My 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot
By Mike Bass
mbass@mikebasscoaching.com
Carlos Beltran was not a defining player of his generation until he was caught in the Houston Astros’ scandal.
He is not a gimme for the Baseball Hall of Fame, but has a good case if you can overlook his role in the sign-stealing plot.
I can’t.
Too soon.
Beltran’s part in the scandal remains fresh in my mind and yanks his overall resume under the Cooperstown line right now. That is why I did not vote for him on my ballot.
More time might provide more context. This is only the first ballot for him. If he is not part of the Class of 2023 to be announced Tuesday, he will have plenty of time to win over a bigger percentage of BBWAA voters, including me.
Beltran has a lot going for him: A .279/.350/.486 career slash line ... 435 homers ... three Gold Gloves ... nine All-Star games ... a 70.1 bWAR ... a .307/.412/.609 postseason slash line with 16 homers and 42 RBIs. Oh, and he won the 2013 Roberto Clemente Award for best representing baseball in the community and on the field.
He wasn’t the only cheating Astro on the 2017 championship team, but he was the one player mentioned by name in MLB’s 2020 report (and who, according to The Athletic, helped devise the sign-stealing system). MLB gave immunity to every player on that team, but Beltran’s new job as New York Mets manager disappeared a few days after the report, in a supposedly mutual decision.
Believe what you will.
I will keep an open mind about Beltran.
Even with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling off the ballot, this process is hard. I like that. It should be hard.
The debate about Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and Schilling made us rethink what is most important. The continuing influx of new analytics forces us to reconsider the line between very good and Hall of Fame-worthy, a line that can be further blurred by the Era Committee selections.
So let’s keep debating Beltran. And let’s keep debating others on the ballot. I did not vote for any newcomers this time, although I did take a long look at Francisco Rodriguez. Our view of closers is evolving, and I might be swayed to vote for him in the future.
My votes went to the five holdover choices from my ballot last year:
1. Jeff Kent: I always vote for Kent, but I can’t imagine he will jump from 32.7 percent last year to the requisite 75 percent on his 10th and final time on the ballot. Too bad. Say what you want about his defense, a record 351 of his 377 home runs came as a second baseman and make him Hall of Fame material. Maybe an Era Committee will agree one day.
2) Scott Rolen: Here is the best shot at a Hall of Famer from this group. His constituency keeps rising, reaching 63.2 percent last year. He does not have to compete for votes with the higher-profile and more controversial players who are off the ballot now. Good. A lot of us already had come around on him. He ranks 10th for third basemen in bWAR (70.1) and in JAWS (56.9), behind eight Hall of Famers and one (Adrian Beltre) likely to join. Rolen won eight Gold Gloves and hit .281 with 316 homers and 1,287 RBIs. He might be the second-best all-around third baseman of his generation, behind Beltre. Only 17 third basemen are in Cooperstown, lowest of any defensive position (and one is Edgar Martinez, primarily a DH). A tough position deserves more love.
3) Todd Helton: Here is another player who should benefit from the likes of Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and Schilling exiting the ballot, but will it be enough to jumping from 52 percent to the Hall? I hope so. I got over the Coors Field Effect with Larry Walker. Helton finished with a .316 batting average (which I still value). Naturally, he fared better at home (1.048 OPS vs. .855 on the road), and he doesn’t have Walker’s overall credentials, but he won three Gold Gloves, and his 61.8 bWAR ranks 17th among first basemen. Of the 16 ahead of him, 11 are Hall of Famers, two lost out in BBWAA voting because of PED ties (Rafael Palmeiro and McGwire), and three are active and Cooperstown candidates (Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto). Yeah, Helton belongs in the Hall.
4) Gary Sheffield: He claims he unknowingly took PEDs, but he did come out in favor of steroid testing and never was punished by MLB for PED use. He might not have been an ideal teammate, and his minus-27.7 defensive WAR is last of 500 right fielders on Baseball Reference, but Sheffield is all about his bat. His 80.8 offensive WAR ranks sixth among right fielders, and everyone else in the top 15 is in the Hall. He hit .292 with 509 homers rand 1,676 RBIs. He was a nine-time All-Star. He finished in the top 10 for MVP voting six times. He is flawed, but he crosses the Cooperstown line for my vote.
5) Billy Wagner: Wagner was a dominant one-inning reliever, and once I valued him for what he was, he earned my vote. Wagner’s 422 saves rank sixth, not quite Cooperstown level, but his 2.31 ERA beats seven of the eight Hall of Fame relievers, trailing only Mariano Rivera (2.21). Among pitchers with 800 or more innings, Wagner owns the highest strikeout rate for batters faced (33.2 percent) and per nine innings (11.9) and the lowest opponent batting average (.187), according to FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe. Wagner is what he is, and he is impressive.