There’s nothing like a hot stove debate in late January to remind you that pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training is just around the corner.
While the Cody Bellinger vigil is building to a final crescendo, the argument about the Hall of Fame is like chicken soup for the baseball soul.
So let’s round up the latest suspects and why they mattered on Tuesday.
*The results of Cooperstown’s Class of 2026 represent a growing trend towards the Hall of Very Good. Can’t say I disagree.
I present to the jury … Harold Baines.
*The steroid controversy still burns as hotly today as a decade ago.
*The voting process is a mess. Don’t ask me what the rules are. I gave up long ago.
The respective elections of Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran did nothing to quiet the storm. I voted for both, as well as Felix Hernandez, Andy Pettitte, Chase Utley and Omar Vizquel. Details further down.
If your beef with the Hall is its inability to define cheating, then the two candidates who matter most were Beltran and Alex Rodriguez. Both broke MLB’s most sacred laws, but I still viewed their cases differently.
I withheld my vote for Beltran for his first three years of eligibility as punishment. He was the mastermind of the Astros’ notorious sign-stealing scandal in 2017.
It was a below-the-belt attack on the sport’s integrity – enough for the Yankees to claim they were cheated out of a trip to the World Series. Beltran used his baseball IQ and 20 years of experience to teach the Astros how to swipe and communicate opposing teams’ pitch sequences.
The Astros were the latter-day Black Sox. They deserved all the scorn that came their way. Jose Altuve is still a miniature Darth Vader in the Bronx.
Trouble is, no one took the rap except Beltran. It was a critical mistake by Rob Manfred, who failed to grasp how weak he looked letting the Astros slide.
The commissioner instead picked the easy target. He knew Beltran would confess, apologize and take his punishment quietly without implicating anyone else.
Beltran paid a steep price. He was hired and then fired by the Mets before he’d even managed a single game once the scandal was revealed in 2020. Beltran suffered enough to earn my vote this time around.
Yes, I understand cheating in professional sports is a sin. But the moralists on social media could still use a dose of context.
After all, if Beltran was forced to pay with his job and reputation, then what about Bud Selig? MLB’s own commissioner conspired with owners to depress the free agent market in the 1980s.
Not only was Selig untouchable, but he was inducted into the Hall in 2017. So spare me the selective outrage. Save it for the scammers who cheated and lied (and lied) and confessed only to stay out of jail.
I’m looking at you, Alex Rodriguez. You’re stuck at 40 percent of the votes with only five more years of eligibility. Good luck with that.
Not that everyone agrees. My colleague Steve Politi explained why he stood up for Rodriguez in a column earlier this week.
After noting the slugger’s impressive career statistics, Politi wrote, “We have, very likely, already voted athletes who have used performance enhancing drugs into the Hall of Fame.”
Steve is right, the back of Rodriguez’s baseball card is a Rembrandt. Too bad Rodriguez defaced those accomplishments with a) multiple offenses of MLB’s drug policy and b) a cover-up so outrageous it made Richard Nixon look like Mister Rogers.
That’s why Rodriguez keeps getting smoked in the balloting. That’s why I refuse to vote for him. Because it’s not just about PEDs. If that were the case, Rodriguez’s crimes would’ve been overlooked by a growing number of writers by now.
It’s one thing to question his stats — we’ll never know how many of those 696 HRs were fueled by chemicals. What’s more damning is the montage of Rodriguez’s lies and denials. No normal person would’ve gone to such lengths to hide the truth.
Rodriguez never came clean until the federal government, probing the Biogenesis scandal, offered immunity in exchange for testimony against hustler Anthony Bosch. Rodriguez flipped, saving himself from prosecution. But he continued to claim he was a victim.
Among the entities Rodriguez sued were Major League Baseball, Christopher Ahmad, the Yankees’ physician and even his own union. All the while knowing he was guilty.
No one on the Cooperstown ballot ever worked that hard to mislead the public. That’s just pathological.
Here’s the how-and-why of the rest of my ballot:
ANDRUW JONES:
He was only the fourth player to surpass 400 homers and earn 10 Gold Gloves. The other three, Willie Mays, Mike Schmidt and Ken Griffey Jr., were first-ballot inductees. Jones was the industry’s best centerfielder for nine straight years.
CHASE UTLEY:
The Phillies’ second baseman was one of MLB’s premier players from 2005-2014. The first six of those seasons were breathtaking.
Utley was a five-time All-Star, hit .298 with 162 home runs, 572 RBIs and .911 OPS and had the second-highest bWAR rating in the game – beating out A-Rod, Mark Teixeira and Joe Mauer, who were third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Only Albert Pujols’ rating was better.
FELIX HERNANDEZ:
Like Utley, The King’s peak was somewhat abbreviated, but what a run: six All-Star appearances in seven years (2008-2015), a Cy Young Award, two ERA titles and a perfect game.
ANDY PETTITTE:
He’s still the game’s top winner in the post-season: no one has more Ws (19) in October. And his 256 victories are more than some Hall of Famers, including Juan Marichal (243 wins), Jim Bunning (224), and Catfish Hunter (224).
Pettitte has been linked to PEDs twice, but it was for human growth hormone, not steroids. Big difference, and in his case, it was to heal an elbow injury.
OMAR VIZQUEL:
With 11 Gold Gloves, Vizquel was the second-greatest shortstop in history after Ozzie Smith.
He credentials are diminished by an 82 OPS+ – the definition of an extreme singles hitter – and allegations of domestic abuse and a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment of a clubhouse attendant, a minor, in 2019.
Vizquel settled the civil suit without being charged with a crime.
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