So this is that column I write every year, the one where I take you inside the Hall of Fame ballot I sent in just a couple of weeks ago. There were nine names checked on my ballot. I believe I owe you an explanation for every one of those votes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always felt it\u2019s my responsibility, as a voter who cares deeply about the Hall, to pull back the curtain and let all of you in. So I won\u2019t just spit out the names that made my ballot. I think it\u2019s important to tell you why I voted the way I did.<\/p>\n
Many of you thank me every year for doing that. Some of you have slightly different reactions. It\u2019s almost as if there are people out there who don\u2019t agree with me. I\u2019m not sure how that\u2019s possible, but hey, ain\u2019t that America.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m looking forward to reading the story comments below, just so I can get a better grasp of how big a knucklehead I actually am. But before you start banging out those comments, remember one small thing: From the moment that ballot arrives until the moment I send it off, I\u2019m obsessed with this.<\/p>\n
Voting for the Hall of Fame is an important job. Only a few hundred people on Earth get to do it. So even if you think I got every one of these votes wrong, at least give me bonus points for how many gazillion hours I spent trying to get this right.<\/p>\n
On that note, if you\u2019re ready, I\u2019m ready. How did I fill out my 2026 Hall ballot? Let me explain.<\/p>\n
The nine names I voted for <\/p>\n
I think most people\u2019s scouting report would say that I\u2019m more of a \u201cBig Hall\u201d voter than a \u201cSmall Hall\u201d voter, but this actually makes three times in the last six years that I did not fill up the maximum 10 slots. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never thought our job as voters was to keep voting until we got to 10 names. Our job is to answer one very basic question: Do we think this player was a Hall of Famer or not? If the answer is yes, we should aspire to vote for him every year. But I also reserve the right to change my mind. So that\u2019s how I got to these nine names.<\/p>\n
I voted for 10 players last year<\/a>, but three of them \u2014 Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner \u2014 got elected<\/a>. So that led me to \u2026<\/p>\n Seven returnees from last year<\/p>\n Carlos Beltr\u00e1n Plus \u2026<\/p>\n Two players I voted for this year, for the first time<\/p>\n F\u00e9lix Hern\u00e1ndez And a few more where I \u2026<\/p>\n Couldn\u2019t quite get there<\/p>\n Cole Hamels Not to mention \u2026<\/p>\n No votes for the PED All-Stars<\/p>\n \u00c1lex Rodr\u00edguez So now, here come \u2026<\/p>\n Thoughts on why I vote the way I do<\/p>\n When I first stared at last year\u2019s Hall ballot, it was like watching a fireworks show. With Ichiro, Sabathia and one of the deepest first-year classes ever, the star power on that ballot was spectacular.<\/p>\n So how different did this year\u2019s ballot feel? Here\u2019s a little nugget that might sum it up. If you count what he accomplished in Japan, Ichiro fired off more career hits by himself than the top two hit machines on this ballot \u2014 Markakis and Braun \u2014 got combined.<\/p>\n Total career hits by Ichiro \u2014 4,367 Anyone else find that tidbit as crazy as I did? But it\u2019s also quite revealing. It was the absence of first-timer firepower on this ballot that felt as if it turned down the volume on this whole process. You don\u2019t get an Ichiro bursting through that Cooperstown door every year. But over the last dozen years, we\u2019ve gotten spoiled.<\/p>\n As I wrote<\/a> in November, we\u2019ve been living through the golden age of first-ballot Hall of Famers. The baseball writers have elected 18 first-ballot icons in the last 12 elections, the most in any 12-year period in history. I think I can speak for our group when I tell you we love it when the votes come easy.<\/p>\n This year, on the other hand, it felt as if none of these votes came easy. Even the two players most likely to get elected \u2014 Beltr\u00e1n and Jones \u2014 have clouds hanging over them that could make it uncomfortable for some voters to place a check mark by their names.<\/p>\n So how did I still find nine players to vote for? Here are the two words that I couldn\u2019t get out of my head this year. I\u2019ve used them before, in this very section:<\/p>\n Star power.<\/p>\n Over these last 12 years \u2014 and especially last year \u2014 Cooperstown was oozing with that star power on Induction Weekend. It was a reminder that they call it the Hall of Fame for a reason.<\/p>\n So I found myself thinking a lot, over the last few weeks, about the \u201cfame\u201d part of the Hall of Fame. And it\u2019s increasingly factoring into how I vote.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a student of the game, you can see that the magic counting numbers of yesteryear are either fading or taking on a different context. So it\u2019s logical that you\u2019re also starting to see our philosophies, as voters, beginning to evolve.<\/p>\n We\u2019d better not wait around for guys to show up on the ballot with 3,000 hits or 300 wins, or we\u2019ll be looking at a lot of empty podiums in Cooperstown every summer. So you can already see the voters shifting in the direction of stars whose credentials look very different than the Hall of Famers of yesteryear. In my case, that means I\u2019m now gravitating toward players who \u2026<\/p>\n A. Had a peak of greatness so big that when we asked, who\u2019s the best player in baseball, or who\u2019s the best pitcher in baseball, they spent years in that conversation.<\/p>\n B. Were so good, in their peak, that when we asked, who\u2019s the best (pick a position) in baseball, we couldn\u2019t help but think of them.<\/p>\n C. Were team-changing figures whose powerful imprint was all over the winning their teams did.<\/p>\n So why did I vote for Jones, Utley, Pedroia, Wright and King F\u00e9lix? You won\u2019t find any of them hanging out in the clubhouses of the 2,000-Hit Club or 200-Win Club, let alone the 3,000-Hit or 300-Win Clubs. But that misses the essence of what they represented in this sport at their greatest.<\/p>\n I know what a star looks like when I see one. I know what a winner looks like when I see one. I know what I\u2019m gazing at when I\u2019m watching players who lift everyone and everything around them, year after year.<\/p>\n For a long, long time, Hall of Fame voters have penalized players like that if injuries blew up their beautiful roads to the plaque gallery. It\u2019s time to rethink that.<\/p>\n So I voted for all five of those men \u2014 in some cases just to keep them on this ballot and in this conversation. And as I\u2019ve written before, that\u2019s partly because I\u2019m looking over the horizon at what and who comes next.<\/p>\n \n On deck: Buster Posey will be on the 2027 Hall of Fame ballot. (G Fiume \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n One year from now, Buster Posey arrives on the ballot. He feels like an easy first-ballot Hall of Famer to me. And I say that even though I\u2019m well aware he got just 1,500 hits. So ask yourself this: What happens when we elect a player with those career totals?<\/p>\n Maybe we\u2019ll say: He\u2019s different. He was a catcher. But I think it\u2019s more likely we\u2019ll say: If he\u2019s a Hall of Famer, isn\u2019t Utley? Isn\u2019t Pedroia? It has been more than 60 years since the writers elected a position player with under 2,000 hits. That could change as soon as next week if Jones gets elected, with \u201conly\u201d 1,933 hits. And ohbytheway, he wasn\u2019t a catcher.<\/p>\n That will be one more sign that we appear to be on the cusp of dramatically redefining what a Hall of Famer looks like in the 21st century. But as long as they\u2019re players with the kind of star power I just talked about, why is there a problem with that?<\/p>\n So I\u2019m casting votes now to position ourselves for that shift. But I also think there\u2019s still room in the Hall for men like Pettitte, Rollins and Hunter, whose credentials might seem more traditional but no less valuable. We should never lose our appreciation for the meaning of longevity, of dependability, of many seasons of excellence, especially when it was on display for all of us to see in multiple Octobers.<\/p>\n Our evolution as voters might seem to be pushing us in a different direction. But why can\u2019t more than one thing be true? Just because we gain a different perspective on one thing, why should we stop valuing another thing? It\u2019s part of what makes Hall of Fame voting such a fascinating process.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll have more to say about all of this as I go through my ballot. So let\u2019s do that now, starting with the man most likely to reserve his flight to Cooperstown in a few days.<\/p>\n Carlos Beltr\u00e1n (70.3% last year, 19 votes short) \n Carlos Beltr\u00e1n: What couldn\u2019t he do! (Dave Kaup \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n I wish Carlos Beltr\u00e1n had just retired after the 2016 season. He could have made this so simple.<\/p>\n He\u2019d have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He would already have given his speech and joined baseball\u2019s most exalted fraternity. So he\u2019d be a figure of pure admiration. And he\u2019d never have to hear those words, \u201ctrash can,\u201d for the rest of his baseball life.<\/p>\n Oh, well. So that didn\u2019t happen. What did, though, was baseball\u2019s most notorious sign-stealing scandal<\/a> of modern times. The 2017 Houston Astros happened. Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s well-documented ring-leading role in it happened. And his presence on this ballot has forced us to ask:<\/p>\n Is it OK to put \u201ccheaters\u201d in the Hall of Fame as long as their preferred form of cheating was sign-stealing, as opposed to muscling up and blowing holes in the greatest records in sports?<\/p>\n We\u2019re about to get the answer, thanks to Beltr\u00e1n. If Tuesday\u2019s election returns go the way we think they\u2019re going to go, the message will be clear.<\/p>\n Performance-enhancing drug \u201ccheaters\u201d: No Coop(erstown) for you. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the right answer or not. I do know I\u2019ve voted for Beltr\u00e1n all four years he has been on the ballot.<\/p>\n He\u2019d already had a Hall of Fame career, 19 years of excellence, before he ever put on the jersey of those 2017 Astros. And my fellow voters are clearly telling us they don\u2019t look at what happened that year to be a Hall of Fame death sentence. So if we\u2019re just going to focus on what Beltr\u00e1n did as a baseball player, of course he\u2019s a Hall of Famer. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n He was a 70-win player. Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s career Baseball Reference WAR is computed at 70.0. That makes him one of only seven retired center fielders in history who have crossed that 70-Win threshold. You know what we call those men: Hall of Famers. They\u2019re all in \u2014 except for Beltr\u00e1n.<\/p>\n In fact, there are only 21 retired 70-Win outfielders in history. Besides Beltr\u00e1n, just one of them is not in the Hall of Fame. That\u2019s a fellow named Barry Bonds \u2014 for reasons<\/a> I\u2019m not going to waste time on here.<\/p>\n He had a historic offensive impact. How many people on Earth actually understand how wins above replacement are computed? I\u2019m going to place that over\/under at, hmmm, maybe 50? Luckily, Baseball Reference breaks down where every player\u2019s WAR number comes from. What you\u2019ll find, if you take a close enough look at Beltr\u00e1n, is that he was one of the most productive offensive center fielders who ever lived.<\/p>\n He finished his career with 66.6 offensive wins above replacement. Check out this list of all the retired center fielders who matched or topped that number:<\/p>\n Ty Cobb \u2026 Willie Mays \u2026 Tris Speaker \u2026 Mickey Mantle \u2026 Ken Griffey Jr. \u2026 Joe DiMaggio \u2026 Duke Snider. Recognize anything those guys have in common? No? Then maybe you should ask about it the next time you\u2019re passing through Cooperstown.<\/p>\n He was an ultra-elite base runner. We don\u2019t value great base running nearly as much as we should. So let\u2019s take a moment to salute the base running genius of this man. Want to guess how many players in history had a better stolen-base success rate than Beltr\u00e1n (86.4 percent)? As always, zero would be a fabulous guess (at least among players with at least 200 stolen-base attempts).<\/p>\n What couldn\u2019t he do? With some players, we ask: What was he good at? With Beltr\u00e1n, a better question would be: What wasn\u2019t he good at? According to Baseball Reference, he made an impact in just about every area we can measure:<\/p>\n Batting Runs above average: Plus-262 Here\u2019s every retired outfielder since 1900 with Plus-250 Batting Runs (or better), Plus-40 Baserunning Runs (or better) and Plus-40 Fielding Runs (or better), according to Baseball Reference\/Stathead:<\/p>\n Willie Mays Whoever they are!<\/p>\n October was his favorite page on the calendar \u2014 I don\u2019t know how many extra-credit points we\u2019re supposed to bestow upon players who rose to meet those huge October moments. But feel free to award Beltr\u00e1n a giant wheelbarrow full of them. He played 65 postseason games in his career \u2014 and hit .307\/.412\/.609, with 16 homers and 11 steals in 11 tries. That seems good. Want to know how good?<\/p>\n Through the magic of Baseball Reference and Stathead, I learned that the entire .300\/.400\/.600 Club among players who made it into at least 40 postseason games looks like this: Carlos Beltr\u00e1n and Babe Ruth!<\/p>\n There\u2019s also this fun club, of players who had a .300 postseason average, with at least 10 home runs and 10 steals. The two players in that one: Beltr\u00e1n \u2026 and Derek Jeter!<\/p>\n But also \u2026 We\u2019re talking about one of the greatest switch hitters who ever lived. Only three other switch hitters in history rolled up at least 2,400 hits, 400 homers and a career OPS+ as good as Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s (119): Mickey Mantle, Chipper Jones and Eddie Murray. \u2026 We\u2019re also talking about a man with a rare array of power\/speed skills. He\u2019s in that 300-Steal\/400-Homer Club, a club with only four other members. \u2026 Talk about your true All-Stars: In eight All-Star games, Beltr\u00e1n hit .389\/.421\/.556, and reached base in all but one. Only three other All-Stars in history played that many games with that sweet of a slash line: Jeter, Griffey and Steve Garvey\u2026 Finally, people love to ask: How long was this guy a great player? Beltr\u00e1n is one of just two outfielders who can say they won a Rookie of the Year award at age 22 (or younger) and were still getting at-bats in the All-Star Game at 39 (or older). The other? Some guy named Mays.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s just say that after reading all that, if you\u2019re still shouting that there\u2019s no way this guy was a Hall of Famer, you obviously have a more profound trash-can fixation than us Hall of Fame voters do.<\/p>\n Andruw Jones (66.2% last year, 35 votes short) \n Andruw Jones is closing in on Cooperstown. He had a scintillating 10-year stretch from 1998-2007. (John Iacono \/ Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Every year around this time, the Braves aficionados in the Andruw Jones Fan Club start bombarding me with reminders that their man Andruw has to be the most clear-cut Hall of Fame center fielder since Willie Mays. OK, cool. Thanks for thinking of me.<\/p>\n They need to stay on top of me, though, because I was one of the last of the holdouts on Jones. I watched him ride the ballot rocket ship from 31 votes to 226, from 7.3 percent to over 58 percent, before I finally climbed onboard and voted for him \u2014 in his seventh election.<\/p>\n I had so many reservations then. I\u2019m not 100 percent over them now, as he rolls into his ninth attempt to get elected.<\/p>\n None of this has changed: Off the field, there\u2019s a disturbing 2012 domestic-violence arrest<\/a> and his guilty plea to a related disorderly conduct charge, which would give anyone pause. \u2026 And on the field, Jones would have the lowest career batting average (.254) of any outfielder in the Hall of Fame. \u2026 His career barreled off a cliff after age 30, and his 1.7 total wins above replacement, from age 31 on, would be the fewest of any Hall of Fame outfielder, according to Baseball Reference. \u2026 I\u2019m not even totally convinced his defensive peak lasted quite as long as people think it did<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remember, Baseball Reference tells us that nearly 40 percent of his 62.7 WAR come from retroactive defensive metrics. So for Jones to be a \u201cclear-cut\u201d Hall of Famer, we have to trust that the computations of his defensive impact are as reliable as we need them to be. And face it, the metrics from his era aren\u2019t nearly as exact as what we can measure today.<\/p>\n So why did it take me seven years to vote for this guy? That\u2019s why.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s what I tell the Andruw Jones Fan Club these days: Relax. I\u2019m over it. (Mostly.)<\/p>\n Earlier in this column, I typed a lot of words laying out how I\u2019ve evolved as a voter in recent years. So if I\u2019m going to be shooting votes at players like Utley, Wright and Pedroia \u2014 based on their 10-year runs of greatness \u2014 then it would be hypocritical not to vote for Jones, too.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll always wish that Jones was a better player in his 30s. But I spent enough time watching Young Andruw work his outfield magic in his 20s to know that that guy was special. I\u2019m not hard-headed enough to ignore his 10 remarkable seasons from age 21 to 30 \u2014 because they looked like this:<\/p>\n HR \u2014 34.5\/year Only three center fielders in history had 10 years like that: Mays \u2026 Ken Griffey Jr. \u2026 and the pride of Curacao.<\/p>\n Then again, not many men, at any spot in the outfield, have matched Jones\u2019 power\/glove combo platter.<\/p>\n MOST YEARS WITH GOLD GLOVE AND 30+ HR Willie Mays \u2014 8 And one more thing. It wasn\u2019t as if Jones did what he did in baseball\u2019s shadows. This was a man who abracadabra\u2019d all those gappers into outs while playing behind the greatest pitching staff of his generation, for Braves teams that never stopped chasing October.<\/p>\n MOST OUTFIELD GOLD GLOVES FOR PLAYOFF TEAMS<\/p>\n Andruw Jones \u2014 8 Side note: I\u2019m glad that Hunter\u2019s name appeared in this section, because the closer Jones gets to the plaque gallery, the more it inspired me to take another long look at the other famed center fielder on this ballot.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll have more to say about Hunter momentarily. But for now, the Andruw Jones Fan Club can take a deep breath. I checked their hero\u2019s box, and that won\u2019t be changing, even if he\u2019s back next year for one last shot to complete that long journey to Cooperstown.<\/p>\n Torii Hunter (5.1% last year) and F\u00e9lix Hern\u00e1ndez (20.6%) \n What does Andruw Jones have to do with F\u00e9lix Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s Hall case? Maybe more than you think. (Jake Roth \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n Did you ever play that game, Connect the Dots, as a kid? Sometimes, when I look at my Hall of Fame ballot, I feel like I\u2019m still playing it.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t vote for either Torii Hunter or F\u00e9lix Hern\u00e1ndez last year. One of the biggest reasons I did this year was that I found myself connecting the dots from both of them to Andruw Jones. I didn\u2019t see that coming.<\/p>\n It\u2019s obvious now that Jones is bound for Cooperstown and Hunter isn\u2019t. That makes sense. You know what doesn\u2019t \u2014 for me, at least? That one of these great center fielders is steaming toward election while the other might not even get the 5 percent of the vote he needs to keep him on the ballot next year.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Hern\u00e1ndez. Yeah, I noticed that he was a pitcher, not a center fielder. But take their positions out of the discussion, and their career arcs feel so similar to me, I concluded that it\u2019s not logical to vote for one but not the other.<\/p>\n Confused yet? I think I can clear this up.<\/p>\n Connecting the dots from Hunter to Jones. As of Wednesday night, Ryan Thibodaux\u2019s invaluable Baseball Hall of Fame Vote Tracker<\/a> was reporting that Jones had raked in 84.7 percent of the publicly revealed votes so far \u2026 and Hunter was slightly behind him \u2014 at 4.8 percent. Here was my reaction: Why?<\/p>\n Was Jones a greater player, at his peak, than Hunter? Sure. But did one guy have a career that was so dramatically superior to the other\u2019s that it explains why there\u2019s such a gigundous gap between their vote totals? Call me crazy, but I\u2019ll say no.<\/p>\n JONES HUNTER <\/p>\n bWAR<\/p>\n 62.7<\/p>\n 50.6<\/p>\n Off. WAR<\/p>\n 39.8<\/p>\n 47.5<\/p>\n Gold Gloves<\/p>\n 10<\/p>\n 9<\/p>\n OPS+<\/p>\n 111<\/p>\n 110<\/p>\n Hits<\/p>\n 1,933<\/p>\n 2,452<\/p>\n All-Star teams<\/p>\n 5<\/p>\n 5<\/p>\n MVP top 10’s<\/p>\n 1<\/p>\n 1<\/p>\n (Source: Baseball Reference)<\/p>\n Look beyond that list and you\u2019ll find that Hunter also was a better base runner than Jones, had a career batting average 23 points higher and sustained his period of excellence so much deeper into his 30s, I felt as if I needed to do what I could to keep Hunter on the ballot.<\/p>\n Hunter was still making All-Star teams at age 37. Jones was done as a big leaguer, and hanging on as an overweight .221 hitter in Japan, at age 37. That stuck with me.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was never a time in his career,\u201d said one player I spoke with, a longtime American Leaguer during Hunter\u2019s heyday, \u201cthat Torii was not a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to argue that Hunter was a better pure defender in center than Jones, because nobody from that era can make that claim. But was it as vast a difference as the retroactive defensive metrics make it appear? That same rival player took issue with that.<\/p>\n \u201cTorii, to me, was freaking awesome out there,\u201d he told me. \u201cHe was playing on the worst surface (in Minnesota\u2019s dreaded Metrodome), the hardest turf in baseball, and he was flying around and diving \u2014 on a freaking parking lot. He knew what the toll was of doing that, and he never gave it a second thought. That guy was fearless.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s Hunter\u2019s sixth year on this ballot. I\u2019d never voted for him before. But he was one vote from tumbling off the ballot into Hall purgatory last year. If he falls off this year, at least I\u2019ll know it wasn\u2019t my fault.<\/p>\n \n While Andruw Jones is flying toward election, fellow center fielder Torii Hunter is in danger of falling off the ballot. (Brian Bahr \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Connecting the dots from F\u00e9lix to Jones. You\u2019ll have to bear with me here, because I know King F\u00e9lix hit 433 fewer home runs than Jones did. (Yes, the King did hit one!) But think this through.<\/p>\n Like Jones, Hern\u00e1ndez charged into the big leagues before his 20th birthday. By age 21, he was the best pitcher on his team. By age 23, he was an inner-circle entry in the Best Pitcher in Baseball debate. And I\u2019d stack up the brilliance of age 21-29 F\u00e9lix-palooza against the artistry of nearly any great modern pitcher you could name at the same age.<\/p>\n \u2022 bWAR of Hern\u00e1ndez from age 21-29: 45.9<\/p>\n \u2022 The only starters in the expansion era (1961-present) who topped that in their age-21-29 window: Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Clayton Kershaw, Pedro Mart\u00ednez, Bert Blyleven and Greg Maddux.<\/p>\n Good group! But I also thought about Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s greatness from a less data-driven place. I know not everyone takes awards voting seriously as part of their Hall of Fame deliberations. I take the opposite view.<\/p>\n Awards voting is incredibly meaningful if you understand what it\u2019s telling us. It\u2019s a window into what the baseball world thought of any player in his moment in time. Look, I love numbers. And I appreciate what the metrics of today reveal about every player on this ballot. But I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about what Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s Cy Young Award voting finishes reveal, in their own way.<\/p>\n Between 2009 and 2014 \u2014 his age-23-through-28 seasons \u2014 the King won one Cy Young Award (in 2010), finished second twice (2009, 2014) and came in fourth once (2012). You don\u2019t see that much!<\/p>\n Only 10 starting pitchers have ever appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot who had any span of six seasons in which they A. Won at least one Cy Young, B. Had at least three top-two finishes and C. Had at least four top-four finishes. It\u2019s possible you\u2019ve heard of them:<\/p>\n Sandy Koufax (Source: STATS Perform)<\/p>\n There are all sorts of fun ways these days to measure a player\u2019s peak. That\u2019s just one of them. But it told me everything I needed to know about whether Hern\u00e1ndez fit the fame part of the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n His greatness and superstar charisma were undeniable. What a shame that, like Jones, he couldn\u2019t sustain it into his 30s.<\/p>\n According to Baseball Reference, he was worth minus-1.4 WAR from age 31 on. He threw his last pitch at age 33. And his baseball demise felt as if it was full of parallels to everything that once troubled me about Jones\u2019 candidacy.<\/p>\n But with both of those men, the vote I cast was for the brilliance they exuded in their 20s. And if they ever give speeches on that stage in Cooperstown, we won\u2019t have any trouble feeling the star power.<\/p>\n Chase Utley (39.8% last year) and Jimmy Rollins (18.0%)<\/p>\n I\u2019m from Philadelphia. So I had the best seat in the Hall of Fame Vote House to catch the Utley and Rollins Show, from 2003-15. In the mind of all of us Philadelphians who were around back then, they just go together \u2014 like Hewlett and Packard, like burgers and fries, like SpongeBob and SquarePants.<\/p>\n They were more than simply the National League\u2019s longest-running double-play duo ever. They were the engine that drove the Phillies\u2019 winningest teams of the 21st century \u2014 a juggernaut that won a World Series in 2008, blitzed to the top of the NL East five seasons in a row (2007-11), and won more games in every one of those seasons than the year before.<\/p>\n Utley and Rollins. Rollins and Utley. With all due respect to their excellent supporting cast, they were the two energizers who willed all that winning to happen. So I\u2019ll always think of them together. All those Lou Whitaker-Alan Trammell fans in Detroit know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n But you know who doesn\u2019t seem to think that way? Hall of Fame voters. Just check the Hall of Fame Tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Utley looks primed to charge past the 50-percent plateau this year, in his third go-round on the ballot. Which means that one of these years, he\u2019s going to get elected. But surprisingly, he hasn\u2019t helped propel his double-play partner into anywhere near that range. And you know who finds that confusing? The men they played with.<\/p>\n \u201cI love comparing Jimmy and Chase,\u201d one of their former teammates told me this month. \u201cbecause Chase (in his peak) was better. I don\u2019t think anyone is going to argue that. But I think Jimmy has the better (case).\u201d<\/p>\n So is that true? Let\u2019s dig in.<\/p>\n \n Chase Utley is surging in the voting despite lacking the counting numbers long-associated with the Hall. (L Redkoles \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n The case for Utley. As my friend and Athletic teammate Tyler Kepner wrote this month, there might be no one on this ballot who better reflects how modern voters think<\/a> than Utley. If you\u2019re looking for the simple counting numbers of yesteryear, you\u2019re looking at the wrong guy.<\/p>\n Has there ever been any such thing as a Hall of Fame infielder who didn\u2019t even get 1,900 hits? (Utley finished with 1,855.) Matter of fact, there has. The writers elected a guy like that as recently as \u2026 1962! His name was Jackie Robinson.<\/p>\n But luckily for Utley, we\u2019re all about stars with big, candescent peaks now. And if that\u2019s the new standard, welcome to Utleyville.<\/p>\n He ranks No. 2 on this ballot in a Baseball Reference metric known as WAR7, which totals up a player\u2019s seven best seasons. Who\u2019s ahead of him? Only A-Rod.<\/p>\n And while I think Utley\u2019s peak of true greatness was really the six seasons from 2005-10, even if you extend that over 10 years, from 2005-14, only one player in the sport rolled up more bWAR than Utley over either of those spans. His name was Albert Pujols.<\/p>\n Heck, even if you take WAR out of it, just one second baseman in the last 85 years ever ripped off five straight seasons as an everyday player with a .900 OPS or better. Guess who?<\/p>\n So if today\u2019s voters are all about climbing those peaks, it means they don\u2019t mind ignoring the ho-hum counting numbers that would have blown up Utley\u2019s candidacy in any other era. And if those former disqualifiers no longer apply, every other chapter of the Life and Times of Chase Utley seems to conjure up those magic words, Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n \u2022 He averaged 5.4 bWAR per 162 games. Only four Hall of Fame second basemen can say that. Among the ones who can\u2019t: Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio and the just-elected Jeff Kent<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 While Utley never won an MVP award, I often wonder how many he would have won if the voters of his era thought like the voters of this era. How many second basemen of modern times have ever strung together five straight seasons finishing in the top three in their league in WAR? I could find only one other in the last 60 years. His name was Joe Morgan.<\/p>\n \u2022 Then there was That Look that Utley flashed literally every day he ever spent playing baseball. That steely-eyed gaze said this wasn\u2019t just a game. This was serious. I\u2019ve said many times that when you watched this dude play, it felt like you were watching a man who thought every at-bat, every inning and every game was the most important at-bat, inning and game of his life.<\/p>\n \u2022 Plus, we\u2019re talking about a guy who was the ultimate flame-spitting, dustball-stirring winner. Was it the five home runs he smoked in the 2009 World Series that announced that? Was it his .902 OPS over his five postseasons with the Phillies? Or was it this, the legendary (in Philly) Utley Play \u2014 a moment of sheer, visionary, creative defensive genius that essentially clinched the final game of the 2008 World Series.<\/p>\n When I wrote a retrospective on that play <\/a>10 years later, his teammate Jayson Werth fired off a quote that sums up the awe Utley evoked in nearly everyone he ever played with.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s just got a master plan up there in his brain, always,\u201d Werth said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why, in my mind, he\u2019s the best \u2014 the best player of his generation. Yeah, he\u2019s had some injuries \u2026 but mentally, and preparation-wise, he\u2019s it. If anyone ever asks me, \u2018Who\u2019s the best player you played with?\u2019 I mean, not to take anything away from the many other great players I played with. But he\u2019s an easy choice.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet there\u2019s a voice in my head that constantly reminds me not to forget his double-play partner, because if we were having this Hall of Fame discussion 20 years ago, I think we\u2019d all be more fixated on \u2026<\/p>\n The case for Rollins. It honestly confuses me that when modern Hall voters look at Jimmy Rollins, so few of them see what I see. I don\u2019t know how many times I can say this, write this or illustrate this, but it\u2019s still true. No other shortstop in history had this man\u2019s career.<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t paid attention, you might think that\u2019s hype. No sir. It\u2019s just the facts. Here comes my annual recitation of why that\u2019s 100 percent true.<\/p>\n \u2022 Rollins won an MVP, a World Series and four Gold Glove awards. You know how many other shortstops can say that? None!<\/p>\n \u2022 He\u2019s the only shortstop in history with more than 2,400 hits, 200 homers, 400 steals and 800 extra-base hits.<\/p>\n \u2022 He owns the most hits in the history of his franchise (the Phillies).<\/p>\n \u2022 Want to guess who compiled the longest hitting streak by a shortstop (38 games) since 1894? Yup. It\u2019s that guy.<\/p>\n \u2022 And you\u2019re looking at the most durable 5-foot-7 shortstop who ever lived. He played 150 games or more in 10 different seasons. Only two shortstops in history had more seasons of 150-plus \u2014 two men named Jeter and Ripken (13 apiece).<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s defense. You know what really ticks off his former teammates? When people cite Rollins\u2019 defensive metrics to try to argue he wasn\u2019t one of the elite defenders of his time.<\/p>\n I can tell you, as someone who has asked this question, that if the pitchers on his teams had to vote on which player on the field they wanted a ball hit to in the ninth inning, every one of them would have voted for Jimmy Rollins. Could someone please invent a metric that measures that? Maybe Fielding Trust Above Average? Thank you.<\/p>\n \n Why isn\u2019t Jimmy Rollins getting more love from the voters? (Ben Warden \/ Icon SMI \/ Corbis \/ Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Finally, I\u2019d also like to ask: What is winning worth? The year before Rollins became the everyday shortstop in Philadelphia, his team lost 97 games and finished 30 games out of first place. Boy, did that change. One big reason it changed was the irresistible positivity that flowed out of the new shortstop in town.<\/p>\n I heard him talking just last month, on The Phillies Show podcast<\/a>, about the difference between \u201chope\u201d and \u201cbelief.\u201d His take: Contenders and pretenders have hope, but winners have belief. Rollins rolled into the park every day, thinking about how to exude \u2014 and spread \u2014 that belief. And if you don\u2019t think that was a real thing, here is what one of his coaches once told me:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I start feeling nervous,\u201d that coach said, \u201call I have to do is look at Jimmy and I think we\u2019re gonna win.\u201d<\/p>\n Are there reasons that so many of my fellow voters don\u2019t see that? Apparently. I\u2019d guess they\u2019re starting their deliberations with the Wins Above Replacement column, where Rollins\u2019 47.9 bWAR doesn\u2019t look like anything special.<\/p>\n I just know that I lived in Philadelphia every year of the careers of these two men. So I haven\u2019t merely factored in the metrics that shape most people\u2019s votes these days. I\u2019m factoring in what it felt like to watch two electric, inventive, winning players change the fate of their franchise. It felt \u2014 in case I haven\u2019t made this clear \u2014 like I was watching two Hall of Famers.<\/p>\n Dustin Pedroia (11.9% last year) and David Wright (8.1%) \n David Wright\u2019s first 10 seasons stack up impressively with those of third-base greats. (Jim McIsaac \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Honesty is the only policy you\u2019ll get in this column. So I\u2019m going to be totally transparent about why I vote for Dustin Pedroia and David Wright: They\u2019re not going to tumble off this ballot on my watch.<\/p>\n Go back and read that Utley section. It\u2019ll sound familiar. It has now been six decades since Hall of Fame voting by the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America became an annual event. How many Hall of Fame position players have we elected with under 1,900 hits in all that time? Not one.<\/p>\n So over that entire span, there has been no such thing as a Hall of Famer whose numbers looked like this:<\/p>\n WRIGHTPEDROIA<\/p>\n HITS<\/p>\n 1,777<\/p>\n 1,805<\/p>\n HR<\/p>\n 242<\/p>\n 140<\/p>\n bWAR<\/p>\n 49.1<\/p>\n 51.8<\/p>\n But that was yesterday. What about tomorrow? I\u2019m doing my best to position myself for that upside-down new world that arrives as soon as Utley and Posey get elected. Will we even care then what Hall of Famers used to look like? I bet we\u2019ll care a lot about how close Wright and Pedroia resemble Utley in particular.<\/p>\n PedroiaUtleyWright<\/p>\n HITS<\/p>\n 1,805<\/p>\n 1,885<\/p>\n 1,777<\/p>\n OPS+<\/p>\n 113<\/p>\n 117<\/p>\n 133<\/p>\n HOF MONITOR<\/p>\n 94<\/p>\n 94<\/p>\n 74<\/p>\n 5.0-WAR SEASONS<\/p>\n 6<\/p>\n 6<\/p>\n 4<\/p>\n Ten years into their careers, all three of them were cruising along that Cooperstown Superhighway. We know what happened next.<\/p>\n Utley had to will himself to play through debilitating hip and knee issues. Spinal stenosis turned Wright into a shadow of his young self. Manny Machado slid into Pedroia at second base one night in 2017, and that didn\u2019t end well.<\/p>\n Once upon a time in Cooperstown, that would have ended their Hall of Fame dreams. But aren\u2019t we about to enter an age where we\u2019re not going to care much anymore about distractions like injuries and the 2,000-Hit Club? Sure looks that way.<\/p>\n Is Utley about to serve as the bulldozer who clears the path for Wright and Pedroia to charge right on into the Hall? We don\u2019t know yet. But would it shock you? So let\u2019s think more about \u2026<\/p>\n Pedroia\u2019s peak. I have three items for your consideration.<\/p>\n \u2022 Before Machado went cannonballing into second base that night, Pedroia had played 11 full seasons for the Red Sox. Here\u2019s what he had to show for them: an MVP trophy, a Rookie of the Year award, four Gold Gloves and two World Series rings. Just so you know, only two players in history can brag that they did all of that: Johnny Bench \u2026 and Dustin Pedroia.<\/p>\n \u2022 Also in those first 11 full seasons, Pedroia piled up almost 1,800 hits and 53.3 WAR, according to Baseball Reference. Only four second basemen in the expansion era accumulated that many hits and that much WAR in their first 11 full seasons: Sandberg, Alomar, Robinson Can\u00f3 \u2026 and Pedroia.<\/p>\n \u2022 And you can decide for yourself how much credit you\u2019d like to award Pedroia for all that winning the post-cursified Red Sox did \u2014 as opposed to, say, Big Papi. I just know that everything I said about the culture-changing impact of Utley and Rollins in Philly was every bit as true of Pedroia in Boston. All his teammates had to do was take one look at Pedroia, already in game-time mode at 11:30 in the morning for a night game, and they knew the deal.<\/p>\n \u201cHis mental toughness was like nobody I\u2019d ever seen before,\u201d Sean Casey, his former Red Sox teammate, told me last year. \u201cIt was just a constant \u2018bring-it-on\u2019 mentality. One of a kind!<\/p>\n \n With voters putting more priority on peaks, could Dustin Pedroia eventually be headed to the Hall? (Billie Weiss \/ Boston Red Sox \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Wright\u2019s peak. If there were such a thing as Mets Rushmore \u2014 and I fully expect Steve Cohen to erect one on the nearest Queens mountaintop \u2014 do we even need to debate whether you\u2019d find David Wright\u2019s profile on it?<\/p>\n His tremendous first 10 seasons did more than just establish him as the face of Flushing-ball. They blew away the first 10 seasons of nearly every third baseman of the last 75 years.<\/p>\n \u2022 Want me to toss out just some of the third-base icons who compiled less WAR than Wright (46.5) over their first 10 seasons, according to Baseball Reference? How about Adri\u00e1n Beltr\u00e9, Brooks Robinson, Manny Machado, Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez, Alex Bregman \u2014 and I\u2019ll spare you the rest.<\/p>\n \u2022 And for those of you who are tired of hearing about WAR, check out the other numbers on Wright\u2019s baseball card after those 10 seasons:<\/p>\n .301\/.382\/.506\/.888 slash line How many third basemen in the live-ball era were averaging at least 20 home runs and 18 steals a season over the first decade of their career? Exactly one: David Wright.<\/p>\n And how many full-time third basemen in the live-ball era matched or topped Wright\u2019s OPS+ over their first 10 seasons? That would be four: Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Wade Boggs and Eddie Mathews. You can learn more about those four the next time you\u2019re in the mood to read a bunch of Hall of Fame plaques.<\/p>\n But yes, it\u2019s true those four guys all kept going, until the numbers next to their name made them undeniable Hall of Famers. That isn\u2019t how this went for Wright \u2014 or Pedroia.<\/p>\n After Machado\u2019s slide, Pedroia got just three hits over the rest of his career. After those first 10 seasons, Wright hit only 20 more home runs, plus one magical World Series swing of the bat that no one in Mets Land will ever forget.<\/p>\n Mets captain David Wright hits a go ahead home run during Game 3 of the 2015 World Series.pic.twitter.com\/0Tk0as50f4<\/a><\/p>\n
Andruw Jones
Jimmy Rollins
Chase Utley
David Wright
Dustin Pedroia
Andy Pettitte<\/p>\n
Torii Hunter<\/p>\n
Bobby Abreu
Mark Buehrle
Francisco Rodr\u00edguez<\/p>\n
Manny Ram\u00edrez<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/IMG_0085.jpeg\")
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Total by this year\u2019s top two \u2014 4,351<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-148285894.jpg\")
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Sign-stealing \u201ccheaters\u201d: Aw, whatever. High-tech gamesmanship!<\/p>\n
Fielding Runs above average: Plus-40
Baserunning Runs above average: Plus-55<\/p>\n
Rickey Henderson
Joe DiMaggio
Henry Aaron
Barry Bonds
Larry Walker
Carlos Beltr\u00e1n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-81430441-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
bWAR \u2014 5.8\/year
Gold Gloves \u2014 10 in 10 years<\/p>\n
(Outfielders only)<\/p>\n
Barry Bonds \u2014 7
Andruw Jones \u2014 7<\/p>\n
Torii Hunter \u2014 6
Garry Maddox \u2014 6<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/USATSI_12664411-e1579904319502.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Torii](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-2050175-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Warren Spahn
Steve Carlton
Jim Palmer
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
Pedro Mart\u00ednez
Roy Halladay
Roger Clemens
F\u00e9lix Hern\u00e1ndez<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-117085220-scaled.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Dustin](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dustin-Pedroia-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
137 OPS+
2 Gold Gloves
222 HR
183 SB<\/p>\n
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