Big Battles Looming: the Next Five Years of BBWAA Hall of Fame Elections
Derek Jeter and Larry Walker have punched their tickets to Cooperstown, and this year’s Hall of Fame election is in the books, but before the circus leaves town, it’s time engage in my seventh annual attempt to gaze into the crystal ball to see what the next five elections will hold. As I note annually, this exercise requires some amount of imagination and speculation, and while it’s grounded in my research into the candidates and the history and mechanics of the voting, the changes to the process that have occurred during the time I’ve been conducting this exercise raise the question of how valuable that history is from a prognostication standpoint. It’s tough to get a fix on the horizon when the earth keeps shaking.
Make no mistake: when it comes to the BBWAA’s voting patterns and process over the past seven years, the earth has moved. The writers’ streak of electing multiple candidates for seven consecutive years is unprecedented, as is the surge of 22 honorees in that span. We’ve had three quartets elected over the past six years, compared to two (plus the original quintet) over the previous 78 years. All of this has happened amid changes to both the terrain and the rules. A logjam of qualified candidates unprecedented in modern voting history contributed to the Hall unilaterally truncating candidacies from 15 years to 10 via a 2014 rule change, less to clean up the ballots than to move the intractable debate over PED-related candidates out of the spotlight. With the BBWAA’s subsequent proposals to adjust the longstanding 10-slot rule and to publish every ballot both rejected by the Hall’s board of directors, voters have responded by setting and breaking records for slots used per ballot, percentage of ballots filled to the max, percentage of ballots revealed to the public either before or after the election, and the highest share of the votes for a given candidate. It’s been a wild ride.
Below the surface, and expanding the time horizon a bit, the current millennium has seen more candidates recover from slow starts than at any other time in modern voting history, which for our purposes dates back to 1966, when the voters returned to casting ballots annually. From 1966-2005, only three candidates recovered from debuts below 25% and eventually reached 75%: Duke Snider (17.0% in 1970, elected in ’81), Don Drysdale (21.0% in 1975, elected in ’84) and Billy Williams (23.4% in 1982, elected in ’87). Since then, we’ve seen five players elected despite such slow starts, including three in the past four years: Bruce Sutter (23.9% in 1994, elected in 2006), Bert Blyleven (17.5% in 1998, elected in 2011), Tim Raines (24.3% in 2008, elected in ’17), Mike Mussina (20.3% in 2014, elected in ’19), and Walker (20.3% in 2011). In 2014, the year that the Hall truncated eligibility windows, Walker even nosedived to 10.2%, the second-lowest mark received by any BBWAA-elected candidate in the modern voting era, and that same year, Edgar Martinez scraped bottom at 25.2% at what became the halfway point of his candidacy. Given such recoveries, just about anything seems possible.
Because of that, I’ve annually had to revisit my long-term forecasts, because any given year’s incorrect assumptions wind up creating a ripple effect, so it’s back to the drawing board each time. For example, consider my view of the 2018 election and its quartet of honorees (Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, and Jim Thome). In 2014, just a year removed from the BBWAA’s first shutout since 1996, I predicted Raines, in his 11th year, would join the first-ballot Jones in ’18, but later that summer came the aforementioned rule change. Meanwhile, I envisioned Thome being elected in 2019, the final year of that window, with Guerrero in the 45-55% range, Hoffman in the 30% range, and 11 players elected over the five year span; instead, with voters breaking the slots-per-ballot record three times, we got 16, the largest five-year surge in Hall history.
In 2015, my forecast for ’18 yielded Jones and Thome, with Raines having fallen off in ’17, and Guerrero and Hoffman possibly above 60% by ’20, setting themselves up for ’21. Circa 2016, I had Hoffman going in alongside Jones and Thome, with Raines elected in ’17 and Guerrero in ’20. In 2017 I finally got ’18 right. It was the first time I had even gotten the next year’s entire slate right since my 2015 forecast for Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza in ’16. So hold off wagering the baby’s freshman year tuition on my 2024 predictions.
For what it’s worth, I got 2020 right from the vantage of ’19. Within the context of this exercise, it never took any imagination to predict Jeter’s election, but my prediction for the companions alongside did change: in 2015, I predicted he’d be joined by Ivan Rodriguez (instead elected in 2017); in ’16 it was Guerrero (elected in ’18), and in ’17 and ’18, it was Mussina.
For the sake of this exercise, I am assuming that the Hall will keep the 10 votes per ballot system in place, with a 5% minimum to avoid falling off and 10 years of eligibility for new candidates. Note that each ballot’s year refers to the year of induction; that ballot is released in November of the previous year, with ballots due on December 31. To be eligible, a candidate must not have played in the majors for five full seasons, but his eligibility year will actually be six years after his last appearance.
2021
Top newcomers (listed in order of JAWS): Tim Hudson, Mark Buehrle, Torii Hunter, Dan Haren, Barry Zito, Aramis Ramirez
Top holdovers (listed in order of voting percentage): Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Omar Vizquel
Most likely to be elected: Schilling
Falling off: None
If you thought this year’s crop of 18 newcomers — of whom only Jeter and one other holdover, Bobby Abreu cleared 5% — was comparatively thin, wait ’til next year. The first year that I’ll have a ballot will be the weakest one for newcomers since 2012, as none of them are anywhere close to the JAWS standard at their positions or have notable milestones that will fuel their candidacies. Note that there won’t be a single candidate in his 10th year, as nobody from 2012 even made it onto the ’14 ballot. Given that voters used just 6.61 slots per ballot this year (down from 8.01 last year and a modern record of 8.46 the year before) and just 21% went to 10 slots (down from 43% last year and 50% the year before), it’s reasonable to assume that we won’t see a rebound.
Hudson won 222 games and finished with a 120 ERA+, but ranks just 83rd in JAWS, far below Schilling as well as Mussina and his fellow 2019 honoree, the late Roy Halladay (27th, 29th, and 46th, respectively). Buehrle, with his 214 wins and 116 ERA+, ranks 89th, and Pettitte 90th, while Haren is more than 100 notches below that (though if Schilling’s Twitter feed can hinder his candidacy, maybe Haren’s can help his). Hunter has 2,452 hits, 353 homers and nine Gold Gloves, but he’s 34th among centerfielders in JAWS, nowhere near as good as the Kenny Lofton/Andruw Jones/Jim Edmonds cluster from 10th to 15th — and two of those three were done in by the Five Percent Rule. Ramirez had some thump (386 homers and a .492 slugging percentage) but is 84 runs below average via the defensive metrics, leaving him just 60th in JAWS among third basemen.
All of which suggests that as with 2020, mid-ballot candidates such as Scott Rolen, Billy Wagner, Gary Sheffield, Todd Helton, and Jones — all of whom gained at least 10 points from 2018 to ’19, and all but the last of whom finished in the 29% to 36% range — will continue to step forward. Vizquel, who gained 9.8% and crossed the all-important 50% threshold, and Jeff Kent, who gained 9.4% but was leapfrogged by the 10-point gainers except Jones, should see increases as well, and there’s certainly room for Abreu, who scraped by with 5.5%, to improve.
Closer to the top, Schilling, who received 70.0% this year, is a near-lock to get to 75%, albeit less of one given his unrivaled power of self-sabotage. He could be standing on a very lonely stage, however. Three years ago, I believed that this year would be the opening for the Gruesome Twosome of Bonds and Clemens, but each has gained just 6.9% in the three cycles since, and the math now looks difficult for them to get to 75% before their time on the ballot runs out, let alone a year earlier. Cooperstown better root hard for somebody to break through on the Era Committee ballots, specifically the Golden Days and Early Baseball ones — Dick Allen and Tony Oliva missed by one vote last time, Jim Kaat by two — to help draw people to an induction day that might otherwise be as appealing as a jar of mayonnaise left in the sun.
2022
Top newcomers: Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Rollins, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon
Top holdovers: Bonds, Clemens, Vizquel, Rolen, Helton, Wagner, Sheffield
Most likely to be elected (which isn’t to say that they will be): Bonds, Clemens
Falling off: Sosa
This, the 10th year of their candidacy, is obviously the last and probably the best chance for Bonds and Clemens to finally gain entry. Given that their momentum has ground to a halt, right now it appears that there may be a large enough bloc to filibuster them; while new voters have supported Clemens at a 90% clip over the past three cycles (and Bonds at 87%), they’ve each posted net gains of just seven votes from returning voters — changing a no to a yes — in that span, which is to say that very few minds are changing. Their candidacies need another shake-up on par with the ones that helped the pair gain 19-20 points from 2015 to ’17, namely the sunsetting of inactive voters and the Era Committee election of commissioner Bud Selig, who presided over the very mire into which the pair sank. Perhaps the ongoing discussion of illegal sign-stealing will serve as a reminder that no era is pure. Or perhaps the arrivals of candidates Rodriguez and Ortiz will lead to a more nuanced discussion of PEDs and the whole messy era. Yeah, right.
Despite his 696 home runs and 117.8 WAR, Rodriguez will likely be consigned to down-ballot purgatory due to his full-year suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal, ahead of twice-suspended Manny Ramirez (who has maxed out at 28.2% in his fourth year) but not by much. Rodriguez, Ortiz, and Ramirez all reportedly failed the 2003 survey test, which commissioner Rob Manfred basically disavowed during Big Papi’s retirement tour, on the basis of “issues and ambiguities” that were never resolved, so voters can’t additionally hold that against A-Rod while suggesting that Ortiz is as pure as the driven snow. Which isn’t to say that I’m advocating voters hold the survey test against any player; I draw the line between what happened prior to the advent of testing and suspensions in 2004, and what happened after, and so if MLB couldn’t discipline Ortiz, or Bonds or Clemens, or Sosa (who will age off the ballot here if he hasn’t already slipped below 5%) or Mark McGwire, then I don’t think it’s the voters’ place to do so.
Instead, Ortiz’s candidacy should be considered on the merits. On the one hand are his 541 career home runs and great postseason numbers (.289/404/.543 with 17 homers) while serving as the centerpiece of the Red Sox’s three championships from 2004-13. On the other hand, there’s the stigma of his spending 88% of his career at designated hitter, accumulating a respectable but hardly spectacular 54.8 WAR. But just as Ortiz’s retirement tour gave Martinez (72% of his career at DH, 68.4 WAR) a significant boost towards his eventual election, Martinez’s presence in Cooperstown will persuade many that the only rival for the top DH of all time belongs there as well. Still, it’s going to look quite strange if voters tab him while turning their noses up at Bonds (162.8 WAR) and Clemens (139.2 WAR), when the league had no means of disciplining any of them. I’d expect a strong debut but not instant anointment.
Beyond Ortiz and Rodriguez, it’s difficult to see any other newcomers making a dent. Rollins will have his adherents, but he made only three All-Star appearances and ranks just 32nd among shortstops in JAWS, ahead of only two Hall of Famers, Phil Rizzuto and Rabbit Maranville (not to mention Vizquel). Teixeira didn’t even reached 2,000 hits, and voters haven’t elected any player from the post-1960 expansion era who failed to do so. Neither Nathan (377 saves in 923.1 innings) nor Papelbon (368 saves in 725 innings) can match Wagner or the enshrined relievers in the most traditional yardsticks for the role; Nathan is slightly ahead of Hoffman and Wagner in JAWS, and just below the pair in my WAR-WPA-WPA/LI hybrid stat, with Papelbon ninth there. I don’t see either getting as much support as Wagner could have by this time, though we’ll get to dust off Papelbon’s crotch-grabbing and Bryce Harper confrontation videos for laughs.
By this point, Vizquel could be in the 60-65% range, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Rolen were over 50%, with Sheffield, Helton, and Wagner approaching the mark. But if Bonds and Clemens don’t get to 75%, it could be a completely dry year for Cooperstown unless the 2022 Today’s Game Era Committee tabs a warm body such as first-time eligibles Bruce Bochy and Fred McGriff, or 2019 near-miss Lou Piniella.
2023
Top newcomers: Carlos Beltrán, John Lackey, Jered Weaver, Jhonny Peralta, Francisco Rodríguez
Top holdovers: Vizquel, Rolen, Helton, Kent, Wagner, Alex Rodriguez, Jones
Most likely to be elected: Ortiz
Falling off: Kent
My own reservations about Ortiz aside, I do think the consensus will be large enough to push him over the top rather quickly, particularly if the writers don’t elect anybody in 2022. A year ago, I believed that he’d be joined by Carlos Beltrán, who would quickly break through where Lofton, Edmonds, Jones, and Hunter had come up short. He’s got a Hall-caliber resumé, with nine All-Star appearances, three Gold Gloves, 2,725 hits, 435 homers, outstanding postseason numbers (.307/.412/.609 with 16 homers), and the number nine ranking among center fielders in JAWS. However, the recent report of Beltrán’s central role in the Astros’ 2017 illegal sign-stealing saga, which cost him his managerial job with the Mets before he’d even set foot in the dugout, is obviously a setback. Right now we don’t know the extent to which voters will hold it against him, in part because we haven’t seen if this scandal will expand. Even if it doesn’t, will his participation be regarded as a Rafael Palmeiro-level offense, from his final playing year but nonetheless viewed as disqualifying? Or will it be more like the Roberto Alomar spitting incident, a rare lapse that merely delays the celebration by a year? Nobody knows right now, but it’s unlikely he breezes in on the first ballot. Right now, I’d guess he’s more likely to start in the 40-50% range, then make slow but steady gains towards election.
As far as the newcomers go, the rest of the ballot is slim pickings. Lackey is 214th in JAWS among starting pitchers, and he’s the best of the bunch. Rodriguez, despite his 437 career saves in 976 innings, is 35th in JAWS among relievers, and 12th in my hybrid stat, and he comes with some significant baggage regarding multiple criminal charges, including a guilty plea to third-degree assault for attacking his girlfriend’s father in 2010 and a 2012 arrest for a domestic abuse charge. He’s not getting elected.
Kent, whose lack of traction with voters has always surprised me even given his underwhelming WAR and JAWS, will be in his final year. While he won’t be close to election, I expect him to have climbed into the 40% range, setting himself up well for an Era Committee vote, as Alan Trammell did and as I expect McGriff to do. Vizquel will be in the high 60s, and I expect Rolen to be above 60% tool. The Wagner/Helton/Sheffield group should be in the vicinity of 50%, with at least one having crossed the mark.
2024
Top newcomers: Adrián Beltré, Chase Utley, Joe Mauer, David Wright, Bartolo Colon
Top holdovers: Vizquel, Rolen, Helton, Wagner, Beltrán, Alex Rodriguez, Jones
Most likely to be elected: Beltré, Mauer
Falling off: Sheffield
At least in terms of newcomers, this ballot will harken back to the period we’ve just experienced thanks to the high-profile newcomers, a class that would have included Ichiro Suzuki as well if not for his two-game cameo at the start of the 2019 season. No matter. The top-shelf talent starts with Beltré, whose 3,166 hits, 477 homers, number two ranking in fielding runs at the hot corner and the number four ranking in JAWS will set up an easy waltz into Cooperstown — a remarkable turn of events given that when he left Seattle after the 2009 season, he had never made an All-Star team and his inability to live up to his big 2004 walk year made him something of a disappointment.
Mauer, a six-time All-Star, three-time Gold Glove winner, three-time batting champion (the only catcher who can claim that) and former MVP winner himself, ranks eighth in JAWS among catchers. Forced off the position due to post-concussion problems, he spent the last five seasons of his career as a more or less league average first baseman, but even with that handicap, and with just 921 games caught, his seven-year peak — all from his years behind the plate — ranks fifth, behind only Gary Carter, Johnny Bench, Mike Piazza, and Ivan Rodriguez. The hometown success story and overall number one pick who lived up to his billing, he’s likely to get an extra bump in the character department, which is sure to stir up the faction of Twins fans still mad about his salary. See you in Cooperstown.
Less likely to wind up there, at least on this ballot, is Utley. Despite not drawing more than 300 plate appearances in a season until age 26, he ranks 11th in JAWS among second baseman (and ninth in peak) thanks to the tremendous impact of his fielding and baserunning. Alas, if voters’ failure to recognize him in the MVP races and Gold Glove awards didn’t already make it apparent that he’s facing an uphill battle, I fear that he’ll become a victim of the Rule of 2,000. Nobody from the post-1960 expansion era who finished with fewer than 2,000 hits has been elected by the writers or the small committees, and due to injuries and his acceptance of a part-time role in his final years, Utley finished with just 1,885. That said, five years down the line, with an electorate sophisticated enough not to rely solely on career totals as a yardstick, he’ll receive substantial support, and we can hope he eventually gets his plaque.
With seven All-Star appearances and 50.1 WAR through his age-31 season (2014) — 11th among third basemen — Wright was on a path that conceivably could have carried him to Cooperstown, but spinal stenosis and other injuries derailed him and finally forced him into retirement this past fall. His 40.2 WAR peak score is short of the Hall standard (43.0), and his 1,777 hits leave him well short of 2,000, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he sticks around a much less crowded ballot than more recent short-career candidates such as Johan Santana, Roy Oswalt, and Lance Berkman faced.
[Update: As one reader pointed out, I neglected to include Colon here, a consequence of the lack of clarity over whether he had retired after going jobless following the 2018 season. The rotund righty spent 21 years in the majors and won 247 games thanks in large part to one of the great third acts in baseball history. After tearing his rotator cuff in the 2005 postseason, just after putting together a campaign that won him the Cy Young award, he spent four years coming and going from various rosters and was out of baseball completely in 2010 before re-emerging with the Yankees following a radical stem cell treatment. He put together some big seasons for the A’s and Mets, earning All-Star honors twice after age 40 and became an unlikely fan favorite despite getting pinched for PEDs in 2012. Sticking around past his 45th birthday and tipping the scales in the 285-pound range, “Big Sexy” racked up 247 wins, and while his 40.8 JAWS merely ranks him 143rd among starters, he’ll probably get a bit of token support as a nod towards the fun he brought to the game in the age of social media, never moreso than when he hit one of history’s most unlikely home runs on May 7, 2016.]
As for the holdovers, even as Vizquel edges closer to 75%, this ballot probably won’t be his opening, and likewise for Rolen, who’s Hallworthy but not the automatic choice that Beltré is. Helton and Wagner should be over 50% by this point, and Sheffield will surge past the mark if he hasn’t already gotten there, making his case an interesting one for an Era Committee to consider.
2025
Top newcomers: CC Sabathia, Ichiro Suzuki, Ian Kinsler, Brian McCann
Top holdovers: Vizquel, Rolen, Beltran, Helton, Wagner, Alex Rodriguez, Utley
Most likely to be elected: Suzuki, Vizquel, Rolen
Falling off: Wagner
The debate surrounding electoral unanimity is silly — a Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer, and they don’t put a brownie button or even a mention of getting 100% of the vote on the plaque — but if any upcoming candidate has a shot, it’s Ichiro, who racked up 3,089 hits stateside despite not debuting until age 27. The former MVP, two-time batting champ, 10-time All-Star, 10-time Gold Glove winner, and international ambassador of baseball would have turned the 2024 class into an embarrassment of riches, but his season-opening two-game cameo in Japan last year pushed his eligibility back a year. Whether or not he runs the table among BBWAA voters, he’ll be a first-ballot honoree. “There are few players in the history of organized baseball who have brought this joy to more people — spanning continents, crossing decades — than Ichiro,” wrote colleague Rachael McDaniel last year. That’s the kind of impact that propelled Rivera and Jeter towards unanimity, and it will do the same for Suzuki.
Such a discussion, I think, will also help to push Vizquel over the 75% threshold after a long and polarizing battle; many a voter has already justified their voting for the slick shortstop on grounds that have more to do with aesthetics and intangibles than raw or advanced statistics. The good news is that a conversation about what defensive metrics do tell us will get Rolen to the finish line as well.
Sabathia has a strong pair of traditional milestones — 250 wins and 3,000 strikeouts — to go with his Cy Young award (plus five other top-five finishes in the voting) and his championship ring. He’s a little light on JAWS (51.2, 69th all-time), but the second act of his career, which saw him confront his alcoholism and remake himself as a finesse pitcher after his mid-90s fastball had faded, makes for a compelling narrative that will appeal to voters. Note that there were a considerable amount of “future Hall of Famer” tributes in his final season. I think he’ll be elected, but not on the first ballot unless a bit of traffic — specifically Vizquel and Rolen — clears up ahead of him.
Kinsler, who retired with 1,999 hits(!!!), ranks a very respectable 18th in JAWS. He isn’t quite the equal of Utley, at the plate (107 OPS+ to 117), on the bases, or in the field (118 DRS to 141, in more playing time), though, and given a shortish career, I don’t see him making electoral headway. Likewise for McCann, who caught for eight playoff-bound teams in his 15-year career, bashed 282 homers, and rated as one of the era’s top pitch framers but wore down significantly after age 32, playing in just 245 games over his final three seasons.
With Vizquel and Rolen out of the way, Helton and Beltrán, by this point, should be positioned next in line, with Wagner lined up to follow Lee Smith into Cooperstown via a future Today’s Game vote. All of that’s beyond my 2025 window, which means that I’m estimating only nine honorees, the lowest total I’ve predicted at any point of doing this exercise — and that’s with the big ifs of Bonds and Clemens gaining entry in 2022. The times have changed, and while last year I suggested that the lessening of the ballot crunch and the clearance of its most polarizing candidates could make future debates less heated, the controversy around sign stealing, and specifically Beltrán, could provide new fuel for the fire. At least it will feel like old times.
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.
He’s not yet officially retired, but unless somebody picks him up this year Bartolo Colon would appear on that 2024 ballot since he didn’t pitch at all last year.
With Beltran and Beltre retiring the last couple years, Colon is also the last chance at a 4-decade guy for the 2020’s (ie, played in the 90’s, 00’s, 10’s and 20’s). If he doesn’t play this year, it’ll be the 1st decade since the 1940’s without a 4-decade guy (though the 70’s only qualifies due to the Minnie Minoso stunt appearance in 1976)
You’re overlooking the possibility of another Rick Ankiel comeback.
Ah, good point about Bartolo — and interesting trivia, too.
I went back and added a Bartolograph.
Colon might get into the Omar vizquel/Harold Baines wing of the hall. Good forever but never great.
Except the whole concept of a “4-decade guy” is flawed, since the decade doesn’t technically end until the end of 2020.
(There is no Year 0 on the Julian and Gregorian calendars, so the 1st Century is from 1 to 100, while the 21st Century is from 2001 to 2100. Likewise, the division of decades should follow the same rule.)
hey jay,
is there a list anywhere of the writers who gain an HoF vote over the next five years?
That, assumedly, would be pretty big in conjecturing as well.
Alas, no such list exists, at least as far as the public domain goes.
I’m pretty curious what the total dearth of traditionally strong, non-controversial candidates between 2021-2023 is going to do to the psychology of the voters. Are we going to get a huge surge for Scott Rolen? Omar Vizquel? Todd Helton? An early induction for Ortiz? Schilling getting over the top? People saying ” whatever” and voting for every steroid user? People turning in blank ballots? People abstaining?
I’m personally hoping for some Rolen-mentum but it could be pretty unpredictable.
I kinda think there is a decent chance that the voters, faced with no obvious “good guy” candidate may just choose to hold their noses and get Schilling, Clemens and Bonds in next year. Its either than or blank ballots , which I wouldnt put past some of the older cranks.
So among the top 3 returnees, we have: 1) a white nationalist who ripped off millions from Rhode Island; 2) balco guy who was accused of domestic violence; and 3) steroid guy who almost certainly had a sexual relationship with an underage girl who later killed herself.
Great. Super. Really looking forward to these asshats having giant celebrations thrown in their honor.
Bonds is actually the least objectionable of the three, in my opinion.
And the best player of the three.
Eh. The only person who says McReady and Clemens slept together says that it didn’t happen until she was 20 or 21.
Still fucking gross, but better than if he’d hit his wife like Bonds did.
Schilling is an asshole with a borderline HoF resume. Bonds an asshole who is probably the best hitter of all time, as well as a good fielder and base runner earlier in his career. Clemens is an asshole who is probably the best pitcher since the 60’s. If Schilling gets in before Bonds/Clemens something is wrong with the voters. If Ortiz/Rodriguez get in before Bonds/Clemens some voting rights need to be taken away.
Schilling’s numbers are far from borderline.
He was trending higher than Mussina before his rope journalist tweet and nobody thinks Mussina is borderline.
What is borderline? Kevin Brown was nearly as good as Schilling and he didn’t survive the first ballot; Jack Morris was nowhere near as good as Schilling and he’s in.
Non-baseball reasons aside *somebody* has to be the best player not in the Hall of Fame. I think Schilling’s personality is hurting him voters, but it’s not a slam-dunk. He could one of those guys who’s slipping through the cracks because:
– He never won a Cy Young Award
– He has pedestrian (by HOF standards) traditional counting numbers
– He was never considered the best pitcher in his league (probably not never even the top three: Randy, Pedro, Maddux, Clemens, and later Santana and Halladay were considered better, I think)
– He was a transient player; he never won a WS in Philly and he felt a bit like a rental in Arizona and Boston; for some reason, I think this hurts guys in HOF voting
With Bonds and Clemens — it’s completely, inarguably off-the-field stuff that is keeping them out of the Hall. With Schilling it’s *probably* the case, but it’s not 100% in my mind.
I don’t get the Ortiz argument. Was Ortiz a better player than Jason Giambi? Their career values and wRC+ are nearly identical, but Giambi had the better peak. Plus they are both known PED guys. Giambi was a one and done. I’d be shocked if that happens to Ortiz, but will enough voters buy into the hype?
I’d say the case against Giambi on PEDs seems a bit more open and shut than Ortiz. Otherwise, the advantage Ortiz has is that he was still really good at the end of his career, whereas Giambi was unplayable for a good five years before he hung it up. That’s not a good reason, obviously, but that last impression lingers in the minds of the voters.
Sure, but can recency bias and mental gymnastics about the PEDs get you from zero support to 75%?
Doesn’t really require mental gymnastics to say Ortiz’s name was on a list that MLB itself does not consider reliable evidence of PED use.
And MLB has no self-interest in the matter? I for one am still waiting with bated breath for Ortiz to get to the bottom of this whole thing.
Are you implying that MLB is lying to hide earlier 2004 positive tests of players that were subsequently VERY publicly suspended a few years later for the same thing?
That is one bizarre cover up.
He failed a PED test along with Arod, Manny, and many others. The only difference between Ortiz and Giambi, Arod, et al. is that Ortiz has continued to lie about it, while the others have come clean.
There’s another key difference:
Ortiz is a beloved cultural icon.
I have clearly lost this argument amongst the general public, and apparently to experts like Jay Jaffe as well, but am I to understand that Ichiro’s “ambassador” qualities put him so far above his cohorts in RF JAWS, Sheffield and Abreu (and then, only because of defensive statistics, which are notoriously inaccurate; you need to assume the gap between runs allowed for him and Sheffield to be correct in order for Ichiro to be truly as good as Sheffield), that he’ll be close to unanimous while Sheffield and Abreu are shut out of the Hall?
Ichiro is also helped by the fact that if Ichiro had played his entire career in MLB, his JAWS would have been well above both Sheffield and Abreu.
He was also something like the best player in Japan for a whole bunch of years (or if he wasn’t, he was close). Maybe some people don’t consider that a qualification for the Hall of Fame because it was abroad, but the guy was pretty awesome over there.
Jaffe himself just said in his chat the stats abroad shouldn’t count (“It’s the National Baseball Hall Of Fame”)
Yeah, I disagree. I don’t necessarily think a guy like (throws a dart at a list of NPB MVP names) Shigeo Nagashima belongs, but I think it’s fair to say someone should be a slam-dunk Hall of Famer if they’re a Hall of Famer on two continents.
You do realize the circularity of your argument, don’t you? “He’s a Hall Of Famer here because he’s a Hall Of Famer both here and there” 🙂
If people want to shrug and say “Ichiro in the Hall because reasons”, that’s fine, but I just want people to admit that it’s not, as best as we can tell, because he helped his teams win games at the rate of other players we consider Hall-worthy, and that supporters are inventing performance arguments that they won’t use for other players (non-MLB performance, in Ichiro’s case)
(But also, I find the off the field arguments weird. “He overcame the oppression of…the US respecting his nation’s methods of organizing their professional baseball league”)
If Ichiro had played since he was 18 in America, he’d likely have double the homeruns, 200+ more stolen bases, possibly even 1000+ stolen bases. If you can put up 57.1 WAR in 11 years starting at age 27, you probably could’ve put up WAY more in your professional debut. Even if we don’t speculate, he already has a HOF career because of his image, skill, and how he changed the game.
The stats don’t count, but voters understand that he almost certainly could have succeeded within MLB at a star-caliber level given what we know about his career, which is why a direct comparison of what he did in MLB to what Abreu or Sheffield did isn’t the end of the discussion.
“The stats don’t count, but voters understand that he almost certainly could have succeeded within MLB at a star-caliber level given what we know about his career”
And they know this how, other than by his stats?
Again, I’m just asking for consistency, and avoiding circular reasoning. The only player close to this situation (and it’s not really close at all) that I can think of is Cecil Fielder, but if he had kept hitting 40 bombs a year until 2000 or so, does his dominating Japan put him over the line?
And “could have succeeded within MLB” should also extend to players kept in the minors due to poor management (Edgar, who still got in, being a prime case. Utley could use this argument, certainly). Yet this argument seems to only apply to Ichiro. I get it, it feels good! I just don’t see it answering the question I thought we (and you) were asking: Who are the best players to ever play the game?
I do think a big reason that Edgar Martinez gained support was because voters got a better understanding of his career path, such as the one offered in my profile and in other bios of him. He almost certainly was stuck in the minors for too long, or stuck behind the likes of Jim Presley or whomever, which helped to put his career totals in their proper context.
I would add to what SadTrombone said about him being the best player from Japan for a long time.
He was also the very first position player to come over from Japan. There were about 12-15 pitchers who had come over but before Ichiro there was still a LOT of skepticism about whether or not a position player from Japan could make it in MLB. His success paved the way for future position players from Japan.
Being a beloved superstar matters to voters. This explains why Ortiz will sail in as well.
I look at the Hall of Fame as 60% baseball meritocracy, 40% baseball party.
Voters are mostly voting on the best players, but they are also, in part, inviting guys they like (and not inviting guys they don’t like) to the party.
And I’m fine with this. It’s not perfect and it’s obviously biased, but it’s better than, in my opinion, than just ranking players by value and picking a HOF cut-off line. Even if we had a perfect WAR or JAWS system, I would still want things like style and personality to be considered.
Ichiro is one of those few guys who might transcend traditional stats. Not in that he helped his team win in ways that stats didn’t measure well (although that is possible) but that, well, duh, the man is a Hall of Famer.
Dustin Pedroia is likely to join Kinsler, given his recent setback after yet another procedure on his knee.
I still maintain that Vizquel won’t get in via the BBWAA. After looking through data on the HOF Vote Tracker, here’s some data to support that contention:
1) Some voters have dropped him – At least 5 voters who included him in the past have dropped him even though they had room for him on their 2020 ballot. That’s not much but if a couple of voters drop him each year, that will have a cumulative loss of about 5 percentage points over the years.
2) New voters are less likely to vote for him (and appear to be “firm no’s”): Every year that he’s been on the ballot, new HOF voters were less likely to vote for him then existing voters. And those new no’s appear to be firm. I counted 14 voters who were new in 2018 or 2019 and voted no on Vizquel and also had a 2020 public ballot. All 14 are still no’s. Given his overall vote increase, we might expect 1-3 of those votes to have flipped to yes. But they haven’t.
3) Most of the 2020 “no’s” had room for him on their ballot: Among the public ballots who voted “no” on Vizquel about 79% of them had room for him on their ballot. Which means that they choose to vote no on him. That means there are approximately 40 voters who didn’t have room on him their 2020 ballot. Of course, not all of them will vote for him once they have room. And even if they all vote for him, he’s still going to be way short of 75%.
And here’s why I don’t think many of the “no’s” will switch to “yes”. His first year on the ballot, some voters may have left him off for lack of room and because they didn’t feel he was a “first ballot HOFer”. His second year, the ballot was still packed. But this year? There was basically no reason to leave him off if you legitimately felt he was a HOFer. None at all.
And while we often see guys rise in voting over time, there’s normally been for guys that are “hard cases” – Walker, Blyleven, Raines, Mussina, etc. But Vizquel isn’t a hard case. The argument in favor of Vizquel is a very simple one to understand – he was “like Ozzie Smith”. That’s not a new argument. That argument was around before he retired, it was around while he waited to join the ballot, and it’s been around since he joined the ballot. Every single voter has heard the argument repeatedly.
There’s no other argument that you can make in favor of Omar that comes close to the Ozzie Smith comparison. And it’s not that hard to decide if you agree with it or not. Which means that if you haven’t voted for him yet, it means that you’ve probably assessed the argument and rejected it. And have probably rejected it completely.
I was about to say the same thing.
Vizquel’s situation is much closer to Jack Morris’s than it is to Tim Raines’.
It breaks my heart that David Wright won’t make it, even though it’s probably correct. Just five “compiling” seasons after age 32 would have put him solidly in the Hall – 2500 hits, 300 homers, etc. Instead, it was all over after 2015.
I’ll hold out hope that he’ll stack up well in arguments against other careers cut short by injury (Kirby Puckett, for example). I’ll also hold out hope that voters who ding players for off-field character issues will assume intellectual honesty and reward those players who were good ambassadors for the game.
I believe Gil Hodges will be on the 2020 “Golden Days” ballot; he deserves enshrinement on his own merit but it seems a virtual impossibility with the other names on the list. I’d put him in over Oliva but not Dick Allen.
Minnie Minoso is a different case entirely; one of the worst victims of “bad timing” that has not yet made it into the Hall. He earned it on the field in MLB (four top-5 MVP finishes; should have been ROY) but his circumstances and impact on the game should push it into no-doubt territory. He is deserving on a completely different level than so many other candidates, and I really hope he makes it in 2021.
I think this is a little too pessimistic on Rolen and Wagner. Rolen only has three highly divisive candidates ahead of him, and his fundamental case is pretty similar to Walker. I think he continues to get double-digit increases, and probably moves past Vizquel in 2022. What we’ve seen over the past few years is that solid candidates without the taint of PEDs can move very quickly, even on full ballots, as Walker, Edgar and Moose demonstrated. There isn’t anyone coming on the ballot who will displace Rolen as the highest non-divisive candidate carrying over, and that’s a great place to be. Wagner has a similar dynamic going for him.
The 2024 “Today’s Game” Era Committee ballot could be incredible. Assuming Fred McGriff and Bruce Bochy both get in 2022 Today’s Game Committee (and Schilling is elected by BBWAA), this is what the ballot could look like:
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Mark McGwire
Sammy Sosa
Rafael Palmeiro
Jeff Kent
Kenny Lofton
Kevin Brown
Jim Leyland
Lou Pinella
(or change on out one for Albert Belle, Will Clark, or David Cone)
In 2026, add Gary Sheffield
Now I don’t think the committee will allow this ballot, let alone elect anyone with a hint of PED. Heck, they may never put Bonds or Clemens on any “era” ballot. But imagine being a baseball fan in 2005 before the Congressional hearings and the Mitchell Report, how many of these would you be sure are absolute, potentially first ballot, hall of famers. Five? Six? With the remainder being very high potential candidates? Should be interesting to see what they do.
I’m not necessarily arguing either are Hall of Famers, but Hudson and Buehrle both outperformed their FIP by about 0.3. Looking at the top 50 SPs by WAR since 1990 their margin of out performance is the largest aside from Tom Glavine and Jamie Moyer.
How do we fairly evaluate them given they likely both have understated WAR (since it is FIP based)?
I guess you can use bWAR, which is not as dependent on FIP.
Awesome pitchers, but not hall of Famers.
I agree that after throwing 2,000 or so innings it makes more sense to base an assessment on what actually happened (ERA) than an estimate of what should have happened (FIP). Some pitchers are better at generating soft contact. That said, both still fall short of the HOF in my opinion.
Jay uses rWAR, which is RA9-based, for JAWS.
They’re up there with Pettitte as Inner Circle members of the HoVG.
It will be sad when Ortiz gets in and a dozen much better players don’t.
Jim Rice part 2.
Ortiz was a much better hitter than Jim Rice, in fairness.
He’s really dragged down by his UBR numbers, which didn’t exist during most of the careers of the plodding sluggers he’s being compared to.
Plus…3 truly insane postseason runs than led to WS rings.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this… the reasons for considering Schilling’s off-field commentary are clear. I’m not saying whether they should or shouldn’t be considered, but rather that the reasons themselves are plain and unambiguous. However, evaluating off-field morality creates an incomplete data set. It is conceivable (and perhaps mathematically probable) that at least one other player already enshrined or up for election shares some of Curt Schilling’s views, but has not expressed as much (or as crudely) in the public eye.
In addition, there are criminals in the Hall Of Fame. Orlando Cepeda trafficked marijuana and spent time in jail. Further, there are individuals accused of assault, and sexual assault, including some for whom their teams had to reach confidential financial settlements with the accusers. Kirby Puckett, for example, was exonerated of sexual assault at trial due to a lack of hard evidence in a he-said she-said case (in a case where Amy Klobuchar was the District Attorney who brought the charges against him) – but his off-field actions also reportedly led to at least one settlement with a former team employee. So many historic accounts of baseball’s “golden days” have wink-wink, nudge-nudge stories about the way that reporters looked the other way in very different times. And in terms of physical violence, Juan Marichal would be at least be tried for assault in today’s game, as evidenced by multiple NHL players who have been tried for assault for using the hockey stick as a dangerous weapon.
On the field… Gaylord Perry was an admitted in-game cheater. While current information suggests that Ty Cobb may not have been the racist that books and movies have claimed, he and Tris Speaker were both accused of fixing games, resigned from baseball, and have been involved in blackmail allegations against the sport in terms of what they and their lawyers were prepared to disclose about other illicit activities.
I’m far from the first to make this argument. I am also not suggesting that any of these players should be removed from the Hall. (Well, maybe Perry. He was a great pitcher. He was also an admitted cheat. For me, all morality arguments start and end with a guy who wrote the book on how and why he cheated on the field of play.) I am saying that it feels completely inconsistent to suggest that words – even ugly words, and words that can feel and be read by some as threatening or harassing rather than merely crude or regrettable – rise to the level of an exclusionary offense from a museum that has honored its share of very, very, very imperfect people. It’s the selective and incomplete morality of it that makes it so uncomfortable, even if his words and actions are ugly.
I don’t expect this argument will convince or sway anyone else (commence backfire effect). But it’s how I feel.
Yeah, up until McGwire first appeared on the 2007 ballot, the character clause has always been a complete joke (there are also amphetamine abusers and huge jerks in the Hall), so I don’t know why we should enforcing it now.
That being said, I also don’t think it’s fair for Bonds and Clemens to be the only PED connected players elected by the BBWAA.
Piazza and Pudge have PED connections, and were both voted in no problem
You bring up many valid points. Social media provides platforms for many voices that would never have been heard years ago. Your thoughts provide consideration for the argument that voting should be based on baseball stats and accomplishments. The character clause remains undefined and nebulous as you show with many examples. I hope more people read what you have submitted.
It will be interesting to see if five years after retirement cools off the vocal minority of Twins fans who think Maurer was a failure because he didn’t hit .370 with 30 home runs every year after singing his contract. I think that his relatively short tenure as an outstanding catcher will only be enhanced by his quality character. Hopefully a first ballot HOF.
From a non-Twins fan perspective, I think he’s more likely to go in 2nd or 3rd ballot, but I won’t have a problem if he goes in 1st. His peak numbers while playing catcher were remarkable.
Jay, the vets committees are where all the action will be for the next 5 years. Do you Have previous articles on the 30-40 possible players who might make the short list anywhere ?
I’m sure the committees know that there will be a drought now with the voters. Interested to see which guys might start getting in.
As a cardinal fan, especially interested in Marty Marion, Boyer, flood, edmonds, Reggie Smith, Jim Kaat , and Keith Hernandez
Nobody thinks Marion or Flood are Hall of Famers. They both had nice careers but fall well short of Hall standards. The former is only notable for winning an MVP he didn’t deserve, and the latter for suing over the reserve clause.
I tend not to get too deep on “possible guys on the ballot” because beyond about half a dozen of them for every group, they’re pure fodder. Rather wait and analyze in more detail the ones that do make the ballot. There are some good ones in that group you list — Flood on the basis of what he sacrificed, Boyer, and Hernandez are my top 3. Wish Smith and Edmonds were a bit closer to the standards.
I think Torii Hunter could have a better showing than you’re expecting. He seems to me to be just the type of candidate all of the Vizquel voters would love. Nine Gold Gloves, five-time All Star, compiled lots of offense that in a vacuum doesn’t look out of place for the HOF. With that said, I agree that Lofton, Edmonds, and maybe even Bernie Williams should be in before Hunter.
I thought Lofton got a raw deal. Not that he was a 1st ballot Hall of Famer, but bad timing appearing on a ballot along with Biggio, Piazza, Schilling, Clemens, Bonds and Sosa killed what should have been an interesting debate on his career. 2428 hits, .299 avg, 622 stolen bases should not have been one and done.
Lofton was underappreciated even while he was playing. Through his last seven seasons, he averaged 3.4 WAR per 650 PAs, yet was relegated to 1-year deals. He *only* made $60 MM, which was significantly lower than his value should have demanded.