Pursuing Veritas

I’m not a professional baseball writer, but like many people, if would be if I could be.

For the nerdy baseball fans, this time of year is not just ‘hot stove’ season (although, could we get cooking a little bit more guys?). It is also Hall of Fame ballot season, with submissions needing to be postmarked by December 31. I do not have a ballot, but I like to weigh in along with the growing number of writers who explain their votes this time of year.

As always, if you are new to the process or in need of a refresher, I highly recommend Jay Jaffe’s explanation of the Hall of Fame voting process, as well as his ongoing coverage of eligible candidates over on FanGraphs. You can, of course, review the official BBWAA ballot. Penultimately, you can follow along with Ryan Thibodaux’s HOF Vote Tracker as the tallies come in.

Without further ado, here are my random thoughts on this year’s Hall of Fame candidates:

Nice Career, but not a Hall of Famer

To even make the Hall of Fame ballot is a tremendous honor. Only about 2% of players to suit up even reach this stage. As great as guys like Adam Jones, Carlos González, Fernando Rodney, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Zobrist, Curtis Granderson, and Hanley Ramírez were, I do. not expect their candidacies to last beyond this year.

Steroid Guys

I have written previously about my thoughts on the steroid era and how baseball needs to find consistency when it comes to evaluating (potential) steroid users based on the rules of the game when they played. Fortunately, we remain squarely in the “steroids were clearly against the rules when these guys tested positive or admitted their use” era, and for that reason, I would not vote for Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, or Andy Pettitte.

Hall of Very Good

The next category are players who I would not vote for this year and do not immediately think of them as Hall of Famers; however, I would be open to being persuaded otherwise over the next decade. This includes accumulators who did not hit major benchmarks (Mark Buerhle, Francisco Rodriguez, Torii Hunter, and Omar Vizquel), stars whose peaks did not last quite long enough (Jimmy Rollins, and Ian Kinsler), and two catchers whose advanced metrics are worth seriously considering (Brian McCann and Russell Martin). I hope they garner enough votes to stay on the ballot for future years.

If I Had a Vote

Ichiro and CC Sabathia are clear Hall of Famers in my book. Additionally, I would vote for Carlos Beltrán, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner, Andruw Jones, and Bobby Abreu, all repeats from my hypothetical ballot last year. As a big Hall guy, I would vote for these last three players for largely strategic reasons, as I want HoF conversations to take more seriously the careers of modern-day starting pitchers and gritty one-team guys whose careers were cut short due to injury.[1] Accordingly, I would also vote for Félix Hernández, Dustin Pedroia, and David Wright.

What about you? Who would you vote to induct into Baseball’s Hall of Fame?

[1] The NFL HoF does a way better job with this.