I have to begin here by making a very fundamental admission. To a large extent, the way that I have always looked at the Hall of Fame debate no longer works, or no longer can be expected to work.
The way that I have always analyzed who is likely to go into the Hall of Fame is to assume that Hall of Fame selections in the future will follow the patterns of selections in the past. My first effort along these lines, published sometime in the late 1970s, was something called the Hall of Fame monitor. Each accomplishment has a certain “weight” toward putting the player in the Hall of Fame. The player gets five points for 200 hits in a season, three points for driving in 100 runs, etc.; if you get over 100 points in your career you are likely to go into the Hall of Fame. The system was so structured that it worked for players from the past, thus could be presumed to work for players of the future.
Later, when I developed similarity scores, I would study whether a player was likely to be a Hall of Famer by looking for similar players from the past. In the 1990s I developed the Hall of Fame Career Standards test, which was a way of estimating how many Hall of Fame standards a player met based on his career totals. About 2000, when I developed Win Shares, I tried to match Hall of Fame selection to career Win Shares, and after that, when I developed the system of Season Scores, I tried to use Season Scores to retroactively “predict” Hall of Fame selections. All of these are manifestations of a common approach to the problem.
On a certain fundamental level this approach either
a) no longer works, or
b) never actually worked, or
c) will need to be radically re-calibrated.
I am not concerned here with the inflation of batting numbers that began in the early 1990s; that’s a fairly trivial problem, and it’s pretty easy to adjust it out of existence. I am not talking, either, about the Hall of Fame’s restructuring of the Veterans’ Committee; the Hall of Fame, after all, has changed its rules one way or another every few years since they opened their doors. Check that; history shows that they actually started changing their rules before they opened the doors. Whatever the Hall of Fame does in one decade, they will undo two decades later, or at least they always have.
What I am talking about here is a much more fundamental change.
Expansion.
In 1960 there were sixteen major league teams. Now there are nearly twice as many. When you have twice as many teams, you have twice as many players hitting .300, twice as many players driving in 100 runs, twice as many players getting to 3,000 hits, twice as many players hitting 500 homers, twice as many 20-game winners, twice as many pitchers striking out 3,000 batters, twice as many pitchers winning 300 games. Maybe it is more than 2X in some of those categories, because of other changes in the game, and less than 2X in others. Fundamentally, it’s twice as many.
That means that, when you compare the records of the retiring players to the records of players retiring years earlier, you have twice as many players meeting Hall of Fame standards, or what have traditionally been Hall of Fame standards.
Well, what do we do about that?
What we could is to start inducting twice as many players into the Hall of Fame. That could happen. As I’ve said, the Hall of Fame changes its induction procedures pretty much on a regular schedule, and they could re-constitute their selection procedures so that the turnstiles click twice as fast.
But I don’t think that will happen. It won’t happen, because the fact is, most people never liked the old standards anyway.
The real standards for Hall of Fame election—the de facto standards—have always been much, much more liberal than the public thought they were or wanted them to be. People have always had the idea that the standard for selection to the Hall of Fame was Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle. In reality, almost from the day the institution was built, the real standard was more like Johnny Damon or Bernie Williams. Richie Ashburn is in the Hall of Fame, Larry Doby, Earle Combs, Earl Averill, Kiki Cuyler, Edd Rousch and Lloyd Waner. Those guys are much closer to Johnny Damon, Bernie Williams and Steve Finley than they are to Willie, Mickey and the Clipper.
In order to carry the same standard forward, the Hall of Fame would have to start inducting twice as many people, or its not going to get around to Damon and Bernie. My opinion is that there will not be sufficient pressure to open the doors wider, because
1) Most of the public doesn’t really understand what the historic standard has been, and
2) Those people who do understand it by and large don’t like it.
Absent a massive adjustment by the selection process, which I don’t think will happen, there is going to be a very significant shift in the standards for selection to the Hall of Fame. There’s a new sheriff in Cooperstown. Most sportswriters will interpret that shift as resulting from the inflated scoring numbers of the modern era, but that’s really not what is causing it; it’s actually expansion.
Baseball began expanding in 1961. This is 2008?
Yes, but it’s a change with a very, very long fuse. Albert Pujols has been in the majors for seven years. It will probably be another twenty years before he goes into the Hall of Fame. The change results from the systematic re-shaping of the candidate pool over time. The first expansion, in 1961-1962, probably didn’t begin to measurably re-shape the candidate pool until the mid-1980s, and the first expansion was just four teams, from 16 to 20. The real effects of expansion on the Hall of Fame candidates didn’t hit until about the year 2000. I was slow to pick up on it. I could have realized that this change was coming in the 1970s, should have realized when I wrote a book about the Hall of Fame in the 1990s, but I was kind of in denial about this issue, perhaps wanting to believe that my approach would continue to work. I am now facing the fact that it won’t.
OK, well. .who will get into the Hall of Fame, then? What standard do we use?
To an extent, my old work remains valid, in the sense that the same things that impressed Hall of Fame voters in the past will probably impress them in the future, albeit at a different level. Beyond that I don’t really know, honestly, but for purposes of this article I’m going to use the standard of “two or three players per year.” Let’s assume that the Hall of Fame in the future will induct two or three players per year. That means that there is room for two or three players from each year of birth—five in one year, none in the next, but two or three on average. The standard I will use in this article, to try to figure out which active players have a chance to go into the Hall of Fame, is “is this player one of the two or three best-qualified players from a typical birth year?” We can also use the old tools—similarity scores, the Hall of Fame monitor, the Hall of Fame standards—but we just have to remember: those tools implicitly assume that the future will resemble the past, and that’s probably not exactly true.
Sorry for the long preamble. This, then, is my take on the Hall of Fame prospects of players active in 2007. I’ll estimate each player’s chance of going into the Hall of Fame:
a) If he retired today (present accomplishments), and
b) Eventually, based on a projection of what he might accomplish.
Bobby Abreu (0% present, 20% eventual)
Only 34, but his game has slipped steadily for several years, and he certainly doesn’t have Hall of Fame credentials yet.
Moises Alou (10% present, 15% eventual)
He now has the best career totals of the Alou family, none of whom are Hall of Famers but several of whom have been fine players. Career numbers are comparable to Edgar Martinez, Ellis Burks and Reggie Smith.
Garret Anderson (2% present, 25% eventual)
Anderson can still hit, and it is not impossible, if he can stay healthy, for him to make a run at 3,000 career hits.
Jason Bay (0% present, 10% eventual)
Erik Bedard (0% present, 5% eventual)
With only 40 career wins he is far behind the best pitchers of the same age, but if he stays healthy he will soon be universally recognized as one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Josh Beckett (0% present, 33% eventual)
Four of the best starting pitchers of 2007—Sabathia, Beckett, Peavy and Zambrano—are all near the same age, all born in 1980 or 1981. All won 18 to 20 games in 2007, and all have comparable career won-lost records, although Sabathia is maybe one year ahead. All are big men except Peavy, and all four are power pitchers, with 177 to 240 strikeouts each in 2007.
Whereas there were very few top-rank pitchers born in the years 1970-75, there were a large number born in the years 1977-1982, including Oswalt, Buerhle, Santana, these four men and others.
Among those four, history suggests that one or two will continue to be dominant pitchers and rivals for pre-eminence until they are 40 and beyond, like Clemens, Maddux and Randy Johnson, while two or three are likely to drop out of the chase due to injuries, as did Dwight Gooden, Bret Saberhagen and David Cone, who were in the same age range as Clemens and Randy Johnson. There probably is no reliable way of predicting which will hang in and which will drop out, and thus we should probably assess all of their Hall of Fame chances as being about the same.
Beckett, with his four post-season wins in 2007 and World Series heroics of 2003, is ahead of the others in what could be called Building His Legend, and Legen Building is certainly important in a Hall of Fame career; that’s why Don Drysdale is in the Hall of Fame and Billy Pierce is not, Catfish Hunter is in and Bert Blyleven is not. Still, it will be nearly 20 years until any of these men will be inducted into anything, and it’s hard to know how that stuff will play out over time.
Lance Berkman (Present 0%, Eventual 35%)
Through age 31 he has 259 homers, 855 RBI, a .300 career average. He is very unlikely to wind up a career .300 hitter, since batting averages almost always fade as a player ages. The 259 homers, 855 RBI are numbers already similar to some Hall of Famers (Larry Doby, Hack Wilson, Roy Campanella, Bobby Doerr) but that’s not really relevant because those players had things to sell that Berkman doesn’t.
Doing research here because I don’t really know what to think otherwise. . .There are 96 players in history who had 200 to 300 home runs through age 31. Fifteen of those are players who are in the Hall of Fame now and several more are players who will be, but that has the same problem. Berkman is not really similar to Stan Musial and Ryne Sandberg. Let’s trim the list to players who had averages at that time between .290 and .310.
That leaves us 21 players, but ten of them are active or recently retired. The other 11 are, chronologically, Wally Berger, Hal Trosky, Ted Kluszewski, Yogi Berra, Al Kaline, Billy Williams, Vada Pinson, Carl Yastrzemski, Joe Torre, Dick Allen and Will Clark.
Berra, Kaline, Williams and Yastrzemski are in the Hall of Fame. Berra is obviously not relevant because he’s a catcher and a three-time MVP. Kaline and Yastrzemski got to 3,000 hits, but Kaline was 800 hits ahead of Berkman at the same age, Yastrzemski 550 ahead. Billy Williams was 400 hits ahead of Berkman, plus Williams was different in that his “up to age 31” stats were compiled in the run-starved 1960s; his best statistical seasons, 1970 and 1972, were still ahead of him.
Essentially, it seems unlikely that Berkman will make the Hall of Fame, based on players who had comparable stats at the same age. He seems most comparable to Berger and Kluszewski, within this group, and to Kent Hrbek, Del Ennis, George Foster, Jim Rice, Albert Belle and Rocky Colavito outside this group. But. ..he’s a big-time hitter, and if he ages well he clearly has a shot.
Carlos Beltran (0% present, 70% eventual)
Through age 30 he has seven 100-RBI seasons, and he is no more an RBI man than he is everything else. . .a base stealer, a center fielder, a player who gets on base and scores runs. I would guess that his Hall of Fame chances were measurably impacted by the Mets’ collapse in 2007. He needs championships to be seen as a winner.
But he is
1) an exceptionally well-rounded player, and
2) unnaturally graceful.
I would bet, based on those things, that he will age well—that he will be essentially the same player three or four years from now that he is now. He may have ten years left to win a World Championship, and, with Reyes and Wright, he’s got a lot of help.
Adrian Beltre (0% present, 10%)
His early start gives him the opportunity to pile up big bulk numbers by the time he is through. His Gold Glove last year was deserved, albeit probably not last year; he deserved it several years earlier, but it takes time for the voters to latch onto those things. He has Hall of Fame ability, and has only wasted about half of it so far.
Craig Biggio (98% present, 98% eventual)
Barry Bonds (85% present, 85% eventual)
No one was ever a more certain Hall of Famer than Pete Rose, who
a) broke the all-time record for hits, and
b) was more beloved by sportswriters, before his fall, than any other athlete of the late twentieth century.
He was a lock for the Hall, but the lock popped open. We can’t question Barry Bonds’ accomplishments; he has been the greatest player in baseball since Babe Ruth. He is also the residue and expression of the game’s illness. No one really knows how that will shake out within the next few years, and, until we know, I think it is an open question whether Bonds will be accepted into the Hall of Fame fraternity, or whether a significant number of people will refuse to vote for him because they regard him as a cheater and a disgrace.
Mark Buehrle (0% present, 10% eventual)
A plodder, he has plodded along to 100+ wins already, and he won’t be 30 years old until 2009. His credentials include a no-hitter, a 19-win season and a World Championship. He needs a lot more.
Miguel Cabrera (0% present, 40% eventual)
The 40% is a conservative. Certainly, more than 40% of players who accomplish what Cabrera has accomplished through age 24 are eventually Hall of Famers. I’m just trying to avoid getting carried away.
Orlando Cabrera (0% present, 5% eventual)
33 years old but aging well, he is coming off his first .300 season, his first 100 runs scored season, and a career high in hits, 192. He was very good in 2006. He has a cheering section in the media, and if the White Sox have a big comeback season he’ll get a lot of the credit for it.
Chris Carpenter (0% present, 1% eventual)
Would require a complete comeback and a sustained sequence of outstanding seasons.
Eric Chavez (0% present, 5% eventual)
Looked great a couple of years ago, but the back trouble has really shot him down.
Roger Clemens (99% present, 99% eventual)
I think Clemens is the greatest pitcher who ever lived. There may not be a consensus for that, but there doesn’t need to be.
Bartolo Colon (0% present, 4% eventual)
Jason Schmidt and Bartolo Colon have had the best careers among the pitchers who will be 35 years old in 2008 (1. Colon, 2. Schmidt, 3. Armando Benitez, 4. Derek Lowe, 5. Jason Isringhausen.) There doesn’t appear to be a Hall of Famer in the group—but they certainly look like Hall of Famers if you compare them to the pitchers who will 34 years old in 2008. 1. Octavio Dotel, 2. Russ Ortiz, 3. Bobby Howry, 4. Justin Speier, 5. John Thompson.
Carl Crawford (0% present, 20% eventual)
Simply noting that he has ability.
Johnny Damon (2% present, 30% eventual)
Damon lost his streak of consecutive 100-run seasons last year due to an early-season injury, but he played extremely well the second half, and remains a strong candidate to make a run at 3,000 career hits.
Carlos Delgado (5% present, 30% eventual)
He is not the player he once was, but these kind of players often have a late-in-life comeback season, as McCovey did in ’77, Stargell in ’79, Frank Thomas in 2006. If the comeback is big enough he could ride it out to 550 homers or thereabouts. He was an impact player for many years.
Jermaine Dye (0% present, 1% eventual)
Too much up and down time.
Adam Dunn (0% present, 2% eventual)
Could be the first player to hit 600 home runs and not be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Jim Edmonds (10% present, 15% eventual)
The Freddy Lynn of the steroid age. . .a truly great player, but time has run out on him before he got the numbers where they needed to be.
Kelvim Escobar (0% present, 2% eventual)
I have always liked Kelvim Escobar, and I have always felt that he was going to break through to a higher level of performance. He finally did break through in 2007 (18-7), and, if he sustains that level of performance, could conceivably emerge as a Hall of Fame candidate.
Steve Finley (20% present, 20% eventual)
Let’s see. . .Finley has 2500 career hits, 300 home runs. . is there anybody who has that combination and has been left out of the Hall of Fame?
Andre Dawson, Harold Baines, Dave Parker, plus some guys who are active or recently retired.
He also has 300 steals. . .let’s add that in.
2500 hits, 300 homers and 300 steals turns out to be a class of four men: Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Steve Finley and Andre Dawson. Only one of the four is in the Hall of Fame as of now, so. ..that doesn’t seem to create a case for him.
He has some impressive career totals, but I don’t see Finley as a Hall of Famer. His career on-base percentage is just .332, his slugging percentage just .442—essentially the same numbers as Troy O’Leary (.332/.448), Casey Blake (.332/.444), Sean Berry (.334/.445), Rich Aurilia (.330/.439), Ivan Calderon (.333/.442) and Jay Payton (.325/.432). He never led the league in anything except triples and games played, and, interestingly enough, never hit .300--.298 and .297, but not .300. His career is unusual, but not great.
Julio Franco (25% present, 25% eventual)
With 2,586 career hits and a very unique identity, he would have been a strong Hall of Fame candidate before expansion expanded the candidate pool. I doubt that he will qualify in the Brave New World.
Rafael Furcal (0% present, 1% eventual)
Eric Gagne (0% present, 3% eventual)
Had some monster seasons before his injury, but not nearly enough at this point.
Freddy Garcia (0% present, 1% eventual)
Would have to have a complete comeback and at least six-seven years of sustained performance.
Nomar Garciaparra (5% present, 15% eventual)
Troy Glaus (0% present, 3% eventual)
Birthdays are unkind to .250 hitters.
Tom Glavine (99% present, 99% eventual)
Jason Giambi (20% present, 35% eventual)
Comparing Jason Giambi to Jim Thome. .. .very similar players, same age, but Thome is far ahead in “counting stats”, based on playing time, and slightly ahead in “production stats”, relative to playing time.
People always think that playing in New York helps you win the MVP Award or the Cy Young, but actually, if you study the issue, it is very clear that there is no such benefit. The BBWAA balances the ballots so that each city is fairly represented, and, if anything, playing in New York hurts you a little bit in MVP voting. But the Hall of Fame ballots aren’t balanced, and playing in New York does help you in Hall of Fame voting.
Brian Giles (1% present, 10% eventual)
I’d compare him to Jim Edmonds, as a Hall of Fame candidate. .a wonderful player, but time is running out on him and the numbers just aren’t where they need to be.
Luis Gonzalez (20% present, 20% eventual)
See comments on Steve Finley. Gonzalez is a little better hitter than Finley, but represents essentially the same problem.
Tom Gordon (1% present, 1% eventual)
A memorable career and a memorable player, but not enough high-impact seasons to make a Hall of Famer.
Shawn Green (0% present, 4% eventual)
Would need an exceptional comeback.
Ken Griffey Jr. (99% present, 99% eventual)
Vladimir Guerrero (70% present, 95% eventual)
Travis Hafner (0% present, 5% eventual)
His late start and narrow base of skills make an unpromising foundation for a Hall of Fame career. Jim Thome has overcome those things to forge a good run, but the margin for error is slim.
Roy Halladay (0% present, 25% eventual)
The only issue with Halladay is health. He’s a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher; he just needs to stay healthy for several more seasons, and it doesn’t seem likely that he will.
Aaron Harang (0% present, 7% eventual)
Among the best pitchers in baseball the last two years, but would have to replicate that at least ten more times.
Todd Helton (25%, 70% eventual)
Hasn’t driven in 100 runs in four years, hasn’t scored 100 the last three. A player as good as Helton was at his peak is almost always a Hall of Famer, and it’s not like Helton is a cripple. He led the National League in on-base percentage in 2007. He is a tough out in the middle of one of the best lineups in baseball, incessantly fouling off the pitches he used to drive into the gap. The humidor has emphasized his real and rather hasty decline, but his .332 career batting average. .. .let’s say it fades to .325 before he retires. . might be enough to get him into the Hall of Fame short of 400 homers and short of 2500 hits.
Orlando Hernandez (5% present, 5% eventual)
El Duque has no chance to go into the Hall of Fame based on the way that people think about his career now, but could emerge as a candidate if there is a minor paradigm shift. At the time that Satchel Paige left the majors in 1953, based on his career won-lost record of 28-31, most people would have assumed that there was absolutely no chance that he would ever be in the Hall of Fame. As time passed the way that people thought about the Negro Leagues changed, and Satchel went into the Hall of Fame in 1971. El Duque could emerge as a Hall of Fame candidate if there is a similar change in the way that people think about his Cuban career and/or his dramatic life story.
Roberto Hernandez (1% present, 1% eventual)
With 1000 career appearances and 326 saves he has had a distinguished career.
Trevor Hoffman (75% present, 85% eventual)
He holds the career record for saves, and he may well hold it for several years, in that Mariano is just two years younger and 81 saves behind. I also think that 500 Saves is likely to emerge as a magic-number standard for Hall of Fame selection.
Ryan Howard (0% present, 25% eventual)
A late start and a big swing may prevent him from hitting 600 career homers, and I wouldn't think he would be a Hall of Famer unless he does.
Matt Holliday (0% present, 35% eventual)
I thought he would win the MVP Award. Perhaps I was influenced by the Colorado scoreboards flashing “MVP! MVP! MVP!” every time he did anything during the World Series. He has had two straight MVP-candidate seasons, anyway, and if he can keep doing that, that’s what makes a Hall of Famer.
Tim Hudson (0% present, 18% eventual)
With 135 career wins through age 31, Hudson certainly is ahead of the pace of innumerable Hall of Fame pitchers. He’s 135-70; Whitey Ford was 133-59, Bob Gibson was 125-88, and several Hall of Famers really were just hitting their stride at that age. Warren Spahn was 122-91.
Hudson has been in the majors for nine years and has nine straight winning seasons with double-figure wins. It’s an impressive resume, but he has a 1-3 record in post-season play, no Cy Young Awards and no seasons of Cy Young caliber. Absent a breakthrough in one of those categories, the only way he gets into the Hall of Fame is to win 280+ games, and that would be expecting a lot from here.
Raul Ibanez (0% present, 1% eventual)
Started too late.
Derek Jeter (95% present, 99% eventual)
Randy Johnson (98% present, 99% eventual)
Chipper Jones (40% present, 85% eventual)
Most of the star players Chipper’s age—Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Delgado, Garret Anderson—most of them are fading. Chipper’s OPS over the last four seasons reads .847, .968, 1.005, 1.029. This, combined with his notably improved defense last year, suggests that Jones is not fading fast, and, at 36, he has some time left to pass the markers that would represent certain selection.
Andruw Jones (0% present, 40% eventual)
Andruw is five years younger than Chipper, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at their batting records. If Andruw in 2007 had duplicated his 2005 season, when he hit 51 homers, that “40%” above would read “75%”. Perhaps I’m over-reacting to his subpar 2007, but Hall of Famers shouldn’t be hitting .222 in a walk year in the middle of their careers.
Scott Kazmir (0% present, 8% eventual)
Could be the next Randy Johnson—or the next Mark Prior.
Jeff Kent (50% present, 50% eventual)
In some ways Kent is similar to Steve Finley and Luis Gonzalez—a player who has met some standards that are historically indicative of a second-tier Hall of Famer, but has done this kind of by hanging around and piling up numbers, not really impressing anybody. He is different from Finley and Gonzalez in that
a) he is a middle infielder, and
b) he did win an MVP Award.
The sportswriters don’t really like him, but I doubt that that is much of a factor. If the sportswriters like you it can put you over the top in Hall of Fame voting, but if they actively dislike you it doesn’t really influence the voting; they elect people all the time that they actively disliked.
If I were voting, I think I would have to vote for a middle infielder who has great consistency and drives in 100 runs a year. But I think it’s a very close case, and I can easily see it going either way.
John Lackey (0% present, 6% eventual)
A competent professional pitcher, he has five winning seasons in six years, and appears to be getting better.
Carlos Lee (0% present, 10% eventual)
Derek Lee (0% present, 10% eventual)
Kenny Lofton (1% present, 8% eventual)
Lofton in many ways is an amazing player. He’ll be 41 in May, but he must be the youngest 41-year-old since. . .I don’t know, Davey Lopes maybe. He’s four years away from 3,000 hits, and obviously you have to bet against him, but don’t put your house on it.
Mike Lowell (0% present, 2% eventual)
Lowell played like a Hall of Famer in 2007, and it’s not the first time he has done this; he has had 100-RBI seasons periodically since 2001, and hit 32 homers to help the Marlins win the World Championship in 2003. It’s a long shot that he would sustain this more than another year or two.
Greg Maddux (99% present, 99% eventual)
Pedro Martinez (80% present, 90% eventual)
I would think that his combination of 200+ career wins, with a series of brilliant seasons, would be easily enough to make him a Hall of Famer.
Victor Martinez (0% present, 35% eventual)
Long praised as a great-hitting catcher whose defense needed work, he has done the work and improved his D. He’s probably more comparable to Ted Simmons than to any other player in history. Simmons pulled up short of the Hall of Fame, but
a) it’s not clear that that’s a fair judgment about Simmons, and
b) even if it is, it’s not clear that the same will happen to Martinez.
Hideki Matsui (0% present, 1% eventual)
Joe Mauer (0% present, 15% eventual)
Kevin Millwood (0% present, 2% eventual)
It would take a near-miraculous turn in his career, but he does have 133 career wins as a platform for what he will do in the future.
Justin Morneau (0% present, 25% eventual)
A relevant fact is that, while MVP voting is very friendly to slugging first basemen and RBI men, Hall of Fame voting is not. Hall of Fame voting is much more friendly to high batting averages, speed and defense. Few RBI men have been elected to the Hall of Fame with marginal credentials, while many have been left out—Jim Rice, Joe Torre, Gil Hodges, Ted Kluszewski, Rocky Colavito, Babe Herman, Dolph Camilli, Sherry Magee, most recently Mark McGwire, although we don’t know whether that’s going to stick.
Matt Morris (0% present, 1% eventual)
Jamie Moyer (8% present, 13% eventual)
With 230 career wins you certainly have to respect what he has accomplished, and he is still producing. There are less-qualified pitchers in the Hall of Fame.
Mark Mulder (0% present, 1% eventual)
You never know who might come back strong from an injury.
Mike Mussina (70% present, 80% eventual)
Mussina’s career won-lost record, 250-144, is comparable to the final records of Bob Gibson (251-174), Juan Marichal (243-142), Iron Man McGinnity (246-142) and Bob Feller (266-162).
There are 23 pitchers in history who
a) have 220 wins, and
b) are 100 games over .500.
Five of those are still active—Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine and Mussina. The other 18 are in the Hall of Fame.
Joe Nathan (0% present, 2% eventual)
It is hard to see that there were any Hall of Fame pitchers born between Pedro Martinez (October, 1971) and Tim Hudson (July, 1975). However, Nathan is one of the few pitchers in that age range who is regularly clocking in with impressive seasons.
Magglio Ordonez (0% present, 30% eventual)
Digressing for a moment. . .I see absolutely nothing remarkable in the two MVP votes for Magglio Ordonez, and I think the sportswriters/TV commentators who jumped on the Detroit writers for voting for Ordonez were showing a remarkable level of intolerance. Yes, A-Rod had a fantastic season, but Ordonez’ season is. .. well, Al Kaline was the same kind of hitter, and Kaline never came close to those numbers: 139 RBI, .363 average, 54 doubles and 28 homers. It is well above the standard of your average MVP season.
Yes, A-Rod created more runs than Ordonez, but not that many more (159 to 146). Since when did a 13-run separation in offensive performance become a prohibitive barrier to sportswriters taking a broader view of the issue? David Ortiz created 11 to 27 more runs than Justin Morneau in 2006, depending on how you figure runs created, yet Morneau won the MVP Award. That’s alright; we didn’t complain about it. I didn’t hear anybody complain about it. I’m more puzzled that Ordonez didn’t receive more MVP support than I am that his hometown sportswriters would vote for him.
David Ortiz (10% present, 51% eventual)
Roy Oswalt (0% present, 15% eventual)
Oswalt turned 30 last August. His career in his twenties was very impressive—a winning record every year, a couple of 20-win seasons, 112-54 career record. He is among the five best starting pitchers in baseball.
Certainly this is a solid foundation for a Hall of Fame run, but it’s not Hall of Fame performance in and of itself. It’s not Randy Johnson/Greg Maddux/Roger Clemens/ Pedro Martinez/Johan Santana type stuff. Like Tim Hudson, he will need to continue to win for a long, long time in order to emerge as someone that people think of as a Hall of Famer.
Jonathon Papelbon (0% present, 7% eventual)
Like Chien-Ming Wang and J. J. Putz, he has two great seasons, and it is hard to extrapolate two super seasons into a Hall of Fame career.
Jake Peavy (0% present, 32% eventual)
Brad Penny (0% present, 5% eventual)
We haven’t seen a Hall of Famer here yet, but he’s a top flight pitcher.
Andy Pettitte (1% present, 40% eventual)
Andy Pettitte’s career record (201-113) is much better than many Hall of Famers at the same age (Bob Lemon, 201-116, Early Wynn, 201-161, Eppa Rixey, 201-182, Herb Pennock, 200-140, Gaylord Perry 198-157, Stan Coveleski 194-129, Jim Bunning 192-133, Rube Marquard 187-153, Ted Lyons 186-178, Red Faber 174-122, Randy Johnson 160-88. Many left out; strings on down to Phil Niekro, 130-107, and Dazzy Vance, 95-56.) At this writing he is talking about retiring, but if he stays in the game and continues to win he could certainly emerge as a Hall of Fame candidate or even a 300-win candidate.
Mike Piazza (85% present, 85% eventual)
The best-hitting, worst-throwing catcher of all time.
Jorge Posada (25% present, 55% eventual)
I think of Posada as a Hall of Fame player. In my view, he has meant as much to the Yankees over the years as Mariano. He doesn’t really have Hall of Fame numbers, and unless his arm comes back, his days behind the plate may be numbered. But he’s lost nothing so far as a hitter, it’s hard to say for sure what Hall of Fame numbers are for a catcher, and he is certainly a player who has made a huge impact on a large number of pennant races.
Albert Pujols (0% present, 95% eventual)
J. J. Putz (0% present, 3% eventual)
Impressive, but started late.
Manny Ramirez (50% present, 80% eventual)
In a sense, Manny lost his best Hall of Fame argument last year, as his streak of consecutive 100-RBI seasons ended at nine (eleven total). These are the players with the longest streaks of consecutive 100-RBI seasons:
Jimmie Foxx, 1929-1941 13
Lou Gehrig, 1926-1938 13
Al Simmons, 1924-1934 11
Alex Rodriguez, 1998-2007 10
Albert Belle, 1992-2000 9
Manny Ramirez, 1998-2006 9
Rafael Palmeiro, 1995-2003 9
Sammy Sosa, 1995-2003 9
Babe Ruth, 1926-1933 8
Chipper Jones, 1996-2003 8
Frank Thomas, 1991-1998 8
Mel Ott, 1929-1936 8
Ted Williams, 1939-1949 8
Willie Mays, 1959-1966 8
Ten or twelve consecutive 100-RBI seasons might have taken the issue out of play, whereas nine leaves him even with a couple of guys (Albert Belle and Rafael Palmeiro) who may struggle to achieve immortality.
Edgar Renteria (0% present, 35% eventual)
Extremely well positioned to make a run at 3,000 career hits.
Jose Reyes (0% present, 30% eventual)
Mariano Rivera (98% present, 98% eventual)
I don’t have any doubt that Mariano is a Hall of Famer, based on his post-season performance and his long series of outstanding seasons.
Alex Rodriguez (99% present, 99% eventual)
Francisco Rodriguez (0% present, 15% eventual)
Ivan Rodriguez (98% present, 98% eventual)
Kenny Rogers (4% present, 5% eventual)
His career won-lost record is comparable to Don Drysdale, Stan Coveleski, Jesse Haines, Rube Marquard and Hal Newhouser, who are in the Hall of Fame. But with no 20-win seasons and few star-type accomplishments, I don’t see it happening.
Scott Rolen (0% present, 1% eventual)
At his best, he was a candidate.
Jimmy Rollins (0% present, 50% eventual)
The 2008 MVP Award certainly enters his name in the Hall of Fame sweepstakes. At this point he is more of the level of Dick Groat/Zoilo Versalles/Barry Larkin than on the level of Ripken, Yount and Joe Morgan.
C. C. Sabathia (0% present, 35% eventual)
Sabathia turned 27 last July, which means that he is considered to be 26 years old for the 2007 season by the conventions of statistical analysis. As such, he is the first pitcher to win 100 games by age 26 since Doc Gooden in 1991. But on the other hand, the last seven pitchers to win 100 games by age 26 were
Dwight Gooden 1991
Fernando Valenzuela 1987
Frank Tanana 1980
Don Gullett 1977
Bert Blyleven 1977
Vida Blue 1976
Joe Coleman Jr. 1973
None of whom is in the Hall of Fame yet.
Freddy Sanchez (0% present, 1% eventual)
Probably started too late, probably doesn’t do enough different things.
Johan Santana (0% present, 45% eventual)
Taking in all phases of his performance, rather than just career wins, Santana has had the best career of any pitcher in baseball under the age of 30, and I doubt that his 2007 “downturn” was meaningful. Beyond any question Santana is on a Hall of Fame glide path; it’s simply a question of whether he can sustain altitude long enough to reach the target. With a 93-44 career record he is probably ahead of 60% of the Hall of Famers of the last 50 years. But on the other hand, Mike Hampton at the same age was 99-66, Freddy Garcia 99-62, Mark Mulder was 103-57, Bret Saberhagen 113-83, Jim Maloney 122-75. More pitchers get hurt than stay healthy.
Jason Schmidt (0% present, 3% eventual)
See comment on Bartolo Colon.
Curt Schilling (60% present, 65% eventual)
See comment on John Smoltz.
Richie Sexson (0% present, 1% eventual)
Not “no”, but “hell no”.
Ben Sheets (0% present, 3% eventual)
Health is a major issue, and his career record is 73-74. But he’s pretty good, the Brewers are putting a team around him that could well push them into future World Series, and there have been several Hall of Fame pitchers who were under .500 at his age.
Gary Sheffield (70% present, 80% eventual)
I hate to admit this, but for the first fifteen years of Gary Sheffield’s career I had absolutely no understanding of him as a player. I thought he was like Jose Canseco or Greg Vaughn or Juan Gonzalez or somebody. .. a guy who put up big numbers sometimes and had a visual image because of that weird stuff he does with the bat, but was kind of unreliable and inattentive to the other parts of the game.
When Sheffield came to the Yankees in 2004, and I started watching him as one watches the Yankees if you’re rooting for the Red Sox, I was just amazed; I was never more wrong on a player. He’s not less of a player than his numbers suggest; he is much, much more of a player. His throwing arm is off the charts. He throws like Vladimir Guerrero, except accurately. I’m joking, but his arm was functionally much better than Guerrero’s famous arm. .. quick release, low, flat trajectory on his throws, tremendous power and just phenomenal accuracy. An aggressive thrower; a guy who is not afraid to try to make a play.
I thought he was an OK outfielder. He was an outstanding outfielder, ran well, read the ball well, threw outstanding. Sometimes a little too aggressive. He was—and is now, at 39--an outstanding baserunner.
You guys remember Carl Everett? Carl Everett was crazy, but he played with a kind of crazy intensity which, at his best, made him a frightening opponent—at bat, on the bases or in the field. But the problem with Carl Everett is that he was really crazy; he was crazy all the time, on the field or in the locker room, and most of what we mean when we say “crazy” is “erratic and unpredictable”. At a high level. Carl Everett would be an MVP for two months, and useless and a gigantic pain in the ass for the next two months.
You get the feeling, watching Sheffield play against you, that what he really wants is to hurt you, but it’s just a game so he’ll accept beating you badly as a substitute. Sheffield plays the game with that same crazy intensity as Carl Everett, but he’s not really crazy; he’s just super-intense, and sometimes he says things you wish he wouldn’t.
I’ve had friends in the media tell me that Sheffield wasn’t the same player against Texas and Seattle that he was against the Red Sox. I don’t know; I didn’t see him every day. Whenever I saw him play, he seemed to be doing everything possible to take over the game—and very often he did.
I don’t have any doubt, for myself, that Gary Sheffield is a Hall of Famer. But he has broken up his career by bouncing from team to team, not necessarily picking up a lot of fans on the way out the door. Maybe I am generalizing from my own failure to form a clear image of him until he was 35 years old, but I think that some sportswriters don’t really have any sharp image of him, other than the bouncing bat, and I do have some doubt, because of that, how the voting will go for him.
Grady Sizemore (0% present, 40% eventual)
Historically, I don’t think we could find very many players who
a) had Sizemore’s breadth of skills, and
b) had three good seasons by age 24, but
c) didn’t go on to Hall of Fame careers.
Vada Pinson, certainly, and Cesar Cedeno. Sizemore does strike out an awful lot, and he hasn’t come real close to hitting .300 yet.
John Smoltz (70% present, 80% eventual)
Whenever I do a search for pitchers comparable to Curt Schilling, John Smoltz always comes up as number one on the list, so I decided to write about the two as one. The two men are essentially the same age—41 in 2008—and both have career won-lost records which are in the weak part of the Hall of Fame’s range—207-145 for Smoltz, 216-146 for Schilling. Schilling has 3,116 strikeouts in his career, a 3.46 ERA; Smoltz has 2,975 Ks and a 3.26 ERA. Both men are still producing some wins—25 over the last two years for Schilling, 30 for Smoltz. Both men were traded away by their original teams before reaching the major leagues.
It would seem to me that both men are more likely than not to be in the Hall of Fame at some point. A pitcher with 200-230 wins only goes into the Hall of Fame if he has a lot to sell otherwise, but it seems to me that both men do. Their strikeout totals and winning percentages are Hall of Fame caliber. Both men have outstanding records in post-season play, 11-2, 2.23 ERA for Schilling, 15-4 with a 2.65 ERA for Smoltz.
Smoltz had three outstanding seasons as a reliever, not earning many wins, which I think will put him over the top in most sportswriters’ calculation, plus he had a Cy Young season in 1996. Schilling has never won the Cy Young Award, but has had more Cy Young-type seasons in which he didn’t win the award than anyone except Marichal (since the Cy Young Award started in ’56). The average season score of a Cy Young Award winner is 319 points if you include the strike-shortened ’81 and ’94 seasons, 324 if you don’t include those years. But the best Cy Young-era seasons that didn’t win an award were:
Pitcher, Year W-L K-W ERA Score
Juan Marichal, 1966 25-6 222-36 2.23 427
Curt Schilling, 2002 23-7 316-33 3.23 424
Juan Marichal, 1968 26-9 218-46 2.43 407
Juan Marichal, 1963 25-8 248-61 2.41 407
Curt Schilling, 2001 22-6 293-39 2.98 404
None of these five deserved the Cy Young Award, by the way; they just happened to be matched against historic seasons by Sandy Koufax (’63 and ’66), Bob Gibson (’68) and Randy Johnson (2001-2002)—all of those among the 11 highest-scoring seasons of the post-1956 era. Anyway, in addition to those two Schilling has had two other seasons, 1997 and 2004, which score at 327 and 324—about the same as an average Cy Young Award season.
There are only 63 300-strikeout seasons in baseball history, most of them by pitchers who either are in the Hall of Fame or will be. With three such seasons, Schilling has more than anyone except Randy Johnson (6), Nolan Ryan (6), Tim Keefe (also 3) and Sandy Koufax (also 3). It would be one thing if his three 300-strikeout seasons and his three 20-win seasons were redundant counts, but they’re not; only one of the 300-strikeout seasons was also a 20-win season. The other two were years when he pitched great, but didn’t get the run support to win 20.
Smoltz won a Cy Young Award, but
a) the season scores at 387—the 15th-best Cy Young season of all time, by the way, and
b) Smoltz’ best non-Cy Young season (1998) scores at 265.
What I am saying is that, although Smoltz won a Cy Young Award and Schilling hasn’t, Schilling probably wins the Big Seasons comparison with Smoltz, and I think most sportswriters would be perceptive enough to see that. Smoltz has more consistency, but Schilling has more impressive highlights.
We come then to the elusive equalizer, which we can call impact on the culture of the game. Schilling has played on three World Championship teams. He was the co-MVP of the 2001 World Series, which I think was one of the most exciting and dramatic World Series of recent times. The Bloody Sock episode from 2004 was a central storyline in what I would take to be one of the biggest sports stories of the decade, the Red Sox’ first world championship in 86 years. It is difficult to say what lasting impact these things will have on the perceptions of sportswriters, but my intuition is that Schilling is more likely than not to draw strong support in Hall of Fame voting.
Alfonso Soriano (0% present, 30% eventual)
Huston Street (0% present, 10% eventual)
Chance of having a street named after him: 100%.
Ichiro Suzuki (0% present, 85% eventual)
I think Ichiro is a Hall of Famer. The record for consecutive 200-hit seasons is 8. Suzuki has been in the US for seven years, and he’s at 7. He’ll break the record unless he breaks a leg. If he breaks a leg, it’s a tossup.
Yes, Suzuki doesn’t do all of the things that I like a player to do, but then, neither does David Ortiz or Derek Jeter. Players aren’t perfect, and that’s not the standard of greatness. He has speed and defense, and he scores 110 runs a year, usually 111. It’s enough. And, to me, his accomplishments in Japanese baseball are certainly relevant.
Mike Sweeney (0% present, 1% eventual)
Without the injuries he would have been a Hall of Famer.
Nick Swisher (0% present, 1% eventual)
Has done a couple of things which are suggestive of Hall of Fame ability.
Mark Teixeira (0% present, 20% eventual)
He’ll go in the Hall of Fame before I learn to spell his name. Teixeira would be my pre-season pick for the NL MVP. With four straight 100-RBI seasons (including last year, when he missed a month with an injury) he certainly has the ability. At age 28 he is in the prime age range for MVP seasons, and he is expected to be a free agent at the end of the season. The Braves probably still have enough resources to pull together a competitive team, although that is less clear than the other issues.
Miguel Tejada (10% present, 65% eventual)
The Lance Berkman analysis also applies to Miguel Tejada, who is the same age and has comparable career batting stats. Obviously Tejada is ahead of Berkman because he is a shortstop and has an MVP Award in his ledger, but he also appears to be fading more quickly with the bat.
Frank Thomas (80% present, 80% eventual)
Through the year 2000 Thomas had been in the major leagues eleven seasons and had played 1,530 games, with a career batting average of .321, OPS of 1.018. His .277 batting average last year was his highest batting average since then. His career average has slipped to .303, his OPS to .982. More remarkably: in the last seven years Thomas has hit only 49 home runs (7 per year) on the road. He has hit 120 (17 per year) at home.It’s not exactly true that Thomas hasn’t done anything since 2000; he hit 42 homers in 2003, and won a Comeback Player of the Year Award for hitting 39 homers, driving in 114 runs for Oakland in 2006. But his low batting averages and long absences with injuries have certainly weakened his Hall of Fame position.
What we are talking about, really, is how people in the future will remember Frank Thomas. A long, slow decline phase doesn’t help how you are remembered. Thomas is agonizingly slow, a horrific fielder, and not especially well liked. When you throw in the perception that Thomas’ batting numbers are from an era of phony numbers and the realization that he does have a very unusual home/road split in his power numbers, I think some people are not going to see Thomas as a Hall of Famer.
This may be offset to some small extent by the growing acceptance of the importance of on-base percentage. Thomas’ on-base percentage as a young player was in the Ted Williams range, and, even though his on-base percentages have been below .390 in six of the last seven years, his career figure remains .421. He should have been in the top ten all time, and he won’t be, but he remains in the top 25.
One way to see Thomas’ career is simply that his skills matured too early. He was a great player when he was 24, but with no speed, no throwing arm and his on-base and power skills maxed out, there was simply nowhere for him to go.
Bottom line: there is no precedent for leaving a player with his batting totals out of the Hall of Fame, and if that precedent was established on Frank Thomas, I would regard that as a poor choice. Rafael Palmeiro, maybe, and we’ll have to see what happens with Mark McGwire. I think Frank Thomas was a genuinely great player when he was young, albeit operating off a narrow base of skills. I think he should be a Hall of Famer, and I think that he most likely will be.
Jim Thome (75% present, 85% eventual)
Comparing Thome to Thomas. . .Thome got a little bit of a later start, and his batting average was 50 points lower his first few years. Thome strikes out much more than Thomas. As he has aged he has been more healthy and consistent, and his numbers by now have essentially caught up with Frank’s, plus, being two years younger, he has more time left to build his portfolio. But I don’t think he’s a clear and absolute Hall of Famer just yet.
Chase Utley (0% present, 15% eventual)
One of the best hitters in baseball.
Jason Varitek (1% present, 3% eventual)
There is some precedent for electing players like this to the Hall of Fame—Ray Schalk, Phil Rizzuto, Rick Ferrell. There is precedent for giving special consideration to leadership and defense, in some cases. It might require that people re-evaluate how they think about greatness in a player, but those kind of re-considerations DO happen, over time, and it’s not out of the question that it might happen here.
Javier Vazquez (0% present, 5% eventual)
Having a fine career pitching for a lot of not-very-good baseball teams, but his disappointing season with the Yankees in 2004 has colored the way he is perceived, and will almost certainly keep him out of Hall of Fame range.
Omar Vizquel (80% present, 80% eventual)
Ozzie Smith, to whom Omar has always been compared, was a visually very impressive defensive shortstop who also had stunning defensive statistics. Omar is a visually very impressive defensive shortstop who has never had especially good defensive statistics, unless you are one of the slow group who is still impressed by fielding percentage. It is certainly beyond the scope of the present essay to sort out who is right and who is wrong about Omar’s defense, but the majority is clearly on the pro-Omar side of the aisle, and I expect this to carry him to a fairly quick berth in the Hall of Fame.
Billy Wagner (0% now, 10% eventual)
Wagner is hard to evaluate as a Hall of Fame candidate because the Hall of Fame standard for a reliever is not clear. But he has 358 career Saves, is still throwing smoke and still producing Saves. He has had an ERA as high as 3.00 only once in his thirteen-year career. If he winds up on a World Championship team, he could become somebody that people talk about.
Chien-Ming Wang (0% present, 9% eventual)
No quantity yet.
Tim Wakefield (0% present, 2% eventual)
Has 168 career wins, would emerge as a Hall of Fame candidate if he had his best years in his 40s, as a couple of knuckle-ballers have had.
Brandon Webb (0% present, 6% eventual)
Followed up a Cy Young season in 2006 with a better one in 2007, but he’s 40 wins behind Mark Buehrle, who is the same age, and only ten games over .500 in his career. He would have to be tremendously consistent from here on to emerge as a candidate.
David Wells (15% present, 17% eventual)
By historic standards, David Wells is not a bad Hall of Fame candidate. He has 239 career wins, and he is 82 games over .500 in his career. There are 16 Hall of Fame starting pitchers who can’t match either of those accomplishments (Jim Bunning, Jack Chesbro, Stan Coveleski, Dizzy Dean, Don Drysdale, Jesse Haines, Waite Hoyt, Catfish Hunter, Addie Joss, Sandy Koufax, Bob Lemon, Rube Marquard, Hal Newhouser, Dazzy Vance, Rube Waddell and Ed Walsh) plus 19 more who can match one but not the other.
By historic standards he might go in, but, in the immortal words of Marty McFly, history is about to change, and I don’t think Wells has made enough of an impact on the public imagination to qualify by the standards of the future, or at least enough of a positive impact. There are some points in his favor. He’s been in some World Series, and his affection for Babe Ruth and baseball memorabilia is somewhat endearing.
Vernon Wells (0% present, 5% eventual)
Andruw Jones lite. . .he looks like Andruw in the uniform, in the field, similar player, doesn’t strike out as much as Jones and hits for a little higher average, not quite as much power. It’s weird that they both had horrible seasons at the same time. Has anyone ever seen them together?
David Wright (0% present, 45% eventual)
Michael Young (0% present, 40% eventual)
If you keep getting 200 hits every year, sooner or later people have to notice.
Carlos Zambrano (0% present, 30% eventual)
Career records for the four horsemen grouped together in the Josh Beckett comment: Sabathia, 100-63, Zambrano, 82-55, Beckett, 77-52, Peavy, 76-51.
Barry Zito (0% present, 15% eventual)
A Cy Young season highlights what is otherwise a workmanlike career. If he took everything he has done so far and did it all again, it wouldn’t be quite enough.
Not included because it is just too soon to make any meaningful estimate: Chad Billingsley, Ryan Braun, Matt Cain, Fausto Carmona, Prince Fielder, Jeff Francoeur, Adrian Gonzalez, Tom Gorzellany, Curtis Granderson, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, Nick Markakis, Russell Martin, Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, Alex Rios, James Shields, Troy Tulowitzski, B. J. Upton, Justin Verlander, Chris Young, Ryan Zimmerman.
Ryan Howard (0% present, 25% eventual)
A late start and a big swing may prevent him from hitting 600 career homers, and I wouldn't think he would be a Hall of Famer unless he does.