There are not very many 3B in the Hall. I looked at all the HOFers, and cut out those who played less than 50% of their career games at 3B (Molitor/Martinez), and those who played 3B but were elected as managers or Negro League players (McGraw/McKenchie/Wilson/Judy Johnson; their raw totals will skew things heavily because of the low game count. If counted, Rolen would get a lift).
That leaves only 13 on the list. Baker, Boggs, Brett, Collins, Jones, Kell, Lindstorm, Matthews, Robinson, Santo, Schmidt, Traynor, White.
Out of these 13, the average number of hits is 2,359. Rolen would rank 9th.
The average batting average is .297, partially weighted by the two guys who played when the league hit around .297. Rolen would rank 10th, ahead of Mike Schmidt, Eddie Matthews and Brooks Robinson, clearly poor hall of famers.
Rolen is not an exciting hall of fame candidate, his stats are largely buttressed by WAR's love of the modern game and that there are not many very good third basemen in baseballs history as compared to other positions. But even if these chosen stats were a magic barrier, Rolen is hardly a lowering of quality. Shall we kick out Schmidt for falling even below Rolen here? Schmidt is 8th in hits and tied for dead last in average.
Hall debates are really fun when the arguments made for and against a candidate are both reasonable arguments. That Rolen is some large lowering of the bar setting the hall into irrelevancy because of his hit count that is better than many HOFers and that Wagner should be kept out over an 11 inning sample size are not reasonable arguments.
I would not vote for Wagner. I would probably vote for Rolen, considering him lower tier but deserving.
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