The Jeff Kent Backlash
OK, let’s pop on our socials and see how people are responding to Jeff Kent falling off the Hall of Fame ballot after 10 years of not-so-near misses!
Hmm. “Greatest power-hitting second baseman ever” from my pal Jon Morosi. What else we got?
Wow, now he’s simply the greatest offensive second baseman of all time (or at least in the top three). OK.
Another “best offensive second baseman ever.” Cool.
And we hear from Jeff Kent himself. Hall of Fame voting is “an embarrassment” after he doesn’t get in. Got it.
So, uh, where to begin?
Years ago, I wrote many, many, many — too many — articles about Jack Morris and the Hall of Fame. At the time, I couldn’t have fully articulated why his case obsessed me the way it did, but I think I understand now. What bothered me was NOT that a lot of people thought Morris was a Hall of Famer. He had a good case and is now happily in the Hall of Fame.
No, what bothered me was that I thought too many people were MISREPRESENTING his case. They kept talking about how he won the most games in the 1980s and how he pitched to the score and how he was the one guy you would want pitching in a big game and so on, and all of that had the powerful aroma of BS. Morris STILL has the highest ERA of any pitcher in the Hall of Fame, and he didn’t exactly pitch in a high-scoring era.
I just thought: If you believe Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame, just say that he was an extraordinarily durable pitcher (the guy never missed a start), and he was the No,. 1 starter on several championship teams, and he pitched one of the greatest World Series games ever. I mean that’s a pretty good case and it has the added benefit of being true.
Jeff Kent was not the greatest power-hitting second baseman ever; Jon was a bit sloppy with that one. He was certainly not the greatest offensive second baseman ever, nor is he even close to the top three.
Nobody — and I mean nobody — didn’t vote for Jeff Kent because he wasn’t nice to the press. Are you kidding me? Where do people even come up with this stuff?
If you’re going to make Jeff Kent’s Hall of Fame case, just make it honestly. I could give you an honest Jeff Kent case, one that points to the fact that he hit 377 home runs, most for a second baseman (different from saying he was the greatest power-hitting second baseman) and he was incredibly consistent, and he was a key part of some fine teams, and he won an MVP award and had a few other seasons where he got MVP consideration, and in his prime with San Francisco, he probably was an average defensive second baseman, and he was a very good run producer for almost a full decade for three different teams.
But the majority of voters think that case falls short. That’s just how it goes when you are talking about Hall of Fame altitude. Jeff Kent was a very good player. And very good players sometimes fall short of Hall of Fame heights.
I suppose that’s a hard thing to swallow, though. And so Kent fans begin to exaggerate. “Most home runs for a second baseman,” becomes “greatest power-hitting second baseman.” That’s ludicrous. You’re telling me that Jeff Kent was a greater power hitter than Hornsby? I mean, that’s laughable. Kent hit a lot of home runs in a time when everybody was hitting a lot of home runs.
Then “greatest power-hitting second baseman,” becomes “greatest offensive second baseman,” which is sheer lunacy, I mean, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Morgan, Eddie Collins, Charlie Gehringer, Jackie Robinson, all of these guys were certainly better offensive players than Kent, and same probably goes for Bobby Grich and probably Robby Cano, and probably Jose Altuve, too. Me, for total offense, I might also take Ryne Sandberg and Robbie Alomar and Chase Utley.
Look, being a top-seven or top-10 offensive second baseman is excellent, it puts you right there in the Hall of Fame discussion. But calling him the best offensive second baseman ever is gaslighting at its finest. You’re saying that the voters, who with almost no exceptions are earnestly trying to put the best players in the Hall of Fame, purposely left out the GREATEST OFFENSIVE SECOND BASEMAN IN BASEBALL HISTORY because, what, he was mean to some writers?
See, this is the nonsense that drives me batty.
I didn’t vote for Jeff Kent. I looked at his case again and again and came away with a few thoughts.
Thought 1: If he wasn’t a second baseman, he would not be an especially compelling Hall of Fame candidate. You know who put up strikingly similar numbers? Aramis Ramirez. Also Andres Galarraga. Norm Cash was probably a better hitter. Rocky Colavito was probably a better hitter. Lance Berkman was probably a better hitter. I could keep going. Ellis Burks. Mark Teixeira. Jason Giambi. Carlos Delgado. Matt Holliday. Jim Edmonds. All these guys might have been better hitters than Kent. So his case has to rely HEAVILY on the fact that he was a second baseman.
Thought 2: Looking over his career, he wasn’t a very good second baseman. In his day, he wasn’t regarded as a very good second baseman. The defensive stats over his career suggest he wasn’t a very good defensive second baseman.
Thought 3: Kent was not the best choice for the MVP award in 2000, in my opinion. Before the voting, Giants manager Dusty Baker announced that if he had an MVP vote, he would give it to Kent over Barry Bonds because of Kent’s RBIs and clutch hitting. That certainly swayed voters. Truth is, neither one of them had the best year in 2000. That was Colorado’s Todd Helton, who hit .372/.463/.698 with a league-leading 147 RBIs. Helton might have been elected to the Hall this year had he won that award.
Thought 4: In my view, Kent is the third-best second baseman not in the Hall of Fame — behind Lou Whitaker and Bobby Grich.
This last thought seems like a good way to get into Jeff Kent’s personal complaints about the Hall of Fame voting. Here was the comment he made to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser:
“The voting over the years has been too much of a head-scratching embarrassment. Baseball is losing a couple generations of great players that were the best in their era because a couple non-voting stat folks keep comparing those players to players already voted in from generations past and are influencing the votes. It's unfair to the best players in their own era and those already voted in, in my opinion.”
I’ve read over this several times and the only thing I can think is that he’s pointing at Jay Jaffe and his JAWS system. Jay is a voter now, so maybe he’s referring to someone else, but the whole “comparing those players to players already voted in from generations past,” sounds like Jay’s system.
JoeBlogs is a reader-supported venture. Free and paid versions are available. The best way to support us here is by taking out a paid subscription. And hey, we do have a lot of fun, so I hope you’ll come along.
Joe
Kent’s JAWS — which, remember, combines career WAR with peak WAR — is 45.6, well short of the average second baseman in the Hall of Fame (57 JAWS). I’ve got to think this is at least part of what Kent is talking about.
And I get that it must be frustrating to be compared to great players of the past, but that’s sort of the whole Hall of Fame thing. This is a forever thing, you know?
And, anyway, Kent should WANT to be compared to players of the past; the whole “most home runs for a second baseman” argument is probably his best one. Does Jeff Kent want only to be compared to players of his own era? If that’s the case, the voters have decided — they voted in Robbie Alomar and Craig Biggio as second basemen. Chase Utley’s got a real shot. Robinson Canó has wrecked his chances with his PED suspensions but he would have been a Hall of Famer, I think.
I guess, in the end, what I’m saying is this: There are obvious Hall of Famers. Slam dunks. I’ll be talking about this as we get rolling on the JoeBlogs Hall of Fame, but there are probably 85 or 90 slam dunk Hall of Famers in baseball history, you know, Mays, Aaron, DiMaggio, Maddux, Schmidt, Gibson, Griffey, Pujols, that sort of player.
Most of us can probably agree that Jeff Kent is not one of those players.
There are second-glance Hall of Famers, players who may not evoke that instant “Oh, wow, one of the truly greatest players ever” but upon quick reflection you realize, “Yeah, that person should be in the Hall of Fame.” Vlad Guerrero. Barry Larkin. Phil Niekro. Harmon Killebrew. Goose Gossage. That sort of player.
I don’t think Kent’s one of those guys, either.
No, he’s very much in the “borderline” class, and players in that class need something super-compelling to push them over the top. For Bert Blyleven, it was all those strikeouts and shutouts and his record in low-scoring games. For Tim Raines, it was that he reached base as often as Tony Gwynn and was perhaps the best pure base stealer ever. For Bruce Sutter, it was the way he popularized the split-fingered fastball.
I’m sorry that the Kent supporters didn’t find that compelling something that moved the masses, but that’s no reason to lash out. Kent still has a great chance of getting elected by a veterans committee. I suspect he will, because I suspect that “most home runs by a second baseman” detail will move them more than it moved BBWAA voters.
"But calling him the best offensive second baseman ever is gaslighting at its finest. "
I think someone exaggerating their opinion on the greatness of a player is not gaslighting. There should be a more appropriate term (see below) for this so that gaslighting can be reserved for more serious forms of manipulation that question someone's sanity. The latter is abusive, manipulative, and evil, while the former is just plain ol' blowharding, windbagging, and/or ridiculousness.
I'm not sure that Scott Rolen is really HOF-worthy or if he just benefited from a weak field this year (honestly, I'm a casual enough fan that my reaction on hearing he was elected was, "Who?"). But y'know what? After hearing Rolen's amazingly humble reaction to getting in and Kent's not-so-humble reaction to not getting in, I'm happy it was Rolen.