Today the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) announced the names that will be on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Todd Helton and the late Roy Halladay are the top headliners among the first-time eligible players.
They’ll join 16 other newcomers and 15 returning players on the 2019 ballot. Each voting member of the BBWAA is allowed to vote for up to 10 players (the “rule of 10”) on their ballot and as few as none at all. Any candidate who gets at least 75% of the vote will be inducted into the Hall of Fame next summer. Candidates who receive less than 5% of the vote will be removed from future ballots.
Because of the volume of candidates, this piece will be presented in two parts. In Part One, we’ll look at outlook for the returning players to the ballot. In Part Two, we’ll take a look at the first-time candidates.
Without any further ado, here’s the list, starting with the returning class in order of their 2018 vote. I’ll provide links to full pieces about certain players elsewhere on this site when appropriate. Because I have yet to post full-analysis pieces on Manny Ramirez and Sammy Sosa, I’ll have a bit more detailed commentary on each of them below.
(cover photos: mlb.com & New York Daily News)
The 2019 Hall of Fame Ballot for the BBWAA: Returning Candidates
Edgar Martinez: 10th year on ballot (received 70.4% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .312 BA, 309 HR, 1,261 RBI, 2,247 Hits
- Career: 147 OPS+, 68.4 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
- .418 career on-base% (4th best in last 50 years) (min 5,000 PA)
- 147 career OPS+ (tied for 9th best in last 30 years) (min 5,000 PA)
- 7-time All-Star
Four years ago, in his 6th year on the ballot, Martinez received just 27% of the vote. In the years since, however, he’s skyrocketed to 70.5%. History tells us that, almost always, a player with 70% or more of the vote in their second to last year on the ballot crosses the finish line the next year.
It could go sideways but I would expect that the longtime designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners will be a member of the Hall of Fame Class of 2019.
For more on Edgar’s candidacy, click here.
Mike Mussina: 6th year on ballot (received 63.5% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: 270-153 (.638 WL%), 3.68 ERA
- Career: 123 ERA+, 82.9 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
- Nine times in Top 6 of AL Cy Young Award voting
- 5-time All-Star
- 82.9 career WAR, highest for any pitcher not in the Hall of Fame except for Roger Clemens
Mussina was a consistent workhorse for the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees for 18 seasons. However, it’s taken awhile for the writers to warm to his candidacy. Moose received just 20% of the vote in 2014, his first year on the ballot.
Because Mussina hit the ballot in the same year (2014) as 300-game winners Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, Mussina’s 270 wins just didn’t look impressive by comparison. As the years have gone by, it’s been easier for the writers to appreciate what a special pitcher he was.
It’s possible that Mussina will make the leap from 63.5% to 75% of the vote this year but it doesn’t happen often. The last time was when Ryne Sandberg went from 61% to 76% between 2004 and 2005. If Moose makes it, he’ll join his longtime teammate Rivera on the 2019 Hall of Fame stage.
More likely, Mussina fall a bit short and then get elected in 2020, joining another Yankees teammate, first-time eligible Derek Jeter.
You can read more about Mussina by clicking here.
Roger Clemens: 7th year on ballot (received 57.3% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: 354-184 (.658 WL%), 3.12 ERA
- Career: 143 ERA+, 139.0 WAR
- 4,672 career strikeouts (3rd all-time behind Nolan Ryan & Randy Johnson)
- 7-time Cy Young Award Winner
- 11-time All-Star
Barry Bonds: 7th year on ballot (received 56.4% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .298 BA, .444 OBP, .607 SLG, 762 HR, 1,996 RBI
- Career: 182 OPS+, 162.8 WAR
- 7-time Most Valuable Player
- 8-time Gold Glove Award Winner
- 14-time All-Star
Like Bonnie and Clyde, Han Solo and Chewbacca, or Bert and Ernie, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have become inexorably linked at the hip when it comes to the Hall of Fame debates. Bonds and Clemens both arrived on the BBWAA ballot in 2013 and have received almost exactly the same vote every year.
Needless to say, were it not for their links to Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), Bonds and Clemens would have been first-ballot Hall of Famers. Their continued presence on the ballot has been to the detriment of other candidates who get squeezed out every year by stacked ballot and the rule of 10.
Bonds and Clemens are not going to get in on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot and I’m not sure if they’re going to make it to 75% in the next four years. The ballot backlog will ease up a bit in the next three years so it could happen. It will be close.
You might enjoy my thorough discussion of the Bonds-Clemens conundrum in this piece I published on the eve of the 2018 voting results.
Curt Schilling: 7th year on ballot (received 51.2% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: 216-146 (.597 WL%), 3.46 ERA
- Career: 127 ERA+, 80.6 WAR
- 3-time runner-up in Cy Young Voting
- 6-time All-Star
- 11-2 with 2.23 ERA in 19 post-season starts
- Career 4.38 SO/BB ratio, best in all of MLB since 1919 (min 2,000 IP)
It’s always bugged me that Curt Schilling is not yet in the Hall of Fame. He has been called a “borderline” candidate because of only having 216 regular season wins. What I care about more is that, five times in his career, Schilling took the hill when his team faced elimination in the postseason. Five times his teams won, with Schilling posting a 1.37 ERA.
OK, he’s highly opinionated politically and has said/Tweeted some insensitive things. Who cares? He’s a choir boy compared to some folks from the first half of the century who are in the Hall of Fame. I think he’ll make it eventually but the writers will make him wait the full ten years.
You can read about Schilling’s Twitter feed and how it’s hurt him in the vote by clicking here.
Omar Vizquel: 2nd year on ballot (received 37.0% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .272 BA, 404 SB, 82 OPS+, 45.6 WAR
- 11 Gold Gloves, 2nd most ever for a shortstop (Ozzie Smith had 13)
- Career: .9847 fielding percentage (2nd best for all MLB shortstops in baseball history) (min. 500 games)
- 2,709 games played at shortstop (most all-time)
- 1,744 career double plays turned (most for SS all-time)
- 2,877 career hits (5th most ever among MLB shortstops, behind Jeter, Wagner, Ripken, Yount)
I don’t think Vizquel is a Hall of Famer, for reasons I explained in detail here. He was a poor offensive player and the defensive metrics don’t match the hardware he earned with 11 Gold Gloves.
An interesting note that a reader pointed out to me: Vizquel has the most productive outs (Sacrifice Flies plus Sacrifice Hits) since 1951, when Sacrifice Flies were first officially counted. Omar had 256 SH and 94 SF for a total of 350 in his 24-year career. As the reader noted, that makes Vizquel the “Sultan of Sacrifice.”
Larry Walker: 9th year on ballot (received 34.1% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .313 BA, 383 HR, 1,311 RBI
- Career: 141 OPS+, 72.7 WAR
- 7-time Gold Glove winner
- 5-time All-Star
It’s probably too little, too late, but Walker is becoming the next Edgar Martinez, the popular sabermetric candidate. Walker’s vote percentage went from 22% in 2017 to 34% in 2018. That’s still a long way from 75% but Walker is getting more respect every year.
I always thought that Walker was a little short due to his career “counting” stats and I always distrusted his “rate” stats because of the Coors Field effect. A year ago, I thoroughly researched the issue and concluded that Walker is, in fact, very worthy of the Hall of Fame.
Fred McGriff: 10th year on ballot (received 23.2% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .284 BA, .377 OBP, .509 SLG, 493 HR, 1,550 RBI
- Career: 134 OPS+, 52.6 WAR
- 30 or more home runs 10 times in his career
- 5-time All-Star
Perhaps more than any other Hall of Fame candidate, McGriff has been collateral damage of the PED era and the players’ strike of 1994-95. The strike almost certainly cost McGriff the milestone of 500 home runs and the proliferation of PEDs made that milestone vastly diminished.
I am a strong believer in McGriff’s case for Cooperstown (read about it here). He’s not going to make it on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot but will be a strong candidate for the “Today’s Game” Committee (the current version of the Veterans Committee) in 2022.
Manny Ramirez: 3rd year on ballot (received 22.0% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .312 BA, .411 OBP, .585 SLG, 555 HR, 1,831 RBI
- Career: 154 OPS+, 69.4 WAR
- 12-time All-Star
- 9-time Silver Slugger
Were it not for two PED suspensions later in his career, Manny Ramirez would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he was first eligible in 2017. In his first 16 seasons with Cleveland, Boston and Los Angeles, Manny’s offensive numbers were simply extraordinary.
His years in Boston were often controversial (the phrase “Manny being Manny” was used often to explain his erratic behavior) but there was no question that the dude could rake. The Red Sox brass eventually got fed up, however, and Ramirez was dealt to the Dodgers during the 2008 campaign.
In his second season with the Dodgers (2009), Ramirez got off to another fast start (hitting .348 with 6 HR and 20 RBI in 27 games played). On May 7, however, Ramirez was suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test. Manny played the balance of the ’09 campaign in Los Angeles.
In the middle of the 2010 campaign, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. A free agent in that off-season, Ramirez signed a one-year contract with the Tampa Bay Rays. After just 5 games to start the 2011 season, Ramirez failed another drug test. Rather than face a 100-game suspension, Manny simply retired.
At the end of the 2008 season, Ramirez had a career batting average of .314 with 527 home runs, 1,725 RBI and a OPS+ of 155. If he had simply retired at the age of 36, he would already be in the Hall of Fame.
Instead, he became another Rafael Palmeiro, a player with slam-dunk Hall of Fame credentials who pissed it all away at the of his career with a failed drug test.
Personally, I’m inclined to be more forgiving of Palmeiro, who played during the wild wild west years of Major League Baseball when the sport was uninterested in policing the abuse of PEDs. Having said that, he failed a test after the drug-testing regime (with prescribed penalties) had already been implemented, with the support of the players’ union.
I may change my mind about Manny Ramirez but, for the time being, I’m going to look at his Cooperstown candidacy a little more harshly because of the two failed drug tests.
Jeff Kent: 6th year on ballot (received 14.5% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .290 BA, 377 HR, 1,518 RBI
- Career: 123 OPS+, 55.4 WAR
- 377 home runs (most all-time for 2B)
- 2000 NL MVP (.334 BA, 33 HR, 125 RBI)
- 5-time All-Star
From a power hitting perspective, no second baseman in MLB history other than Rogers Horsnby can match Jeff Kent. Kent has been languishing at the back of the pack in the Hall of Fame voting because he was a late bloomer and because poor defensive metrics have depressed his WAR.
I think he belongs in Cooperstown (reasons explained here) but it’s almost certain that his only chance will be through the Veterans Committee.
Gary Sheffield: 5th year on ballot (received 11.1% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .292 BA, 509 HR, 1,676 RBI, 2,689 Hits
- Career: 140 OPS+, 60.5 WAR
- 9-time All-Star
- 5-time Silver Slugger
Yesterday was Gary Sheffield’s 50th birthday and I celebrated it by posting an in-depth piece about his Hall of Fame candidacy. Sheffield has the numbers to be in the Hall of Fame but has a link to the BALCO scandal and the Mitchell Report on Steroids. As I explain in the piece, his PED transgressions can probably be forgiven. Whether they ever will be is another question entirely.
If Sheffield is going to have any chance at all to climb to 75% via the BBWAA, he’s going to need to make a big leap this year on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot.
Billy Wagner: 4th year on ballot (received 11.1% of the vote in 2018)
- 422 career saves (6th most all-time) in 903 innings
- Career: 2.31 ERA (2nd best in last 100 years to Mariano Rivera) (min 750 IP)
- Career: 187 adjusted ERA+ (2nd best in all MLB history to Rivera)
- Career: 0.998 WHIP (2nd best in MLB history to Addie Joss)
- 7-time All-Star
When you look at the run prevention, base-runner prevention, and strikeout “rate” statistics, Billy Wagner sure looks like a Hall of Famer. His rate stats are nearly in the same class as Mariano Rivera and they’re significantly better than Trevor Hoffman, who was inducted into the Hall this pas summer.
So, why is Wagner getting just 11% of the vote. It starts with having pitched only 903 innings and being much more of a one-inning only pitcher than Rivera or Hoffman. For more details, I invite you to click here.
The short version? Wagner’s numbers are currently being duplicated by multiple one-inning closers in today’s game. More years for context are required to determine if he’s worthy of the Hall of Fame.
Scott Rolen: 2nd year on ballot (received 10.2% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .281 BA, 316 HR, 1,287 RBI
- Career: 122 OPS+, 70.2 WAR
- 8-time Gold Glove Award winner (3rd most for any 3rd baseman) (behind Brooks Robinson & Mike Schmidt)
- 7-time All-Star
- Career 70.2 WAR is 9th best ever for a 3rd baseman
Because of his 70.2 career WAR, at some point in the next few years, Scott Rolen is likely to become a favorite cause in the sabermetric community.
Rolen suffered by comparison last year by being a first-time candidate in the same year as Chipper Jones. He won’t have the same problem among candidates at the 3rd base position until five years after Adrian Beltre retires.
I think Rolen is probably a Hall of Famer (I examine his case here) but don’t think he’s one of the ten best players on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot.
Sammy Sosa: 7th year on ballot (received 7.8% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .273 BA, 609 HR, 1,667 RBI
- Career: 128 OPS+, 58.6 WAR
- 1998 N.L. MVP: .308 BA, 66 HR, 158 RBI
- Only player in MLB history to hit 60 or more HR 3 times
- 7-time All-Star
- 6-time Silver Slugger
In a universe free of Performing Enhancing Drugs, Sammy Sosa would have been a first ballot Hall of Famer based on peak performance, his 609 career home runs and his co-starring role in the great home run chase with Mark McGwire in 1998.
During Sosa’s peak (1998-2001), he averaged 61 home runs and 149 RBI to go with a .310 batting average and a 168 OPS+.
Sosa hit the BBWAA ballot in the same year as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Curt Schilling, and Kenny Lofton. The 2013 ballot also had a strong roster of returning candidates in McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Jack Morris, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Lee Smith, Edgar Martinez, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Fred McGriff, Dale Murphy, Don Mattingly and Bernie Williams.
You could make a case for 20 Hall of Famers on that 2013 ballot. The 569 voting members of the BBWAA instead pitched a shutout, failing to elect a single player in what was widely seen as a rebuke to the players of the PED era.
In that 2013 vote, Sosa got 12.5% of the vote, a bit behind McGwire and a bit ahead of Palmeiro. The next year, Palmeiro received less than 5% of the vote and was removed from future ballots. McGwire appeared on 3 more ballots before finishing with 12.3% in his 10th and final year on the ballot in 2016.
The Hall of Fame actually changed the rules in July of 2014, reducing the number of years a player could remain eligible on the BBWAA ballot from 15 years to 10 years. Although it was never admitted as the purported reason, the decision was widely seen as the Hall of Fame’s way to get McGwire, Sosa, Bonds and Clemens off the ballot faster.
Anyway, while Bonds and Clemens have slowly crept up to over 50% of the vote in their 6 years on the ballot, Sosa has been below 10% for each of the last 5 voting cycles.
The reason for the difference, of course, is because Bonds and Clemens are all-time great players while Sosa is widely viewed as a chemical creation. The irony (and perhaps this is unfair to Slammin’ Sammy) is that Bonds and Clemens were prominently mentioned in the Mitchell Report on Steroids while Sosa was not.
It wasn’t until 2009 that Sosa had a documented link to steroids. On June 16 of that year, the New York Times reported that Sosa tested positive in 2003. The 2003 test results that ensnared Sosa, under guidelines agreed upon with the players union, were supposed to remain anonymous but would lead to testing with penalties the next year if more than 5 percent of the results were positive.
That’s exactly what happened. By 2005, the year that Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro infamously testified in front of Congress, MLB had a drug-testing policy in place. It was that policy that nabbed Palmeiro just months after he had wagged his finger defiantly, denying ever using Performance Enhancing Drugs.
What is also perhaps unfair to Sosa is that, among the other 103 names revealed from that supposed-to-be-confidential list is the name David Ortiz. And yet, shortly before Big Papi’s retirement, current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred essentially gave him a pass. Manfred revealed that the 2003 survey test contained at least 10 to 15 false positives, that it wasn’t clear at the time whether certain substances were either banned or legal and available over-the-counter.
Anyway, whether it was his intention or not, Manfred’s news-making disclosure about the unreliability of the 2003 test will likely be mentally cited by future BBWAA voters as a green light to usher Ortiz into the Hall of Fame.
So, why doesn’t Sosa get the same benefit of the doubt as Ortiz? In case it isn’t obvious, the reason is this: Ortiz played the vast majority of his career (2005-2016) in the years that other players (like Palmeiro and Ramirez) were failing drug tests.
Sosa, on the other hand, played just two seasons (2005 and 2007) under the new drug testing policy. In those two years (his age 36 and age 38 seasons), he averaged 18 home runs and 68 RBI while hitting .237 with a below-average OPS+ of 90.
To use one word, what statistically makes Sosa a Hall of Fame player (the prodigious power and home run totals) is profoundly inauthentic. I can’t think of anybody who thinks that he would have hit 60+ bombs in 3 out of 4 seasons without the significant benefit of steroids.
For a “performance only” voter looking for an excuse not to vote for Sosa, I’ll give you this. Thanks to a poor walk rate and high strikeout rate, Sosa’s sabermetric offensive profile is much weaker than his 609 career taters would have you believe.
Sosa’s Offensive WAR is just 12th best among the position player candidates on the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. Offensive WAR involves a positional adjustment so it puts Sosa down a peg for being an outfielder. There’s a different metric, the “WAR batting runs above average” that is position-neutral. Using this one, Sosa is still just 9th best among position players.
I’m not a slave to the advanced metrics but I’ll go with them here. Unlike Bonds and Clemens, who, in my opinion, had already achieved Hall of Fame status before they started using PEDs, Sosa’s primary Hall of Fame credential (his home run total) is a fraud. Sorry, that’s how I feel.
Andruw Jones: 2nd year on ballot (received 7.3% of the vote in 2018)
- Career: .254 BA, 434 HR, 1,289 RBI
- Career: 111 OPS+, 62.8 WAR
- 10-time Gold Glove Award winner (tied for 3rd most for any outfielder behind Clemente and Mays)
- 5th most HR for CF all-time (Mays, Griffey, Mantle, Beltran) (min 50% starts in CF)
- 5-time All-Star
I have always been dubious about the Hall of Fame candidacy of Andruw Jones. The primary case is that there are certain defensive metrics that anoint him the best defensive center fielder of all-time.
Retroactively applied defensive metrics cannot be relied on when used to compare a player of the 1990’s and 2000’s (Jones) to a player from the 1950’s and 1960’s (Willie Mays, for instance). I explain the conundrum in detail here (sabermetric pioneer Bill James weighs in by Twitter in this piece).
For now, I’m happy to see Jones remain on the ballot for future years but I personally wouldn’t put him in the top 10.
That’s it, a recap of the 15 returning candidates to the 2019 Hall of Fame ballot. In part two, I’ll look at the 20 first-time eligible candidates.
Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.