Future Hall of Fame Candidates: N.L. East

Over the past few weeks, Cooperstown Cred has profiled dozens of players who are either sure bets or long shot candidates for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Today, we’ll take a look at the stars of the N.L. East.

In a division with three teams rebuilding and another that features a couple of terrific young pitchers with less than 6 years of MLB service, there’s only one player in the division who has already accomplished enough to be considered better than likely to eventually have a plaque bearing his likeness in Cooperstown. I’m talking about 3-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer.

This is the final installment of a six-part series on the stars of today who have a chance to be the Cooperstown inductees of tomorrow.

Note: most of this research for this piece was done prior to Opening Day so the statistics listed here are through the 2017 season. 

Before we get started with the N.L. East, let’s go over the ground rules again. In order to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, a player must have service time in 10 different MLB seasons. I’ll comment on many of these players. In addition, for a handful current stars who have played between 6 and 9 seasons, I’ll take a look at their cases as well, recognizing that it’s still early. I won’t be commenting on players with five years of MLB service or less.

As I did with the previous entries, to allow people to ridicule me for decades, I’m going to offer some unscientific odds of each player eventually getting a Hall of Fame plaque. With these odds, I’m going to make the assumption that none of the players profiled below will ever be suspended in the future for use of PEDs. These predictions are based on past and predicted future performance only.

In this piece we’ll make extensive references to the statistics WAR (Wins Above Replacement), OPS+ (ballpark adjusted on-base + slugging%) and ERA+ (ballpark adjusted ERA). For more on these advanced metrics, please visit the Glossary.

(cover photo: si.com/Icon Sportswire)

Washington Nationals

As the defending N.L. East Champions and the widely considered best team in the division, the Washington Nationals have several players that look like they might be future Hall of Famers.

Max Scherzer (33 years old)

• Career: 141-75 (.653 WL%), 3.30 ERA, 127 ERA+, 44.1 WAR
• 3-time Cy Young Award winner (2013, 2016, 2017)
• 5-time All-Star

There have been 10 pitchers in MLB history who have won their league’s Cy Young Award three times.

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Only three of these 10 hurlers are not in the Hall of Fame. Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer are still active and we all know why Roger Clemens is not in the Hall.

I wrote a piece about Scherzer’s Cooperstown chances last fall after he won that third Cy Young. Here are some highlights from that piece:

• He’s struck out at least 230 batters in 6 straight seasons, leading the N.L. in 2016 and 2017
• He’s a two-time 20-game winner
• He’s thrown two no-hitters
• He struck out 20 hitters on May 11, 2016 vs the Detroit Tigers, his old team.

These accomplishments, along with the 3 Cy Youngs, are building blocks for a very solid Hall of Fame resume. At this point, he doesn’t need to win any more Cy Youngs or even be a top 10 pitcher in the league. He’s got four years left on his $210 million contract with Washington. If he is merely average, he’s going to pile up the wins, innings, and WAR to be a great Cooperstown candidate.

Scherzer is one of the most cerebral pitchers in the game. He’s as good a bet as anybody to adjust as he ages and loses velocity on his fastball. I would expect, by the time he’s done, that he’s not only a Hall of Famer but a first ballot selection.

Hall of Fame odds — 90%

Only a career-ending injury or a sudden transformation into a horrible pitcher will keep him out of the Hall. If he manages to win a fourth Cy Young, he’s going to get in regardless of whatever else happens.

Stephen Strasburg (29 years old)

• Career: 84-45 (.651 WL%), 3.07 ERA, 131 ERA+, 23.6 WAR
• 3-time All-Star

Stephen Strasburg was one of the most ballyhooed prospects in the history of baseball when he was selected #1 overall in 2009 by the Washington Nationals.

Strasburg was 20 years old when he was drafted and was just six or so weeks shy of his 22nd birthday when he made his MLB debut in June 2010 and it what a debut it was. The San Diego St. product went 7 innings, giving up just 2 runs on 4 hits while walking nary a batter. And, oh by the way, the hard-throwing right-hander fanned 14 batters in his debut, a total which to this day remains one off his career best.

The Nats’ young ace only made 11 more starts in 2010 before the name “Tommy John” entered his life. 7 and a half years later, Strasburg is a 29-year-old veteran. He’s toeing the rubber this season in the 2nd year of a 7-year, $175 million contract extension signed in 2016.

Strasburg’s progress towards Cooperstown

While he hasn’t been the second coming of Walter Johnson, Strasburg has become one of the top starters in the N.L., albeit one who can’t ever seem to get through the season without a trip to the disabled list.

Despite missing four starts due to a nerve impingement, Strasburg had easily his career-best season in 2017, going 15-4 with a 2.52 ERA (176 ERA+ 6.2 WAR and 204 strikeouts in 175.1 IP). For this, he was 3rd in the Cy Young voting, behind Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw.

Strasburg has only matched or exceeded his 14-K debut twice in his career but he is still one of the best strikeout pitchers in the game. Entering the 2018 season, his 10.54 strikeouts per 9 inning is 3rd best all-time (for pitchers with a minimum of 1,000 innings pitched). He’s behind only Randy Johnson and Chris Sale (who is ahead by 0.01).

There aren’t a lot of Hall of Fame pitchers who who have pitched as few as Strasburg’s career of 1,099.2 IP through their age 28 seasons but the examples do exist: Jim Bunning, Gaylord Perry, Warren Spahn, and Randy Johnson are the four post-WWII Cooperstown-enshrined hurlers to throw less innings at this point in their respective careers. By WAR, Strasburg is also ahead of the paces set by Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford and others.

Hall of Fame odds — 25%

Among pitchers who have debuted in the last 50 seasons, there are 17 who have bettered Strasburg’s 23.6 WAR through their age 28 seasons while posting an ERA+ of at least 125.

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There are no Hall of Famers (yet) on this list but Mussina and Halladay will be soon. Also, Clemens is outside Cooperstown for reasons outside of his brilliance on the mound. Kershaw is a lock (read why here). King Felix is very much a question mark right now because his productivity has fallen off significantly in recent years (see the linked piece about the A.L. West). You can read about Sale in my A.L. East piece.

Anyway, if you look at the other names on this list you’ll see why I’ve pegged Strasburg, as good as he is, as having a 25% shot at future Cooperstown fame.

Why do I have Sale at 55% and Strasburg at only 25%? Two reasons. The first is Strasburg’s injury history. The second is that Sale has finished in the top 6 of his league’s Cy Young Award voting for six years in a row; Strasburg did it for just the first time in 2017. Sale’s track record is significantly better.

Gio Gonzalez (32 years old)

• Career: 117-86 (.576 WL%), 3.64 ERA, 112 ERA+, 26.6 WAR
• 2-time All-Star

Gio Gonzalez has had a pretty good career and is coming off one of best two seasons of it (15-9, 2.96 ERA, 150 ERA+, 6.4 WAR). It was arguably as good a season as Strasburg’s because he pitched four more games and surpassed 200 innings. His other great season was in 2012, when he went 21-8 with a 2.89 ERA (138 ERA+, 5.0 WAR).

Sandwiched in between were four average to mediocre seasons in which Gonzalez authored a barely-above league average 103 ERA+ which is why his Cooperstown chances are only…

Hall of Fame odds — 5%

If Gio were to somehow duplicate his 2017 campaign five times in the next six or seven years, he’ll have an outside chance at the Hall. Not likely, which is the definition of 5%.

Bryce Harper (25 years old)

• Career: 150 HR, 421 RBI, .285 BA, 140 OPS+, 26.1 WAR
• 5-time All-Star
• 2012 N.L. Rookie of the Year, 2015 N.L. MVP

As it was with Strasburg, Bryce Harper was one of those talents so hyped as a teenager that anything less than a Hall of Fame career will wind up feeling like a disappointment. Harper was the #1 overall pick in the 2010 draft and was in the major leagues just two years later.

Before he was old enough to drink a beer legally, Harper was the N.L. Rookie of the Year, made his first two All-Star squads and won the 2013 Home Run Derby at Citi Field in New York.

Harper slumped a bit in an injury plagued 2014 campaign but followed that up with a Hall of Fame worthy season in 2015. In ’15, Harper had a slash line of .330 BA/.460 OBP/.649 SLG with 42 home runs, 99 RBI, 118 runs scored, an OPS+ of 198 to go with a 10.0 WAR.

Harper’s Historic 2015 Season

In the history of baseball there have been 58 seasons for position players that Baseball Reference credits with at least 10 Wins Above Replacement. That’s 58 such campaigns in 147 MLB seasons.

Only 11 of those 58 seasons of 10+ WAR seasons were authored by players who are not in the Hall of Fame.

• Barry Bonds did it 4 times and we all know why he isn’t in the Hall yet.
• Sammy Sosa and Alex Rodriguez each did it once and, ahem, perhaps they had some help?
• Mike Trout has done it twice and he’ll make it for sure when he retires.
• The other three are Harper, Al Rosen (10.1 WAR in 1953) and Rico Petrocelli (10.0 WAR in 1969)

Rosen, a third baseman, was 29 years old when he won the A.L. MVP for the Cleveland Indians in ’53; he only played three more seasons, retiring at 32 because of multiple injuries. Rosen didn’t become a full-time player until he was 26 so he only had 7 seasons as a full-time player, not enough to merit a Hall of Fame plaque.

The ’69 campaign for Petrocelli (40 HR, 97 RBI, 168 OPS+) was a true outlier. He was a shortstop at the time for the Boston Red Sox. His career highs in all of his other 12 MLB seasons were a 4.9 WAR, 123 OPS+, 29 HR and 89 RBI.

The point to this boring story is that it is exceedingly rare for anyone but a special talent to produce the kind of season that Harper had in 2015. It’s the kind of season Hall of Famers have.

Hall of Fame odds — 70%

70% is actually a very high number for a player who only has 6 MLB seasons under his belt. In my piece about the future Hall of Famers in the A.L. West, I put Mike Trout’s odds at 99%. Trout is in a different league entirely and it’s because of his consistency. He’s won 2 MVP’s, had 3 runner-ups and finished 4th last year when he missed a quarter of the season due to injury.

I’ve got Harper at “only” 70% because he still has a long, long way to go before he has the accomplishments he’ll need to get a plaque in Cooperstown. Between his all-out style of play and some bad luck, Harper has been injury-prone in his young career.

I have him as high as 70% because, sometime in the winter of 2018-19, he’s going to sign a contract worth anywhere from 300 to 500 million dollars. He’s only 25 years old. He has a great deal of time to put up his Hall of Fame numbers and, whether it’s with the Nationals or somewhere else, there will be a team willing to suffer through the peaks and valleys of a normal career and give him his at bats.

Ryan Zimmerman (33 years old)

• Career: 251 HR, 937 RBI, .280 BA, 117 OPS+, 36.7 WAR
• 2-time All-Star, 1 Gold Glove Award

Ryan Zimmerman is a classic example of why it’s hard to project Cooperstown odds for players who have played less than ten seasons. After his first 8 MLB seasons (2005-2013), Zim had 179 HR, a 120 OPS+, and a 34.0 WAR. He was only 29 years old. That wasn’t exactly the record of a certain future Hall of Famer but it was a solid foundation from which to build.

Unfortunately, Zimmerman suffered through three injury plagued seasons from 2014-16, averaging just 93 games per year amid a move off the hot corner and declining production. The Z Man looked positively done in 2016; he hit .218 with just 15 HR and a woefully low 67 OPS+ in 115 games.

In 2017, Zimmerman had a huge comeback campaign. He hit .300 with a 130 OPS+ while setting career highs with 36 HR and 108 RBI. He was an All-Star and won the N.L. Comeback Player of the Year award.

Hall of Fame odds — 10%

As a first baseman now, future All-Star appearances will be tough to come by. He’s in the same league as top talents like Votto, Goldschmidt, Rizzo and Freeman. Not only is he up against those stars in contemporary rankings of first sackers but he’ll be compared to them in the future when it comes time to vote on the Hall of Fame.

Still, if 30 home runs per season is a new normal for Zimmerman and he can produce five or six more seasons like that, he’ll be in the 400’s with half of his career as a third baseman. Zimmerman, known as Mr. Walk-Off for his 10 career walk-off taters, is highly unlikely to walk off the stage in Cooperstown with a plaque bearing his likeness but it’s not an impossibility.

Daniel Murphy (33 years old)

• Career: 110 HR, 599 RBI, 1,323 Hits, .299 BA, 119 OPS+, 19.7 WAR
• 3-time All-Star, 2-time Silver Slugger at 2nd Base (2016, 2017)
• Finished 2nd in 2016 N.L. MVP voting (.347 BA, 25 HR, 104 RBI, 155 OPS+)

No fooling, Daniel Murphy turned 33 today, April 1st. He is almost certainly not going to make it to the Hall of Fame but a few years ago he would have been given no shot whatsoever.

Starting with his breakout performance in the 2015 playoffs, Murphy has transformed himself from a decent high-average, low-power hitter into a superb higher-average, medium-power hitter.

As a fan of the New York Mets living in Los Angeles, I was delighted to see my hometown team in person in the ’15 NLDS against the Dodgers. I was pleasantly surprised to see the left-handed-hitting Murph hit a Game 1 home run deep to right field off the Dodgers’ ace lefty Kershaw. I was positively stunned to see him do it to Kershaw again in Game 4, followed by taters in the following five post-season contests.

The Mets’ brass didn’t believe that the post-season version of Murphy was the real deal and let him go to their division rivals in Washington. Murphy signed for 3 years and $37.5 million and, no matter what happens in 2018, he has already delivered on that investment with his ’16 and ’17 campaigns. After MVP runner-up season in ’16, Murph followed it up in ’17 by hitting .322 with 23 HR, 93 RBI and a 136 OPS+.

Hall of Fame chances — 2%

Murphy’s transformation into an All-Star caliber second sacker simply happened too late in his career, after his 30th birthday. His career path is similar to that of Jeff Kent, who didn’t become a star until he was traded to the San Francisco Giants before his age 29 season. Take a look at Murphy’s career numbers compared to Kent’s through his age 32 season (in 2000, the year he won the N.L. MVP).

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Kent, despite going on to see the all-time record for home runs by a 2nd baseman (with 377), has topped out at 17% of the BBWAA vote in five years on the Hall of Fame ballot. Murphy won’t be able to approach Kent’s power numbers and poor defensive metrics depress his WAR, which more and more voters pay attention to each year that passes.

Murphy literally would have to duplicate his 2017 statistics eight times (into his 40’s) and to have any chance of being considered for Cooperstown.

New York Mets

If the New York Mets were to go the route of their competitors in the N.L. East and start a fire sale auction of their best players, the most desired would be starting pitchers Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom.

The truth is, if you put a gun to my head and asked me to name one member of the 2017 Mets who would eventually make it into the Hall of Fame, I would pick Syndergaard, even though he’s only thrown 364 MLB innings. The big dude nicknamed Thor has that much potential.

However, rules are rules. I’m not talking about the Cooperstown odds of players who have less than six years of MLB experience. So, that still leaves us with several veterans.

Yoenis Cespedes (32 years old)

• Career: 154 HR, 495 RBI, .274 BA, 125 OPS+, 20.8 WAR
• 2-time All-Star, 1 Gold Glove Award

Because he was a defector from Cuba, Yoenis Cespedes didn’t begin his MLB career until he was 26 years old. For this reason, he’s going to forever be at a disadvantage when it comes to compiling his career statistics.

If the Hall of Fame were just about being famous, Cespedes would be well on his way to Cooperstown. He won the Home Run Derby twice. Thanks to a hot streak, he also is credited for carrying the Mets’ on his broad shoulders as they made their drive to the 2015 post-season.

However, here’s something to know about Yoenis Cespedes. When you take even a cursory look at the numbers, he doesn’t measure up to his contemporaries in the outfield. Among all outfielders with at least 2,500 plate appearances since 2012, he’s just 8th in Home Runs, 8th in RBI, 14th in Runs, 9th in WAR, and 9th in OPS+.

Hall of Fame odds — 10%

Because his career got such a late start, Cespedes was behind the 8-ball from the beginning when it comes to building a Hall of Fame resume. Despite all the hype, he’s been traded three times, has only made two All-Star squads and has never finished better than 8th in the MVP balloting.

He’s won two Gold Gloves but if watch him on an everyday basis, it’s crystal clear that he won’t win anymore and likely didn’t deserve the ones he got.

Giving Yoenis Cespedes even a 10% chance at Cooperstown allows for the possibility that his plate discipline will improve and that he’ll stay healthy and productive until his 40th birthday. He’s a dangerous hitter and I’m glad he’s on the Mets but he’s not a future Hall of Famer.

Jay Bruce (31 years old)

• Career: 277 HR, 838 RBI, .249 BA, 110 OPS+, 19.4 WAR
• 3 All-Star Games

At the time of the publishing of this piece, Jay Bruce is still 30 years old but he’s turning 31 on April 3rd.

Regardless of what age he is at the time you’re reading this piece, you might be wondering, “what is Jay Bruce doing in a piece about future Hall of Famers?”

Before I answer that, let’s remember that Bruce was supposed to be a Hall of Famer in the making. He was the Cincinnati Reds first round draft pick in 2005 and made his major league debut at the age of 21.

There was all kinds of hype for the 6’3″, 225 pound left-handed hitting power hitter. At the very beginning of his career, Bruce lived up to the hype. In his first 7 games, he hit .577 with 3 home runs, including a 10th inning walk-off blast in his fifth career start.

Although he’s a solid hitter and a decent right fielder, Bruce never became the superstar that he was supposed to be. However, he does have 277 career home runs and that gives him, according to the 2018 Bill James Handbook, a 34% of reaching the 500 home run mark and a 12% chance of getting to 600.

Bruce started hitting home runs in the majors at the age of 21. Players who become regulars at a young age always have an advantage when it comes to building their counting stats.

Hall of Fame odds — 10%

In my look at the players in the A.L. East, I gave the Orioles’ Chris Davis a 5% at making the Hall of Fame because the “Favorite Toy” in James’ book gave him a 29% chance of reaching 500 taters. This “toy,” by the way, is a sophisticated projection model.

I have Bruce’s odds 2 times higher than Davis’ because he’s a year younger and has been much more consistent throughout his career. You know what you’re going to get with Jay Bruce. He’s going to hit about 30 home runs, drive in 90, hit around .250 and walk enough to have an above average OPS+ of 110.

As I mentioned in the Davis comment, in today’s homer-happy game, 500 is going to be the new 400. Currently the only 500 home run players outside of Cooperstown are linked to Performing Enhancing Drugs. Starting with the current generation of players, that’s going to change.

There will likely be more than one 500 HR bats who don’t make the Hall of Fame despite a lack of PED links. Davis and Bruce are two leading candidates to be one of those guys.

Adrian Gonzalez (35 years old)

• Career: 311 HR, 1,176 RBI, .288 BA, 130 OPS+, 42.8 WAR
• 5-time All-Star, 4-time Gold Glove Award winner

As a Boston Red Sox fan, I was thrilled when the team acquired Adrian Gonzalez from the San Diego Padres in a trade that included a young Anthony Rizzo getting sent to San Diego. I felt that this sweet swinging left-handed first baseman was tailor made for Fenway Park.

In the first half of the 2011 campaign, it sure looked like Gonzalez was going to have a great career in Boston. A-Gone hit 17 HR, with 77 RBI, a .354 BA and 1.006 OPS before the All-Star break. I looked at Gonzalez as a future Hall of Famer at that time.

The second half of 2011, while still statistically solid for Gonzalez, was not quite so robust and the team ended up missing the playoffs in an epic collapse that cost manager Terry Francona his job.

The Red Sox were even more dysfunctional under Bobby Valentine in 2012 and, in August, the Sox shipped Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Gonzalez had several solid but not spectacular seasons in La-La Land, his durability being his biggest attribute. In his 11 years as a starting first baseman for three teams (2006-2016), Gonzalez averaged 159 games played per season.

Coming off an injury-shortened 2016 campaign along with the emergence of Cody Bellinger, Gonzalez is attempting to keep his career alive with the New York Mets. As a fan also of the Mets (yes, I’m a fan of the Mets and Sox, go figure), I do not have the same high hopes that I had when he was traded to Boston.

Hall of Fame odds — 2%

Fred McGriff hasn’t gotten anywhere in the Hall of Fame voting despite 493 career home runs and a career OPS+ of 134. Adrian Gonzalez has 311 taters and a 130 OPS+.

Gonzalez will turn 36 on May 8th. It’s unlikely that he’ll reach 400 HR, much less 493. Consider Gonzalez a future member of the Hall of Very Good.

David Wright (35 years old)

• Career: 242 HR, 970 RBI, 196 SB, .296 BA, 133 OPS+, 50.4 WAR
• 7-time All-Star, 2-time Gold Glove Award winner

The subject of David Wright’s Hall of Fame chances today really pains me as a Mets fan. For ten years this guy was the face of the franchise and was a superb player.

From 2004-2013, Wright had the fifth highest WAR for position players, behind only Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera. Utley’s and Beltre’s ranks ahead of Wright are based on vastly superior defensive metrics.

If you just take the offensive component of WAR or Runs Created, Wright was the third best offensive player for a decade behind only Pujols and Cabrera.

Whether Captain America has a future with a Hall of Fame plaque depends completely on how the BBWAA voters will value peak performance in the future.

Former Minnesota Twins star Kirby Puckett had to retire after his age 35 season because of blurred vision in his right eye. Wright’s career is likely over due to multiple chronic injuries. Take a look at Wright’s and Puckett’s career statistics side by side:

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Puckett had more hits but Wright had 311 more walks, leading to a higher on-base%. Wright also displayed more power and speed. So, Puck was a beloved member of the Twins franchise and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. What level of respect will Captain America receive?

Hall of Fame odds — 20%

I’m pegging 20% on the Puckett comparison and the belief that a future version of the Veteran’s/Eras Committee will smile fondly on what a great player he was when he played and ignore the fact that he was unable to hang around for years to pad his statistics.

By the way, it’s not a fait accompli that Wright’s career is over. He’s on the disabled list right now but still planning/hoping to come back to the diamond.

Atlanta Braves

In their second season in SunTrust Park, the Atlanta Braves are still rebuilding but with many talented young players who may merit Cooperstown conversations in the years to come. In the meantime, there are two members of the team that have a decent or outside chance at the Hall. One of them will surprise you. A lot.

Freddie Freeman (28 years old)

• Career: 166 HR, 586 RBI, .290 BA, 137 OPS+, 27.0 WAR
• 2-time All-Star

On the rebuilding Braves, first baseman Freddie Freeman is the main attraction. In a league with many quality first sackers (Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo), it’s easy for Freeman to get lost in the crowd.

Freeman’s missed over 40 games in two of the last three seasons due to injuries to each of his wrists. The 2017 injury, to his left wrist, was the result of being hit by a pitch. At the time, Freeman was having a MVP caliber season. His slash line was .351 BA/.461 OBP/.748 SLG.

Wrist injuries make me very nervous and, after he returned, he was not able to duplicate his spectacular early season pace. Still, his slash line of .292 BA/.375 OBP/.515 SLG was solid.

In my look at the future Cooperstown candidates from the N.L. Central, I compared Freeman to Rizzo specifically. The two left-handed hitting stars are just 35 days apart by birth and they have remarkably similar career numbers.

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Let me throw another one out there, one that will put a smile on the face of Freeman fans. On the “Similarity Score” portion of Freeman’s Baseball Reference page, the name Eddie Murray is at the top of the “most similar” batters to Freeman through their age 27 seasons.

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OK, sometimes “most similar” means that you’re a bit behind in most key statistical categories (the “Similarity  Scores” don’t use WAR or OPS+). Still, Steady Eddie was a first ballot Hall of Famer. If “Steady Freddie” can follow a similar path, he’ll be in Cooperstown for sure.

Hall of Fame odds — 35%

This is a little higher than the number I gave Rizzo (30%) and just below Goldschmidt’s (40%). This is a golden age for first baseman, particularly in the National League, but they’re not all going to make the Hall of Fame. Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto, who are older, are the best bets at the position to get enshrined.

Freeman, Rizzo and Goldschmidt are all really good. Any team would be thrilled to have any one of them. However, they’re competing with each other for historical significance. If I had to guess, just one of those three will wind up with a plaque in Cooperstown. It’s really hard to predict which one it will be.

Nick Markakis (34 years old)

• Career: 165 HR, 876 RBI, 2,052 Hits, .288 BA, 110 OPS+, 29.8 WAR
• 2-time Gold Glove Award winner

Putting Nick Markakis on a list of potential future Hall of Famers seems at first glance as absurd as putting Jay Bruce on the list.

Markakis has never made an All-Star team. He’s never received a single vote (not even for 10th place) in any year’s MVP balloting. He hasn’t hit .300 for a season in a decade, hasn’t had 100 RBI in 9 years, never topped 200 hits, only once topped 100 runs scored, and has a career high of 23 home runs.

So why are my fingers working hard to type potential Cooperstown stuff about him? It’s because he has 2,052 career hits. Markakis may not be an All-Star, but he’s a consistent second-tier right fielder who has only played fewer than 155 games once in the last 11 years between his time in Baltimore and Atlanta.

Could Markakis get to 3,000 hits?

What does 2,052 career hits mean (for a player who just completed his age 33 season)? It means he has more hits at the same age than Craig Biggio, Tony Gwynn, Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield, Lou Brock, Honus Wagner, and Cap Anson, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame and have more than 3,000 career hits.

Just as the “Favorite Toy” in the 2018 Bill James Handbook pegged Jay Bruce with a 34% chance of getting to 500 home runs, it gives Markakis a 28% chance of reaching 3,000 hits in his career. Is this so unreasonable? The Braves right-fielder had 163 hits in 2017. If he duplicated that output for six more seasons, he would have 3,030 hits.

Hall of Fame odds — 5%

I’ve got Markakis’ Cooperstown odds far below the 28% odds for 3,000 hits for two reasons. The first is that, if he actually were to make it, the future BBWAA electorate will be more sophisticated than the current body and look at the lack of other accomplishments.

The second reason (and here I feel like a high school physics student questioning Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity) is that I’m not sure the “Favorite Toy” projection model is properly predicting the 3,000-hit odds of Nick Markakis. Does it account for a player’s ability to hold a full-time job in the majors or merely project his performance going forward with playing time a relative constant but normal aging regression in play?

Markakis has had a WAR of less than 2.0 for each of the last six seasons. Based on his established level of performance, I can’t see how he’ll be able to play 155 games per year as he ages into his late 30’s. James’ Favorite Toy was created by the sabermetric pioneer decades ago. I’d be curious to know if it’s been tailored to adjust for likely playing time in the future.

Still, given what he’s done thus far, we can’t discount the Cooperstown chances of Nick Markakis completely.

Philadelphia Philles

As one of the rebuilding teams in the N.L. East, the Philadelphia Phillies do not have an obvious candidate for the Hall of Fame.

The highest career WAR among players on their roster belongs to first baseman Carlos Santana, one of two veteran free agents inked by the Phils in the off-season. Santana will turn 32 on April 8th. He has 174 career HR, a .249 average, a 121 OPS+ and a 24.3 WAR. He’s never made an All-Star team and, with so many quality first sackers in the N.L., he isn’t likely to make any in the near future.

Jake Arrieta (32 years old)

• Career: 88-56 (.611 WL%), 3.57 ERA, 114 ERA+, 20.1 WAR
• 2015 N.L. Cy Young Award winner (22-6, 1.77 ERA, 215 ERA+, 8.3 WAR)

The other significant free agent signing by the Phillies this off-season was starting pitcher Jake Arrieta,

Unless Arrieta becomes, once again, the unhittable pitcher that he was in 2015, he will not be going to the Hall of Fame. Having pitched only 409.2 mediocre innings (5.23 ERA) before his 28th birthday, Arrieta simply didn’t get his career as a productive pitcher going soon enough.

There’s only one Hall of Fame enshrined starting pitcher who had fewer than Arrieta’s 1,161 career innings pitched by the end of his age 31 season, Dazzy Vance.

Also, it doesn’t help that Arreita has been going backwards each of the last two seasons. In 2016, he went 18-8 with a 3.10 ERA (135 ERA+). In 2017, he was 14-10 with a 3.53 ERA (123 ERA+).

Let’s put it this way. For yucks, let’s assume that Arrieta is able to duplicate his combined 2016-17 performances for the next eight years. If he managed that, he would have (at the age of 39) a 206-128 record with a 3.51 ERA. That’s still short of Cooperstown approaching his 40th birthday.

Again, he’s going to have to start pitching like he did in 2015 again and there’s no indicator that he’s going to be able to do that.

Hall of Fame odds — 5%

Miami Marlins

There is only one obvious future future Hall of Famer in the Miami Marlins organization. Unfortunately for the team, that future Cooperstown inductee is one of their team owners and CEO, Derek Jeter. The Yankee legend is not off to a Hall of Fame start as a team executive, just Google “Derek Jeter Marlins.”

Well, that’s it, the sixth and final installment of the Cooperstown Cred series on the potential Hall of Famers who will be active in the game in 2018. I hope you enjoyed it.

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