking about:
• Does Carlos Beltrán — by far the best player making his first appearance on this year’s ballot — deserve to be a Hall of Famer? He’s the first player to make us start grappling with what to do about the 2017 Astros. And isn’t that fun to dredge up again, for the nine trillionth time?
Commissioner Rob Manfred identified Beltrán by name, as a central figure in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal. So do we treat him like every performance-enhancing drugs “cheater” who reached this ballot? Or is this different? I agonized over that question.
• This isn’t Scott Rolen’s first go-round on this ballot. It’s his sixth. But it seems clear that if anyone is going to get elected Tuesday, and join Fred McGriff on stage this summer in Cooperstown, it’s him. So that was one more reason to dig back into what made him historically special.
• It’s also Andruw Jones’ sixth year on this ballot. For years, he’s been my toughest call. I’ve had my reasons for not voting for him. But in a year when a historically great defender like Rolen is nearing election, I took time to reexamine my logic in voting for Rolen but not Jones over these past few years. I know all you Andruw fans look forward to how I sorted that out.
There were many more questions I debated for way too long, of course. But this is that column where I do what I’ve always felt it was important for us, as Hall of Fame voters, to do. And that’s not just to reveal our ballots but to also explain why we think what we think and vote how we vote.
If you’ve even read this far, I know how much you care about the Hall of Fame. So you deserve that explanation. Now here it comes. Why do I have this hunch you’re finally about to agree with every word of this? (Or not.)
The seven names on my Hall of Fame ballot
It’s been almost a decade and a half since the last time I voted for fewer than nine players on any Hall of Fame ballot. And in some of those years, the ballots were so overstuffed, I could have voted for twice that many, if not for the dreaded Rule of 10.
But it tells you how much the depth of these ballots has thinned out that this year, I voted for only seven players — my fewest since 2006. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Six holdovers from last year
Scott Rolen
Billy Wagner
Todd Helton
Jeff Kent
Gary Sheffield
Jimmy Rollins
One first-timer
Carlos Beltrán
Voted for him in 2021, but not since
Omar Vizquel
Couldn’t quite get there
Andruw Jones
Francisco Rodríguez
Andy Pettitte
I promise I looked closely at all 28 names on this ballot, because every one of those players deserves that long look. But how did I end up with the seven I voted for? It’s time to explain …
How I went about this
I know Hall of Fame voting seems easy — to everyone who doesn’t have an actual vote. But in real life, with real ballots, involving the real legacies of real players, Hall of Fame voting is excruciatingly hard. It is for me, anyway, because I take this responsibility seriously.
You don’t need to be Bill James to know that Pedro Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. were Hall of Famers. But deciding whether an Andruw Jones or Billy Wagner sits above or below where you draw that line? If you do this right, that requires burning way too many brain cells.
So here’s my deal. I think, as voters, our job should be to take a long, careful look at the credentials of every player on the ballot. Then we need to ask ourselves one pivotal question:
Was this player a Hall of Famer or not?
If that answer is yes, I’ve always felt that I should vote for that player every year. There are only two exceptions: 1) when new information changes the equation, as it has with Vizquel, or 2) when the ballots get so overcrowded, and we have to make impossible ballot-management decisions that the Hall basically forces us to make.
But if the answer to that question is no, I believe in being open-minded. I don’t pretend to know it all. I don’t pretend I’ve seen it all. I’ve changed my mind before, and learned to better appreciate the case for a player like Bert Blyleven. That’s because I care what smart people think. So I’m always trying to listen and learn.
OK, that’s how I do this. It means I voted for the six men whose boxes I checked last year. And then (deep breath) I spent weeks debating the complicated case of …
Carlos Beltrán
And here I thought Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were the toughest decisions we’d ever have to make as voters. Then along came Carlos Beltrán. Yikes! Is there any good way to handle this guy?
Full disclosure: When I first went through this ballot, my first inclination was … nope, probably not. The reasons not to vote for him were hard to ignore. But the more I looked, the more I thought it over, the more insightful people around baseball I talked to, the more clearly I saw …
THE REASONS TO CHECK HIS NAME
For a few moments, let’s roll the trash cans into the garage and forget there was ever such a thing as sign stealing. Can we do that? Yes, we can. We’ll get back to that part!
Now let’s remember that when Beltrán became an Astro in 2017, he’d already established clearcut Hall of Fame credentials. So you know that .231/.283/.383 season he had in 2017, with negative Wins Above Replacement (minus-0.8), at age 40? All it meant was, he played too long. It didn’t mean he wasn’t already a Hall of Famer on the field, when he wasn’t in the trash-can business. Let’s explain why.
He was a 70-win player. Beltrán’s career WAR, according to Baseball Reference: 70.1. And how many 70-win players, who spent the majority of their careers in center field, are not in the Hall of Fame? That would be none. For that matter, how many retired 70-win outfielders are not in the Hall? That would be one: Bonds. For, well, other reasons.
He had a historic offensive impact. Baseball Reference also provides a handy little breakdown of where those Wins Above Replacement came from. And if there was any doubt that Beltrán was an elite offensive player, especially among men who played more than 50 percent of their games in center, there won’t be when you read this list — of all the center fielders in history who matched or topped Beltrán’s 66.6 Offensive Wins Above Replacement:
Ty Cobb … Willie Mays … Tris Speaker … Mickey Mantle … Ken Griffey Jr. … Mike Trout … Joe DiMaggio … Duke Snider. Whew. For more info on that group (other than Trout), take a tour of the plaque gallery in Cooperstown sometime.
He was a spectacular base runner. You know who holds the all-time record for best stolen-base percentage among every player with at least 200 stolen-base attempts? Who out there guessed Carlos Beltrán (86.4 percent)? Excellent guessing!
But also, if Beltrán gets elected someday, he would become just the fourth center fielder in the Hall with at least 50 Base Running Runs above average, according to Baseball Reference. How about this club: Willie Mays (plus-78), Ty Cobb (plus-55), Carlos Beltrán (plus-54) and Mickey Mantle (plus-51).
He could do everything. This was a huge selling point for me. What was Beltrán good at? Wrong question. What wasn’t he good at? We have metrics that show he was a difference-maker at every aspect of playing baseball. Take a look:
Batting Runs above average: plus-262
Fielding Runs above average: plus-39
Base Running Runs above average: plus-55
(Source: Baseball Reference)
So what’s the Hall of Fame significance of that? I dug deep on that very question. The answer almost sealed the deal for why I voted for him. Here’s the complete list of every outfielder since 1900 with plus-250 Batting Runs (or better), plus-40 Base Running Runs (or better) and plus-25 Fielding Runs (or better), according to Baseball Reference’s Stathead.
Willie Mays
Rickey Henderson
Joe DiMaggio
Henry Aaron
Barry Bonds
Larry Walker
Carlos Beltrán
I’ve heard of them!
Not to mention: We’re talking about a man who was one of the greatest postseason players ever. Here’s the .300/.400/.600 Club among everyone who has played at least 40 postseason games: Carlos Beltrán and Babe Ruth! … But we’re also talking about a fellow who was one of the great switch hitters of all time. The only other switch hitters with as many hits (2,725), as many homers (435) and as good a career OPS+ (119) as Carlos Beltrán: Chipper Jones and Eddie Murray. … And let’s not forget Beltrán is one of just five members of the 300-Steal/400-Homer Club, a player who made nine All-Star teams, and a player who went to the postseason with five different teams, then was historically special in October with almost all of them.
In other words, the on-field case for whether Carlos Beltrán is a Hall of Famer is closed. I’m not even sure there’s a convincing argument otherwise. But then there’s that other pesky question …
WHAT ABOUT THE “CHEATING”?
For a decade and a half, we’ve been caught in the tiresome Hall of Fame PED debate, which circulated on a continuous loop in our brains year after year after year. It was a debate that went nowhere, a debate with no good answers. But at least it made us deal with a question that has hung over Hall of Fame elections for a lot longer than just this century:
How much do we care about “cheating”?
It’s funny how we cared about it a lot when all those big dudes with designer-steroid biceps were obliterating the record book. We cared about it zero when Gaylord Perry was winning 300 games, writing books about loading up the baseball, and making it into the Hall of Fame anyway.
So that alone established that not all “cheating” is the same. The question we face now is: What kind of cheating is high-tech, video-fueled, trash-can-lid accompanied Astros sign stealing? The truth is: I’m still not sure.
I was cleaning up my office this month when I ran across a story in an old edition of the Society for American Baseball Research’s eclectic “National Pastime” publication. It carried this fun little headline: The Signal Tipping Scam of 1909!
Wait. 1909? Yup. It was quite a tale, too, about the old New York Highlanders, who stationed a cagey dude atop a center-field billboard with binoculars, and had him manipulate an ad for hats to let the hitters know if a fastball or curve was coming. Outraged yet? The story said the manager of the Washington Senators wasn’t real outraged.
He found out about this scheme, but his team was so far out of any race, he just let it slide. OK then. Quite a scandal that was.
I got a laugh out of that tale. But what I also got was some perspective. Sign stealing has been one of those forms of “cheating” that has been part of baseball for so long, it predates baseball’s use of light bulbs, let alone algorithms.
Then again, there’s also no dispute that what the Astros did was far outside what any sport should tolerate. So they deserve most of the discipline and venom that has descended on them. Outside of the 713 area code, that’s not even in debate. What’s more complicated is whether Beltrán’s role in the sign stealing should keep him out of Cooperstown. If you’re one of those voters who has never voted for any “steroid cheater,” I don’t see how you can justify a vote for Beltrán. But that’s not me. I’m a voter who saw a gray area, a voter who drew a line between the pre-testing PED era and the post-testing PED era.
I’m a voter who cast an uncomfortable vote for Bonds and Clemens. There were multiple reasons for that. But one of them was that they had already done enough to make the Hall of Fame before their personal PED eras began. Hmmm, sounds much like Beltrán in this case.
I also look at the pre-testing PED era and wonder how we’re supposed to have any idea who was “cheating” and who wasn’t. It’s not like baseball ever handed us a list. In the same way, I look at the Astros and wonder how many other teams were doing pretty much what they were doing — except no one could prove it.
I think about the reporting by Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich in The Athletic, which told of Beltrán arriving in Houston, after three seasons with the Yankees, and telling the Astros that their sign-stealing methods were “behind the times.” I can’t get that quote out of my head. Doesn’t it tell us how rampant the use of technology-aided sign stealing was in other places, before the Astros ever got good at it?
So in the end, I voted for Carlos Beltrán. There were compelling reasons not to. But not enough to stop me from voting for one of the greatest center fielders, and switch hitters, of the past half-century — a guy who would have sailed in on the first ballot if he’d just retired after 2016.
Phew. With that out of the way, I turned again to …
Scott Rolen
He was 47 votes short of election last year. And if the projections are right, he’s going to be teetering along that just-missed/just-made-it tightrope this year.
Baseball Hall of Fame projection updates with 162 ballots in @NotMrTibbs's Tracker. My model is still pessimistic about Rolen's chances, but there are plenty of scenarios where he reaches 75%. Plus a few where Todd Helton could get in this year. pic.twitter.com/P8fVHDJsOR
— Jason Sardell (@sarsdell) January 16, 2023
But if he misses out again, I’d like to dictate this memo to the voters who still haven’t caught on to the historic impact of Scott Rolen: You’re missing the boat on this guy. He was special.
My brain is stuck on a review of him I heard recently from one of my friends in baseball: “Isn’t he just ‘a WAR guy?’” I’m still trying to process what that means. But I think I finally figured it out:
Oh sure, Rolen has the numbers. In fact, speaking of “WAR guys,” his 70.1 career WAR is exactly the same as Beltrán’s. And no, there’s no such thing as a 70-win third baseman who’s not in the Hall of Fame, either. So what is it that Rolen doesn’t have? I think my friend was inferring that he’s missing that elusive Hall of Fame aura, whatever that is.
Well, if he doesn’t have it, I’m not sure why. So let’s recap what Rolen was, whether we can use that word, aura, to describe it or not.
He was the Nolan Arenado of his generation. What Arenado is in this era, Rolen was in his era. And by that, I mean he was a Gold Glove show every night.
I covered him in Philly when he was 21 years old. It was like watching a combo platter of Brooks Robinson meets Lawrence Taylor.
Rolen played third base with such ferocity, it didn’t matter where you hit it to the left side of the infield. He was hell-bent on catching it. And he was perfectly willing to run over everything from his shortstop to the Phillie Phanatic to do it. Then, his arm was so bionic, he could scramble to his feet or his knees — or at least one of the above — and throw you out, from the coach’s box or the Rocky statue or anywhere in between.
Mike Schmidt, your basic 10-time Gold Glove Award winner, watched him play third for a couple of years, then decided: He’s a way better defensive third baseman than I was. And guess what? That would be accurate!
Check out the top three defensive third basemen in American League/National League history, as measured by Baseball Reference’s Defensive Runs above average:
Brooks Robinson: 294
Adrian Beltre: 216
Scott Rolen: 175
(Mike Schmidt: 127)
Yet for some reason, possibly related to Rolen’s relentless refusal to self-promote, that highlight-reel brilliance has gotten lost for some people. And not just us voters. That even included his own manager with the Reds, a fellow named Dusty Baker. Or at least that’s how this great story goes, from Rolen’s former general manager in St. Louis and Cincinnati, Walt Jocketty.
“The only time I ever saw Scott brag, if that’s the right word, was one time in spring training,” Jocketty said. “Dusty was having a meeting with players, and he was talking about how all of us had to bring our World Series rings in and show the guys that this is what you work for. So he was talking about all the players that were Gold Gloves and All-Stars. And he said, ‘Look at Scott Rolen. He’s got all those All-Star teams (seven), and he’s got like six Gold Gloves.’ So Scott said, ‘Excuse me, Dusty. That’s eight. I have eight Gold Gloves.’ And it was so funny, the whole room just cracked up. And that’s Scott. That dry humor.”
He was better than Pujols! All right, so maybe not every year. But have you ever checked out Rolen’s 2004 season for the 105-win Cardinals? Albert Pujols played for that team. So did Larry Walker, Jim Edmonds and a very young Yadier Molina. None of them had a more spectacular year than Rolen. You can look that up.
In fact, it’s in the argument for the greatest all-around season by a third baseman in modern history. It included 34 homers, a .314/.409/.598/1.007 slash line, a Gold Glove and 9.2 bWAR. So how many third basemen have ever won a Gold Glove, hit that many homers, fired up a 1.000 OPS and bundled it all into a 9-WAR season? Yep. Just one. Scott Rolen. And his team won 105 games. How did that season slip through our memory banks, huh? No idea.
He was a better hitter than you remember. But it was the combination of elite leatherwork and above-average offensive production that locks up Rolen’s case.
MOST SEASONS WITH A GOLD GLOVE AND 120 OPS+ AT 3B
Schmidt: 10
Rolen: 8
Arenado: 6
(Source: Baseball Reference’s Stathead)
2,000+ HITS, 300+ HR, 122 OPS+, 8+ GOLD GLOVES (ANY POSITION)
Willie Mays
Ken Griffey Jr.
Al Kaline
Barry Bonds
Mike Schmidt
Johnny Bench
Scott Rolen*
Dwight Evans*
(*-Not in HOF; source: Baseball Reference’s Stathead)
Convinced yet? Well, there’s one more thing.
He was a leader and a winner. I’ll let Walt Jocketty handle this part. After all, he traded for this guy twice (in St. Louis and Cincinnati).
“I really hope he makes it in this time,” Jocketty said, “because I do believe he’s a Hall of Famer. I brought him over to Cincinnati in 2009, because he was the type of guy that I wanted to be around a lot of the young players that we had. Jay Bruce was young. (Joey) Votto was young. … We had a lot of quality kids that just needed to learn how to go about playing the game the right way, and how to go about their business. And he was excellent.
“So I really hope that he gets in. I’d love to be in Cooperstown when he gets inducted because he certainly deserves it. He was always such a great team player. He was a leader, especially in Cincinnati with our young players … and a winning player.”
OK, there you go. I think this means he’s not just a WAR guy! But on the other hand …
Then why not Andruw Jones
I hear this question from the Andruw Jones Fan Club this time every year. I get it. They look at their guy and see a 10-time Gold Glove winner who made 434 home-run trots and ask: How is there a problem here? How could a lunkhead like me think Scott Rolen is in but Andruw Jones is out?
I try to answer those questions as respectfully as possible, because the prime-time version of Andruw Jones, in late-1990s Atlanta, was the greatest defensive center fielder I ever saw play with my own eyeballs. My problem is that I don’t think his period of truly elite defense was as long as people want to believe it was. He also wasn’t the hitter his fans want to believe he was. And that cliff he hurtled over at age 30 is unprecedented for a Hall of Fame outfielder. Here’s more:
Andruw vs. Rolen. Just because the argument for both of these men begins with their glove doesn’t mean they have the same Hall of Fame case.
SEASONS WITH 8+ GOLD GLOVES AND 120+ OPS+
Scott Rolen: 8*
Andruw Jones: 4**
(*-2nd most in history by 3B; **-tied for 7th most in history by CF)
Jones’ four seasons on that list are fewer than César Cedeño and Dale Murphy, for what it’s worth — and half as many as Jim Edmonds, one of the voters’ most embarrassing one-and-dones ever on this ballot. So the Andruw Fan Club can argue all day that we shouldn’t vote for one (Rolen) and not the other (guess who), but I beg to differ.
Andruw’s defensive peak. Yes, I’ve seen the metrics that rank Jones as the greatest defensive center fielder in history. But I’ve also seen the fascinating work of Chris Dial (@Pfeiffer86 on Twitter), one of the original writers for Baseball Think Factory and a longtime member of SABR’s Defensive Index Committee, which spent years supplying data for Gold Glove voters.
Dial’s eye-popping conclusion: Andruw’s peak with the glove was significantly shorter than commonly believed.
Dial told me his research shows that after Jones’ first four years, his weight began to balloon, while — in a related development — his speed and jumps declined. Dial also found Jones’ defensive value in those years was inflated by his arm and the many “discretionary outs” he all but stole from his infielders and corner outfielders on softly hit balls that center fielders don’t normally haul in.
So what’s the gist of all that? Dial believes Andruw should have clearly won “only” three or four Gold Gloves — but nowhere near the 10 he actually won, even if you allow for all the variables. I’m not going to bog this down with his voluminous charts and data. But if Dial is even half-right, that means Jones needs more than just defense to make a convincing Hall of Fame case. And has he done that?
He’d be one of the worst hitters in the Hall. Did you know that only four Hall of Famers in the expansion era have had fewer seasons with at least a 120 OPS+ (minimum of 400 plate appearances) than Jones (four)? And they’re all middle infielders: Ozzie Smith, Bill Mazeroski, Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox, with zero.
And did you know that only two center fielders in the Hall of Fame had a lower career OPS+ than Andruw (111)? That would be Lloyd Waner (99) and Max Carey (108) — neither of whom has played a game in the past 75 years.
And did you know that, according to the great Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs (also the author of the indispensable “Cooperstown Casebook”), Jones would have the lowest career batting average (.254) of any outfielder in the Hall of Fame? The only Hall of Famer non-pitcher at any position with a lower average? Ray Schalk, who hit .253 in an 18-year career that began in the dead ball era. Sorry. I can’t ignore any of that.
That age-30 cliff. Scott Rolen (yeah, him again) was still winning Gold Gloves at age 35 and making the All-Star team in back-to-back seasons at age 35 and 36. Meanwhile, back in Andruw’s world, his career was toast by age 36.
Between ages 30-35, Jones was contributing a total of 4.7 WAR — and minus-2.1 Wins Above Average — over six underwhelming seasons. That may seem like it’s not good, but here’s how historically Not Good it was. Who wants to guess how many Hall of Fame outfielders had fewer Wins Above Replacement after turning 30? If you guessed none, you win.
So to the Andruw Fan Club: I tried. I spent more time this year trying to convince myself to vote for your man than I had since his first year on the ballot. I just couldn’t get there. Hall of Fame careers aren’t supposed to self-destruct at age 30; Rolen’s definitely didn’t.
Which means once again, no Andruw Jones vote from me. But who knows, there’s always next year. Maybe I’ll learn something that changes my mind. It’s happened. Which brings us to the rest of my ballot …
Todd Helton
Todd Helton, that fabled Rockies icon, needs to dash off a long thank-you note to Larry Walker. And why is that? Because thanks to Walker, the Coors Field Curse is dead. Finally.
Walker was elected in 2020. Since then, Walker has done for Helton what NASA did for the Space Shuttle — namely, launched his candidacy into a whole different stratosphere.
HELTON’S VOTE PERCENTAGE
2020: 29.2
2021: 44.9
2022: 52.0
2023*: 71
(*projected by HOF election analyst Jason Sardell)
So whaddaya know. Turns out we now have so many newfangled tools to work with, we can evaluate the true greatness of Helton’s career exactly how we evaluate the cases of players who didn’t play half their careers at Coors Field. Who knew! Let’s take park-adjusted OPS+, for instance.
HIGHEST CAREER OPS+, RETIRED 1B
(since 1900, min. 2,000 games at 1B)
Lou Gehrig: 179
Jeff Bagwell: 149
Willie McCovey: 147
Albert Pujols: 145
Fred McGriff: 134
Todd Helton: 133
(Source: Baseball Reference’s Stathead)
Get the picture? Even adjusting for ballpark effect, Helton is on a list with four Hall of Famers and one surefire 2027 Hall of Famer (Pujols). And that’s it.
My other favorite tool for projects like this is the Baseball Reference Neutralized Data Finder, which I used to feed Helton’s career into all sorts of different ballpark environments to see what would happen. I used the Minute Maid Park (Houston) neutralizer in last year’s column. This year, let’s try two hitter-friendly yards: Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park and Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park.
HELTON’S “NEUTRALIZED” CAREER STATS
In 2007 Coors: .310/.408/.527/.935 – 353 HR, 2,448 hits
In 2007 CBP: .304/.400/.515/.915 — 341 HR, 2,374 hits
In 2007 GABP: .305/.402/.518/.920 — 345 HR, 2,391 hits
So we’ve been keeping this guy out of the Hall of Fame because he played in a park that was boosting his numbers by four hits, and less than one home run, a year? Seems misguided, when you put it that way, right? Right!
Billy Wagner
How do I know what a Hall of Famer looks like? To me, he looks like a player with a legit claim to historic greatness. Well, you have to be pretty much a diehard “No Closers in the Hall” hardliner to think Billy Wagner has no claim to historic greatness. Let’s bring back this chart from last year’s ballot column. Nothing has changed!
OPP AVG.
.187
Lowest since 1900
WHIP
0.998
Best in live-ball era
ERA
2.31
Best by LHP in live-ball era
K/9 IP
11.92
Best in history
(*minimum 900 innings pitched; source: Baseball Reference’s Stathead)
That seems good. But if you need more, I can give you more. Maybe this staggering tweet from longtime Wagner booster Austin Eich will paint the Billy Wagner, Dominator portrait for you in even splashier colors.
Billy Wagner could return to the majors, surrender 100 consecutive hits, and have the same career opponent batting average as Mariano Rivera (.211).
Wagner could surrender 200 consecutive hits and still have a lower career opponent batting average than Lee Smith (.237).
— Austin J. Eich (@Eich_AJ) January 3, 2023
Historically great? Check!
Jeff Kent
So who was paying attention in that Billy Wagner section of this opus? Does the phrase “historic greatness” ring a bell? Excellent. So how did I decide that Jeff Kent deserves a Hall of Fame vote, here in his 10th and final year on the ballot? Repeat after me: Historic greatness.
Kent, obviously, isn’t your typical Hall of Fame middle infielder, if only because he gets no points for the “infielder” portion of that job description. But does he have a claim to historic offensive greatness at his position? You decide.
Most HR by a 2B — Kent (351)
Most RBIs by a 2B — Kent (1.428)
Most 100-RBI seasons by a 2B — Kent (eight)
Highest slugging pct. by a 2B* — Kent (.509)
(*-in live ball era)
You don’t need to tell me I’m relying on a bunch of old-school stats that don’t exactly fuel up the engine over at Baseball Savant. You also don’t need to tell me I’m overlooking the part where Kent finished his career with 42 Fielding Runs below average — although I can’t help but wonder how much better those defensive metrics would look if he’d played in this era, where shifts and defensive-position algorithms might have covered up his lack of range.
That’s all true. But when I peel that away, I still see a player who staked a claim to historic production at his position. So one last time before we turn him over to the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee … Jeff Kent — check!
Gary Sheffield
It took me a long, long time to come around to the idea of voting for Gary Sheffield. After all, it’s hard to cast a vote for the worst defensive outfielder in history. Now add in that weird BALCO/Bonds chapter of his life, which has never quite added up … not to mention all the messy exits from the many teams he blitzed through in that exhausting way of his.
But that’s the part of Sheffield’s story that’s hard to know what to make of. The easy part is this: No pitcher alive wanted to face this dude — for two decades. If I’m looking for “historic greatness,” here’s a masher who’s overloaded with it.
Want an old-school measure of historic greatness? Check out everyone in the 500-Homer Club who also won at least one batting title in the past 75 years: Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, Ted Williams, Frank Robinson, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and … Gary Sheffield. Good group!
Want a new-age measure of historic greatness? Here’s every outfielder in history with at least 7,000 plate appearances, a 140 OPS+ or better and at least 560 Batting Runs above average: Mays, Aaron, Williams, Mantle, Robinson, Babe Ruth, Mel Ott … plus Bonds, Manny and (here he comes) Sheffield. Excellent company!
In other words, everyone in Sheffield’s offensive neighborhood is a Hall of Famer … unless, well, you know. Once I decided last year that Sheffield’s BALCO details were too murky to know what to make of them, I started checking his name. And as you know, if I vote for you once, I’m voting for you in perpetuity. So Gary Sheffield — check!
Jimmy Rollins
Now here comes the one exception to my usual voting philosophy. I’ll admit this: I’m not certain Jimmy Rollins is a Hall of Famer. But I am certain Jimmy Rollins deserves a long look on the Hall of Fame ballot.
So I voted for him in his ballot debut last year, in part because I was afraid he might not get the 5 percent of the vote it takes to make it to Year Two. I voted for him this year for the same reason. When I cast my vote, he didn’t have enough votes on Ryan Thibodaux’s invaluable Hall of Fame tracker to guarantee he’d live to see Year 3. So I checked his name again.
Time often gives us perspective, as voters. And there’s no better proof than Rolen, who got 10.2 percent of the vote his first year and now is bound for a plaque in Cooperstown. I think Jimmy Rollins deserves that time. His longtime double-play partner, Chase Utley, arrives on the ballot next year. They’re the Lou Whitaker/Alan Trammell of their generation. Maybe they’ll provide perspective on each other as we consider the case for both of them.
But also, as I’ve written before, in Rollins, I see a player who had a career unlike any shortstop who ever played. Despite the metrics that keep him off many writers’ ballots, this man did all this:
Won an MVP … and four Gold Gloves. He piled up more than 2,400 hits … and more than 200 homers … and over 400 steals … and 857 extra-base hits … and the most hits in Phillies history. He also ripped off the longest hitting streak by a shortstop (38 games) since 1894 … and was the primary energizer on a Phillies team that won a World Series and dominated its league for five powerhouse seasons (2007-11).
We need to keep the conversation about this guy rolling. I had room on my ballot. So yeah, I voted for him. And as a Philadelphian who saw his whole career up close, I’m not going to apologize for doing that.
Now, here’s a quick tour through a few players I didn’t vote for.
OMAR VIZQUEL — I was once a big proponent of Vizquel’s Hall of Fame case. Sorry. Not anymore. The allegations of domestic violence and sexual harassment against him are too disturbing. And the character clause means we have no choice but to consider them.
MANNY AND A-ROD — I mentioned earlier that I draw a line between the pre-testing PED era and the post-testing PED era. Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez fall on the wrong side of it. I’m worn out from even explaining this. But I once devoted a lot of words to doing that if you’re interested.
ANDY PETTITTE — I always enjoyed talking to Andy Pettitte. I always enjoyed That Look he took to the mound in a big game. I admire the career he had. I just can’t convince myself it was a Hall of Fame career. How many starting pitchers are in the Hall with both an ERA and WHIP as high as Pettitte’s (3.85 ERA, 1.35 WHIP)? Unfortunately, that answer is none.
FRANCISCO RODRÍGUEZ — My standards for Hall of Fame relievers extend way beyond the old “Saves” column. That didn’t work out well for K-Rod, because that, to me, was his only selling point. He once saved 62 games in a season, for the 2008 Angels. No one else has ever saved that many. No one may ever do it again. And those 437 games he saved in a 16-year career? That’s the fourth-most ever.
But where’s the historic greatness in any other column on his stat page? The three modern-day names directly above him in Jay Jaffe’s Relief Pitcher JAWS rankings are Joe Nathan, Tom Gordon and Jonathan Papelbon. Great as they all were, not one of them made it to a second year on the Hall ballot. I’m not sure what makes Rodríguez a whole lot more Hall-worthy than those three.
On the other hand, I’ve said many times that it’s never an insult to say any player was Not Quite a Hall of Famer. So here’s to all the names I studied and the wonderful careers they had. I may not vote for them. But I’m happy to raise a toast to all of them — because there are thousands of people walking around this planet who would love to be able to say they had the careers these men had. Cheers!
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