Index
New Candidates on the 2023 Ballot
Nearly 23,000 men have played Major League Baseball since the 19th century, but only about six percent had playing careers that lasted at least ten years, the minimum number of years a player needs to be eligible for a Hall of Fame ballot. But appearing on a BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot is not a given—the player must have had a significant enough career to be selected for a BBWAA ballot. Thus, just to be named to a ballot is an honor accorded to only a distinguished stratum of Major League Baseball players.
Apart from being a reminder of the Hall of Fame experience, the foregoing is—let's be honest—sugar coating for the reality of the crop of the fourteen new candidates on the 2023 BBWAA ballot: This is the weakest debut class of the last decade, with only Carlos Beltrán possessing a solid Hall of Fame case—but as we've noted previously, the center fielder is sure to be reminded of his role in the sign-stealing scandal that tainted the Houston Astros' 2017 season capped by the team's first-ever World Series championship.
With the best case for the Hall of Fame among the new candidates, Carlos Beltran's involvement in the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal is sure to delay his induction.
After Beltrán, Francisco Rodriguez is the next likely Hall of Fame possibility, but the relief pitcher who is fourth in career saves and who holds the record for most saves in a single season faces the same challenges that other relievers have faced. Starting pitcher R.A. Dickey and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury had at least one banner season, while starting pitcher John Lackey was part of three different championship teams. Starting pitcher Jered Weaver had a brief but solid peak as the ace of the Los Angeles Angels in the early 2010s, while reliever Huston Street, the American League Rookie of the Year in 2005, remained an elite closer for most of his career—although the caveat regarding Rodriguez applies here too.
But the remaining seven new candidates, starting pitchers Bronson Arroyo and Matt Cain, catcher Mike Napoli, shortstops J.J. Hardy and Jhonny Peralta, and right fielders Andre Ethier and Jayson Werth, were solid lineup fixtures in an era of high talent compression, meaning that they could find work fairly easily in a field filled with qualified candidates. However, apart from isolated highlights—Matt Cain pitched a perfect game during the 2012 season, for instance—none of these seven candidates will get more than a hometown vote on this ballot while all others save Beltrán and probably Francisco Rodriguez will receive little more.
New Candidates Career Summaries
I detailed the careers of Beltrán, Lackey, and Francisco Rodriguez in my ballot forecast for 2021 through 2025 and will encapsulate those three along with the other eleven new candidates below. Comprehensive statistics for all new and returning candidates are available in the Appendix, which also includes definitions for statistics that appear in this section.
Bronson Arroyo: A reliable rotation fixture primarily for the Cincinnati Reds, Bronson Arroyo had nine consecutive years with 30 or more starts, leading the league twice, and eight years with 200 or more innings pitched including a Major League-leading career high of 240.2 innings pitched in 2006, in which the right-hander with the distinctive leg kick made his only All-Star appearance. Arroyo mixed in a changeup and slider with his best pitch, his curve ball, as in 2435.2 career innings pitched he struck out 1571 batters against only 661 walks allowed for a respectable 2.38 strikeouts-to-walks ratio.
As a member of the historic 2004 Boston Red Sox squad, Arroyo, pitching in relief of Curt Schilling in the eighth inning of Game Six of the American League Championship Series, had the ball swatted out of his glove by the New York Yankees' Álex Rodriguez while trying to apply the tag in a memorable and controversial moment. Breaking their 86-year "Curse of the Bambino," the Red Sox ultimately went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, handing Arroyo his only championship ring.
Arroyo's 2006 campaign, in which he also led the Majors in games started (35), netted him 6.8 bWAR that season as he established career bests in ERA (3.29) and ERA+ (142) in his banner season; otherwise, he generated as much as 3.3 bWAR only one other time (his 2007 season) as his 23.1 S-JAWS ranks 403rd among all starting pitchers. At best a back-of-the-rotation arm, Bronson Arroyo may get a hometown vote on the Hall of Fame ballot as he makes his only appearance.
Carlos Beltrán: Speaking of controversy, Carlos Beltrán will face plenty of that for his role in the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal that has tainted their 2017 season, Beltrán's final year, which saw the team win its first World Series. The American League Rookie of the Year with the Kansas City Royals in 1999, the switch-hitting center fielder combined power, speed, and defensive prowess for a total of seven teams although in his 20-year career he spent seven years each with the Royals and with the New York Mets, where he hit a career-high 41 home runs in 2006, tying Todd Hundley's then-franchise record for single-season homers.
Traded from the Royals mid-season in 2004 to the Houston Astros (then in the National League) for his first sojourn with the team, Beltrán was respectable in Houston as a rental player for that one season (he signed as a free agent with the Mets in 2005), but he exploded during the postseason, hitting four homers each in the five-game NL Divisional Series against the Atlanta Braves and in the seven-game NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, tying Barry Bonds for the most long balls in a single postseason, as he fired off a blistering twelve-game slash line of .435/.535/1.022/1.547 while scoring 21 runs and driving in 14, adding, for good measure, six stolen bases without being caught.
The nine-time All-Star stole 312 bases in his career while only being caught 49 times for a sterling 86.4 percent success rate. Ranked ninth all-time among center fielders by JAWS, Carlos Beltrán is a no-doubt Hall of Famer whose only knock is his association with the Astros in 2017, and given the censorial attitude of BBWAA voters, he is likely not to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but he will be elected on a subsequent ballot sooner rather than later.
Matt Cain: A rarity in that he spent his entire 13-year career with one team, the San Francisco Giants, Matt Cain won two World Series with the team in 2010 and 2012, and for a four-year stretch from 2009 to 2012, the right-handed starting pitcher posted a 55–35 win-loss record, good for a .611 winning percentage, with a 2.93 ERA, a 129 ERA+, and a 3.46 FIP with 720 strikeouts in 882.0 innings pitched. Cain also made his only three All-Star teams during this period. For eight consecutive years, from 2006 to 2013, he started at least 30 games a season, leading the National League with 34 in 2008, and for six consecutive years, from 2007 to 2012, he pitched at least 200 innings a season while leading the NL in complete games (4) in 2009.
In 2012, pitching against the Houston Astros at the Giants' AT&T Park, Cain hurled a perfect game, the 22nd in Major League history, as he struck out 14 Astros to tie Sandy Koufax for the most punch-outs in a perfect game. It was the first perfect no-no in the Giants' long, storied history, and Cain, who collected a base hit offensively, also became the only pitcher to score a run during his perfect game.
Hit by a line drive on his pitching arm in 2013, Cain went on the 15-day disabled list for the first time in his career, but bone chips in his right elbow sidelined him for the second half of the 2014 season as he underwent surgery to his elbow to remove them. Then surgery to his right ankle to remove a bone spur caused him to miss the Giants' 2014 postseason, which was capped by their third World Series victory in five years. Cain returned in 2015 but injuries continued to plague him, and his pitching effectiveness plummeted as in his final five years, from 2013 to 2017, he won less than a third of his decisions (19–40 for a .322 win-loss percentage) while posting a 4.82 ERA, a 78 ERA+, and a 4.67 FIP. Matt Cain will likely get a hometown vote or two but no more.
R.A. Dickey: As one of the relative handful of Major League pitchers to have made his living from the knuckleball, Robert Allen Dickey did indeed have a career trajectory that fluttered and darted and hung up to be crushed like his signature pitch. The right-hander didn't reach the Majors until 2001, his age-26 year, and even then, the first seven seasons in which he actually pitched in the Majors were a disaster as he posted a 5.43 ERA, an 87 ERA+, and a 5.19 FIP. Not the start to the resumé of an MLB pitcher who would land on a Hall of Fame ballot.
Signing with the Mets in 2010 gave Dickey a new lease on baseball. His first two years in New York saw him post seasonal ERAs of 2.84 in 2010, seventh-best in the National League, in 174.1 innings pitched, and 3.28 in 2011, twelfth-best in the NL, as he surpassed the 200-innings pitch threshold for the first time (208.2 IP). The knuckleballer, already in his mid-thirties, seemed to have found his groove, but even these two quality seasons could hardly have predicted what he would produce next season.
As if someone had scripted it while watching The Natural and The Rookie, R.A. Dickey, in his age-37 season, pitched like a Hall of Famer in 2012. Winning 20 games while losing only six, he struck out 230 batters in 233.2 innings pitched, just a shade under one strikeout per inning (8.9), as he posted further career-bests in ERA (2.73), ERA+ (139), and FIP (3.27). Walking just 54 batters, he also notched a Curt Schilling-like 4.26 strikeouts-to-walks ratio as he led the NL in complete games (5) and shutouts (3) while making his only All-Star appearance and beating out Clayton Kershaw for the 2012 NL Cy Young Award, even edging out Kershaw by one strikeout to top the NL in that category; Dickey is also the first knuckleballer ever to win a Cy Young.
A 2013 trade to the Toronto Blue Jays brought Dickey back down to Earth as he proved to be an innings eater, starting at least 30 games and pitching at least 200 innings in the first three of four seasons in the Great White North, but he was a league-average one at best. After a so-so stint with the Atlanta Braves in 2017, his age-42 season, Dickey hung it up.
R.A. Dickey's narrative is certainly worthy of, if not the Hall of Fame, then a sentiment-laden Hollywood baseball epic worthy of Kevin Costner. But that narrative and Dickey's wonderful, outlier 2012 Cy Young season at least got him onto the only Hall of Fame ballot he'll be on.
Jacoby Ellsbury: In theory and in practice, Jacoby Ellsbury was the next Johnny Damon for the Boston Red Sox, a speedy center fielder who would defect to Boston's hated rivals the New York Yankees in search of greener—as in filthy lucre—pastures, but while Damon at least performed satisfactorily for the Bronx Bombers, Ellsbury's seven-year, $153 million deal with them became one of the biggest free-agent albatrosses ever around the Yankees' neck as Ellsbury, dogged by injuries, managed to play for just four seasons—with only one of those seasons better than league-average.
The first Major League player of Navajo descent, Ellsbury made a strong first impression as a September call-up for the Red Sox in his 2007 debut season before starting in center field during Boston's four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the World Series. Ellsbury then became the Red Sox' starting center field from 2008 to 2013, leading the American League in triples (10) once and in stolen bases three times including a career-high 70 in 2009. Making his only All-Star team in 2011, Ellsbury joined the 30-30 club with 39 steals and a career-best 32 home runs as he finished second in AL Most Valuable Player voting, but considering that winner Justin Verlander had captured the pitching Triple Crown, he shouldn't feel too bad being the runner-up.
But two seasons, 2010 and 2012, marred by injuries didn't deter the Yankees from luring Ellsbury, who had won his second World Series ring in 2013, away from Boston for the 2014 season. Ellsbury delivered a satisfactory initial season with 16 home runs, 39 stolen bases, and a 111 OPS+, the last time he would be above league-average, but he never lived up to the Yankees' expectations, and abortive seasons in 2018 and 2019 underscored a short career (11 years) already over by 2017, his age-33 year. With one excellent season to his credit, Jacoby Ellsbury may get a hometown nod on the 2023 ballot before disappearing.
Andre Ethier: A lineup fixture with the Los Angeles Dodgers, with whom he spent his entire 12-year career, Andre Ethier, despite two All-Star appearances in 2010 and 2011 and a top-ten finish in NL MVP voting in 2009, has never stood out as an elite player. Indeed, with no black ink (leading the league in a significant offensive category) and just a 12 rating for gray ink (top-ten finishes in a significant offensive category), the right fielder barely stands out.
Granted, Ethier was solid enough with seven consecutive seasons with 30 or more doubles, four seasons with 20 or more home runs, four seasons with 150 or more hits, and seven seasons with an OPS+ of 120 or better. As a 24-year-old rookie in 2006, he slashed .308/.365/.477/.842 in 441 plate appearances as he placed fifth (tied with Matt Cain) in Rookie of the Year voting. But Ethier's best season by bWAR was 2012, with 3.5 bWAR, only one of two seasons in which he managed at least 3.0 bWAR.
Limited by injuries to 16 and 22 games in 2016 and 2017, respectively, Andre Ethier was out of baseball after 2017, with his legacy being his consistent play for his first ten years in the Majors and the honor of appearing on a Hall of Fame ballot; however, he might not even get a hometown vote even though he spent his entire career in Los Angeles.
J.J. Hardy: A throwback to earlier baseball eras, or at least back to Omar Vizquel, James Jerry Hardy was truly a defensive shortstop, winning three Gold Gloves as he played 1544 games at the position, 59th best all-time—ahead of Hall of Famers Lou Boudreau and Arky Vaughan—while compiling 87 Total Zone Total Fielding Runs Above Average and 85 defensive runs saved over his career along with 17.5 dWAR, 44th best all-time among all shortstops.
But in an era of super shortstops who pack an offensive wallop along with average to superior fielding skills, Hardy pales in comparison. Debuting in 2005 with the Milwaukee Brewers, who traded him in late 2009 to the Minnesota Twins, who, after the 2010 season, dealt him to the Baltimore Orioles, where he finished his 13-year career in 2017, Hardy did have some pop in his bat, hitting 25 or more doubles in seven seasons and 20 or more home runs in five seasons as he collected 291 doubles and 188 home runs in 6309 career plate appearances.
However, the two-time All-Star, who did win a Silver Slugger Award in 2013 when he hit 27 doubles and 25 home runs with 66 runs scored and 76 runs batted in, broke the 100 mark in OPS+, meaning that he was at least a league-average hitter, just three times and finished with a career 91 OPS+. J.J. Hardy made it onto the 2023 Hall of Fame ballot but won't return on next year's ballot.
John Lackey: Having won World Series rings with three separate teams, John Lackey would seem to have had the magic touch, particularly as he so far remains the only starting pitcher to have won the clinching World Series game with two different teams, first for the Los Angeles Angels in 2002, his rookie year, and then for the Boston Red Sox eleven years later. But as I noted in my 2020 evaluation of the right-hander, Lackey "may be the Forrest Gump of early-21st-century starting pitchers, doing the right thing in the right place at the right time but more a beneficiary of fortune than a maker of fortune as he was a reliable innings-eater but was considered the staff ace only when the staff ace was not available."
Lackey did place third in voting for the American League Cy Young Award in 2007, when he led the AL with a 3.01 earned run average, in what was a virtual toss-up for the honors between future Red Sox teammate Josh Beckett and winner C.C. Sabathia in a season that saw Lackey post a 19–9 win-loss record along with career highs in innings pitched (224.0), ERA+ (150), and bWAR (6.3) as he made his only All-Star team.
In his age-36 season with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2015, Lackey, belying an unexceptional 13–10 win-loss record, posted a career-best 2.77 ERA along with a 142 ERA+ and a 5.8 bWAR in 218.0 innings pitched before getting the win the Game One of the Cardinals' Division Series against the Chicago Cubs, pitching 7.1 scoreless innings in what would be the team's only victory in the series. But after signing with the Cubs for 2016, Lackey helped propel Chicago to its first World Series championship in 108 years although his pitching was undistinguished all through that postseason.
With a career S-JAWS of 33.3, John Lackey ranks 206th all-time among starting pitchers, and his postseason acclaim does little to mitigate what will be his only appearance on a BBWAA ballot.
Mike Napoli: Eight seasons of both hitting 20 or more home runs and striking out 100 or more times epitomizes Mike Napoli's 12-year career, all spent in the American League and split among four teams including three separate stints with the Texas Rangers. Coming up with the Los Angeles Angels as a catcher, the right-handed slugger with 267 home runs and 1480 strikeouts (80th all-time) in 5330 career plate appearances transitioned to first base fairly quickly as he found himself in three World Series, first with the Rangers in 2011; then with the Boston Red Sox in 2013; where he garnered a championship ring, ironically by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals, who had bested the Rangers in 2011 in a dramatic contest that went to all seven games; and finally with the Cleveland Indians in 2016 in another historic World Series against the Chicago Cubs.
Napoli had certainly done his part to help Texas into the postseason in 2011. Playing primarily behind the plate, he posted a sterling .320/.414/.631/.1.046 slash line, good for a career-high 173 OPS+, in 113 games and 432 plate appearances with 25 doubles, 30 home runs, and 75 runs knocked in and kept his bat hot throughout the postseason, particularly in the World Series as he hit two homers and drove in 10 runs. With Cleveland in 2016, Napoli established career highs in home runs (34), RBI (101), walks (78; also reached with Boston in 2014), and strikeouts (194) although his hitting wasn't a significant factor during the postseason.
Despite his playing more than half of his 1135 career games started at first base (639), Mike Napoli is ranked as a catcher (485 starts) by JAWS and places 53rd all-time, but with an overall bWAR of 26.3, he may not even get a hometown nod on the ballot.
Jhonny Peralta: With five seasons each with 20 or more home runs and 75 or more runs driven in and six seasons with 30 or more doubles, Jhonny Peralta was a good-hitting shortstop who made 1425 starts at the position, but his 50-game suspension in 2013 for his involvement in the Biogenesis PED scandal is likely to loom in the minds of BBWAA voters as they evaluate his career highlights.
Beginning his career with the Cleveland Indians in 2003, the right-handed hitter largely rode the bench with Omar Vizquel ensconced at short, but when Vizquel left after the 2004 season, Peralta made his mark in 2005 with a .292/.366/.520/.885 slash line, good for a career-high 137 OPS+ as he hit 35 doubles and 24 home runs, another career high, while driving in 78 runs. However, his 5.1 bWAR that season would be his best showing until his first season with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2014, his first season back in the Majors following his PED suspension, which had occurred while he was playing for the Tigers.
Traded to Detroit during the 2010 season, Peralta had been named to two All-Star teams during his three-plus seasons with the Tigers (his first, in 2011, had been to replace an injured Derek Jeter) and in 2013 had been batting .303 in 107 games and 448 plate appearances when he accepted the PED suspension; when he returned for the postseason, he promptly hit .417 with one home run and five RBI in four Divisional Series games against the Oakland Athletics. Ranked 74th by JAWS among shortstops, Jhonny Peralta won't be on the next BBWAA ballot.
Francisco Rodriguez: Bursting onto the Major League Baseball stage as a 20-year-old during the 2002 postseason, Francisco Rodriguez, who had pitched just 5.2 innings in relief as a September call-up for the Los Angeles Angels, won five games in 11 appearances out of the bullpen as the Angels blew through the New York Yankees and the Minnesota Twins en route to defeating the San Francisco Giants in a memorable seven-game World Series that saw "K-Rod," an unknown quantity among Major League hitters, use his lively fastball and devastating curveball to strike out 13 Giants in 8.2 innings pitched.
As the setup man for Troy Percival, Rodriguez won eight games in relief in 2003 and pitched to a 1.82 ERA in 2004 as he struck out 123 batters in 84.0 innings pitched. The right-hander assumed the Angels' closer role when Percival left before the 2005 season and promptly led the American League in saves with 45, the first of four consecutive seasons with 40 or more saves that culminated with a record-setting 62 saves in 2008, breaking Bobby Thigpen's single-season mark of 57 set in 1990. "Frankie" placed third in American League Cy Young Award voting that year, behind Hall of Famer Roy Halladay and winner Cliff Lee; it was his third top-five finish in Cy Young voting since 2004, and he even placed sixth in Most Valuable Player Award voting.
Rodriguez then signed a three-year, $37 million contract with the New York Mets starting in 2009, but entering his eighth season in his age-27 year, Rodriguez was beginning to lose his effectiveness as, despite saving 35 games in 2009, he posted a bloated 3.71 ERA while losing six of nine decisions in relief. More problematically, Rodriguez, never afraid to show his emotions, was also losing his temper, assaulting his girlfriend's father in 2010. Rodriguez had a late-career surge with the Milwaukee Brewers, his second sojourn with the club, with back-to-back All-Star appearances starting in 2014 and bringing his total to six, before finishing his career with the Detroit Tigers.
Sabermetric refinements to relief-pitcher evaluations strengthen Francisco Rodriguez's case for the Hall of Fame, but will voters be swayed into electing him?
Fourth all-time in saves with 437, Rodriguez still holds the single-season mark with 62, as he ranks 12th all-time among relief pitchers by R-JAWS, just a tick higher than Hall of Famer Lee Smith. In 2020, I concluded that Francisco Rodriguez was a borderline Hall of Famer and deserves to garner at least five percent of the vote to keep him on the ballot for further consideration. With the introduction of R-JAWS, a refinement of bWAR derivation that focuses more squarely on the relief pitcher's function, Francisco Rodriguez is looking better than he did in 2020. (By that same token, though, Joe Nathan, who fell short of five percent on last year's ballot, is also looking better.)
Huston Street: Like Francisco Rodriguez, Huston Street also made an auspicious Major League entrance when he debuted for the Oakland Athletics in 2005, his age-21 season, as in 67 relief appearances the right-hander posted a 5–1 win-loss record with 23 saves while generating a 1.72 ERA in 78.1 innings pitched. That performance was impressive enough to garner him American League Rookie of the Year honors, easily besting Robinson Canó, among others, for the award.
The right-handed closer went on to have five seasons with 30 or more saves on his way to 324 career saves, 20th on the all-time list, while posting a career 2.95 ERA, 3.33 FIP, and 141 ERA+ in 668 appearances—all in relief—and 680.0 innings pitched. But missing nearly half the 2010 season due to shoulder soreness portended injuries that would hamper the last two seasons of the two-time All-Star who also played for the Colorado Rockies, the San Diego Padres, and the Los Angeles Angels; Street called it quits before the 2018 season, which would have been his age-34 year in the Majors. Ranked 40th by R-JAWS among relievers, Huston Street might not get a vote from even one of the four towns he called home during his 13-year career.
Jered Weaver: For a three-year stretch from 2010 to 2012, Jered Weaver looked to be among the elite starting pitchers in baseball, winning 51 games, including an American League-leading 20 in 2012, against 25 losses for a sterling .671 win-loss percentage in 97 starts and 648.2 innings pitched while posting a 2.73 ERA, a 3.31 FIP, and a 141 ERA+ and striking out 573 hitters against 155 walks for an outstanding 3.70 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
More significantly, the three-time All-Star, all chosen during this span, also finished in the top five for AL Cy Young Award honors during this time: The right-hander finished fifth to the Seattle Mariners' "King Felix" Hernández in 2010—although Weaver aced him out for the strikeout title by one whiff—and second to the Detroit Tigers' Justin Verlander the following year, no disgrace as that future Hall of Famer was also named the AL's Most Valuable Player by capturing the pitching Triple Crown, leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts.
Weaver, who pitched for the Los Angeles Angels for all but the final of his twelve years in the Major Leagues, led the AL in wins again in 2014 (18), the same year he led the Majors in games started with 34, matching his AL-topping career high in 2010. Yet the lanky Weaver, whose older brother Jeff also pitched in the big leagues, got no Cy Young consideration in 2014. With his ERA+ of 100—exactly league-average—Weaver, despite his wins total, looked to be a workhorse but not an exceptional one. Ranked 211th by S-JAWS, Jered Weaver, among the franchise leaders in several categories for Angels pitchers, should get a hometown vote on his only BBWAA ballot appearance.
Jayson Werth: With a grandfather (John "Ducky" Schofield) and an uncle (Dick Schofield) who played in the Major Leagues, Jayson Werth seemed destined to carry on the family business—and, as the right fielder for the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies, to win a World Series as both Schofields had done. The right-handed hitter was adept at getting on base (a career .360 on-base percentage), hitting for power (300 doubles and 229 home runs in 6366 plate appearances), and running the bases (132 swipes with only 23 times caught stealing), but a history of injuries from the start of his career onward—he missed all of 2006 because of a wrist injury—resulted in his playing in at least 140 games only five times during his 15-year career.
The Phillies took a flier on Werth for the 2007 season, following disappointing years with the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers, and although injuries still dogged him in Philadelphia, he became their starting right fielder, helping to bring a second World Series victory to the city in 2008. He made his only All-Star appearance in 2009, when he hit 36 home runs and drove in 99 runs, both career highs, while setting a franchise record with seven home runs in the ultimately unsuccessful postseason defense of the Phillies world-champion title; then he led the National League in doubles (a career-best 46) in 2010, which yielded his only top ten finish for NL Most Valuable Player voting.
Signing as a free agent with the Nationals, Werth spent the remainder of his career, seven years, in Washington, where his playing time was again hindered by injuries although he had an excellent season in 2013, posting career highs in batting average (.318), on-base plus slugging percentage (.931), and OPS+ (153). With a JAWS ranking of 82nd, Jayson Werth will bow out of Hall of Fame contention this year, but had he been healthy for all of his career, his ballot tenure might have been longer.
My Hypothetical Ballot
When it comes to my hypothetical 2023 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, my only burning question is: Who gets the short straw? For me, the ballot logjam is not quite over—voters can choose no more than ten candidates; however, I have eleven candidates I would vote for.
To build the hypothetical suspense, I will withhold revealing until the end of my list who in my slate of candidates drew that short straw and wouldn't get my vote even though he deserves it. Although ballot selections do not have to be ranked, I've done so in ascending order.
10. Omar Vizquel: What is it they say about a fool persisting in his folly? Even though Omar Vizquel is the Rabbit Maranville of our day, and even though the Morality Police—also known as BBWAA voters—have appeared to condemn him for his alleged off-the-field behavior committed after his playing career was over, I still think that as one of the best defensive shortstops of his era, Vizquel is qualified for the Hall of Fame.
9. Manny Ramirez: One of the best hitters of his generation, Manny Ramirez put up numbers that put him among the greatest of all time, but that doesn't mean anything to the majority of the Morality Police who won't vote for him because of his PED taint. I would vote for Ramirez precisely because of that taint. Why? For that, we turn to . . .
8. Álex Rodriguez: . . . For at least a decade now, I've hammered incessantly and at excruciating length on the PED issue as being not just an individual failing but an institutional failing. While it is individual players who are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, they would not even be considered for the Hall were it not for the arena of competition afforded by the institution of Major League Baseball, a for-profit concern that for the last few decades has faced intense competition in the entertainment field. Baseball ceased being the "national pastime" ages ago.
Thus we have had an atmosphere of relative wrist-slapping for PED offenders even if the length of suspensions has increased; as long as it's not a third suspension, which incurs a non-permanent ban from baseball, players returning from paying this penance still find work among the thirty teams needing to fill roster spots. Why? Because teams need to put the best possible product on the field, and despite a high talent compression due in part to limited roster spots, the talent pool remains relatively small. Put simply, excellent players are hard to come by and they remain employable despite their PED taint.
It's the proverbial deal with the devil because they continue to reap rewards while helping teams win division titles, league pennants, and even World Series championships, but eternal damnation, at least for those players considered to be elite, comes after their careers are over and they are considered for "enshrinement" in the Hall of Saints, determined more than ever to deliver that "uplifting, feel-good" experience Joe Morgan extolled in his letter to BBWAA voters urging them not to let PED Penitents into the Hall.
Álex Rodriguez is both ridiculously qualified for the Hall of Fame and the most egregious PED offender baseball has yet to see. I would vote for Rodriguez precisely because of that. His cheating, at least indirectly, helped the New York Yankees win their last World Series in 2009. But what of the cheater who collaborated with his cheating team win a world championship? For that, we turn to . . .
7. Carlos Beltrán: . . . Carlos Beltrán was well on his way to Cooperstown when, for the second time, he joined the Astros for what would be his final season in 2017. With Houston, he won his only World Series ring, the gaudy garnish atop his Hall of Fame resumé. Then it transpired in 2020 that Beltrán was the enforcer on a sign-stealing scheme instituted in 2017 during both the regular season and the postseason that was truly bang-on.
After the outpouring of outrage, Astros manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended from Major League Baseball, then fired from the team. Once Hinch had served his suspension, he was quickly snapped up to manage the Detroit Tigers. Bench coach Alex Cora, considered the ringleader of the scheme, had gone on to manage the Boston Red Sox to their World Series victory in 2018 (with subsequent allegations that the team had broken MLB rules regarding video usage during that season), but although Cora left the Red Sox in 2020 because of the Astros scandal fallout, he was quietly re-hired to manage the team at the end of the year.
As for Carlos Beltrán, he was slated to manage the New York Mets for the 2020 season, but that fell through as he withdrew from the position. Now he faces his first vote on a Hall of Fame ballot. As for Hall of Fame voters, they face a new transgression for which to devise the appropriate chastisement for the offender.
Sign-stealing is nothing new in baseball. In fact, cheating is nothing new in baseball, not even PED as players have been looking for a chemical boost since the 19th century; as former MLB relief pitcher Tom House has noted, the only thing that has changed from his era in the 1970s is that the substances players were willing to try have become far more effective. But while BBWAA voters have been wrestling with PED Penitents for more than a decade, there is no recent precedent concerning a Hall of Fame candidate who admitted to his involvement in a cheating scandal by a tainted team that achieved a tainted world championship.
Beltrán will need to be punished, of course. Even without the scandal, Beltrán was not likely to be a first-ballot inductee as he had just one top-ten finish in Most Valuable Player Award voting and never led the league in any significant offensive category. Joining the Astros at the tail-end of his career, he made 509 plate appearances primarily as a designated hitter and was not a significant on-field factor in the postseason, logging just three plate appearances during the seven-game World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
You can quickly counter that Beltrán's worth was in the dugout, and a sizeable percentage of BBWAA voters will cite just that as they recite the Rule Five mantra of "integrity," "sportsmanship," and "character" that has assumed overriding prominence during a candidate's playing career on the field (Ramirez, Rodriguez, and all the other PED Penitents), in the dugout (Beltrán), and off the field after a candidate's playing career (Schilling, Vizquel).
I would vote for Carlos Beltrán just to help keep him on the ballot even though he is likely to receive substantially more than the five-percent minimum required. What may be the most fascinating aspect to 2023's voting is seeing what his initial support is, and then watching subsequent ballots for the trend.
6. Andruw Jones: Speaking of trends, Andruw Jones's has been encouraging after a nominal start, and I would keep adding to it.
5. Gary Sheffield: With just one more year left on the ballot, and although Gary Sheffield has been trending favorably as well, I would want to underscore that with a definite vote.
4. Bobby Abreu: At this point, Bobby Abreu is to me the most critical candidate on the ballot in terms of keeping him on the ballot. He still has six more chances after this ballot, but in three tries he hasn't reached double digits yet, so a vote for him is crucial.
3. Billy Wagner: Having cleared the 50-percent hurdle is a good sign for Billy Wagner, but with just two more ballots after this one, every vote counts every time.
2. Scott Rolen: Having both cleared the 60-percent hurdle and with four more potential ballot appearances after 2023, Scott Rolen is in the catbird seat among all of this year's candidates, but I would consider this to be my second-most critical vote because not only does electing him to the Hall free up a slot on subsequent ballots but—far more importantly—he is a no-doubt Hall of Famer so don't mess around: Elect him now.
1. Jeff Kent: They say you shouldn't bother watering a dying flower, but despite a static tally in 2022, Jeff Kent has reached the 30-percent plateau in the last two votes, so this flower is not dead yet. It's highly unlikely that he'll shoot up like a rocket to snag the 75 percent needed for induction, but a strong final-year rally might stay in the memories of voter on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee for players should Kent be on that ballot three years from now. In any case, there is no question that I would like to see BBWAA voters elect Jeff Kent to the Hall of Fame, where he belongs.
The Short Straw: Todd Helton. The Colorado Rockies' franchise player is the ideal "short straw" candidate because (1) I believe that Helton is a Hall of Fame-caliber player, (2) his voting trajectory is similar to that of Scott Rolen's, who is well on his way to Cooperstown, and (3) he has, on this ballot, reached his midpoint and, if he doesn't get voted in this year, he has five more chances to be voted in before his time is up.
Seeming to have beaten the Coors Field bias, Todd Helton has been building voter support to put him on the path to Cooperstown before his time on the ballot expires.
So, sorry you had to take the hit, Todd, but, hey, sacrifices are all part of baseball, aren't they? You've helped to "advance the runner," and maybe all the way home to Cooperstown, at least on my hypothetical ballot.
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