We've entered a really fun era of Hall of Fame voting. With Gary Sheffield falling off the ballot last year, the book is almost officially closed on the Steroid Era alleged cheaters as only Andy Pettitte remains. There are new era cheaters like Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Carlos Beltran (sign stealing, not PED's) who did so when cheating was a) less widespread and b) much more explicitly enforced. You can read my thoughts on cheating here from two years ago. But now, the debate focuses much more heavily on performance, and we have a bunch of very borderline cases that will be fun to debate. You have Bobby Abreu, Chase Utley, and David Wright who carried over from last year with very borderline cases, while newcomers like Felix Hernandez and Russell Martin bring their own 50-50 candidacies. Bobby was a great hitter for a long time, but with a lack of defensive value, did he hit enough? Utley didn't stand out in any one area, but he was above average in almost every category and that may be just enough to earn a vote. Wright and King Felix were on Hall of Fame tracks early before fading in their early 30's, but were their 20's enough? And does Martin belong in this group of names? Find out below.
Ultimately, I chose nine players of the available ten spots on my hypothetical ballot. Ichiro and Billy Wagner were the two easiest votes. Given my thoughts on cheating, A-Rod easily passes the test and earns my vote. I'm all aboard on Andruw Jones as well, and I think CC comfortably put himself over the threshold. The remaining four names are more borderline, as discussed above. While I lean fairly comfortably into Manny's and Felix's cases, Beltran and Utley are truly 50-50 for me. So is Abreu, who unfortunately ends up on the other side of the fence as the first one out.
YES VOTES
OF Ichiro Suzuki (2001-2019)
Regular Season: 117 HR, .311/.355/.402, 509 SB, 104 wRC+, 57.5 fWAR in 2653 games.
Postseason: 1 HR, .346/.400/.436, 4 SB, 126 wRC+ in 19 games.
Ichiro brings a very interesting case. The final numbers for his career are more great than elite, with just a .757 career OPS and a bat that broke league average just once (and not by much) over his final nine seasons. His 57.5 fWAR is on the wrong side of 60, the magic number where I think most Hall of Famers should be at or above. That said, this is the easiest yes vote on the whole ballot. If you vote against Ichiro, you hate baseball. This is a man who had over 200 hits and batted over .300 in each of his first ten seasons, including batting over .350 four times and setting the all time single season hits record with 262 in 2004. To color in just how impressive that last number is, first he needed to pick up 702 at bats, something that has only been done three other times in baseball history, then he had to hit a whopping .372 in that massive sample to get there. No other player since 1930 has had more than 240 hits in a season. In the end, it helped him reach three thousand hits despite not reaching the majors until he was 27 years old. Beyond that, he was a great defender in right field known for his cannon right arm and took home ten straight Gold Glove Awards to begin his career. Throw in over 500 career stolen bases, including over 25 in twelve straight seasons to start his career, and you have a tremendously well-rounded profile with everything but power. Then of course when you combine his stats from Japan, he finished his career with 4367 hits, an unheard of total. If he had played his whole career in the US, he likely wouldn't have reached the majors at 18 like he did in Japan and wouldn't have quite so many hits, but you'd have to expect he would still be approaching four thousand. Ichiro deserves to be darn near unanimous even if the counting stats don't exactly put him in that category.
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.
Turning around from a pretty straightforward yes vote, let's look at an even more better ballplayer with much more baggage. 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.
This is it, this has to be the year. After coming just five votes shy of the 289 he needed to be elected last year, Billy Wagner appears on the ballot this year for the tenth and final time. 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 fWAR (24.0, ahead of Aroldis Chapman's 23.0), RE24 (198.2, ahead of Orosco's 154.5), and WPA (28.4, ahead of Chapman's 21.6), three stats I think are very good measures of long term success, though Chapman just passed him in strikeouts this year. And while Chapman may only be a year or two away from catching Wagner in fWAR, he still holds a massive 28% lead in RE24, and a 31% lead on the all time WPA board. 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 Hall of Fame 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 all time greats 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 (without being caught), 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.
LHP CC Sabathia (2001-2019)
Regular Season: 3.74 ERA, 3.78 FIP, 1.26 WHIP, 3093/1099 K/BB in 3577.1 innings.
Postseason: 4.28 ERA, 4.39 FIP, 1.53 WHIP, 121/63 K/BB in 130.1 innings.
CC Sabathia is a fairly easy yes for me. First of all, we have longevity. He pitched over 180 innings in thirteen straight seasons from 2001-2013 to begin his career, including at least 230 innings in five straight from 2007-2011. His 253 innings in 2008 are still the most of any pitcher since Livan Hernandez threw 255 in 2004, while his 3577.1 career innings are the most of any pitcher since 1993. Of course, pitching a lot isn't enough to get you into the Hall by itself, but it certainly helps. In game action, CC was a mid-rotation-caliber starter for most of his career, but he really made his money in a seven year stretch from 2006-2012 when he went 122-57 with a 3.14 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP. Only Roy Halladay could best CC's 40 fWAR in that stretch, while his 1591.2 innings (unsurprisingly) led all MLB pitchers as did his 1453 strikeouts while his 122 wins were second to Justin Verlander's 124. Oh, and he won a Cy Young Award (2007) and a World Series Championship (2009) during that stretch. In most eras, I would have considered this a borderline case, but the post-steroid era was a bit lacking on great starting pitching. The Steroid Era had a historical collection of top arms led by Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Roger Clemens among many, many other greats, while the most recent era saw Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Zack Greinke, Adam Wainwright, and Verlander lead the way. Many of the best arms of the era including Johan Santana, Felix Hernandez, Roy Oswalt, and Tim Lincecum lacked the longevity of the all time greats, with Sabathia joining Halladay and Verlander as the top arms of the era that managed to sustain longevity. At the end of the day, pulling the camera out to a twenty year period, Sabathia had more fWAR (66.1) than any other pitcher in baseball from 1999-2018 despite not debuting until 2001. If you're the single best cumulative pitcher over a two decade period, it's hard to argue against a Hall of Fame case.
RHP Felix Hernandez (2005-2019)
Regular Season: 3.42 ERA, 3.52 FIP, 1.21 WHIP, 2524/805 K/BB in 2729.2 innings.
Postseason: N/A
With the pandemic ultimately cutting his career short and having thrown his final MLB pitch at the age of just 33, Felix Hernandez lacks the longevity of other Hall of Fame starting pitchers to say the least – among Hall of Fame starting pitchers in the post-integration era, only Sandy Koufax (2324.1) threw fewer innings than Hernandez's 2729.2. That said, few pitchers could match King Felix's dominance at his peak. From breaking into the majors at just 19 years old (and putting up a 2.67 ERA!) to winning the 2010 AL Cy Young Award to throwing the 23rd perfect game in history in 2012, he rightfully earned his royal nickname. Specifically, his six year peak from 2009-2014 is just about unmatched around baseball over the past couple decades. In that stretch, he went 86-56 with a 2.73 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP while leading MLB in strikeouts (1358) and innings (1394.1) and finishing neck and neck with Clayton Kershaw in fWAR (37.3 to 37.2). In those six years, King Felix was a true ace and much more both in terms of sheer performance and by chewing up huge numbers of innings. And outside of that peak, he was a solid #2/#3 starter with strong numbers in the 2005-2008 and 2015-2016 periods on either side of that dominant run. Ultimately, he went just 9-23 with a 5.82 ERA after his 32nd birthday, but he did more than enough from ages 19-31 to get into the Hall in my book despite never pitching in the postseason. He's also still only 38, somehow younger than Adam Ottavino and Matt Carpenter.
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. All of those guys played at least partly in the 1930's when offense was just as juiced up as the Steroid Era. None of them appeared in a game after 1960, and among that group, only Ruth out-homered Ramirez. Ramirez 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.
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.
Chase Utley appears to be a no on the surface, but the closer you look, the more compelling his case becomes. 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.
2B Dustin Pedroia (2006-2019)
Regular Season: 140 HR, .299/.365/.439, 138 SB, 115 wRC+, 44.8 fWAR in 1512 games.
Postseason: 5 HR, .233/.313/.374, 3 SB, 81 wRC+ in 51 games.
Dustin Pedroia isn't quite a Hall of Famer, but he's my all time favorite player for whom one of my childhood dogs was named and he'll get his due here. For a while, Pedroia looked like he was on a Hall of Fame track, picking up a Rookie of the Year Award, an MVP, and a World Series ring all by age 25. From 2007-2014, an eight year stretch, he hit .301/.368/.447 with 104 home runs, elite defense, and 38.8 fWAR that amounted to the seventh highest total in baseball. Having just turned 31 at the end of that stretch, he could have pushed himself more seriously into the HOF conversation had he continued to perform like the solid regular he was towards the end of his prime. Unfortunately, he started to battle hamstring problems in 2015 and then his knee gave out on him in 2016, which ended up being his final full productive year even though he played most of it at age 32. In the end, Pedroia was cut off at just 1512 career games, a very small sample for a Hall of Fame contender, and failed to reach the 50 WAR mark that generally begins the conversation. He'll be remembered for his hard-nosed style of play, elite defense, and the Laser Show he brought to Fenway Park driving the ball around the field – he blasted 102 doubles from 2008-2009.
C Russell Martin (2006-2019)
Regular Season: 191 HR, .248/.349/.397, 101 SB, 104 wRC+, 54.5 fWAR in 1693 games.
Postseason: 6 HR, .191/.306/.327, 1 SB, 76 wRC+ in 58 games.
Honestly, Russell Martin is probably the sneakiest name on this entire ballot. In fact, if elected, his .248 career batting average would be the lowest of any position player in the Hall of Fame. And even with that, he still slugged under .400 for his career, never hit more than 23 home runs or slugged above .469, and never hit .300. He was also overshadowed playing in an era with many great catchers including Yadier Molina, Joe Mauer, Buster Posey, and Brian McCann. That said, there might not have been a single catcher in that era with a game as well rounded as Martin's. Despite me dogging his offense, he was a solid hitter who finished his career above league average and popped to hit .293/.374/.469 in 2007 and .290/.402/.430 in 2014. Early in his career, he was also a very solid baserunner who picked up double digit stolen base totals in each of his first four seasons, including 21 in 2007. And most importantly, he was an elite defender who would have won a lot more than just the one Gold Glove (2007) had he not been stuck competing with Yadier Molina. Martin's athleticism behind the plate was head and shoulders above what is typically seen back there, helping him contribute to the game in many ways beyond what a typical catcher could. WAR can be finicky for catchers, who draw so much value from their defense which is inherently harder to measure, but his 54.5 fWAR led all catchers over a 24 year period from 1997-2020. That's not too shabby. Ultimately though, the bat is just a little bit light and the sample size a little too small (less than 1700 games over just fourteen seasons) for me to pull the trigger.
C Brian McCann (2005-2019)
Regular Season: 282 HR, .262/.337/.452, 25 SB, 110 wRC+, 52.1 fWAR in 1755 games.
Postseason: 4 HR, .172/.252/.297, 0 SB, 48 wRC+ in 39 games.
While they were different players, Brian McCann has a fairly similar case to Russell Martin. Martin has the edge with better defense and baserunning value, but McCann was the better hitter with nearly one hundred more home runs and a much higher slugging percentage. He was also a better hitter at peak, putting up a huge 2006 in which he hit .333/.388/.572 with 24 home runs and just 54 strikeouts in 130 games. That being his first full season, he would only put up one more big offensive season hitting .301/.373/.523 in 2008, but he remained a strong bat and reached twenty home runs ten times in an eleven year stretch from 2006-2016. And while Martin was the better defender, McCann more than held his own back there as one of the game's better defensive backstops throughout the better chunk of his career. And also like Martin, he hit under .200 in a large postseason sample and was in fact a complete non-factor in his eight postseasons, putting up just a .549 OPS overall. I think McCann is safely under the Hall of Fame threshold, but had he been even an average hitter in his postseason sample, I think I'd be taking a bit longer of a look. Overall, like Martin, he'll likely get overshadowed by the flashier names of Molina, Mauer, and Posey.
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." That's not to diminish the difficulty in squaring up against him, 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.
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 21st all time in fWAR, tenth in RE24, and ninth 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 has been treading above 5% so we can keep giving him looks, but I'll ultimately be okay if Rivera, Hoffman, and hopefully this year Wagner are the only relievers from that era to make the Hall.
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.
OF Curtis Granderson (2004-2019)
Regular Season: 344 HR, .249/.337/.465, 153 SB, 115 wRC+, 47.0 fWAR in 2057 games.
Postseason: 9 HR, .224/.317/.424, 9 SB, 99 wRC+ in 64 games.
Even if Curtis Granderson falls a little short, he deserves some consideration. Few players were more fun to watch in the post-steroid era than the Grandy Man, who impacted the game in just about every way he could. In Detroit, he was a gap to gap hitter driving the ball around Comerica Park and using his wheels to take extra bases where he could. We all remember that 2007 season when he hit .302/.361/.552 and put up 7.9 fWAR, but his most impressive feat was going 20-20-30-20 in the home runs, stolen bases, doubles, and triples departments, respectively, joining Jimmy Rollins in the same season to become the first players since Frank Schulte in 1911 to do so. The 23 triples by themselves were the most by any player in a single season since Dale Mitchell finished with the same number in 1949. Later, when Granderson left Detroit for New York, he became less of a speed and defense guy and turned into more of a true power hitter, blasting more than 40 home runs in back to back seasons in 2011 and 2012 while also bumping up his walk rate. Ultimately, the end result was a very nice career that included well over 300 home runs, over 150 stolen bases, nearly 100 triples, and a lot of fun memories on and off the field. It's good enough for the Hall of Very Good, but save for a few big seasons he was never among the game's elite for a sustained period of time.
2B Ian Kinsler (2006-2019)
Regular Season: 257 HR, .269/.337/.440, 243 SB, 107 wRC+, 47.3 fWAR in 1888 games.
Postseason: 4 HR, .274/.369/.417, 7 SB, 113 wRC+ in 48 games.
Ian Kinsler may have never been among the game's elite, but he was quietly one of the best second basemen of his era. He was above a league average hitter in each of his first eleven seasons from 2006-2016, including topping out with a 133 wRC+ in 2008 when he hit .319/.375/.517 with 18 home runs and 41 doubles, all while standing out for a strong glove that earned him a pair of Gold Gloves later on in 2016 and 2018. His 39.5 fWAR over a nine year stretch from 2008-2016 was quietly the fourteenth best in baseball, and ultimately he provided plenty of value in the box, in the field, and on the bases. Kinsler was also an integral part of the Rangers' 2010 and 2011 World Series runs, hitting a combined .303/.413/.479 with four home runs in 33 games over those two postseasons.
