2011 Baseball Hall of Fame Candidates: Who's in and Who's Out

With the 2010 Hall of Fame induction coming up, let's take a look at the class of 2011 voting to see who will be in and who will be out. The returning candidates are, Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar, Jack Morris, Barry Larkin, Lee Smith, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, Alan Trammell, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly, Dave Parker, Dale Murphy, and Harold Baines. The new first time eligible players are Wilson Alvarez, Carlos Baerga, Jeff Bagwell, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, Cal Eldred, John Franco, Juan González, Marquis Grissom, Bobby Higginson, Charles Johnson, Al Leiter, Tino Martinez, Raúl Mondesí, José Offerman, John Olerud, Rafael Palmeiro, Paul Quantrill, Steve Reed, Kirk Rueter, Rey Sánchez, Benito Santiago, B. J. Surhoff, Ugueth Urbina, Ismael Valdez, Larry Walker, Dan Wilson

Definitely In

Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar fell 5 and 8 votes short of election in 2010. No players have been so close to making it into the Hall of Fame and failed to eventually make it. History would suggest that both should make it this year. It appears that Blyleven's wait to make it into the Hall of Fame will finally be over in his 14th year of eligibility. Bert Blyleven is 5th all time in strikeouts and 27th all time in wins. That's more strikeouts than anyone not named Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, and Steve Carlton. That's more wins than Fergie Jenkins, Robin Roberts, Jim Palmer, Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and Catfish Hunter. There are only 5 modern day pitchers with more wins that are not in the Hall of Fame. Four are future Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine, and Randy Johnson. Tommy John is the only one with more wins not in the Hall of Fame, but Bert Blyleven has almost 1500 more career strikeouts. I've always speculated that Bert Blyleven was not getting votes because he failed to have a run of extremely dominant years, instead having a long career of very good years. This is in contrast to Catfish Hunter, who amassed 111 of his 224 career wins in just a 5 year stretch, yet has a career ERA+ worse than Bert Blyleven's. The Cy Young wins by Tim Lincecum and Zack Greinke last year strongly suggest that baseball writers are looking more to sabermetrics than before, so that should highly benefit Bert Blyleven's chances of getting into the Hall of Fame after such a long wait.

Roberto Alomar is one of the best second basemen of all time. He owns the most Gold Gloves of any second baseman in history and made an amazing 12 All Star teams. For a position usually light on hitting, he had a career .300 batting average, a career OPS+ of 116, and also had 474 stolen bases. Despite general consensus that he was a first ballot Hall of Famer, it was a surprise he didn't make it last year. As always, a number of voters do hold back votes on players they feel are not "first ballot worthy", so Roberto Alomar should have more than enough in his second year of eligibility.

Amongst the newly eligible players, there's only one player that really stands out as first ballot worthy, and that's Jeff Bagwell. During an age where slugging first basemen were a dime a dozen, Jeff Bagwell was not just a slugging first basemen, but a well-rounded slugging first basemen. He had 202 career stolen bases, twice having 30-30 HR-SB years. As a comparison, Albert Pujols, one of the more fleet-footed first basemen today, has never stolen more than 16 stolen bases. The collective group of Eddie Murray, Tony Perez, and Willie McCovey have fewer stolen bases, with Eddie Murray topping at 110. Jeff Bagwell won one MVP, won one Gold Glove, had a career .297 batting average, 449 career home runs, and a .948 OPS. If there was any bonus to give to Jeff Bagwell in the voting, he is one of the few remaining players to have played an entire career with one team, the Houston Astros.

Gonna Fall Short

Based on 2010 voting, three candidates had atleast 40% of the vote, Jack Morris, Barry Larkin, and Lee Smith. Jack Morris has slowly gained votes since his first candidacy in 2000. He had just 22.2% in 2000 and it grew to get 52.3% in 2010. It seems he is going votes, but there is no indication that he will gain enough votes to make it in 2011. Perhaps over more years he can gain more votes. Lee Smith on the other hand will likely fall short yet again. He has been unable to make real progress in his voting. In his first year of eligibility, he had 42.3% of the vote, but gained to only 47.3% in 2010.

Barry Larkin's first year of eligibility was in 2010 and he got an impressive 51.6% of the vote. There isn't enough history to suggest if there is enough momentum to get him elected. My personal opinion is that Barry Larkin will eventually get enough votes to get into the Hall of Fame, but he will regularly fall short for some period of time. This year, he will perhaps get a few more votes from the "not first ballot worthy" voters. Barry Larkin had an impressive career of hitting .295/.371/.444, he won an MVP, 3 Gold Gloves, 9 Silver Sluggers, and made an incredible 13 All Star teams. However, his career is continually overshadowed, first by Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken Jr., then later by young power hitting shortstops like Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, or Miguel Tejada.

The Hall of Fame voting for new candidates Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez will be amongst the most interesting votes. Their votes may be an indication of how voting will be done for many future players. By almost any traditional measure, Rafael Palmeiro is a Hall of Famer. He is a member of the 500 home run and 3000 hit club. The only other members of the 3000-500 club are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray, all Hall of Famers. However, a single positive test for steroids may ruin his chances of entering the Hall of Fame. Mark McGwire has not even been close to election since he began Hall of Fame eligibility, suggesting that Rafael Palmeiro will fall short as well. How the voting goes for Rafael Palmeiro may be a strong indication of how Barry Bonds will be voted for when he is eligible.

Juan Gonzalez will be another interesting vote. Juan Gonzalez is amongst the first sluggers from the steroids era to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Under most traditional measures, he would be a Hall of Famer. He had 434 career home runs, a career .295 batting average, and a career .904 OPS. He twice lead the AL in home runs and twice won the AL MVP award. However, there was an amassment of sluggers during the juiced era, and many voters have indicated that these types of statistics just aren't as impressive during the era. He was also named in the Mitchell Report, which will definitely not help his chances. Juan Gonzalez will likely fall short.

Lingering on the Ballot

Amongst the returning Hall of Fame candidates, there doesn't appear to be any suggestion that Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, Alan Trammell, Harold Baines, Dale Murphy, or Dave Parker will make any significant progress towards Hall of Fame election. Mark McGwire may lose votes after his steroids admission earlier this year. Tim Raines may gain some votes, as there appears to be growing recognition of his accomplishments as a leadoff hitter. He acquired only 24.3% of the vote in 2008 but had 30.4% of the vote in 2010. He hit a career .294/.385/.425/.810 and had an incredible 808 career stolen bases, placing him 5th all time. As sabermetrics because more and more popular, it appears that voters are beginning to side with the belief that he was an incredible player during his era, but perhaps did not have the career numbers to show it. It may simply take him a long time to get in, perhaps taking an Andre Dawson or Jim Rice route to the Hall of Fame.

Amongst the new candidates, there are a few that will get a vote or two. John Olerud, Bret Boone, B.J. Surhoff, and Charles Johnson all had fine careers with All Star appearances, however it's hard to see them getting more than 5% of the vote to stay eligible for future voting. The only one that may have a chance is Larry Walker. Larry Walker hit a career .313/.400/.565/.965, won 1 MVP, 7 Gold Gloves, and won three NL batting titles. While he had success in Montreal early in his career and St. Louis late in his career, his career is highlighted by his time in Colorado. As one of the few semi-serious Hall of Fame candidates who played in Colorado, Larry Walker's vote may be a good indication of future voting for players who played a significant portion of their career in Colorado. His career was far superior to that of his Colorado teammates such as Andres Gallaraga (career .846 OPS, 2 GG), Dante Bichette (career .835 OPS), and Vinny Castilla (career .797 OPS), so voting for earlier Colorado players can't be viewed as an indication of voter's opinions on Colorado players.

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