Opta Analyst’s Ryan Fagan, former national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He breaks down the ballot he submitted this year.
Ichiro Suzuki was an easy yes. Fellow ballot newbie CC Sabathia, too.
I’ve voted for Bobby Abreu and Mark Buehrle every year they’ve been on the Hall of Fame ballot – their first years, just hoping they would get to the necessary 5% threshold to stick around – and I believe the longer they stay on the ballot, the more voters will appreciate their underrated Major League Baseball careers of extended excellence. Both have seen mild gains on this ballot.
Carlos Beltran gets my vote again this year. Same with Manny Ramirez.
I didn’t vote for Billy Wagner or Andruw Jones until last year, but they’re on my ballot again as part of the Class of 2025. I would have voted for Andy Pettitte and Chase Utley last winter if the ballot allowed for unlimited spots, but that was not the case.
With more space within the 10-vote limit this year – after Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton were elected and Gary Sheffield dropped off last year – they’re on my ballot.
Those are my 10 votes (not in any order): Suzuki, Sabathia, Abreu, Buehrle, Beltran, Ramirez, Jones, Wagner, Pettitte and Utley.
This is the ninth time I’ve had the privilege and honor to vote for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, which is still hard to believe for a baseball-obsessed kid who learned to hit left-handed because the giant maple tree in our backyard (aka left field) robbed me of so many potential pulled homers when I was falling in love with the sport.
I made sure to attend the Hall of Fame and Museum Induction Ceremony in Cooperstown when the three players elected on my first ballot – Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez and Jeff Bagwell – were celebrated as part of the Class of 2017.
If I’m being honest, I do not love my ballot. I am confident in the level of effort and research put into the decision-making process, both this voting season and the years of conversations and research put into building personal ballot principles and parameters. But I don’t love that the quest for a perfectly consistent, rational ballot has no possible fully satisfactory resolution with an ever-changing roster full of unique resumes and vote limits.
Chasing consistency is the goal, obviously, but there are two truths worth noting. First, the only truly consistent ballot would either be blank every year or only include votes for slam-dunk inner-circle Hall of Famers (hi, Ichiro!), but that wouldn’t be reflective of what the Hall has ever been (or should be). Second, adhering to “be consistent” as my sole philosophy without ever evaluating my voting approach would imply that my voting principles and parameters were perfect and infallible the very first time I signed my name to a ballot.
Folks, I am neither perfect nor infallible, and yearly examinations of my approach are essential.
I wrote last year about a shift in my voting philosophy, based on changes that have already happened in baseball, and the need for the Hall of Fame to reflect this current era of the sport. After a year of marinating on these adjustments, I’m happy with the decision. Basically, the Hall has always been about showcasing the best and brightest in each era across the history of baseball and in an era with 20-year careers of dominance few and far between, Hall evaluations should probably give a bit more importance to peak than in decades past.
Without doing a copy/paste of large chunks of text from last year’s column, and a more extensive breakdown of holdover candidates Abreu, Buehrle and others from my longer Class of 2023 explainer piece – I’ll hit some of the elements that relate to this year’s ballot, starting with Billy Wagner.
Until last year, the only closer I had voted for was Mariano Rivera. Wagner’s rate statistics were brilliant, but it was hard to get past his innings total, which is incredibly low for a Hall of Fame discussion. Bruce Sutter has the lowest career innings total for any Hall of Famer (NL/AL only) at 1,042. Wagner checks in at 903; he would have needed to pitch another three years to get to that total. That he probably could have – his last season was brilliant – is pretty much irrelevant. If the Hall was about what-might-have-beens, Eric Davis, Mark Fidrych and Bo Jackson would have been enshrined long ago.
But closers have become an undeniably essential part of the game over the past several decades and shouldn’t the Hall reflect the current era of the sport? As I wrote last year, begrudgingly, I’ll admit that’s true. I will never vote for the closer floodgates to open, though. The bar is high – dominance throughout a full career – and it’s not just about save totals.
Basically, the bar is Wagner. Francisco Rodriguez does not reach that bar. Lots of other active closers high on the career saves list will not, either, when they’re eligible.
I did not vote for two-time World Series winner Dustin Pedroia, though I am glad he’s going to stay on the ballot. He was undeniably brilliant when he was healthy, but injuries (one in particular that Boston fans will never forgive Manny Machado for) ended his career way too soon. It wasn’t long ago that the biggest knock on two stars on the Hall ballot – Scott Rolen and Larry Walker – was that they were too often injured, that they hadn’t played enough games to warrant membership in Cooperstown’s club. Rolen played 2,038 games. Walker played 1,988.
Both eventually got in, of course. Pedroia finished with 1,512. I know I said peak matters a bit more now, but peak is not everything. Pedroia played only 11 seasons with more than 31 games. He was a dynamic, truly impactful player when he was healthy. To leave him off the Hall ballot is not to knock his career. His numbers just aren’t there, though I understand how other voters have a different opinion. Same scenario with David Wright and Troy Tulowitzki.
I have voted for Manny Ramirez every single year – his raw numbers (including 555 home runs) make him a no-doubt candidate – but the truth is that my vote has never really mattered. He’s had more than enough support to comfortably stay on the ballot, and there are more than enough anti-PED folks to keep him from ever having any sort of realistic chance of being elected. I’ll keep voting for Ramirez until he falls off the ballot, or some sort of concrete evidence and/or an admission surfaces of Ramirez using PEDs during his prime. Sorry, but “everybody knows he probably used PEDs” is not concrete evidence.
I have not voted for Alex Rodriguez, and as I said last year, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. His numbers, too, are historic, but so were his efforts to circumvent the system. There’s no reason to rehash his litany of transgressions here. We all know. I’ve gotten a healthy amount of criticism from baseball fans for voting for Ramirez but not voting for Rodriguez in the past, and I’m guessing that won’t change this time around.
If you can’t admit to the massive difference between Ramirez testing positive at 37 and 39 years old – long after his Hall bonafides were secure – and Rodriguez twice being forced to admit he used PEDs – the first time, for a three-year stretch from 24 to 26 years old – and the scorched-earth approach he chose to defend his elaborate Biogenesis lies and deceptions later in his career, I’m not sure what else I could tell you.
They are objectively very different cases, and my ballot reflects that.
Like Pedroia, I’m glad Felix Hernandez will remain on the ballot. I’ll admit, I’m very torn by his Hall of Fame resume. Peak Felix was breathtaking. Peak Felix was rather fleeting, from a Cooperstown perspective. He’s basically the pitching version of Andruw Jones – brilliant for most of a decade before his performance fell off a cliff. After his age-30 season, Hernandez had a 5.42 ERA and minus-1.4 bWAR in 314 innings. As with everyone on next year’s ballot, he’ll be reconsidered when given the opportunity.
As for catchers Russell Martin and Brian McCann, the research that’s gone into the framing element of a catcher’s game has shed new light on the value both brought to their clubs. Both were very underrated during their playing careers – Martin especially – but I’m just not sure that makes them Hall of Famers.
