Rox Pile’s unofficial baseball Hall of Fame ballots (Part 3)

Under-the-Radar: Scott Rolen

Next, I’ll go into depth on Scott Rolen. The career third baseman played for 17 seasons, similar to Walker. Over his 17 seasons he hit .281/.364/.490 with 316 home runs and 1287 RBIs. His career OPS was .855. He was also a dead-even 70 win player with a career OPS+ of 122. He was named to the NL All-Star team seven times, won the 1997 Rookie of the Year, eight Gold Gloves and one Silver Slugger in 2002. Rolen also helped lead the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals to the 10th World Series title in franchise history.

Under-the-Radar: Trevor Hoffman

Next on my list is Trevor Hoffman. The longtime San Diego Padres pitcher gets a bad rap because he spent his whole career as a closer, but I think that good closers should be honored when taking into consideration the importance of their job.

Hoffman’s career lasted 18 years, from 1993 to 2010. He had a career record of 61-75, along with a 2.87 ERA and 1133 strikeouts. He converted 601 saves and had a 1.06 WHIP. Going into advanced metrics, he was a 28.4 win player and had a park-adjusted ERA+ of 141, as well as a 3.08 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching), which measures a pitcher’s effectiveness at preventing hit by pitches, home runs and walks, while causing strikeouts, according to Baseball-Reference.com. The fact that he did such a hard job so well for such a long time makes him worthy of the Hall of Fame.