Players not yet eligible for the HOF

[Tomi]

Jeff Kent was one I never understood. Most home runs and rbi all time as a second baseman and barely at 15% of the vote every year.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tomi

Jeff Kent was one I never understood. Most home runs and rbi all time as a second baseman and barely at 15% of the vote every year.

He was disliked.

[Tomi]

So we're Jim Rice and Dick Allen.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by Tomi

So we're Jim Rice and Dick Allen.

I am not saying Kent is not deserving, but Rice and Allen were both for at least modest periods close to the best power hitters in the game.

[G1911]

Most homers, 2nd in slugging and RBI to Hornsby, 4th in OPS. Even with the slow start to his career Kent turned out very well and is so high up the 2B leaderboards it seems difficult to justify keeping him out over his late start, but performance is now secondary to narratives. Ortiz is let in with a positive steroid test while the others like him are not given the same treatment, Schilling is kept out for politics, Kent is out for being undesirable, Vizquel is out over a civil claim with no publicly available evidence, the vets committee appears to have reached Frisch era corruption of picking friends. Performance is a lot less relevant than it was 30 years ago. Makes it more difficult to pick who will or won’t among current players that will be up for votes in another decade plus - it will probably have as much as to do with narratives not about actual performance as it does anything definable.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Whitaker IMO even more deserving than Kent. And of course there's the case of Grich.

[BioCRN]

Contemporary ballot coming up this year (for the 2026 HOF class).

Now is the time for baseball to make up for the absolute disrespect of Kenny Lofton being a 1-and-done ballot HOF candidate.

If not for playing vs roiders, he would have been a lot more impressive compared to his peers and more than 6 All-Star selections.

[Greg Sonk]

Kent is one of those guys that shows much better in pure counting stats than modern ones. As soon as you start to take the era he played in into account, his case gets quite a bit worse.

I'm sure the off field stuff doesn't help, but it's not the only reason.

[Peter_Spaeth]

2nd base JAWS rankings

8 Grich
12 Utley
13 Whitaker
22 Kent

[Peter_Spaeth]

Any active pitchers beyond the big three, Cole and Sale who should be considered? DeGrom, already on the list. The traditional stats for all the rest are so unimpressive. Is Fried still a possibility at age 31 and less than 100 wins? Nola who is now awful? Wheeler? Or is the day of the starting pitcher just over?

[packs]

It's hard to imagine a reality where Blake Snell is a HOF pitcher but he's 32 and has two Cy Young awards during his only two decent seasons as a pro. It's not out of the realm of possibility he manages a third good season sometime before he retires and there isn't anyone with three or more Cy Youngs or who isn't in the HOF other than Clemens (assuming Kershaw, Scherzer and Verlander all get elected).

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by packs

It's hard to imagine a reality where Blake Snell is a HOF pitcher but he's 32 and has two Cy Young awards during his only two decent seasons as a pro. It's not out of the realm of possibility he manages a third good season sometime before he retires and there isn't anyone with three or more Cy Youngs or who isn't in the HOF other than Clemens (assuming Kershaw, Scherzer and Verlander all get elected).

If that happens, he still won't make the Hall. As you point out, he's done literally nothing outside his Cy seasons. The same is not true for any other pitcher in that category.

[packs]

It would be an interesting case but I also think it would be really hard to advocate for him. At the same time, he would be among elite pitchers.

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Any active pitchers beyond the big three, Cole and Sale who should be considered? DeGrom, already on the list. The traditional stats for all the rest are so unimpressive. Is Fried still a possibility at age 31 and less than 100 wins? Nola who is now awful? Wheeler? Or is the day of the starting pitcher just over?

Fried is a sneaky candidate. He is probably only about half way from where he would need to be to warrant entry into the Hall, and he doesn't rack up a lot of K's, so his dominance is not as visceral. But he has an interesting case.

His career ERA+ is 141. That's tied for 19th of all-time for pitchers with 1000+ innings. And among the people ahead of him are:

- 3 relievers
- 4 Negro League pitchers
- 4 deadball era pitchers

The remaining 7 pitchers are: Clayton Kershaw, Pedro Martinez, Jacob DeGrom, Lefty Grove, Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens and Brandon Webb.

Webb played too briefly to warrant HOF consideration and DeGrom is a question mark. The rest are arguably the most dominant pitchers in baseball history. And for 1000+ innings to this point, Fried has matched that.