At Least The Baseball Writers Elected Someone – David Ortiz

Another Baseball Hall of Fame election season has come and gone, and as usual there is plenty to talk about. Last year’s cycle represented the nadir of the baseball writers’ annual efforts. Presented with a ballot chock full of worthy candidates, they elected absolutely no one.

While David Ortiz was elected in his first year of eligibility this time around, I would submit that the owners did little better this cycle. No serious baseball fan considered him the foremost player on this ballot, and while in my opinion his candidacy is worthy but far from a slam dunk (more on that later), the biggest story this time around is not who did get in, but who did not, and at least for now, will not.

I have annually written about the Hall of Fame elections here (see my 2021 article) and previously at Fangraphs. Much has been made about the challenges faced by the BBWAA in evaluating the warped statistics and candidacies of the game’s steroid era, with the blame often passed down to the voting parameters. That pesky 75% voting threshold and 10-year eligibility limit made the writers’ job too hard, darn it.

They could have handled the entire situation quite simply. No one knows for sure who used what and when, though some players (including Ortiz) can be linked much more directly to illegal substances than others. Ask one question – did a player need steroids to be Hall of Fame-worthy? For some players, the answer is very easy. For others, quite difficult.

First, the no-brainers. I’ve religiously studied baseball in person since the 1971 season. I saw Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente play, and though they weren’t at their peaks, I saw enough to understand their greatness. That said, Barry Bonds is the best player I have ever seen. He had compiled a Hall of Fame resume by the time the skinny kid moved west to San Francisco and began to “fill out”.

I’m old enough to have seen Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver at their respective peaks. The peaks of Pedro Martinez and perhaps Randy Johnson were higher, but no one has accumulated the career pitching value that Roger Clemens has during my lifetime. Clemens was a legit Hall of Famer when he left Boston, and arguably had himself a second Hall of Fame career thereafter. Does anyone actually believe that without any “help”, Roger Clemens wouldn’t have been a Hall of Famer?

With other players, the call is much tougher. Sammy Sosa was a good but not great player when his power numbers exploded around the turn of the century. To me, he’s clearly not a Hall of Famer without “help”. Mark McGwire was a closer call for me, but he was a lesser player than Fred McGriff, and appeared to be in decline before his sudden renaissance in the late 1990s. For me, he’s a close call, but a no. Rafael Palmeiro might be the closest call of all. A hit before power guy who developed power…..which then became unnatural power. He also brought significant defensive value to the table. I’m legitimately torn regarding his candidacy, and can handle it going either way.

Obviously, I am just one human being, much like the human beings who are actually making the decisions. We all can agree to disagree; I simply ask that each eligible voter use some sort of legitimate thought process when filling out their ballot.

And I’m not sure this is happening. For me, there were 12 fairly easy “yes” votes on this year’s ballot. Ortiz, Bonds, Clemens, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Jeff Kent, Manny Ramirez and Bobby Abreu. I’m not sure about Billy Wagner, as I’m sure many who read this might not be sure about Abreu. Again, we can agree to disagree.

But how about the fact that the writers only used an average of 7.11 of the 10 spots on their ballots this time around? Yup, almost 30% of ballot capacity went unutilized, with so many worthy players eligible. Remember that the next time someone complains about the 10-player limit.

While votes per ballot were up sharply from 5.90 in 2021, the 2022 figure was lower than all of the elections from 2014-19, when votes per ballot ranged from a low of 7.95 in 2016 to a high of 8.42 in 2015. The writers had an even more cluttered ballot then, but managed to elect 19 players, 11 in their first year of eligibility. There were no glaringly poor selections among that group, either.

Instead of using the ample ballot capacity available to them to elect the obvious Hall of Famers that remained eligible……the BBWAA stopped Bonds and Clemens – two inner-circle legends – in their tracks. They put the brakes on Schilling’s steady upward climb, largely in the name of politics. No one in the history of the voting has received as many cumulative votes as Schilling and not gotten in. And their 10-year windows are shut, and they wait for their cases to be examined by the “Todays’ Game” component of the Veterans’ Committee. One or more could actually be inducted as soon as next year.

So Ortiz, Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, Sosa and various 1st/2nd time eligible players have all fallen off of the ballot. Among them, they received 3.03 votes per ballot this time around. This means that players remaining on the ballot for 2023 received only 3.98 votes per ballot. Carlos Beltran is the biggest name set to debut on next year’s ballot, followed by Adian Beltre, Joe Mauer and Chase Utley in 2024. Only Beltre among that group is a slam-dunk.

So there is a massive short-term opportunity for ballot holdovers to make big upward moves. Rolen (63.2% in 2022) will be elected next year, and Helton (52.0%) and Wagner (51.0%) could be as well. I’d also prepare for a massive upward move from A-Rod (34.3%). They’re all great, but they’re not Bonds or Clemens.

Lastly, back to Ortiz. Applying my “was he good enough without illegal substances” standard, he’s a very tough case. As a pure DH, all he brought was a bat, and that’s what the substances enhance. Pure numbers-wise, I’d rate him just ahead of Hall of Fame DH Edgar Martinez, with his longer career and post-season exploits outweighing Martinez’ better per at bat quality. But how good would he have been without “help”? And how long was he getting it?

I have a hard time placing Ortiz above Palmeiro in my personal pecking order. In other words, I’m cool with him getting in, but would also have been cool if he fell short. Future generations will look at the 2022 Hall of Fame voting results and wonder how on earth he, the player with the 16th highest career bWAR (55.3) on the ballot – lower than Tim Hudson, who fell of the ballot due to lack of even minimal support – prevailed.