The Baseball Writers Association of America will reveal its voting results Tuesday night for the 2023 Hall of Fame class. There is a good chance that, for the second time in three years, no player will get the necessary 75% of the votes to be inducted. In 2022, only David Ortiz made the cut.
That tells me — a voter for 35 years — two things:
One, it is a relatively weak class of candidates. The eligible player with the best chance for induction is Scott Rolen. He was a nice player, to be sure. But a Hall of Famer?
And two, many voters are following the BBWAA's instructions to consider a player's sportsmanship and character when casting their vote. That kept out Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens during the past 10 years. It will keep out Carlos Beltran, who is eligible for the first time, this year.
I'll admit it is not a perfect system.
I'll also admit I sent in a blank ballot for the third year in a row.
Rolen, who is on the ballot for the sixth time, has a chance because his percentage of votes has increased each year, topping at 63.7% last year. I didn't vote for him in his first year of eligibility, so why would I vote for him now?
I've never understood why some voters will vote for a player in his sixth year on the ballot but not in his first. An extreme example is Larry Walker, who didn't make it into the Hall until his 10th and final year on the ballot in 2020. A player is either a Hall of Famer from the start or he isn't, right? It's not as if his stats or qualifications improve in his first handful of years of eligibility. It's also not as if we can put in just one or two players a year. We are allowed to vote for as many as 10.
As for that character clause ...
It is unique to the baseball Hall of Fame voting. In football, for instance, the voters are instructed to consider only a player's performance on the field. That makes the process a lot easier, in my opinion.
Right or wrong, I've been consistent in not voting for the players who have been linked to steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. I didn't vote for Bonds or Clemens even though I recognize each player's greatness. I didn't vote for Ortiz last year. I just didn't think it was right to give those three players the game's highest honor. A significant portion of the voters agreed, at least when it came to Bonds and Clemens. Bonds topped out at 66% of the votes in his 10th and final year on the ballot last year, Clemens at 65.2%.
I've been widely criticized for that stance with Bonds and Clemens, but I stand behind it. I think it was justified by the Contemporary Era Committee's vote on Bonds and Clemens in December. That 16-person committee, which considered those players who made their contributions to the game after 1980 and slipped through the cracks of the BBWAA vote, included Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas and Alan Trammell. Clearly, at least some if not all of those players didn't want Bonds and Clemens to join them in Cooperstown. Neither Bonds nor Clemens received even four votes, with 12 necessary for induction. Fred McGriff was the only player to meet that committee's criteria, receiving all 16 votes. He will be enshrined this summer.
Beltran is another player who, if we're talking about on-field performance alone, would be a lock for the Hall. His combination of power and speed was extraordinary. He was a nine-time All-Star with 2,725 hits, 435 home runs, 1,587 RBIs, 312 stolen bases and three Gold Gloves as a center fielder.
But Beltran was considered the ringleader of one of baseball's biggest scandals — the Houston Astros' sign-stealing scandal in 2017, a year when they won the World Series. The New York Mets had hired Beltran to be their manager after the 2019 season but fired him before he managed a game after he was the only player cited in MLB's investigation of the Astros.
Again, considering the character clause, am I supposed to vote for Beltran for the sport's greatest honor?
"Over my 20 years in the game, I've always taken pride in being a leader and doing things the right way and, in this situation, I failed," Beltran said in a statement after the Mets fired him. "As a veteran player on the team, I should've recognized the severity of the issue and truly regret the actions that were taken. I hope that at some point in time, I'll have the opportunity to return to this game that I love so much."
Beltran remains out of baseball, although there have been reports the Mets are considering bringing him back in some capacity.
Getting into the Hall of Fame will be a lot more difficult for Beltran.
