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The Athletic has live coverage of the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2024 announcement.
Jim Leyland stepped from the podium at the MLB Winter Meetings last month and embraced his old pals, Tony La Russa and Joe Torre, now brothers in the fraternity of Hall of Fame managers. La Russa and Torre won multiple World Series titles, but Leyland did it just once, with the Marlins in 1997. His best player from that team, Gary Sheffield, is still waiting for induction — and Leyland was keenly aware of his status.
“He got 55 percent last time, so we’ll see what happens,” Leyland said. “He was a special player. I mean, that’s why he’s on the ballot.”
Indeed, everyone who makes it to a Hall of Fame ballot is a special player: You need to play 10 years in the majors to be eligible, and then be approved for consideration by a screening committee. The election determines the best of the best of the best.
We’ll learn the 2024 results on Tuesday, when the Hall of Fame reveals which players from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot will join Leyland — elected by an eras committee in December — on the stage in Cooperstown, N.Y., on July 21.
There’s more than player legacies at stake. Sheffield — who must gain 20 percent to reach the 75 percent threshold in his final year of eligibility — is likely the best hope of any player from the 1997 Marlins to be elected. And every championship team before then already has — or soon will have — a player in the Hall.
The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers don’t, but their left fielder, Dusty Baker, will undoubtedly be elected as a manager as soon as he is eligible in December 2026. And the 1988 Dodgers have only Don Sutton, who made 16 starts that season before his release in August.
Otherwise, every World Series champ from 1903 to 1996 has at least one Hall of Famer in a box score for the winning team.
The 1919 Reds, an underrated powerhouse who beat the crooked Chicago White Sox? They had Edd Roush, a speedy center fielder with two batting titles. How about another overlooked Cincinnati champion, from 1940? That team had catcher Ernie Lombardi — Schnozz, they called him — who also won two batting crowns.
Roush didn’t make it to Cooperstown until 1962, and Lombardi had to wait until 1986, nine years after he died. The enshrinement business often takes way too long, but a few World Series winners on this ballot have longshot hopes of becoming the first Hall of Famers from their championship teams.
Besides Sheffield, there’s Francisco Rodriguez, a rookie setup man for the 2002 Angels who went on to collect 437 saves, the most of any reliever not in the Hall. The 2008 Phillies have two alumni on the ballot: their longtime double-play combo of shortstop Jimmy Rollins and second baseman Chase Utley.
Sheffield might hear his name called on Tuesday, though he’s right around the 75 percent mark in public ballots, and final figures tend to be lower. Utley is making a strong debut but will not be elected this time; Rollins is not close but will exceed the 5 percent cutoff to remain on the ballot next year; Rodriguez, who got just 10.8 percent in his first try last year, might not.
Even in this era of expanded playoffs, it’s usually easy to spot a Hall of Famer on a championship roster: The 2003 Marlins had Miguel Cabrera, for example, and the 2006 and 2011 Cardinals had Albert Pujols. (Another 2011 Cardinal alum, Matt Holliday, is on the new ballot but has gotten just one public vote.)
More recent champions also have names fit for a plaque: the 2017 and 2022 Astros had Jose Altuve and Justin Verlander; the 2018 Red Sox had Mookie Betts; the 2019 Nationals had Max Scherzer; the 2020 Dodgers had Betts and Clayton Kershaw; the 2021 Braves had Freddie Freeman; the 2023 Rangers had Scherzer. And that’s not even counting players in their 20s with championship rings — Yordan Alvarez, Corey Seager, Juan Soto — who are still building their cases.
But a few champions have less obvious candidates. Let’s look at six (or so) World Series winners from the wild-card era, and their best hopes for Cooperstown.
1997 Marlins
Team bWAR leaders: Kevin Brown (67.8), Gary Sheffield (60.5)
Brown was one of baseball’s best pitchers for his peak years — divided among the Marlins, Padres and Dodgers — from 1996 through 2001. In those six seasons, only Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson had a better ERA+ than Brown’s 163. The three names right below Brown: Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, John Smoltz.
Brown lost twice in the 1997 World Series — both times at home to Cleveland’s Chad Ogea — but otherwise was terrific that season, going 16-8 with a no-hitter and a complete game to clinch the National League pennant in Atlanta.
Sheffield battled injuries in 1997 and hit only .250, his lowest average in a 16-year span from his early 20s to late 30s. But he was on base all the time, as usual, and showed up in force in October, hitting .320/.521/.540 as the Marlins became the first wild-card team to win it all.
For a team that was solid in nearly every facet, though, the 1997 Marlins were somewhat lacking in historic greatness. The roster is a celebration of the very, very good: Moises Alou, Bobby Bonilla, Brown, Liván Hernández, Al Leiter, Edgar Renteria, Sheffield and Devon White all compiled at least 30 bWAR.
Brown and Sheffield were both named in the Mitchell Report, and while Sheffield gets one last chance on the writers’ ballot, Brown barely registered. He gathered just 2.1 percent of the vote on his first try, in 2011, and quietly slipped off the ballot.
2002 Angels
bWAR leaders: Kevin Appier (54.5), Tim Salmon (40.6)
Salmon is to the Angels like Kent Hrbek is to the Twins. Both were one-team guys, productive from start to finish. The Twins won their first Minnesota title with Hrbek as a linchpin, just like the Angels with Salmon. And both got exactly five votes in their only appearance on a Hall of Fame ballot.
Appier was just passing through Anaheim, traded from the Mets for Mo Vaughn in a swap of unwanted contracts. He did a credible job, going 14-12, but the Angels released him the next summer. Appier finished in Kansas City, where he enjoyed a quiet prime in the 1990s, and got one Hall of Fame vote in 2010.
The Angels lacked the headline stars they’ve had recently, but they were deep in the bullpen and the lineup. They locked down the middle and late innings (Francisco Rodriguez and Troy Percival combined for nearly 800 saves) and bullied teams with an aggressive, relentless offense: fouling off good pitches, whacking mistakes for extra bases and running like hell.
It’s very unlikely that Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad, Troy Glaus and Co. ever make the Hall of Fame, but, boy, were they fun to watch that October.
(Pause here to acknowledge that the 2005 White Sox had no Hall of Famers on their World Series roster, but Frank Thomas, who was injured, did play 34 games in the regular season. On we go.)
2008 Phillies
bWAR leaders: Chase Utley (64.5), Cole Hamels (59.0)
When the Phillies first won the World Series, with Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton in 1980, everyone knew that their best players were headed to Cooperstown. Their second title team is much harder to place in history.
The top slugger, first baseman Ryan Howard, averaged 44 homers and 133 runs batted in, with a slash line of .274/.370/.559, from 2006 through 2011. Even so, Howard amassed just 14.7 bWAR for his career — which ranks eighth among position players on the 2008 team. Pat Burrell, Geoff Jenkins, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Ruiz, Utley, Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth all have more, and Matt Stairs (14.1) comes close.
Rollins and Utley are the only realistic Hall candidates in that group. Rollins, the franchise’s career hits leader, has a stronger case than his .324 career on-base percentage would suggest. My esteemed colleagues Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark support his cause, and that of Utley, whose high peak makes up for his low-ish career hit total (1,885).
The more curious case is Hamels, who led the NL in WHIP in 2008 (1.082), then owned the postseason with a 4-0 record and a 1.80 ERA. In Hamels’ 10-year prime, from 2007 to 2016 with the Phillies and Rangers, only four starters had a better ERA+ than his 126: Clayton Kershaw, Cliff Lee, Félix Hernández and Zack Greinke.
That group, however, underscores the difficulty of where Hamels ranks. All of those pitchers won a Cy Young Award, while Hamels never finished higher than fifth. And while Kershaw and Greinke are clear Hall of Famers (yes, Greinke is), Hernández and Lee aren’t quite in their class.
The odd part of the Phillies debate is that two first-ballot Hall of Famers did stop by in that era: Roy Halladay and Jim Thome. But Thome played for the Phillies before and after the 2007-11 playoff run, and while Halladay was integral to the last two teams of that stretch, he never pitched in the World Series.
2010, 2012 and 2014 Giants
bWAR leaders who played for all three: Buster Posey (44.8), Madison Bumgarner (37.3)
bWAR leaders (2014 only): Tim Hudson (57.9), Jake Peavy (39.2)
On July 13, the first 20,000 fans to enter Oracle Park will receive a miniature statue of former relievers Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez, Santiago Casilla and Sergio Romo. The Giants say the statue is “inspired by Mount Rushmore” — which is appropriate because the bullpen is the biggest reason the team won three World Series in the 2010s.
Those four relievers were around for all three visits, each time with a more famous guest star: Brian Wilson in 2010, Tim Lincecum in 2012 and Madison Bumgarner in 2014. Those seven pitchers — Bruce Bochy’s go-to relievers — combined for 31 relief appearances for the Giants in the World Series, and 30 were scoreless. The group’s combined ERA, in relief, was 0.28. (Lincecum also had a scoreless outing in a mop-up role in 2014.)
That’s a powerful illustration of the value of an airtight bullpen in October. But there’s no room for mini-Mount Rushmores in the Hall of Fame plaque gallery, so the best bet to recognize those Giants (besides Bochy, of course) is Posey.
So he had only 1,500 career hits, the same total as Mike Bordick. The Hall of Fame is about historic impact, and Posey — a Rookie of the Year, an MVP and a seven-time All-Star who retired at the top of his game — has plenty of that.
Hudson and Peavy dropped in for the 2014 World Series, going 0-3 with a 9.22 ERA in four starts against the Royals. Their primes were elsewhere on the West Coast — Hudson’s in Oakland, Peavy’s in San Diego — and both fell off the ballot last year, Peavy with no votes and the underrated Hudson with just 12 out of 394.
Among players more closely linked to the Giants, several stand out as characters who often showed up big when it mattered most: Tim Lincecum, Hunter Pence, Pablo Sandoval, Barry Zito. Edgar Renteria won a World Series MVP award — 13 years after his walk-off hit clinched the 1997 championship for the Marlins — and Matt Cain twirled a perfect game.
As for Madison Bumgarner, his career record is solid but unremarkable (134-124 with a 3.47 ERA), and his case will rest entirely on his status as the greatest pitcher in World Series history. That’s a big deal, of course, and he deserves a long look because of it.
2015 Royals
bWAR leaders: Ben Zobrist (44.5), Lorenzo Cain (38.5)
The 2015 Royals struck out only 973 times, the lowest total for any team in the last 11 full seasons. They’re a testament to the kind of swing-first, speed-and-defense approach that’s gone out of style, and really wasn’t popular then, either. But Dayton Moore, the team architect, engineered a roster that could win with a modest payroll in a big ballpark, and his trade-deadline rentals (Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto) were the final flourish.
In some ways, the Royals’ championship is the most important of the last decade; in a league without a salary cap, it gives hope to fans in all markets. But the only real Hall of Fame candidate is Salvador Perez, the MVP of the Royals’ five-game victory over the Mets.
Perez, 33, has had a decorated career. An eight-time All-Star, he’s won five Gold Gloves and four Silver Slugger awards as a catcher. He led the majors in homers and RBIs in an outlier 2021 season, and he’s still a reliable power bat.
But Perez’s on-base percentage is just .300, and it’s hard to see that rising with time. His career slash line is .267/.300/.459, with 246 home runs, 812 RBIs and one championship. It’s plausible to see him finish with about the same stats as another No. 13, Lance Parrish: .252/.313/.440, with 324 home runs, 1,070 RBIs and one championship. That’s an outstanding career, but it seems a little shy of Cooperstown.
2016 Cubs
bWAR leaders: Ben Zobrist (44.5), Jon Lester (43.5)
You’ll find plenty of plaques in Cooperstown of Cubs without a title: Ernie Banks, Andre Dawson, Gabby Hartnett, Billy Herman, Fergie Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg, Ron Santo, Lee Smith, Hack Wilson, Billy Williams. That’s enough to fill a lineup, with a closer to spare.
But what about the Cubs lineup that did win the World Series? On that night in Cleveland, the Cubs started five players who hadn’t even turned 25 years old: Javy Báez, Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, Addison Russell and Kyle Schwarber. Two others, Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward, were 26. Seven seasons later, none can make a credible case for the Hall of Fame.
Bryant, who just turned 32, is still young enough to have a chance. He is signed for five more seasons with Colorado, and there’s no better place to hit. But he’s missed 202 of 324 games since signing with the Rockies, and his slash line across the last four seasons is .255/.339/.434.
In some ways, Bryant’s case evokes Dave Parker, who also won an MVP and a championship in his 20s. Parker had a similar four-year lull at about the same age (hitting .280/.316/.439 for Pittsburgh while battling substance abuse from 1980-1983), and a surge in his mid- to late-30s hasn’t been enough for Cooperstown. You simply can’t get those prime years back.
Rizzo, 34, could conceivably make a push, but otherwise, it’s probably up to Lester (or, less likely, Aroldis Chapman) to represent the 2016 curse-busters in the Hall.
Lester compares closely to David Cone, who has a Cy Young Award, more WAR and more titles — and somehow never made it to a second ballot. Then again, Lester did earn 200 victories, six more than Cone, and with a strong postseason record and the luster of championships in Boston and Chicago, he may have a chance.
(Top photo of Bumgarner and Posey: MediaNews Group / Bay Area News via Getty Images)
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