Going into the final day of Hall of Fame voting, public balloting showed there was a real chance that the BBWAA would not elect a player for the second time in three years. Ultimately, Scott Rolen got in with 76.3 percent of the vote, while not electing Todd Helton (72.2 percent) and Billy Wagner (68.1 percent) who were close behind. This was the first election in a decade not to be dominated by the talk surrounding Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, but a series of other issues emerged as the Hall and the voting process move into a new era.
To better understand the results and what’s ahead, The Athletic brought together three of its most esteemed writers — Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal and Peter Gammons — to discuss the voting and look ahead at what may come for the Hall and its candidates in the next few years. Stark and Gammons are both recipients of the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, the highest honor for baseball writers, and are recognized in a permanent exhibit at the Hall of Fame itself.
1. Scott Rolen got 10.2 percent of the vote in his first year. And by his sixth he was getting elected. Is that an indictment of the process or a validation of how hard it should be to get elected?
Stark: My Twitter timeline has been full of people telling me no player should ever be a Hall of Famer if he once got 10 percent of the vote. C’mon. That’s ridiculous.
First off, it’s supposed to be hard to get elected to the Hall of Fame.
Second, Rolen’s first year on the ballot might have been the most loaded ballot ever. There were seven players on that ballot who eventually got elected by the writers, plus Fred McGriff, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling — and Billy Wagner, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield and Jeff Kent. We only have 10 slots. So it was pretty much impossible to figure out who should fill them in that election.
And finally, one of my favorite things about Hall of Fame voting is that not every journey to 75 percent is the same. That journey can provide a vehicle for thought, reflection, perspective and debate. And in many ways, that’s the best part about being a Hall of Fame voter. I love all of that.
Rosenthal: Rolen going from 10.2 percent of the vote to the necessary 75 percent for election in six years is not an indictment of the process. It’s more a reflection of two things. First, the crowded ballot that hampered a number of candidates in recent years. And second, our ability to better measure and understand the value of gifted all-around players than voters in the past.
If anything, the crowded ballot was an indictment of the process, the restriction on only voting for 10 players and the decision by the Hall in 2014 to reduce a player’s eligibility from 15 years to 10. Several strong candidates dropped off the ballot as a result, failing to get the minimum 5 percent of the vote. Others, like Rolen, did not get the support they deserved in their early years of eligibility.
The encouraging part of Rolen’s election is the recognition that not all Hall of Famers require the fabled Black Ink, years of leading the league in several categories. I know some fans did not necessarily perceive him as a Hall of Famer when he played. I’m not sure I did, either. But when considering the entirety of his career, I found it a pretty easy call. He was an all-time great at an under-represented position, third base.
Gammons: That Scott Rolen is a Hall of Famer by five votes is an anthem to what the road to Cooperstown represents. I think back to 1997, talking to then-Phillies general manager Lee Thomas about two players whose first full seasons came that year. One was Rolen. The other was Nomar Garciaparra. “Some day,” Thomas said, “we may remember that we watched two Hall of Famers begin journeys to Cooperstown.”
For Garciaparra, the injuries began in 2001, taking him off that Hall of Fame track. At the 2004 trading deadline, he was traded to the Cubs, Orlando Cabrera took the Boston shortstop job, and Garciaparra became an afterthought as the Red Sox won the World Series.
Rolen had his share of injuries too, but he managed to play 17 major league seasons with four teams, earn eight Gold Gloves and mash 316 home runs. Another future Hall of Famer who began his major league career as a third baseman, Jeff Bagwell, said of playing against him that “it’s hard hitting when there’s an office building playing third.”
There are many of us who believe Rolen is not simply a no-doubt member of what Tom Seaver called “the most exclusive club in America,” but is one of the 10 best third basemen to ever play the game. Garciaparra was on track to be that good, too. He got hurt. Players get hurt, great players. Don Mattingly had a congenital back condition that thus far has cost him a plaque. Bobby Grich hurt his back lifting an air conditioner. The game is tough enough; playing it on Scott Rolen’s level for 17 years is unimaginably tough.
Rolen’s election is historic in terms of what it says about the voting process itself, and the electorate. Rolen was never an MVP, and his page on Baseball Reference isn’t a blur of black ink. He wasn’t elected on traditional offensive stats. He joins the Hall because he was a great all-around player — a 235-pound giant who could run the bases, make perfect throws on 5-4-3 double plays, and take out second basemen on potential double plays.
What made Rolen’s 2022-23 jump from 63.2 percent of the ballots to the all-important 75 percent so uncertain is the difficulty of defining exactly what a Hall of Famer is. Some love the offensive numbers. Some love Wins Above Replacement because it takes defense and the whole game into consideration, which would seem to help Andruw Jones. Billy Wagner is the most difficult pitcher to hit in baseball history. But even in this era when bullpens are such an invaluable and inescapable part of championship teams, some do not consider relievers to be whole pitchers.
Fortunately, we are finally moving past the Steroid Era, passing such decisions on to Veterans Committees in the next few elections. The fact that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — two of the greatest players ever — were not on the ballot cleared room and put Wagner, Todd Helton and Jones on track to stand at the podium in Cooperstown.
2. Which player didn’t get a lot of support on this ballot who you think deserves more? (That can include players who didn’t get 5 percent.)
Jeff Kent is the kind of candidate who could be viewed favorably by one of the Hall of Fame’s committees. (Jed Jacobsohn / Allsport)
Stark: Am I allowed to say Jeff Kent deserved more love, even though he’s now off our ballot? I never could figure out why it took him seven years on the ballot just to get above 20 percent. And now he’s off without ever reaching 50 percent?
I used to say McGriff was the most criminally undersupported candidate in my time as a voter. I’m now handing that crown to Kent. As I wrote in my column explaining my ballot, I always look for players with a claim to historic greatness. And it’s so easy to argue that Kent is the most dominant offensive second baseman of modern times. He has something for everybody.
For the old-school crowd: the most home runs and RBIs by any second baseman in history. For the new-age crowd: the highest slugging percentage by any second baseman in the live-ball era — plus a .500 slugging percentage in the postseason, over 43 games (not a small sample), and some incredible October moments. As I wrote in my piece on the five things we learned from this election, nobody feels like a more slam-dunk choice to get elected by the Contemporary Era committee in a few years than Kent does.
Rosenthal: Gary Sheffield deserves more support, and as Jayson noted in his Hall of Fame wrap-up, he’s running out of time. While Sheff jumped a healthy 15.6 percentage points, he’s still only at 55 percent, with only one year left on the ballot. A 20 percent jump in a stronger class next year would seem … unlikely.
A former player, a contemporary of Sheffield’s, texted me this morning, saying, “the Sheff defense argument is maddening.” The former player’s point: Sheffield, for better or worse, actually played defense. Edgar Martinez, on the other hand, barely was out in the field, whether due to health or lack of skill. “Can’t hold it against Sheff if it wasn’t held against Edgar,” the former player said. “And that is where WAR comes up short.”
Some voters probably demur on Sheffield because of what he said was an inadvertent use of PEDs before and during the 2002 season. Each voter is entitled to his or her opinion on that subject, but we’ve already elected a number of alleged PED users. Sheffield hit 509 home runs and had a career OPS+ 40 percent above league average. Ken Griffey Jr. was a mere 36 percent above.
Gammons: Now that Sheffield is up over 55 percent before his final year on the ballot, he has a slim chance. His candidacy is burdened by a chemical called The Clear he bought from BALCO, but he never denied getting it, he denied knowing it was a steroid. He went on to hit 509 home runs, and with one of the fiercest swings in the game had 304 more walks than strikeouts in his 2,576-game career. Perspective? The only players who hit 500 homers and had fewer strikeouts are Ted Williams and Mel Ott. When his career ended, Sheffield went on to be a player agent. He wasn’t Rolen; he was a basher who didn’t strike out.
Carlos Beltrán will make it in the next year or two as the 2017 Astros scandal recedes further into the past. There is absolutely no questioning that he is a Hall of Fame performer. He is one of five players to finish with 400 homers and 300 stolen bases, alongside Bonds, Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez and Andre Dawson. He has the highest stolen base success rate (86.8 percent) in history. His 1.021 career postseason OPS is topped only by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and George Brett. Reliability and availability are what Buck Showalter calls “the sixth tool;” Beltrán played center field in 1,312 games and started 1,306 from 2001-10. Beltrán has devoted much of his life to his academy, to helping young players in Puerto Rico who might have trouble finding the money and schooling to develop and either be drafted or go to a college in the United States.
So if admission to the Hall of Fame can be denied by what is considered “wrong” or “cheating,” can we consider what a player has given the game, and if he leaves the baseball world better than we found it, can we then take that as an addition to OPS+?
3. The writers have only elected two center fielders in the last 40 years: Ken Griffey Jr. and Kirby Puckett. We have three of them still on this ballot: Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones and Torii Hunter. Why has it been so tough for these center fielders — and more (Jim Edmonds, Bernie Williams, etc.) — to get elected? And how many of the three guys on this ballot will eventually make it?
Stark: I first realized that center field was a different position from all the other positions over a decade ago, when I was working on the center-field chapter in my Stark Truth book, on the most overrated and underrated players in history. For a while there, I thought it would be impossible to make a case for any great center fielder as “overrated” because they were all legends! Mays, Cobb, Mantle, Griffey, DiMaggio, etc. They set this high jump bar so high, it’s hard for anyone to clear it.
But I think Beltrán will get elected one of these years, based on what we saw in this election. As I wrote in my Five Takeaways column, the most important thing we saw there was how many voters there were who voted for him but were not supporters of the PED crowd. That tells me he’s in great position to pick up steam.
And it’s hard not to think Andruw Jones makes it at some point, too. Heck, this guy has piled up almost 200 new votes over the last four elections. So even though I haven’t been one of those, as I explained in my ballot column, I’m always open-minded about examining players like him over and over.
I do feel badly that Torii Hunter hasn’t fared better, though. I think he falls below the Hall of Fame line. But he was as fun to watch play as any center fielder of his generation. And if we had a Hall of Fame for guys who found joy in playing baseball, he’d be a first-ballot pick!
Rosenthal: Our treatment of center fielders really bothers me. At a time when voters supposedly are assigning greater weight to defensive value, how is it that we are not honoring more players at a critical up-the-middle position?
The crowded ballot during the 2010s was part of the problem. Jim Edmonds fell off the ballot after one year despite eight Gold Gloves and 393 homers. Kenny Lofton also was one-and-done even though his 622 stolen bases rank 15th all-time. Bernie Williams lasted only two years despite his .850 career OPS in 545 (!) career plate appearances in the postseason.
Jim Edmonds was known as much for his defense as his offense. (Scott Cunningham / Getty Images)
Are all of those players Hall of Famers? Maybe not, though Edmonds, in particular, should get a long look from the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. All of them, though, deserved greater consideration. Absolutely. The eventual elections of Jones and Beltrán should help reverse the trend. I’m not sure Hunter is quite at their level. But he warrants deeper examination, too.
Gammons: When Andruw Jones’ name is on the ballot, how can that not be something to think about? I think about Dale Murphy, and wish somehow, somewhere, there is a place in the Hall for a plaque remembering him. In spring training, 1977, I saw him make a throw to second base that Barry Bonnell caught on the fly in center field. He went from catcher to first base to right field to center, in 1981-90 started more games in center than anyone but Lloyd Moseby, hit 398 homers, won two MVPs, started all 162 games every year from 1982 to 1985, and in 1988 was honored by Sports Illustrated in its Athlete of the Year issue with those from other sports with the cover, “Athletes Who Care.”
OPS+, WAR, Athletes who care. Problem is, too many of us have too many ideas of what it means to be a Hall of Famer.
4. Next year looks like a fascinating election, with Adrián Beltré, Joe Mauer and Chase Utley (among others) debuting on the ballot. How many of those guys do you think will get elected — eventually if not next year?
Stark: I think all three will get elected! Not next year, because I think we’ve got a Beltré/Helton/Wagner trifecta almost locked up. So I obviously see Beltré as the easiest first-ballot Hall of Famer since Derek Jeter. It would take some serious overthinking not to vote for a guy with five Gold Gloves and 3,166 hits. So he’s not in debate.
Mauer might be in the short term. But I think once the voters really understand that his case is not just as a catcher, but as one of the greatest-hitting catchers ever, it will mean that they’ll put less weight on the first-baseman portion of his career. Once that happens, he should zoom up the board.
And then there’s Utley. He’s a sabermetric cult hero, right? So maybe once upon a time, 1,885 hits would have disqualified him. But I think we live in a very different time. Over the next 10 years, wouldn’t you guys bet on this voting being overwhelmingly dominated by data-driven thinking? I would. So who on this ballot would benefit from that thinking more than Utley? Plus, he should get bonus points for finding more innovative ways to contribute to winning — for two great teams (Phillies and Dodgers) — than any player I’ve ever been around. And I mean that. Sorry, Derek!
Rosenthal: Beltré is a no-question, first-ballot Hall of Famer. He hit 477 homers and compiled 3,166 hits while making 94.5 percent of his career starts at third base and playing elite defense at the position. He was a model player and model teammate, all but impossible to pull out of the lineup, better in his 30s than in his 20s. An all-time favorite for many of us who covered his career.
Utley will face a more difficult path. He played almost 1,000 fewer games than Beltré and finished with 1,885 hits. The BBWAA has yet to elect a post-1960 expansion candidate with fewer than 2,000 hits to the Hall. Tony Oliva, the only such player to make it, was honored by the Golden Days Era Committee (Worth noting: Andruw Jones and Edmonds also had fewer than 2,000).
Chase Utley lacks the counting stats of most Hall of Famers, but his impact was significant. (Jeff Gross / Getty Images)
Yet, while Utley never won a Gold Glove at second base or finished higher than seventh in an MVP vote, there was something about him — a special brand of talent, toughness and intelligence that teammates and opponents revered. Maybe his intangibles aren’t enough. Maybe if I feel that strongly about him, I should feel more strongly about his double-play partner, Jimmy Rollins, who had 2,455 hits and won an MVP, but has yet to receive my vote. These are all good questions!
Mauer, too, will be a difficult call for some. His first 10 seasons as a primary catcher were Cooperstown-worthy. His final five seasons as a first baseman were not. But one of the first things I look for in a Hall of Famer is 10 years of dominance. Mauer achieved that. His slash line as a catcher was .328/.408/.481. He won an MVP, three Gold Gloves and three batting titles, the most of any catcher. Maybe he won’t get in right away. But he should get in.
Gammons: One of the most striking takeaways from the MLB Network presentation Tuesday was the potential shift from a time when voters were dubious of the majority of candidates, to one where in 2023 it is clear that many voters were looking for players whose boxes they could check on the ballot. Todd Helton, Wagner, Jones and Beltrán all could cross the 75th parallel. Beltré is seemingly a first-ballot walk-in; 3,166 hits, 477 home runs, a 93.5 WAR that’s third among all-time third basemen behind Eddie Matthews and Mike Schmidt, an amazing snap-flip throw and the ability to drop to one knee and hit 400-foot homers.
The other strong candidates who may take two to eight ballots are Mauer and Utley. Mauer’s age 26-30 years were historic, with an MVP and three batting titles in five years, but the physical wear of catching every day and the abuse a big catcher takes with foul tips and concussions eventually forced him to first base. Utley’s numbers may take a while to resonate, but few players in this century have been more respected, his 64.5 WAR is fringe Hall of Fame-worthy and anyone who ever played with him will recall that in his career he never arrived at the park thinking about anything but what he could do to help his team win that day.
Then one adds David Wright and Matt Holliday and remembers they were not only great players, but left the game better than they found it. Wright likely doesn’t have the Rolen or Beltré or Chipper Jones numbers to get 75 percent from the writers, but as with Mattingly and Garciaparra, we are reminded just how hard it is to have the human body hold up for 15 productive seasons.
Which reinforces that voting for Rolen was absolutely the right thing to do.
(Top photo of Rolen: Ezra O. Shaw / Allsport)