It’s that time of the year again for my Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. In full disclosure, I don’t technically have a vote for the National Baseball Hall of Fame because I am not a voting member of the Baseball Writer’s Association (I am the editor of the Fort Myers Beach Observer where I cover spring training and minor league baseball but mostly cover local politics and happenings on the island).
But I do have some opinions on this year’s ballot which are not in line with where the majority of today’s writers are at. Increasingly, the electorate for the National Baseball Hall of Fame are more forgiving of juicers (see the induction of David Ortiz and majority votes for Barry Bonds and Rogers Clemens) and more unassuming of players whose careers saw magical leaps in the middle of the steroid era and late in their careers and torrential downpours of downswings after testing began. More than one-third of voters last year checked off steroid cheats Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez on their ballot.
Incredibly, some of the players inducted in past years have either admitted to juicing, been accused of juicing or tied to the Mitchell Report on juicing and are nearing election.
One other thing I will say before getting on to this year’s ballot is that for most of my life the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot was full of intrigue as so many good players never make it into the Hall of Fame. For many decades the Hall retained a level of reverence not afforded to other hall of fames. In recent years though, the writers have looked the other way at glaring issues with the careers of more than a handful of players and engaged in group think in pushing for the elections of certain borderline candidates (see Edgar Martinez and Scott Rolen).
The voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame hasn’t been the same since the Hall expunged the rights of older voters who no longer cover the sport to vote. By doing so, the Hall sent to the dustbins the hard-working careers of scores of old-time baseball writers who knew the game and its history well and had high standards and who held a higher degree of scrutiny over the steroid generation. After nobody was elected into the Hall in 2014, Cooperstown wanted to stop the old timers from keeping out the cheats and relieved them of the ballots they worked a lifetime of work to earn. Since then, a lot of marginal candidates have sailed in with questionable credentials (see Larry Walker) and varying levels of juicing backgrounds (see Jeff Bagwell and andro).
The 2024 ballot:
Adrian Beltre: Beltre is going to get in and he is far-and-away a deserving candidate though his 2004 season, when he was runner-up in the National League MVP voting, remains an incredible outlier as it was the only time he hit over 40 homers (he hit 48) and only time he slugged over .561 (he slugged .629). For Beltre, he was so good consistently throughout his career that he doesn’t fall into the same rabbit hole as other players who garnered suspicion during their careers. Even if one of his seasons looks unusual it wasn’t a pattern like some others. His 3,166 hits, 477 homers, 636 doubles and a solid .286 batting average while picking up five Gold Gloves at third base check all the boxes of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Billy Wagner: Since the candidacy of Fred McGriff, which I campaigned for as a writer for a decade (as well as since the creation of this blog in 2015), no other candidate has been more overlooked than Billy Wagner. This could be the year he gets in. A lot of good relievers are in the Hall of Fame: Mariano Rivera, Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, Dennis Eckersley and Hoyt Wilhelm. Wagner was better than all of them in a number of key stats and only Rivera was his rival statistically.
Wagner’s 422 career saves is sixth-best but his 2.31 ERA is bested by only one Hall of Fame reliever – Rivera. And those metrics are the only major ones that Wagner is behind in. His 6 hits allowed per nine innings is the lowest mark among all pitchers in the history of baseball with 900 innings or more (Rivera allowed a full hit more per nine innings). Wagner’s .187 batting average against is the lowest mark for any pitcher with 900 innings or more (Sandy Koufax had a .205 average against, hitters batted .204 against Nolan Ryan and .211 against Rivera). Wagner’s WHIP of 0.998 is also better than Rivera’s 1.00 mark and only behind Hall of Fame deadball pitcher Addie Joss for those who have thrown 900 innings or more.
The only reason Wagner isn’t in yet is because two non-Hall of Famers have more saves than him (John Franco at 424 saves and Francisco Rodriguez at 437). But that is not enough of a reason to keep him out, I think he should be in and I expect that he will get in soon.
Todd Helton: If past patterns hold true, Todd Helton will inch up from the 72% mark last year and get to 75% but I am firmly against his candidacy for a number of reasons.
Unlike Beltre, who remained consistent throughout his career with one outlier, Helton’s career has four different shapes. There is the career at the hitter’s paradise at Coors Field and away from it. There is the career before steroids testing and after it.
At first glance, his .316 batting average looks like a slam dunk for the Hall. Yet Helton hit .345 at Coors Field and just .287 away. That is one of the largest discrepancies you will ever see. He also hit just 142 homers away from Coors compared to 227 at the fountain of slugging. Those differences are so pronounced that it should automatically disqualify him from the Hall of Fame. Those who support him, point to his other-worldly.441 on-base numbers at Coors which drops to a still-impressive .386 on the road (nice yet still below non-Hall of Famers John Kruk and Ken Singleton).
While his on-base numbers are good, his .287 batting average away from Coors would put him behind more than 400 hitters on the career list including Wally Joyner. Batting .287 is a good number if you are Adrian Beltre with 477 home runs but Helton had 369 while playing at a park where balls flew out the park just at the feeling of contact. Over-the-hill veterans like Dante Bichette, Ellis Burks and Andres Galaraga were left for dead before playing in Colorado and unleashing untold carnage. Galaraga hit .288 for his career with 399 homers and will never enter Cooperstown without a ticket.
Helton’s 2,519 hits puts him behind a better first baseman – Steve Garvey, who is not in the Hall. Garvey, a 10-time All-Star, had 2,599 hits with identical plate appearances though a slightly lower .294 career batting average and .329 on-base percentage. But Garvey also had six 200-hit seasons, something Helton did twice. Garvey won four Gold Gloves compared to three for Helton.
To Helton’s credit, he hit 592 doubles which is 20th on the career list – right behind Luis Gonzalez.
Helton’s power numbers dropped precipitously after the 2001 season when he hit 49 homers, dropping to 30 homers in 2002 as steroid testing began, down to 20 in 2005. Between 2006 and 2013, he never hit more than 17 home runs. One would think that not having to face steroid pitchers would make your numbers go up. Could just be a coincidence though to some writers.
Garret Anderson, Willie Davis and Al Oliver are among more than 20 players with more hits than Helton who are not in the Hall of Fame. Oliver was also a seven-time All-Star compared to five selections for Helton.
Another knock against Helton’s candidacy is he only had one batting title despite playing in the most hitter-friendly park in the history of baseball. Here are some players with more batting titles than Helton not in the Hall of Fame who are eligible: Bill Madlock (4), Lefty O’Doul (2), Tommy Davis (2), Nomar Garciaparra (2), Dave Parker (2), Pete Runnels (2) and Ferris Fain (2).
No on Helton.
Joe Mauer: Joe Mauer certainly was on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a three-time batting champ with the Minnesota Twins as a catcher. But injuries shortened his career and he fell short of the milestone numbers that Hall of Famers usually need. But once again, a forgiving Hall of Fame electorate is already showering him with votes posted online showing he is a favorite of the majority of writers posting their ballots online early.
Getting in on the first ballot used to be a knighting reserved for only the very best, maybe the top one-half of one percent of ballplayers. The newer generation thinks the top two percent of players should be elected. Roy Campanella, one of the greatest catchers and a three-time MVP winner (not batting champ but MVP) needed seven ballots to get into the Hall. Yogi Berra, another three-time MVP catcher needed two ballots. But Mauer, who never won an MVP and who played almost as many games at first base and as a designated hitter as he did catching, is going to sail into the Hall on his first try under some revisionist idea that he put up Herculean numbers as a catcher.
Before his injuries, Mauer was a smooth-hitting catcher who racked up six Gold Glove awards. But the last seven years of his career were spent mostly as a first baseman and designated hitter. He only hit .300 in three of his last seven seasons. Never much of a power hitter, he never hit more than 11 home runs in those final seven years. Aside from a 28-home run outlier in 2009 actually, he never hit more than 13 home runs in a single season of his career.
Mauer will be getting boosters for having played as a catcher even though he finished his career with only 2,123 hits, which is only about 100 more than four-time batting champ Bill Madlock (who was only on the ballot one year) and his .306 career average is just a single percentage point better than Madlock. So how do you put Mauer in ahead of Madlock? His 2,123 hits is only about 50 more than Scott Rolen, who got in last year with just 2,077 hits. The majority of the voters today don’t even seem to care about this kind of stuff anymore. Yes, he was a nice catcher but not Mickey Cochrane or Mike Piazza. Let’s take it easy .
Mauer’s offensive numbers are comparable to another former Twin – Tony Oliva though without as much power. They have nearly identical batting average numbers though Oliva led the league in hits give times – something Mauer never did. Oliva did not have the defensive prowess that Mauer earned as a catcher though Oliva needed 40 years to get into the Hall of Fame. So I can’t view Mauer as any kind of slam-dunk candidate. The Hall of Fame is historically supposed to reward longevity.
Andruw Jones:
Andruw Jones looked like a Hall of Famer to everyone who witnessed the moment when he became at age 19 the youngest player to hit a home run in postseason history during the 1996 World Series against the Yankees. He actually hit two in Game 1.
From 1998 to 2006, Jones hit no fewer than 26 homers in each season. He had seven seasons of at least 30 homers, topping off in 2005 with a league-leading 51 homers. He won a Gold Glove 10 straight seasons at centerfield and was one of the three greatest centerfielders of his generation – along with Ken Griffey Jr. and Jim Edmonds.
His career suddenly nosedived at the age of 30 in 2007. His batting average dropped 40 points that year from .262 to .222. His homers went from 41 to 26, just two years after he hit 51. He would never touch 20 homers again. In 2008, at the age of 31, he hit .158 with the Dodgers with 3 homers in 75 games.
There have been a lot of players whose careers tailed off prematurely but this was one for the ages. Despite all of the promise from breaking into the big leagues so young and some big seasons, he finished his career with 434 homers and only 1,933 hits. Perhaps the sacrifices he made in the field with his body took their toll.
His .254 batting average would be the second-lowest in the Hall of Fame. Only pioneering catcher Ray Schalk hit lower – .253 in the deadball era. Schalk is considered one of the greatest defensive catchers, still holding records a century after he played.
Jones certainly made a great impact but consider for a moment that Jim Edmonds won eight Gold Gloves playing centerfield and hit .284 with 393 homers and had 16 more hits than Jones (1,949) even though Jones had more than 700 at-bats. Edmonds also had a much higher on-base percentage at .376 compared to .337 for Jones.
A four-time All-Star (Jones had five All-Star appearances), Edmonds received just 2.5% of the vote on his lone ballot. Both players played at almost the same time. Edmonds played from 1993-2010 and Jones from 1996-2012.
When you put their numbers together, Edmonds is really the better all-around player. There has been some historical revisionism online by new-age statistics that show Jones saved a ton of runs in the outfield and some now claim him to be the greatest centerfielder since Willie Mays.
Jones is 16th on the career list of centerfielder putouts – great but not other-worldly. He led the National League in putouts six times, three times in assists (42nd on career list for centerfielders) and twice in double plays turned among centerfielders.
Three times, Edmonds led National League centerfielders in double-plays turned (24th on the career listr for centerfielders) and led National League outfielders in assists three times. He also led American League centerfielders in assists once. Edmonds is also 29th on the centerfielder assists list. He is also made the 19th most putouts from centerfield.
Jones was a great centerfielder, one of the best of his era and has a case to make for the Hall but if he does, so does Edmonds, and therefore I think the veterans should decide for Jones and Edmonds.
Bobby Abreu
Abreu was the kind of player who brought his lunchbox to work year after year and did his job effectively. For a 7-year stretch he hit 20 homers or more each season with 35 doubles or more, 98 runs or more, stole 20 bases or more while batting .285 or better with an OBP of .400 or better in six of those seasons. Pretty lofty numbers while playing right field.
Did you know Abreu has the 12th most putouts for a right fielder and is 28th on the right field assists list? His outfield assists numbers are solid defensively but till behind non-HOF outfielders like Jesse Barfield, Dave Parker and Rusty Staub. And Abreu was no Dave Parker. He doesn’t own any batting titles. His batting average of .291 is solid but still behind more than 200 other guys including contemporaries like Michael Young, Kenny Lofton and Jose Vidro.
Abreu’s .395 on-base percentage is his best stat and is 81st on the career list though that is still behind contemporaries like Jason Giambi, Nick Johnson and John Olerud.
Abreu was a player who was good at a lot of things just not a standout in one area. His 574 doubles are 25th on the list.
All fine numbers but he never did anything spectacular or stood out as a dominant player of his era. He did a lot of things well just nothing that great.
You could make a case for Abreu on some of the numbers but outfielders like Johnny Damon, Dave Parker, Kenny Lofton, Vada Pinson, Bobby Veach, Bob Johnson and Charlie Jamieson were better in a lot of ways and none of those guys are in the Hall.
A-Rod, Beltran, Manny, Sheffield, Pettite and Vizquel are hard-nos
Rather than devote a lot of space to these bad boys, I am going to make it simple: these players don’t get my vote due to the character clause.
With Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, there are actual failed tests for performance enhancing drugs which is even more egregious than others linked to PED’s because they knew there was testing. For Sheffield, his links to the Mitchell Report are too great to ignore. Beltran’s involvement in the Houston Astros cheating scandal is unforgiveable. Pettite has admitted to using HGH – I give him credit for admitting which is more than some guys in the Hall did but can’t put him in the Hall (I wouldn’t have voted for him anyway – a very hittable pitcher in his career) and Vizquel has an ugly domestic violence rap sheet.
New faces:
Of the other new players on the ballot, David Wright had the most talent and was on a path to the Hall of Fame until back injuries derailed his career.
Victor Martinez might have one of the most interesting cases on the new ballot. A .295 career hitter as a catcher is not something you see every day. He hit almost for as good an average as Mauer (.306 batting average) did. Martinez also had an impressive .366 on-base percentage (.388 for Mauer). Martinez had more power than Mauer, hitting 246 homers compared to Mauer’s 143. Martinez also had 1,178 RBIs compared to 923 for Mauer. Martinez had 30 more hits (2,153) than Mauer and twice led the league in the hardest hitter to strike out.
Martinez was no Yadier Molina behind the plate which will affect the number of votes he gets but Martinez deserves consideration especially if Mauer gets as many votes as I think he will.
Never voting for Utley
One player among the new class up for election I would never vote for is Chase Utley. His reputation has taken on some strange notoriety of respect in some circles of sportswriters who admire his competitiveness. The most competitive thing he did was to perform one of the worst take-out slides since Hal McRae and in effect essentially ended the career of New York Mets stud young shortstop Ruben Tejada in the 2015 World Series.
Utley’s career was a good one but it has since taken on mythical status, coincidentally it seems since the slide. His competitiveness extended to hanging over the plate, a tactic that led to him leading the league in hit by a pitch three times in a row.
A six-time All Star who never won a Gold Glove, Utley doesn’t have any Hall of Fame statistics yet I have a feeling he is going to be the sentimental choice for some voters who like his style of play. He also had some big postseason moments, like hitting five homers for the Phillies in their 2009 World Series loss to the Yankees. While he had other good postseason series performances with the Phillies, he is a lifetime .224 hitter in the postseason.
His 1,885 hits, .275 average and 259 homers in the regular season are all underwhelming.
He wasn’t even the most dangerous hitter on his team. Ryan Howard, who actually won an MVP and won home run titles, didn’t even make it past the first ballot of the Hall of Fame (which was the right call).
Yet Utley will be a favorite of warmongers who point to his 64.5 WAR (wins above replacement), a non-statistic that attempts to assume the level of Utley’s play at second base against an average replacement – an impossible task that the new young turks love to follow.
The WAR adherents can say his WAR number (144th on the career list) was better than a lot of Hall of Famers.
Frankly, that says more about WAR than Utley. It also says that the second baseman crop during Utley’s era was weak as WAR compares players to their position. Steroid era poster boy Sammy Sosa and Utley had the same batting average essentially (Sosa at .273) while Sosa hit 609 homers compared to 259 for Utley, yet Utley has a higher WAR. Doesn’t make much sense.
Hall of Famer Jesse Burkett hit .330 for his career with about 1,000 more hits than Utley and also hit better than .400 twice in the deadball era. His WAR is lower than Utley’s too. Which is why I say WAR, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
But watch how many people mistakenly vote for Utley. It will be a lot.
Jimmy Rollins not a Hall of Famer either
One other candidacy I am against is Utley’s teammate Jimmy Rollins. Rollins received 12% of the vote last year and was a nice player who won an MVP in 2007 when it could have just as easily gone to Prince Fielder or David Wright (both of whom had better seasons than Rollins or Utley and will never sniff the Hall).
For his career, Rollins finished with a .264 batting average which would put him among the five worst batting averages in the Hall of Fame for a hitter. His 2,455 hits and .324 on-base percentage (OBP) are also good but not great. Rollins had four Gold Gloves, which is a number far below many others who are not in the Hall of Fame such as Keith Hernandez (11) and Don Mattingly (9).
In the postseason, Rollins did not do anything to boost his candidacy. A career postseason .246 hitter, he batted .227 in the Phillies’ 2008 World Series win.
A good comparison for Rollins is Dave Concepcion, an eight-time All Star shortstop (compared to three All-Star appearances for Rollins. Concepcion was on the Hall of Fame ballot all 15 years and never rose above the 17% mark.
Concepcion hit .267 (.264 for Rollins) with slightly fewer hits (2,326) and a near-identical OBP (.322). Rollins was a better base stealer (470 compared to 321 for Rollins). Concepcion was also much better in the postseason with the Big Red Machine, batting .297 in 34 postseason games and four World Series appearances.
For the warmongers, Rollins had a 47 WAR compared to 40 for Concepcion which is likely because Rollins scored 1,421 runs compared to 993 for Concepcion. They had almost identical RBIs.
You can barely separate Rollins from Concepcion. Rollins and Utley also played in the most hitter’s friendly ballpark after Coors Field.
Just as a quick example, Vince Coleman had the same batting average as Jimmy Rollins, the same exact on-base percentage and 280 more stolen bases and he will never get into the Hall of Fame. Fireworks or no fireworks.
Nate's Hall 