Welcome to the 3rd annual Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Blog!

To begin, let’s briefly explain our Hall of Fame, and how it differs from Cooperstown. The classes of 1936-2021 are the same. Everyone who was already in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame will remain, nobody gets the boot. From 2022 onwards, the two Hall of Fames will look drastically different. 

Our Hall of Fame has 3 prestigious voters: Ryan Macdonald, Jake Ojalvo, and Daniel Martin. Each voter may vote for between 0 and 10 players. The rules for induction are as follows:

• A player has to receive a vote from all 3 voters to be enshrined into The MVP Blog’s inner circle of baseball immortality.
• If a player receives 1 or 2 votes, they will remain on the Hall of Fame ballot for the following year.
• If a player receives no votes, they will not appear on the following year’s Hall of Fame ballot.
• If a player continues to get a vote every year, they will remain on the ballot until they are either elected or receive no votes. Unlike Cooperstown, there is no maximum for the number of years a player can remain on the Hall of Fame ballot.

As a result of these rules, not only will our Hall of Fame look different, but our ballot will also look drastically different. Here is The MVP Blog’s 2024 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot.

There are 6 additional names on the ballot in addition to the first-year eligible players and the players who remained on the ballot by receiving a vote in the 2023 version of our MLB Hall of Fame blog. All 3 voters were given the opportunity to add 2 additional players to the ballot who are not yet in the Hall of Fame, but the voter personally believes have a case and should be considered for The MVP Blog Hall of Fame. The 6 players who have been added to the 2024 ballot are as follows: Kenny Lofton, Roger Maris, Dale Murphy, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, and Bernie Williams.

Before we dive into our ballots, it’d be remiss to not first recognize our first two Major League Baseball Hall of Fame classes.

In the inaugural 2022 Hall of Fame Class, we elected 6 highly qualified legends of the game. It’s a class that, in our opinion, is one of the greatest classes ever assembled. The 2022 class was as follows: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Todd Helton, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Billy Wagner. You can read that blog here.

Our 2023 class was superb, but not quite as legendary as the first class. Our 2023 class consisted of: Carlos Beltran, Keith Hernandez, Torii Hunter, Don Mattingly, and Pete Rose. You can read that blog here.

Without further ado, read on to find out which baseball legends from the Class of 2024 have been elected to The MVP Blog’s Hall of Fame!

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Ryan’s Ballot

Adrian Beltre – This is an easy vote. Beltre had a remarkably consistent 20-year career. In his first full season as a 20-year-old, Beltre hit .275 with 15 home runs. In his final season at the age of 39, he hit .273 with 15 home runs. Beltre’s best season of his career came in 2004 at the age of 25. In that season, Beltre hit .334 with a 1.017 OPS, 48 home runs, and 121 RBI. He finished second in NL MVP voting that season, a season in which Barry Bonds had a 1.422 OPS, the highest single season OPS ever recorded in Major League Baseball. 

One of the things that made Beltre unique is that he got better with age. He made his first All-Star game in 2010 at the age of 31 (I have no idea how he didn’t make the All-Star game in 2004). He then signed with Texas in 2011 where he made the All-Star game 3 of his first 4 seasons with the club. In the 5-year stretch from 2010-2014, Beltre was a 4-time All-Star who hit .316 with a .899 OPS, hit an average of 29 homers a year, drove in 96 runs per year, won 3 Silver Sluggers and 2 Gold Gloves, while also finishing in the top-10 of MVP voting 3 times. 

By the time that Beltre’s legendary career was over, he had collected 4 Silver Sluggers and 5 Gold Gloves, with 2 of them being Platinum Gloves. He was truly one of the smoothest fielding third basemen that I have ever seen. Beltre clubbed 477 homers in his career to go along with 636 doubles, which ranks him 11th in MLB history for most doubles in a career. The man could simply do it all on the baseball diamond, and he did it for a long time. Enshrine the man. 

Joe Mauer – The best hitting catcher in MLB history. Well you can make a strong argument that it is Mike Piazza, who is already in the Hall of Fame, but it is one of the two of them when we are strictly talking about swinging the bat from the catcher position. From 2004 to 2013, Joe Mauer hit .323 and won 3 batting titles as a catcher. That is unheard of. The .323 batting average as a catcher is the best in MLB history, as are the 3 batting titles. There have only been 7 times in MLB history that a catcher has recorded the best batting average in baseball for the entire season. 3 of those 7 batting titles by catchers were won before 1942. When Mauer won his first batting title in 2006, it was the first time a catcher had won the batting title since 1942! Mauer then did it again in both 2008 and 2009! Buster Posey also did it in 2012. 

In MLB history, a catcher has won MVP 18 times. Joe Mauer has one of those 18, in what was one of the best offensive years from a catcher in the history of the game. In 2009 Joe missed about the first month of the season with an injury, but when he came back, he had superpowers. He homered in his first at-bat of the season and never looked back. Joe finished the season with a slash line of .365/.444/.587 (that’s a 1.031 OPS!), all marks which led the American League, regardless of position. Joe also slugged 28 home runs and drove in 96 runs, both career highs by a healthy margin, which is even more impressive when you take into account that he didn’t make his season debut until May 1!

By the time Joe hung up the cleats, he was a 6-time All-Star who had racked up 5 Silver Sluggers, 3 Batting Titles, an MVP, and 3 Gold Gloves. Oh yeah. The Gold Gloves. On top of the hitting, Joe Mauer was an ELITE fielding catcher who possessed an absolute cannon of a right arm. In 2007, Joe Mauer threw out 24 of 45 base stealers. 53%! The league average that season was 27%. Yadier Molina, widely regarded as the best defensive catcher to ever play, has only exceeded that mark twice in his 19-year career. Joe Mauer could do it all. I rest my case. Enshrine the man. 

Manny Ramirez – I am very much of the opinion that steroid users can be in the Hall of Fame. Steroids help you to hit the ball farther, not better. Squaring up a baseball is the hardest thing to do in professional sports, steroids or not. Nobody has ever taken steroids and been magically transformed from a .220 hitter into one of the game’s best. That’s just not how it works. Those with Hall of Fame worthy careers were elite hitters even before they took steroids. We either start putting some of them in, or we take all of them out. The likes of Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Mickey Mantle have all admitted to taking PEDs that are now considered illegal substances by Major League Baseball. You don’t want a Hall of Fame without Mays, Aaron, and Mantle? Me neither. Thus, let’s enshrine steroid users. With that being said, I do hold steroid users to a higher standard, but it’s a standard that Manny still certainly meets. 

Manny Ramirez has a career slash line of .312/.411/.585. That’s a career OPS of .996, which is the 11th highest career OPS in MLB history. His 555 home runs ranks 15th in MLB history. He is a 12-time All-Star, won 9 Silver Sluggers, 2 World Series rings, and a Batting Title. It’s rare for power hitters to also hit for an elite average like Manny did over the course of his career. For an entire decade, Manny Ramirez was one of the top bats in Major League Baseball. Enshrine the man.

Curt Schilling – The Hall of Fame is about showcasing the greatest talents to ever play the game of baseball. This isn’t about showcasing the greatest humans to ever play baseball. Curt Schilling is very outspoken and controversial, but you can’t hold an all-time great out of baseball immortality simply because there are alot of people who think poorly of him.

Curt Schilling’s career regular season numbers are very good, but they are not Hall of Fame worthy. He was a 6 time All-Star and never won a Cy Young, although he did finish second in voting on three separate occasions. Curt Schilling had a no doubt Hall of Fame worthy career because of what he did in the postseason. When the lights were the brightest, Schilling was at his best. In 19 career postseason starts, Schilling was 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and a 0.968 WHIP. In 7 career World Series starts, Schilling was even better, posting a 4-1 record with a 2.06 ERA and a 0.896 WHIP. He’s a 3-time champion. Many great pitchers succumb to the pressures of October, but Schilling was the exact opposite. He rose to the occasion almost every time he stepped foot on the mound in the postseason. It’s really simple. Curt Schilling is one of the greatest postseason pitchers to ever play this great game. Enshrine the man.

Scott Rolen – Last year, we inducted Torii Hunter and Keith Hernandez, who are among the greatest fielding center fielders and first basemen, respectively, of all time. Now it is time to induct one of the greatest fielding third basemen of all time. I vehemently believe that elite fielders who were also very good hitters should 100% be in the Hall of Fame. Just like HOF level hitting can make up for lackluster defense, HOF level fielding should make up the ground for guys who don’t quite have HOF hitting stats. Rolen certainly fits that latter category, as he won 8 Gold Gloves at third base over his 17 year career. Unlike Hunter and Hernandez, Scott Rolen’s Gold Gloves were more spread out. He won his first in 1998 at the age of 23, and his last in 2012 at 35. He was that good defensively for that long. He appeared in 7 All-Star games and won a Silver Slugger. In 1997, he took home Rookie of the Year. .281 career hitter. 316 career home runs. Very good hitter. Elite fielder. These types of players have to be included in the Hall of Fame. Enshrine the man.

Andruw Jones – Similarly to Scott Rolen, the greatest fielders ever belong in the Hall of Fame, as long as they were competent at the plate, and Andruw Jones certainly was. When you think of the greatest fielders to ever man centerfield, you think of Willie Mays, Torii Hunter, Ken Griffey Jr., and Andruw Jones. Those 4 men have won a total of 41 Gold Gloves, with Jones claiming 10 (in 10 straight years) of them himself. Mays and Griffey Jr. are already in the HOF, and Hunter was voted into the MVP Blog’s MLB HOF a year ago, so now it is time to add one more elite fielder into baseball immortality. 

To go along with the fielding prowess, Jones also possessed immense power. In the 10-year height of his career when he won a Gold Glove every single year, Jones was hitting an average of 35 homers a year, including a 51 home run and 128 RBI MVP runner-up season in 2005. He finished his career with 434 long balls. The knocks on Jones are twofold. For one, he almost certainly took steroids. As I explained earlier, I have no issue with steroid users getting into the hall. It just needs to be an elevated standard. 10 Gold Gloves is that elevated standard for me. Fielding is just as important as hitting in this sport. A guy like Jones tracking down everything in center can be the difference in many games. Steroids did not make him into an elite fielder. The other knock on him is his career batting average of just .254. The low average is largely due to his remarkable decline after his age-30 season. Jones was much more of a .270 hitter throughout the height of his career. Also, the precedence for someone with that low of an average being in the HOF has already been set. I present to you Ray Schalk, a man elected to the HOF by the Veteran’s Committee in 1955. Ray Schalk was a career .253 hitter who was elected due to his defensive prowess and the fact that he was a member of the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox team that threw the World Series on purpose, only Ray Schalk was one of the players who was playing to win. If Ray Schalk is a Hall of Famer, then Andruw Jones certainly is. Enshrine the man. 

Gary Sheffield – Gary Sheffield appeared on our ballot in 2022 and received no votes. Jake Ojalvo brought him back this year, and I am very glad he did, because Sheffield receiving no votes was an oversight on our part. Sheffield checks every box of your prototypical Hall of Famer: Longevity, consistency, and career numbers. Let’s start with longevity. Sheffield debuted in 1988 at the age of just 19. His final season came in 2009, his age 40 season. Sheffield played 22 (!) years of high level baseball. The consistency. Sheffield struggled a bit to begin his career and faded a bit as he got older, but the middle section of his career was very consistent. He broke out at the age of 23 in 1992, a year in which he won the National League batting title. For the next 14 years, pitchers shivered when Sheffield stepped into the box. Over that 14 year span, Sheffield slashed .304/.411/.551 with an average of 31 homers a year. I touched on it earlier with Manny Ramirez, but it is rare for sluggers to hit for an elite average as well, but Sheffield did. Finally, let’s talk about the career stats. He’s a 9-time All-Star who won 5 Silver Sluggers and a Batting Title. He hit for a career average of .292 and has a career OPS of over .900! He’s one of 28 MLB players to reach 500 career home runs. Steroids or not, that’s a Hall of Famer in my eyes. Enshrine the man. 

Johan Santana – The only thing that is keeping Santana out of the Hall of Fame is the length of his career. If his career had been 5 years longer, he would have been a first-ballot guy. Throughout his 12-year career, Santana was dominant for 9 of those years. His first two seasons, when he was used primarily out of the bullpen, were a bit of a struggle, as was his last season when he was dealing with a bad back and a sore arm after missing the entire previous year due to an arm injury, the same one that forced him into an early retirement. From 2002-2010, Santana was one of the top pitchers in the game, and he possessed one of the most devastating changeups that baseball has ever seen. Over that 9-year span, Santana won 130 games, had a 2.90 ERA, a 1.076 WHIP, and struck out about a batter per inning. He was a 4-time All-Star and won 2 Cy Young awards. In 2006, the year he won his second Cy Young, Santana won the pitcher’s Triple Crown, but not just the American League Triple Crown. He led all of baseball in wins, ERA, and strikeouts that year. Leading baseball in all 3 of those categories is a feat that has been done only 12 times in MLB history, but only twice since 1985. The other person to do it since then? Shane Bieber in 2020, so that one receives an asterisk. When a player is that dominant for nearly a decade, they deserve to be recognized among the best to ever play the game. Enshrine the man.

Dale Murphy – Although a longevity of dominance is nice to see from players being elected into the Hall of Fame, I am of the opinion that it is not entirely necessary for it to be super stretched out. Dale Murphy’s dominant stretch lasted for 6 years, but in those 6 years, he was just about the best player in baseball. If it’s just 1 or 2 years (i.e. Roger Maris), you are not getting my vote. 6 years of dominance, however, is plenty. There is nothing flukey about it when you do it for 6 straight seasons. From 1982-1987, Dale Murphy slashed .289/.383/.531 with an average of 28 doubles, 36 homers, 105 RBI, 110 runs, and 18 stolen bases per year. He missed only 5 games total in that 6 year span. During this span, he was an All-Star every year, won 5 Gold Gloves in CF, and won 4 Silver Sluggers. But wait. There is more, and this is the biggest reason why he should be in the HOF. Dale Murphy won back-to-back MVPs in 1982 and 1983. This is something that has only been done by 12 other players in MLB history. Of those 12 other players, 8 are in the HOF. Bonds is not which makes Cooperstown a complete joke. He’s the greatest hitter of all-time. Maris is not because he literally only had those two good seasons. Pujols and Cabrera are not because they are not yet eligible, but will be first ballot (hopefully unanimous) Hall of Famers when eligible. Winning back-to-back MVPs is a BIG deal. Enshrine the man. 

Francisco Rodriguez – I am a huge proponent of relief pitchers making the Hall of Fame. Elite closers are rare, especially nowadays. In our inaugural class of 2022, The MVP Blog elected Billy Wagner into the Hall of Fame, and I am hopeful that someday, maybe even as soon as this year, we will see another elite closer be enshrined into baseball’s highest honor, the MVP Blog’s Baseball Hall of Fame. K-rod, as he became known due to his high strikeout rate, was a 6-time All-Star who is 4th on Major League Baseball’s all-time save list with 437 career saves over his 16-year career. Rodriguez had a career ERA of 2.86 and struck out about 1.2 batters per inning. When K-rod came into the game with a lead, it was tough sledding for the opposition. Relief pitchers belong in the Hall of Fame. Enshrine the man.

Jake’s Ballot

Adrian Beltre – Spanning 21 seasons across 4 franchises (but mostly 3 because I like to discount the Red Sox in any way that I can), Adrian Beltre put up spectacular numbers and became one of the best third basemen in my time watching baseball. He’s a no brainer to be elected to the Hall of Fame, and the numbers speak for themselves.

Beltre is among the exclusive club of 3,000 hits that all but guarantees a shrine in Cooperstown. But it wasn’t just his contact that shined, he had the power in his bat too. 477 career home runs, including five 30 HR seasons, and twelve seasons with 20 homers to his name. Contrary to a lot of his soon to be colleagues already in the Hall of Fame, Beltre had an unusual spike later in his career, as his numbers seemed to get better in his thirties than they were in his twenties, when most athletes are in their prime. That being said, his 2004 season certainly was his best and found him second in the MVP race that year only looking up to some guy named Barry Bonds.

I also will not let you forget Beltre’s star studded ability to defend the hot corner. His defensive prowess earned him 5 Gold Gloves alongside his 4 Silver Sluggers that I’m sure are all put on display in his man cave somewhere. The impressive bat and glove skills combined to boast a 93.5 WAR that ranks him in the top 5 of all third basemen in the category, and the only one that played in the 21st century. 

Joe Mauer – You’d be hard pressed to find a catcher that reached the offensive heights that Joe Mauer reached in his prime between 2006 and 2013. During this surge, Mauer hit for an average of .327 and a .410 on-base percentage. Highlighted during this span was his 2009 season, when he ran away with the AL MVP after slashing a ridiculous .365/.444/.587. Joe never succumbed to the pressure of being a highly touted prospect from a young age, debuting in the majors at the ripe age of 20, and he never looked back. 

His stats among catchers stand out the most, and I’m just going to go ahead and list some of them out for a bit. He is the only catcher in MLB history to tally up a combination of 2,000+ hits, over a .300 batting average and above a .380 OBP. His 3 Batting Titles are the most of any player at the position, and nearly all 3 timers in this club (regardless of position) are in the hall. His career OBP and AVG rank third and fourth respectively of all catchers in MLB history with a minimum of 5,000 plate appearances and alongside his MVP trophy, he also holds 3 Gold Gloves and 5 Silver Sluggers to his name.

The knock against Mauer will undoubtedly be the tail end of his career where brutal concussions behind the plate forced him to finish his career as a first baseman with mediocre offensive output. You really have to take into account the physical beating his body took from being an everyday catcher – by far the most physically demanding position on the field. The production in his prime years should widely outweigh the back half of his career.

Curt Schilling – Schilling’s impressive postseason performances parlayed with his pinpoint command make him another easy checkmark on my baseball HOF ballot. Schilling retired while boasting a career WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 80.7, a mark which puts him ahead of numerous Hall of Fame pitchers, including the likes of Tom Glavine and a Baseball Reference legend, Old Hoss Radbourn.

Schilling gets my vote, no matter how controversial and questionable his Twitter account is. He is the poster child for the ‘separate the art from the artist’ cliche. Between the lines, he belongs in the Hall of Fame without any dispute. However, his off the field antics since he’s been retired have been concerning to put it mildly, and I’m not going to acknowledge them here on The MVP Blog.

The same issues I have about these Hall of Fame voters keep coming up over and over again. This should not be a vote of which players are the most likable according to traditional baseball writers. It should be a museum to teach people about the history of baseball and to flaunt the best players to ever play the game.

Manny Ramirez – I am already sick and tired of doing the same song and dance, arguing for players who haven’t been elected to the Hall of Fame because of things that have nothing to do with baseball. Manny Ramirez is one of the greatest pure hitters in the history of the sport. Simple as that. He is a career .312 hitter that amassed 555 homers and 1,831 RBI’s following his major league debut in 1993. Following that debut, he tallied 2,574 hits, won 2 World Series championships, and was even awarded the Series MVP in one of them.

Yet, the BBWAA refuses to elect Manny because of his steroid use and probably due to his bully-like tendencies. The HOF should not be a morality nor a popularity contest, and hopefully the MVP Blog committee will look past Manny’s character flaws and agree with me to enshrine Ramirez like he deserves.

Gary Sheffield – Without failure, the first thing I think of whenever Gary Sheffield is mentioned is that bat wagging back and forth. I’m sure a lot of pitchers in the 90’s and 2000’s would agree with me, as anecdotally he was one of the most feared hitters of the time period. What he lacked defensively was made up with said wagging bat and then some. His long 22-year career was filled with a long 14-year prime from 1992 to 2005 in which he consistently averaged 3 Wins Above Replacement every single season.

Sheffield is 1 of 28 career MLB players to jack 500+ home runs and if his name wasn’t mentioned on the Mitchell Report, it’s almost a given he would’ve already been inducted into Cooperstown. Some more cool stats: he’s one of only eight right-handed hitters with a career OPS+ above 140 (40 points above league average) and above 10.9K plate appearances, just behind the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols. Decent company. Along with his nine All-Star appearances, five Silver Sluggers and six top 10 MVP seasons, he was an integral part of the Marlins getting off the snide and winning their first World Series in franchise history.

Andy Pettitte – Wins as a pitching stat is losing its luster as the years go on, but let’s not just ignore the fact that 256 times in his career, Andy Pettitte took the mound for at least 5 innings, his team had the lead when he stepped off the mound and never relinquished that lead. That’s a pretty valuable pitcher in my eyes. Then, his case gets that much stronger when you start to dig in to his postseason success, when the true greats show up and perform. There’s an argument to be made that he’s the best playoff pitcher there’s ever been and his full hand of five World Series rings are there to show for it. Now, Pettitte never won a Cy Young award and has an admitted link to PEDs, but the overarching theme of these steroid guys on this ballot is: let them in!

Daniel’s Ballot

Bobby Abreu – I will continue beating the Bobby Abreu is a HOFer drum as I have in previous years, but I have to admit it is getting discouraging to see his lack of progress on this ballot. How many times can I talk about his 12-year prime in which he hit .301, knocked 1238 RBIs, stole 365 bases and put up an OPS+ of 133 or his sneaky 400 career SBs? How many times can I say that the only players in MLB history with 400 SBs and a higher career OBP than Bobby Abreu’s are Barry Bonds and Rickey Henderson? How many times can I talk about his 15 straight seasons with a 100 OPS+ or higher, an achievement that only Abreu, HOFers and players who are only not in the Hall of Fame due to steroids can claim. I really feel that Bobby Abreu’s lack of power and flash is keeping him out of both the Cooperstown Hall and the MVP Blog’s Hall and it’s a shame. I can only hope that as the ballot empties out my fellow voters reexamine his case.

Adrian Beltre – Adrian Beltre was just a really good baseball player for a really long time. One of the best defensive 3B of all time (behind only Brooks Robinson according to advanced analytics), Beltre was first called up at 19 by the Dodgers and called it quits 21 seasons, 477 HRs, 1707 RBIs, 5 Gold and 2 Platinum gloves later at the age of 39. What makes Beltre so remarkable is while a lot of players who have a HOF caliber 20s and then try to compile and keep playing at a competent level in their 30s, Beltre basically did the opposite. You could say Beltre’s baseball reference page would make more sense upside down because with the exception of his remarkable 2004 which saw him lead the league in HRs and hit .334, good for a 2nd place MVP finish, Adrian Beltre, while a solid player, and while he was always great with the glove, wasn’t even close to a HOF trajectory. Apart from his outlier 2004 campaign, he’d never hit 30 HRs or hit over .300 and actually had a sub 100 OPS+ in half of his first 12 seasons. Then he closed his career with one of the craziest nine year runs you’ll ever see from a baseball player in their 30s, hitting over .300 in six of his last nine seasons and topping 30 long balls in four, leading the league in hits in 2013 and doubles in 2011, and over those last nine years of his career, he hit for an OPS+ over 100 in eight of them, over 125 in seven of them and over 135 in four and picking up a pair of Platinum Gloves to boot. By the time he was done, he was third all-time in 3B WAR with an astounding 93.5 behind only Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews. 48.9, over half, of that WAR was earned in the last nine years of his career from ages 31-39. It was during this incredible stretch that the baseball community got to see Beltre’s infectious and playful personality on the field, with his animated hatred of Gatorade baths or having his head touched in any way, and off, where he joined a long line of revered Dominican ambassadors to the game. Adrian Beltre’s unconventional career was a gift to baseball fans, and he should be an easy first ballot inductee.

David Cone – David Cone’s HOF worthy career continues to fly under the radar. Cone was a bonafide ace and a winner in an era that wasn’t too friendly to pitchers. Not only did Cone win 5 World Series’ (4 with the Yankees, 1 with the Blue Jays) and a Cy Young award (in 1994 with the Rangers), but he pitched to a sub-3 ERA in the offensive inflated steroid era five times, tossed over 200 innings eight times and led the league in Ks twice. As a member of the Mets, Blue Jays, and Yankees, he pitched in 21 postseason games (18 starts) with numbers in line with his career stats, and a few memorable highlights like his CG in game 6 of the 1988 NLCS with the Mets to fend off elimination and his 7 scoreless innings against the braves in the 1999 World Series. That’s an 11-year span! David Cone was dealing in the postseason for over a full decade! His career line compares well to one of his HOF contemporaries, Tom Glavine. Cone actually has a slightly better ERA than Glavine but trails him in counting stats because while Cone pitched an impressive 17 seasons, Glavine pitched an even more impressive 22. However, their value stats like runs allowed per 9 (RA/9) and wins above average (WAA) are neck and neck. Cone deserves to join Glavine in Cooperstown.

Andruw Jones – Andruw Jones is another guy who I refuse to stop beating the drum for. As I said on both the 2022 and 2023 ballot, Andruw Jones is probably the greatest defensive CF of all time. According to the defensive metrics, he is the best defensive CF of all time and according to Gold Gloves (less precise), his 10 are second to only Willie Mays. Respect elite defense when it comes to Hall of Fame conversation! It’s a huge part of the game! If I told you the man who is probably the greatest defensive CF of all-time and owner of 10 Gold Gloves also had seven 30 HR seasons (including a league leading 51 in 2005) and 100 RBIs (again a league leading 128 in 05), you’d think that’s a no doubt Hall of Famer. Instead, it’s Andruw Jones struggling through the slow climb of the voting process year in and year out, despite his phenomenal 10-year peak. The knock on Jones is how he fell off in the back end of his career, but he still played an outstanding, elite full decade of baseball. That’s impossible to ignore and long enough to warrant HOF consideration. Even if the last 6 years of his career don’t stack up to the first 10, his career numbers are still very impressive and given what an impressive defender he was as THE GREATEST DEFENSIVE CF OF ALL TIME, he should be an easy yes for the Hall of Fame. 

Kenny Lofton – I am a firm believer that the Hall of Fame should not just be the Hall of great pitching and hitting. Defense and baserunning are a huge part of this game, which brings us to Kenny Lofton. Kenny Lofton was a good hitter. When he finally hung up his spikes at age 40, he sported a career batting average of .299 and had hit over .300 in 8 seasons and notched an OPS+ of 100 or greater in 13. Lofton’s contact approach aged well at the plate, as he hit .296 for a 105 OPS+ in the final year of his career, his age 40 season. Beyond his good but not pop centric bat, Kenny Lofton was a great fielder. Gifted with blazing speed that let him keep patrolling CF until his age 39 season, he won four gold gloves in CF and the analytics say he probably should have won more. According to defensive WAR, he’s the 8th best defensive CF of all time. Finally, Kenny Lofton was a tremendous baserunner. Lofton led MLB in SBs for five years in a row from 1992 to 1996, nabbing over 50 bags in each season, topping 60 four times and 70 twice. With the exception of his 1991 cup of coffee with the Astros, he stole at least 20 bags in every year of his career but two, one of which was his injury plagued 2004 where he only played 83 games. Lofton also continued being a threat on the basepaths late in his career. After it looked like he might be done after his injury riddled 2004, which saw him finishing exclusively playing DH in the playoffs, he bounced back, returning to the outfield and hitting .308 over the next three seasons stealing an average of 26 bases in his age 38, 39, and 40 seasons. That’s really impressive longevity. I think Kenny Lofton has a few things going against him. He didn’t hit HRs. While he was a good contact hitter, a great fielder and an excellent base runner, he didn’t hit many long balls and that both makes him light in the counting stats that old timers like and hurts him in many analytical assessments of his resume. However, if you take a broader look at who he is as a player, you see the incredible value he brought to the 11 teams he played for, which brings us to the other thing that I think is hurting him. Over the years Lofton developed big journeyman vibes because apart from his 10 years with the then Indians, Lofton played every single year of his career with a different team, collecting 11 different jerseys by the time his 17 career is over. A part of that was actually because of his value though, as he was traded at the deadline to a contender three different times, but it made him feel more like a mercenary in the 2000s than a future Hall of Famer. Nevertheless, the resume speaks for itself, and Lofton shouldn’t be penalized by voters for being a speed/contact/defense guy and there are very few better speed/contact/defense guys in the history of the sport than Kenny Lofton. 

Joe Mauer – Historically, catchers are not great hitters. They have by far the most tasking and brutal position on the field of any player and good defense behind the plate is vital, so offense often seems to take a back seat for backstops. This makes a decent offensive catcher very significant. That’s why it’s hard to overstate the value that Joe Mauer brought to the plate as a catcher who was winning multiple Batting Titles. Joe Mauer didn’t just provide elite offensive production for a catcher; He provided elite offensive production, period. Mauer was one of the best hitters in the league from 2006 to 2013, using a contact first approach to slash .327/.410/.473 with a 139 OPS+ during that stretch and winning both three Gold Gloves behind the plate and three Batting Titles, including the one in his MVP campaign in 2009 which also saw him lead the league in every facet of the triple slash: batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage and one dotting. That’s a ridiculous season for anyone, but downright insane for a catcher. While some might knock him for the longevity of his glorious prime or the fact that injuries forced him to move to 1B for the last third of his career in which his numbers at the plate weren’t quite as magnificent, that is why I started this paragraph by emphasizing just how valuable Mauer providing an elite bat from the catcher position was. Joe Mauer is in the all-time pantheon of hitting catchers and given his skill behind the plate, catchers period. Besides, the fall off after moving to first is really overstated. Mauer was still a solid hitter, putting up a 100+ OPS plus in all but one of the last five years of his career, and that one was a 98 so it wasn’t like he was horrible. And even with this, Mauer’s 55.2 career WAR is above the average HOF catcher WAR of 53.7, and his .306 career batting average is 5th all time among catchers who’ve played over 1000 games.  

Andy Pettitte – The fact that Andy Pettitte has picked up a vote gives me hope for Bobby Abreu. Another case I’ve been making for a few years now. I will openly tell you that Andy Pettitte should be a HOFer because he was a very good pitcher but was a great playoff pitcher. Petite’s career numbers are virtually identical to HOF pitcher Jack Morris (Pettitte has two more wins, an ERA lower by .05, 30 fewer Ks and a higher WHIP by .055 in 18 fewer games pitched), but the playoffs are where legends are made, and Andy Pettitte was incredible in the playoffs time after time after time. He is quite simply the best pitcher in postseason history. He has the most wins of any pitcher in postseason history. He had 14 starts of 7+ innings with 2 or fewer earned runs. The first of these starts came in 1996 and the last came in 2010 meaning Pettitte pitched at this level for an impressive 14 seasons. Pettitte was not only nails in the postseason but did it over the largest sample size in MLB playoff history, 276.2 innings. 40-year-old Justin Verlander would need to log 51 more postseason innings to catch Pettitte. That is the kind of greatness that should be inducted.

Manny Ramirez – Confession: I should have voted Manny Ramirez in last year. I vote with PED’s in mind but not as a deal breaker. If you used PED’s you have to clear an even higher bar to get my vote. Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens all did. For some reason, when voting in 2022, Manny Ramirez did not (probably because I was comparing him to Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens). And then in 2023, I didn’t even reexamine his resume. I just looked at him as someone who I had already chosen not to vote for. And that’s my bad, Manny. Because Manny Ramirez is absolutely a HOFer. His outstanding triple slash of .312/.411/.585 is certainly Hall of Fame worthy, but actually doesn’t tell the whole story, because what made Manny such an incredible hitter was his remarkable ability to hit for both average and power, hitting to a career .312 BA while mashing 555 HRs, notching 11 .300+ BA seasons and 12 30+ HR seasons. He hit for an OPS+ of 125 or over in 17 straight seasons and lead the league in and HRs, RBIs and BA once each, all in separate years and in OBP, SLUG, and OPS three times each with the OBP leading seasons all coming in separate years from the SLUG and OPS ones. That’s the kind of ridiculous elite consistency at the plate that can make an MVP HOF voter not care about bad defense. He also slashed .285/.394/.544 in the postseason with 29 HRs and 78 RBIs and that isn’t even getting into the significance of his role on the curse breaking Red Sox World Series team in 2004 and their second helping a few years later in 2007. 

Scott Rolen – We have reached the unfortunate point with Scott Rolen where the actual Baseball Hall of Fame has gotten it right before we have. Like Bobby Abreu, Rolen suffers from the perception that he was just very good. He doesn’t have the flash of an Adrian Beltre but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the resume. Rolen is 10th all time in WAR among third basemen. That seems like an obvious HOFer. But Rolen isn’t just fighting against the Bobby Abreu lack of flash. Scott Rolen is a better defender than he is a hitter. Now let’s not shortchange who Rolen was at the plate. He’s a good hitter. He won a Silver Slugger and went to 7 All-Star games. He even hit .421 and one dotted in the World Series for the Cardinals 2006 WS team. But Scott Rolen is an incredible defender. He is one of the greatest defensive 3B of all time (probably 3rd according to the helpful but imperfect defensive analytics) and keeping him out of the hall because too much of his HOF worthy WAR comes from his glove is silly. As I said last year, if his very solid career line of .281 with 316 HRs, 1287 RBIs and a 122 OPS+ isn’t enough, his elite defense which netted him 8 Gold Gloves and aged remarkably well at a tough position as he won his last at age 35, should. You can make the argument that Rolen was a very good, not great hitter but that very good hitting combined with elite defense makes him a Hall of Famer. And he compares favorably to the other 3B already in the Hall. Rolen’s 70.1 career WAR is a tad above the average HOF WAR for a 3B of 69.4. Of the 19 3B in the Hall, Rolen has a higher WAR than 9 of them and every 3B with a higher WAR than him is in. That is a clear HOFer. It’s unfortunate that a project we started to write the wrongs of the baseball HOF is on the wrong side of history when it comes to Scott Rolen.

Bernie Williams – I was a little shocked to find out Bernie Williams only stayed on the ballot for two years. He put up a career .297/.381/.477 slash line with 287 HRs and 1257 RBIs and mashed a similar .275/.371/.489 in the playoffs and 22 HRs and 80 RBIs in 122 games. He won a Batting Title in 1998, and despite being a contact first guy, he even hit over 20 HRs six years in a row. In one of baseball’s most offensive bloated eras, Bernie Williams was going out there year after year for an eight-year stretch, hitting over .300 every year and hitting about 20 HRs while playing CF for the late 90s Yankees dynasty, earning four Gold Gloves and four World Series rings in the process. This brings me to another thing to consider about the steroid era. Don’t punish guys who didn’t juice if their numbers don’t look like their roided up contemporaries. Bernie Williams played clean in one of the most wildly offensive bloated eras and hit for a 125+ OPS+ even with juicers bringing that offensive environment up to previously unprecedented levels. That’s more impressive than a normal 125 career OPS+, which is already very impressive. In that 8-year streak of him hitting over .300, his OPS+ never dropped below 129, despite the crazy offensive environment around the league and he finished over 140 five times. As a core member of one of the most successful baseball dynasties of all time and a tremendous and consistent hitter who produced with a contact approach in an era dominated by steroid infused power, Bernie Williams deserves to be inducted.

Voting Results

To reiterate, the rules are as follows:

Players who receive 3 votes are hereby elected to The MVP Blog’s Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Players who receive 1 or 2 votes will stay on the ballot next year. Players who receive 0 votes will not appear on our ballot next year.

Let’s do a quick rundown of how the voting unfolded.

0 votes (will not be on the 2025 ballot): Jose Bautista, Bartolo Colon, Adrian Gonzalez, Matt Holliday, Roger Maris, Victor Martinez, Rafael Palmeiro, Brandon Phillips, Jose Reyes, James Shields, Chase Utley, David Wright

1 or 2 votes (will remain on the 2025 ballot): Bobby Abreu, David Cone, Andruw Jones, Kenny Lofton, Dale Murphy, Andy Pettitte, Francisco Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, Johan Santana, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Bernie Williams

The MVP Blog’s Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2024: Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, Manny Ramirez

What do you think of the Class of 2024? Comment down below!

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Authors: Ryan Macdonald, Daniel Martin, and Jake Ojalvo

Published: 1/30/24 at 5pm EST

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Sources/Works Cited:

Google Images, Google, https://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en.

Sports Reference LLC. Baseball-Reference.com – Major League Statistics and Information. https://www.baseball-reference.com/. 27 January 2024.