Colorado Rockies vs. the 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot newcomers

Now that the 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot has been mailed out, let’s take a look at how the newcomers on the ballot fared against the Colorado Rockies.

Baseball Hall of Fame voters will have 11 new choices on this year’s ballot, including two players with ties to the Colorado Rockies. Michael Cuddyer and LaTroy Hawkins each spent time in Denver, with Cuddyer winning a National League batting title in 2013 with the Rockies (hitting .331) and Hawkins appearing in 143 games in three seasons with Colorado.

Those two players also had outings against the Rockies, and that’s part of what we will be looking at in this article. How did the 11 newcomers on the Hall of Fame ballot do when facing the Rockies?

Let’s start with Cuddyer, who only spent one season in the National League with a team that wasn’t the Rockies (the final season of his career, when he was with the New York Mets). Cuddyer totaled just 42 plate appearances in his career against Colorado, slashing just .211/.286/.316.

Hawkins, meanwhile, pitched in 31 games against Colorado, holding Rockies batters to a .229 average while sporting a 3.00 ERA. And, speaking of the Hall of Fame, he also made a memorable visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame while with the Rockies that was documented here.

What about the other nine without Rockies ties? Let’s look, starting with the Killer Bs on the list.

Mark Buehrle

Buehrle faced the Rockies just three times in his 16-year career with the Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, and Miami Marlins, going 2-0 with a 3.66 ERA over 19.2 innings pitched.

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One of those outings certainly proved memorable as Buehrle pitched 7.2 innings in a 7-4 win over the Rockies in Miami on May 21, 2012. After allowing four runs and four hits in the first inning, the five-time All-Star allowed just one hit the rest of the night.

He got some help from Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a grand slam off Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer as part of a five-run fourth inning.

A.J. Burnett

Another player with ties to the Marlins, Burnett saw action in 17 MLB seasons, including seven in south Florida.

The right-hander went 4-4 with a 3.18 ERA against the Rockies and threw two complete games, including an August 2013 eight-hit effort in Pittsburgh during one of Burnett’s three seasons with the Pirates. Burnett’s very next outing came against the Rockies in Denver and he was dominant through the game’s first five innings, allowing just one run. However, Cuddyer used some aggressive base-running to set the Rockies up for a five-run sixth, chasing Burnett and eventually giving Colorado a 6-4 win.