NEW YORK -- As the guy who literally wrote the book on David Wright, the most pertinent question of my first Hall of Fame ballot was always going to be whether I would vote for him.
It wasn’t an easy one to answer, requiring some real reflection. Wright’s case is clearly borderline, and I’ve long thought of myself as a “small Hall” guy. But as I approached the first vote of my career, I spent hours considering Cooperstown philosophy and concluded that such gatekeeping -- “If there’s any doubt, he’s not a Hall of Famer” -- doesn’t serve fans as well as it should.
Instead, my focus became: “Was the player in question one of the absolute best of his era?”
For Wright, the answer was a clear "yes." Over his nine peak seasons, Wright made seven All-Star teams and finished in the Top 10 in National League MVP voting four times. He realistically could have won that award in 2007. That Wright’s back, neck and shoulder injuries prevented him from amassing counting stats throughout his 30s wasn’t a problem for me. His peak was long enough, and it was Hall of Fame-caliber. He was literally “The Face of MLB.”
To further the argument, consider Chase Utley, who’s polled ahead of Wright in the two years both have been on the ballot. Utley’s peak overlapped neatly with Wright’s, and over that time -- I’m talking specifically 2005-13 here -- the Mets third baseman outplayed him by most every offensive measure. The difference was beginning in 2014, Utley finished his career with five below-average seasons that augmented his counting stats. Wright never got that chance.
I say this not to suggest Utley is unqualified for Cooperstown; I voted for him. It’s merely to propose that if Utley is a Hall of Famer, Wright is, too.
From the jump, my fear was that by voting for Wright, I would come across as a homer, vouching for a borderline guy I covered for a long time and genuinely like. But the more I dug into the numbers, the more my philosophy solidified. I wanted to select players with spectacular peaks rather than those who fit that nastiest of sobriquets: “compiler.” I’d keep the “small Hall” ethos intact by filtering for peak performance rather than other factors. Thus, Wright and Utley earned my vote.
Moving on from those two, the only no-brainer for me on this year’s ballot was Carlos Beltrán. While I didn’t love his connection to the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, I could get over it. Andruw Jones was also, statistically, a likely Hall of Famer. I chose not to vote for him mostly due to his guilty plea on a 2012 domestic battery charge. For as long as the Hall includes a character clause on its ballot rules, I will do my best to abide by it.
Beyond that portion of the ballot, things grew cloudier. Dustin Pedroia was never the offensive force that Wright was, but he did have three Top 10 MVP finishes (including one win), two World Series wins and multiple notable playoff performances -- all things Wright never did. He squeaked onto my ballot in large part because the entry point for second basemen is lower. At shortstop, Jimmy Rollins failed to touch the same notes for me. MVP or not, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for someone with below-average career OPS+ and wRC+ totals.
As for Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, no thanks. I don’t love the idea of playing judge and jury, but those players tested positive for PEDs after the league put clear rules in place. I’m not disqualifying them; from my vantage, they disqualified themselves.
On the pitching side, this is a weak ballot. The most intriguing name was Félix Hernández, who caught my attention for all the same reasons Wright did. How many pitchers can say they finished Top 10 in Cy Young voting six times in seven years (with a win among them)? Hernández wasn’t very good at the end of his career, which damaged his overall numbers. I care more about how great he was in the middle. From 2009-15, Hernández led the Majors in innings and finished second in strikeouts ahead of multiple future first-ballot Hall of Famers.
Voting for Hernández did make it more difficult not to vote for Cole Hamels, until you realize the former produced three seasons better than anything the latter ever did.
Andy Pettitte, meanwhile, proved less of a compiler -- there’s that nasty word again -- than I previously suspected. He posted five Top 6 Cy Young finishes, with two truly elite seasons among them (and both of those, again, better than anything Hamels produced). Tack on one of the more decorated postseason resumes in MLB history, and I had a hard time leaving Pettitte off my ballot.
My ballot in full: Beltrán, Utley, Wright, Pedroia, Hernández, Pettitte.