The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

“A hard-charging third baseman” who “could have played shortstop with more range than Cal Ripken.” “A no-nonsense star.” “The perfect baseball player.” Scott Rolen did not lack for praise, particularly in the pages of Sports Illustrated at the height of his career. A masterful, athletic defender with the physical dimensions of a tight end (listed at 6-foot-4, 245 pounds), Rolen played with an all-out intensity, sacrificing his body in the name of stopping balls from getting through the left side of the infield. Many viewed him as the position’s best for his time, and he more than held his own with the bat as well, routinely accompanying his 25 to 30 homers a year with strong on-base percentages.

There was much to love about Rolen’s game, but particularly in Philadelphia, the city where he began his major league career and the one with a reputation for fraternal fondness, he found no shortage of critics — even in the Phillies organization. Despite winning 1997 NL Rookie of the Year honors and emerging as a foundation-type player, Rolen was blasted publicly by manager Larry Bowa and special assistant to the general manager Dallas Green. While ownership pinched pennies and waited for a new ballpark, fans booed and vilified him. Eventually, Rolen couldn’t wait to skip town, even when offered a deal that could have been worth as much as $140 million. Traded in mid-2002 to the Cardinals, he referred to St. Louis as “baseball heaven,” which only further enraged the Philly faithful.

In St. Louis, Rolen provided the missing piece of the puzzle, helping a team that hadn’t been to the World Series since 1987 make two trips in three years (2004 and ’06), with a championship in the latter year. A private, introverted person who shunned endorsement deals, he didn’t have to shoulder the burden of being a franchise savior, but as the toll of his max-effort play caught up to him in the form of chronic shoulder and back woes, he clashed with manager Tony La Russa and again found himself looking for the exit. After a brief detour to Toronto, he landed in Cincinnati, where again he provided the missing piece, helping the Reds return to the postseason for the first time in 15 years. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In the eyes of many, Omar Vizquel was the successor to Ozzie Smith when it came to dazzling defense. Thanks to the increased prevalence of highlight footage on the internet and cable shows such as ESPN’s SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight, the diminutive Venezuelan shortstop’s barehanded grabs, diving stops, and daily acrobatics were seen by far more viewers than Smith’s ever were. Vizquel made up for having a less-than-prototypically-strong arm with incredibly soft hands and a knack for advantageous positioning. Such was the perception of his prowess at the position that he took home 11 Gold Gloves, more than any shortstop this side of Smith, who won 13.

Vizquel’s offense was at least superficially akin to Smith’s: he was a singles-slapping switch-hitter in lineups full of bigger bats, and at his best, a capable table-setter who got on base often enough to score 80, 90, or even 100 runs in some seasons. His ability to move the runner over with a sacrifice bunt or a productive out delighted purists, and he could steal a base, too. While he lacked power, he dealt in volume, piling up more hits (2,877) than all but four players who spent the majority of their careers at shortstop, each in the Hall of Fame or heading there: 2020 first-time candidate Derek Jeter (3,465), Honus Wagner (3,420), Cal Ripken (3,184), and Robin Yount (3,142); he’s second only to Jeter using the strict as-shortstop splits, which we don’t have for Wagner. During his 11-year run in Cleveland (1994-2004), he helped the Indians to six playoff appearances and two pennants.

To some, that makes Vizquel an easy call for the Hall of Fame. Debuting on the 2018 ballot, he received 37.0% of the vote, a level of support that doesn’t indicate a fast track to Cooperstown but more often than not suggests eventual enshrinement. Last year’s rise to 42.8%, modest though it may look, is an even stronger indication of eventual election — although these eyes aren’t so sure it’s merited. By WAR and JAWS, Vizquel’s case isn’t nearly as strong as it is on the traditional merits. His candidacy has already become a point of friction between old-school and new-school thinkers, and only promises to be more of the same, not unlike that of Jack Morris.

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The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2020 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research, and was expanded for inclusion in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A three-time batting champion, five-time All-Star, and seven-time Gold Glove winner — not to mention an excellent base runner — Larry Walker could do it all on the diamond. Had he done it for longer, there’s little question that he’d already have a plaque in the Hall of Fame, but his 17 seasons in the majors were marred by numerous injuries as well as the 1994–95 players’ strike, all of which cut into his career totals.

Yet another great outfielder developed by the late, lamented Montreal Expos — Hall of Famers Andre Dawson, Vladimir Guerrero, and Tim Raines being the most notable — Walker was the only one of that group actually born and raised in Canada, though he spent less time playing for the Montreal faithful than any of them. He starred on the Expos’ memorable 1994 team that compiled the best record in baseball before the strike hit, curtailing their championship dreams, then took up residence with the Rockies, putting up eye-popping numbers at high altitude — numbers that hold up well even once they’re brought back to earth.

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This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

He didn’t swing a bat, throw a pitch or write out a lineup card, but Marvin Miller had a greater impact on major league baseball than just about any man who ever lived. In 1992, former Dodgers announcer Red Barber numbered him among the three most important figures in the game’s history, along with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson. As executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966 to ’82, Miller revolutionized the game, overseeing its biggest change since integration through the dismantling of the reserve clause and the dawn of free agency, thus shifting a century-old balance of power from the owners to the players. Miller helped the union secure a whole host of other important rights as well, from collective bargaining to salary arbitration to the use of agents in negotiations. During his tenure, the average salary of a major league player rose from $19,000 to over $240,000, and the MLBPA became the strongest labor union in the country. Yet both in his lifetime and since his death at the age of 95 in 2012, petty politics has prevented him from receiving proper recognition via enshrinement in the Hall of Fame — so much so that Miller, still feisty well into his 90s, took the unprecedented step of asking voters not to consider him.

Miller’s omission is particularly glaring in light of the extent to which the 21st century small-committee processes have honored nonplayers — executives, managers, and umpires — to a much greater degree than players. To some degree that’s understandable, given that the former group has have no other route into Cooperstown, unlike the post-1936 players under the purview of the BBWAA. Nonetheless, the contrast stands out; setting aside the 2006 Special Committee on the Negro Leagues, the count since 2001 is 15 execs, managers, and umps to seven players (four in the past two years). None of those people, from commissioners Bowie Kuhn and Bud Selig and owner Walter O’Malley on down, put their stamp on baseball to a greater degree than Miller. Somewhere within this mess is the galling reality that even the Hall of Fame players who benefited from the changes he wrought, who make up the largest portion of the committee process — and particularly who formed the vast majority of the electorate via the enlarged Veterans Committees from 2003-09 — have utterly failed in their capacity to honor him. Reggie Jackson, one of the earliest beneficiaries of free agency, never struck out in more embarrassing fashion than when he told reporters in 2003, “I looked at those ballots, and there was no one to put in.” Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

An underappreciated cornerstone of Boston’s 1970s and 80s contenders, Dwight Evans reached the majors two years ahead of outfield mates Fred Lynn and Jim Rice, both of whom would win MVP awards and spend far more time in the limelight. Durable and defensively adept — traits that pair could rarely combine — Evans outlasted both, spending the first 19 of his 20 seasons (1972-91) with the Red Sox while helping the team to four division titles and two pennants. Though merely an above-average hitter in the first half of his career, “Dewey” developed into a dependable slugger with a keen batting eye, totaling 11 seasons with at least 20 homers and six seasons with at least 90 walks, three of which led the league. An outstanding defender as well, he combined excellent range with a cannon-like arm while playing Fenway Park’s difficult, oddly configured right field.

While Evans won eight Gold Gloves, further recognition was harder to come by. He made just three All-Star teams and never got a first-place vote for MVP, let alone win one (he did have third- and fourth-place finishes). Bill James rated him as the game’s top right fielder in his 1982 and ’83 Baseball Abstracts, but had advanced statistics been more pervasive, Evans’ high on-base percentages and defensive value would have generated greater appreciation. Eight times he was worth at least 4.0 WAR, and at his best in 1981-82, he was one of the game’s five most valuable players. Yet when he became eligible for election to the Hall of Fame, he lasted just three years on the BBWAA ballot, topping 10% only in 1998, his second year of eligibility. Bypassed for both the 2014 Expansion Era Committee ballot and the ’18 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, he’s finally getting another chance in front of the voters. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, the Baseball Writers Association of America released its 2020 Hall of Fame ballot, with 14 holdovers, four of whom received at least 50% last year, joined by a group of 18 newcomers headlined by Derek Jeter. Lately, the writers have been working through a massive backlog of candidates, producing an unprecedented flood of 20 honorees in the past six cycles, including four apiece in each of the past two years. The flood is about to begin receding, however. If not for Jeter, this would rate as the weakest ballot for first-time candidates since 2012, when Bernie Williams was the only first-year candidate who even broke 5%. This year’s two top returnees, Curt Schilling (60.9%) and Larry Walker (54.6%), the latter in his final year of eligibility, are hardly slam dunks for immediate election.

Over the next six weeks, I’ll profile all 32 candidates, either at length or more in brief, examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ll be using to break down Hall of Fame ballots in an annual tradition that began at Baseball Prospectus (2004-12), then moved to SI.com (2013-18), which gave me an opportunity to go into greater depth on each candidate; last year, I brought the series to FanGraphs. The candidate profiles will begin later this week, after I complete my series covering the Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot. Today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle.

First, a review of the basics. To be eligible for election to the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA ballot, a candidate must have played in the majors for parts of 10 years (one game is sufficient to be counted as a year in this context), been out of the majors for five years (the minors or foreign leagues don’t count), and then been nominated by two members of the BBWAA’s six-member screening committee, which is usually a formality but can create some head scratching omissions down the ballot. Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, the current slate of players will have last appeared in the majors in 2014. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect from 1936-2014. The last candidate grandfathered into the full run was Lee Smith, whose eligibility expired in 2017; six current candidates (Walker, Schilling, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent, and Sammy Sosa) had their tenures unilaterally reduced mid-candidacy by the Hall.

To be elected, candidates must receive at least 75% of the ballots cast, and in this case, they don’t round up; 74.9% won’t cut it. Likewise, candidates who don’t receive at least 5% fall off the ballot and can then only be considered for election by the Today’s Game Committee, an entirely separate process — but not until what would have been their 10-year run of eligibility expires. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A five-tool player whose power, ability to hit for average, and strong, accurate throwing arm all stood out – particularly in the Pirates’ seemingly endless and always eye-catching assortment of black-and-yellow uniform combinations — Dave Parker was once considered the game’s best all-around player. In his first five full seasons (1975-79), he amassed a World Series ring, regular season and All-Star MVP awards, two batting titles, two league leads in slugging percentage, and three Gold Gloves, not to mention tremendous swagger, a great nickname (“The Cobra”), and a high regard for himself. “Take Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente and match their first five years up against mine, and they don’t compare with me,” he told Roy Blount in a 1979 Sports Illustrated cover story.

Parker, who had debuted with the Pirates just seven months after Clemente’s death and assumed full-time duty as the team’s right fielder a season and a half later, once appeared to be on course to join the Puerto Rican legend in Cooperstown. Unfortunately, cocaine, poor conditioning, and injuries threw him off course, and while he recovered well enough to make three All-Star teams, play a supporting role on another World Series winner, accrue hefty career totals and play past the age of 40, his game lost multiple dimensions as he aged. Hall of Fame voters greeted his case with a yawn; he debuted with just 17.5% on the 1997 ballot, peaked at 24.5% the next year, and while he remained eligible for the full 15 seasons, only one other time did he top 20%. He made appearances on both the 2014 Expansion Era ballot as well as the ’18 Modern Baseball one, but even after going public with his diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease, he didn’t come close to election. Aside from the precedent set by Harold Baines‘ election last year — a small committee can throw us a wild card now and then — there’s little reason to believe his fate will be different this time. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. Several profiles in this series are adapted from work previously published at SI.com, Baseball Prospectus, and Futility Infielder. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

In a span of just over 10 years, Thurman Munson hit just about every high note a ballplayer could. A first-round draft pick in 1968, he made his major league debut the following summer, and won AL Rookie of the Year honors in 1970. He made his first of seven All-Star teams in 1971, won the first of three Gold Gloves in ’74, and claimed AL MVP honors in ’76 while helping the Yankees to their first pennant in 12 years. They lost that year’s World Series to the Reds, but won back-to-back championships over the Dodgers in 1977 and ’78. Through it all, Munson stood out as an exceptional two-way player, a natural leader and a fiery competitor. He was tough and durable, with a gruff disposition towards the media and certain teammates, but a soft underbelly. As Gabe Paul, the Yankees’ general manager from 1973-77, said of him, “Thurman Munson is a nice guy who doesn’t want anybody to know it.”

Less than a year after the Yankees won the 1978 World Series, it was over — not just Munson’s stellar career but his life. Munson had taken up flying in the spring of 1978, earning his pilot’s license and flying home to his wife and three children in Canton, Ohio on his off days. On August 2, 1979, while practicing takeoffs and landings at the the Canton-Akron airport, Munson crashed his Cessna Citation twin engine jet — which he had purchased less than a month prior — 870 feet short of the runway after approaching at too steep an angle. His two passengers, one of them a flight instructor, escaped, but Munson, who was wearing his safety belt but not his shoulder harness, was paralyzed from the neck down. The wreckage was engulfed in flames before he could be rescued. He was less than two months past his 32nd birthday.

Unlike Roberto Clemente in 1973 and Roy Halladay in 2019, Munson was not posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame at the first opportunity. In fact, he never came close, debuting on the 1981 ballot (via a rule that waived the otherwise-mandatory five-year waiting period, adopted in the wake of Clemente’s death) with 15.5% of the vote and lingering for the full 15 years without again reaching 10%. His candidacy was further ignored when he was on the ballots of the expanded Veterans Committee in 2003, ’05, and ’07, but like Lou Whitaker and Dwight Evans, he’s finally getting his chance this year via the smaller committee format. His career is ripe for reevaluation. While his counting stats are understandably short given his premature death, his WAR totals — specifically his number eight ranking in seven-year peak and his number 12 ranking in JAWS — suggest that he would be a good fit for Cooperstown, particularly at an underrepresented position. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. It is adapted from a longer version included in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Ted Simmons was one of baseball’s true iconoclasts. He denounced the Vietnam War, wore his hair long, nearly became a test case for the Reserve Clause, and was as conversant in 18th century fireplace utensils (yes, really) as he was the tools of ignorance and the curveballs of opposing pitchers. Oh, and he could switch-hit well enough to rank among the position’s best offensively. With eight All-Star appearances, he was hardly unheralded, but Simmons nonetheless tended to get lost among the bounty of great catchers from the 1970s. Seven of the top 16 in the JAWS rankings hail from that decade, including three of the top four, namely Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, and Carlton Fisk. Simmons wasn’t quite their equal, but he ranks 10th, just ahead of Modern Baseball ballot-mate Thurman Munson (12th), with Gene Tenace (13th) and Bill Freehan (16th) not far behind.

Such a concentration of top-tier players at a single position in a given time period is hardly unprecedented, even among those already enshrined. Using the Hall’s own definition of activity — at least one game played in a given season — five enshrined catchers were active every year from 1929-37 except ’30. Every other position except third base (which like catcher, has just 15 enshrinees, the lowest at any position besides relievers) has stretches with six or seven active players, with the seven left fielders from 1975-76 the largest of the recent concentrations. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series concerning the 2020 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot, covering executives and long-retired players whose candidacies will be voted upon at the Winter Meetings in San Diego on December 8. It is adapted from a longer version included in The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books. For an introduction to JAWS, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Lou Whitaker made baseball look easy. No less a writer than Roger Angell marveled over his “ball-bearing smoothness afield and remarkable hand-speed at bat.” But to some, the ease with which the game came to the Tigers’ longtime second baseman suggested that he lacked effort, hard work, or passion for the game, and it didn’t help that Whitaker wasn’t one for self-promotion. He let his performance do the talking, and for the better part of his 19 seasons in the majors, that performance spoke volumes. A top-of-the-lineup spark plug and an outstanding defender, he paired with Alan Trammell to form the longest-running double-play combination in history. He earned All-Star honors five times and won three Gold Gloves along the way, solid totals that nonetheless undersell his contributions.

Whitaker retired one year before Trammell did, and thus reached the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot a year earlier. Shockingly, a player hailed as a potential Hall of Famer during his career received just 2.9% in 2001, which ruled him out from further consideration by the writers and prevented his inclusion on Veterans Committee or Expansion Era Committee ballots during the remaining 14 years that he could have been on the writers’ ballot. Trammell wasn’t elected by the BBWAA either, but after spending 15 years on the ballot, he and longtime Tigers teammate Jack Morris were tabbed by the Modern Baseball Era Committee in 2018, the first living ex-players elected to the Hall by any small-committee process since 2001. Their eligibility raised Whitaker’s profile, and this year, for the first time, he’s on a committee ballot as well. That doesn’t guarantee his election, but based upon the weight of his accomplishments, the honor is long overdue.

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