Sunday Notes: Bobby Abreu, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and the 2026 HoF Ballot

This year’s Hall of Fame ballot included three former Philadelphia Phillies position players, none of whom received the necessary 319 votes (out of 425 cast) to gain election. Chase Utley fared best with 251 votes (59.1%), while Bobby Abreu got 131 (30.8%), and Jimmy Rollins received 108 (25.4%). As did my colleagues Jay Jaffe and Dan Szymborski, I put checkmarks next to Abreu’s and Utley’s names, but not Rollins’s.

How did other BBWAA voters choose among the Phillies trio? A comprehensive answer isn’t possible — not everyone makes their ballots public — but we do know about the 260 voters whose selections were shared on Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker. Here is the breakdown as of yesterday afternoon courtesy of the Tracker’s Anthony Calamis:

66 voted for none of the three.
25 had all three.
52 had only Utley.
9 had only Abreu.
3 had only Rollins.
63 had Utley and Abreu, but not Rollins.
42 had Utley and Rollins, but not Abreu.

As for the players’ relative merit, that is in the eye of the beholder. Reasonable arguments, both for and against, can be made for all three former Phillies by prioritizing specific statistics and accolades — or even reputations (none of Abreu, Rollins, or Utley have been tainted by scandal).

Those things said, Utley had the highest WAR, 61.5, followed by Abreu and Rollins with 59.7 and 49.7 respectively. Utley had the most Silver Sluggers and All-Star appearances, as well as the best six-year peak (although Abreu’s peak isn’t exactly chicken salad: from 1998-2004 he was worth 5.9 WAR annually with a 142 wRC+). Rollins had the most stolen bases and Glove Gloves.

For me, Abreu and Utley were easy choices. Moreover, they were probably the easiest choices on the ballot among players not burdened by issues such as PEDs, domestic abuse allegations, and the banging of trash cans. Rollins, on the other hand, merely merited consideration (as did Cole Hamels and Mark Buehrle) and ultimately didn’t get my vote. Rate stats were part of the reason. Over his 15 full seasons, Rollins registered a .324 wOBA and a 96 wRC+, numbers akin to the .323 wOBA and 91 wRC+ that Omar Vizquel had over his 15 core seasons (Vizquel’s career marks are notably lower, in part because he played until he was 45 years old). No disrespect to Rollins — he was a good player for a long time — but he doesn’t measure up to his ballot contemporaries IMO.

Being a big-Hall voter, I check-marked 10 names in all. Along with Abreu and Utley, I opted for Carlos Beltrán, Félix Hernández, Andruw Jones, Dustin Pedroia, Andy Pettitte, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and David Wright. Again, merit is in the eye of the beholder. Subjectivity is inherent in the voting process, and the aforementioned three-Phillies breakdown is proof in the pudding. That not everyone filling out a ballot views Abreu, Rollins, and Utley the same way is hardly a surprise.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Nick Markakis went 11 for 15 against Darrell Rasner.

Howie Kendrick went 8 for 11 against Miles Mikolas.

Daniel Murphy went 8 for 13 against Homer Bailey.

Hunter Pence went 9 for 16 against Chad Billingsley.

Matt Kemp went 9 for 20 against Archie Bradley.

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Wilbur Wood was on six Hall of Fame ballots, with the high-water mark of his support coming in 1988 when he garnered just 7% of the votes tallied. It’s no surprise that the erstwhile Chicago White Sox knuckleballer didn’t fare better, in part because of the players he was up against. Nine from that particular ballot now have plaques in Cooperstown, while a handful of others arguably should. For a variety of reasons, Curt Flood, Roger Maris, Thurman Munson, and Luis Tiant are notable figures within baseball lore.

Wood, who died earlier this week at age 84, belongs in a similar category. While the numbers fall short — 36.9 WAR, 164 wins, and a 3.23 ERA over 2,684 innings from 1961-1978 — his resumé is unicorn-like by most modern standards. The most-accomplished left-handed knuckleball pitcher in MLB history, Wood not only had four straight seasons with 20 or more wins (including a 24-20 campaign), he famously started both games of a double-header in 1973. Prior to becoming a starter and averaging 45 starts and 337 innings over a five-season stretch, he led the junior circuit in relief appearances for the three years running. From 1968-1970, he toed the rubber 241 times and was credited with 32 wins and 52 saves. Wilbur Forrester Wood was truly a wonder.

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A quiz:

The same player is the St. Louis Cardinals’ all-time leader among third basemen in hits, home runs, and RBIs. (A hint: he won multiple Gold Gloves at the hot corner.)

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NEWS NOTES

Chad Pinder is moving up in the managerial ranks. The Chicago White Sox announced this week that the 33-year-old former Oakland Athletics outfielder will be taking the helm of their Triple-A affiliate, the Charlotte Knights. Pinder managed the Low-A Kannapolis Cannon Ballers this past season.

The Atlanta Braves have hired Rob Leary to a coaching role within player development. Most recently a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Leary’s nearly four decades in professional baseball include several years as a catching coordinator and a stint as Miami Marlins bench coach from 2013-2015.

Dave Schmidt, a catcher who played in 15 games for the Red Sox in 1981, died earlier this week at age 69. A second-round pick in 1975, the Mesa, Arizona native logged 10 hits in 42 at-bats, with two of his knocks leaving the yard. The first of his home runs was an 11th-inning, two-run shot that propelled Boston to a 9-7 win over the Minnesota Twins at Metropolitan Stadium.

Stu Tate, a right-hander who appeared in two games for the San Francisco Giants in 1989, died on January 13 at age 63. The Auburn University product retired all eight batters he faced in his first outing — four of them by way of the K — and none of the four batters he faced in his second outing.

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The answer to the quiz is non-Hall of Famer Ken Boyer, who (counting his one season as an outfielder) had 1,855 hits, 255 home runs, and 1,001 RBIs while playing for the Cardinals from 1955-1965. Boyer was awarded five Gold Gloves, had seven All-Star seasons, and was named NL MVP in 1964. He had 54.8 WAR, 5.0 or more in eight seasons.

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Ten pitchers started at least one game for the 1964 World Series champion Cardinals, with Bob Gibson (36), Curt Simmons (34), and Ray Sadecki (32) combining for 132 of the 162 regular-season efforts. Ernie Broglio’s 11 starts is also notable, as the right-hander made them prior to being swapped to the Chicago Cubs in June as part of the six-player deal that brought a yet-unproven Lou Brock to St. Louis.

Another player who had yet to make a name for himself made seven starts, as well as 25 relief appearances, for the Cardinals in 1964. Pitching in his lone St. Louis season, Mike Cuellar went 5-5 with four saves and a 4.50 ERA over 72 innings. Traded to the Houston Astros the following year, Cuellar would go on to win a Cy Young award and make four All-Star teams with the Baltimore Orioles. In a seven-season stretch (1969-1975) with the O’s, the southpaw went 139-75 with a 3.08 ERA. Moreover, he won a pair of World Series games, including the 1970 clincher against a Cincinnati Reds team that had signed him out of Cuba in 1957. Cuellar’s initial professional seasons were spent with Cincinnati’s Triple-A affiliate, the Havana Sugar Kings.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The deciding game of the Australian Baseball League’s best-of-three championship series was played earlier today, with the Adelaide Giants outscoring the Sydney Blue Sox 6-2 to win their third ABL title in four years. Devin Saltiban, a 20-year-old native of Hilo, Hawaii who plays in the Philadelphia Phillies system, was named series MVP. Adelaide had won the series opener 3-2, courtesy of a walk-off home run by Mitchell Edwards, a 26-year-old Melbourne native who played in the Phillies system from 2018-2021. Sydney came back to take Game 2 by a count of 6-1, with 28-year-old southpaw Alex Wells going seven strong for the win. A native of Newcastle, South Wales, Wells pitched for the Baltimore Orioles in 2021-2022.

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When I wrote about Janson Junk back in August, Miami Marlins pitching coach Daniel Moskos described the organization’s pitching approach as, “Throw nasty strikes,” adding that they aspire to “create robust arsenals, the best pitch shapes and velocities possible.” Not included in the piece were answers to other questions I had for the Driveline-trained, former big-league left-hander. One thing I asked him was whether teams can get in trouble by over-accentuating raw stuff.

“I think there is a fine line and a balance,” replied Moskos. “If you’re not paying attention to some of the finer details, you can lose your way, for sure. At the end of the day, yes, we want to throw nasty strikes, have the best stuff possible. But if we find that you have a pitch type that’s getting you into bad counts — it’s never in the zone — and doesn’t perform well for you, we might take a step back in the usage of that pitch. We’ll save it for the opportunities where we want chase-type execution. So, there are some finer points to it when you peel back a layer or two, but the general principle is to throw nasty strikes.

“We show our guys the numbers on how much early-count leverage is in their favor,” he added. “The swing rate on 0-0… it’s a very passive count. I think it’s a 5% hit rate on 0-0 across the league over the past three years of Major League Baseball. The data that we care about is guiding us to be in the zone as much as possible, particularly with less than two strikes.”

A throw-it-down-the-middle-and-let-your-stuff-play approach has become increasingly popular, yet not every pitcher can succeed in that manner. Correct?

“I think this method works for everybody,” replied Moskos. “There are people who will have more success with it than others, simply because pitchers have varying levels of skill. Right? Some pitchers have the ability to spin a breaking ball really well — that’s a skill they possess — while other guys may not have that spin, but they have the ability to throw a changeup really well. Each person is going to be a little bit unique in just how much we’re going to capture out of this philosophy.”

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Bill Mueller knows his way around a batter’s box. Not only did the switch-hitting infielder log a .291/.373/.425 slash line across the 1996-2006 campaigns, he led the American League with a .326 batting average while playing for the Boston Red Sox in 2003. That same season, he became the only player in MLB to hit grand slams from both sides of the plate, doing so in a three-homer game against the Texas Rangers. His most-impactful hit was a one-bagger against the New York Yankees. In Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, he swatted the ninth-inning, game-tying single off of Mariano Rivera that plated Dave Roberts.

Mueller went on to work in the Los Angeles Dodgers front office, then as a hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, and Washington Nationals. And while no longer employed by a big-league organization, he does remain active on the mentoring front. A primary pupil is Harrison Bader, whom he’s known since their time together in St. Louis.

I recently asked Mueller about the 31-year-old outfielder, who began last season with the Minnesota Twins, was moved to the Philadelphia Phillies at the July trade deadline, and is currently a free agent. What have he and Bader been working on?

“We have our pillars in place that we’ve talked about,” replied Mueller. “We’ve had a relationship for a long time. Some months it’s more physical than mental, and some months it’s mental. Going through a major league season is pretty difficult. These guys are so good. The analytics are so good as far as them finding your holes and living there. You have to be able to build enough confidence to break through things and keep improving. You need a village in this game sometimes to help you do that.”

Bader has a 96 wRC+ over 3,046 plate appearances since breaking in with the Cardinals in 2017. Last season he came to plate 501 times and hit a career-high 17 home runs while putting up a personal-best 122 wRC+.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

Scott Munninghoff played a small role on a team that went on to win the World Series. A right-hander whom Philadelphia drafted 22nd overall in 1977 out of a Cincinnati high school, Munninghoff appeared in four games with the Phillies in 1980, allowing three runs over six innings. Sans a decision, he was returned to the minors in May, never to return to the majors.

What Munninghoff did at the at dish is more notable than his efforts on the mound. In his only big-league plate appearance, he tripled off of New York Mets righty Tom Hausman, giving him a 1.000/1.000/.3000 slash line for his career. Along with Eduardo Rodriquez (a 1973 Milwaukee Brewer) and Eric Cammack (a 2000 Met), Munninghoff is the only player in MLB history to log a three-bagger his lone time up.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

The Athletic’s Zack Meisel and Sam Blum talked to six players who have received exactly one Hall of Fame vote over the past two-plus decades.

Warren Cromartie, who is now in a wheelchair following a pair of spinal surgeries, remains hopeful that MLB will one day return to Montreal. Jason Coskrey talked to the erstwhile Montreal Expos and Tokyo Yomiuri Giants outfielder for The Japan Times.

At SABR’s Asian Baseball Research Blog, C. Paul Rogers III looked back at the 1953 Eddie Lopat All-Star’s tour of Japan.

At Literary Hub, Howard Bryant wrote about Jackie Robinson, Paul Robeson, and interracial heroism during the Cold War.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

Pedro Dibut went 7-8 with a 4.05 ERA for the Negro National League’s Cuban Stars West in 1923. The right-hander from Cienfuegos, Cuba then went 3-0 with a 2,21 ERA for the Cincinnati Reds in 1924, making him the first to play for teams in both white and Black major leagues. (Hat tip to John Thorn, who mentioned this on social media a few days ago. While aware of Dibut, I hadn’t thought of him in quite some time.)

Pedro Ramos had a four-season stretch (1958-1961) with the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins in which he went 49-75 and led the junior circuit in losses each year. The Cuban-born right-hander logged records of 11-18 and 11-20 in the last of those campaigns despite below-league-average ERAs.

Don Mattingly had 2,153 hits, 3,301 total bases, and a .358 OBP.
Victor Martinez had 2,153 hits, 3,320 total bases, and a .360 OBP.

Barry Larkin had 2,340 hits, 441 doubles, and 3,527 total bases.
Michael Young had 2,375 hits, 441 doubles, and 3,491 total bases.

The San Diego Padres traded Gaylord Perry to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Dave Tomlin on today’s date in 1878. Tomlin subsequently had his contract sold to Cincinnati and never pitched for Texas. Perry went 21-6 with a 2.73 ERA for San Diego in 1978 and was awarded the second of his two Cy Young awards.

The Brewers signed Matt Stairs as a free agent on today’s date in 2002. The St. John, New Brunswick native, who suited up for a dozen teams over his 19-year MLB career, had 16 home runs and a 116 wRC+ in his lone Milwaukee season.

Players born on today’s date include Vern Ruhle, whose errant offering impacted Boston’s World Series chances in 1975. On the penultimate Sunday of the regular season, the Detroit Tigers hurler plunked Jim Rice, breaking the Red Sox slugger’s left wrist and ending his year. Ruhle pitched from 1974-1986, primarily for the Houston Astros, and went 67-88 with a 3.73 ERA over 1,411 innings.

Also born on today’s date was Brian McCall, an outfielder whose MLB career comprised eight plate appearances with the White Sox in each of the 1962 and 1963 seasons. An accomplished artist since his playing days, McCall recorded three hits in all, two of which left the yard against the New York Yankees on September, 30 1962. Chicago’s pitcher of record that afternoon merits mention. Ray Hebert, who won his 20th game on the year, was on the mound in 1964 when Mickey Mantle hit a 502-foot home run that ranks as the longest measured at Yankee Stadium. In 1961, Herbert gave up Carl Yastrzemski’s first career hit.