2023 Baseball Hall of Fame Class

If Kent is a no brainer Lou Whitaker would already be in the Hall

 

different era, but Kent's offensive numbers > Whitaker's.

 

Lou Whitaker has a 75 WAR, a ROY and a WS. Rolen should get in line behind him.

 

cmon. They aren’t in the same voting situation, so that’s absurd to make one pay for the sins of previous elections

 

Whitaker was a great defensive player
Kent was not

 

Doesn't make it less of a travesty to see Rolen get in on the writer's ballot when Whitaker was bounced after one year and then snubbed by the various veterans committees.

 

he may not, I was posting the guys in that class along with beltre as a comparison.

There is a certain portion of the electorate that see Utley as a lock

There is a certain portion of the electorate that see Mauer as a lock.

If Rolen doesn't get in this year, he is going to be battling those two, plus whatever Beltran gets this year -- because I don't think he's going in first ballot -- plus Helton and Wagner is also over 50 percent. And then there's whatever potential growth A-Rod gets in year 2 this time and what that means going forward.

 

Kent's numbers kind of scream "steroid guy," unfairly or not. (Never slugged .500+ until age 30, in S.F., in 1998.) Not that I care about that, but the electorate has shown that they do. Even if we take them as gospel, he's short of the 2B standard for the Hall, mostly because he wasn't in the majors until 24, and he was merely an average to above average 2B until 30. Different position, but Luis Gonzalez has a pretty similar career profile, and he dropped off the ballot after one year.

Utley's peak is just a bit sharper and longer than Kent's, so he's right at the HoF average for 2B. I'm more of a "bigger hall" guy, so he'd probably make it for me, if I had a ballot, but it's justifiable to me to keep him out, if you're more of a small hall guy.

 

If you wanna connect dots, there’s some obvious ones….

 

Who Kent hit behind tells a lot of that story better than roids do

 

How did the execs ever agree to giving the ex-players a majority?

 

Those are the nine I'd vote for. Vizquel was always borderline for me, but the revelations about his behavior make him a no.