So what about this year? Bill Ballou checks boxes for Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez on Hall of Fame ballot
Baseball is the least logical game ever invented, so why should its Hall of Fame be different?
There are 26 players on this year’s ballot. Two players will get a vote on this particular one — Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez. A lot of very good players will not. A couple of great players will not. More on that later.
One thing that jumps out on this ballot, as it has for a while, is that there are no players who came up through the Red Sox farm system. There are 30 major league teams and only 26 players on the ballot, so Boston is not unique.
It does say something about the state of the franchise, though. The Red Sox have not done a good job for a long time in developing potential Hall of Famers, let alone eventual Hall of Fame inductees. The last player to reach the Hall of Fame who was developed in the Boston farm system never actually played a game for the Sox, Jeff Bagwell.
He was inducted in 2017.
In the last 50 years, the only other homegrown Red Sox players elected to the Hall of Fame are Jim Rice (2009), Wade Boggs (2005), Carlton Fisk (2000) and Carl Yastrzemski (1989)
To be fair, Roger Clemens was a homegrown player and should be in the Hall of Fame. He was always on this ballot.
In the last 10 years, the list of players out of the Boston farm system who even made the ballot is short. It includes Jacoby Ellsbury, Curt Schilling, Jonathan Papelbon, Clemens, Kevin Youkilis, Freddy Sanchez, Nomar Garciaparra and David Eckstein.
No doubt Dustin Pedroia will be on the ballot and get some support when he is eligible for the 2025 season.
The 2024 ballot includes the names of seven men who played for Boston but were not developed by the Sox. They are Ramirez, Billy Wagner, Adrian Beltre, Bartolo Colon, Adrian Gonzalez, Victor Martinez and Brandon Phillips.
So what about this year?
Ramirez and Rodriguez have both tested positive for steroids. They are not suspected of PED use. They are proven. Baseball has decided what the sanctions are for that, and they do not include being ineligible for the Hall of Fame.
There is a second step, too. The Baseball Writers Association of America has a screening committee that decides who gets on the final ballot. That committee says that Ramirez and Rodriguez are eligible.
Gaylord Perry admitted to throwing an illegal spitball and is in the Hall of Fame. Some players from the ‘70s and ‘80s have admitted to using illegal amphetamines during their careers and are in the Hall of Fame. Where is the line drawn?
Who is likely to gain induction with this election?
Wagner and Todd Helton are close enough to probably get over the top. Helton was a great player without that intangible and completely subjective “wow” factor. Wagner is a strange case. This is his ninth year on the ballot and got 68.1 percent last year after getting 10.5 percent his first year eligible.
How did he get that much better?
Don’t try to compare Wagner with someone like Mariano Rivera, either. When Rivera was active, he got votes for the Cy Young Award six times, for Most Valuable Player nine times.
Wagner got Cy Young votes twice and MVP votes twice. That’s how those relievers were evaluated in real time, not the rearview mirror.
The list of new candidates has some interesting names, but interesting is not good enough to make it to Cooperstown. Beltre and Colon are very interesting.
Colon has the longevity factor working for him. He pitched in the majors for 21 seasons until he was 45. He won 21 games and a Cy Young Award in 2004 with the Angels. In those 21 seasons, he got Cy Young votes just four times, was an All-Star four times and got MVP votes once.
Not exactly Pedro Martinez nor Tom Glavine stuff.
Beltre will get plenty of support, and maybe even make it on this year’s first ballot. There are voters who are passionate about Beltre’s qualifications, and those qualifications are impressive.
The last five Hall ballots cast by this voter, however, have all only included the elite of the elite, which is what Cooperstown is supposed to be all about. Only eight players have received this vote — Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay, Derek Jeter, David Ortiz, Rivera, Ramirez and Rodriguez.
Beltre was good, but not as good as anyone in that group.
Two more things.
There may be some thought that Beltre, for instance, is a Hall of Famer but not a first-ballot Hall of Famer. This doctrine has evolved through the years. It is not part of the process. In fact, there should be just one year of eligibility for players, with voters being allowed to make as many picks as they want, not just 10.
There is a five-year waiting period to make the ballot. Nothing about a player’s career changes in that time frame. Nothing will change after that, either. Perceptions may change, but reality does not. And if a player looks better from a distance than he did from up close, that’s a valid point.
What if a player looks worse, though? There is no mechanism to take someone out of the Hall of Fame, nor should there be. In this case, perspective is a one-way street.
One time on the ballot is enough.
Finally, how about doing away with Cooperstown’s Boards of Appeals, the various committees that through the years induct players who didn’t get enough votes when they were eligible.
There was a reason they didn’t get enough votes. They were not good enough for a group of 400 or so voters. That is a much better barometer than a dozen voters no matter how knowledgeable those voters are.
People who were never on a Hall of Fame ballot are a different story. They deserve a long look.
This year’s predictions — Helton and Wagner make it. Andruw Jones makes it in a couple of years, and Beltre makes it at some point, probably sooner rather than later.
One last thing — neither Rodriguez nor Ramirez make it, at least not this time.
—Contact Bill Ballou at sports@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BillBallouTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Bill Ballou's Hall of Fame ballot includes just Manny Ramirez, A-Rod
