Somewhere in this week’s flurry of mail, flush with Christmas retail mailers, will come a Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.
It will be my 33rd since a first ballot was forwarded in 1989.
And this one is among the stickiest.
Here are six names who will be returned to those who count votes for next year’s formalities at Cooperstown, New York:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Todd Helton
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Scott Rolen
6. Curt Schilling
No, for now, on David Ortiz. No on Omar Vizquel, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield and Billy Wagner, although a couple of those candidacies just miss and might yet be added as time and perspective bring greater light to HOF elections.
Note also that three of the above — none of them widely popular with all species of fans and voters — are on their 10th, and last, year of eligibility. That is, if they hope to be inducted by 600 members of the Baseball Writers Association of America and not by some later-day oversight committee.
Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling are headed for their final BBWAA rodeo. They need 75% approval after last year getting percentages of 71.1 (Schilling), 61.8 (Bonds) and 61.6 (Clemens).
An early betting line is that Schilling might pick up just enough steam to win in January, but that Bonds and Clemens are still so tainted by old ties (Mitchell Report, 2007, performance-enhancers in MLB) that they’ll again be short in their last writers’ bid.
Either way, it’s comforting to explain for a last time why Bonds and Clemens have been on 10 past and present ballots and why some alleged to have been part of the old PED party have always been shunned.
Bonds and Clemens are viewed here as Hall of Famers even had baseball’s ugly steroid age, considered to be at its height from 1998-2003, never evolved.
Their numbers and distinctions were so good for so many years that they had Cooperstown sewed up regardless of what might have been ingested or injected.
They differ, personally, from names such as Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro, who might well have gotten enough “help” to push their names across Cooperstown’s threshold.
It’s a subjective manner for sorting out a complex time and roster, but it’s the policy that has best worked, personally.
Too good to leave out
Which brings us to another name who, by his own admission, has dabbled in the PED panorama: A-Rod.
Rodriguez for me is precisely in the same boat as Bonds and Clemens: He was a user, and it was absolutely unnecessary for him to have used, but his credentials otherwise are so overwhelmingly HOF-grade that he makes the cut, without prejudice.
He had 696 homers, 3,115 hits, a career OPS of .930, and a staggering 117.5 WAR, playing either shortstop of third base.
Whatever influence PEDs had on those numbers wasn’t enough to make Rodriguez anything other than the supernatural baseball being he was.
Same with that infamous pair of suspects Cooperstown voters have steadily waved off:
Bonds: 762 home runs, a preposterous 162.7 WAR.
Clemens: 4,672 strikeouts spanning 24 seasons, 3.12 career ERA (as low as 1.87 in 2005 — two years before he retired), and 139.2 WAR.
You can say, as some argue: It doesn’t matter how few seasons they fiddled with PEDs. They cheated. They’re not HOF worthy.
That position doesn’t work here for a couple of reasons. A first problem is that the PED era was universally lawless and largely ignored by both MLB execs and by the players’ union. Guys got into a I’ve-got-to-be-competitive mode when they knew other offenders were gaining an edge.
That doesn’t excuse PEDs, but when the governing bodies were looking askance at a serious issue, asking players to self-police was unrealistic.
A separate problem is that the HOF has a significant population of plaques that hardly double as Good Citizenship awards. There have been issues with some inductees, including raging racism, probable if not provable domestic-abuse moments, etc.
If we want to get high and mighty in righteously excluding Bonds and Clemens, then back up the truck and begin cleansing Cooperstown by carrying out a few more bodies.
Or, simply do with Clemens and Bonds what has always seemed proper to do, even in the case of Pete Rose: Induct him, and in Rose’s case, note at the bottom of his plaque that in 1989 he was banned for life from baseball because he bet on MLB games.
Cases for, and against
As for the others, and why they do or don’t make one voter’s list:
►Helton: He is close, so very close, to the cutline, and ranks as one more reason why this 2022 ballot is among the thorniest in memory. Those who shrug at Helton argue that he got a boost from playing at Coors Field, where baseballs tend to disappear into Denver’s thin air and travel astounding distances. OK. He also had a career .414 on-base percentage and 17-season OPS of .953. Add to that his defense, which was sublime, and he cracks the code.
►Schilling: He has been a grotesque, knuckle-dragging social commentator, pillorying everyone from Muslims to those in LGBTQ community. But last I checked, Cooperstown was about baseball performance. Schilling had 79.5 WAR, above the average WAR for a HOF pitcher (73.4). He also finishes above average in the JAWS analysis done by Jay Jaffe, author of “The Cooperstown Casebook,” which might be the most essential document available for those into HOF numbers-crunching.
►Rolen: Another toughie. But numbers and comparative history are what, here anyway, determine Hall of Fame members. Rolen had a career WAR of 70.1 and a seven-year peak WAR of 43.6. The average HOF third baseman: 68.4 and 43.1. Jaffe has Rolen at 56.9 in his JAWS tabulations when the average Cooperstown third-sacker is 55.7. Rolen wins.
Those six qualify, in this book, while a few do not.
►Jones: Phenomenal numbers during his 20s — not-so great thereafter. The sentiment and support for this tremendous center fielder is appreciated, but he remains a notch shy.
►Ortiz: He’s going to win, maybe on this first ballot, but color and lore and prime-time spotlights have greatly buffed Big Papi’s numbers, which are a tad shy of the Hall of Fame average, both in WAR and JAWS metrics.
Ortiz does not match hitting stats rolled up by, for example, Edgar Martinez. So, for this year, anyway, Ortiz is being tabled. Another year of conversations and study might move him past the finish line (it may be moot because Ortiz easily could win in January). Taking ample time to mull players on a personally tight ballot is freedom welcomed.
►Vizquel: No, and this call isn’t subject to change. Vizquel played 24 seasons, which is great, but the brighter light metrics have placed on his allegedly celestial defense have shown him to be way beneath Ozzie Smith. And way beneath Smith, as one example, even on offense. He’s more of a middling Hall of Fame candidate no matter what his vast fan and writers base argues.
►Sheffield: He had such issues on defense that his bat, which by itself makes a case, was blunted in the overall Hall of Fame analysis. Sheffield probably will make it when down the line one of those Winter Meetings committees convenes. But he falls just short, again, in 2022.
►Wagner: Another one who misses by about as much as a guy like Helton makes it. Wagner’s problem, personally, is that he didn’t have quite the longevity Cooperstown demands. Just a tad more of a portfolio and he’s in. Wagner remains under consideration as an open mind and three more years of Cooperstown eligibility await.
So, there, your honor, are the closing arguments — both ways. Other jurors have their own ideas, of course. The foreman will be disclosing 2022 Hall of Fame votes eight weeks from now.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and former Detroit News sports reporter.