Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 14 seasons full-time on the beat. |
Tuesday marks an important day on the baseball calendar, as the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will reveal which players -- if any -- it has chosen to enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2024. A stacked ballot includes first-timers Adrian Beltré, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, plus several players with Mets ties.
Here’s a closer look at those who played in Queens and are now vying for a spot in Cooperstown:
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Billy Wagner
Number of years on ballot: 9 |
The most intriguing will-he-or-won’t-he question on this year’s ballot is Wagner, one of the poster children for how modern, more analytically inclined voters can swing an election. Back in 2016, Billy the Kid received just 10.5% of support in his first try on the ballot, and he actually lost ground the following year. But Wagner has seen his support shoot up over the past four election cycles, peaking at 68.1% last year. He has been trending just above the 75% threshold for induction on Ryan Thibodaux’s excellent Hall of Fame tracker, suggesting he’s either going to make it by a few votes or miss out by a few.
The case for Wagner is simple: pound for pound, he’s arguably the second-best reliever in history behind only Mariano Rivera. Wagner’s league-adjusted ERA+, which accounts for external factors such as ballpark and opponent, trails only that of Rivera among relievers with at least 900 career innings. Using the same innings qualifier, Wagner’s strikeout rate is the best in history, despite the fact that the league K rate is roughly 50 percent higher today than it was for much of Wagner’s career. He was the archetype for the modern bullpen arm.
If relievers are eligible for the Hall of Fame, the argument goes, then Wagner certainly should be included.
His main issue is one of longevity. Wagner’s 903 career innings would be the lowest total of any reliever in the Hall of Fame. His 422 career saves would only rank higher than Hall of Famers such as Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage, who played before the era of the one-inning save. His WAR would be the lowest of any primary reliever in Cooperstown. Wagner also gets dinged for his career 10.03 postseason ERA, though it might be fairer to ignore that portion of his resume altogether considering he pitched only 11 2/3 playoff innings.
Wagner has one more year of ballot eligibility after this one, and while things do look good for him this year, it’s possible he might need it. Candidates tend to receive a significant boost in their final year on the ballot, so even if Wagner falls short this week, he stands a solid chance of entering Cooperstown in 2025.
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Carlos Beltrán
Number of years on ballot: 2 |
Statistically speaking, Beltrán is almost certainly a Hall of Famer. A former Rookie of the Year who made nine All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves and twice finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting, Beltrán finished his career with 70.1 career bWAR -- just a shade below the average for Hall of Fame center fielders. He was also one of the finest postseason performers of his generation, doing more than enough in October to put his candidacy over the edge.
But Beltrán was the only player named in Major League Baseball’s investigation into sign-stealing practices on the 2017 Astros, which cost him his job as Mets manager and seems also to have blocked the express route into Cooperstown. Despite his standout resume, Beltrán appeared on just 46.5% of ballots last year in his first try. While he has been trending quite a bit higher on the Hall of Fame tracker this year, Beltrán appears likely to fall short again.
Despite all this, Beltrán is primed to enter Cooperstown eventually -- it just might take a bit longer than it would have without the Astros' stain on his resume. If and when he does enter the Hall, Beltrán will face an interesting decision: a Mets or Royals cap on his plaque?
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David Wright
Number of years on ballot: 1 |
Although Mets fans wish the conversation were different, the most pressing aspect of Wright’s candidacy is whether he will receive the 5% of votes necessary to remain on the ballot in future years. On an obvious Hall of Fame arc through the first decade of his career, Wright simply did not last long enough to garner significant support. Back, neck and shoulder injuries limited him to 49.2 career bWAR, or barely half that of Beltré, who is likely to enter Cooperstown on the first ballot. The average Hall of Fame third baseman has 68.4.
Wright’s peak was so bright, however, that his case is stronger than it appears on paper. My colleague Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru recently ran down six reasons why Wright belongs in Cooperstown, and they’re all legitimate. I’d encourage you also to read this recent piece by Jayson Stark in The Athletic (subscription required), which makes an analytic case to the same end.
Since balloting opened, Wright has been trending just above 5% on the Hall of Fame tracker. It’s probably unrealistic to think he will ever reach Cooperstown, but mindsets can change drastically over the course of a decade, as can the makeup of the BBWAA voting bloc -- just look at Wagner as proof. For that to have a chance of happening, though, Wright must garner enough support to remain on the ballot.
If nothing else, Wright remains the greatest hitter in franchise history, a surefire Mets Hall of Famer, and a lock to have his No. 5 retired at Citi Field. Hall or no Hall, it was a sparkling career.
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Others of note:
• José Reyes electrified Flushing for a dozen seasons but tailed off significantly during the back half of his career and served a domestic violence suspension in 2016. Reyes is looking like he’ll be one-and-done on the ballot.
• A fan favorite in Flushing, Bartolo Colón pitched for 21 seasons and won a Cy Young. But many of those seasons were pedestrian, and he has a PED suspension in his past. For those reasons, Colón will likely fall off the ballot after this election cycle.
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• A big-time signing for the Mets back in 2009, Francisco Rodríguez compares reasonably to other borderline Hall of Fame relievers. But he isn’t quite there, resulting in initial support similar to Wagner’s. Perhaps that will change in future seasons.
• In 2009, Gary Sheffield hit his 500th career home run with the Mets. Fifteen years later, he’s on the BBWAA ballot for the 10th and final time, and not trending ideally. Barring a late boost, Sheffield may be one of the rare 500-homer sluggers to fall short of Cooperstown.
• Bobby Abreu is another darling of those who value analytics, but this is his fifth year on the ballot and he’s never reached even 20% support. Something is going to have to change in a significant way if Abreu, a long time Phillie who briefly played for the Mets in 2014, is to reach Cooperstown.
• Much like Sheffield and Abreu, José Bautista spent half of his final big MLB season in Queens. His time there was mostly unremarkable, save for a game-winning grand slam over the Rays on July 6, 2018 -- the first and only walk-off homer of Bautista’s 15-year career. He’ll also likely be one-and-done on the ballot.
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Jan. 23, 1975: Ralph Kiner became the fourth person with Mets ties to enter the Hall of Fame, receiving 75.4% of the vote to join Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra and Warren Spahn in Cooperstown. Although Kiner never played for the Mets, he was an original broadcaster for the team and spent more than 50 years in the booth in various capacities. |
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