A 2021 Hall of Fame Ballot of Your Own — and a Schedule of Profiles
My annual Hall of Fame series is well underway, and now that we’re past the Thanksgiving holiday, it’s time to launch what’s become a yearly tradition at FanGraphs. In the spirit of our annual free agent contract crowdsourcing, we’re inviting registered users to fill out their own virtual Hall of Fame ballots via a cool gizmo that our developer, Sean Dolinar, built a couple of years ago. We’re also going to use this page to lay out a tentative schedule for the remainder of the series.
To participate in the crowdsourcing, you must be signed in, and you may only vote once. While you don’t have to be a Member to do so, this is a good time to mention that buying a Membership does help to fund the development of cool tools like this — and it makes a great holiday gift! To replicate the actual voting process, you may vote for anywhere from zero to 10 players; ballots with more than 10 won’t be counted. You may change your ballot until the deadline, which is December 31, 2020, the same as that of the actual BBWAA voters, who have to scare up a postage stamp and schlep their paper ballot to the mailbox.
The ballot is here and contains all 25 candidates (sorry, no write-ins for those fixated on Pete Rose). We’ve got tables of career stats for hitters and pitchers, if that helps, as well as a checkbox that allows you to see the stats of those already enshrined. As with last year, I’ll write up the crowdsourcing results sometime in early January, when we’re all jonesing for Hall news in advance of the announcement of the official results on January 26.
As for the schedule, it’s below, broken into five-day weeks, as we’re not planning to publish these on weekends, or on the several days around Christmas and New Years Day, during which the site will be dark. Please keep in mind that the schedule is verrrry tentative and subject to change, particularly when it comes to the new profiles (denoted with asterisks), which take time to do justice. I’m keeping one day a week open so that I can weigh in on trades, signings, or other current events, and may move things around within the week to accommodate that.
As for those One-and-Dones — the candidates with no real shot at election or even making it to next year’s ballot — since I started the JAWS project with the 2004 ballot, I’ve covered every single BBWAA candidate, at least in brief, and I’m not about to miss any now.
Nov. 16: Intro
Nov. 17: Scott Rolen
Nov. 18: Omar Vizquel
Nov. 20: Tim Hudson*
Nov. 23: Andy Pettitte
Nov. 24: Todd Helton
Nov. 25-27: Thanksgiving break
Nov. 30: Mark Buehrle*
Dec. 1: Billy Wagner
Dec. 2: Bobby Abreu
Dec. 4: Barry Zito*
Dec. 7: Andruw Jones
Dec. 10: Torii Hunter*
Dec. 11: Manny Ramirez
Dec. 14: Gary Sheffield
Dec. 15: One-and-Dones, Part 1*
Dec. 16: Roger Clemens
Dec. 18: Barry Bonds
Dec. 21: Jeff Kent
Dec. 22: One-and-Dones, Part 2*
Dec. 23: Sammy Sosa
Dec. 24-25: Christmas Break (site dark)
Dec. 28: Curt Schilling
Dec. 29: My Virtual Actual Ballot*
Dec. 30-Jan. 1: New Year’s Break (site dark)
Jan. 4: LaTroy Hawkins*
Jan. 5: A.J. Burnett*
Jan. 6: Aramis Ramirez*
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
U da man Jay
Seeing this really hits home, again, how weak the field is this year. Rolen is the only no-doubt one for me, with no real red flags. And it’s not going to be better for a while, either. A-Rod got caught with steroids. Beltran was involved in one of the few scandals that could rival steroids. Beltre isn’t eligible until 2024, and Ichiro isn’t eligible until 2025. Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols are still hanging on. It’s rough looking.
Ortiz next year will be an interesting one. I feel like the writers want to put him in and I’m more or less fine with that. His regular season stats wouldn’t be quite enough for me but his postseason resume is unimpeachable, and ultimately I’m a Big Hall guy.
It’ll be a joke if Ortiz gets in with a failed PED test on his resume, while far superior players like Bonds and Clemens are kept out
Ortiz benefits not just from his postseason heroics (which were genuinely out-of-this-world) but from the fact that he was a force at the plate in his last season. He went out on 38 homeruns (before the power surge) and a .400 OBP. On offense, I think it was his second best full season? Just a total masher that year, and sportswriters rely on their memory just like everyone else, so when you remember that he went out crushing the baseball and those indelible postseason heroics, you get votes above what you’d normally expect.
Realistically he’s meaningfully below Edgar Martinez as the mostly-or-entirely DH guys go, and that’s because his baserunning was very, very bad. Hard to make a case for him on the merits. Gary Sheffield had a better career but of course Ortiz was the polar opposite of Sheffield in personality–potentially the most affable and most abrasive personalities during their times in the league. (and FWIW, I am very much in the Sheffield-was-misunderstood-camp because I legitimately don’t think he did bad things beyond being a surly dude).
As of now my ballot has 9 names:
Andruw Jones, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Todd Helton, Jeff Kent, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Omar Vizquel, and Billy Wagner.
Andruw is possibly the best defensive centerfielder ever, done. Add in the offensive stats and it is just gravy on top.
Bonds and Clemens were on their way to being in even without the PEDS. I can’t stand what steroids did to the game, but they were at the top of the sport even before that it seemed.
Rolen, seems like a fairly easy choice to get in.
Vizquel, great defensive player at a prime position and the longevity does it for me.
Helton, being the greatest Rockie ever seems to hold some weight, the Hall isn’t complete if an entire team gets individuals shut out.
Kent, the numbers are there.
Schilling, the only thing keeping him out is people who don’t like him.
Wagner, great closer for a long time. Probably only bested by Mariano during his time.
I used JAWS as a proxy for mine, except with Wagner, because relief usage is so different between eras. Wagner being 3rd all-time in ERA+ cinched him for me.
How do you keep out possibly the best centerfielder of all time?
Like I said, I’m going off JAWS, in part to eliminate any subjective bias on my part.
Andruw Jones has higherJAWS, bWAR and fWAR, peak and career than Sosa…
Good point. I managed to confuse myself–I didn’t actually vote Sosa, but added him in my writeup for some reason.
(double post)
It’s actually pretty silly to just take a system like JAWS, as wonderful as it is, and use it as a sole judge for hall of fame credentials.
JAWS does great to me in the sense that anyone who raises average JAWS at their position, deserves to be in the HOF. Anyone below that line but still around Hall of Famers at their position deserve strong consideration. Above that line, no doubt for me. At or below the line, all the other stuff comes into play (effect on game, story of baseball, etc).
It is a fantastic tool. I’m not questioning that.
This was interesting–Iooking at these and the comments on the previous article made me change my stance on the character clause. It’s more internally consistent to ignore the character clause, generally, since the application of it is necessarily incredibly subjective. There’s also no way that the Hall will ever retroactively remove people who might not deserve to be there for character reasons. Better for the HoF to include people on their baseball merits only, and for us to make sure we don’t laud the whole person for their baseball prowess only.
And there are plenty of PED-fueled players in the Hall, too. I’ve changed my stance there, as well. MLB forever looked the other way, until it didn’t. Why should players be penalized their HoF status for doing what they had to in order to not lose their status in the league? It’s not like making the Hall imparts much of anything onto a former player other than prestige.
So–as much as I loathe Schilling’s social opinions, Clemens’ statutory rape, any indications of domestic violence, and steroid use, my ballot is:
Bonds
Clemens
Schilling
Rolen
Sosa
Wagner
Manny
EDIT: I’d also like to add that Rolen not yet being in is a travesty.
Why would you have Sosa and not Andruw Jones? (Andruw Jones has higher JAWS, bWAR and fWAR, peak and career than Sosa…)
I see what you’re saying but I have to disagree about the character clause. Players’ character should be considered with respect to the social norms of their era, not future eras. So while I don’t believe Schilling should be enshrined, I also don’t think that someone who was elected in the 50s say, should be removed because something they did back then would warrant him not being elected by today’s standards.
So in other words, if you take two identical players who existed happened to each exist in different decades from the other, with identical skills, identical numbers, and identical “character issues”-the same actions, the same belief systems-one guy could be admitted to the hall of fame, and the other denied entry, because of changing social mores? A good reason why I believe the character clause is problematic. and, of course, there are definitive standards, and is applied seemingly arbitrarily, even amongst players of the same era.
We’ kind of losing track of baseball skills here.
The character clause should be invoked to keep out players who fundamentally hurt the game by cheating (ex: Rose), or are literally convicts. Using it to weed out people you think are jerks is a real slippery slope.
“ignore the character clause, generally, since the application of it is necessarily incredibly subjective.”
I couldn’t agree more, and I wish this would carry over into real life. I refuse to dislike anyone because they want more or less immigration, more or less gun rights, etc. Not everyone has to agree with me, nor would the world necessarily be a better place if everyone agreed with me.
Hall of Fame should have the best players in the game. I am a “big Hall” guy in the sense that any player better than the median/average HOF at their position should be pretty automatic. I know many will disagree, but this puts Bonds and Clemens in for sure (2). I do not like Curt Schilling the person for his views, but he was a Hall of Fame pitcher (3). Manny Ramirez was one of the greatest Right Handed hitters of all-time, played the monster well, and brings up the average in LF, so he gets the vote. Rolen is a clear HOF to me at 3B for Offense and Defense and brings up the average(5). So that is 5 clear cut, above the average hall of famer at their position.
Next comes another clear HOF to me, the greatest defensive CF of at least 30 years, maybe all-time, and one who hit over 400 HRs. in Andruw Jones. On the field, he is a clear HOF.
I am not sold personally on Omar Vizquel or Billy Wagner, but other voters support these guys. I would not want to be the guy whose vote keep Omar Vizquel out. David Laurila’s comments on Vizquel do start the resume: “Playing more games at shortstop, and logging the second-most hits of anyone at the position in history were among them. Moreover, his defensive brilliance was a joy to watch, and he’s an idol to a generation of baseball fans in his native Venezuela. ” Billy Wagner is the best Left-handed Closer, and fits in the Smith, Sutter, Hoffman area of the HOF.
2 of the best all-time, 3 additional no-brainers, the best defensive CF makes 6. Vizquel and Wagner don’t destroy HOF credibility, so I would add them to the ballot
I have to include a White Sox HOF Mark Buehrle, who will probably not get there, but deserves to be on the ballot for more than 1 year. (Pettitte and Hudson are around this level, but I will skip them)
So i sit at 9 for my ballot. 6 guys I think deserve to be in; 2 others love but I am not sold on; and my 1 “heart” pick. That leaves 1 slot left. Todd Helton gets the call. His Peak WAR7 is higher than the average HOF 1B. His defense gives him the tie-breaker compared to Sammy Sosa. Sosa, Abreu and Sheffield are the 3 next guys who don’t make the cut. (All 3 more deserving than Buehrle-class SP, and probably Wagner and Vizquel to me, but thems the breaks).
Love that you are doing a ballot this year. I’ve got
Schilling
Clemens
Bonds
Rolen
Manny
Andrew Jones
Sosa
As you can tell, I don’t give much of a damn about PEDs. My unasked for take on it is that MLB should recognize the 90s as “The PED Era” much like other eras of baseball where the game was played by meaningfully different rules. These are the greats of the PED Era, and the HOF is not well served by excluding these guys. For those who feel these players are being rewarded for cheating, the consolations would be that “PED Era” must be mentioned somewhere on the plaque.
I think Clemens, Bonds and Schillings ought to be slam dunks, Rolen I don’t love because he never wowed you, but I get it, the other three are basically right at my cutoff. Sheffield is below it, McGuire, if eligible, would be above it.
Manny’s transgressions are totally and apart from guys like Bonds and Clemens. I’d be hard pressed to believe he would have a HOF career without steroids. There are certainly players out there who did not use roids and if they did they too would have Manny’s numbers. To me, keeping him out is more about not rewarding his cheating (and when he was caught there was no grey area any longer) than it is punishing him.
Yes I think there is a meaningful difference for Manny in that he was caught when it was officially against the rules. But I am really dubious that if everyone did roids we’d have Manny Ramirezes coming out of our ears.
Not coming out the ears. But at least one. Bobby Abreu, John Olerud, and Robin Ventura. All could very easily have hall of fame numbers with only a modest increase in power. There are certainly others. Now, I can’t say for sure whether even one of these guys was “clean,” but my inclination is that there probably were players out there who could have put up HOF numbers with chemical assistance that otherwise did not. There is ample evidence that it helped a few players immensely (like Sosa) who seemed to have a pre-roids and post-roids part of their careers.
I have 1 slot available if someone can convince me to change my mind on any of the following (sorted by war):
Ramirez / Sheffield / Buehrle / Sosa / Hudson / Kent / Hunter / Vizquel
My Ballot (sorted by ABC):
Abreu / Bonds / Clemens / Helton / Jones / Pettitte / Rolen / Schilling/ Wagner
Hudson is easily the best choice to represent that A’s team, its historic run of great teams on a shoestring budget, and what it did for mainstreaming Sabermetrics. And by “best choice” I mean he was the best player. Jeremy Giambi probably best represents that team.
It may start to get clearer in the next few years that pitchers cannot be expected to accumulate the numbers they used to. Hudson should be able to stick around on the ballot to be examined when it is easier to judge pitchers of his era against their peers rather than the generation before.
120 ERA+ is HOVG tied for 119th all time.
Slightly under 60 WAR. 50-60 I need more convincing aka more excellence in a shorter timeframe. 17 years is long enough that WAR is a counting stat.
I have no problem him being featured in the Museum, so those A’s story can be fully told.
However, the Plaque Room is reserved for ~1% of all Players.
I mean, it’s not. Hudson wouldn’t make the Mount Rushmore of mediocre HOF inductees, I can tell you that.
Jason Giambi (not Jeremy)
I leave the known steroid guys off. I figure let them get in front of a committee and see how their peers feel about them. So ballot is:
Helton
Vizquel
Kent
Wagner
Rolen
I’m not completely sold on Jones yet. Lots of gold gloves and that’s it. 434 hr’s is alot but, everybody was hitting homers in that era so that doesn’t sell me. Under 2000 hits and a .254 career batting average don’t help him either. Honestly, I know it’s early in the voting but it doesn’t look like anyone is trending towards election this year. Maybe things will change drastically as more votes come in but in the early going compared to other years it doesn’t look good.
Its not about the gold gloves, its about the other worldly defense. When you are the best at one of the 3 main parts of the game, that should get you in.
Did Vizquel hit 400 homers?
Yeah I don’t know how you can realistically support Vizquel and not Jones. Both are top 3-5 defense at their positions all-time, one just also added a LOT of offense to the ledger.
No but Jose Canseco did, just sayin’.
I voted for Abreu, Helton, Sheffield, Rolen, and Sosa. There are six more I find worthy on their baseball merits: Bonds, Clemens, and Jones are abusers. Pettitte and Ramirez are juicers. Schilling is just an all-around vile piece of work. I honestly don’t know if keeping them out is the right thing, but celebrating and elevating them doesn’t feel like the right thing either. I find myself less persuaded by the slippery slope arguments as time goes on. Maybe if folks want to be inducted into the Hall of Fame someday they should not cheat and not abuse people? Maybe that should be part of their plans and our expectations? Having a hard time seeing the downside right now tbqh. Their stats will always be their stats, they will always be among the all-time greats, nothing can change that. But do we really have to throw a ******* parade for Roger Clemens every year for the rest of his life? Cuz right now I’d rather not.
My vote:
1-Rolen-Slam dunk here. A 70 WAR player, multiple GGs, great hitter, should’ve been 1st ballot.
2-Schilling-I’m not a purist here. With 216 wins, he is not a lock. But greatest money pitcher ever, 3 WS rings, finished #2 in the C.Y. voting 3x, and best K/W ratio ever. What i do not accept is voting against him for political reasons.
3-Wagner-Not a purist here either, but his ERA+ is much better than Hoffman’s. He is #6 in saves. 3 of the guys are in front of him, and he is absolutely better than KRod or Franco.
The maybe list:
Andruw Jones-The 111 OPS+ is weak. By comparison, other non-HOFs CFs like Edmonds, Dale Murphy & Reggie Smith have an OPS+ of 132, 121, and 137. Jones was the better fielder, but the other 3 guys were good fielders as well, particularly with Edmonds with 8 GGs.
Helton-I still can’t figure him out. For value purposes, I’d compare him to McGriff, and I don’t think I’d vote for McGriff either, though I wouldn’t argue against someone that wanted to include him. I just don’t think he provides much separation from his contemporary 1Bs, like Delgaod, Berkman, and Will Clark.
Edmonds made the tough plays look spectacular. Jones made the tough plays look easy. Thats the difference between good defender and greatness.
To be clear, nobody is voting against Schilling for political reasons. I’m sure the writers know that especially the white players are mostly socially conservative. Schilling is dinged for being an asshole. So, if you think he shouldn’t be dinged for being an asshole, then you are saying what is actually happening and also I agree with you.
Hearing about other people’s ballots is a lot like hearing about other people’s dreams, or “bad beat” stories – probably WAAAAAYYY more interesting to the teller than the tellee – but at any rate here are my nine, in roughly the order of how strongly I feel about them:
Bonds
Clemens
Rolen
Schilling
Wagner
Manny being Manny
Andruw Jones
Sosa
Sheffield
——————–
not on my ballot, in order of consideration:
Abreu
Helton
Hudson
Buehrle
Pettitte
Kent
Vizquel
For Mr. Jaffe, as always, you and Mr. Thibodaux are the stars of the off-season (Mr. Dierkes gets very honorable mention for today’s tender spreadsheet).
Have you ever considered running a similar poll for the other HOF elections? Golden Age, Modern Baseball, and Today’s Game, at least in the year they are having the vote by that committee? I think it’s an opportunity for the writers, as well as the fans, to provide their input.
Who knows, perhaps the committee voters might unofficially peek in to see how some of the candidates rate from a sabrematic perspective.
Bobby Abreu is seriously one of the most underrated players of all time. He was an absolutely unique combination of power and speed. In the last 92 seasons since Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker retired, only 2 players have slugged for 0.475 or more and stolen 400 or more bases in their career— Barry Bonds and Bobby Abreu. Abreu is also 1 of only 6 players with 250 home runs and 400 stolen bases (Rickey Henderson, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonds, Joe Morgan, and Craig Biggio are the others). Add in his incredible plate discipline. Abreu owns a career 0.395 OBP, ranks 20th all time in BB, and had 8 consecutive seasons 100+ walks. In terms of WAR, he accumulated 52.3 fWAR over the 10-year period 1998-2007 which ranks 7th overall and 1st among RF during that period. So for a decade he was the most valuable RF in the game (even more so than his contemporary Vladimir Guerrero). He was a managers dream. Abreu was consistent, year after year putting up 5 and 6 WAR seasons as well as hardly ever missing a game (played 150+ games for 13 consecutive seasons). Every former teammate and manager of Abreu’s I have seen in interviews gushed over his ability to play the game so effortlessly and smoothly and was true 5-tool player. Bobby Abreu should be in the Hall of Fame.