The Envelope Please: Our 2024 Hall of Fame Crowdsource Ballot Results and a Preview of Election Day
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 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, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
If the BBWAA voters are only as generous as the FanGraphs readers who participated in this year’s Hall of Fame crowdsource ballot, just two candidates will get the nod when the Hall announces the election results on Tuesday, January 23 at 6 PM Eastern — both of them newcomers. In this year’s edition of our annual polling, which drew the highest turnout of the six years in which we’ve conducted this exercise, Adrián Beltré and Joe Mauer both topped 75%, while five other candidates received at least 64% but fell short. That group includes Todd Helton and Billy Wagner, both of whom have reasonable shots at getting their tickets to Cooperstown punched this week.
I’ll get to what the tea leaves are saying based upon the writers’ ballots that have been revealed, but first, let’s consider the readers’ entries. Registered users who participated in our poll were each allowed to submit one ballot with up to 10 candidates by the end of the day on December 31, just like roughly 400 BBWAA voters did for this year’s actual election — only the ink-stained wretches had to get to a mailbox with a prepaid envelope, where our users voted electronically. On the heels of last year’s record-low crowdsource turnout, this year we received over three times as many votes, a record high:
| Year | Votes | Elected* |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 1,213 | 7 (Martinez, Rivera, Mussina, Bonds, Clemens, Halladay, Walker) |
| 2020 | 1,440 | 4 (Jeter, Walker, Bonds, Clemens) |
| 2021 | 1,152 | 3 (Rolen, Bonds, Clemens) |
| 2022 | 1,018 | 3 (Rolen, Bonds, Clemens) |
| 2023 | 548 | 3 (Rolen, Helton, Sheffield) |
| 2024 | 1,657 | 2 (Beltré, Mauer) |
Our largest electorate actually produced the smallest number of honorees thus far. It’s not that these voters were ungenerous, as they averaged 7.96 names per ballot. That’s up from last year’s 7.55, and 2021’s 7.65, but down from the ’22 average of 8.62; those numbers are all at least 1.5 names larger than the annual BBWAA averages in that timeframe. Forty-three percent of our voters used all 10 slots, up from 29.6% last year but down from 59% in 2022 — again, well ahead of the BBWAA electorate’s actual rates. At the other end of the spectrum, 7.9% used three or fewer slots, compared to 6.4% in 2023 and 8.9% in ’22. What was rather puzzling was that we did have 14 blank ballots this year, compared to just one last year, but those blanks weren’t the difference between making it and missing it for any of the candidates.
Here’s the full rundown, with comparisons to each candidate’s totals in the last two cycles — not just last year but also 2022, the final year of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (and to a lesser extent Curt Schilling and Sammy Sosa) taking up a whole lot of space on our readers’ ballots:
| Player | YoB | 2022 Crowdsource | 2023 Crowdsource | 2024 Crowdsource | ’23–24 Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adrián Beltré | 1 | — | — | 90.8% | — |
| Joe Mauer | 1 | — | — | 81.1% | — |
| Todd Helton | 6 | 66.1% | 80.5% | 73.7% | -6.8% |
| Andruw Jones | 7 | 61.7% | 74.5% | 68.0% | -6.5% |
| Carlos Beltrán | 2 | — | 72.4% | 66.4% | -6.0% |
| Gary Sheffield | 10 | 53.5% | 75.0% | 65.8% | -9.2% |
| Billy Wagner | 9 | 53.4% | 69.9% | 64.1% | -5.8% |
| Alex Rodriguez | 3 | 67.7% | 65.5% | 60.6% | -4.9% |
| Chase Utley | 1 | — | — | 56.1% | — |
| Manny Ramirez | 8 | 52.8% | 58.8% | 50.3% | -8.5% |
| Bobby Abreu | 5 | 25.6% | 45.6% | 37.7% | -7.9% |
| Andy Pettitte | 6 | 16.0% | 28.1% | 20.2% | -7.9% |
| David Wright | 1 | — | — | 11.5% | — |
| Mark Buehrle | 4 | 9.1% | 18.8% | 10.8% | -8.0% |
| Jimmy Rollins | 3 | 5.5% | 9.5% | 8.2% | -1.3% |
| Francisco Rodríguez | 2 | — | — | 7.3% | — |
| Bartolo Colon | 1 | — | — | 6.0% | — |
| Torii Hunter | 4 | 2.1% | 4.6% | 4.9% | 0.3% |
| Matt Holliday | 1 | — | — | 3.7% | — |
| Omar Vizquel | 7 | 4.0% | 3.8% | 3.6% | -0.2% |
| José Bautista | 1 | — | — | 2.1% | — |
| Brandon Phillips | 1 | — | — | 1.1% | — |
| Victor Martinez | 1 | — | — | 0.8% | — |
| Adrián González | 1 | — | — | 0.8% | — |
| José Reyes | 1 | — | — | 0.5% | — |
| James Shields | 1 | — | — | 0.5% | — |
Every returning candidate save for Hunter received a lower share of the vote from our crowd than last year. That’s particularly surprising when it comes to Helton, who cleared the 75% bar easily last year but fell short this year, mirroring his difficulty in closing the deal via the public ballots (more on which shortly). Sheffield barely made it last year, with 75% on the button, but by this process experienced the largest drop of any holdover in the final year of his candidacy. Beltrán and Jones, who weren’t far below 75% last year, fell back by slightly less than Helton, and Wagner, who was just 5.1 points short last year, slipped in the other direction by a margin wider than that.
Every candidate received at least eight votes, with at least one and possibly two first-year candidates, Wright and Colon, topping 5% here where they might not on the actual ballot. On the other hand, Vizquel and Hunter are likely to get 5% in the actual balloting and retain their eligibility, but our voters are considerably less convinced that they should.
As for what to make of it all, I think two factors best explain what we’re seeing from the crowd. First, in Beltré, Mauer, Utley, and even Wright, this was the strongest crop of first-year candidates since either 2018, when Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Rolen, and Jones (plus Vizquel) all debuted, or ’19, when Mariano Rivera, Roy Halladay, and Helton all arrived, increasing the likelihood that voters had to make hard choices about who to leave off. Second, the larger turnout — 54% larger than the 2019–23 average — suggests that this exercise reached a broader and more diverse audience than usual, with more differences of opinion than in years past.
Within the 43% of voters (714) who used all 10 slots, there were 342 different combinations of candidates to get there. The most popular combo by far, with 73 such ballots (4.4% of the vote overall), included Beltré, Beltrán, Helton, Jones, Mauer, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sheffield, Utley, and Wagner. In second, cast a total of 32 times (1.9% overall), was a 10-man ballot that swapped Abreu for Wagner while keeping the others from that group constant. Meanwhile, eight other voters matched my 10-man ballot of Abreu, Beltré, Beltrán, Helton, Jones, Mauer, Pettitte, Sheffield, Utley, and Wagner, twice the total of last year.
As for how this all compares to the results to date from actual voters, here’s a look at where things stood as of 8:00 AM ET on Monday, with 191 ballots published in Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker:
| Player | YoB | 2024 Crowdsource | 2024 Tracker | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adrián Beltré | 1 | 90.8% | 99.0% | 8.2% |
| Joe Mauer | 1 | 81.1% | 83.2% | 2.1% |
| Todd Helton | 6 | 73.7% | 82.2% | 8.5% |
| Billy Wagner | 9 | 64.1% | 78.5% | 14.4% |
| Gary Sheffield | 10 | 65.8% | 74.3% | 8.5% |
| Andruw Jones | 7 | 68.0% | 70.7% | 2.7% |
| Carlos Beltrán | 2 | 66.4% | 66.5% | 0.1% |
| Chase Utley | 1 | 56.1% | 41.4% | -14.7% |
| Alex Rodriguez | 3 | 60.6% | 39.3% | -21.3% |
| Manny Ramírez | 8 | 50.3% | 35.1% | -15.2% |
| Bobby Abreu | 5 | 37.7% | 19.4% | -18.3% |
| Andy Pettitte | 6 | 20.2% | 15.2% | -5.0% |
| Jimmy Rollins | 3 | 8.2% | 15.2% | 7.0% |
| Omar Vizquel | 7 | 3.6% | 10.5% | 6.9% |
| Mark Buehrle | 4 | 10.8% | 7.9% | -2.9% |
| David Wright | 1 | 11.5% | 6.8% | -4.7% |
| Francisco Rodríguez | 2 | 7.3% | 6.8% | -0.5% |
| Torii Hunter | 4 | 4.9% | 4.7% | -0.2% |
| José Bautista | 1 | 2.1% | 1.6% | -0.5% |
| Víctor Martínez | 1 | 0.8% | 1.0% | 0.2% |
| Bartolo Colón | 1 | 6.0% | 0.5% | -5.5% |
| Matt Holliday | 1 | 3.7% | 0.5% | -3.2% |
| Adrián González | 1 | 0.8% | 0.0% | -0.8% |
| Brandon Phillips | 1 | 1.1% | 0.0% | -1.1% |
| James Shields | 1 | 0.5% | 0.0% | -0.5% |
| José Reyes | 1 | 0.5% | 0.0% | -0.5% |
In a sample that’s estimated to account for just under 50% of the electorate, Helton and Wagner are tracking above 75% along with Beltré and Mauer, with Sheffield just short of the mark. The top seven candidates in the Tracker all have higher shares from actual voters than they received from our FanGraphs crowd. At the same time, our group was far more supportive of the PED-linked Ramirez and Rodriguez (and to a lesser extent Sheffield, who unlike the other two was never suspended). They were also, unsurprisingly, more supportive of stathead favorites Abreu and Utley, and less supportive of old-school favorites Rollins and Hunter. They were also much more keen on Colon, a fan favorite despite having drawn a PED suspension in 2012.
As for what it all means for Tuesday, historically speaking every candidate who has polled above 80% in the ballots published before the results has been elected, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich. That would seem to be good news for Helton and Mauer (we can assume Beltré is a lock), but the caveat is that two or three dozen more ballots could be released before the announcement, bumping those pre-election percentages down while keeping the streak intact. As Rakich also pointed out, Helton’s largest drop-off from public ballot percentage to final percentage (-6.4%) would still leave him above 75%, though in the six days since he’s made that observation, Wagner, whose largest drop-off is -4.2%, has slid to the point where he’d be an agonizing near-miss.
Meanwhile, forecaster Jason Sardell’s probabilistic model — which groups voters based upon the number of candidates they include on their ballots and their electoral stance on PED users, and which has been the most accurate predictive system in the industry for several years running — showed both Helton and Wagner in toss-up territory at the 185-ballot mark, but with Mauer in the clear:
Three days before Hall of Fame reveal day and here are my latest projections (with 185 ballots in @NotMrTibbs's Tracker). Todd Helton's chances of election have decreased a bit since my last update while Billy Wagner's have improved slightly, but both remain right on the edge. pic.twitter.com/ngJo09h9HA
— Jason Sardell (@sarsdell) January 21, 2024
As Sardell explained in a follow-up Tweet, his model is more optimistic about Mauer than Helton despite their similar published percentages “because Mauer has gotten votes from 72% of 2023 ‘small hall’ voters compared to 51% for Helton. And most remaining ballots are from small hall voters.” Similarly, a look at the ballot size breakdowns compiled by the Tracker team’s Adam Dore shows that Mauer is 8-for-23 (34.8%) on ballots from this year containing four names or fewer and 56-for-65 (86.2%) on those with five to seven names; that’s 72.7%. Helton is 7-for-23 (30.4%) in the former and 50-for-65 (76.9%) in the latter, and so 64.8% for the two groups combined.
One reason to be less optimistic about Helton’s chances comes via the Tracker’s net vote tally. Last year, he missed election by just 11 votes. Historically, candidates who have received at least 70% but less than 75% and still had eligibility remaining have gone 20-for-24 in modern voting history, and within the decade-plus lifespan of the Tracker, we’ve been able to watch as near-miss candidates have seen enough flips from no to yes to suggest that they’ll make it. Helton, however, has netted just two additional votes by this measure thus far, with seven returning voters adding him but five dropping him; according to Dore, three of those flipped from no to yes last year, but for some reason have changed their minds. Wagner, who missed by 27 votes last year, is net +6, with nine adds and three drops, all from fickle voters who reversed last year’s flip. What could save Helton is that he’s gone 13-for-15 (86.7%) among first-time voters. Only Beltré (100%) has a higher shares among the rookies, while Mauer and Sheffield (73.3%) have gotten a bit less support from that demographic.
One of the oft-voiced complaints about voters publishing their ballots before the announcement is that it somehow ruins the suspense and surprise of the election day, yet this ballot and several other recent ones illustrate the opposite effect. With nearly half of the ballots unpublished before the envelope was opened, the fates of candidates like Walker (83.2% pre-election, 76.6% final in 2020), Schilling (77.3% pre-election, 70% final in 2020, then 71.1% and 72.4% in ’21), David Ortiz (83.4% pre-election, 77.9% final in 2022), and Rolen (80.1% pre-election, 76.3% final in 2023) have made for compelling drama. The Hall itself is well aware of this, which is why it’s never tried to crack down on voters revealing their ballots ahead of time. A suggestion from within the BBWAA to cut it out at last month’s winter meetings was practically laughed out of the room before it could even be formalized into a proposal and put to a vote.
And so we wait, wondering if Cooperstown will get one, two, three or even four new honorees on Tuesday. This is exciting stuff! Pass the popcorn.
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.
It is weird how close this is to the projected BBWAA results. Fangraphs readers dislike Wagner more than the actual voters and like Andruw Jones a little more but otherwise this seems very close to how the actual vote will break down in the end.
Clearly the explanation is that the BBWAA writers are on here adding their votes so they can later say “see! The public would have voted the same way we did!” That must be it
FYI, the last column of the last table is mislabeled. It’s difference, not change; and it’s percentage points, not percentage.
David Wright got too many votes but otherwise this is pretty much how I see it shaking out
Found the 8 Mets fans.
There is still time for me to be pleasantly surprised with some late votes for Sheffield but that probabilistic model doesn’t give much room for hope.
Reason #6219 why I will never understand HOF voters: 8 voters have added Omar Vizquel to their ballots this year. What could possibly compel someone to add Vizquel to their ballot at this point? And just to be clear…these aren’t new voters, these are all returning voters. SMH…
I know it shouldn’t, but it bothers me to think people are shifting away from Sheffield to Vizquel on morality/purity of the game issues. Just nauseating.
voting for Vizquel should result in losing your voting privileges
What could compel them? Because not everyone believes that moral and ethical factors should play a role in HOF elections, or at least in the same way you think that they should.
People, feel free to arrow me down as if I am now endorsing Vizquel’s behavior rathe than simply pointing out that people have different opinions as to how things should be than you do.
In that case, Gary Sheffield was a much better player than Omar Vizquel. Like, 50% better.
Yeah, but these are returning voters who already voted against him. Why would they think Vizquel is now a better candidate this year than he was last year?
Even the less crowded ballot argument doesn’t make much sense, as the only notable candidate from last year no longer on the ballot this year is due to Scott Rolen getting elected in a close call last year.
Did they believe moral and ethical factors should play a role last year, but not this year? Or is it a case of “fewer people are talking about it, so I can look the other way?”
Perhaps a number of voters wanted to vote for him, but only “punished” him by taking away their votes for one round, I guess because he hasn’t beaten or molested anyone (that we know of) for 12 whole months. Guy is a paragon of virtue now I guess.
Vizquel’s ” transgressions ” apparently were adjudicated in court and he didn’t receive any penalties. If you are going to take someone’s vote away when charged, it seems logical people would give it back when the charges don’t stick
Bob Nightengale today: I began voting for him, but stopped after allegations of sexual harassment and domestic violence surfaced against him. The sexual harassment lawsuit was settled out of court, and he was never prosecuted for domestic violence.
Did he also vote for Jose Reyes, then?
Does Nightengale think that settling out of court = innocent? If so, I have bad news for him. Granted that also doesn’t mean guilty but sounds like Nightengale is making assumptions he shouldn’t make. Also, the case was settled back in June of 2022. Was Nightengale living under a rock last year?
Finally, regardless of off the field stuff, if you vote for Vizquel but not Mauer or Utley then you should look for another line of work. It’s honestly sad/pathetic that so many of these voters know nothing about baseball even after spending 10+ years covering it.
If you pay to settle out of court it’s just because he was guilty and didn’t want to testify so the real truth comes out.
You seldom settle out of court when you’re innocent. You settle when the trial would be worse than the accusation.
You might also settle out of court as a means to dispute only part of the charges without needing to go through a complicated trial over everything. That still means you’re partially guilty, though.
“Settled out of court” is still essentially an admission of at least partial guilt.
I wonder how many of them have just forgotten about Vizquel’s issues. I think there are a substantial portion of the voters who don’t remember how they voted the year before or why and this year some went back to Vizquel having a lot of hits and winning gold glove = HOF.
Regarding Helton: Jay notes that Helton’s netted two additional votes from returning voters this year. That comes from 7 voters adding him to their ballots and 5 dropping him. Of those 5, only one of them submitted a full 10-man ballot. Why would you drop someone from your ballot when they’re on the verge of election?
I honestly can’t think of a stranger group of people than baseball HOF voters…
Have you met the American electorate?
Great reply.
LOL
I have though I have zero expectations from them. I thought the pushback would be more along the lines of “Have you met the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame voters?”.
At least the baseball hall of fame has something approximating standards. The rock hall of fame is a sick joke.
He has a lot of time to get over 75% but I would say Utley’s percentages are the most disappointing here. Both on the crowdsource and the ballot.
Ditto
He will be starting from a healthy first year vote % and should only increase from there, which bodes well for his future electability (if you are of the opinion he should be in…some of us, both faux voters are real HOF voters, are not quite as convinced)
I think the less than 2,000 hits for a first timer is really hitting him so his percentage as a first timer actually strikes me as okay. For example, Rolen (who has a better hall case than Utley) started with 17.2% (indefensibly low though the ballots were crowded) and got elected in 5 years.
If you don’t buy the analytics that say Utley was a great defensive 2B which goes counter to scouts and word around the league, his Hall case isn’t that strong.
“Word around the league” is a nice way of saying “gossip.”
Utley’s defense was trashed as a collegiate and minor-league player. He improved, but how many of the scouts who downgraded him as an amateur watched him as a pro? I suspect they were too busy elsewhere to change their opinions.
…what on earth are you talking about, mate?
Utley was known as a top-notch defender fairly quickly, once he established himself in the majors.
Utley had a solidly better career than Mauer, who only had 2 6 WAR seasons and spent half his career at 1B.
I don’t get why we need different standards for different positions. Maybe starting C’s just aren’t as important as other position players over the duration of a career if they only play 130 games, decline early, get injured so often, and have trouble getting to 60 career WAR. Unless there are a bunch of negative WAR catchers vs other positions or something I don’t see how 54 WAR from a catcher is better than 62 WAR from a 2B. Judging by recent contracts to C’s (ie Realmuto, Grandal, etc) teams seem to value catchers in line with their projected WAR and don’t offer a premium.
Beyond it not (correctly) not being “The Hall of WAR,” the real argument being made by the “Catchers should have a different standard” crew is that the positional adjustment for catchers fails to accurately reflect the position’s difficulty and importance.
This argument is usually made by people aware that FG’s positional adjustments are based off of 20 year old napkin math that specifically cannot account for the difficulty of playing catcher, because there’s no sample of established position players putting on the tools of ignorance.
“Catchers should have a different standard” crew is that the positional adjustment for catchers fails to accurately reflect the position’s difficulty and importance.“
Then why don’t teams seem to value this apparently significant value that isn’t captured by WAR? Why do they pay and value catchers roughly in line with WAR same as any other position?
I’m so jealous that you apparently missed the discourse around Russell Martin – not to mention the OUTRAAAGE about Mike Scioscia not letting Napoli catch, even though Jeff Mathis didn’t have a great CS%.
That’s another thing: Mauer’s missing 2-3 WAR from framing over his first four seasons and another 1-2 WAR worth of 1B defense from the pre-RAA days.
(rWAR doesn’t even include framing, and he’s still at 47 JAWS!)
Again, the Hall is not and should not be the Hall of WAR…but even then, Mauer is, by rights, a High Peak 50 JAWS guy with Rule of Cool bonus points.
I’m talking about how teams value catchers in contracts and trades. Not sure what you’re talking about with Martin and Napoli/Mathis.
Even with an extra 3-5 WAR he’s below Utley in career WAR and solidly below him in peak WAR and WAA (Mauer’s at 27.5 WAA at BRef and Utley’s at 40.9, which I believe is top 60 all time pitchers + position players). He has one 6 WAR season per bWAR. His peak wasn’t that special when looking beyond catchers (and even at catcher w/ framing Posey, McCann, Yadi, and Lucroy were ahead of him and and Martin isn’t that far off, just focusing on near age players).
I guess you seem to acknowledge that Mauer’s a bit below the HoF standard with the rule of cool comment. Utley’s at 57 JAWS with a much higher peak.
A) I agree that Utley had a better career than Mauer.
B) I find it deeply amusing that your every attempted refutation of an argument centered around Cooperstown not being The Hall of WAR consists of:
“BUT TEH WAR NUMBERZZ!!!!!”
To put the Hall of WAR bit another way:
FB-Ref’s closest equivalent to WAR is AV, and their closest equivalent to JAWS is wAV.
Carson Palmer has a higher career wAV than Adrian Peterson, Julio Jones, or Tony Gonzalez.
Matt Ryan’s beats Walter Payton, Randy Moss, and Warren Sapp.
Do you think that makes them more worthy of Canton?
Honestly not familiar enough with football to say. I’ve heard of most of the guys at the other end of the comparisons and Matt Ryan but can’t say whether AV correlates as well with team decision making as WAR does, or career length or any other factors. Definitely possible Carson Palmer and Matt Ryan are being underrated.
More generally I just don’t care that much about the HoF beyond what it says about how people value different players. I think that people basically vote for players they think are good enough to meet the standard, and only complain about the Hall of WAR stuff when their pet players aren’t good enough. I was pretty young during Mauer’s peak and thought guys like Lincecum, Johan Santana, David Wright, Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Matt Holliday, Felix, Dustin Pedroia, and several other probable non-HoFers were more compelling and memorable players. Does that mean I should vote for those guys over Mauer if I had a vote?
I wasn’t alive back then but I had baseball cards from the 80s and thought guys like Doc Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Pedro Guerrero, and several others were more interesting than Jack Morris as well, whom I didn’t care about almost at all. Don’t care that much about the playoffs and couldn’t care less about Morris’ 10 inning shutout. I think a lot of people overestimate how widely shared their personal favorites are and don’t see much of a point in trying to create an official record of it in an organization with clear mission creep and a dubious track record of getting such things right.
Also, it is naturally practically impossible for catchers to play as many games over the course of a full healthy season as any other position player. It’s not right to punish catchers for such a natural disadvantage in accumulating counting stats, just as we don’t punish relief pitchers on an even larger scale for their natural disadvantage in innings pitched and other counting stats compared to starting pitchers. (On the other hand, we also have to adjust for the natural advantage relievers have over starters in many rate stats.)
It’s also worth noting that defensive metrics are less accurate for catchers that any other position, which is pretty important for catchers, whose defensive value is easily greater than any other defensive position.
“Also, it is naturally practically impossible for catchers to play as many games over the course of a full healthy season as any other position player. It’s not right to punish catchers for such a natural disadvantage in accumulating counting stats, just as we don’t punish relief pitchers on an even larger scale for their natural disadvantage in innings pitched and other counting stats compared to starting pitchers“
It’s not punishing them it’s accurately assessing the value they provided on the field. The best starting catchers are generally less valuable players than those at other positions.
Is it fair to “punish” players with bad backs or elbows? Should we induct Mark Prior and Tim Lincecum as well?
Bad backs and elbows are either preventable or unlucky injuries. That’s not the same as a natural disadvantage between completely healthy players.
The point is that catchers don’t need to be as valuable as players at other positions in order to still be considered just as great of players, just as relief pitchers don’t need to be anywhere near as valuable as starting pitchers.
It is the same disadvantage because it’s playing the game and producing value vs not doing it. Catchers can start 162 games a year if they really want to. If their knees blow out after a few years I’m sure that was preventable too.
The reason they don’t need to be as valuable to be considered great is because people have an inaccurate perception of their value. 40 HR, 100 RBI hitters like Ryan Howard were considered great despite providing less value than other players. Same goes for Joe Mauer and other catchers among some people. And RP’s, who are almost never terribly good players.
Looking at this argument in a different way, Mauer has always benefited from being classified as a catcher, but he only caught over 100 games 5 times. Does he deserve to be compared only to other catchers when he never caught many games even in his prime?
Mauer’s career overlapped with David Wright’s, from 2004 to 2018. Over those 15 seasons, 4 players put up more fWAR than Mauer while playing catcher. Only one player put up more fWAR than Wright while playing 3B during that same period: newly-minted HOFer Adrian Beltre.
During that 2004-2018 period, Mauer was 10th among all position players in fWAR with 53.0; Wright was 13th, barely behind Mauer with 51.2, despite having more than 1000 fewer plate appearances. Mauer was a superlative hitter as a catcher when he caught; but more than half of his career PA came at 1B or DH. Wright played all but 8 innings of his career at 3B, and was DH for a total of 3 games.
Not only did he benefit from being compared to other catchers, Mauer was also given a pass for leaving the position earlier than most other HOF catchers. In his case, he was able to continue compiling as a 1B/DH beginning at age 30, grading as a slightly above-average hitter and a poor defender.
He was a great player, but he also rode a lot of narrative into an easy induction in his first year on the ballot- especially when you compare him to a guy like Piazza, who had to wait!
I love the slow trickle of ballots actually. It makes voting an interactive and ongoing process instead of a black box, particularly during a time of the year where there isn’t a lot of baseball news to look at. My only fear is that at some point MLB decides to try to take ownership of tracking these ballots away from the bbhoftracker guys, as they have put in the blood, sweat and tears to make it a thing.
I personally would have a ballot of:
Beltre
Mauer
A. Jones
Beltran
Utley
Sheffield
Wagner
I hate to put Sheffield in there w/ the PED questions, but honestly he has a better case than Ortiz did and even more attenuated PED concerns.
I just can’t get there with Helton who feels like a great player but not an all timer. I look at guys who compiled < 60 lifetime WAR with great skepticism and the border for where we start moving from ‘small hall’ to ‘big hall’. Mauer is below that mark but basically did things at the demanding C position no one has done for generations (if at all). Feel a lot of guys have talked themselves into Helton.
Wagner I also am not so comfortable with. I just don’t have a good sense of where the cutoff is on closers. Sure, top 6 in saves and a sparkly career ERA. But is Kenley a HOFer? Kimbrel? Nathan? The people in Wagner’s vicinity on the all time list get iffy pretty fast.
Voting Utley and Wagner but not Helton is a wild thought process to be honest.
Helton is literally the “all time” franchise leader in nearly every category (still!): WAR, RBI, BB, Games, H, R, 1B, 2B, HR, XBH overall, and probably others I’m missing
Cool.
Utley’s also more deserving of the Hall than Evan Longoria.
Utley – better peak, baserunning, elite defense, WS ring, higher on the defensive spectrum, more WAR. Helton has a higher wRC and counting stats. I don’t think it’s all that wild at all. JAWS even likes Utley better
Wagner – I don’t love voting for him but I figure that you get into a “if he doesn’t deserve it no closer ever will again fix
In the conversation of Utley, I’d hope he’d be a better baserunner and be higher on the ‘defensive spectrum’ considering he played a more valuable defensive position and one that requires more quickness on your feet. That doesn’t make him a HOF though. We live in this era where counting stats don’t matter for some odd reason.
I don’t believe very many closers deserve merit. Especially one who didn’t even hit 1000 IP (heck barely hit 900). No matter how dominant these advanced statistics may claim him to be. Look at Jose Bautista. He was great for 5-6 seasons. If you took Wagner’s IP and divided by 150 (more than the average starter now, less than his era) he basically played 6 seasons.
So wait the argument is “of course he produced more defensive and baserunning value he was a se one baseman” isn’t a reason to ignore that he produced more defensive and baserunning value
Helton was a poor defender…even for a first baseman. That has to count against him and for Utley in terms of their relative merits
Utley is 13th all time in baserunning value? I think you are confusing stolen bases with baserunning?
Utley biggest issue is he wasn’t good until age 26 shortening his overall career. There are over 20 players in the past 20 years since Utley debuted (2003) that by age 26 generated over 20 fWAR(Trout at 53 is so insane, no-one else tops 31). That head start is huge and a huge hurdle for him to overcome.
Also, Utley was good before 26, haha – dude was putting up crazy numbers in AAA!
Larry Bowa was just addicted to David Bell.
No more so than voting for Larkin over Olerud or Santo over Hernandez.
I earnestly mean this in a non-pejorative way–if anyone out there voted for Torii Hunter, why, and who else did you have on your ballot? I’m curious if it’s a “he shouldn’t be a one a done” thing, a protest vote, a “yes” on merit/accomplishment, or a combination/something else?
I assume with no evidence that it was probably MN beat reporters just giving him a shout out and not a serious vote for induction
I have a similar question for the ~20 Fangraphs readers that voted for Brandon Phillips
I didn’t even vote, so that’s even more astounding
It’s the internet. Fanbois and chaos monkeys abound.
As one of those guys, I can answer. My ballot was:
Beltre
Mauer
Jones
Beltrán
Abreu
Helton
Wagner
Sheffield
Utley
I had one spot left. I’m a Reds fan from birth. I had a fanboi moment. I don’t think BP deserves it, but he gave me a lot of joy, including the funnest defensive play I’ve ever seen live: A 9-3-4 putout at first base between his legs. So, thanks, Brandon.
Yeah, I get it
Had the exact same ballot, with Pettitte instead of Phillips, for the exact same reason.
Likewise, I had room on my ballot, so I gave a fan vote to Matt Holliday.
I voted for Torii on the fan vote. I want to keep him around. The dude was a defensive wizard at a premium position and was no slouch at the plate either. I voted 10. Some guys left off were due to me wanting to keep Torii and Pettitte on.
My 10 were :
Beltre
Mauer
Helton
Sheffield
Hunter
Rollins
A-Roid
Abreu
Jones
Pettitte
Personally I don’t think closers merit enough for the HOF. Sorry Wagner & K-Rod. A-Roid is inner circle, even if suspended for PED. And I get why he will never make it, but I can’t see him not on the ballot. Beltran and Utley fall a victim of me personally wanting Torii & Pettitte. Both easily beat 5%, and to be fair I could care less for either of the, – especially Utley.
That;s just my personal thought process and I just want to see him get a longer look like some past guys should have. Berkman, Delgado, Lofton, Edmonds, Johan are all far superior players with better cases who I don’t think got the time they needed to make a case like say a Larry Walker or Edgar Martinez.
I appreciate the explanation!
There’s never a right or wrong, and tbh the way I voted I’d even say is probably on the ‘odd’ side. That’s the one great thing about the HOF voting, even though we may debate who isn’t or is a HOF, we all have fond memories of certain guys an hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, everyone sees what we saw!
He’s on the borderline after adjusting for segregation.
There are a tremendous number of Hall of Very Good guys this year. With so many dudes in that 45-55 WAR range, we’re going to see a lot of weird ballots where people vote for their personal favorites while leaving off guys who were just as good or even slightly better (but still not quite there).
I would have gone Beltre, Mauer, Beltran, Sheffield, ARod, Utley, Ramirez. Maybe would have added Wagner, given the standards that have been set at closer (which are not nearly high enough, but what are you going to do).
There are a solid 10-11 HoVG guys below them, then the fluff/Hall of Good types. It’s an interesting year this year, no inner circle types (other than ARod), a lot of second and third tier HoFers, then a storm of guys who just don’t make it.
Of course, Wagner’s far, far past any standard set at closer.
People really underappreciate how far the gap is between him and guys like Kimbrel and Jansen.
Using RE24, which treats a closer who comes in with one out and the bases loaded differently if they induce a double play than if they give up a single, Kimbrel’s closer to Pap than Joe Nathan…and closer to Rafael Soriano than Wagner.
Wilhelm predates the metric, but here are the rough tiers (in order):
1) Rivera
2) N/A
3) Wagner/Gossage
4) Hoffman/Nathan/Smith
5) Foulke
6) Orosco/Kimbre/K-Rod
7) Henke/Tekulve/Jansen/Pap/Rhodes/Benoit/Eck
Really strange crowdsource ballot this year. All the top candidates had a significant drop in %, while a bunch of fringe/non-candidates end up with a relatively large voting share?
Seems fishy to me
Was thinking the same thing..Like some trolls dropped a bunch of weird ballots.
Wonder if the 14 “no names” ballots were due to that or part of a larger group of weird ballots.
I have to assume that most, if not all, of the 14 “no name” ballots were just mistakes. Why would anyone bother to vote for nobody?
A no name ballot basically can be explained by: I’m a small hall voter and don’t vote for candidates in the first year and don’t vote for PED guys. Small hall eliminates all but Sheffield, manny, A-Rod and Beltre. Peds get the first three and Beltre is a first year guy
I wonder why there were so few FanGraphs voters last year, and so many this year…does this drop at the same time every year? Did it get cross-posted to staff members’ socials this year whereas it hadn’t been before? I could see the FG staff making an effort to push this out after the sharp decline in voting last year.
I like seeing the 3x increase in overall votes cast, but it did lead to some definite changes in voting patterns
Agreed. It is so wildly different that it might not even be intellectually valid t compare the two in that the majority of this year’s voters dd not vote lat year.
Agreed, very strange tat all retiring candidates, with the exception of Tori Hunter lost votes.
The %s are generally between those from last year and the year before. They don’t look nearly as strange to me as the overall number of ballots plummeting and re-rising, which looks like more of an issue with last year than this, given the prior numbers.
Bill Ballou and Tony Massarotti didn’t vote for Beltre…
Dan made this point on twitter previously, but I think there’s a case to be made to leave him off *IF* you believe there are 10 other HoF worthy candidates on the ballot (the presumption being that Beltre doesn’t need your vote, but someone like Utley or Sheffield might, and therefore, you’d end up doing more “good” because the system prevents you from otherwise acting optimally).
I am not sure if that was their specific motivation, but I would, at least, accept that line of thinking (and also use it as an opportunity to critique the system, which is almost as archaic as the American presidential elections)
Dan’s logic is defensible (I still wouldn’t follow it but I’m a huge Beltre fan so biased), but only when you use all ten names. Bill ballou checked the boxes only for Manny and A-Rod. He deems Manny elite of elite and Beltre not, which lol (given that he also included Jeter as an example).
So he’s a really small hall guy but a Boston homer (Bill Ballou’s Hall of Fame ballot includes just Manny Ramirez, A-Rod (telegram.com))
Massarotti also voted only for Manny and A-Ro (though I couldn’t find an article explaining it).
Gotta say I *kind of* respect those votes. With so many writers conspicuously leaving two of the most-qualified players off their ballots, I don’t mind seeing a couple vote for only those guys to make a point. Of course I’d rather they vote for those two and seven or eight others, but I get it.
I appreciate that there is a clear rationale (as opposed to the inscrutable ones), and people are gonna vote based on “vibes” whether they derive that feel from empirical data or not.
That said, saying Beltre is not elite is the kind of thing that should get you laughed at by each and every one of your colleagues so hard you leave the profession.
Some of us remember when the Dodgers were broke and let multiple HoFers walk away year after year after year…
Chase Utley at 50% is an embarrassment. He’s on the fringe of the all-time top 100 overall. What has happened to this site’s commentariat.
And Bobby Abreu’s struggles continue to be an indictment of JAWS’s obsession with the HOF average rather than the HOF borderline. A clear case of someone being below average but still well past the borderline, yet no one gets to the second stage of the analysis because JAWS encourages them to mentally check out after the first stage.
Agreed. Utley and Abreu are both Hall of Famers. A crazy stat about Abreu. Among all players to debut after 1907, only Barry Bonds and Abreu have 400 careers stolen bases and a career slugging % of 0.475 or better.
Abreu was never considered by anyone a HOFr when he played, is hardly remembered by most people who didn’t see him play and heavily relied on walks to get his value. It’s hardly a compelling case to 99% of casual fans and a good many here. Bottom line is it hard to walk your way to the HOF.
Utley is in if you believe completely in defensive metrics which many here don’t. Let’s look at cases of those kind of guys. Rolen struggled to get in and he’s clearly better. Way better. Jones is considered one of the best ever at cf and hit 400+ HRs. Might not get in. Vizquel is considered second only to Ozzie smith and almost had 3000 hits and only got to about 40% before the DV stuff hit him. Utley arguably has the worst case of the 4. He needs a clear ballot and some time and maybe he’ll have a shot.
Why would I give a single fvck what casual fans or the BBWAA think. Both are famously, hopelessly ignorant about which players belong in the HOF. Much like you. The level of ignorance in your comment doesn’t warrant a serious reply. Go back to ESPN or MLBTR and stop polluting the one smart baseball site with your nonsense.
…and what about people who have read enough Jaffe to know that 50 JAWS is the borderline, haha?
I’ll just move on
But like, why in the world would you trust defensive reputation totally and the defensive stats not at all? I understand wanting to discount all defense by saying you won’t vote for a guy whose case is primarily defensive. Or maybe doing some value split. But only going by reputation and not the numbers seems like a weird position to me.
Also, Utley was a way better offensive player than Vizquel despite his shorter career. We know for sure that hit totals don’t measure offensive contribution in any type of complete way.
Are you explaining the mindset of a Vizquel over Utley vote? Or are you justifying it?
(Also, Rolen vs Utley is closer than you think without the defensive numbers. They were pretty similar with the bat and Utley gets a big baserunning advantage. Rolen’s edge is with even more elite defense and around a season of extra plate appearaces.)
Just explaining it. Vizquel has a clear case: “2nd best defensive SS of his era”, almost 3000 hits. One offensive and one defensive argument. The DV stuff doesn’t allow us to see where he would have ended up. I’m guessing he’d be in the Andruw Jones bucket.
If I had to guess Vizquel will be put in by the vets committee because they need someone every year and the only guys that will be his competition will be PED guys
Utley was good at everything for a short career (started very late ) but doesn’t have any specific stat to hang your hat on. Beltran is much better version of Utley which is why he will go in. He did all things well, at a higher level then Utley, and with the “greatest post season player ever” hook.
Abreu – I don’t get that at all. That’s like saying Matt Holliday is a no doubt HOFr.
Fair point – the fact that the offensive and defensive arguments were deeply low-info doesn’t mean that they didn’t exist, haha.
Ripken, Oz, and Sanchez lapped Vizquel defensively in the 90s, as did Everett and Hardy in the 00s.
Meanwhile, I don’t have to tell you that Vizquel’s offensive numbers are trash beyond his hits totals.
That said…I think the whole “Sexually abusing an autistic child in the clubhouse of an MLB-affiliate” thing will keep him off the Vet Committee’s ballots – Baines isn’t worthy, but he is beloved.
I’m a little bit confused.
I get that some people could theoretically make such a Vizquel argument over Utley, but would you really expect a Fangraphs reader to make such a case?
Even if people here don’t buy the defense, I hope very few regular readers would think that Utley has a worse case than Vizquel (even for purely on field evaluation). I don’t think there’s a way that anyone even halfway conversant with modern offensive evaluation could have Vizquel above Utley.
So even if we were taking cues from the actual voters and thought that 40% set a reasonable bar for Vizquel, I’d say Utley should probably clear at least that, no?
Doesn’t make Utley a HoF automatically. I got your original point about discounting his defense makes him more borderline. But like, we agree that if any of the voters (here or in BBWAA) had him not in because he has a worse case than Vizquel, that would be a bad rationale, right?
So when the original poster says that people are voting poorly, if this is the voters’ reason, I’m not inclined to say that first poster is wrong.
(If Beltran didn’t play for the 2017 Astros then I’m guessing that he’d be a relatively uncontroversial HoF at some point? Also, saying he did everything better is really not giving Utley’s defensive numbers enough credit.)
Longevity at a high level is a perfectly valid reason to see someone as a hall of famer in the same way that some people might think Johan Santana is a lock for the Hall because of his peak.
3000 hits is a titanic total – that’s really hard to do. It requires being good enough and healthy to play that long. Add in elite defense.
There’s lots of paradigms on how someone can be considered: peak, longevity, value to team, fame, value offense, defense, etc. it’s not the Hall of fWAR. It’s the a hall of Fame. Setting one up as the arbiter of what’s right (ie, fangraphs reader!) is rather pretentious.
Okay, to be clear, I was trying to say that there’s no real way a regular Fangraphs reader can argue that Vizquel provided more on field value to his teams than Utley did to his.
If you want to say there’s more to the HoF than strictly that calculation, fair enough, but Idk what else would put Vizquel on top.
Vizquel ended up with 2873 hits and put up 279 of those in his last 5 years while he amassed a total of -1.3 fWAR. It’s relatively impressive that he was a solid player (if you believe the defensive metrics) until he was 40. It’s not at all impressive that he got that close to 3000 (and still was solidly short).
Vizquel has 11 seasons of 2+ fWAR (tbf, a few more came just short). Utley has 10.
Vizquel didn’t have longevity at a high level. He had longevity at an average to below level. Imo, the longevity clearly shouldn’t make up the gaps, because even after accounting for the longevity, Utley still provided a ton more value for his teams.
So where should that longevity come in? Why should adding a bunch of below average seasons to a solid but unspectacular career suddenly make your case strong?
That’s fair and I understand why people discount his candidacy.
There’s only 4-5 SS in the game with more hits than Vizquel – there’s no way around that. You can choose to say it’s meaningless because of the way he did it (slowly ) , but it’s still there and it’s quite a feat
I wouldn’t say meaningless exactly. But I would say it’s definitely not enough to outweigh the otherwise huge negative offensive aspects of his game.
A “high level” is the argument here. In order to carry his bat, his fielding would have to have been transcendent (see Smith, Ozzie). Mere excellence isn’t really enough here.
Honestly confused, vis a vis Abreu.
The JAWS “borderline” is 50.
Abreu’s at 50.9…and that’s on the strength of a couple TZ seasons that bear no resemblance to his DRS/UZR numbers or his defensive reputation at the time.
Abreu is the definition of borderline – he’d pop up next to Andy Pettitte in a dictionary, haha.
That is one oddly arranged dictionary!
Encyclopedia might have been the right word.
In what way is the JAWS “borderline” 50? There are now 281 players in the Hall of Fame. You’re telling me there are 281 eligible players with more than 50 JAWS? No, there are not. If Jaffe considers the borderline 50 that’s completely subjective on his part. The objective borderline is the 281st best eligible player.
Do…do you not understand the colloquial meaning of the term “borderline” in discussions of HoF worthiness?
Harold Baines is well past the “objective borderline” in the WS Era of Lloyd Waner, haha.
You must have been chuffed for his induction!
This is really the most challenging and controversial slate ever.
Some days I see a dozen Hall of Famers; some days I see just 2. A lot of players with WAR totals that put them in the conversation but not clearly in or clearly out.
I will forever be puzzled by non-baseball writers who want a “small Hall.” What do you think you’re protecting? Most of the players on the ballot had less career WAR than Harold Baines, so if you think you’re preserving the Hall’s purity, that ship sailed years ago.
It’s a museum. Why do you want to limit the number of people commemorated?
Well I would venture that you even want to limit the number of people commemorated, you just draw your line differently (and more inclusively) than others.
If you honestly do want to admit any and all comers, I kind of admire your dedication to that stance and would want to read the plaques of so many rando guys through the years:
Dave Magadan! Daryle Ward! Archi Cianfracco! John Halama! Tanyon Sturtze! Craig Lefferts! Billy Koch! Kelly Gruber! All your favorites are here!
None of whom made the ballot. Reductio ad absurdum isn’t relevant to what I’m saying.
Why deprive museum-goers a chance to learn about, for example, Billy Wagner?
And I notice that, rather than answer an honest question, you attacked the premise. I’m not here to argue, I’m asking why you want a smaller Hall. What are you protecting?
I’m forever puzzled by people who equate a vets committee vote with a writers vote.
People inside the baseball establishment felt that Baines had HOF qualities. Just because he doesn’t pass your smell test doesn’t mean he isn’t one
And why would you then lower your own standard as a result, which is yet another puzzling idea
They all get the same plaque. And I’m not saying I think Baines is unworthy, just that by the standards of small-Hall people he is, so their standards have already been violated.
I’ve given up hoping or caring that the writers make logical decisions. Let’s just not elect Wagner, the least clutch player in the history of playoff baseball, with exactly zero memorable moments in his career.