Rox Pile's Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Part Seven

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COOPERSTOWN, NY – JULY 24: Patrons of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum view the plaques of inducted members during induction weekend on July 24, 2010 in Cooperstown, New York. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /

Editor’s Note: We here at Rox Pile have all decided to make our own Hall of Fame ballots since the results of the real Hall of Fame ballots will be released on Wednesday. We started with editor/co-expert Noah Yingling’s hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot and followed with contributor Brady Vernon’s ballot, contributor Ryan Ladika’s ballot, contributor Olivia Greene’s ballot, contributor Luke Mullins’s ballot, and contributor JD Jensen’s ballot.

Today, we feature the ballot of another one of our contributors, Christian Espinoza.

First, I want to address the elephant in the room. Do players that have taken (or allegedly taken) performance enhancing drugs deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? As a person that has watched or played baseball over the years, I used to take a hard stance. If you cheat, you don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, your records get asterisks, etc. However, as I was doing some research for this article, I was enlightened looking over the list of the existing players in the Hall. I discovered that while there are great, even legendary, players in the Hall of Fame, there are some of those players who aren’t particularly ‘clean’ either. Rumors, allegations, and often known facts of alcoholics, drug addicts, racists, domestic abusers…the list goes on and on.

Thankfully, this article is not an attempt to tackle the morality of baseball players. Nor, is it an attempt to debate the responsibility of Hall of Fame voters to act as the moral police for these legendary players. As I read the debate amongst fellow writers and baseball fans, the overall tone seems to be…the best players of their respective eras deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. So, to follow that theme, I have made eight of the ten allotted votes for my mock Hall of Fame ballot. Here is a brief look at my Hall of Fame picks with a few notes on their individual performance.

KISSIMMEE, FL – FEBRUARY 27: Roger Clemens at Houston Astros Spring Training at Osceola County Stadium on February 27, 2008 in Kissimmee, Florida. The U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Clemens committed perjury while testifying in front of the committee. (Photo by Scott A. Miller/Getty Images) /

Barry Bonds

“I just think it’s a sin he’s not in there,” Hall of Famer Willie McCovey told John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle a few weeks ago. “If anybody deserved to be in the Hall of Fame, it’s Barry.”

I don’t think there is any doubt of that. First of all, Barry Bonds was voted as the Most Valuable Player seven times. Yes, you read that correctly…seven-time Most Valuable Player. No other player has won more than three times.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, Barry Bonds invented the 500-500 home run/stolen base club. Over his 22 season career, he amassed 762 home runs and 514 stolen bases. The next closest? Hall of Famer, Willie Mays with 660 home runs and 338 stolen bases. Here is a crazy statistic that shows Barry wasn’t just a (alleged) juiced-up hitter. Bonds never struck out more than 100 times in a season with the exception of his rookie year in ’86.

Roger Clemens

Growing up as a Houston Astros fan, I still remember the excitement The Rocket brought to Minute Maid Park the season he won his seventh Cy Young Award. Making the same case as Bonds and his MVP Awards, no other pitcher has won seven Cy Young Awards. The next closest was Hall of Famer, Randy Johnson, at five Cy Young Awards.

Roger Clemens is one of the only pitchers ever to win a MVP Award, by the way. Oh, his trophy collection isn’t enough of a case for you? Well, Roger Clemens pitched for 24 seasons. According to Baseball-Reference.com, he won 354 games with an ERA of 3.12 and 4672 strikeouts…which is good for 139.4 career WAR, only behind Cy Young and Walter Johnson for pitchers.

It is worth noting, the top ten leaders in wins above replacement for pitchers are in the Hall of Fame, with the exception of The Rocket.

Vladimir Guerrero

Vladimir Guerrero was one of baseball’s most talented hitters. I can’t speak to the entire history of baseball. However, in my lifetime, there hasn’t been many hitters with the kind of skill and coordination it takes to hit a ball that is shoulder high, or a half of a foot off the plate. Vladimir Guerrero was one of those guys.

Referring to our friends over at Baseball-Reference.com, over Vlad’s 16 seasons, he batted a career average of .318 with the power to hit 449 career homeruns. Using those career totals as benchmarks, only five players in history were able to match or best Vlad’s combination of batting average and homeruns. Oh yes, all of them are Hall of Famers by the names of Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Jimmie Foxx.

Yet, despite Vladimir Guerrero’s propensity to swing at anything within his long-arm’s reach, he never had a single season where he struck out more than 95 times.

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Trevor Hoffman

Let us open up Spotify or Apple Music and queue up “Hells Bells” by AD/DC while you read this section. Alright, I know you can’t vote someone to the Hall of Fame based on the fact that they had the second greatest entrance of all time, only behind future Hall of Famer, Mariano Rivera.

However, you can vote someone to the Hall of Fame based on the fact they have the second most saves of all time, only behind Rivera. While there aren’t many relievers that have made it to the Hall of Fame, it’s hard to deny the durability, longevity, and consistency of Hoffman.

Trevor Hoffman is one of only three relief pitchers to accumulate at least 10 seasons with a minimum of 30 saves, along with Lee Smith and Rivera.

Chipper Jones

Players like Chipper Jones sort of get lost in the shuffle in a time where much of the media was dominated by the big boys chasing single-season home run records. However, there was no denying his talent from the get-go.

Chipper was a first overall pick in the 1990 draft. The switch-hitting third baseman played for the Braves for 18 seasons putting together a career average of .303, a .930 OPS, and 468 home runs. He is only one of two players in the modern era of baseball to hit .300 from both sides of the plate.

Mike Mussina

Mike Mussina’s career numbers don’t scream Hall of Fame at first glance. Go ahead and take a second glance at his Baseball-Reference.com profile. Hopefully, you would notice that Mike Mussina was the epitome of stalwart. Throughout his 18 season career, he hit or surpassed 200 innings eleven times. He hit double digits wins every season with the exception of his rookie season. He wasn’t just a reliable work horse though.

Despite his above-average career ERA of 3.68 (which could be argued is slightly higher due to pitching his entire career in steroid-era AL East), Mussina is sporting the second best career strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.58-1 amongst pitchers with at least 3000 innings. In addition, if you look at his ERA+, which adjusts for parks pitched in, Mussina’s is 123. For comparison, Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, who got in with nearly 92 percent of the vote on the first ballot, had an ERA+ of 118 and Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and John Smoltz have a career ERA+ of 123 and 125. Marichal got in on his third ballot and Smoltz on his first.

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Jim Thome

Jim Thome was one of the best home run hitters in the history of baseball. Thome affirmed this by being only one of only nine players to make it to the 600 homerun club. If his massive homerun total alone wasn’t enough, Jim Thome also batted in 1699 runs, scored 1583 runs, and reached base on balls 1747 times over his 22 year career. Only 5 other players in major league history have achieved 500 home runs/1600 RBI/1500 Runs/1700 Walks…Barry Bonds, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

Larry Walker

Once again, Larry Walker appears on the ballot for the Hall of Fame. No matter how you choose to decipher his numbers, there aren’t many outfielders that were as complete of a player as Walker. Not too long ago, I went to remind myself of a few of his career accolades on Baseball-Reference.com, though.

He was the Most Valuable Player in 1997, five-time All-Star, seven-time Gold Glove recipient, three time Silver Slugger, and won 3 batting titles to boot. He certainly has the hardware that would indicate Hall of Famer…but Coors, right? Larry Walker gets a lot of push back due to the fact that he played a lot of his career at Coors Field.

Next: Part Six in our Hall of Fame ballot series

However, if you take a gander at park adjusted stats like OPS+ and WAR, Larry Walker’s name still appears amongst the top of the lists.

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Rox Pile’s Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Part Seven

Today, we feature the ballot of another one of our contributors, Christian Espinoza.

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