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Hall of Fame Ballot: The Contenders (Part 2)

It's Hall of Fame Day, so let’s talk about the remaining contenders!

Hall of Fame Day! As a reminder, I’ll be going live tonight at 7 p.m. ET to talk about the ballot, surprises and expecteds, Ichiro and CC and Beltran and Billy Wags and all the rest. Would love to have you join in with questions and comments and whatever else.

Let’s talk about the remaining Hall of Fame contenders and, throughout, I’ll tell you the 10 players I voted for this year and how I feel about those votes. (As usual, we’ll go in the order of the players’ percentages on NotMrTibbs’ essential Hall of Fame Ballot Tracker.)

Andy Pettitte (32.2%) and CC Sabathia (92.5%)

OK, let’s do this again. Let’s look at those two left-handed pitchers from roughly the same time period.

Pitcher A: 251-161, 3.74 ERA, 3.78 FIP, 61.8 bWAR, 66.5 fWAR

Pitcher B: 256-154, 3.85 ERA, 3.74 FIP, 60.7 bWAR, 68.2 fWAR

Hmm. Who is who? Which one is the better pitcher?

The voters have decided that Pitcher A—CC Sabathia—is not only the better pitcher, he’s the MUCH better pitcher. The voters will be electing Sabathia on the first ballot this year; he will likely get the highest vote total for any starting pitcher since Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez a decade ago.

The voters have decided that Pitcher B — Andy Pettitte—is a marginal Hall of Fame candidate; this is his seventh year on the ballot, and while he will likely make a decent-sized jump in the voting, he will probably end up with about one third of the vote, a long, long way from the 75% needed for election.

Is this right? Well, I have two thoughts on this. One is pretty direct: I don’t really think anybody has forgotten Pettitte’s human growth hormone admission. It’s funny, a lot of people grumped at the time that Pettitte seemed to be one of the very, very few to quote-unquote “get away” with PED use; people seemed overly eager to forgive and forget with him, and there were all sorts of hot takes about this at the time and what it said about society.

But, you know what? In the end, I don’t think Pettitte got any more forgiveness than the rest. David Ortiz, yeah, everybody raced to forgive him because he’s Big Papi and the drug test was leaked and he’s awesome and all the rest. But Pettitte? Nah. Sure, folks focused most of their righteous outrage at Clemens and Bonds and McGwire and Sosa because they were the bigger stars, but it seems to me that the PED thing has always stuck to Pettitte, and so his 275 wins—including a big-league record 19 of them in the postseason—and 18-year career of sustained high quality and being at the heart of five World Series championships has never really moved the voters. Eh, there was that HGH thing, right?

The second thought is that, once again, timing is everything. Pettitte came on the ballot in 2019. You remember who else came on the ballot in 2019? Mariano Rivera. Now, who from those dominant Yankees teams are you going to vote for… Mariano Rivera or Andy Pettitte? Obviously it’s Mo, and he was unanimously selected. Roy Halladay debuted on that ballot, too, and he was clearly a better pitcher than Pettitte, and he was elected. Mike Mussina was a leftover on that ballot; Mussina was also clearly a better pitcher than Pettitte, and he was elected.

Curt Schilling was ALSO on that ballot. Schilling wouldn’t stop mouthing off and spewing garbage and insulting the sportswriters who were voting, and he managed to talk his way out of Cooperstown, but there was never a doubt he was a better pitcher than Andy Pettitte.

Oh yeah, Pettitte’s old pal Roger Clemens was on the ballot, too.

And so Pettitte got 10% of the vote.

The next year was Jeter’s year and COVID and there seemed no compelling reason to reconsider Pettitte’s case. Clemens and Schilling were still there, a growing contingent of voters were becoming dazzled by Billy Wagner’s case, and Pettitte stayed in place.

The next year, Mark Buehrle joined the ballot. There wasn’t much to choose between Buehrle and Pettitte—a couple of (relatively) soft-tossing lefties who won more than 200 games with basically the same ERA. Heck, Buehrle had a no-hitter and a perfect game on his record. For four years, they were in that same netherworld; they each got enough votes to stay on the ballot but nowhere close to enough votes to be considered actual contenders.

And then, this year, BLAMMO, Sabathia comes on the ballot, and while his overall numbers are scary-close to Pettitte’s, he did it with more style. He won a Cy Young Award. He struck out 3,000 batters. All of the all-time great pitchers are gone from the ballot, no starter has been elected since that Mussina-Halladay year way back when, and Sabathia has fully captured the imagination of us voters.

And what of the pretty clear evidence that Pettitte was probably every bit as good a pitcher as Sabathia, possibly a better one when you take the postseason into account? Well, again, timing is everything. And how did I vote?

I voted for Sabathia. I didn’t vote for Pettitte.

I’m not at all sure that was the right thing. I definitely could have voted for Pettitte.

Manny Ramirez (36.2%) and Alex Rodriguez (40.7%)

I was trying to explain Hall of Fame voting to someone in England who is a very casual baseball fan, and she asked me a pretty interesting question:

Why does the Hall of Fame keep asking if we have forgiven the PED users?

If you think about it, that’s the only question that matters when we talk about MannyBManny and A-Rod. They were obviously Hall of Fame players. A-Rod is one of the greatest players who ever lived, and you simply cannot tell the story of baseball the last 30 years without talking about Manny. A-Rod rests comfortably on the all-time WAR list between Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams. All but one of MannyBManny’s 10-most similar batters on Baseball-Reference are in the Hall of Fame, and the exception is Gary Sheffield, who missed only because of his own PED connections.

And yet, they are not going to be elected because of their PED use. If we as a collective didn’t vote for Barry Bonds and we didn’t vote for Roger Clemens, arguably the greatest player and pitcher who ever lived, we’re sure as heck not voting for Rodriguez or Ramirez.

But, every year, their names come back to us on the ballot, as if they’re asking us, “OK, but do you forgive them NOW? OK, fine, but how about NOW? No, not yet, sure, I get it but, seriously, what about NOW?”

It’s ridiculous, obviously. But we just keep on doing this.

I voted for both A-Rod and Manny Ramirez. I think the Hall of Fame should have the greatest players in it.

Chase Utley (51.8%) and Andruw Jones (71.9%)

I’ve got this idea for a “statistic” but I’ve not yet been able to figure out how to actually calculate it. I’d call the statistic WAR Gap—or possible WARGAP, which looks a little bit cooler—and the statistic would calculate the gap between a player’s WAR and the general perception of that player’s awesomeness.

I suspect you’ve had this feeling—you’ll see a player’s WAR and you’re kind of shocked by it. The WAR either feels way too high or way too low, depending on how you felt about the player. I don’t think Cardinals fans can get over the fact that Yadier Molina’s career WAR is 42.2/55.6. What the heck is that? Why are those numbers so different? And how could Yadi, surely the greatest defensive catcher who ever lived, have only 42.2 bWAR? There has to be something wrong with the stat!

I could see Yadi Molina having a plus-15 WARGAP, at least when it comes to his bWAR.

Conversely, there’s someone like Chase Utley. He was undoubtedly a good player. But how good? He never finished top five in the MVP voting. He never won a Gold Glove. He didn’t get 2,000 hits in his career, didn’t hit 300 home runs, didn’t steal 200 bases. His 117 OPS+ is good, sure, but it’s the same career OPS+ as perfectly-fine-but-not-legendary Wally Joyner, Justin Upton, Matt Stairs and Khris Davis, so, you know, that’s not necessarily a ticket to Cooperstown.

Based on all this, what is your imagined WAR for Chase Utley?

And just how far below his actual 64.5/61.5 WAR is it?

I could see Chase Utley having a negative-10 WARGAP at least.

The thing I like about the concept of WARGAP is that it’s something we can use to think about players. Why is Utley’s WAR so much higher than his career suggests? It’s because while he never won a Gold Glove and, frankly, was never viewed by the baseball community as even a good defender, the advanced stats rate him as an all-world defensive second baseman. By defensive WAR, Chase Utley ranks as the best defender in all of baseball, any position, from 2004 to 2012, ahead of Adrian Beltré, ahead of Yadi Molina, ahead of Scott Rolen, ahead of Jack Wilson, ahead of all of the most celebrated defensive wizards of the day.

Was he THAT GOOD a defender? Were all those observers who saw him play every day and ranked him as meh defensively THAT WRONG?

You decide.

Andruw Jones’ WARGAP poses a different challenge. There are those who will see his 62.7/67.0 WAR as too low—I mean, he hit 434 home runs and was one of the greatest defensive centerfielders of all time.

And there are others who will see his WAR and think it’s way too high—he’s a career .254 hitter with a 111 OPS+, and he was pretty much done at age 30.

Maybe the best way to come up with a good perception number is to look at Bill James’ various Hall of Fame statistics. Let’s look at Andruw in that light:

Black Ink measures how often the player led the league in an important category:

Andruw Jones: 10Average Hall of Famer: 27Perception: Minus-27

Gray Ink measures how often the player finished Top 10 in an important category:

Andruw Jones: 47Average Hall of Famer: 144Perception: Minus-97

Hall of Fame Monitor gives points to players for a wide variety of achievements per season, such as hitting .300, winning the Gold Glove, winning the MVP award, etc.

Andruw Jones: 109Likely Hall of Famer: 100Perception: Plus-9

Hall of Fame Standards gives points to player for wide variety of achievements over a career, such as number of hits, runs scored, etc.

Andruw Jones: 34Average Hall of Fame: 50Perception: Minus-16

Now, somebody much smarter than me—Tom Tango, are you out there?— would have to figure out how to translate all that into a WAR perception so that I could tell you what Andruw’s WARGAP is. My own gut is that there’s a substantial negative WARGAP going here, but I admit I didn’t watch Andruw Jones play every day.

I voted for both Utley and Jones. I think both of them have some real momentum going on their Hall of Fame journeys and, as I think people here know, I’m a big Hall guy and I want to see more players elected. Would there be other players I’d put ahead of them on my Hall of Fame list? Absolutely. I could list off a bunch. But we have the ballot we have, Jones and Utley were both terrific players, they have a real shot of getting elected, and I’d rather help them get there than stand in their way.

Carlos Beltran (80.4%)

I did watch Carlos Beltrán play every day; I started watching him right from the start, from his very first game when he was still unsure and lonely. And yet, he dazzled. He could do anything on a baseball diamond. Right out of the gate, 1999, he scored 100 runs and drove in 100 runs for a bad Royals team. He was the first rookie to do that since Fred Lynn back in 1975, and Lynn was the first rookie to do it since Al Rosen and Walt Dropo in 1950.

He had a rough time the next year. He got hurt, misunderstood the club’s intentions after he got hurt, the team led the league in runs without him, and he felt left out and worried about his future. He needn’t have worried. He scored 100 and drove in 100 each of the next four years, he stole bases at a historically successful rate, he banged doubles and home runs, he played often dazzling centerfield and, in 2004, he had the greatest postseason run anyone had ever seen when he hit eight home runs, scored 21 runs, drove in 15 runs and stole six bases in 12 magical games for the Astros.

That was about the time people kept coming up to me to say: “Yeah, but you didn’t know Carlos was THIS good.”

And I would reply: “Actually, yeah, I did.”

Beltran then signed the big-money deal with the Mets, that was an up-and-down time as things usually are with the Mets, and he played on for a few more teams in his later years, rather infamously ending his career with the 2017 Astros. Carlos Beltran would have been elected first-ballot had it not been for that year with the Astros, when he finally won his first World Series but took a lot of the heat for the garbage-thumping sign-stealing scandal that followed.

I don’t know if Beltran will get elected this year, it will be very close, but if he doesn’t get elected this year, he’s pretty much a sure bet next year. I obviously voted for him; Beltran’s a slam-dunk Hall of Famer for me.

Billy Wagner (84.9%)

OK, I’ve always tried to be bluntly honest about my Hall of Fame thinking. And, being honest, I’ve totally cooled on Billy Wagner’s Hall of Fame case.

And yet, I voted for him this year.

I think this speaks to the quirks of being a certain kind of Hall of Fame voter.

Billy Wagner was obviously a marvelous reliever. He was maybe 5-foot-10 and yet threw about as hard as anybody I’ve ever seen. When he was right—and he was right so often in his 16-year-career—he was utterly untouchable, utterly unhittable, I mean in his very last year as a 38-year-old he struck out 104 batters in 69 innings and had a 1.43 ERA. He RETIRED after that season because he felt like it was his time. It’s one of the greatest walkoff seasons in baseball history. And it reflects his dominance.

So why have I cooled on his Hall of Fame case? Well, when Wagner gets elected this year—and he will get elected this year—he will, far and away, have thrown the fewest innings of any Hall of Famer.

Well, wait, let me show you a list of the 10 Hall of Famers with the fewest innings pitched (min. 100 IP):

  1. George Sisler, 111 IP

  2. Jesse Burkett, 123 IP

  3. Cristóbal Torriente, 179 IP

  4. Cool Papa Bell, 309 IP

  5. José Méndez, 320 IP

  6. Smokey Joe Williams, 356 IP

  7. Martin Dihigo, 402 IP

  8. Bobby Wallace, 402 IP

  9. Leon Day, 616 IP

  10. Hilton Smith, 943 IP

Fun! Sisler, Burkett and Wallace were all MLB position players who briefly pitched. The rest were Negro leaguers, most of whom are pitchers who obviously threw WAY MORE innings than listed, but those are the innings that historians are counting. The one who stands out for me is Cool Papa Bell; I know almost nothing about his early days as a pitcher. I’ll have to dig more into that.

Anyway, when you look at MLB full-time pitchers, Bruce Sutter is the Hall of Famer with the fewest innings at 1,042. Billy Wagner threw than 139 fewer innings than Sutter. Heck, he threw 218 fewer innings than Babe Ruth.

Sure, the game has changed… but when you throw only 903 innings in your entire career, you better have a pretty good argument for why you belong in the Hall of Fame. And the argument that they were 903 really good innings doesn’t quite cut it for me—if we think Johan Santana’s career was too short, if we think Bret Saberhagen’s career was too short, if we think David Cone’s career was too short, I mean, 903 innings? There has to be something more here.

And, again, bluntly, Wagner’s horrendous postseason record—1-1 with a 10.03 ERA—is the opposite of something more.

I just don’t think Billy Wagner had a Hall of Fame career.

But, again, I told you, I voted for him. Why? Because I want him to go to the Hall of Fame. He got so close last year, and he has always represented baseball well, and he was a terrific pitcher, and he has built a Hall of Fame consensus among a famously stubborn and inflexible group of baseball gatekeepers.

Like I say, I try to be as honest as I can be about the Hall of Fame, so I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking: I’m fairly certain that I’m doing this wrong. I’ve heard from so many people that being a Hall of Fame voter means upholding the high standards of the Hall of Fame. And that very well might be my job. I used the word “gatekeeper” above for a reason.

And yet, I feel a different charge; I want to see outstanding players celebrated in Cooperstown. It hurts me terribly to see great players like Dick Allen die before getting elected. It pains me that the Hall of Fame doesn’t have a plaque for several of the greatest players I ever saw, including THE greatest player I ever saw. I do not want to stand at the Gates of Cooperstown and keep outstanding players from going in just because they didn’t throw enough innings for my tastes. There might have been a time when I felt like that—I look back at some my many of the Jack Morris columns of my youth and cringe a bit—but I don’t any longer.

That’s not to say I’d vote for just anybody…. I obviously would not. I have what I believe to be very high Hall of Fame standards. But if a wonderful, hard-throwing reliever like Billy Wagner catches a wave of momentum, hey, I’m not going to stand in his way because I think he didn’t throw enough innings. Welcome to Cooperstown, Billy Wagner.

Ichiro Suzuki (100%)

Ichiro was a not-so-bad player and I voted for him.

If you want more of my thoughts on Ichiro, you can go here and here and here and also here and yeah, here and you can read JoeBlogs over the next few months because I’m sure I’ll be writing a million more words on one of my favorite all-time players.

And here’s my final ballot…

…in the order I voted for them:

  1. Ichiro Suzuki

  2. Carlos Beltrán

  3. CC Sabathia

  4. Alex Rodriguez

  5. Manny Ramirez

  6. Billy Wagner

  7. Chase Utley

  8. Andruw Jones

  9. Félix Hernández

  10. David Wright

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