The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 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.

Before he’d ever thrown a major league pitch, cracked a prospect list, or reached legal adult status, Félix Hernández had a nickname: King Felix, crowned by U.S.S. Mariner blogger Jason Michael Barker on July 17, 2003, when he was overpowering much older hitters as a 17-year-old in the Low-A Northwest League. Still a teen when he reached the majors, he quickly came to represent the hopes and dreams of a franchise that had fallen short of a World Series despite four playoffs appearances from 1995–2001; parted with superstars Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alex Rodriguez along the way; and capped that run with a record-setting 116 wins but a premature exit in the ALCS.

Though slow to embrace the royal moniker, Hernández grew into it. His dazzling combination of an electrifying, darting sinker, a knee-buckling curve, and a signature hard changeup propelled him to a Cy Young Award, two ERA titles, six All-Star appearances, and a perfect game. From 2009–14, he was the best pitcher in the American League by ERA, FIP, strikeouts, and WAR, parlaying that into a contract that made him the game’s highest-paid pitcher. Unfortunately, a heavy workload — more innings than any pitcher 23 or younger since Dwight Gooden two decades earlier — sapped the sizzle from his fastball, with injuries and a cavalier approach to conditioning taking their toll as well. The Mariners struggled to surround him with a quality roster while cycling through managers and pitching coaches every couple of years. The team didn’t reach the playoffs once during Hernández’s career, finishing above .500 just five times, with a pair of second-place showings in the AL West as good as it got. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2026 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.

When the Phillies returned to contention following a slide into irrelevance in the wake of their 1993 National League pennant, shortstop Jimmy Rollins, first baseman Ryan Howard, and lefty Cole Hamels gained most of the attention. Howard all but ran Jim Thome out of town after the latter was injured in 2005, then mashed a major league-high 58 homers in ’06 en route to NL MVP honors. Rollins, the emotional center of the team, carried himself with a swagger, declared the Phillies “the team to beat” at the outset of 2007, then won the MVP award when the team followed through with a division title. Hamels debuted in 2006 and became their ace while making his first All-Star team the next season. In the middle of all that, as part of the nucleus that would help the Phillies win five straight NL East titles from 2007–11, with a championship in ’08 and another pennant in ’09, Chase Utley was as good or better than any of them, though the second baseman hardly called attention to himself.

Indeed, Utley seemed to shun the spotlight, playing the game with a quiet intensity that bordered on asceticism. He sped around the bases after hitting home runs, then reluctantly accepted high-fives in the dugout. “I am having fun,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Andy Martino in 2009. “When I’m on the baseball field, that’s where I love to be. I’m not joking around and smiling. That competition, that heat-of-the-battle intensity, that’s how I have fun.” Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Like Barry Bonds with regards to position players, Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time. Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Grover Cleveland Alexander spent all or most of their careers in the Deadball Era, before the home run was a real threat, and pitched while the color line was still in effect, barring some of the game’s most talented players from participating. Sandy Koufax and Tom Seaver pitched when scoring levels were much lower and pitchers held a greater advantage. Koufax and 2015 inductees Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez didn’t sustain their greatness for nearly as long. Greg Maddux didn’t dominate hitters to nearly the same extent.

Clemens, meanwhile, spent 24 years in the majors and racked up a record seven Cy Young awards, not to mention an MVP award. He won 354 games, led his leagues in the Triple Crown categories (wins, strikeouts, and ERA) a total of 16 times, and helped his teams to six pennants and a pair of world championships.

Alas, whatever claim “The Rocket” may have on such an exalted title is clouded by suspicions that he used performance-enhancing drugs. When those suspicions came to light in the Mitchell Report in 2007, Clemens took the otherwise unprecedented step of challenging the findings during a Congressional hearing, but nearly painted himself into a legal corner; he was subject to a high-profile trial for six counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to Congress. After a mistrial in 2011, he was acquitted on all counts the following year, and in March 2015, he settled a defamation lawsuit filed by former personal trainer Brian McNamee for an unspecified amount. But despite those verdicts and resolutions, the specter of PEDs hasn’t left Clemens’ case. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Barry Bonds has a reasonable claim as the greatest position player of all time. Babe Ruth played in a time before integration, and Ted Williams bridged the pre- and post-integration eras, but while both were dominant at the plate, neither was much to write home about on the base paths or in the field. Bonds’ godfather, Willie Mays, was a big plus in both of those areas, but he didn’t dominate opposing pitchers to the same extent. Bonds used his blend of speed, power, and surgical precision in the strike zone to outdo them all. He set the single-season home run record with 73 in 2001 and the all-time home run record with 762, reached base more often than any player this side of Pete Rose, and won a record seven MVP awards along the way.

Despite his claim to greatness, Bonds may have inspired more fear and loathing than any ballplayer in modern history. Fear, because opposing pitchers and managers simply refused to engage him at his peak, intentionally walking him a record 688 times — once with the bases loaded — and giving him a free pass a total of 2,558 times, also a record. Loathing, because even as a young player, he rubbed teammates and media the wrong way (and occasionally, even his manager), and approached the game with a chip on his shoulder because of the way his father, three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds, had been driven from the game due to alcoholism. The younger Bonds had his own issues off the field, as allegations of physical and verbal abuse of his domestic partners surfaced during his career. Read the rest of this entry »

Hall of Fame season is underway, and in addition to working my way through the eight candidates on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committtee ballot, I’ve 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 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 votes won’t be counted. You may change your ballot until the deadline, which is December 31, 2025, 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 2026 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the navigation 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.

Carlos Beltrán was the quintessential five-tool player, a switch-hitting center fielder who harnessed his physical talents and became a superstar. Aided by a high baseball IQ that was essentially his sixth tool, he spent 20 seasons in the majors, making nine All-Star teams, winning three Gold Gloves, and helping five different franchises reach the playoffs, where he put together some of the most dominant stretches in postseason history. At the end of his career, he helped the Astros win a championship.

Drafted out of Puerto Rico by the Royals, Beltrán didn’t truly thrive until he was traded away. He spent the heart of his career in New York, first with the Mets — on what was at the time the largest free-agent contract in team history — and later the Yankees. He endured his ups and downs in the Big Apple and elsewhere, including his share of injuries. Had he not missed substantial portions of three seasons, he might well have reached 3,000 hits, but even as it is, he put up impressive, Cooperstown-caliber career numbers. Not only is he one of just eight players with 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, but he also owns the highest stolen base success rate (86.4%) of any player with at least 200 attempts.

Alas, two years after Beltrán’s career ended, he was identified as the player at the center of the biggest baseball scandal in a generation: the Astros’ illegal use of video replay to steal opponents’ signs in 2017 and ’18. He was “the godfather of the whole program” in the words of Tom Koch-Weser, the team’s director of advance information, and the only player identified in commissioner Rob Manfred’s January 2020 report. But between that report and additional reporting by the Wall Street Journal, it seems apparent that the whole roster, as well as higher-ups including bench coach Alex Cora, manager A.J. Hinch, and general manager Jeff Luhnow, was well aware of the system and didn’t stop him or his co-conspirators. In that light, it’s worth wondering about the easy narrative that has left Beltrán holding the bag; Hinch hardly had to break stride in getting another managerial job once his suspension ended, and Cora was rehired as Red Sox manager after he served his suspension. While Beltrán was not disciplined by the league, the fallout cost him his job as manager of the Mets before he could even oversee a game, and he has yet to get another opportunity. Read the rest of this entry »

After a bit of a dry spell — two honorees in three years — the last two BBWAA Hall of Fame ballots have yielded bumper crops, with trios elected each year. Last year, Ichiro Suzuki fell one vote short of unanimity, while fellow newcomer CC Sabathia and 10th-year holdover Billy Wagner were elected as well. In 2024, it was newcomers Adrian Beltré and Joe Mauer, joining holdover Todd Helton. Alas, we’re in for a comparatively slow cycle this time around, as the 2026 BBWAA ballot — which was released on Monday — lacks a single newcomer who’s likely to be elected, at least on this ballot and possibly ever. If the writers are going to honor anyone, it will be a holdover candidate, or perhaps two.

That’s my quick read on the new ballot, which contains 27 candidates (12 newcomers and 15 holdovers). Over the next six weeks, I’ll profile all of the candidates likely to wind up on voters’ ballots ahead of the December 31 deadline, with a handful of profiles — the “one-and-dones” — trickling into January. I’ll be examining their cases in light of my Jaffe WAR Score (JAWS) system, which I’ve used to break down Hall of Fame ballots as part of an annual tradition that as of last January is old enough to drink. The series debuted at Baseball Prospectus (2004-12), then moved to SI.com (2013-18), which provided me an opportunity to go into greater depth on each candidate. In 2018, I brought the series to FanGraphs, where my coverage has become even more expansive.

Today I’ll offer a quick look at the biggest questions attached to this year’s election cycle, but first…

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), have been out of the majors for five years (the minors or foreign leagues don’t count), and then have been nominated by two members of the BBWAA’s six-member screening committee. Since the balloting is titled with respect to induction year, not the year of release, that means that this year’s newcomers last appeared in the majors in 2020. Each new candidate has 10 years of eligibility on the ballot, a reduction from the 15-year period that was in effect for several decades. The last candidate grandfathered into getting the full 15 years was Lee Smith, whose eligibility expired in 2017, while the last to have his eligibility window truncated mid-candidacy was Jeff Kent, who fell off after the 2023 cycle. Coincidentally, Kent might be the best bet for election on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot, but that’s a whole different process. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Though he won the Rookie of the Year award, a Cy Young, and a World Series all in his first full season while beginning a six-year streak of All-Star selections — the first of those as the game’s starter — Fernando Valenzuela wasn’t just a star pitcher. He was an international icon, the centerpiece of a cultural phenomenon, and a beloved global ambassador who brought generations of Mexican American and Latino fans to baseball while helping to heal the wounds caused by the building of Dodger Stadium, the very ballpark in which he starred.

“Roberto Clemente is ‘The Great One,’ but culturally, Fernando Valenzuela has been more significant in terms of bringing a fan base that didn’t exist in baseball,” José de Jesus Ortiz, the first Latino president of the BBWAA, told author Erik Sherman for Daybreak at Chavez Ravine, a 2023 biography of Valenzuela. Sherman himself described the pitcher as “like a composite of the Beatles — only in Dodger blue. His appeal was universal.”

After excelling in a relief role during a September 1980 cup of coffee with the Dodgers — as a 19-year-old in the heat of a playoff race, no less — Valenzuela took the world by storm the following spring. Pressed into service as the Opening Day starter, he threw a five-hit shutout, then reeled off four more shutouts and six more complete games within his first eight starts, a span during which he posted a 0.50 ERA. Despite speaking barely a word of English, the portly portsider (listed at 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, but generally presumed to be at least 20 pounds heavier) charmed the baseball world with his bashful smile while bedeviling hitters with impeccable command of his screwball, delivered following a high leg kick and a skyward gaze at the peak of his windup.

Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee 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, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

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 résumé 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 (not counting any other positions) with 351. That’s 35 more than Robinson Canó, 74 more than Ryne Sandberg, 85 more than Joe Morgan, and 87 more than Rogers Hornsby — all Hall of Famers, and in Hornsby’s case, one from before the expansion era. Among players with at least 7,000 plate appearances 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 »

The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2026 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2015 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, use the navigation tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.

Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.

At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — he had 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out.

Bill James wrote of Sheffield in the 2019 Bill James Handbook:

“In all the years that I have been with the Red Sox, 16 years now, there has never been a player the Red Sox were more concerned about, as an opponent, than Gary Sheffield. Sheffield was a dynamite hitter and a fierce competitor… When he was in the game, you knew exactly where he was from the first pitch to the last pitch. He conceded nothing; he was looking not only to beat you, but to embarrass you. He was on the highest level.”

Two decades before that, James referred to Sheffield as “an urban legend in his own mind,” referencing the slugger’s penchant for controversy. Sheffield found it before he ever reached the majors through his connection to his uncle, Dwight Gooden. He was drafted and developed by the Brewers, who had no idea how to handle such a volatile player and wound up doing far more harm than good. Small wonder then that from the time he was sent down midway through his rookie season after being accused of faking an injury, he was mistrustful of team management and wanted out. And when he wanted out — of Milwaukee, Los Angeles, or New York — he let everyone know it, and if a bridge had to burn, so be it; it was Festivus every day for Sheffield, who was always willing to air his grievances. Read the rest of this entry »