COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — It has been more than a decade since either of them played a major-league game. But for Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff, Sunday will be the highlight of their long, distinguished careers.
It is the day they will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. So it is a perfect time to look back on their paths to Cooperstown.
Rolen’s Hall of Fame case
Was Scott Rolen the Nolan Arenado of his era (1996-2012)? You could make that argument.
Rolen was a ferocious, acrobatic defender who won eight Gold Glove awards in a 17-season career. The only third basemen in history who won more are Arenado (10), Mike Schmidt (10) and Brooks Robinson (16).
And if we use Baseball Reference’s Career Defensive Runs above average as the measure of Rolen’s defense, he ranks as the third-best defensive third baseman of all time (with 175). Only Adrián Beltré (216) and Robinson (294) finished their careers with more. (What about Arenado? He’s at 149, in his 11th season. So he’s clearly going to join this group.)
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“I’ve always seen third base as an integral defensive position,” Rolen said last week via Zoom during his Hall of Fame news conference, even though he’s well aware, he said, that “maybe it wasn’t viewed that way” by everyone else.
But no matter how you view it, it was the combination of elite leatherwork and above-average offensive production that propelled Rolen to the podium in Cooperstown. Here’s a list that tells that story:
MOST SEASONS WITH A GOLD GLOVE AND 120 OPS+ AT 3B*
Schmidt — 10
Rolen — 8
Arenado — 6
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)
(*with enough PA to qualify for a batting title)
Rolen’s path to election
In Rolen’s first year on the writers’ ballot (2018), he received 50 fewer votes (43) than Manny Ramirez, and had his name checked on only 10.2 percent of all ballots cast. But in Year 3, as the ballot became less overloaded, Rolen’s candidacy took off.
In three consecutive elections, no candidate jumped by more votes than he did. Between 2019 and 2022, he soared from 17.2 percent to 63.2 percent. And this year, in his sixth go-round, he leaped another 13 percent. That enabled him to clear the 75-percent threshold by only five votes, with 76.3 percent. That was the second-narrowest margin in the last 35 elections.
Nevertheless, Rolen was the only player elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters this year. He and David Ortiz are the only two to clear 75 percent in the last three elections. Rolen also becomes just the ninth third baseman elected to the Hall by the writers. The only others in the last 30 years: Chipper Jones (2018) and Wade Boggs (2005).
McGriff’s Hall of Fame case
He hit 493 home runs, had five top-10 MVP finishes and was a middle-of-the-order force for five playoff teams in a 19-year career. So it shouldn’t have taken Fred McGriff nearly two decades to be honored in Cooperstown. But we all know the reason it did.
No hitter of the last 35 years had his Hall of Fame candidacy overshadowed by the performance-enhancing drugs era more than McGriff — until now. For a 15-season period in his prime (1988-2002), McGriff was pretty much exactly the same player, year after productive year. What wasn’t the same, obviously, was the PED-ravaged sport around him. Here’s a breakdown that says it all:
1988-1992 — .283/.393/.531
1993-2002 — .290/.373/.506
So what’s the difference between those two periods? During that first span, McGriff finished in the top five on the league leaderboard in home runs and OPS in all five seasons, during what was essentially the pre-PED era. But then what?
His production was nearly identical in those next 10 seasons. But he made it into the top 10 in each category in only two of those years, as the musclebound sluggers around him were suddenly hitting 50, 60 and 70 homers a year.
So is there any question that his greatness was obscured, more than anyone else in the sport, by the crazy numbers of all the PED mashers around him? Fortunately, his career is easier to view now, in retrospect.
McGriff had 30-homer seasons 14 years apart (1988, 2002). He had .900-OPS seasons 13 years apart (1988, 2001). He was hitting cleanup in Toronto when he was 25 and hitting cleanup for the Cubs when he was 38. And then there’s this: Only one hitter in the entire live-ball era (Eddie Murray) was his team’s cleanup hitter in more games than McGriff (1,826). Which tells us exactly what every team he ever played for thought of him.
Somehow, he never came close to being elected by the writers. But in retrospect, who embodied the fate of “the clean player” in that era more than he did? The correct answer is: Nobody. And now, McGriff said last week, during his news conference, that he views that as a compliment.
“I thought it was great,” he said. “It was a compliment. Because that’s the best of my ability … having integrity and going out there and playing the game like the game should be played.”
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McGriff’s path to election
McGriff never collected 40 percent of the vote in any of his 10 years on the writers’ ballot. But last December, the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee made a statement of its own — by electing him unanimously in his first year on that ballot, voted on by a 16-person group of executives, Hall of Fame players, writers and historians.
So right to the end, McGriff’s entire career — and his journey to Cooperstown — were framed by the PED era. Those PED guys may have kept him from being honored the first time around. But it was hard to miss the fact that, when that veterans committee elected him last winter, that same committee emphatically rejected the candidacies of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro. Hmmm. Why was that, anyway?
Who else was honored this weekend?
Rolen and McGriff will be the only players to enter the Hall this weekend. But there are other honorees.
• Longtime Cubs radio voice Pat Hughes was presented with the Ford Frick Award, which is essentially the broadcasters’ wing of the Hall.
• John Lowe, who covered the Tigers for 28 years for the Detroit Free Press, received the BBWAA Career Excellence Award and will be honored in the baseball writers’ wing.
• And the last of the fabled Boys of Summer in Brooklyn, pitcher Carl Erskine, received the Buck O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award.
Hughes, Lowe and Erskine were honored in a separate ceremony Saturday in Cooperstown, then will be recognized on stage Sunday on Induction Day.
Whose plaques will be chiseled in 2024?
The 2024 ballot will be fascinating. It will be Adrián Beltré’s first year on the ballot, and he seems like a lock to be elected, with his 3,166 hits, 477 homers and spectacular defensive credentials at third base.
But could it also be the year for longtime Rockies first baseman Todd Helton, whose 72.2-percent showing in this year’s election meant that he missed by only 11 votes? And what about one of the best left-handed closers in history, Billy Wagner, who this year racked up 68.1 percent, leaving him 27 votes short?
Other prominent names to watch: Joe Mauer, Chase Utley and David Wright, all making their ballot debuts — plus returnees Andruw Jones (58.1 percent), Gary Sheffield (55.0) and Carlos Beltrán (46.5), all of whom are now within striking distance. Also notable: It will be Sheffield’s 10th and final year on the writers’ ballot.
Next year won’t feature any players elected by any version of the Veterans Committee, however. Only under consideration, by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, are managers, executives and umpires. One name to keep an eye on: the just-retired umpiring legend, Joe West.
(Top photo of Rolen: Elsa / Getty Images)
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