My 2020 Mock Hall of Fame ballot: Former Red Sox players get the call

Explaining the ballot I submitted for FanSided’s mock Baseball Hall of Fame exercise and why two controversial former Red Sox players got my vote.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America will announce the results of its 2020 Hall of Fame balloting on January 21. Before we find out who will be enshrined in Cooperstown, FanSided will reveal our Mock Hall of Fame results. As one of the site experts covering the Boston Red Sox in FanSided’s MLB division, I was honored to participate in this exercise.

Our group of writers followed the same rules that the BBWAA are held to. We each received a ballot listing all the eligible candidates and were asked to select up to 10 players. The votes were tallied and percentages were calculated to determine who we believe should make the cut.

FanSided will reveal our results next week but before they do, I wanted to share the ballot that I submitted and provide an explanation for why I made those choices. Just as not every BBWAA ballot is the same, the votes submitted by FanSided writers have their differences.

I suspect that not all of you will agree with each of my choices either. That’s part of the fun of this exercise! To spark debate and give fans a chance to argue in favor or against the worthiness of each candidate.

Let’s go through each of my choices, which include several players with ties to the Red Sox organization.

PED Users

Let’s address the elephant in the voting room. Everyone’s ballot boils down to how they feel about players who were caught or heavily suspected of using performance enhancing drugs. Ballots can look completely different depending on if the writer excluded all alleged cheaters or focused only on their accomplishments.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle while leaning toward the latter. The Hall of Fame is a museum celebrating the history of the game. We can’t simply ignore the ugly parts of that history that have been tainted by rampant PED use.

Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds both made my ballot. We don’t need a deep dive into analytics to explain why a 354-game winner with 7 Cy Young Awards and the all-time home run king with 7 MVP Awards warrant recognition among the best in baseball history.

These two were rightfully vilified as the poster children of the steroid era but I didn’t let the stain on their legacies cloud my judgement. The stage of their respective careers when they started abusing PEDs is clear and both were already established superstars by that point. They would both be worthy of Cooperstown if we only counted the clean years Clemens spent with the Red Sox or when Bonds played for the Pittsburgh Pirates. They didn’t need steroids to be Hall of Fame-caliber players, they used them to prolong their extraordinary careers.

I was less lenient towards Sammy Sosa, an above-average power threat who struggled to get on base before his production exploded at the peak of the steroid era. We can be fairly confident that Sosa was on PEDs during his prime years when he was swatting 60+ homers but there’s nothing about his early-career production that suggests he’d be anywhere near that type of hitter without the artificial enhancement.

Manny Ramirez was a more difficult case. His numbers are clearly worthy with 555 home runs, 1831 RBI and a 154 OPS+ for his career. Unfortunately, he’s the rare case of a player on the ballot who actually got caught and suspended for PEDs – twice!

I was honestly torn on this one, figuring that getting caught after MLB started cracking down with strict drug testing policies is a more egregious offense than cheating when the league was willing to look the other way. Ultimately, I put Manny on my ballot. He had a prolonged period of excellence that began early in his career and lasted through over a decade of being a perennial All-Star. The failed drug tests came at the tail end of his career when he was washed up and simply trying to stay in the game.

You can be skeptical about whether or not Ramirez was using long before he got caught. That’s fair, although I’m not jumping to that conclusion based on the unreliable Mitchell Report. We know Manny cheated but I have a hard time believing that he was using for the majority of his career. If you ever watched Manny swing the bat or put in the work to prepare for games, you know that his accomplishments can’t be chalked up to steroid use.

The toughest cut from my ballot was Gary Sheffield, an admitted PED user who was already great before he started using. That should put him in the same boat as Manny but he fell just short in my mind. Sheffield was a feared slugger who topped 500 career home runs but his value was limited to what he did at the plate. His 60.5 career WAR is well behind several candidates, including Ramirez (69.4 WAR), as is his 140 OPS+. He will probably get voted in eventually but he’s not on my ballot this year.

The Locks

Red Sox fans aren’t supposed to root for Yankees players but we have to acknowledge our respect for Derek Jeter. He was a charismatic leader who played the game the right way. He owns a career .310 batting average with nearly 3500 hits. Jeter’s 73.1 fWAR ranks sixth all-time among shortstops. The former Yankees captain is the most obvious choice on this year’s ballot.

Andruw Jones wasn’t a prolific hitter for most of his career but he’s arguably the best defensive outfielder of his generation. The 10-time Gold Glove winner is the all-time leader among center fielders with 118.2 UZR and he’s second at the position with 60 defensive runs saved. Granted, FanGrapsh can only track these defensive metrics going back a few decades but it’s safe to assume Jones would stack up well against outfielders from any era.

It’s not that Jones wasn’t a threat with his bat either. A 111 OPS+ is underwhelming by most standards but still strong for a center field, plus Jones bashed 434 career home runs. His league-leading 51 homers in 2005 screams outlier but he had a steady run averaging around 35 home runs and 100+ RBI during his peak.

Curt Schilling is considered a controversial choice but not for anything related to baseball. Voters have soured on Schilling for his political opinions, poor business decisions and the asinine statements he’s made or supported on social media. He’s made an enemy of those who determine entry into the Hall of Fame and that’s primarily what has kept him out of Cooperstown.

It didn’t keep him off my ballot. I detailed my reasons for supporting Schilling earlier this month but the gist of the argument is that he was a workhorse who finished as the runner-up for the Cy Young three times. He topped 300 strikeouts in a season three times and finished his career with over 3000. He led the league in strikeout-to-walk ratio a handful of times. Most importantly, Schilling was brilliant in the postseason with a 11-2 record, 2.23 ERA, and three World Series rings.

You don’t have to be a fan of Schilling as a person but voting for his production as a pitcher was an easy call.

The Coors Effect

There are two players on the ballot who some voters are skeptical of due to playing in the thin air of Colorado’s Coors Field in the pre-humidor era when everyone was putting up video game numbers. It’s fair to consider that as a factor but it wasn’t enough to leave Larry Walker or Todd Helton off my ballot.

Walker should be an obvious choice. He won three batting titles and posted a career .313/.400/.565 line. He received a boost from his home park but Walker wasn’t merely a product of Coors. He hit an otherworldly .348/.431/.637 at home throughout his career but maintained a solid .278/.370/.495 line on the road.

Walker established himself as a star during his first six big league seasons with the Montreal Expos. He was a 20+ homer/20+ steal threat, an All-Star and a Silver Slugger before joining the Rockies. He also won seven Gold Glove Awards, which can’t be attributed to the ballpark he played in.

More from Red Sox News

• Red Sox Nation deserves far more from Fenway Sports Group
• Bizarre trade deadline comes back to haunt Red Sox after Nathan Eovaldi departure
• Red Sox’ Moneyball-style offseason continues with Corey Kluber contract
• Rich Hill’s Red Sox departure puts him within striking distance of unique MLB record
• Red Sox offseason takes another nasty hit with Nathan Eovaldi departure

The case is harder to make for Helton but he still sneaks onto my ballot. Helton spent his entire career in Colorado and his massive splits should give us pause. He hit .345 with a 1.048 OPS at home but dipped to .287 with a .855 OPS on the road.

At his peak, Helton was an extra-base hitting machine and an elite run producer but his power fell off a cliff after the age of 30. Not even Coors could prevent Helton from regressing into a singles hitter for the second half of his career.

The former batting champ had some prolific seasons during a stretch of five consecutive All-Star appearances though. You don’t post a .349 batting average over a five-year span simply because of the park you play in. That includes a career-year in which Helton hit .372 while also leading the league in doubles, RBI, OBP, SLG, and OPS. Helton won three Gold Gloves in his career, so his value wasn’t entirely built on thin air.

His numbers may have been juiced by his home environment but we can’t ignore that Helton put up staggering numbers for nearly a decade of his prime years. It’s not his fault that he was drafted by an organization that resides in the best hitters park in baseball. We don’t give extra credit to hitters who played in pitcher-friendly parks so why should we hold playing at Coors against Helton? He still put up better numbers than anyone else did in that park.

Borderline Calls

With two spots remaining on my ballot, I went with two players who won’t get into the Hall of Fame this year but warranted some recognition.

Jeff Kent‘s overall numbers may not stand out as Cooperstown-caliber but they are more appealing when viewed through the lens of second basemen. Kent’s 377 home runs are the second most all-time at his position. His 56.0 fWAR is 19th among second basemen and he’s in the top-25 at the position with a career 123 wRC+ and .367 wOBA.

The five-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger won an MVP and finished top-10 on the ballot on three other occasions. Kent was a strong run producer at a premium defensive position that typically isn’t associated with big bats.

Relievers often don’t get the credit they deserve due to their limited workload but the very best to have ever served in that role should be considered for the Hall of Fame. Billy Wagner is certainly in that class.

Wagner’s 422 career saves rank sixth all-time. His 2.31 ERA is fifth among relievers with a minimum of 300 career innings and his 11.93 K/9 is 12th. Wagner’s 24.0 fWAR is the sixth-highest career total compiled by a reliever. All five relievers ahead of him on that list are already in the Hall of Fame. Wagner should join them soon enough.