After Wednesday's announcement of the 2017 Hall of Fame inductees, most of the talk is about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, performance-enhancing drugs and the like. I wrote something on the subject if you're not sick of it yet.
Here's another interesting question, though: Which current MLB players would make the Hall if their careers ended today? Who, in other words, has already stacked up the statistics, awards and intangibles to punch a ticket to Cooperstown?
It's not a scientific exercise, obviously. Voting members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America have a proven ability to confound.
Mike Piazza waited four years to get in, to cite one example, while Ivan Rodriguez slipped through on the first ballot. Two all-time great catchers, both from the steroid era with suspicion but no hard proof of illicit chemical enhancement, two different results.
There are cases like that throughout the Hall's history, including many that aren't clouded by PEDs and some in which worthy players (cough, Alan Trammell) never earned enshrinement.
We'll do our best, however, to pick the most likely inductees for B/R's All-HOF in MLB Today team. Again, we're weighing only current stats, not future potential, so the likes of Mike Trout and Kris Bryant don't make the cut. Neither do recently retired players, meaning the David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez debates will wait for another day.
Let's start by examining a handful of close calls, followed by four (virtual) locks.
- Login to post comments