Baseball Hall of Fame voting: Chasing a dream

It seems like the announcement for the newest Baseball Hall of Fame inductees always sneaks up on me. The 2024 inductees were announced earlier this week and the newest members are Adrian Beltre, Todd Helton, and Joe Mauer. Billy Wagner came up just short.

Beltre led the pack, receiving a whopping 95.1% of the vote in his first year on the ballot. It is the 17th highest percentage of all time. That comes as a huge surprise to me. Although universally loved, I think Beltre is a borderline Hall of Famer. His numbers are very good. He didn’t get to 500 home runs, but 477 is pretty solid. He has the obligatory 3000 hits. He has the longevity. He was one of the best defensive third basemen of his time. He just doesn’t pass the eye test for me. And don't touch his head.

He was only top five in MVP voting three times in his 21-year career. He never won it. And let’s remember he did play 21 years. That makes 477 home runs and 3166 hits not sound as impressive. That is an average of 22.7 home runs and 150 hits per season. Meh. Again, I’d consider him borderline and I am sure I could, eventually, be swayed into voting him in. I just don’t think he is worthy of going in on the first ballot and, especially, not with that high of a voting percentage.

Which would lead me into the argument that voters being allowed to select ten players for the Hall is too much, but I’ll save that for another day. Suffice to say I believe the Hall of Fame should be just that, and not, as they say, the Hall of the Very Good.

Todd Helton is one of those difficult Colorado Rockies’ cases. Helton’s longtime teammate, Larry Walker, was inducted in 2020 on his tenth and final chance on the ballot. Helton made it this year in his sixth year on the ballot after only getting 16.5% of the vote his first year on the ballot. He must have had a great last five seasons!

Playing in Colorado is like legalized steroids. Balls have (and always will be) hit harder and further thanks to the Rocky Mountains' thin air. Every road player looked forward to hitting in Coors Field maybe six or eight games per year. If you played for the home team, the Rockies, you get to hit there eighty-one games per year. That would equate to over 300 times per year. Merry Christmas to them.

Helton was a career .316 hitter. He hit .372 in 2000 and .358 in 2003. He had 147 RBI in 2000 and 146 RBI in 2001. He was fantasy baseball gold for almost a decade.

But when you looked at his home and away splits, he looked more like Clark Kent away from the friendly confines of Colorado. His career OPS was 1.048 at home and .855 on the road. His batting averages were .345 at home and .287 on the road.

I am not one to automatically disqualify someone from the Hall for playing in Colorado, but that is a big disparity in Helton’s home and away stats. Longevity also factors into my thinking as Helton had a stretch of eight really great seasons. I don’t know if that is enough for me. Despite his great career batting average, he never did really come close to 3000 hits – finishing with 2519, which would have meant he would’ve needed probably three more real productive years to get to 3000.

Larry Walker’s home and away stats were even more pronounced. It is such a tough call to say how much Colorado affected their numbers. You can’t punish them for where they played, but you also can’t glorify them because of where they played. It would have helped if their teams won something along the way, but that didn’t happen. There is the theory that if you have to think for more than a few seconds about if someone belongs in the Hall of Fame, then they don’t. I would say “yes” on Walker, and “no” on Helton. Walker’s freakish power-speed combination and his great arm in right field sets him apart from Helton, although Helton was great with the glove, as well.

Joe Mauer is the one out of this group that I think is a definite Hall of Famer. Mauer squeaked in with 76.1% of the vote (75% is required for induction). Mauer was one of the best hitters of his generation and he did it mostly while playing catcher. He may be the best pure hitting catcher of all-time. He led the American League in batting three times. That is unheard of for a catcher. That's what makes him a no-brainer.

And the best part, for me, is that he played his entire 15-year career with one team – the Minnesota Twins. Mauer, Mariano River, and Derek Jeter may be the last we ever see of Hall of Famers playing their entire careers with one team. It is one of the biggest reasons my love of sports has diminished – the fact that we, as fans of our teams, have been relegated to, merely, rooting for laundry. Players have no loyalty to their teams anymore. Their only loyalty is to the almighty dollar. More power to them, but it sucks for the fans.

Flamethrowing lefty closer, Billy Wagner, just missed induction by five votes. I have a very high standard for inducting closers into the Hall of Fame. Basically, my standard is if your name is not Trevor Hoffman or Mariano Rivera, you don’t get in. So, no, I don’t believe Wagner should get in, but next year he, most likely, will become the ninth closer to get inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez – like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds before them – appear as if they will never overcome their ties to steroids. They both were in the low 30s in voting percentage. It’s a shame. They were two of the best hitters of their generation and two of the greatest righthanded hitters of all-time.

So, if it were up to me (and it never will be), the only players I would have voted into the Hall of Fame this year would have been Joe Mauer and … Chase Utley. That’s right, Chase Utley. Utley garnered only 28.8% of the vote. With all due respect to Robinson Cano and Jose Altuve, there is no other second baseman this century that I would want on my team. At his peak, there is probably no other player this century I would choose to start a team with than Utley. His offensive production at such a lackluster position is premium. I think it is a shame that he and Jeff Kent aren’t in the Hall of Fame. Maybe I just have a bias towards second basemen. Wait until Dustin Pedroia becomes eligible next year!