There are 35 players on the Hall of Fame ballot this year. If I had a ballot, I would definitely have to vote for the full 10 players this year. That means I have to cross off 25 players. Mind you, there are players I am going to have to cross out that I would vote for if I were able to choose more than 10 players. There are also players that I would not vote for, yet would have no real issue with them being in the Hall of Fame. Baseball cards throughout.
Let's go, counting down.
35. Rick Ankiel
Last I heard, Ankiel was going to attempt a comeback this year. So, if he gets signed and reaches the Majors is he back on the Hall of Fame ballot again when he retires again?
34. Juan Pierre
33. Darren Oliver
32. Jon Garland
31. Michael Young
30. Jason Bay
29. Travis Hafner
28. Ted Lilly
27. Billy Wagner
I do not really think that Billy Wagner belongs in the Hall of Fame, but he's better than Trevor Hoffman. I was disappointed that he somehow got into the Hall last year. Perhaps Wagner will make it one day with whatever the Veteran's Committee is called now.
26. Vernon Wells
I would not vote for the former Blue Jays and Angels outfielder named Vernon Wells. His agent should be in the Hall of Fame for getting him that gigantic contract he signed with the Blue Jays. His father should also be in the Hall of Fame for doing the artwork in the 1990s Upper Deck sets. Look at that Vince Coleman artwork. Nothing says Vince Coleman like trying to bunt your way onto base.
25. Kevin Youkilis
24. Freddy Garcia
23. Derek Lowe
22. Placido Polanco
21. Omar Vizquel
Does Omar Vizquel belong in the Hall of Fame?
"That's a clown question bro" -Bryce Harper
I know Bryce was not talking about Omar Vizquel's Hall of Fame candidacy when he gave that quote, but I felt like it is applicable to this situation. How do we get into these situations with players on the Hall of Fame ballot. There is a lot of:
"I remember Omar was a good fielder and won a bunch of Gold Gloves. He was the Ozzie Smith of the 1990s"
or
"Great defense belongs in the Hall of Fame. What is the difference between Scott Rolen and Omar Vizquel"
About 300 home runs, 300 doubles, and a World Series ring.
What do people not understand about math? It's not really all that close.
20. Miguel Tejada
19. Roy Oswalt
He was pitching for the Phillies at the time of the rally squirrel incident.
18. Lance Berkman
We will always have Game 6.
17. Fred McGriff
No problem with Fred McGriff being in the Hall.
16. Jeff Kent
15. Andy Pettitte
Although Jack Morris got into the Hall, so Andy Pettitte and all his World Series rings probably gets in at some point too.
14. Sammy Sosa
I would have no problem with Sammy being in the Hall of Fame. If there were less people on the ballot who were deserving of being in the Hall of Fame, I might even put him in my Top 10. However, I also understand why he has lingered around and is now on his 7th year on the ballot. Plenty of players used steroids, most did not end their careers with 600 home runs, 2000+ hits, almost 250 stolen bases, and more than 1,500 RBIs. If I were going to spend more time on Sammy, there are some negatives to his career too.
13. Gary Sheffield
I think Sheffield is the fringiest player I support for Hall of Fame. I have heard a lot of solid arguments against him and I completely understand. I am more on the "Small Hall" side, but not considering someone like Sheffield feels like being slanted to the extreme side of that group. He was always a great player in my opinion whose public perception was hurt by a lot of stuff that happened off the field. Sheff hit more than 500 home runs, almost had 500 doubles, and stole 250 bases. He has a better career OPS+ than Reggie Jackson, Al Kaline, Dave Winfield, and Roberto Clemente.
On the non-number side, he was always a player I feared when the Cardinals played him. That bat waggle, quick hands, and the power.
12. Andruw Jones
Andruw Jones had two halves of his career. There is the Atlanta Braves version of Andruw Jones who won Gold Gloves, hit home runs, and played a vital role on the dominate National League teams of the 1990s. Most of the focus on those Braves teams was on pitching and Chipper Jones, but Andruw was a great player too. There have been plenty of other modern center fielders who have gotten hosed in Hall of Fame voting in recent years, like Kenny Lofton and Jim Edmonds, so I am guessing that Andruw Jones will end up in the Veterans Committee voting. The second half of Andruw Jones's career also really hurt him. He bounced around between the Dodgers, Rangers, White Sox, and Yankees. Mainly a bat off the bench who hit home runs and struck out often. I would be fine with Andruw being in the Hall of Fame, as long as we end up with Jim Edmonds and Kenny Lofton too.
11. Todd Helton
I have this really bad feeling that Helton is going to end up with similar results as Larry Walker. Both were helped by playing in Denver, who wouldn't, but those two players were scary away from Coors Field. In 2000, Todd Helton won the National League batting title with a .372 average. Moises Alou finished second that season with a .355 average. Helton hit .353 on the road. He ended his career with more than 2,500 hits, 350 home runs, 1,300 walks, and almost 600 doubles. I don't care about Coors Field, there have plenty of players on the Rockies, nobody has numbers like Helton.
Which brings me to the ten players I would vote for if I had a ballot.
10. Scott Rolen
There are those who would argue that Rolen is a more fringe candidate than Sheffield, but I actually think that the former Phillies/Cardinals/Reds third baseman should be a no doubter. There are not many third baseman in the Hall of Fame, but if you look at Jay Jaffe's JAWS ratings on Baseball-Reference Rolen stacks up as the 10th best player all-time to man the hot corner. The nine players in front of Rolen are all in the Hall of Fame, minus Adrian Beltre since he is not eligible yet. He had an injury shortened career, so his counting numbers are a little bit short of what that crowd likes to see. Rolen had more than 300 home runs, 500 doubles, and almost 1,300 RBIs. He also seemed to burn bridges everywhere he played, plenty of other jerky people in the Hall.
9. Roy Halladay
Halladay deserves to be in the Hall. He's a little short on counting numbers, so I could see some voters potentially being sticks in the mud over the fact that Roy barely crossed the 200 win mark. He's also only at 2,100 strikeouts. Let's also remember that Halladay played for some mediocre teams in Toronto for much of his career. There were some really good season up north where he won games and posted a good stat line. He won the American League Cy Young Award in 2003, when he led the league in wins, but did not place the year before when he had an ERA+ of 157 and a 7.3 WAR. Halladay's Hall of Fame candidacy was really helped by his time on the Phillies. He won 55 games over three and half years, which included a second Cy Young Award in 2010 and a Postseason no-hitter against the Reds that same season.
8. Edgar Martinez
I not only like steroid users, I also like DHs. I really wish that Jaffe and other statisticians would include a DH category in his Hall of Fame rankings, he's in the third base rankings at the moment. Considering Edgar played 2000 games in his career and only appeared in the field right around 600 times, pretty hard to take that comparison seriously. DHs are just supposed to hit, so lets keep it simple and just look at his hitting stats. Martinez has a .312/.418/.515 slash line over his 18 year career with two batting titles. He also led the league three different times in on-base percentage, once in OPS, and once in RBIs, and two times in doubles. Not the most powerful hitter home run wise for a DH, but he still ended his career with over 300. Throw in the 500 doubles and that's a pretty impressive total of extra base hits. His overall OPS+ for his career was 147, which would be the third highest on this year's ballot behind Manny Ramirez and Barry Bonds.
7. Mariano Rivera
Last year I got blocked a few times on Twitter over my instance that Trevor Hoffman was not a Hall of Famer and that relievers are overvalued. Not a real popular argument. I do make exceptions to my rule. Not many, but Rivera is better than all the other closers. Hoffman should not be in the same conversation of Mariano. Rivera ended his career with 652 saves, which is the all-time record, along with an incredible ERA+ of 205. The only "relief" pitcher, quotations not meant as a put down, with a high WAR than Rivera is Dennis Eckersley. Eck spent the first half of his career as a starter and undoubtedly built up his WAR a little bit during those seasons. Rivera also won 5 World Series rings and closed out 42 games for a save during the Postseason all while maintaining a 0.70 ERA. If you watched the Postseason games during the 1990s and early 2000s, Mariano Rivera was almost automatic.
Break out the Duke card......
6. Manny Ramirez
This card should be in the Hall of Fame. Manny is a steroid user who likely will have to wait a long time to get into Cooperstown. He's a care free guy though, sure it's not really bothering him too much. Pretty easy math here: Manny won two World Series titles with the Red Sox, he was the MVP in the 2004 Series, appeared in twelve All-Star Games, and took home nine Silver Sluggers. All of those accolades are added to 555 career home runs, 547 doubles, 1,300 RBIs, and a career slash line of .312/.411/585. Many players took steroids, still takes a lot of talent to hit the baseball the way way Manny did. Put him in.
5. Curt Schilling
Schilling has lingered on the ballot for awhile. Wearing shirts that say "tree, rope, journalist" is probably not the best way to garner support amongst the sports writers voting to elect players to the Hall of Fame. So, let's look at the positives on the field. Schilling has 216, which does not sound like a lot for a player who lasted 20 years, but the first half of his career was mainly spent playing for some really bad Phillies teams. The second half of his career featured three 20 win seasons, three top 5 Cy Young finishes, three World Series rings, a World Series MVP, and surpassing the 3,000 strikeout mark for his career. His Postseason career mark is 11-2 with an ERA of 2.23.
4. Mike Mussina
The biggest knock I always hear about Mussina is that he was never great at anything. He did not win any awards, only once led the league in a major category (wins in 1995), and did take home a ring even though he played half of his career for the Yankees. Awards? He finished in the Top 5 in Cy Young voting six different times and he won seven Gold Gloves. Mussina played 18 years for the Yankees and Orioles in the two of the smallest, home run friendly stadiums in baseball during an era where there were a ton of home run hitters. He won 270 games, had an ERA around 3.50, and almost struck out 3,000 batters. He has a higher career WAR than Nolan Ryan, and if you break it down to his best seven years, it's still higher than Nolan Ryan. His career ERA+ is the same as Juan Marichal and higher than Bob Feller, Don Drysdale, and Steve Carlton. Put him in.
3. Larry Walker
The worst non-steroid linked omission from the 1990s players. While he has never been linked to steroids, it seems that many writers have decided to treat his time with the Rockies as the same sort of dark stain. Luckily, Larry Walker played other places along the way, and with a few clicks of the mouse, you can find out that he was a pretty great player away from Denver too. Like that time he hit .322 during his final year with the Expos, or those two years at the end of his career where he had a .520 slugging percentage playing for the Cardinals in a pitcher friendly park. Most seasons, while playing for the Rockies, his road batting average was around, if not over .300. He hit home runs, he hit doubles, and he drove in runs playing on the road. For his career, he is just short of 400 home runs, 500 doubles, hit .313 with with a .565 slugging percentage, won seven Gold Gloves, a National League MVP, an three batting titles. You want a number that compares him to some Hall of Famers? How about this: Out of all the Hall of Famers who are listed as a right fielder, his slugging percentage falls in between Stan Musial and Babe Ruth. If Walker does not get into the Hall, there will never be a Rockies player there. Seriously.
2. Roger Clemens
I am obvious not opposed to putting steroid users into the Hall of Fame. There is a clear line, based his different legal battles, and the Mitchell Report, which give baseball fans a good time frame of when Clemens started using steroids. Let's go ahead and clear his numbers out after Boston. Most of the steroid use appears to have started in the late 1990s with the Blue Jays and Yankees, and extended into his time with the Astros.
Cutting those numbers away, Clemens at age 33 was just short of 200 wins and right around 2,500 strikeouts. He had two Cy Young Awards and an MVP Award too. Clemens had an ERA+ of 144 with the Sox, which would have put him in the top 5 all-time, and he was already at 81.0 WAR, which is higher than both Schilling and Mussina. Basically, pre-steroids, Clemens was already a border line Hall of Famer. Even if you assume he career last five more years past his time with Boston, and he is a mediocre pitcher, he still probably gets around 220-230 wins and crosses 3,000 strikeouts. Although, during his final 10 win season in Boston, he did manage to lead the American League in strikeouts with 257.
I will not argue that he gets to 350 wins and 4,500 strikeouts without a little help from the pharmacy, but it is also a pretty silly argument to say that Clemens is not a Hall of Famer without steroids.
1. Barry Bonds
Similar story to Clemens. There is a definite time line connected to Bonds and steroids. So, again we can clear out Bonds numbers at a specific date and look at his credentials from that point. That line would be 1998. At that point in his career Bonds was at 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases, the only player to reach those plateaus, along with 400 doubles, almost 2,000 hits, three National League MVPs, and eight Gold Gloves. Bonds was also at 79.1 WAR after 1998, which puts him in the top 5 players at the position behind Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson, and Carl Yastrzemski. Jay Jaffe would have put him behind Pete Rose too, I consider him a first baseman, but you get the point. He was in really good company at that point. If he had walked off the field after the 1998 season with only those numbers and accomplishments I have a hard time believing that Barry Bonds is not in Cooperstown.
From a non-numbers side of things, I saw Barry Bonds numerous times as both a Giant and a Pirate. If I being honest, and not a Cardinals homer (Sorry Albert), Bonds is the best player that I have seen in person. He was a great and feared hitter, a fast base runner, and an excellent left fielder. There was little that he he ever did wrong. I know there are baseball fans older than me who are upset about Pete Rose not being in the Hall. I feel the same about Barry Bonds, except Barry was better than Pete.