This is the second part of a series meant to pinpoint the most likely player of each age to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, while also examining some others who could one day end up on the ballot.
Yesterday we explored the players under age 30, and now it’s time to dive into the players who will be in their 30s and 40s next season. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s get going.
Baseball Reference’s version of WAR is used throughout this piece.
30: Mookie Betts, RF, Dodgers
This is the most stacked age group in the majors right now, so shout out to everyone out there born between July 1, 1992 and June 30, 1993 (I am just a few months out of this age range, so I will use this as an excuse for getting cut during high school baseball tryouts). As I see it, there are as many as eight candidates—Mookie Betts, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, José Ramírez, Xander Bogaerts, Aaron Nola, Trea Turner and Trevor Story—with a legitimate shot at ending up in the Hall of Fame, depending on how their 30s go.
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But Betts is the most likely to end up there, considering he’d have a compelling case even if he were to retire tomorrow (a case SI MLB editor Matt Martell made in December 2021, before Betts’s most recent excellent campaign). He already ranks 15th in JAWS (a metric used to evaluate Hall of Fame worthiness) among right fielders, of which there are 28 in the Hall of Fame. He’s second in WAR since he debuted in ’14 (only behind the next player on this list) and hasn’t missed an All-Star Game since ’15, his first full season in the majors. His low counting stats (213 home runs, 1,306 hits, 158 stolen bases) would give him some trouble, but his truly peerless fielding would help make up for it—Betts is already the all-time leader in defensive WAR among right fielders after displacing Roberto Clemente last season. That’s all just a hypothetical though, because Betts should have plenty of time to build an ironclad case. Only five players can match his aforementioned home run, hit and stolen base totals through age 29: Alex Rodriguez, Mike Trout, Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays and Frank Robinson.
31: Mike Trout, CF, Angels
Kris Bryant is a former NL MVP and was the best player on the Cubs’ curse-breaking World Series team. Christian Yelich almost certainly would’ve won back-to-back MVPs if he hadn’t been hit in the kneecap in September 2019, seemingly altering his career forever. And perhaps no player increased his Hall of Fame odds more last year than Aaron Judge, who wrote his name in the history books by setting the American League single-season home run record.
But all of their Hall of Fame résumés pale in comparison to Mike Trout’s. Through his age-27 season in 2019, he’d compiled the most WAR (72.5) of every single person who’d ever picked up a bat and glove and played to that age, besting a record Ty Cobb had held for over a century. Even after all his injuries over the last few years, he still ranks fifth-all time in WAR through a player’s age-30 season (82.4). He also ranks fifth in JAWS among center fielders, not that we’ll need to consult statistics to decide Trout’s Hall of Fame fate whenever he comes up for election. The only question will be whether he’ll be inducted unanimously.
32: Nolan Arenado, 3B, Cardinals
Arenado has a couple of peers in Gerrit Cole and J.T. Realmuto who could have worthy cases when it’s all said and done. But Arenado is on a higher pedestal than them in part because of his excellent defense. He’s the first infielder ever to win Gold Gloves in each of his first 10 seasons, and he’s already tied with Mike Schmidt for the second-most wins of that award by a third baseman, trailing only the 16 captured by Brooks Robinson. I thought that record was unbreakable, but Arenado may just be the man to do it.
Last year was a big one for Arenado. After a good-but-not-great season at the plate in 2021, his first away from Colorado’s hitter-friendly Coors Field, Arenado logged career bests in OPS+ (154) and WAR (7.9), winning his fifth Silver Slugger and garnering his fourth top-five MVP finish (third place). He also recorded his seventh season with 30 or more home runs; only Schmidt (12 seasons) and Eddie Mathews (10) had more 30-homer years among third basemen.
Arenado, who enters this season with 52.2 WAR, 299 home runs and 968 RBIs for his career, has five years left on his deal with the Cardinals. If he averages only 5 WAR, 25 home runs and 100 RBIs per season in that span—and I say only because since 2015, he’s averaging 5.8 WAR, 34 homers and 107 RBIs per year—he’d rank eighth all-time in WAR (77.2), fifth in home runs (424) and fifth in RBIs (1,486) among third basemen. And he’d still have an opportunity to add to those numbers, considering he’s set to enter free agency again before his age-37 season. That’s a no-brainer Hall of Famer.
33: Jose Altuve, 2B, Astros
This is the second-most stacked age bracket of the bunch, with three players whom I’d peg as having excellent odds if they have a few more good years left in them (Altuve, Freddie Freeman, Giancarlo Stanton) and other secondary long-shot candidates (Madison Bumgarner, Salvador Perez, Anthony Rizzo) who could at least have some compelling evidence to stay on the ballot a while if they finish with a strong, extended kick.
Altuve has proven before and after the Astros’ tainted 2017 season that his success is not dependent on trash cans, and the evidence gathered by Astros fan Tony Adams presents Altuve as a very infrequent user of the banging scheme. (That being said, it is fair to discount his 2017 awards haul—which includes his lone MVP, an MLB batting title, an AL hits title and one of his six Silver Sluggers.) Altuve has the most realistic shot of being baseball’s next Mr. 3,000, and at his recent pace he’ll need to keep chugging through age 39. He may not even need that career hits milestone, though, as he’s one good season away from entering the top 20 of JAWS among second basemen, of which there are 20 enshrined. His postseason credentials are also nearly unmatched; his 23 postseason home runs trail only Manny Ramírez in MLB history. It’s impossible to separate any of the 2017 Astros from the scandal that’s painted the team as the league’s villains, but it’d feel harsh to penalize the player who was least involved by robbing him of a richly deserved Cooperstown plaque.
I’ve talked extensively about Freeman’s odds in the past—and his argument has only gotten stronger since then—while Stanton’s case is pretty cut and dry: if the 2017 NL MVP can mash 122 more homers to reach 500, he’s in. If not, as we saw with Fred McGriff during his stay on the writers’ ballot, it could get dicey because he’s not likely to add much to his WAR totals as a primary designated hitter going forward. Even while launching 31 homers last year, he was only worth 0.7 WAR thanks to a paltry .211 batting average and sub-.300 on-base percentage combined with poor defense when he was forced into the field.
34: Chris Sale, SP, Red Sox
For a seven-year period between 2012 to ’18, Sale made the All-Star team every season, twice led the AL in strikeouts and never finished below sixth in Cy Young voting, though without ever actually bringing home the hardware. That made the flamethrowing lefty with the funky delivery one of just 10 pitchers in MLB history to rack up 100 wins and 1,700 strikeouts with a career ERA under 3.00 through his age-29 season. Every other hurler on that list is either in the Hall of Fame, will be some day (in the case of Clayton Kershaw) or would be if not for PED connections (Roger Clemens).
Then, after a sudden decline into mediocrity in 2019 following Boston’s ’18 World Series title, Sale missed the entire ’20 season and most of ’21 due to Tommy John surgery. He then suffered two freak injuries last year—first a fractured finger on a comebacker, then a broken wrist in a bicycle accident. The end result is just 11 starts over the last three years, and a much murkier future. When he has been on the mound, his fastball has maintained the mid-90s speed that made it so fearsome, and hitters still struggled to do damage on his wicked slider. But we’re working with a very small sample size here, and there’s no telling when Sale could suddenly lose effectiveness as he grows older. He currently ranks 111th in S-JAWS (a variation on JAWS for starting pitchers), a decent distance from the target he’ll be aiming for given there are 66 starters enshrined. But he does have a nice feather in his cap as the career record holder for strikeout rate (11.1 K/9) and strikeout to walk ratio (5.33 K/BB). Two more seasons at least approaching his peak level would do wonders for his outlook, and the Red Sox would love for those campaigns to come while they have him under contract through ’24.
Stephen Strasburg has a similar career arc to Sale, as his body has crumbled since winning the 2019 World Series with the Nationals to conclude what was an excellent eight-year run in Washington. He’s made just eight starts over the last three years and didn’t quite display the dominance Sale did before his setbacks to draw the same amount of optimism going forward.
35: Clayton Kershaw, SP, Dodgers
This is another golden age for potential Hall of Famers, with Kershaw a sure bet for induction, Paul Goldschmidt taking a big leap toward that status with his 2022 MVP campaign and Jacob deGrom presenting a fascinating peak-dependent case—albeit with a distressingly low 116th ranking in S-JAWS due to his late start in the majors at age 26 and recent medical maladies. There’s also a trio of relievers in Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel and Aroldis Chapman who could force the issue with more quality time in the closer’s role, especially the former two, either of whom could wind up in the top five on the all-time saves leaderboard by the end of this year.
Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports
Whittle it down to one option, though, and it’s got to be Kershaw. If the Dodgers’ living legend can earn just three wins and keep his career ERA under 2.50 this year, he’ll be the first pitcher since the 1920s with at least 200 career wins and an ERA that low. Only nine full-time starting pitchers have won an MVP since Cy Youngs were first awarded in ’56, and Kershaw is the most recent one to do so, in 2014. He also has three Cys in his trophy case and his seven top-five finishes in the race for best pitcher are tied with Pedro Martínez and Roy Halladay for the eighth-most all time. He’s a lock.
36: Andrew McCutchen, OF, Pirates
This age group will probably be shut out of the Hall. I highlighted Andrew McCutchen last year as a potential borderline candidate, but he hasn’t had a 3-WAR season since 2017, and it doesn’t seem like the ’13 NL MVP has enough gas left in the tank for the kind of late-career surge it’d take to earn the approval of most voters. While 13 more home runs would make Cutch one of just five primary center fielders in history with 300 home runs and 200 stolen bases, that group includes the likes of Steve Finley (a one-and-done candidate) as well as the more impressive trio of Willie Mays, Mike Trout and Carlos Beltrán (who have each crossed at least one of those HR/SB thresholds with plenty of room to spare).
Before conducting research for this piece, I thought two-time Cy Young runner-up Yu Darvish would have a stronger claim; his 4.4 WAR last year was his highest output since his sophomore campaign in 2013. But he ranks 288th in S-JAWS, below the likes of Lance Lynn and James Shields, and has too steep a hill to climb after missing parts of four seasons between 2014 and ’18 due to injuries. José Abreu is having the sort of mid-30s run that would have him in great shape if he had debuted in the majors before his age-27 season instead of dominating in Cuba during that time. Alas, in all certainty it’ll end up being too little, too late.
37: Evan Longoria, 3B, Diamondbacks
This is another group that will almost certainly go without representation. Longoria will deserve to stay on the ballot once he’s there, but his sudden decline after turning 30 and some recent injury troubles (477 games over the last five years) really hamstrung his chances to compile some impressive numbers—if he was closer to 400 home runs than his current total of 331, we’d have a more serious conversation. He also hasn’t made an All-Star team since 2010, his third season. But Longoria ranks 18th all-time in third base JAWS at a position that’s underrepresented in the Hall, so perhaps history will look kinder upon him for his overall play and role as the cornerstone of the first good Rays teams, beginning with his rookie season in 2008.
Josh Donaldson is a tier below Longoria on the 3B JAWS leaderboard, ranking 27th, one spot behind David Wright. The 2015 AL MVP could feasibly push himself into the conversation with a late-career renaissance, but his registering as a below-league-average hitter last year for the first time since his ’12 rookie campaign likely signals he’s firmly in his decline phase. Corey Kluber was a force at his peak, earning two Cy Youngs for Cleveland and finishing in the top 10 of AL balloting every year between ’14 and ’18, but he didn’t emerge until his age-27 season and only made 24 starts between ’19 and ’21 to sink his already remote odds.
38: Max Scherzer, SP, Mets
Let’s not waste too much time here. Scherzer is the only man his age with a chance at being inducted, and the Hall might as well start working on his bust. Mad Max has a decent shot at entering the top 10 on the career strikeout leaderboard this year by surpassing Justin Verlander (who has five more with 3,198), Phil Niekro (3,342) and Greg Maddux (3,371).
39: Zack Greinke, SP, Free Agent
Greinke is another hurler who should have no issue being enshrined, even if on the surface his case isn’t quite as open-and-shut as those of Kershaw, Scherzer and Verlander. The 2009 AL Cy Young winner ranks 25th among starting pitches in S-JAWS, which puts him safely on the right side of the cut line for a position group with 66 inductees. His calling card is durability, as he’s never made fewer than 26 starts in a full season since becoming a full-time starter in ’08. But it’d also be unfair to call Greinke a compiler, as he’s one of just two pitchers in MLB history with at least 3,000 innings pitched and per-nine inning averages of at least eight strikeouts and less than two walks (the other being Curt Schilling).
Joey Votto also merits mention here, as he sneakily became a sure thing with a late-career flourish that has him standing at 12th on the JAWS leaderboard for first basemen, above the likes of Rafael Palmeiro, Willie McCovey, Eddie Murray and Mark McGwire. If he manages to hit eight more home runs before he retires, he’ll become one of just five primary first basemen with at least 350 homers and a .400 on-base percentage, with the others being Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Jeff Bagwell and Todd Helton.
40: Justin Verlander, SP, Mets
What a pair we have here with Verlander and Miguel Cabrera. Both are obviously going to be enshrined one day, almost certainly on their first ballots, but since I had to pick one, I’ll go with Verlander due to his more graceful aging and potential to dominate for several more years. Miggy has no reason to worry, though, as one of just seven players ever with at least 500 home runs and 3,000 hits.
Troy Taormina/USA TODAY Sports
Verlander polished off the last piece missing from his résumé with a win in a World Series game during Houston’s 2022 title run. If he really becomes MLB’s version of Tom Brady and plays until age 45 like he’s said in the past he would, the active wins leader at 244 has a good shot at becoming the first 300-win pitcher since Randy Johnson crossed the threshold in ’09. A couple more accomplishments that could end up on his plaque: Verlander and Kershaw are the only starters to have won an MVP since 1992, and only Roger Clemens has more top-five Cy Young finishes than Verlander’s nine.
41: Adam Wainwright, SP, Cardinals
Adam Wainwright is five wins away from joining the 200-win club. If he does, he’d become the 45th member of an impressive group of pitchers with at least 200 wins and 2,000 strikeouts and career ERAs under 3.50. In looking at the 10 most recent entrants of that group, there are four Hall of Famers (Pedro Martínez, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Roy Halladay), three soon-to-be HOFers (Verlander, Greinke, Scherzer) and Curt Schilling, Tim Hudson and Orel Hershiser, all of whom were on the ballot for at least two years but eventually fell off. Unfortunately, I think Wainwright will fall into that latter group even if he joins the 200/2,000/3.50 club. He had a shaky period in his mid-30s between 2015 and ’19 in which he recorded a 4.44 ERA and battled injuries that limited him to 12 combined starts in ’15 and ’18. That stint has contributed to a rank of 124th in S-JAWS, behind younger contemporaries Chris Sale and Jacob deGrom, and well behind what’s needed to look at home among the 66 enshrined starters. Perhaps Waino will gain a boost for his postseason heroics and solid all-around game. The man has two Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger to go along with his four top-five Cy Young finishes. (He has received the most support in the Cy Young voting for any pitcher who has never won the award.) A second World Series title—he missed all of the 2011 season due to Tommy John surgery, so he does not get credit for the Cardinals’ title that year—would also help his case. But if you made me guess, I think it’s more likely he ends up on the wrong side of the cut line.
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42: Nelson Cruz, DH, Padres
Cruz is the only active MLB player in this age bracket, and if he was born one day earlier, he’d actually be in the next section. Nelly entered last season with 449 home runs, meaning if he averaged 26 home runs in 2022 and ’23, he’d surpass the hallowed 500-homer mark that’s functioned as a Hall pass for players not connected to PEDs. Except, well, Cruz was suspended 50 games for his role in the Biogenesis drug case back in ’13, so he almost certainly won’t get into Cooperstown even if Father Time didn’t catch up to his boomstick last year. He hit just 10 homers for the Nationals in ’22 and is still 41 short of 500.
43: Rich Hill, SP, Pirates
Hey, Hill won’t make the Hall, but sticking in the big leagues until age 43—especially after his injury-riddled 30s—is an accomplishment worth recognizing. The man known as Dick Mountain may throw this year to some hitters who weren’t yet born when he began his professional baseball career in 2002 with the Cubs.
