My 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

The trend began with 2014. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America picked at least one first-ballot Hall of Famer every year.  

Ain’t gonna happen this year. 

Nothing against Mark Buehrle, Tim Hudson and Torii Hunter, who were very good players and the best of the first-ballot options. Just not quite Hall of Fame level, from what I see now. In fact, they already are out of contention for this year, according to ballots revealed on Ryan Thibodoux’s Hall of Fame Tracker. 

The Hall will officially announce the Class of 2021 on Tuesday.

As for my 10 votes?

Because Derek Jeter and Larry Walker were elected to the Hall for 2020, two spots opened for players I had barely eliminated in the past. More, if I did not plug in my eight holdovers. I agonized over some.

In the end, I voted for all of them. 

One, in particular, I wish I hadn’t.

* * *

Here is why I chose the eight holdovers:

1. Curt Schilling: I did not want to vote for him. I never do. 

I would not have voted for him if the ballot deadline had been a week or two later than Dec. 31.

Schilling tweeted his support Jan. 6 for the U.S. Capitol riot. Or, as he put it, the “confrontation for shit that matters.”

He is entitled to his opinion. So am I. Schilling does not warrant my vote anymore. 

Because the Hall includes others whose words or actions were deplorable, I overlooked Schilling’s insensitive views, such as comparing Muslim extremists to Nazis, belittling transgender people and promoting the lynching of journalists. None were funny. All were offensive.

I focused on Schilling’s pitching resume. His regular-season performance (216-146, 3.46 ERA) made him a borderline Hall of Famer, but his postseason excellence (11-2. 2.23) put him over the top. I voted for him, as always, while I battled a crisis of conscience, as always.

No longer.

I try to view Hall candidates through the lenses of the past and of today, for a better overall picture. While I respect his right to his beliefs, and his politics, his viewpoints are intolerable today for a Hall of Fame candidate. They are part of his resume. 

I am happy to keep an open mind. I try to do that for every candidate, every year. I just hope I get the chance for 2022. Schilling could receive the requisite 75 percent of the vote for 2021 induction.

He received 70 percent for 2020, most of anyone returning to the ballot. Next were Roger Clemens (61 percent) and Barry Bonds (60.7 percent), and some voters still won’t support anyone linked to steroids. Nobody questions the credibility of Schilling’s statistics, so maybe he looks better in comparison to other voters.

If my vote helped him reach Cooperstown, I will live with that. It was my choice. I will see an opportunity here, for Hall members offended by his comments to say so. Their choice, their forum.

I can only imagine what Hank Aaron would have said.

2. Jeff Kent: I always vote for Kent and Schilling. My other selections this time had not been first-ballot picks. Time provided more context and perspective (if not room on my ballot) before I added them. I always appreciated that.

This is Kent’s eighth time on the ballot, and 10 years is the maximum. He only broke 20 percent of the votes in 2020, with 27.5 percent. Considering you need 75 percent of the BBWAA votes, he’s a long shot to get there. 

I don’t see this as a throwaway vote. Say what you want about his defense, a record 351 of his 377 home runs were as a second baseman and make him Hall of Fame material.

3 and 4) Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens:  I still see them as a matched set. Both were defining players of their generation, for what they did on the field and for what they did off it to inflate themselves and their statistics. As I have said, until I can put a number on just how much, it’s hard to deny them anymore, when even two-thirds of Bonds’ home runs and Clemens’ Cy Young Awards would leave them Hall of Fame-worthy. 

Bonds says he never knowingly took steroids, and Clemens says he never took them. I don’t believe them, but Major League Baseball was never able to penalize them. I still want to take a shower after I vote for them, but I stand by my decision to consider their steroid history as just part of the equation instead of as an automatic out.

5) Sammy Sosa: If I’m still voting for Bonds and Clemens, I’m still voting for Sosa. Sammy was the next step for me in opening the door to those implicated in the Steroid Era. 

His contagious joy during the 1998 chase with Mark McGwire for Roger Maris’ home run record rejuvenated baseball, and his 609 career homers still rank ninth. It’s hard to taint Sosa’s marks too much when David Ortiz faces the same blemish, and I plan to vote for Ortiz in 2022.

Both were reportedly among the 100-plus unnamed players testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, when there were no penalties, and current commissioner Rob Manfred has said there were “legitimate scientific questions” about some of the positives. Both had no further PED issues (unlike Manny Ramirez). And both have denied ever taking PEDs. 

Sosa’s credibility isn’t the greatest, especially with the sudden English issues when testifying before Congress, as well as the bat corking. The  Cubs have divorced him. But when I consider what he did for the team and the game, and when I look at the evidence and the resume, the verdict is clear: Sosa deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

6) Omar Vizquel: He is the ultimate New Analytics vs. Old School candidate. To watch him play the most important defensive position on the diamond, the way he spectacularly made the seemingly impossible plays at shortstop, year after year, adding just enough offense, was to conclude he was bound for the Hall of Fame. To read the modern measurements, to see the range he lacked, was to conclude he was very good but not great and not worthy of Cooperstown. 

I added him to my ballot for 2020, trusting my gut and what I saw. 

Vizquel rose to 52.6 percent last time, trailing only Schilling, Clemens and Bonds among those returning for 2021. I am amending my original post to include that Vizquel’s wife has accused him of domestic abuse, according to a recent report, which he has denied and which baseball is investigating. The allegations are disturbing, and let’s see how this plays out.

7) Scott Rolen: When I think of defining players, and automatic ins for Cooperstown, I don’t think of Rolen. He seemed a very good player, sure, but injuries limited him to an average of 105 games the last eight years of a 17-year career. 

This was a case when the new analytics and a player’s overall excellence at an often-ignored position made me reconsider.

Brooks Robinson is the only third baseman in the Hall with a higher defensive WAR (39.1) than Rolen’s 21.2. Next in the Hall is Mike Schmidt’s 18.4. 

Rolen’s eight Gold Gloves rank third at the position. Impressive. 

Add in his .281 batting average, 316 homers and 1,287 RBIs, and he might just be the second-best all-around third basemen of his generation, behind future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre. Rolen’s 70.1 overall WAR ranks 10th among third basemen (eight Hall of Famers and Beltre).

There only are 17 third basemen in Cooperstown, the lowest number for any defensive position. It’s only that high because 2019 inductee Edgar Martinez is included, even though he was primarily a designated hitter. 

If it’s close, third base gets extra consideration.

8) Todd Helton: I got over the Coors Field Effect when I started adding Walker. That made it easier to choose Helton.

You might not be a big fan anymore of batting average (I still am), but the guy finished with a .316 mark, including a career-high .372 in 2000 that remains the highest in the National League in the 2000s. He also led the NL that year in slugging percentage (.698), on-base percentage (.463), RBIs (147) and doubles (59). 

Naturally, he hit better at home (a 1.048 OPS vs. .855 on the road), and he doesn’t have Walker’s overall credentials, so I backed off initially. But on second glance, I changed my mind.

He earned three Gold Gloves on defense, and his 61.8 WAR is 17th among first basemen. Of the 16 players ahead of him, 11 are Hall of Famers, two are active and likely headed to Cooperstown (Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera), a third has a compelling case (Joey Votto), and two retired players lost out in BBWAA voting because of their PED ties (Rafael Palmeiro and McGwire).

Put that all together, and Helton remains on my ballot.

* * *

These days, I use all 10 of my votes. There are so many viable yet somewhat flawed candidates right around the same level — some I support, some I barely eliminate — I elevate the best of the rest. 

9) Gary Sheffield: Yes, he is another player tied to PEDs. He claims he unknowingly did it in 2002, the same season he publicly backed the idea of steroid testing. Believe what you will. He lacks the overall numbers of a Bonds or a Clemens, or the impact of a Sosa, so he is a little tougher to admit. But if I am breaking down the barrier for the PED-implicated, Sheffield comes after Sosa for me.

He might not have been an ideal teammate or even an adequate defensive player. His defensive WAR is minus-27.7, last of the 500 right fielders listed by Baseball Reference. But his 80.8 offensive WAR was eighth, making him the only right fielder in the top 15 not in the Hall. He batted .292 with 509 home runs and 1,676 RBI, among the numbers normally right for Cooperstown.

Sheffield was a nine-time All-Star and finished in the top 10 of MVP voting six times. And it wasn’t because of his defense. I can live with that.

The PED ties, not so easily. 

I didn’t vote for Sheffield his first six times on the ballot, and I’m not all that comfortable doing it now. Still, I came close to voting for him and for my final selection in past years before running out of room on the ballot. They deserved to be next.

10) Billy Wagner: Wagner is a tough player to gauge for the Hall of Fame. He was a dominant one-inning reliever, but is that enough?

Among pitchers with 800 or more innings, he has the highest strikeout rate (11.9 per nine innings) and the lowest opponent batting average (.187). He finished with a stellar 2.31 ERA.

Wagner’s 422 saves rank sixth on the career list — admirable, sure, but not at the all-time level of 

contemporaries Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. And his 903 innings would make him the only pitcher in the Hall of Fame under 1,000.

Still, as FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe pointed out, nobody who has pitched 800 or more innings can match Wagner’s 33.2-percent strikeout rate.

He might not be the best closer or reliever in baseball history. And he might not be the guy you wanted to save the game. But for one inning, there was not anyone like him. That makes him special.