A Hall of Fame Ballot

[Brian Kelder]

Since visiting the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, it's been a small hobby of mine to track the balloting, predicting who will get in, and seeing how accurate the predictions are. With this possibly being the most boring intro paragraph of all time, let's get into my (imaginary but super important) votes:

This is a fairly lean year for worthy candidates. Really, the only first year addition who has a chance is pitcher Cole Hamels. He doesn't get my vote because his peak was too low, and his career stats not impressive enough to make up for it. So, sorry to Nick Markakis, Howie Kendrick, Sin-Soo Choo, and Ryan Braun. All of them had great careers; you guys can make the Hall of Solid.

Vote 1: Carlos Beltran

Beltran was a versatile player for his 20 year career.  While he was never crowned MVP, he did make 9 all-star teams and 3 Gold Gloves. Winning was his strong suit; he led five different franchises to the playoffs. Only seven other players have reached his 300 home run and 300 stolen bases status. All of these make him worthy of enshrinement in his fourth year of eligibility.

In his 7 playoffs seasons, Beltran statistically played at a high level. His playoff slash line was .307/.412/.609 in 256 plate appearances.  By no fault of his play, Beltran was eliminated short of a championship every year until his age 40 season, winning in 2017 as a mercenary for Houston.

Anecdotally, the Puerto Rican center fielder was consistently thought of as a top player in the game, a true graceful outfielder on both offense and defense. He's the most obvious vote in this season.

Vote 2: Felix Hernandez

Hernandez did not have a long peak. He did have a seven year stretch where he was a Cy Young candidate, winning the award in 2010. This year was indicative of his absolute dominance for his span: 2.27 ERA, 7.2 WAR, 232 strikeouts in 246 innings. In the span he never had an ERA over 3.04, and consistently started over 30 games.

Hernandez won the Cy Young in a year when his won loss record was just 13-12. Voters for the award had to change their traditional voting pattern. In that same vein, pitching voters can value peak over longevity. Felix for a long stretch was the best pitcher in baseball, or at least on the short list. Injuries prevented him from sustaining this, but the peak gets his vote here.

Vote 3: Andruw Jones

Cubs fans can appreciate elite center-field defense after watching Pete Crow-Armstrong. Andruw Jones delivered that same level of defense for a decade — plus a 111 wRC+ bat. Jones had over 30 home runs seven times, peaking with 51 and 41 in 2005-2006. Also, not insignificantly, Jones won ten Gold Gloves at center field, the most premier position in the outfield.

Anecdotally, Jones was a key part of the Atlanta Braves impressive 1990s run. When you factor his team success, his prominence on the team, the all time great defense and solid bat, this is another guy worthy of the plaque.

Close but nope:

Dustin Pedroia, David Wright and Chase Utley: Great players, but injuries keep them just below the line.

Bobby Abreu: Better than remembered and modern stats love him, but defense and lack of elite elite numbers put him just short. It's a high bar guys!

Manny Ramirez/Alex Rodriguez: Numbers worthy, but too many steroid things. Precedent matters here. Since Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens failed to be enshrined for ten years and recently were rejected by the Veteran's Committee, and they are better than Manny and Rodriguez, the vote still has to be a no.

What do you guys think? Should Omar Vizquel get in despite serious allegations? Andy Pettitte? Torii Hunter, since Jones is in why not a similar defender?

Thanks for reading, have a good one!

 

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