Jeff Kent is the newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tom Hauck / Allsport / Getty Images
The Contemporary Baseball Era committee voted on Sunday to induct Jeff Kent, one of the best offensive second basemen in history who won an MVP award during a late-career peak with the San Francisco Giants in the early 2000s. Fourteen of the 16 committee members voted in favor of Kent.
Kent never received as much as 50 percent of the vote on the BBWAA ballot but had been trending upward when he was last eligible in 2023 (he got 46.5 percent of the vote that year). This was Kent’s first time being eligible for an Era Committee ballot. Carlos Delgado finished with the second-most number of votes on the Era Committee Ballot with nine.
A good but unspectacular player in the first part of his career, Kent went to the Giants in 1997 and had a breakout season at age 29. He made his first All-Star Game at 31 and won the MVP award at 32 when he produced a career-best 7.4 fWAR and 1.021 OPS. After hitting 107 home runs in his 20s, Kent hit 258 in his 30s, going to All-Star Games as a member of the Giants, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Kent’s induction with 56 fWAR and 45.6 JAWS could open the door to other second basemen — among them: Chase Utley, Lou Whitaker, Willie Randolph and Dustin Pedroia — who have similar if not better numbers, but as a purely offensive second baseman, Kent stands out. He has the most home runs ever at the position and his OPS+ is higher than Hall of Famers Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio and Ryne Sandberg.
The other players on the Era Committee ballot who were left out were Delgado, Kent’s teammate with the Giants Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Dale Murphy, Don Mattingly and Fernando Valenzuela.
Dec 8, 2025
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