Leandre: Hypothetical 2024 Hall of Fame Ballot
Recently, the ballot for the 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame class released.
Every year, the Baseball Writers Association of America votes for the Hall of Fame class.
During Thanksgiving week, the ballot was released, thus sparking the discourse for who is deserving and who just doesn’t quite cut it.
We’ve seen a recent shift into more analytics than the old school “If I have to think about it, they probably aren’t” philosophy. As a result, players like outfielder Larry Walker and third baseman Scott Rolen get inducted when, as recent as 10 years ago, they’d have both been seen as long shots.
I’ve done hypothetical ballots in the past; I’m a “big” Hall person, so it’s been tough in years past to narrow down my votes to the allotted 10. This year is the first one where, at face value, the 10 I’d vote for are pretty clear.
The ballot goes as follows:
Bobby Abreu (5th year on the ballot)
The analytics community attached itself to the likes of the aforementioned Walker and Rolen. For me, Abreu should garner similar support from that community.
As far as accolades are concerned, the former outfielder doesn’t come close to Hall-worthy. That said, he peaked at the same time as Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds took the league by storm during the steroid era. Not only that, but the Phillies didn’t make the playoffs once during his nine-year stretch of an OPS+ of 126 or better.
From 1998-2006, Abreu slashed .305/.416/.513 with 5.2 rWAR and 64.6 extra-base hits per 150 games. He also ranked fifth in baseball in fWAR, tied for eighth in both OBP and walk rate.
Lastly, only six players in MLB history have 250 career homers and 400 stolen bases: three are Hall of Famers, one is Abreu, one is the aforementioned Bonds (who would be in if not for PED use) and his father Bobby Bonds who had a quietly productive career for 14 years.
Abreu isn’t the best name on the ballot, but he’s most definitely Hall of Fame worthy.
Carlos Beltrán (2nd)
Beltrán should be a slam dunk, but I wonder how much the Astros cheating scandal hurts him his first few years on the ballot.
The former Royal, Met, Giant, Cardinal, Yankee, Ranger and Astro, in my opinion, is one of those players you shouldn’t have to think about; thus making him an old-school no-brainer to vote for.
After all, he posted 70.1 rWAR, over 2,700 hits, 1,000 extra-base hits, nine All-Star selections, three Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers.
Beltrán is unquestionably one of the best switch hitters ever and has the resume to back it up as well.
Adrián Beltré (1st)
Every box a player needs to check is met and more with Beltré’s candidacy.
The longtime third baseman of the Texas Rangers amazingly didn’t make an All-Star team until his pit stop with the Boston Red Sox in 2010. However, that season sparked a seven-year stretch where Beltré was one of the best players in the sport, much less at third base.
Overall, eclipsing 3,000 hits, 90 WAR, nearly 500 homers and comfortably over 600 doubles makes him a no-brainer. He should be unanimous.
Todd Helton (6th)
Helton just missed the Hall of Fame last year, garnering 72.2% of the vote. While that could be perceived as him receiving more support this year, with polarizing figures like Bonds and Roger Clemens off the ballot, I wouldn’t be shocked if his support stagnated or even declined a little in his sixth year of eligibility.
Especially because, as Bonds and Clemens come off the ballot, they’re replaced by the likes of Beltré and Beltrán, who are both definitely worthy vote-getters.
I’d vote for him because, despite the “red flag” that comes with playing at Coors Field, he still posted an OPS over .850 on the road with a .386 OBP. He also eclipsed 60 rWAR, 2,500 hits and nearly 600 doubles with a 132 wRC+.
That said, he’s outside the top 35 in career fWAR among first basemen that, despite exceptional rate stats, can certainly be a cause for eyebrow-raising.
Joe Mauer (1st)
Though less of a slam dunk than Beltré and Beltrán, Mauer is at least as close to one as you can get without being one.
From a counting stats perspective, Mauer is one of the lighter-holding players on my ballot. He hit just 143 home runs and had only 2,123 hits in a 15-year career. That said, he won an MVP, three batting titles, hit over .300 for his career, made six All-Star teams, and won five Silver Sluggers and three Gold Gloves.
Being an elite-level defensive catcher helped him stockpile WAR (5.7 rWAR/150) for a decade despite never being an elite power bat (save for his MVP season).
Manny Ramírez (8th)
I’ve never been against PED users getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. My stance has always been that you can’t punish players who came up during an era where the league looked the other way on steroid use.
Ramírez, quite frankly, has a Hall of Fame resume in a vacuum.
I would like to mention, however, that I wouldn’t call anybody a hypocrite who voted for Bonds but not for Ramírez. Not only was he not as good as the Giants legend, but he also served multiple suspensions for failed drug tests.
Álex Rodriguez (1st)
Word-for-word the same can be said about Rodriguez as Ramírez.
However, Rodriguez had much better career numbers and is more of a slam dunk in a vacuum.
Again, Rodriguez was penalized for PED use so if that is your line then that is more than understandable in my book.
Gary Sheffield (10th)
This is Sheffield’s final crack at induction and, though I don’t think he improves by 20%, I do think he had a Hall of Fame-caliber career.
Unfortunately for him, playing for eight teams and being a bad defender really hurts his case. However, he still put up over 60 rWAR despite all that.
Had he been a DH, he’d probably already be in the Hall. Here’s how he compares to David Ortiz, who was a first-ballot inductee back in 2022:
Yes, one was an outfielder while the other only hit — but Sheffield’s defense hurts him arguably as much as Ortiz’s lack of playing it helped him.
Offensively, against the run environment, they pretty much had identical careers.
Chase Utley (1st)
I don’t think Utley gets in on the first try but he’s without question a Hall of Famer in my book.
The longtime Phillies second baseman ended his career as a polarizing figure because of his slide to take out then-Mets shortstop Rubén Tejada in the 2015 playoffs, but that shouldn’t matter when talking about his Hall of Fame case.
For starters, only 11 players have accrued more defensive runs saved than Utley (the DRS era began in 2003). That said, he’s first among second basemen. He also posted 64.5 rWAR in his career to go with a 118 OPS+.
Again, I doubt he gets in on the first shot because the counting stats and polarization of him as a player will play a factor, but he’s undoubtedly one of the best and most consistent second basemen ever.
Billy Wagner (9th)
It’s time to stop being silly and holding it against relievers that they’re relievers.
Wagner should’ve been inducted years ago for being one of the most dominant relievers of all time.
While he doesn’t have the stockpiled save count of a Mariano Rivera but from a run-prevention standpoint he was every bit as dominant.
Among relievers with at least 500 innings, Wagner is sixth in K/9, second in ERA and fifth in K-BB%.
He’s also sixth all-time in saves.
Dropped from 2023 ballot (1)
In creating this ballot, I had to make the difficult decision to drop Andruw Jones from my top 10.
While polarizing candidates left the ballot, a couple of others — Beltrán in 2022 and Rodriguez this year — joined. Not only that, but a slam dunk (Beltré) and two other first-ballot cases (Utley and Mauer) pushed him off.
I don’t believe in punishing a player for peaking too early, but Jones had a ton of mileage on him entering his 30s. He eclipsed the 60 WAR plateau but over 90% of it came through his age-29 season.
Defensively, he was a wizard but offensively he only was a 120 or better OPS+ guy six out of 17 seasons.
It took me about an hour to decide who to drop between Jones, Helton, Ramírez and Sheffield. Here’s how the logic played out:
Helton had 72.2% of the vote last year. Dropping him when he’s so close to immortality would be unfair to the player.
Ramírez is a PED guy and even though he had a worse career than Bonds and Clemens, I don’t think their omission is enough for me to justify removing him because I do believe he had that caliber career.
Sheffield had a very Ortiz-like career offensively and given it’s his final season on the ballot, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Jones just didn’t have a good enough case to stick over the other three.
I was *very* close to also giving Andy Pettitte a vote, I just didn’t think his peak was good enough to create another difficult drop.
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