YES VOTES
3B Adrian Beltre (1998-2018)
Regular Season: 477 HR, .286/.339/.480, 121 SB, 115 wRC+, 83.8 fWAR in 2933 games.
Postseason: 5 HR, .261/.297/.450, 0 SB, 95 wRC+ in 28 games.
Not only is Adrian Beltre the easiest yes vote on this entire ballot, he's a fun one to boot. He's a bit of a similar player to Scott Rolen as a superb defensive third baseman with an above average bat, but he also played in nearly 900 more games or about six full seasons' worth. There's no doubt in my mind that he's a Hall of Famer and I find it very hard to imagine anyone would disagree. Sure, he only had one truly elite season, but for two decades, this man simply performed year in and year out with unbelievable consistency. He had 18 separate seasons with greater than 2.0 fWAR, which is generally considered to be the standard for a solid everyday player, was an above league average hitter 13 times and nearly did so a 14th time in his age-39 season, and played above league average defense 19 times in 21 years. The cumulative stats are equally impressive, with nearly 500 home runs, over 600 doubles (he's #11 all time on that list), over 3000 hits, and a surprising triple digit stolen base total. It's funny to think that for most of his career, he didn't really look like a Hall of Famer, but looking back, he's one of the greatest ever to play his position. Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't give him credit for his massive 2004 season, where he absolutely did look like a Hall of Famer hitting a ferocious .334/.388/.629 with 48 home runs for the Dodgers and leading all baseball players not named Barry Bonds with 9.7 fWAR. And lastly, to top it all off, Beltre was by all accounts an absolute gem of a human being that entertained fans, was loved by his teammates, and was active in the community. He probably won't get in unanimously, but anyone who doesn't vote for him is tremendously misguided.
SS/3B Alex Rodriguez (1994-2016)
Regular Season: 696 HR, .295/.380/.550, 329 SB, 141 wRC+, 113.7 fWAR in 2784 games.
Postseason: 13 HR, .259/.365/.457, 8 SB, 116 wRC+ in 75 games.
Let's take a 180 and go from an extraordinarily likable third baseman to one of the most disliked third basemen in history. Alex Rodriguez is the new Barry Bonds. His accomplishments on the field put him way above and beyond what it takes to even be an inner circle Hall of Famer. With nearly 700 home runs, over 300 stolen bases, over 500 doubles, and an on-base percentage approaching .400 while playing stellar defense on the left side of the infield, he is quite literally one of the greatest to ever play the game. His 113.7 fWAR ranks thirteenth all time, ahead of names like Mickey Mantle (112.3), Mike Schmidt (106.5), and Rickey Henderson (106.3). But of course, that's not the point. Not only did Alex Rodriguez cheat, he did so at a time when it was clearly against the rules and he served a yearlong suspension in 2014. So he didn't just cheat, he is a cheater. That said, as I mentioned in my thoughts on cheaters and the Hall of Fame, so are dozens of players already enshrined. There is no purity to preserve. Put him in, and do the same with Bonds and Clemens while we're at it.
LHP Billy Wagner (1995-2010)
Regular Season: 2.31 ERA, 2.73 FIP, 1.00 WHIP, 1196/300 K/BB in 903 innings.
Postseason: 10.03 ERA, 5.01 FIP, 1.97 WHIP, 13/2 K/BB in 11.2 innings.
Billy Wagner has been on the ballot for long enough. He finally crossed the 50% threshold in 2022 in his seventh attempt, and in 2023 he got all the way to 68%. 2024, attempt #9, needs to be the year. Left handed relievers are obviously extremely important, given that every team always ensures that they have one in the bullpen, yet there is not a single one in the Hall of Fame. Billy Wagner isn't just the best lefty reliever of all time – it's not even close. There aren't many cumulative stats available for relievers (no, I don't care about saves), but Wagner leads all lefty relievers in strikeouts (1196, ahead of Jesse Orosco's 1169), fWAR (24.0, ahead of Aroldis Chapman's 21.8), RE24 (198.2, ahead of Orosco's 154.5), and WPA (28.4, ahead of Chapman's 20.7), four stats I think are very good measures of long term success. And aside from strikeouts, none of these are even close, with a 10% lead in fWAR, a 28% lead in RE24, and a massive 37% lead in WPA even as Chapman creeps closer. Take handedness out of the question, and he still stacks up extremely well to the six true relievers in the Hall of Fame right now. Mariano Rivera is head and shoulders above everybody, but looking at the others – Trevor Hoffman, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Lee Smith, and Bruce Sutter – Wagner has a better ERA, FIP, WHIP, RE24, and strikeout rate than all of them. 903 innings isn't a huge number, but it's big enough and he was so dominant in those 903 innings that the case is clear. The lone blemish on his resume is a rough, small sample postseason line, but that's hardly enough to keep him out. Wagner should have been in the Hall of Fame years ago and I hope 2024 is finally the year.
OF Andruw Jones (1996-2012)
Regular Season: 434 HR, .254/.337/.486, 152 SB, 111 wRC+, 67.0 fWAR in 2196 games.
Postseason: 10 HR, .273/.363/.433, 5 SB, 108 wRC+ in 76 games.
The more time goes by, the more clear-cut Andruw Jones' case looks. We are talking about a player in the conversation for the greatest defensive outfielder of all time, and that alone at least puts him in the conversation. Throw in that he hit 434 home runs, including 25+ in ten straight seasons, and had four different seasons in which he posted an on-base percentage above .360. Yeah, the end of his career was pretty abysmal, as he slashed just .214/.314/.420 and put just just 6.0 fWAR in 589 games from his age-30 season onwards. But what he had done before that was nothing short of tremendous. From 1998-2006, a stretch of nine seasons, he slashed .270/.347/.513 with 319 home runs and 110 stolen bases, which together with his defense was enough to help him rack up the third most fWAR (57.3) in all of MLB behind only Barry Bonds (70.6) and Alex Rodriguez (68.6). And that's no fluke – that's nearly a decade sitting in the top three in the sport. That's a Hall of Fame-caliber prime by any measure, and even with the drop off at the end, it's hard to argue with a guy who hit 434 home runs on his way to being an 11% better than league average hitter, appeared in over 2000 games, and showed well in the postseason, all while playing some of the best outfield defense ever seen. That's pretty clear to me.
OF Carlos Beltran (1998-2017)
Regular Season: 435 HR, .279/.350/.486, 312 SB, 118 wRC+, 67.8 fWAR in 2586 games.
Postseason: 16 HR, .307/.412/.609, 11 SB, 169 wRC+ in 65 games.
They took very different paths to get there, but the final career numbers for Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones are remarkably similar. Beltran is slightly ahead across the board, including playing in nearly 400 more games, though Jones of course was an all-time great defender. For me, Jones is clearly in, and I'll consider Beltran a closer case. We're left with a pretty exceptional career even if no individual stats stick out. With 435 home runs, 565 doubles, 312 stolen bases, 1084 walks, 1582 runs scored, and 1587 RBI, the counting stats are impressive. He eclipsed 5 fWAR seven times in an eight year period from 2001-2008, totaling 46.6 fWAR in that stretch that placed him fourth in baseball to only Albert Pujols (62.2), Alex Rodriguez (61.9), and Barry Bonds (54.3). Like Jones, that eight year peak put him near the pinnacle of the sport for a long period of time. He put up six 20-20 seasons in that stretch and came two home runs shy of a 40-40 season in 2004. It's all great, but there's two more important factors to consider. One is that he was implicated as one of the ringleaders in the Astros' 2017 sign stealing scandal, so I have to apply the "cheating penalty." With that, if I'm being honest, he's probably not in. However, it's his postseason performance that pushes him over the edge. In 65 games, he hit .307/.412/.609 with 16 home runs, 15 doubles, and 11 stolen bases, which would put him on pace for about 40 home runs and 27 stolen bases over a full 162 games. He's not the all time leader in anything because 65 games wasn't quite enough to match guys like Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, and Jose Altuve in the counting stats, but few players in the history of the game can match his combination of quality and quantity of postseason performance. Whatever the cheating penalty takes off his resume, the postseason performance puts it back on, and for me it's just enough to earn a vote.
OF Manny Ramirez (1993-2011)
Regular Season: 555 HR, .312/.411/.585, 38 SB, 153 wRC+, 66.3 fWAR in 2302 games.
Postseason: 29 HR, .285/.394/.544, 1 SB, 140 wRC+ in 111 games.
Manny Ramirez presents a very interesting case. Like Alex Rodriguez, he cheated, he got caught, and he cheated at a time when it was clearly against the rules. So now I have to apply that penalty to his numbers, which on their own are pretty comfortably up to Hall of Fame standards. I noted that borderline players who were caught or at least have a consensus around them using PED's would not make my ballot, but because Ramirez is fairly comfortably above that threshold, he then becomes a borderline case after the PED penalty has already been factored in. Still, even with the PED's, it's hard to go ahead a guy that finished well above 500 home runs and nearly reached a .300/.400/.600 career line in over 2300 games. Only five hitters ever can match all three legs of Manny's slash line – Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. None of those players appeared in a game after 1960, and among that group, only Ruth out-homered Ramirez. He is a top-25 hitter of all time by wRC+, a feat made more impressive by the fact that offense was at an all time high when he played, and he reached a 140 or better wRC+ fifteen times in a sixteen year stretch from 1995-2010. So for a decade and a half, he was no less than an elite hitter at virtually any time. Throw in the fact that he is the all time postseason home run leader at 29, and I feel comfortable getting over the PED penalty and the poor defense.
OF Gary Sheffield (1988-2009)
Regular Season: 509 HR, .292/.393/.514, 253 SB, 141 wRC+, 62.1 fWAR in 2576 games.
Postseason: 6 HR, .248/.401/.398, 1 SB, 120 wRC+ in 44 games.
Gary Sheffield is a very borderline case, and I won't die on this hill. Given that he likely used PED's, he would seem to fit the bill as a player with a borderline case who was disqualified because without those PED's, he probably doesn't put up a HoF resume. But with that said, his PED usage is not as clear-cut as guys like Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod, or Manny Ramirez, and I've mentioned that I tend to look for at least widespread consensus if not full on proof. I would flip my vote to "no" if proof came out, but to this point I don't find "probably" to be a strong enough adverb to apply that penalty. So let's take his case for what he did on the field. Sheffield clubbed over 500 home runs and over a thousand extra base hits in total while holding a slash line that nearly reached the .300/.400/.500 threshold despite a very long, 22 year career. Finishing with a career 141 wRC+, he had three qualified seasons in which he was up over 170 (an elite number) and six in which he was up over 150. And unlike many big power hitters, he rarely struck out, topping out at a measly 83 punch outs in 2004 and 2008. So he has the counting stats and he certainly looked the part of a Hall of Famer for a few different sustained periods in his career, and for me that's just enough even if he wasn't a great defender. The numbers don't look quite as great coming after Manny Ramirez, but it's important to note that Manny was playing with the PED penalty while Sheffield is not.
C Joe Mauer (2004-2018)
Regular Season: 143 HR, .306/.388/.439, 52 SB, 123 wRC+, 53.0 fWAR in 1858 games.
Postseason: 0 HR, .275/.341/.300, 0 SB, 77 wRC+ in 10 games.
Joe Mauer is another borderline case. He only played 15 seasons, and his 1858 games played are the fewest ever for a position player that's earned my hypothetical vote going back 2018, 130 behind Larry Walker's 1988. Not only that, but his .439 slugging percentage is the lowest among any player I've voted for, just behind Derek Jeter's .440. That said, when you get beyond the short career and the lack of power, Mauer shines in just about everything else. His 53.0 fWAR place him fifteenth all time among catchers, ahead of names like Mickey Cochrane (50.6) and Roy Campanella (45.7), though it's also behind names like Russell Martin (54.9) and Brian McCann (54.5). Meanwhile, his .388 career on-base percentage is the third highest ever for a catcher who appeared in more than 900 games (and the two names ahead of him, Cochrane and Wally Schang, both retired before World War II) and this next stat might be even more impressive: Joe Mauer joins Mike Piazza and Buster Posey as the only catchers to bat over .300 for their careers since integration even when you set the minimum as low as 300 plate appearances. He's simply a unicorn when it comes to contact-hitting catchers. We also have to look at his incredible 2009 season, when he won the AL MVP Award, put up 8.4 fWAR, and posted the highest single season batting average (.365) ever by a catcher (minimum 400 PA) since King Kelly in 1886, when America had just 38 states. I'll admit, all those numbers are impressive, but still, the counting stats are somewhat lacking. Here's where I'll give his profile one more nudge. Joe Mauer was born in Saint Paul, went to high school in Saint Paul, was drafted first overall by his hometown Twins, and played his entire career in his home city. Doing that while being, relatively speaking, one of the greatest catchers ever in terms of hitting for average, is just enough to earn my vote. It's not easy to be a great catcher, but Mauer made it look easy.
1B Todd Helton (1997-2013)
Regular Season: 369 HR, .316/.414/.539, 37 SB, 132 wRC+, 54.9 fWAR in 2247 games.
Postseason: 0 HR, .211/.303/.281, 0 SB, 48 wRC+ in 15 games.
I have left Todd Helton off my ballot every year until this year, but this time, he'll just barely squeak in. As a first baseman (negative defensive value) playing his home games at Coors Field, the offensive bar is going to be incredibly high to reach the Hall of Fame, and during his peak from 1999-2005, he did just that by slashing .341/.442/.621 with 241 home runs in 1092 games. Over that seven year stretch, it was good for the fourth most fWAR in baseball behind Bonds, A-Rod, and Andruw Jones. After that, the decline was fairly steep; from 2006-2013, he slashed .289/.388/.448 with 98 home runs in 968 games. That means for nearly half of his career, he was a moderately above average hitter (112 wRC+) while offering no defensive value. But then again, he ran nearly a .400 on-base percentage in his post-prime years that I'm describing as a "fairly steep decline." Meanwhile, while it's not his fault that he only got to play in fifteen postseason games, Helton did not take advantage of that small sample opportunity so there's no addition to the resume there. In the end, we have to decide if seven years of elite hitting is enough by itself to warrant a Hall of Fame vote – in the past, that's been a no for me. This year, I find myself a little more taken by some of those insane seasons in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, etc., and he had some solid post-prime seasons in 2007 and 2009. I'll give him the yes this year.
2B Chase Utley (2003-2018)
Regular Season: 259 HR, .275/.358/.465, 154 SB, 118 wRC+, 61.6 fWAR in 1937 games.
Postseason: 10 HR, .224/.364/.410, 11 SB, 110 wRC+ in 68 games.
Full disclosure, I was completely ready to vote "no" on Chase Utley, but the closer I looked, the more compelling his case became. On the surface, he seems like a textbook "Hall of Very Good" player. 259 home runs is nothing special, 411 doubles is nice but not a standout stat, he played in fewer than 2000 games, had an unremarkable .823 career OPS, and hit just .224 in a large postseason sample. I grew up watching him play in the same division as my hometown Nationals, and while he made a great team alongside guys like Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, and Cole Hamels, I didn't see him as standing out and never felt like I was watching a Hall of Famer. But let's look closer. His peak from 2005-2009, while short, was truly elite. He accumulated more than 7.0 fWAR in five straight seasons, totaling 38.4 that made for the second highest total in all of baseball behind only Albert Pujols while slashing .301/.388/.535 with 146 home runs in 758 games. Five years among the game's elite isn't a ton of time, but over the next five years from 2010-2014, he continued to contribute at a high level and in fact when you pull the camera out to the nine year stretch from 2005-2013, he's still second to only Pujols with his 53.9 fWAR in that stretch. I'll reiterate that – over the nine year stretch, no small sample, he was the second best player in baseball by fWAR in the post-steroid era. How did he do it? Utley was an on-base machine, posting OBP's above .375 for six straight seasons and stayed over .340 for nine straight, and he hit for power too, with four consecutive seasons of 73 or more extra base hits. All along, he played very strong defense at second base, was one of the game's most efficient and effective baserunners, and was an overall consistent, steady presence for the Phillies dynasties of the 2000's. Lastly, let's look back at the postseason resume. Sure, he only hit .224, but that's in large part due to an abysmal 3-43 run over his final two postseasons at the age of 37 and 38 – before his 37th birthday, he was a career .263/.404/.497 hitter in 49 games, including a Herculean .296/.424/.648 effort in the Phillies' ultimately unsuccessful 2009 title defense.
NO VOTES
OF Bobby Abreu (1996-2014)
Regular Season: 288 HR, .291/.395/.475, 400 SB, 129 wRC+, 59.8 fWAR in 2425 games.
Postseason: 1 HR, .284/.392/.418, 2 SB, 111 wRC+ in 76 games.
In the past, I have voted for Bobby Abreu and every year I'm very 50-50. It's an extremely borderline case in a year with quite a few borderline cases. Bobby Abreu had a great career, clubbing nearly 300 home runs and nearly 600 doubles while getting on base at a nearly .400 clip and stealing 400 bases. From 1998-2006, he posted an OBP above .400 eight times in nine seasons, he hit at least fifteen home runs in thirteen straight seasons from 1998-2010, clubbing at least 30 doubles in eleven of those, and stole at least nineteen bases in fourteen straight seasons from 1998-2011. He was an on-base machine, could hit for some power, and was an extremely smart baserunner that maximized his speed on the base paths. Add in that he played in over 150 games in thirteen straight seasons from 1998-2010, and he was a model of consistency that contributed to the Phillies, Yankees, and Angels offenses in a wide variety of ways. It's a rock-solid offensive profile, if not the most flashy, but his glove doesn't do him any favors. With an average glove, I think I would vote Abreu in. But he was a net-negative in the field, especially in the second half of his career, so the pressure is on the bat. And it was a very, very good bat. But was it truly great? I think it was close, but I do lean towards a small Hall philosophy and ultimately Bobby Abreu falls victim to that this year. If he got voted in, I wouldn't be opposed, and I may even vote for him in the future.
3B David Wright (2004-2018)
Regular Season: 242 HR, .296/.376/.491, 196 SB, 133 wRC+, 51.2 fWAR in 1585 games.
Postseason: 2 HR, .198/.311/.319, 1 SB, 72 wRC+ in 24 games.
David Wright is close. He had some excellent seasons, including an exceptional four year run from 2005-2008 in which he accrued 25.8 fWAR (fifth most in MLB) while hitting .311/.394/.534 with 116 home runs. While his true peak only lasted four years, he continued to play very well over the next half decade or so, putting himself on a Hall of Fame pace. Unfortunately, from age-31 (2014) onwards, his production collapsed and he hit just .265/.339/.395 with 20 home runs in 211 games, good for just 2.6 fWAR, and he played in just two games after his 34th birthday. Overall, David Wright looked like a Hall of Famer from 2004-2013, a nice decade of production, but couldn't close out the deal. It doesn't help either that he didn't take much advantage of his two postseason opportunities and hit under .200.
LHP Andy Pettitte (1995-2013)
Regular Season: 256-153, 3.85 ERA, 3.74 FIP, 1.35 WHIP, 2448/1031 K/BB in 3316 innings.
Postseason: 19-11, 3.81 ERA, 4.09 FIP, 1.30 WHIP, 183/76 K/BB in 276.2 innings.
The phrase "Hall of Very Good" gets thrown around often, and I think Andy Pettitte can be a prime example of what that looks like. The closer you look at his resume, the better it looks, with a very long career that provided a tremendous amount of value to the Yankees and the Astros. He was a true workhorse that topped 200 innings ten different times and 185 innings thirteen different times, and for the most part he kept his ERA in the 3.50 to 4.30 range most years despite pitching in hitter-friendly parks in the Steroid Era. His postseason resume is impressive, too, as his numbers did not dip at all and he earned the 2001 ALCS MVP Award. Fans can underestimate the value of a strong #2 or #3 starter, and Pettitte provided that for nearly two decades, even popping for ace-like seasons in 1997 and 2005. There is a place in the Hall for consistency and longevity, but ultimately I see it as a place for the all time greats, not just those who were able to string together enough cumulative value to make it. For as great as he was, aside from those two great seasons I don't think opposing teams looked at the lineup card in the morning and thought "uh oh, Andy Pettitte is pitching." Obviously nobody looked forward to facing him, and he still provided a very tough matchup, but the point stands. Andy Pettitte was very, very good for a very long time, but I just don't see a Hall of Famer.
LHP Mark Buehrle (2000-2015)
Regular Season: 214-160, 3.81 ERA, 4.11 FIP, 1.28 WHIP, 1870/734 K/BB in 3283.1 innings.
Postseason: 2-1, 4.11 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 1.08 WHIP, 16/1 K/BB in 30.2 innings.
Mark Buehrle is closer than you'd think, but ultimately not quite a Hall of Famer. He was a model of consistency, going fifteen straight seasons with at least 198.2 innings pitched while only once allowing his ERA to rise above 4.28 or his FIP above 4.46. He generated a lot of weak contact, took care of some of it himself with a standout glove, and gave the White Sox and later Marlins and Blue Jays a rock near the top of their rotations. However, he also spent much of his career pitching in a weaker AL Central and he was never particularly dominant, save for perhaps his 2005 season (3.12 ERA, 3.42 FIP, 149/40 K/BB) and of course his 2007 no-hitter and 2009 perfect game. It's hard to get into the Hall based on consistent solid performance rather than periods of true standout performance, and if you were going to give Buehrle a shot, you probably would have wanted to see him throw more than sixteen seasons.
SS Omar Vizquel (1989-2012)
Regular Season: 80 HR, .272/.336/.352, 404 SB, 83 wRC+, 42.5 fWAR in 2968 games.
Postseason: 0 HR, .250/.327/.316, 23 SB, 70 wRC+ in 57 games.
I wasn't a big Omar Vizquel fan before the abuse/sexual assault allegations came out against him, and while I tend not to be concerned about a player's off field behavior, the allegations are pretty serious. Still, I don't need those to know that he's not a Hall of Famer. I do think there is a place in the Hall for the game's elite defenders, but Ozzie Smith (90 wRC+) and Andruw Jones (111 wRC+) are not in the same tier as Vizquel (83 wRC+). Jones clubbed 434 home runs and was a well-above league average hitter for most of his career, while Smith was 10% below league average but did pop for seven seasons in which he was above league average. Vizquel, meanwhile, was 17% below league average for his career and only twice in his 24 seasons could be considered above league average by wRC+ (115 in 1999, 102 in 2002). In an era when offense was at an all time high, Vizquel was a black hole in those Mariners, Indians, and Giants offenses that hit for no power and didn't even get on base at a terribly high clip. He finished with a .336 on-base percentage for his career and never reached .400 in any single season. The counting stats are good – nearly 3000 hits, over 450 doubles, and over 400 stolen bases – but they're not enough to make up for the lack of impact at the plate even with the special glove.
RHP Francisco Rodriguez (2002-2017)
Regular Season: 2.86 ERA, 3.31 FIP, 1.15 WHIP, 1142/389 K/BB in 976 innings.
Postseason: 2.95 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 1.36 WHIP, 49/18 K/BB in 36.2 innings.
The bar for relievers to get into the Hall of Fame is high, and it should be. The fact that Billy Wagner isn't in proves that, and I'm all in on Wagner's case. Francisco Rodriguez, I believe, is close to having a Hall of Fame case, but it's not quite enough. Among relievers, he's twentieth all time in fWAR, ninth in RE24, and thirteenth in WPA. For a span of fourteen years from 2003-2016, he was more often than not among the best closers in the league, and that's certainly a loud statement. But inconsistent command kept him from truly joining the game's elite closers for the most part, and I don't think he's in the same tier as Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner (and of course nobody is in Mariano Rivera's tier). I think he's closer to Joe Nathan, who narrowly missed my ballot when he appeared in 2022. I'm glad K-Rod got the 5% so we can give him a few looks, but I'll ultimately be okay if Rivera, Hoffman, and hopefully eventually Wagner are the only relievers from that era to make the Hall.
OF Matt Holliday (2004-2018)
Regular Season: 316 HR, .299/.379/.510, 108 SB, 135 wRC+, 49.3 fWAR in 1903 games.
Postseason: 13 HR, .245/.303/.421, 1 SB, 97 wRC+ in 77 games.
Matt Holliday has a nice case that comes up a bit short. For a while there, he certainly had the bat, hitting .314/.393/.538 with 218 home runs and 40.8 fWAR from 2006-2013, the latter of which was sixth best in baseball in that eight year stretch. However, the bar is a bit higher because he spent half a decade in Colorado and because his below average glove adds nothing to his case. In the end, he dropped off a bit once he hit his mid 30's and came up with just decent counting stats (316 HR, 468 2B, 2096 hits, 802 walks) for the bat-only player he was. I'd like to see more production in his non-peak seasons and a larger sample size if I'm going to vote for him.
SS Jose Reyes (2003-2018)
Regular Season: 145 HR, .283/.334/.427, 517 SB, 103 wRC+, 43.9 fWAR in 1877 games.
Postseason: 1 HR, .229/.275/.354, 3 SB, 57 wRC+ in 11 games.
Jose Reyes had a fun career. In the mid-2000's, when he was stealing 60+ bases with triples totals in the teens every season and batting close to .300, he was must-see TV. From 2005-2008, his 198 stolen bases led MLB by a large margin over second-place Juan Pierre (162) and third-place Hanley Ramirez (137), while his 48 triples placed atop the league as well. However, that peak didn't last long and he ultimately settled in as an average hitting, average defending shortstop that created most of his value with his legs. Reyes had a great career with over 500 stolen bases but it wasn't Hall worthy.
