The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. 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.

Few players have ever been more central to the Phillies than Jimmy Rollins. In fact, with the exception of Mike Schmidt, no player spent more time in a Phillies’ uniform than Rollins, and even counting the Hall of Fame third baseman, none collected more hits or stole more bases. The pint-sized shortstop — 5-foot-7, 175 pounds according to Baseball Reference — spent 15 of his 17 major league seasons with Philadelphia, where he was at the center of the team’s return to contention following a slide into irrelevance at the outset of the Wild Card era.

Rollins was the starting shortstop on the Phillies’ five straight NL East champions from 2007-11, including their ’08 World Series winning squad — just the second in franchise history — and ’09 pennant winner. A slick fielder who offered speed and pop from both sides of the plate atop the lineup, he garnered the nickname “J-Roll” from legendary Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas. J-Roll projected a confidence that bordered on cockiness, and carried himself with a swagger. “We’re the team to beat,” he said at the outset of the 2007 season, all but thumbing his nose at the reigning NL East champion Mets, who had outdistanced the Phillies by 12 games. Read the rest of this entry »

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to my Friday chat. Some minor technical stuff on this end so bear with me for a  couple minutes

2:06

Jay Jaffe: Sorry about that _ the chat wasn’t showing up on the home page banner, which make it harder for site visitors to know it’s happening. Anyway, now that it’s up, let’s get going. I’m rollin(s) on my BBWAA ballot profiles (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2023-hall-of-fame-ballot-jimm…), had Billy Wags yesterday (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jaws-and-the-2023-hall-of-fame-ballot-bill…). Hoped to get the Carlos Beltrán one out this week but there’s so much ground to cover and more care needs to be taken to get it to where I want it.

2:06

Jay Jaffe: I did a Twitter thread on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, whose results I’ll cover on Sunday Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe Here’s my @fangraphs intro post regarding the process, and the disappointment regarding some candidates absent from among the 8 on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot blogs.fangraphs.com/new-format-fam… 1/x 27 Nov 2022

2:07	Jay Jaffe: and dug into the potential for cronyism now that the Committee voters have been announced https://blogs.fangraphs.com/in-naming-the-era-committee-members-the-ha…

2:07	Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2016 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.

Billy Wagner was the ultimate underdog. Undersized and from both a broken home and an impoverished rural background, he channeled his frustrations into throwing incredibly hard — with his left hand, despite being a natural righty, for he broke his right arm twice as a child. Scouts overlooked him because he wasn’t anywhere close to six feet tall, but they couldn’t disregard his dominance over collegiate hitters using a mid-90s fastball. The Astros made him a first-round pick, and once he was converted to a relief role, his velocity went even higher.

Thanks to outstanding lower-body strength, coordination, and extraordinary range of motion, the 5-foot-10 Wagner was able to reach 100 mph with consistency — 159 times in 2003, according to The Bill James Handbook. Using a hard slider learned from teammate Brad Lidge, he kept blowing the ball by hitters into his late 30s to such an extent that he owns the record for the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher with at least 800 innings. He was still dominant when he walked away from the game following the 2010 season, fresh off posting a career-best ERA. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not hard to muster some cynicism when it comes to the Era Committee voting. Like the various iterations of the Veterans Committees that proceeded it, the small panels of Hall of Famers, executives, and media members tasked with evaluating Era Committee ballots inevitably include voters with strong connections to the candidates, and with that, some potential for cronyism. This isn’t an abstraction confined to the dusky past, not when it was just three years ago that Harold Baines was elected by a Today’s Game panel that included White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, manager Tony La Russa, and general manager Pat Gillick, all of whom had overseen significant stretches of Baines’ career, creating conflicts of interest that almost certainly aided his election. Thus one couldn’t help raise an eyebrow on Monday after the Hall announced the 16 voters who will serve on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. The group will vote on eight candidates on Sunday, December 4, at the Winter Meetings in San Diego.

As ever, it’s not hard to start connecting the dots between the panelists and the eight candidates and think about what that might portend, particularly when the ballot’s most notorious player, Barry Bonds, appears to be the orphan of the bunch. The all-time home run leader and seven-time MVP has the credentials for Cooperstown, obviously, but the allegations concerning his connection to performance-enhancing drugs kept him from reaching 75% of the vote at any time during his 10-year run on the BBWAA ballot. Now he’s within a process that allows the Hall to stack the deck against him.

Each Era Committee is appointed by the Hall of Fame board of directors and chaired by Hall chairman of the board Jane Forbes Clark (as a non-voting member). Usually the configuration is something like eight Hall of Famers, four executives and four media members/historians, but that’s not etched in stone. This one has seven Hall of Famers, six execs, and three media members:

• Hall of Famers: Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas, and Alan Trammell
• Executives: Paul Beeston, Theo Epstein, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Dave St. Peter, and Ken Williams
• Media members/historians: Steve Hirdt, LaVelle Neal, and Susan Slusser.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2014 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.

Jeff Kent took a long time to find a home. Drafted by the Blue Jays in 1989, he passed through the hands of three teams that didn’t quite realize the value of what they had. Not until a trade to the Giants in November 1996 — prior to his age-29 season — did he really settle in. Once he did, he established himself as a standout complement to Barry Bonds, helping the Giants become perennial contenders and spending more than a decade as a middle-of-the-lineup force.

Despite his late-arriving stardom and a prickly personality that sometimes rubbed teammates and media the wrong way, Kent earned All-Star honors five times, won an MVP award, and helped four different franchises reach the playoffs a total of seven times. His resumé gives him a claim as the best-hitting second baseman of the post-1960 expansion era — not an iron-clad one, but not one that’s easily dismissed. For starters, he holds the all-time record for most home runs by a second baseman with 351. That’s 74 more than Ryne Sandberg, 85 more than Joe Morgan, and 86 more than Rogers Hornsby — all Hall of Famers, and in Hornsby’s case, one from before the expansion era (note that I’m not counting homers hit while playing other positions). Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances in their career who spent at least half their time at second base, only Hornsby (.577) has a higher slugging percentage than Kent’s .500. From that latter set, only Hornsby (1.010) and another pre-expansion Hall of Famer, Charlie Gehringer (.884), have a higher OPS than Kent (.855). Read the rest of this entry »

Hall of Fame season is underway, and I’ve already completed my review of the eight Contemporary Baseball Era Committtee candidates and gotten a start on the annual BBWAA ballot. With the latter, 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 using a cool gizmo that our developer, Sean Dolinar, built a few years ago. I’m also going to use this page to lay out a tentative schedule for the remainder of the series as well as links to the profiles that have been published.

To participate in the crowdsourcing, you must be signed in, and you may only vote once. While you don’t have to be a FanGraphs Member to do so, this is a perfect 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, 2022, the same as that of the actual BBWAA voters, who have to schlep their paper ballot to the mailbox. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2022 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2019 election, 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. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Baseball at high altitude is weird. The air is less dense, so pitched balls break less and batted balls carry farther — conditions that greatly favor the hitters. Meanwhile, reduced oxygen levels make breathing harder, physical exertion more costly, and recovery times longer. Ever since major league baseball arrived in Colorado in 1993, no player put up with more of this, the pros and cons of playing at a mile-high elevation, than Todd Helton.

A Knoxville native whose career path initially led to the gridiron, ahead of Peyton Manning on the University of Tennessee quarterback depth chart, Helton shifted his emphasis back to baseball in college and spent his entire 17-year career (1997–2013) playing for the Rockies. “The Toddfather” was without a doubt the greatest player in franchise history, its leader in most major offensive counting stat categories. He made five All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves, a slash line triple crown — leading in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage in the same season — and served as a starter and a team leader for two playoff teams, including Colorado’s only pennant winner. He posted batting averages above .300 12 times, on-base percentages above .400 nine times, and slugging percentages above .500 eight times. He mashed 40 doubles or more seven times and 30 homers or more six times; twice, he topped 400 total bases, a feat that only one other player (Sammy Sosa) has repeated in the post-1960 expansion era. He drew at least 100 walks in a season five times, yet only struck out 100 times or more once; nine times, he walked more than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Content warning: This piece, and the original pieces to which it links, contains details about alleged domestic violence and sexual impropriety. The content may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.

The Baseball Writers Association of America may be done with these guys, but the Hall of Fame isn’t… yet. Eleven years ago, one of the most talented classes of first-year candidates landed on the writers’ ballot. From a group that included Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, not to mention Craig Biggio, Kenny Lofton, Mike Piazza, and Sammy Sosa — as well as four holdover candidates subsequently elected by the writers, and three chosen by the Era Committees — the writers elected no one, pitching their first shutout in 17 years. Voting hasn’t been the same since. While Biggio and Piazza were eventually elected by the writers, the quartet of Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, and Sosa were not. Their continued presence on the ballot, and the rancorous debate that surrounded their candidacies, at times gummed up the process, diverting attention away from other compelling candidates and souring many participants and observers on the entire endeavor, if not the institution itself. The politics of glory, indeed.

The polarizing public debate surrounding candidates linked to performance-enhancing drugs — a group that at the time included not just Bonds, Clemens, and Sosa but also Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro — led the Hall’s board of directors to change the rules mid-candidacy by reducing players’ windows of eligibility from 15 years to 10. Where Hall president Jeff Idelson said in 2011 with regards to PED-linked candidates, “[W]e’re happy with the diligence of the voters who have participated, and the chips will fall as they fall,” once it became apparent that Bonds and Clemens were trending towards election, the institution put its thumb on the scale via board member Joe Morgan’s open plea for voters not to consider steroid users. Morgan’s letter conveniently sidestepped the likelihood that some steroid users — and numerous known users of another performance-enhancing drug, amphetamines — had already been elected. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 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. 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 25–30 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. 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 »

If you were waiting for a time when the discussion around the BBWAA’s annual Hall of Fame voting didn’t center around Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling, then I have good news: After 10 years of increasingly polarized debate, they all fell short of the 75% needed for election and have run out of eligibility on the ballot. They’re now candidates on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot — a problem for another day — but they’re not part of the 28-man slate unveiled by the Hall on Monday. That’s not to say that this ballot is devoid of controversial figures, or that debates about character are a thing of the past, but we can finally move beyond the cast that hit the 2013 ballot and spent 10 years monopolizing discussions and draining some of the fun out of the whole process.

The 2023 ballot doesn’t come without controversy, particularly in relation to the top newcomer, Carlos Beltrán. A nine-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner who racked up 2,745 hits, 435 homers, and 312 steals, he’s got numbers to appease traditionalists, and likewise, he checks the advanced stat boxes by ranking eighth in WAR and ninth in JAWS among center fielders, thanks in no small part to the extra value he provided on the bases and in the field. For all of that, Beltrán is the player most closely identified with the Astros’ illegal sign stealing scandal, less because his own performance benefited (his 2017 season was below replacement level) than because The Athletic’s reporting and commissioner Rob Manfred’s subsequent report placed him at the center of the efforts to decode opposing catchers’ signs using the team’s video replay system.

Whether that is an offense grave enough to cost Beltrán a chance at Cooperstown is a matter for debate; his involvement in the matter already cost him his job as the Mets manager before he oversaw a single game. He returned to baseball this past year as a broadcaster for the YES Network, though no team has considered him for an in-uniform job since he left the Mets. Read the rest of this entry »