2023 Hall of Fame: My Ballot

Another year, another cycle of Hall of Fame discourse that will range anywhere from fascinating to toxic. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are unfortunately gone from the ballot, but the steroid discourse is far from over with names like Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and others still present. For my full thoughts on cheaters and the Hall of Fame, click here, but the quick summary is that I think almost all of them should get in. 

My ballot this year is a bit sparse. Last year, I voted for the full ten players, but this year I'm down to six after David Ortiz earned induction, Bonds, Clemens, and Curt Schilling ran out of eligibility, and Bobby Abreu dropped off my ballot. No newcomers made their way on, but A-Rod is an addition from last year after the one year steroid penalty I applied. Below, let's first walk through the players I would vote for on my hypothetical ballot, then let's walk through the ones that I wouldn't vote for and why that is. As a reminder, players need 75% of the vote to get into the Hall of Fame.

YES VOTES

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.
Last year, I had Alex Rodriguez wait in "time out" because I didn't want to (hypothetically) make a cheater a first ballot Hall of Famer. Now that we're past that, though, it's time to let A-Rod into the Hall. You can't argue with the results. Nearly 700 home runs, over 300 stolen bases, over 500 doubles, and an on-base percentage approaching .400 while playing stellar defense makes for an inner-circle resume. 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.
Okay, Billy Wagner has been on the ballot for long enough. He finally crossed the 50% threshold last year in his seventh attempt, and now at number eight I'm starting to lose patience. 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 20.1), RE24 (198.2, ahead of Orosco's 154.5), and WPA (28.4, ahead of Chapman's 19.9), four stats I think are very good measures of long term success. And aside from strikeouts, none of these are even close, with a 19% lead in fWAR, a 28% lead in RE24, and a massive 43% lead in WPA. 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 2023 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 in all of MLB behind only Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. 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.

3B Scott Rolen (1996-2012)
Regular Season: 316 HR, .281/.364/.490, 118 SB, 122 wRC+, 69.9 fWAR in 2038 games.
Postseason: 5 HR, .220/.302/.376, 0 SB, 78 wRC+ in 39 games.
Many people have taken up Scott Rolen as their "guy" in this cycle, and more power to them. Personally, I see him more as a guy I'd like to see get in rather than the one I'm going to stump the hardest for (that would be Wagner and Jones), but I'm still on Team Rolen. Back when he was playing, I don't think many people thought they were watching a future Hall of Famer (though his 34 HR, .314/.409/.598, 9.0 fWAR 2004 season was a Hall of Fame-caliber season), but when you zoom the camera out, the profile looks better and better. Already a high level defender, he went eight straight seasons from 1997-2004 with at least a 121 wRC+, meaning at any point in that stretch he was no less than 21% better than league average with the bat. During that time, he had the third most fWAR in baseball behind only Bonds and A-Rod, though unlike Jones he didn't have that huge drop off at the end of his career. So we have a high level defender, a well above average bat, a consistent bat that held his production over a long period of time (enough to rack up 300+ home runs, 500+ doubles, and 100+ stolen bases if you like counting stats), and best of all for some old school voters, a guy who did it clean. Yeah, he never really looked like a Hall of Famer outside that huge 2004 season, but in aggregate, I think he was.

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.

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.
Last year, I voted yes on Bobby Abreu, but I mentioned that I was right on the fence and leaned 51-49 towards my yes vote. This year, I'm still extremely on the fence but I'm leaning 51-49 towards a no vote. It's simply the most borderline case I've encountered so far. 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 very, very good. 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. Maybe he'll be back on my ballot next year, we'll see.

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.
Todd Helton is very, very close, but my small Hall mindset is going to keep him out for now. As a first baseman 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. But unfortunately, the decline was pretty steep; from 2006-2013, he slashed .289/.388/.448 with 98 home runs in 968 games. Even for a first baseman at Coors Field, holding an on-base percentage near .400 through your post-prime years is impressive, and it's almost enough to get him into the Hall for me. Jones followed a similar career arc and I see him as a clear-cut Hall of Famer, but it's important to note that Jones' prime lasted nine years while Helton's lasted seven, so it was almost 30% longer. It's also not his fault that he only got to play in fifteen postseason games, but 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 my opinion as someone with a small Hall mindset, that's a no.

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.

2B Jeff Kent (1992-2008)
Regular Season: 377 HR, .290/.356/.500, 94 SB, 123 wRC+, 56.0 fWAR in 2298 games.
Postseason: 9 HR, .276/.340/.500, 1 SB, 119 wRC+ in 49 games.
It's Jeff Kent's last year on the ballot, and he's very close to a Hall of Famer. He brings a great combination of longevity and consistent, high level performance, having posted eight consecutive 20 HR/30 double seasons, ten consecutive seasons with a wRC+ of 120 or higher (and sixteen straight at league average or better), and nine consecutive seasons with at least 3.3 fWAR. In 2000, he popped for a tremendous season, slashing .334/.424/.596 with 33 home runs and 7.4 fWAR. And given that he played in over 100 games in all seventeen seasons of his career, he was able to rack up solid counting stats with nearly 400 home runs, well over 500 doubles, and nearly 2500 hits in all. He wasn't a standout defender, but he was certainly solid over there at second base. Throw in good postseason performance with a .276/.340/.500 line over 49 games, and it's a well rounded profile. Ultimately though, it feels just a little light. For all his consistency and longevity, he only popped for a 140 or better wRC+ twice, only reached 5.0 fWAR twice, only once hit more than 33 home runs in a season, and only once posted an on-base percentage above .385. So similar to Andy Pettitte, he was very good for a very long time, but there's no peak here that really wows you beyond his one great season in 2000 and another very good one in 2002. I feel better comparing Jeff Kent to the great second basemen of the era, like Craig Biggio, Roberto Alomar, and Chase Utley, than I do to the greats of all time.

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.

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.
Because he cheated pretty egregiously with the Astros in 2017, Carlos Beltran will get his automatic one year "time out" from my ballot. Going forward, I'm open to voting for him – over 400 home runs, over 1000 extra base hits, over 300 stolen bases, seven different seasons more than 5.0 fWAR, and elite postseason performance certainly warrant strong consideration. But I'll leave deeper thought on that for next year.

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 last year but failed to receive the necessary 5% to get another shot. I do hope K-Rod gets 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.

RHP Jered Weaver (2006-2017)
Regular Season: 150-98, 3.63 ERA, 4.07 FIP, 1.19 WHIP, 1621/551 K/BB in 2067.1 innings.
Postseason: 2-1, 2.60 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 0.98 WHIP, 28/12 K/BB in 27.2 innings.
Jered Weaver almost had it. Over the first nine seasons of his career, and at the time of his 32nd birthday, he was 131-69 with a 3.28 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP, which is probably a Hall of Fame pace. A reasonable decline in his thirties would have given him a case, but unfortunately, his velocity disappeared and he would pitch just three more seasons, going 19-29 with a 5.15 ERA and finding himself out of baseball by his 35th birthday. I don't consider him to be close to the Hall, but I do want to give credit where it's due given how good he was over the first nine seasons of his career.

Hall of Fame 2021: My Ballot

I find the process of determining Hall-worthiness just as difficult as I find it interesting. There are so many complicating factors such as peak performance vs longevity, park effects and performance relative to league average, and of course, performance-enhancing drugs. Not only whether the drugs should disqualify a player, but whether the player took them and for how long. Below are my thoughts on this year's ballot, player by player, starting with those I would vote for. See my thoughts on steroids here.

Yes Votes

RHP Curt Schilling (1988-2007, 70.0% in 2020)
Career: 216-146, 3.46 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 3116/711 K/BB in 3261 IP
Postseason: 11-2, 2.23 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, 120/25 K/BB in 133.1 IP
Best season (1997): 17-11, 2.97 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 319/58 K/BB in 254.1 IP
To me, Curt Schilling is one of two the clear-cut Hall of Famers on this ballot, along with Billy Wagner. If I could only vote for one, I would give Schilling a hard look. He may have never won a Cy Young award, but from 1996-2004, he was one of the best pitchers in all of baseball at a time when Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson were at their peaks. He had eight qualified seasons with a sub-3.30 ERA (most of which were during the Steroid Era), reached 300 strikeouts three times and narrowly missed a fourth, and appeared in twenty different seasons from 1988-2007. In the postseason, he was on another level, earning NLCS MVP honors in 1993 and a World Series MVP in 2001, holding a 2.23 ERA over 133.1 innings against the best lineups in baseball. He was a stud in the regular season, a stud in the postseason, and stuck around for a long time. He's a Hall of Famer, and I really don't care that he's a bit of a whacko off the field. It's the Baseball Hall of Fame, not the Public Image Hall of Fame.

LHP Billy Wagner (1995-2010, 31.7% in 2020)
Career: 47-40, 2.31 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 422 SV, 1196/300 K/BB in 903 IP
Postseason: 1-1, 10.03 ERA, 1.97 WHIP, 3 SV, 13/2 K/BB in 11.2 IP
Best season (2003): 1-4, 1.78 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 44 SV, 105/23 K/BB in 86 IP
Many people are hesitant to put relievers in the Hall of Fame, and I completely understand that stance. Right now, the only pure relievers in the Hall from the modern era of relief pitching are Bruce Sutter, Lee Smith, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and maybe Goose Gossage as you count that as the modern era. Rivera is obviously in a class of his own, but if the other four are Hall of Famers, I see absolutely no argument to keep out Billy Wagner, who is far and away the greatest left handed reliever of all time. I mean, the numbers are ridiculous. He threw 903 innings, but even setting the minimum at 700, no pitcher in history can match his 33.2% strikeout rate, nor his .184 opponents' batting average, nor his 82% strand rate. Not even Mariano Rivera. Relievers are also notoriously inconsistent, but only once in Wagner's sixteen year career did he post an ERA above 2.85. When he retired in 2010 at the age of 39, he was still at the top of his game, posting a 1.47 ERA, a 0.87 WHIP, and a 104/22 strikeout to walk ratio over 69.1 innings, indicating that he still had more left in the tank. So Wagner struggled in the postseason over a tiny 11.2 inning postseason sample, but that's not nearly enough to keep him out in my book. And the 31.7% he got in 2020 is absurdly low.

CF Andruw Jones (1996-2012, 19.4% in 2020)
Career: 434 HR, .254/.337/.486, 152 SB, 111 wRC+, 67.0 fWAR in 2196 games
Postseason: 10 HR, .273/.363/.433, 108 wRC+ in 76 games
Best season (2000): 36 HR, .303/.366/.541, 21 SB, 127 wRC+, 7.7 fWAR in 161 games
Andruw Jones, like Billy Wagner, hasn't gotten nearly the love he deserves in the vote, falling shy of 20% last year. Maybe he's not a Hall of Famer (I think he is), but to me it's a pretty plain fact that he deserves at least 40% or so. Some might cringe at the idea of putting a player who hit .254 with a .337 on-base percentage in the Hall of Fame, and if elected, his .254 average would have him second only to Ray Schalk (.253) for the lowest in HoF history. Still, I see him as fully deserving. Jones was arguably the greatest defensive outfielder ever to play the game, and if some believe that Willie Mays or Devon White was better, than we can safely say he's a slam-dunk top five defensive outfielder ever, no debate. As I'll argue below with Omar Vizquel, though, defensive prowess isn't enough alone to get you in. No matter, because from 1998-2007, Jones was also one of the better hitters in the game, with ten straight seasons of more than 25 home runs, ten straight with 154 games played, eight seasons with a wRC+ of 112, and a career high of 51 home runs in 2005. On their own, those numbers don't put him in the Hall, but when we're talking about an all-time great defender, I think absolutely. fWAR gives another compelling argument, as he reached 4.9 in ten straight seasons and topped 7.0 three times, but I understand some don't buy into that statistic and I think the case is pretty compelling even without it. All time great defender, over 400 home runs, nearly 400 doubles, and over 150 stolen bases puts him in for me.

3B Scott Rolen (1996-2012, 35.3% in 2020)
Career: 316 HR, .281/.364/.490, 118 SB, 122 wRC+, 69.9 fWAR in 2038 games
Postseason: 5 HR, .220/.302/.376, 0 SB, 78 wRC+ in 39 games
Best season (2004): 34 HR, .314/.409/.598, 4 SB, 159 wRC+, 9.0 fWAR in 142 games
On the surface, Rolen doesn't look like a Hall of Famer. He was a very good hitter with "just" 316 home runs, an unremarkable .281 batting average, and a sub-.500 slugging percentage, a very good defender who picked up eight Gold Glove awards but wasn't quite Andruw Jones or Omar Vizquel out there, and only topped 150 games in a season five times. That sounds like a slam-dunk "Hall of Very Good" case to me. But the more you think about it, the better the package looks. The era in which he played was chock full of superstars, but across baseball, how many players in the late 90's/00's could match both his bat and his glove? Maybe Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr., but Griffey was already slowing down by the time Rolen came around and you'd have to really love A-Rod's glove to call it better than Rolen's. Rolen really was a superb defender that could impact the game from third base throughout his career, making entire infields around him better from the late 90's Phillies to even the early 10's Reds. On top of that, I think his bat was more than just "good." From 1997-2004, he had more than 20 home runs and at least a .357 on-base percentage in all eight seasons, then topped those numbers again in 2006. Rolen had six seasons in his career in which he hit 25 home runs with at least a .370 on-base percentage, and narrowly missed a seventh. In 2004, he had a truly Hall of Fame-worthy season with 34 home runs and a .314/.409/.598 slash line to go with elite defense, which caps it off for me. I won't die on the hill that Rolen is a Hall of Famer, but to me, his combination of a very good glove, a very good bat, and an elite 2004 season are just enough to push him over the edge.

RF Bobby Abreu (1996-2014, 5.5% in 2020)
Career: 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 20 games
Best season (1999): 20 HR, .335/.446/.549, 27 SB, 6.3 fWAR in 152 games
I've had a fairly similar thought process on Bobby Abreu as I had on Scott Rolen. On the surface, he looks like he belongs in the Hall of Very Good. He hit fewer than 300 home runs, slugged well below .500, and didn't have Rolen's elite defense. However, the longer I look at his case, the more I buy in. There's just something to be said for consistency, and if anything, Abreu was consistent. In 13 straight seasons from 1998-2010, Abreu topped 150 games, hit at least 15 home runs, stole at least 19 bases, clubbed at least 29 doubles, and never posted an on-base percentage below .352. Zoom in a little bit closer to his peak, and the numbers get even more impressive. In a seven year stretch from 1999-2005, he hit at least 20 home runs, stole at least 22 bases, clubbed at least 35 doubles, and never had an OBP below .393. There were no true superstar seasons in there, but for a very long period of time without exception, Abreu was a true power, speed, and on-base threat, and as far as we know, he did it cleanly in an era where many players did not. As with Rolen, I won't die on this hill, but I see a very compelling case here, especially with that .395 on-base percentage that topped .420 three times.

RF Gary Sheffield (1988-2009, 30.5% in 2020)
Career: 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
Best season (1996): 42 HR, .314/.465/.624, 16 SB, 185 wRC+, 6.5 fWAR in 161 games
Gary Sheffield might have the most complicated Hall of Fame case on the ballot, and he was the last player that I was able to come to a decision on. I'm extremely on the fence but decided to put him in. Firstly, I'll address Sheffield's reputation as a locker room cancer – while it obviously doesn't help his case, I'm not going to hold it against him. I'm here to judge how he impacted the game, not whether I'd want to have a beer with him. Next off, there's the question of steroids. He admitted to using "the cream" on his bum knee in the early 2000's, though claims (somewhat unconvincingly) that he didn't know it was a steroid. He was also named in the Mitchell Report, but to my knowledge, there's no concrete proof that he ever did anything beyond using "the cream." I'll come back to the steroids when I'm done with his accomplishments
Steroids aside, I see Sheffield as a Hall of Famer. As with Scott Rolen and Bobby Abreu, I wouldn't die on that hill, but I feel fully comfortable, in fact more comfortable than with those two. Even if he was a poor defender, we have a man who crushed over 500 home runs with an on-base percentage near .400. He had eight seasons with over 30 home runs, had six qualified seasons with at least a 154 wRC+, had an on-base percentage over .400 in eight straight seasons, and was one of the very best hitters in baseball from 1995-2003. To me, that's a very convincing Hall of Fame resume. Now, let's talk steroids. If he was more borderline in his case, the steroids would disqualify him. And if he used steroids more than just "the cream" for a few years, I wouldn't vote for him either. But we don't (or at least I don't) know the answer to that question, and I believe in "innocent until proven guilty." After a lot of careful thought, he gained my vote, but just barely.

LF Barry Bonds (1986-2007, 60.7% in 2020)
Career: 762 HR, .298/.444/.607, 514 SB, 173 wRC+, 164.4 fWAR in 2986 games
Postseason: 9 HR, .245/.433/.503, 9 SB, 141 wRC+ in 48 games
Best season (2001): 73 HR, .328/.515/.863, 13 SB, 235 wRC+, 12.5 fWAR in 153 games
I don't need to sell anybody on Barry Bonds' numbers. Steroids aside, you can count on one hand the players that can even compare to what Bonds did. I also don't need to sell anybody that he would have been a Hall of Famer without steroids. If you think he might not have been, you're grossly underselling his elite batting eye, approach at the plate, hand-eye coordination, and early career speed. So the only question here is whether you think steroids should disqualify one of the greatest players of all time, which I discussed here. In summary, as much as I hate it, cheating has always been a part of baseball and on top of that, it was encouraged during the Steroid Era.
Okay, now that that's done with, let's just marvel at some of Bonds' career stats. He is the all time leader in home runs (762) and walks (2558) and ranks behind only Babe Ruth in fWAR (164.4). He's third all time in runs scored (2227), fifth in wRC+ (173), and sixth in RBI (1996). From 1928-2000, not a single player could tally more than 11.8 fWAR in a season. Over the course of four seasons from 2001-2004, Bonds did it three times. By wRC+, three of the top four seasons in all of history belong to Bonds, including number one (244 in 2002). In that four season stretch from 2001-2004, Bonds clobbered 209 home runs and slashed .349/.559/.809 with a 232 wRC+ and 47.3 fWAR in 573 games. That 47.3 fWAR over four seasons was more than Mark Grace (45.5), Nellie Fox (45.2), Kirby Puckett (44.9), or Dale Murphy (44.3) had in their entire careers. It cannot possibly be overstated how good Barry Bonds was at hitting baseballs.

RHP Roger Clemens (1984-2007, 61.0% in 2020)
Career: 354-184, 3.12 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, 4672/1580 K/BB in 4916.2 IP
Postseason: 12-8, 3.75 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 173/70 K/BB in 199 IP
Best season (1997): 21-7, 2.05 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 292/68 K/BB in 264 IP
With Roger Clemens, we have a similar story to Barry Bonds above. He's not a top-five player of all time like his counterpart, but steroids aside, he is far and away qualified. There's no doubt in anybody's mind that he would be a Hall of Famer without steroids. And given that he was up against lineups full of cheating players, it's hard to blame him for cheating, as much as I hate it. Read my full thoughts on steroids here.
Steroids aside, we can appreciate Clemens' numbers. He topped 210 innings fourteen times in his career, had eleven qualified seasons with an ERA below 3.00, and topped 230 strikeouts eight times. In terms of career strikeouts, only Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson have more, but Clemens had a lower ERA than both of them. He's seventh on the all time list with 707 career starts, too. Maybe not quite in the all time top tier, but he's certainly one of the all time greats.

No Votes

1B Todd Helton (1997-2013, 29.2% in 2020)
Career: 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
Best season (2000): 42 HR, .372/.463/.698, 5 SB, 162 wRC+, 8.3 fWAR in 160 games
Todd Helton only narrowly misses my ballot. From 1999-2005, he was one of the very best hitters in baseball, slashing .341/.442/.621 with 241 home runs and a 152 wRC+ in 1092 games. That wRC+, which corrects for the "Coors effect," was the sixth best in baseball in that span over no small sample size. Narrow it by one year to 2000-2005, and his 156 wRC+ was fifth best in baseball to start the millennium. That's absolutely a Hall of Fame piece of the resume, but for a first baseman, I'm looking for just a bit more. From 2006 onwards, he hit .289/.388/.448 with 98 home runs and a 112 wRC+ over 968 games, which as a first baseman in Coors Field, meant he only provided 10.6 fWAR from his age-32 season onwards. So we're left with a tale of two careers with Helton, beginning with an exceptional run from 1999-2005 followed by an unremarkable one from 2006-2013. Had he played shortstop or even a strong right field, I think that first half of his career would be enough to push him into the Hall, but the bar is higher for first basemen and Helton falls just short on the longevity aspect.

RHP Tim Hudson (1999-2015, first year on ballot)
Career: 222-133, 3.49 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 2080/917 K/BB in 3126.2 IP
Postseason: 1-4, 3.69 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 53/22 K/BB in 75.2 IP
Best season (2003): 16-7, 2.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 162/61 K/BB in 240 IP
Tim Hudson is another one who is very close. Starting straight from his rookie year, he was a true standout in the Oakland rotation from 1999-2003 and popped back for big seasons with the Braves in 2007, 2010, and 2011. Outside of those seasons, he was still a very solid #2/#3-type starter, and in the end you have a really nice profile as a pitcher with ten qualified seasons with an ERA below 3.60. However, save for maybe his best season in 2003, Hudson was never a star. That's not straight up disqualifying, as we saw with Bobby Abreu, but I'm going to need either more consistency or more longevity if I'm going to overlook that. Abreu had the consistency, Scott Rolen had that huge 2004 season, and a guy like Derek Jeter had the longevity that just bumped them into the Hall. Hudson, as a whole, as a resume that's just a little bit light. We knew we were watching a perennial All Star when Hudson was on the mound, don't think anybody thought they were watching a Hall of Famer. In my opinion, we weren't.

LHP Mark Buehrle (2000-2015, first year on ballot)
Career: 214-160, 3.81 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 1870/734 K/BB in 3283.1 IP
Postseason: 2-1, 4.11 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 16/1 K/BB in 30.2 IP
Best season (2005): 16-8, 3.12 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 149/40 K/BB in 236.2 IP
I still don't think Mark Buehrle is a Hall of Famer, but his case actually gets a lot more intriguing the more you look at it. On the surface, he was a pitch-to-contact guy who never had an ERA below 3.12 and finished at 3.81 for his career while spending most of it in the weaker AL Central. He was never a true ace for more than a few months at a time, but the key here is consistency. Buehrle put in fourteen consecutive seasons of at least 200 innings, and narrowly missed a fifteenth with 198.2 in 2015. In those fifteen seasons from 2001-2015, only once did he post an ERA above 4.28, and never did he walk more than 6.2% of his opponents. He was an elite defender, was the best pitcher on the 2005 World Series Champion White Sox team, and threw a perfect game in 2009. There is really something to be said for a decade and a half of exceptional reliability and exceptional consistency, and I really hope he doesn't fall off the ballot in the first year. However, he was never elite for even one season, so he won't get my vote.

LHP Andy Pettitte (1995-2013, 11.3% in 2020)
Career: 256-153, 3.85 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 2448/1031 K/BB in 3316 IP
Postseason: 19-11, 3.81 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 183/76 K/BB in 276.2 IP
Best season (2005): 17-9, 2.39 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 171/41 K/BB in 222.1 IP
Andy Pettitte is yet another pitcher who just misses for me. He put up excellent seasons in 1997 and 2005 and was very good in a few other seasons, and there's something to be said for the longevity it takes to put up ten seasons of 200+ innings and three more of 185+. He was also on the mound for 276.2 innings in the postseason, holding his own with a 3.81 ERA against plenty of very strong lineups. That's all great, but for the majority of his career, Pettitte was much more a steady than imposing force in the Yankees and Astros rotations. In more than half of his qualified seasons, his ERA was above 4.00, and he regularly got hit around with career opponents' batting average of .269 and a 1.35 WHIP. The longevity is great, the important role on some great teams is a plus, and he popped for a couple of great seasons, but Andy Pettitte is a #3 starter at heart. The Hall of Fame is for aces and long-term, consistent #2's.

2B Jeff Kent (1992-2008, 27.5% in 2020)
Career: 377 HR, .290/.356/.500, 94 SB, 123 wRC+, 56.0 fWAR in 2298 games
Postseason: 9 HR, .276/.340/.500, 1 SB, 119 wRC+ in 49 games
Best season (2000): 33 HR, .334/.424/.596, 12 SB, 159 wRC+, 7.4 fWAR in 159 games
Jeff Kent is another one that's really close, one that I gave significant thought to before ultimately deciding "no." He put up nine consecutive seasons of more than 20 home runs and at least 34 doubles from 1997-2005 and topped 30 home runs three times. In 2000 and 2002, he popped for exceptional seasons and won the NL MVP Award in the former while reaching the World Series in the latter. But while he was an extra base hit machine for the better part of a decade, popping for an OBP as high as .424 in 2000, is that enough? I see a nice, sustained peak, but it's the kind that would need a little more longevity sandwiched on either side of it. Outside of that 1997-2005 stretch, he was solid but unspectacular leading up to it and didn't play after 2008. Seventeen years is a nice career, especially since he played over 100 games in each, but I would have liked to have seen just a little bit more given his peak was more "great" than "elite."

SS Omar Vizquel (1989-2012, 52.6% in 2020)
Career: 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
Best season (1999): 5 HR, .333/.397/.436, 42 SB, 115 wRC+, 6.0 fWAR in 144 games
Omar Vizquel follows similar logic to Andruw Jones as an all-time great defender whose offensive numbers don't quite stack up. However, the difference between Vizquel and Jones is that Jones hit 434 home runs, while Vizquel was a non-factor in the lineup. His combination of exceptional glovework and longevity buys the bat as much slack as possible, but in my opinion, it's not enough. From 1989-2007, he had sixteen full seasons out of nineteen, itself an accomplishment, but his bat was a virtual black hole in the Seattle, Cleveland, and San Francisco lineups around him at a time when offense was at a premium. In those sixteen full seasons, his bat was only league average or better twice, reaching double digits in home runs just once. His best offensive attribute was his speed, and he deployed it well at times with four straight seasons of at least 35 stolen bases from 1996-1999, but he never registered a .400 on-base percentage and only twice even got above .362. I'm sorry, but even if he came within 123 hits of 3000, his bat was mediocre at best.

LF Manny Ramirez (1993-2011, 28.2% in 2020)
Career: 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
Best season (1999): 44 HR, .333/.442/.663, 2 SB, 172 wRC+, 7.5 fWAR in 147 games
I briefly touched on my thoughts on Manny Ramirez in my steroid primer, but I'll go back over them here. Taken objectively, his numbers make him a pretty clear-cut Hall of Famer, even if his defense was poor. 555 career home runs, twelve 30 homer seasons, ten with an on-base percentage over .400, and plenty of postseason performance add up to a Hall of Fame resume. From 1994-2010, he put up seventeen straight seasons with at least a 120 wRC+, and fifteen of those were 140 or higher. But in 2009, he failed a PED test, and in 2011, he failed another. Both were late in his career, after he had already eclipsed 500 home runs and proven himself a Hall of Famer. If it had been just the 2009 test, perhaps I could give him the benefit of the doubt and buy that he had just made a mistake. But after the 2011 test, his whole career gets called into question. Plenty of his best production came during the Steroid Era – was he cheating then? He doesn't have the Bonds or Clemens-like resume that proves him to be a clear-cut Hall of Famer with or without steroids. He tested positive twice after the rules were clearly laid out, so I'm out.

RF Sammy Sosa (1989-2007, 13.9% in 2020)
Career: 609 HR, .273/.344/.534, 234 SB, 124 wRC+, 60.1 fWAR in 2354 games
Postseason: 2 HR, .245/.403/.415, 1 SB, 110 wRC+ in 15 games
Best season (2001): 64 HR, .328/.437/.737, 0 SB, 186 wRC+, 9.9 fWAR in 160 games
Sosa is another name that falls victim to the steroid problem. The allegations against him aren't as strong as they are against Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Manny Ramirez, but nonetheless they're stronger than those against Gary Sheffield, whom I voted for. Sosa reportedly tested positive in 2003, and of course there was the corked bat incident. If he had built a convincing, Ramirez-like case, I might have put more consideration into it, but unfortunately he's fairly borderline anyways. From 1998-2001, when he was likely juicing, he put together one of the most impressive offensive stretches in baseball history, slashing .310/.396/.662 with 243 home runs, including totals of 66, 63, 50, and 64. However, for the most part, Sosa was a one dimensional player. He hit a lot of home runs, but he only twice topped a .400 on-base percentage, never put up 40 doubles in a season, and provided very little defensive value. That one tool would likely be enough to carry him into the Hall if it had been clean, but his only tool was tainted and he doesn't have enough to make up for it.