Well, there definitely aren't 10 players worth voting for now- Rolen, Helton, Beltran, Andruw Jones and then it's the PED crowd.

I suppose a great deal depends on whether this year's voters, especially on the veterans committee, care for Peak value or Career value. I can never figure how the BBWAA feel about it (to be honest, I don't know how I feel about it.)

Tommy John still being on the outside would suggest the BBWAA looks down upon compilers. That should have been good news for someone like Mattingly, who is all about the peak. But here he is, handed off to the committee that voted in Harold Baines.

It's all very confusing.

Attention Dewey! You will have noticed, if no one else did, that I treated BBWAA as a plural noun in one sentence ("Baseball Writers") and as a singular noun (the acronym) in the next sentence.

I call that hedging my bets.

I’m sure you recall Ralph Waldo Emerson’s dictum, (in “Self-Reliance”), “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds . . .”? Nice of you to alert me, in any case.

Dale Murphy and Josh Donaldson have had similar careers in peak and career value. Curiously both started out as catchers and moved to demanding defensive positions at a young age.

IF Andruw Jones had Torii Hunter's decline that would be a. Easy vote despite his domestic violence issues that I learned about this year. ( I'm talking easy for most people performanc ewise, not me personally. The violence stuff is way worse for me than some people take PEDs).

Weak class. Rolen, Jones and Helton I'm on the fence about (for different reasons) and I'd be OK with any of them being in or not and Beltran is close but the cheating does hold him back. I care a lot less than I used to partly because of the HoF's refusal to allow the best players in and instead spending most of the last decade putting in marginal HOFers.

For the HOF I use a general rule of a minimum of 50 WAR to remotely consider unless a very weird situation has occurred.

So this year that would include....
100+: A-Rod - this is the dead lock unless PED area.
70-99: Rolen, Beltran - these are 'should be locks unless writers are drunk'
60-69: Manny Ramirez, Andruw Jones, Todd Helton, Gary Sheffield, Andy Pettitte, Bobby Abreu - bubble guys, anything bad can push them off, anything really good can push them in.
50-59: Mark Buehrle, Jeff Kent, Torii Hunter - very marginal candidates who need a major boost to get in (WS moments, high peak short tail career, etc.)

Some are PED guys still - A-Rod, Man-Ram (3 times), Sheffield, Pettitte. Beltran has the garbage can issue, Jones the super fast fall off and most value via defense, Helton the Coors Field issue, Abreu never seen as one of the best - peaks of 151 OPS+, 6.6 bWAR. 4 years in the 6's, 12th in MVP his highest finish, just 2 ASG, 1 Gold Glove, 1 Silver Slugger - basically he was very good for a long time but never great.

So who would I vote for? I generally put minimal downgrades for PEDs but in Man-Ram's case I'd make an exception (caught that often is a very ugly thing). So I'd go A-Rod, Rolen, Beltran (I see the sign thing as irrelevant), Helton, Kent (love the most HR for a 2B thing). For relievers you gotta be Rivera level or a legend (Goose Gossage type) and Wagner isn't that with sub 30 WAR. If he hung around and got to 500 saves I'd put more consideration in for him (as he'd have cracked 30 WAR thus been high for a reliever) but still doubt I'd vote for him. K-Rod is similar with his 437 saves (15 more than Wagner) and 24 WAR. Both were solid closers for a long time, but HOF level? Nah. They'd be Bruce Sutter level imo - guys who did well in their role but were overrated due to that and didn't put in the career length needed imo.

I hope RA Dickey gets a vote from someone - just the one. I LOVE knuckleballers even if they can drive you nuts. I suspect he could still pitch and throw 150+ innings at a 80-90 ERA+ level but no team likes to give knuckleballs a chance due to the headache with the catchers and the variability in them even with the massive innings they can eat. Wilbur Wood in the 70's was the last guy to get 49 starts with a 5 year stretch of 40+ starts after leading the league in relief games for 3 years - just amazing. Peaked at 1531 batters faced in 1973. Shortly after Phil Niekro in 77-79 had 40+ starts a year peaking with 44 (a year he both won and lost 20+ games). I'd love to see another knuckleball guy show up and get 50+ starts, have him go every 3rd game. A team like the Pirates have nothing to lose - could let their better prospects with the 100 mph arms build up in the minors while a knuckleballer eats up ML innings.

PED usage alters the playing field in an unfair way;

My take is thar the league condoned stuff foe a while, and the voters have been inconsistent on applying character issues to past PED performance so I don't think k it's worth caring about.
Beltran's tarnish is a big deal, though his performance is good enough.
Jones's issues are both unforgivable but I want to have empathy. But there's enough people who had problematic parents dont have violence issues.I'd need to see something I've never seen from a pro athlete in terms of acknowledging wrong and working towards atonement for things to balance back into considering performance. Like it would be theoretically possible for me,
Arod Helton Rolen Sheffield. Could make a case for Kent but think he's just short. Dependa on how much you care about positional records and benefitting from playing with Bonds.

Hard no for Vizquel, Wagner, ManRam (repeat caught with PEDs and ridiculous excuses. In high school my best friend went to baseball camp and all their coaches were talking about this great kid Manny who was gonna be a star).
I probably like Abreu more than most but not sure I'd put him in the Hall.
Pettite just feels like a guy who gets the benefit of being on a winning team for consideration.

Pettitte I see as a borderline case in the first place - just over 60 WAR, just 3 years of 5+ WAR. His long postseason record is mainly due to being signed by the Yankees at just the right time (right place, right time). Without the PED issue he'd be borderline. But with the PEDs that gives him one big negative and one positive (playoffs) overall so leaving him on the edge. He started the year after the big strike, retired well before COVID so nothing external messed up his career.

For comparison, Halladay was a contemporary who had 3 seasons of 8+ WAR, 8 of 5+, 2 Cy's, but just 5 playoff games (2.37 ERA including a no-hitter). He had 'just' 65 WAR, 5 more than Pettitte.

Charlie Buffinton has exactly the same WAR as Pettitte - an 1800's pitcher so little to learn from that. Mark Buehrle is less than 1 WAR behind Pettitte, 4 times with 5+ WAR, 5 ASG's vs Pettitte's 3. It isn't hard to make a case that Buehrle was the better pitcher but he has no chance of getting in anytime soon. Of the 5 pitchers ahead and 5 behind Pettite in WAR including the tied guy you have 5 HOF'ers (Drysdale, Waddell, Bunning, Newhouser) and 5 non-HOF'ers (Bond, Mullane, Buffington, Buehrle, and Quinn) - talk about the definintion of on the line! Of the next 30+ below Pettitte you get only a few HOF'ers (often guys with short careers like Koufax or relievers like Rivera, plus ex-Yankee Whitey Ford) and lots of 'if only' guys like Stieb and Saberhagen.

In the pre-PED days Pettitte would've been a lock with the Yankee pedigree and 19 playoff wins to go with 256 regular season wins. I figure he'll get in via the Vets someday but there is no rush on his getting in.

Wasn’t sure where to post this but fits better here since HoF presumably cares about cheaters. Manoah called Coke the worst cheater in baseball history?? I find his spirit commendable and love to poke our rivals but uhh yeah that’s one wacky take.

Damn lack of edit (plus auto correct on phones) I meant Cole but maybe Coke was more funny given the NY angle.

I always found Pepsi to be more morally responsible. Soda lot of other people, including my Pop.

Safe to say Manoah is trying to build up more rivalry between the Jays and Yankees - like it needs more. Also safe to say Cole will probably laugh more than get mad at this at this stage of his career (making literally hundreds of millions while being about half way to the HOF but no rings). It'll be interesting to see how things go in 2023 between the two teams and those 2 pitchers.

I'm not sure what to think about closers - but it's become a position and several of them have already been inducted.

In which case, we can agree that Mariano Rivera was definitely better than Billy Wagner. But Billy Wagner might have been better than everyone else: Hoffman, Kimbrel, Chapman, Eckersley, Smith. Whoever.

He certainly could have hung around and padded his career totals a little more, not that 422 Saves isn't plenty. In his final season, he saved 37 games with an ERA of 1.43 (ERA+ 268) and fanned 104 batters in 69.1 IP. And his big mouth landed him in trouble more than once. But only Rivera was better. No one else.

Jayson Stark at the Athletic points out that the next 2 crops of Hall of Fame eligible are loaded with names like Beltre, Ichiro, Utley and King Felix.

They really should vote Rolen in this year.

Kimbrel of course has 394 saves.

After brief consideration, if I had a ballot, I'd vote for Beltran, Rolen and ManRam this year.

I actually have zero issue with the caught PED users for the following reason...MLB set the punishment for getting caught, and it didn't say they were ineligible for anything. Suspensions cost players entire years, seems pretty severe to me. If they want more, I'd be one who says they need to say so, directly. Same for the 2017 Astros. Don't have to like them.

Beltran the only newcomer
Rolen, Helton, arod, Sheffield, Ramirez, Jones, Pettitte. Kent and Buerhle too, why not.

I am anti-closer. Modern baseball, if it remains similar, is going to generate a lot of relievers with similar career values as increasingly young pitchers just start and stay there. Leverage index boosts are up to managers, not players. Hell, ws champion Houston used there 3 or 4th best guy at the end, it seemed. Give managers credit for bullpen management, not the players. And stop making the 'closer wing' bigger.

Agreed AWeb - especially on closers. It is VERY hard for a closer to have anywhere near the value of a regular player, let alone high enough to reach the HOF. No version of WAR puts any closer near the magic 60 mark outside of Rivera at 56.3. Eckersley was at 62.1 but also had years as a starter (all-star level) - he had 45.5 bWAR before going to Oakland with just 3 saves. 387 saves later but just 16.8 bWAR he was a HOF lock. Fingers was the first to crack 300 saves but just 25.6 WAR. Hoyt Wilhelm was the first reliever in the HOF and had 46.8 WAR (very marginal) but of note is how they made him a full-time starter briefly and he had a 2.19 ERA the year he had 27 starts to lead the league. Don't get why they stopped after 11 more starts the next year - guess because they had a LOT of depth in the starting rotation and felt they needed that guy in the pen (5 guys with 20+ starts and ERA+'s of 107+)

Bottom line... most relievers in the HOF are lower quality than those 3. Sutter 24 WAR, Gossage 41.1, Hoffman 28, Smith 28.9. Gossage was a Fingers era type - lots of innings helping that WAR grow. Modern guys like Kimbrel (21.8), F-Rod (24.2), Jansen (19.6) can't get up there even with insane ERA's thanks to being used for 1 inning at most and rarely on back-to-back games. Romano almost reached 3 WAR (2.9) this year but 20 years of that and he'd still be shy of 60. Yes, closers have value, but nothing compared to starters (Manoah at 5.9 this year) or everyday players (Springer 4.0). Thus I have a LOT of trouble putting them in the HOF unless they are exceptional ala Rivera (200 ERA+, even better in playoffs over 141 IP).

"After brief consideration, if I had a ballot, I'd vote for Beltran, Rolen and ManRam this year."

Add ARod and Jeff Kent to that.

"Why on the fence about Rolen, Glevin? Is there a better third baseman than him who is not in the Hall of Fame?"

His peak was short and not that great. He finished top-5 in MVP voting once, never led the league in a single offensive category once, and was only top-5 WAR in the league once. He was never really one of the best players in baseball. He was good for a long time with a couple of great years sprinkled in which can make you a HOFer but it's a harder case for me. If you take 1995-2015, he has the 12th best WRC+ for 3Bman in this period. He is below all the metrics for likely HOfer in Baseball reference except for JAWS. I'd probably vote for him but he's not a slam dunk for me. Is Evan Longoria a HOFer? David Wright? Rolen is ahead of both these guys but not by much. His case rests mostly on his elite D and I simply don't trust defensive statistics to accurately reflect defensive value.

Rolen has a few reasons why he isn't viewed as a HOF'er by many - played on 4 teams spread out fairly - 7 years in Philly, 6 in St Louis, 4 in Cincinnati, and 2 in Toronto. Traded mid-season twice. Tends to weaken how a player is viewed in any of those cities and by the public at large. On the positive side you have 7 All-Star games, a Rookie of the Year award, 4 times getting MVP votes including coming in 4th once. One WS ring (hit 421/476/737 in that series) but overall not good in the playoffs (220/302/376). Always took a fair # of walks but never a TON of them (never over 100 BB, 364 OBP despite a sub 300 Avg at 281). Good power but not 'wow' (peak of 34 HR), good speed but not 'wow' (118 SB 5 times over 10 but never 20). He was a very very good player for a long time (17 years) but with the team jumping and top skills the hidden ones (defense, plus good speed, good power, good average but none 'wow'), lots of good seasons but never a 600 Slg%, once a 400 OBP, twice a 300 Avg. All things that catch voters and fans eyes. Best year was during the era of Bonds (a 158 OPS+ when Bonds was cracking 200 annually) his 7 best OPS+ were between 1998 and 2006 (peak PED era). Odd bit of trivia - he NEVER played any position other than 3B in the majors - once a pinch runner, 23 times a pinch hitter (16 in his last 3 years).

Easy to see Rolen being forgotten if he was eligible a few years earlier vs first being on the ballot in 2018 ala Lou Whitaker (2001) and Kenny Lofton (2013). I find it quite ridiculous that Don Mattingly is on the HOF vets list this year instead of those 2 who are FAR more qualified for the HOF.

While Rolen was here, Cito Gaston said he was the best 3rd baseman he’d ever seen. And Cito was a baseball lifer; he’d seen a lot of 3rd basemen. That’s good enough for me.