I voted in this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame election, my fourth year with this honor. I added two new names to my ballot while returning six, but for the first time, I also removed one player.
There’s a good chance we don’t see anyone elected by the writers again this year, which is a mild embarrassment given the number of qualified players still on the ballot. With one no-doubter coming to the ballot next year in Carlos Beltrán, we shouldn’t have another shutout in 2023, at least.
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Here’s my explanation of my ballot, covering the eight players for whom I did vote, and two notable players I omitted.
Barry Bonds: The all-time home run king, fourth all-time in WAR among all players (behind only Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson and Cy Young — all of whom played before baseball was integrated), recipient of seven MVP awards and deserving of two more, seventh all-time in on-base percentage, eighth all-time in slugging percentage, still the only member of the 500 HR/500 SB club … this isn’t about Bonds’ statistical case, though. His Hall of Fame candidacy has become a referendum on the “steroid era,” which is a misleading moniker, at best. We don’t know who did or did not use performance-enhancing drugs in most cases. Bonds himself never tested positive for anything, and the vast majority of players who tested positive were decidedly less than superstars. The only argument whatsoever to omit Bonds from a ballot is based on a broad reading of the character clause, and in his case, I don’t think that argument suffices to keep out of Cooperstown one of the best players in MLB history and someone who was on a Hall of Fame track even before his physical appearance seemed to rapidly change.
Alex Rodríguez: A-Rod’s use of performance-enhancing drugs is not in question, but his on-field credentials are more than enough to earn my vote. If a candidate’s production was on the borderline, I might consider admitted steroid usage as a deciding factor under the character clause, but that is not the case here. This is also not an endorsement of A-Rod the announcer, or the pro-owner activist, or anything else about him off of the field. He was the best player in baseball at age 20, a year when he was robbed of the MVP for the first (but not the last) time, and was still the best player in his league a decade later, up through his last MVP season in 2007. I can better understand a decision to omit him, given his year-long suspension from MLB and the circumstances of those infractions, though.
David Ortiz: I had long said Ortiz, whose Hall of Fame case is far more borderline than his adherents might admit, would not get my vote if Edgar Martinez, the best designated hitter in MLB history, was not already enshrined. But the writers elected Martinez in his last year of eligibility, so that particular obstacle (of my own creation) was cleared. Had Ortiz played a position even adequately, he’d be a no-brainer. But playing almost 90 percent of his career games as a DH puts a dent in measures of his overall value. He gets no credit for defense, and he is compared to a higher offensive standard than hitters at any other position. He’s at 55 career rWAR, 51 fWAR, which puts him below several players who didn’t get enough support from voters to stay on the ballot for more than one year – Jim Edmonds, Lou Whitaker, Kenny Lofton and Bobby Grich – as well as being below Todd Helton and Scott Rolen just on this year’s ballot. I voted for Ortiz because I think he’s just barely over the line, but when he gets in – and he will, if not this year then very soon – his inclusion should lead us to reexamine the cases of many better players who didn’t get a fair shake.
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Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones: Jones has a strong argument that he is the best defensive centerfielder ever, while Rolen ranks somewhere between fourth and sixth, behind Brooks Robinson (in), Adrián Beltré (will be in), and Buddy Bell (should be in). Rolen is eighth all-time among third basemen in rWAR, and everyone ahead of him is in or will soon be. Jones had 61 WAR through his age-30 season, which puts him 28th all-time, more WAR than George Brett or Mike Schmidt had through their age-30 seasons … and that was it for Jones, who had a knee injury, got heavy and was done as a regular at that point. That alone shouldn’t disqualify him. Ken Griffey Jr. was a below-average regular after age 31 and nobody holds that against him. The question becomes whether Jones did enough before that to get in. His WAR total should get him over the line, but being the best defender ever at your position is a strong enough argument to get him on my ballot.
Gary Sheffield: If he’s ever inducted into the Hall, Sheffield might be the worst defensive player ever to earn that honor. But even losing about 20 WAR to fielding, he still ended up at 60 WAR — more than Ortiz, more than current Hall of Famers Vlad Guerrero, Mike Piazza and Willie Stargell, to name a few. I feel more strongly about Sheffield than many similar candidates because of That Swing – from the massive bat wag to the electric bat speed, his swing was iconic, and I mean that in the original sense of something leading to a religious experience. I want that swing in Cooperstown.
Manny Ramírez and Todd Helton: My last two yes votes are not that interesting. Ramírez was off my ballot when I needed the 10 spots for other players, and I used his two positive performance-enhancing drug tests as a separator to put him below those players. Now that there aren’t 10 worthy players on the ballot, I have room for him. Helton is another just-over-the-line case for me, a superb hitter across the board whose accomplishments should not suffer for the fact that he played half his games in Coors Field, since advanced metrics that take ballparks into account still give him 55+ WAR in his career.
Not on my ballot
Roger Clemens: Clemens did not appear on my ballot, which I think is the first time I have stopped voting for a player for whom I voted in the past. We’ve known for a while now that Clemens had an inappropriate relationship with the late country singer Mindy McCready, which the New York Daily News reported began when McCready was 15 and Clemens was 28. McCready confirmed to the Daily News that the two had an affair, though she later said that it didn’t begin until she was 18. I was wrong to vote for him in the past. The character clause is not well defined by the Hall of Fame, and there are players in the Hall whose character was questionable and players on my ballot whose character was questionable. But if Clemens’ transgressions with McCready don’t call for invoking the character clause, then we might as well remove it entirely. That’s why I declined to vote for him now, a small and perhaps futile stand on principle in his last year of eligibility.
Bobby Abreu: Abreu is the one player who was borderline for me but didn’t make the cut. I could change my mind at some point, but even as someone who argued that Abreu was underrated during his career, I see a Hall of Fame case lacking enough of a peak to get my vote. Abreu was never the best player at his own position in any year of his career, and that’s enough of a reason for me to keep him off my ballot when he was already on the border (60 WAR in both systems).
(Photo of Barry Bonds: Jed Jacobsohn / Getty Images)
