MLB Hall of Fame: My Vote

Anyone else find it a bit disingenuous when classic newspaper writers, who are quick to look down on other media, find it completely acceptable to make a mockery of the Hall of Fame vote each year? Someone has already mailed in anonymous ballot with a single vote for David Wright while another only voted for Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins. We still don’t know the one guy who didn’t vote for Ichiro. I’m all for discussions and different points of view, but these are indefensible. Instead of getting to be the arbiter of baseball immortality, they use the platform to make themselves the story. It’s gross.

Anyway, I figure I would make it a New Year’s tradition to fill out my own ballot. I want to try to stay consistent in my reasoning both candidate to candidate and year over year. The hardest choice though is what to do with the steroid guys? My first inclination is to keep them out. However, that doesn’t really tell the story of baseball and allows people to inject their feelings into the argument. Don’t believe me? David Ortiz was a first ballot entry despite allegations. Why? Because everyone loves him. Maybe it should mean a higher bar, but not an automatic disqualification. One factor that I will not take into account is the first ballot thing. Why would you think someone is a Hall of Famer in Year 7 but not Year 1? I never understood that. You are or you are not.¹

Here’s my vote…

Not In: Shin-Soo Choo, Edwin Encarnacion, Gio Gonzalez, Alex Gordon, Matt Kemp, Howie Kendrick, Nick Markakis, Daniel Murphy, Hunter Pence, Rick Porcello², Omar Vizquel³

On the Fence, but No

Torii Hunter – Not getting swayed by his absurd defensive highlights and wonderful smile was difficult, but Hunter is firmly in the Hall of Pretty Good range even if his offensive numbers were better than you remember.
Mark Buehrle – A very good pitcher for a very long time, Buehrle racked up innings and gold glove awards but with a career ERA of 3.81 he was never one of the best in the game. Crazy stat of his that in his 15 seasons as a starter, the only year he didn’t eclipse 200 innings was in his final season when he came 4 outs short.
Bobby Abreu – He is MUCH closer to being in than you’d think based on his time with the Phillies: 9 years, .303 AVG, .928 OPS, 47.2 WAR, 139 OPS+. His other 9 years are nothing special though. Maybe his lack of team success is subjectively holding me back? His real problem is that he is forgettable. What are we celebrating if Abreu is enshrined?
Andy Pettitte – Pettitte is my first steroids test case. To be a steroids guy and get in, you have to be basically an inner circle HOF guy. Pettitte isn’t that. He pitched 18 years in the majors and had just 2 elite regular seasons. Of course, that’s not why he is even in consideration. The playoffs are where he shined with 276 additional innings and 5 rings. Yankees fans love him, but he wasn’t the reason they won all those titles. To get in with the steroid taint, he would need to be the reason.
David Wright – Wright has always been the HOF barometer for me. Are you better and more memorable than David Wright? Then you’re in. Clearly, I am anti-Mets but when I look at Wright, I see some really good years but never anything you’d consider elite (maybe 2007, but that was a cursed Mets season) and no individual playoff success. He was the star of a forgettable and regrettable Mets era. That’s not his fault, but it doesn’t get you in either.
Ryan Braun – Braun has an MVP trophy and two other Top 3 finishes. He’s also not just an accused steroid guy but a VERY accused steroid guy. That really detracts from his lifetime just-under .300 AVG and .900 OPS. It’s all very good, but not all-time good which is where he needs to be. He did murder the Phillies with a 1.134 OPS in 79 games. Yikes.
Cole Hamels – This one pains me. Cole is my all-time favorite player and my son’s middle name.⁴ He was always very, very good (better than Buehrle) and would have been #1 on most staffs for a good chunk of his career, but he never made an honest run at a Cy Young award. Hell, in his best season he was the 3rd best pitcher on his own staff. We’ll always have 2008 though as he was THE reason the Phillies won that World Series. Those NLCS and WS MVP trophies make it real close. If he had had another run it probably would have put him over the top.⁵

July 25, 2015: Cole Hamels Says Goodbye

Hall of Famers

Carlos Beltran: Beltran played at a high level forever. I’ve heard people try to knock him for the Astros cheating scandal, but if MLB had no interest in taking action against the Astros in general then why are we taking it out on Beltran? Put the scandal on his plaque, but you have to give him the plaque.
Dustin Pedroia: Because he’s a Boston guy, I want to hate him but the body of work is too good. He’s a lifetime .300 hitter with 2 rings and an MVP. For a period of ten years he was worth 5+ WAR over 162 games and was a doubles machine. That’s performance, longevity, and hardware. He’s in easy.
Andruw Jones: For all the people who want to believe Omar Vizquel should be in the Hall of Fame, put that energy into someone who deserves it like Jones. Not only was he simply the best defensive CF I ever saw, but he hit 434 HRs too. He should have been in a long time ago.
Chase Utley: To anyone too young to have had the pleasure of watching Chase Utley play everyday, the best way to sum up the experience was that you always knew that he knew exactly what to do. Whether it was taking an extra base or changing his approach at the plate to get his pitcher extra rest after a long inning, he played baseball on a different cerebral level to anyone else. Oh yeah, he was also quietly the 2nd best player in baseball from 2005-2010 behind only Albert Pujols.
Alex Rodriguez: Yes, he is very obviously tainted by steroids (watch the documentary Screwball), but A-Rod is also one of the single biggest talents to ever play baseball. No, his all time stats are not real, but even taking his Seattle and Texas career only he’s still easily in the Hall. To me there’s no difference between him and Red Sox Roger Clemens or Pirates Barry Bonds. They should all be in with an explanation.
Manny Ramirez: It’s not hard to figure out when Manny started juicing. From 1993-2006 he was consistently a .315 hitter who was good for 40 HRs, 40 doubles, and 100 walks. He had maybe the best combination of power and batting eye of anyone since Ted Williams. That’s not an exaggeration. Then in 2007 he fell off big time and miraculously came back. That may be simple reasoning on my part, but you simply can’t tell the story of baseball without Manny Ramirez. You also can’t honor David Ortiz and act like Manny wasn’t there for both those World Series wins for the Red Sox.
Felix Hernandez: The Hall voters did Tim Lincecum and Johan Santana wrong. They should not be used as reasons against King Felix being in the Hall. All 3 could have at some point this century been considered the best pitcher on the planet. He doesn’t have the post season success you’d like to see but does have 3 Top-2 Cy Young finishes with a win in 2010. He had a 10 year run of High 2s ERAs and barely missed any starts. Pitchers have rights!
Francisco Rodriguez: If you don’t think K-Rod belongs in the Hall, then you don’t think any relievers (except maybe Mariano) should be in. For 15 years he was an ace of closers and even finished Top-5 in Cy votes three times. If his dominant playoff run and World Series happened when he was 30, this wouldn’t even be a debate because it would complete his resume. Don’t hold it against him because it happened as a 20 year old rookie who only had 5 regular season appearances.
Jimmy Rollins: J-Roll is the most polarizing player you’ll find. You can argue his stats both ways in that some aren’t close to enough while others have basically never been done before (200+ HRs and 450+ SBs = Hall of Fame). But he’s another “you can’t tell the story of baseball” players without. For a 7 year period, he was the star the stirred the drink for the best Phillies era maybe ever and won an MVP and a World Series. Maybe it’s a homer vote, but it’s a damn good one.

I say this now, but watch me vote in Cole Hamels next year. ↩︎
He has a very undeserved Cy Young award in an otherwise average career ↩︎
Vizquel was a feel-good HOF defense story until domestic abuse and sexual harassment (against an autistic kid) stories came out. Those reasons are not why he is off my ballot, he was simply an unimportant player in the grand scheme of baseball. ↩︎
Technically he is named after Cole Trickle from Days of Thunder with Cole Hamels just being serendipity ↩︎
I hope he never reads this as I would probably start crying if I was ever confronted by him (this will never happen, but still) ↩︎

Philly Front Office