Index
My 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot
Were I a baseball writer eligible to vote on the Baseball Writers' Association of America's 2021 Hall of Fame ballot, my ballot would be as follows. But first . . .
My Obligatory Rant on Performance-Enhancing Drugs (PED)
Frankly, I have ranted so much about performance-enhancing drugs (PED) over the last several years that it is no longer a rant. It is just a policy statement. Simply put, PED was not just a blip in the baseball timeline from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. PED is still with us, it will remain with us, and it needs to be acknowledged. It is a part of baseball.
For that reason, I have never discriminated against players with PED connections, whether proved, suspected, or rumored. Those players don't need to be "asterisked," or segregated, or made to have a syringe affixed to their Hall of Fame plaques. (Manager Gene Mauch once quipped that Gaylord Perry's plaque should have a tube of K-Y Jelly attached to it in recognition of its reputed contribution to Perry's Hall of Fame career.) The statistics generated by these players might have been inflated by PED (and I have no doubt that they were), but they ultimately reflect the state of baseball at the time they were created and thus they are a valid part of the historical record.
This position has been labeled, perhaps derisively, as "performance-only," as if it is merely a narrow focus on the statistical record and oblivious to larger concerns. Concerns such as the player was cheating for personal gain and thus cheating the game. And, thus, when it comes time to recognize legacy through induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame—often expressed as being an honor or a privilege and not a right—it is proper to exclude those cheating players.
Nothing could be further from my perspective. In fact, "the game" is integral to that perspective. Were the PED problem simply a blip that was rectified by more stringent drug testing and penalties, it would be an anomaly of its time. But despite Major League Baseball's initial 2006 Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program and its subsequent revisions, players are still using PED. When they get caught, they get suspended. And when they come off suspension, provided it is not the third strike and a permanent ban from MLB, they get hired by teams looking for their services. (And even banned players can eventually appeal the decision.)
This gets right to the heart of "the game." And it is a winking joke. Baseball teams need to put the best possible product on the field. That product comprises elite baseball players who are in short supply. Thus, even players who had been suspended previously can find work easily and lucratively because teams are not just willing to hire them—they are eager to do so.
However, "teams" are not simply abstract, faceless entities. They comprise non-players as well as players, with roles such as front-office executives and managers in the dugout. These teams belong to a league, Major League Baseball, presided over by a commissioner. Moreover, the baseball industry includes entities such as the Baseball Writers' Association of America, which votes on annual awards in addition to Hall of Fame player-candidates.
All of these non-players are PED enablers. They are now in the Hall of Fame.
1. Former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was fast-tracked into the Hall of Fame in 2017 by the Today's Game Committee almost as soon as he officially retired as commissioner. Selig's election to the Hall was a foregone conclusion, but there was almost no time to reflect on his legacy before he was inducted. That legacy includes presiding over the entire Steroids Era, not to mention, when he was a team owner, the Collusion Era of the 1980s, itself another form of "cheating the game."
2. Former Atlanta Braves General Manager John Schuerholz was elected on the same ballot as Selig. He was the Braves' GM from 1990 to 2007, right in the teeth of the Steroids Era including, for example, the 2002 trade that brought Gary Sheffield to Atlanta.
3. The Braves' on-the-field manager during Schuerholz's tenure was Bobby Cox, elected to the Hall of Fame in 2014 by the (then-)Expansion Era Committee along with Tony La Russa and Joe Torre, all of whom regularly managed players with known or suspected PED association.
Furthermore, the BBWAA is the body that votes not only on Hall of Fame ballots but for annual awards including Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards. This body voted for Barry Bonds for MVP and for Roger Clemens for Cy Young seven times each.
This is complicity, pure and simple. How many times did Joe Torre pencil in the names Clemens and Sheffield, not to mention Andy Pettitte and Alex Rodríguez, on his lineup cards for the New York Yankees?
Moreover, the 2017 sign-stealing scandal by the Houston Astros came to light in 2020. It exposed cheating of another sort, cheating that tarnished the Astros' World Series victory, its first, that season. Teams strive to put the "best product on the field" in order to win world championships. Just as the Astros' sign-stealing scandal tarnished their World Series victory, how many division titles, pennants, and World Series victories have been tarnished by PED? And it's not just the players. During his tenure, Torre guided the Yankees to five World Series successes, partly with players such as Clemens, Pettitte, and Rodríguez. Aren't those World Series wins tarnished as well?
To penalize Torre, or the players, or the front-office mavens or the commissioner of baseball, is to miss the point: Baseball created the environment in which cheating was allowed to occur. It was not malicious, or even consciously done. It is simply the consequence of an extremely competitive environment with billions of dollars at stake annually.
What's more, it might not be solvable. Cheating has been going on in baseball since it began. We know now, for instance, that in 1951 the New York Giants used sign-stealing to help close the seemingly-insurmountable lead the Brooklyn Dodgers had in the National League pennant race. The Giants caught the Dodgers, forcing a three-game playoff that culminated with the Giants winning in the third game when Bobby Thomson hit the walk-off "shot heard 'round the world," prompting announcer Russ Hodges's immortal cry, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" (Full disclosure: I am a lifelong Giants fan.)
That is baseball history. It is American history. And it is tainted. As is much in history, American or otherwise, because history is made by fallible individuals within imperfect social systems. Baseball is not immune from this, and to try to sugar-coat its own history by excluding players who thrived in an environment that tacitly condoned their actions is itself a cheat, a false narrative that refuses to be honest with itself by presenting an illusion of purity that has never existed. Simply put, you evaluate the baseball you have, not the baseball you wish you had.
Hall of Fame-Worthy Candidates I Didn't Vote for on This Ballot
For many voters, the 2021 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot is a lot less daunting than ballots from recent years because much of the logjams that plagued them have abated. There are fewer Hall-worthy candidates on them, and there are no newly-eligible candidates added for this year.
However, for my very hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot, I spot 13 candidates whom I think are legitimate Hall of Famers. None of them are new to the ballot, so who is the sole returning candidate I do not think is a Hall of Famer?
Andy Pettitte. To be sure, Pettitte checks a lot of the boxes for the Hall. His WAR values, both calculated by FanGraphs (68.2) and Baseball Reference (60.2), are comparable to a lot of starting-pitcher Hall of Famers—and are better than some current inductees. His JAWS ranking, 91st in a list that includes 65 current starting-pitcher Hall of Famers, is still better than a number of current Hall of Famers.
Pettitte's 246 career wins are 42nd all-time; his 2448 career strikeouts are 45th all-time; and his .626 career win-loss percentage is 64th all-time, just a tick under Hall of Famer Eddie Plank's. A five-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees, Pettitte is the career leader in several postseason categories including wins (19), starts (42), and innings pitched (263).
The left-hander didn't have a strong peak—he had only three seasons with a seasonal bWAR above 5.0, his career-best was 8.4 in 1997, and none of his other 15 seasons saw his seasonal bWAR rise above 3.8. Pettitte never won a Cy Young Award, although he did finish in the top five in voting four times and was the runner-up to Pat Hentgen in 1996. Pettitte led the league in wins once and in games started three times, but of the seven starting pitchers on the 2021 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, he ranks last in "black ink," or the weighted measurement of times a pitcher led his league in significant pitching statistics, and fifth in "gray ink," which measures a pitcher's top-ten finishes in those same categories.
Curiously, Andy Pettitte has been compared to CC Sabathia, another southpaw who also pitched for the Yankees—they were teammates on the 2009 team that won the World Series—and Sabathia is first eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2025. I have pegged CC Sabathia as a Hall of Famer in my Ballot Forecast 2021 to 2025 article, although I do note that he probably won't be elected on his first ballot. Their records are similar in some respects, though Sabathia ranks higher in JAWS (71st) because of his stronger peak.
Back in 2013, I did evaluate Andy Pettitte, then in his final Major League season, to determine if he was a Hall of Famer. Four years later, I profiled Pettitte again as one of the upcoming borderline cases for the Hall. In both instances, I concluded that he was in essence a "hothouse flower," not the ace of his pitching staff despite his gaudy postseason record. He has been on two ballots already, at the tail-end of the ballot logjams of the 2010s, and he garnered 11.3 percent of the vote last year. Pettitte might make a significant jump this year. Or he might not. Andy Pettitte had a career that was better than some pitchers in the Hall of Fame, and he may indeed belong in the Hall. But to me, he doesn't feel like a Hall of Famer, and if I had a list of ten or fewer candidates I would vote for, Andy Pettitte still doesn't make that list.
But I have identified 13 candidates I would vote for. Because of that, my ballot reflects strategic voting based on the candidate's life span on the ballot and his voting history to date. In other words, I've weighted my ballot toward candidates who aren't polling highly or who are running out of chances on a BBWAA ballot, and thus the rankings do not reflect candidates whom I think are most qualified for the Hall.
Since many of these candidates are ballot veterans, and I've profiled many of them previously (perhaps ad nauseam), I won't belabor their credentials for the Hall of Fame. Suffice to say that if they've survived this far, they have a case for election.
One wild card that I've alluded to previously is that the 2020 ballot, marking the debut of Derek Jeter, marked the end of the logjammed ballots of the 2010s, and with no new candidates likely to attract much support on this ballot, some, many, or even all of the returning candidates might experience an even bigger boost in their vote totals than they did last year. Or not.
13. Omar Vizquel (Fourth year on ballot)
Omar Vizquel is already at 52.6 percent on the ballot after three appearances, although he is proceeding incrementally since he debuted at 37 percent in 2018. I do think Vizquel is a Hall of Fame-caliber shortstop, as one of the greatest defensive shortstops all-time even if advanced metrics do not favor him unequivocally, and I did peg him as a borderline candidate back in 2017, at least borderline with respect to perceptions by BBWAA voters. This is his fourth ballot, and he is very likely to reach 75 percent of the vote before his ballot tenure expires.
12. Andruw Jones (Fourth year on ballot)
Previously, I had not considered Andruw Jones to be a Hall of Famer. I did an in-depth assessment of Jones as a borderline candidate (in the same manner as Vizquel) in 2017, using Johnny Damon as a comp, and I left him off my hypothetical ballot in 2018. Now I do consider Jones a Hall of Fame-caliber center fielder—JAWS does rank him 11th all-time at the position—and he did make the most dramatic jump on the 2020 ballot among returning candidates. Call it jumping on the bandwagon if you like. I would vote for him. Just not on this ballot, for the reasons I outlined above. Jones still has six more chances after this ballot, and he seems to be building a constituency. I'm confident he'll return next year.
11. Todd Helton (Third year on ballot)
Todd Helton is in the same boat as Andruw Jones—sufficient time on the ballot and a growing constituency—although I have advocated for him as a Hall of Famer in 2017 as a borderline candidate, due to his entire career spent with the Colorado Rockies, with a lengthy attempt to counter that "Coors Effect" bias. By a happy coincidence, the first baseman has already shown ballot strength, jumping from an initial placement of 16.5 percent on his 2019 debut to nearly twice that, 29.2 percent, last year.
My Ten Votes for the Hall of Fame
Were I to have a 2021 BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot, I would check the following ten boxes.
10. Sammy Sosa (Ninth year on ballot)
Admittedly, Sammy Sosa is one of those hold-your-nose-and-vote candidates, although for me it isn't for the reason (think: PED) you'd expect. The right fielder, who is the only hitter in MLB history with three 60-home run seasons, seemed to be piling up gaudy statistics for his own benefit and not his teams'. Along with PED, BBWAA voters seem to be thinking that, too, as Sosa has foundered in the lowest reaches of ballot eligibility. On the other hand, he did poll 13.9 percent last year, his highest showing in eight years on the ballot. Small encouragement, as he would need to make quantum leaps to get to 75 percent. Which is not impossible, although highly unlikely.
So, hypothetical or not, is this a wasted vote? No. Sammy Sosa is a part of baseball history, a big part if you think of how the home-run race he and Mark McGwire staged in 1998 "saved baseball" after the 1994 MLB work stoppage angered fans, who needed to be wooed back into the fold. Then Sosa went on to become just the ninth player to hit at least 600 home runs. Whether that is a proud history is a potential teachable moment parents can enjoy with their children when they visit Cooperstown. But it is baseball history whether you like it or not.
9. Manny Ramirez (Fifth year on ballot)
Among left fielders, Manny Ramirez is 10th all-time as ranked by JAWS. Let's put this PED cat among the pigeons, shall we? Of the top 15 left fielders as ranked by JAWS, only three, apart from Ramirez, are not in the Hall of Fame. One is Sherry Magee, a dead ball era superstar now forgotten but who may be on the radar screen of the Early Baseball Committee. One is Barry Bonds, also on this 2021 ballot. And one is Pete Rose, whose sordid saga predates the PED era.
Among the Hall of Fame left fielders ranked below Ramirez on the JAWS list are Ralph Kiner, who squeaked into the Hall in his 15th and final chance; Jim Rice, who preceded Ramirez playing in front of the Green Monster for the Boston Red Sox, and another one who squeaked in on his final shot at the Hall; and Lou Brock, who joined the 3000-hit club and is second only to Rickey Henderson in career stolen bases.
Manny Ramirez, significant among the PED penitents because his transgressions—two suspensions following failed tests, with Ramirez promptly retiring following the second suspension—both occurred after MLB enacted its 2006 Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, debuted in 2017 with 23.8 percent of the vote but then plateaued at about 22 percent for the next two years before getting an incremental bump to 28.2 percent last year. He's on his fifth ballot this year and is now on the downhill slide.
And leaving aside all the Manny Being Manny sideshow material, there was no doubt that Ramirez was a marquee player during his time with the Cleveland Indians and Red Sox, one of the greatest hitters of his generation. How much of that was PED? Who knows? As with Sammy Sosa, it's baseball history whether you like it or not.
8. Gary Sheffield (Seventh year on ballot)
And as with Andruw Jones, I didn't consider Gary Sheffield to be a Hall of Famer back in 2018, but I've reconsidered since then. Like Manny Ramirez, Sheffield was a disaster in the field with a minus-27.7 dWAR, but his 80.8 oWAR is only one win below Ramirez's. Moreover, Sheffield ranks sixth all-time in oWAR among right fielders, behind Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, and Mel Ott, which is about as elite as you can get. Furthermore, of the top fifteen right fielders as ranked by oWAR, the only one not in the Hall of Fame is—you guessed it—Gary Sheffield.
Even further still, Gary Sheffield, on his sixth ballot, jumped from 13.6 percent of the vote from 2019 to 30.5 percent. It may be too little, too late, although he still has four more shots at Cooperstown. Again, fault me for bandwagoneering, but Gary Sheffield wouldn't be any worse than having, say, Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame.
7. Bobby Abreu (Second year on ballot)
There is no question that Bobby Abreu is a sabermetric darling in the same manner as Tim Raines and Alan Trammell: All were excellent players and recognized as such, but they did not have the superstar trappings of their higher-profile teammates. Abreu made just two All-Star teams, never finished in the top ten for Most Valuable Player voting, and had a modest presence in the black-ink (5) and gray-ink (88) rankings.
And yet in his 18-year career, Abreu was a consistent run-producer with both impressive rates and volumes. In 10,081 plate appearances, he knocked out a .291/.395/.475/.870 slash line that generated a 128 OPS+ as he batted .300 or better six times and produced an on-base percentage of .400 or better eight times. His 2470 hits rank 107th all-time, tucked between Hall of Famers Joe Medwick (2471) and Frank Thomas (2468), and his 1476 walks, 20th all-time, are one more than fellow right fielder Gary Sheffield's. He ranks 25th in doubles, tied with Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer (another unsung superstar). Abreu's 1363 runs batted in rank 89th, and his 1453 runs scored rank 82nd as he generated a 129 wRC+. In addition, he stole an even 400 bases, 74th all-time.
Bobby Abreu was the only first-time candidate on the 2020 ballot to reach the five-percent minimum needed to remain on the Hall of Fame ballot. He deserves to receive a substantial increase on this ballot to establish his presence and to keep voters examining his legitimate case for the Hall of Fame.
6. Curt Schilling (Ninth year on ballot)
Reaching the 70-percent threshold on the 2020 ballot, Curt Schilling seems poised to enter the Hall of Fame on this ballot, and he is likely to be the only candidate to do so. Way back in 2010, I identified Schilling as one of five tough-sell Hall of Famers along with fellow starting pitcher Mike Mussina. During their time together on the ballot, Mussina, who became eligible in 2014, one year after Schilling, also seemed to be just a step behind Schilling in voting percentages.
But then Mussina pulled ahead in yearly voting until he nosed past the 75-percent threshold in 2019, his sixth year on the ballot, as Schilling polled nearly 61 percent of the vote that year. By that point, Schilling had generated firestorms of controversy for his social-media presence and had been suspended by, then fired from, ESPN by 2016. Schilling's outspoken views, known during his playing days, assumed greater notoriety in his post-playing days.
Curt Schilling's strident right-wing political views couldn't be further from my own. That has nothing to do with the Hall of Fame-caliber playing ability he demonstrated on the baseball diamond—and it should have nothing to do with evaluating his worthiness for the Hall of Fame, especially as his latter-day controversies occurred after he stopped playing.
Like the candidate he supported, Curt Schilling has ballot woes. Unlike Donald Trump's, however, Schilling's voting troubles are legitimate. He deserves to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Even though Curt Schilling seemed likely to be voted into the Hall of Fame on this ballot, I would vote for him just to help ensure he does get in—particularly since his polling just prior to the January 26, 2021, Hall of Fame announcement is not encouraging. True, he is right at the threshold based on ballots already revealed publicly (although not yet officially recorded and vetted), but past pre-tracking has shown that those results tend to be notaby higher than the official tally.
As with the PED pariahs—and Schilling has never been associated with PED—what matters is his contribution to baseball history with its warts and all. In terms of wins and strikeouts, Schilling has roughly the same record as Pedro Martinez, elected in his first year of eligibility in 2015, and Schilling is one of the greatest big-game pitchers in baseball history (with the bloody sock to prove it). What has taken so long for him to be inducted? And will he still be waiting after the 2021 ballot results are released?
5. Roger Clemens (Ninth year on ballot)
Perhaps the biggest boon Roger Clemens can expect is that after next year, he, along with Barry Bonds, will no longer be the poster boy for PED as Álex Rodríguez assumes that ignominious label. Far too much verbiage has been expended on Clemens, his career, his involvement with PED, and I've contributed to a good deal of it myself. He has appeared on all of my hypothetical ballots so far, and I'm not going to stop that now.
4. Barry Bonds (Ninth year on ballot)
See: Roger Clemens.
3. Scott Rolen (Fourth year on ballot)
I was bullish on Scott Rolen in 2017, before he was first eligible for the Hall of Fame, and I still am. The good news is that the slugging, slick-fielding third baseman with the low profile but impressive statistics is starting to make inroads on the Hall of Fame ballot. I want to keep that going until no one has to vote for him anymore because he has been elected to Cooperstown.
2. Billy Wagner (Sixth year on ballot)
As with Scott Rolen, I considered Billy Wagner to be Hall of Fame-worthy back in 2014, before he was even eligible for the Hall of Fame, although I was not optimistic about his chances to be elected. Happy to be proved wrong, but still anxious as he moves into the decline phase of his ballot tenure, I would make ticking his box on the ballot a priority to ensure he continues to build his groundswell of support.
1. Jeff Kent (Eighth year on ballot)
Is Jeff Kent the Alan Trammell of the current BBWAA ballot? Perhaps. Unlike the Detroit Tigers shortstop who toiled in relative anonymity as he delivered consistent greatness year after year, only to languish on the BBWAA ballot until the veterans committee voted him in, Kent enjoyed some visibility as he was the National League Most Valuable Player in 2000 despite not only playing in the same league as Barry Bonds, but even playing on the same team. (Bonds went on to win the NL MVP Award for the next four years.)
Like Curt Schilling, I identified the hard-slugging second baseman as a tough-sell Hall of Famer back in 2010. Like Schilling, Kent has never been Mr. Congeniality, and although he has publicly expressed similar right-wing views as has Schilling, he has avoided Schilling's long-standing notoriety even as the candidates' post-playing-career views should have no bearing on their candidacy for the Hall of Fame.
Admittedly, Kent is a borderline Hall of Famer. Ranked 21st by JAWS, Kent is just ahead of Bobby Doerr and Nellie Fox among Hall of Fame second baseman, with marginal inductees Tony Lazzeri, Red Schoendienst, and Bill Mazeroski further down the list. Defensively, Kent's minus-three total fielding runs above average and minus-52 defensive runs saved—albeit only tabulated from his 2003 season on, when he was already in his age-35 year—mark him as a league-average second baseman. However, Kent did start 1986 games at second base, including 114 starts in 2008, his final season at age 40.
Offensively, though, Kent is the all-time leader among second baseman with 377 home runs, with only Robinson Cano's 334 long balls his only threat—and with Cano sitting out the 2021 season, his age-38 year, because of his second PED suspension, Kent's record might still hold even if Cano returns to baseball in 2022. Among second baseman all-time, Kent ranks third in runs batted in (1518), fifth in doubles (560) and in slugging percentage (.500), 13th in hits (2461), and 22nd in OPS+ (123).
Jeff Kent gets a knock that might go for naught. The slugging second baseman didn't struggle at the plate--but he is struggling to convince voters to elect him to the Hall of Fame.
Time is short for Jeff Kent on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot. After seven ballots, he has just cracked the twenty-percent mark, similar to Trammell's performance a few years back. Kent needs to make Larry Walker-like leaps in his last three appearances on the ballot. My hypothetical vote for this underrated but deserving Hall of Famer would contribute to that.
Last At-Bats
In what promises to be a quiet year for the Hall of Fame, Curt Schilling is the most likely candidate to be elected—and even he might not make it, meaning that BBWAA voters might deliver a ballot shutout for the second time since 2013.
There is a wealth of Hall of Fame-worthy candidates on the 2021 ballot, and they will have their ticket punched for Cooperstown in time. But now would be an ideal time for that to happen—because the 2022 ballot, marking the debut of David Ortiz and Álex Rodríguez, promises to be anything but quiet.
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