By : Mike Rifkin
On January 25th the 2022 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame will be revealed. People will be focused on where Curt Schilling, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens are at entering their tenth and final year on the ballot. People will also be interested to see where first time candidates Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz wind up. To get into the Hall a player needs 75% of the votes from the baseball writers. Here are three candidates I believe should get to Cooperstown eventually.
I’m going to start with Todd Helton. Helton, who spent his entire 17 year career with the Colorado Rockies got 44.9% of the vote last year, his fourth on the ballot. A lot of people will look at Helton’s numbers and say that they are inflated because he played at Coors Field, but Larry Walker who played a chunk of his career in Colorado just got in. Helton has a career slash line of .316/.414/.539 making him one of 23 players ever with a .300/.400/.500 slash line. If you are into sabermetrics, Helton has a 54.2 WAR according to JAWS developed by Jay Jaffe which ranks 15th all time among first basemen. 11 of those are already in the Hall and the other three are Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto and Rafael Palmerio. Two of those three will get into Cooperstown one day. Voters should not penalize Helton for playing his entire career in Colorado, in fact I think players who spend their entire career with one franchise deserve a lot more credit.
Then there is a case to be made for Scott Rolen. Rolen played 17 seasons with the Phillies, Cardinals, Reds and Blue Jays. Last year Rolen got 52.9% of the Hall of Fame vote, as he enters his fifth year of eligibility. Offensively Rolen ranks top 15 among third basemen in home runs (316), RBI (1,287) and slugging percentage (.490). Rolen won eight Gold Gloves which trails only Brooks Robinson(16), Mike Schmidt (10), and Nolan Arenado (9) for third basemen. Robinson and Schmidt are already in the Hall and Arenado is on his way there but still active. The average WAR for third basemen in the Hall is 59.8 and Rolen has a 70.1 WAR. Rolen was a member of the 2006 Cardinals who won the World Series against the Tigers. In that series Rolen was 8-19 with three doubles, one home run, two RBI and five runs scored. It gave him a slash line of .421/.476/.737. Rolen’s career slash line is .281/.364/.490.
The last case I will make here is for Andruw Jones. Entering his sixth year on the ballot Jones got 33.9% of the vote last year. Jones was a member of the Atlanta Braves that ran the National League East in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. From 1998-2007 Jones had the third best WAR in Baseball only trailing Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Jones is one of three Center Fielders to win 10 Gold Gloves along with Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr.. Jones is also one of four players with 10 gold gloves and 400 plus home runs joining Mays, Griffey and Mike Schmidt. From 1998-2007 he had at least 25 home runs and drove in at least 84 runs. Like Rolen I have a hard time penalizing a guy for getting hurt. Andruw should be able to join Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones and Manager Bobby Cox in the Hall of Fame.
For this year Bonds, Clemens, Rodriguez, Schilling and Ortiz might steal the headlines but I am very interested in seeing how Helton, Jones and Rolen project going forward. I believe to a degree all three were a bit overshadowed. Jones by Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz and Chipper. Helton by Walker and the fact that the Rockies were rarely in contention. Rolen by Albert Pujols and Jim Edmonds. But I believe all three of these guys deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
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