By Carlos Marcano (@camarcano)
This is something that I’m sure every baseball fan has done: casting a virtual ballot for the Hall of Fame. It’s always fun to pretend to have the honor and big responsibility of electing those that will be enshrined as immortal in Cooperstown.
As such, I will not take it as lightly as some real voters that even get to the careless action of sending a blank ballot.
I mean, I know that small hall staunches are a thing; I don’t share that point of view, but I guess that falls among the possibilities. What gets to my nerves is that those that send the blank ballots not only hurt by omission by not voting for some very clear candidates that should be elected (see Abreu, Bobby later on) but also proactively hurt the chances of some candidates that are on the edge of the election, by increasing the number of votes needed due to an increase of the total possible votes.
So, dear BBWAA member with small hall anguish: if you don’t think, from your supreme vantage point, that any candidate is worthy, please just leave the ballot at home and everyone will be (mostly) happy.
Now, let’s get to my actual votes.
If by any chance you have read my Twitter timeline you should know that I’m a Bobby Abreu apologist. If I had to cast just one vote, he would be the recipient.
And, of course, there is a nationalism thing here as we are both Venezuelans, that’s hard to deny. But beyond that, I am completely convinced that Bob Abreu was the epitome of the kind of player that resemblances the revolution baseball has been through in the past 25 years: get on base as much as you can and maximize each plate appearance as much as you can, all while being a very good baserunner and defender.
In summary, Abreu is the poster boy for the sabermetrics movement and the rankings in OBP, wOBA, and fWAR among his generational peers show it.
I already wrote an article on why you should be convinced that Abreu belongs to the HoF, where you can check a lot of numbers for his induction case, but I will share just one line of stats that blew my mind when I saw it: this is the list of players with at least 1,000 runs scored, 1,000 RBI, 1,000 walks, 250 home runs, 400 stolen bases, 500 doubles while batting no less than .290:
- Barry Bonds.
- Bob Abreu.
I’ll give you a minute to let that sink in.
Done? Alright, now think that his “sabr numbers” are even better and try to continue.
So, let’s address the elephant in the room now: I’m using the Mitchell Report and actual suspensions as the figurative line to decide regarding PED use. It’s an ugly and fuzzy line, yes, but without any other better way to do it, that’s my stance because if MLB can’t do it better, it’s even harder for a mere mortal like me to do it.
The case for Ortiz is very simple: Ortiz’s wOBA and wRC+ are very similar to Edgar Martinez’s at .405 – .392 and 147 – 140, respectively.
Then you just need to add the 541 homers and almost 1800 RBI, accompanying the .286/.380/.552 line and there is not too much needed to add.
Also, while I don’t pay too much attention to postseason numbers when doing these analyses, well, he’s got a tremendous narrative in his favor in that regard.
So, let’s start with the obvious: Rolen was an incredible defensive player, absolutely fantastic. By two different defensive metrics, dWAR and Def, he ranks third since 1970 (that’s for the past 50+ years!) among all the qualifying third basemen, just behind Adrián Beltré and Buddy Bell in both and not too far. And by UZR/150 he is actually second.
Let’s not forget that during the last 50 years there has been no shortage of great defenders of the hot corner, including the six final years of the reign of the great Brooks Robinson, and the domain of others like Gary Gaetti, Robin Ventura, Eric Chávez, Evan Longoria, Mike Schmidt, Matt Williams and, of course, the current king, Nolan Arenado.
Defense is not the reason people try to dismiss Rolen as a legitimate hall case, though. It’s usually the offense that gets diminished and, what hurts him the most about it, is the apparently short playing time he had.
But let me humor you with the top 10 third basemen for the same period, according to some all-around stats (fWAR, bWAR) which should make you reconsider that:
It’s really interesting how Rolen compares to these great athletes, including a lot of Hall of Famers and others who should be / could be HoFers.
I know what you are thinking: WAR includes a positional and defensive adjustment, so that’s why Rolen ranks high. Well, you will be surprised that he ranks as the 18th best offensive third basemen by Fangraphs’s Off stat and 11th by Baseball Reference’s oWAR; both stats measure just offensive capabilities.
Furthermore, looking at the past 50 years, Rolen ranks 8th and 5th respectively, against names like Schmidt, Chipper Jones, Wade Boggs, George Brett, and Adrian Beltré.
So yes, his career was shorter than others, no question, BUT he was extremely good at both fielding and batting. And not just very good, as some tend to say, he was an elite 3B, among the best during the past 50 years.
He is a HoFer, for me.
Of the top 15 qualified relievers in K%, only 3 of them are not active players, one being Billy Wagner who ranks twelfth. Of the top 25 in K/9, only 6 are not active players, one being Billy Wagner who ranks 23rd.
Billy Wagner was a strikeout machine 10 years ahead of his time, making him one of the hardest pitchers to bat against (11th in BAA among relievers) and to get runs from (5th in ERA-, 11th in WHIP).
People criticize the low volume he got but still, he was able to get 422 SVs to rank 6th all-time, ahead of Hofers Rollie Fingers and Rich Gossage.
Wagner, the all-time 6th best reliever by fWAR, si the only southpaw among those six players, something that can easily go overlooked and takes an even more important dimension when you realize that only Aroldis Chapman gets into the top 15, too, ranking 11th.
Those with the numbers but I would not vote for:
I want to make it clear: just on baseball numbers merits, this is a loaded ballot, probably one of them with the largest talent pool ever displayed on the field, no questions. But, as the rules for voting are wrapped around the “Moral Clause” (and for the purpose of enacting human decency), I can’t back the following players that would make it another way:
- Barry Bonds, alledged beater and PED user.
- Clemens, allegedly involved in an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl and PED user.
- Andruw Jones, alleged beater.
- Omar Vizquel, alleged beater and inappropriate behavior in pro baseball premises.
- Gary Sheffield, alleged PED user.
- Sammy Sosa, alleged PED user.
- Alex Rodríguez, alleged PED user.
- Manny Ramírez, alleged PED user.
- Curt Schilling, racist, xenophobic, bigot, etc.
I’ve used alleged even when there were firm suspensions in some cases because, you know, formality’s sake.
I also want to be completely honest about something: I’ve done really bad things in my life, plenty of them. And I will adventure myself into guessing that most of you too as that’s part of our imperfect human nature.
There are levels of badness, of course. That’s why there should be a corresponding level of disclosure and atonement from those that cause/caused any wrongdoing. People just can’t expect to receive forgiveness or acceptance without the appropriate repentance done, that’s not just how things should be done in my book, and, unfortunately, even those that were caught red-handed from that list show no sign of wanting to make amends with the things/people they broke.