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Should a player who won 10 consecutive Gold Glove Awards while producing baseball’s third-best WAR within the same 10-year stretch be a Hall of Famer?
There are just eight pitchers who have ever tallied at least 400 saves. Shouldn’t the Hall of Fame include the player who ranks second in ERA and third in strikeout percentage among this exclusive group of relievers?
If you answered yes to both, then why are we still writing about why Andruw Jones and Billy Wagner both deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? Candidates can remain on the ballot for up to 10 years. Wagner has two more years of eligibility and Jones has four more years to reach the 75 percent vote total needed to earn their spot in Cooperstown.
Last year’s results were very encouraging for both former Braves. Jones received votes on 58.1% of the ballots cast by eligible members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, and Wagner garnered 68.1% of the votes. He was actually just 27 votes shy of election.
My case for Jones:
Jones batted .254, tallied 434 home runs and had an .823 OPS over a 17-season career that included five All-Star appearances and the NL Hank Aaron Award in 2005, when he finished second to Albert Pujols for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. The only other outfielders to win as many as 10 Gold Gloves are Ichiro Suzuki and four Hall of Famers -- Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Al Kaline and Ken Griffey Jr.
The former Braves center fielder was the author of an uneven career that started with a bang and ended with a thud created by the steep decline he experienced late in his career. He produced MLB's third-best fWAR from 1998-2007. The two men who ranked ahead of him in that span were Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. The man ranked immediately behind him was Chipper Jones, his longtime Braves teammate who was a first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee in ’18.
Jones led all Major Leaguers with a 26.7 defensive bWAR during his 11 full seasons (1997-2007) with the Braves. Ivan Rodriguez ranked second with 16.5 during that span.
If we’re still arguing if he was as good defensively as Mays, then shouldn’t we be arguing whether he is a Hall of Famer? Yeah, there was a steep decline late in his career. But he captured the baseball world’s attention at 19 and spent the next decade proving to be elite.
If you give leeway to a player who debuts at 23 and then starts to decline in their mid-30s, then the same grace should be given to Jones, who was as good as it gets for an entire decade.
My case for Wagner:
From 1995 (Wagner and Mariano Rivera’s debut seasons) through 2010 (Wagner’s final season), Rivera led all relievers in fWAR with 34.9. Wagner ranked second with 24.1, and Trevor Hoffman ranked third with 24.0.
The baseball world has wisely minimized the significance of pitching wins. Maintaining this same line of reasoning in relation to Wagner -- who had 422 career saves, as opposed to 652 for Rivera and 601 for Hoffman -- there’s reason to argue voters have placed too great of an emphasis on save totals when evaluating a reliever’s qualifications.
Hoffman was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2018, and Rivera was unanimously elected in ’19. While Hoffman totaled 179 more saves, Wagner had a better ERA (2.31 vs. 2.87), a higher strikeout rate (33.2% vs. 25.8%) and a lower OPS surrendered (.558 vs. .609).
And while we’re at it, it would also be nice to see Gary Sheffield get elected during what is his final year on the ballot. And to provide what will likely be an unpopular opinion within this forum, I’m hoping to see Chase Utley eventually draw strong consideration. His stats aren’t going to jump out at you, but having watched him for so long, it was apparent he was the kind of guy you wanted on your team … and the kind of guy you hated if he wasn’t.