‘You knew who the Hall of Famers were’

Sometimes a new Hall of Fame class fits neatly into baseball history. Jimmie Foxx and Mel Ott, 500-homer sluggers in the shadow of Babe Ruth, went in together in 1951. Johnny Bench and Carl Yastrzemski, one-city institutions that met in a sublime World Series, came their turn in 1989. Reggie Jackson, an incomparable showman, had the stage to himself in 1993.

This Sunday belongs to Fred McGriff and Scott Rolen, luminaries from opposite corners of the diamond whose careers overlapped in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Both played for at least four franchises and made at least five All-Star teams. Both reached the World Series twice and won once. Neither came close to a Most Valuable Player Award.

Those are loose connections at best. Above all, the combination of McGriff and Rolen is a powerful reflection of the changing standards for baseball’s highest honors.

McGriff was elected unanimously last December by a 16-person panel called the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee. He had previously spent the maximum 10 years on the writers’ ballot and never garnered even a quarter of the vote until his last appearance, in 2019, when he peaked at 39.8 percent – far short of the Hall threshold of 75.

For McGriff, the disheartening unveiling of the ballot paper was an exhausting winter ritual.

“We’ve got some tough writers, some tough cookies,” McGriff said with a laugh during a video call to reporters last week. “But it’s hard because every year your name is on the ballot and you come up, you have people from the outside, your friends and buddies and everyone calls. Come January it’s like, ‘Uh-oh, here we go again.’”

Rolen had a very different experience, building support among writers every year and making it on his sixth attempt. On his debut, in the 2018 ballot, Rolen received just 10.2 percent, with just 43 votes out of 422 votes cast. By this year’s vote, he had risen to 76.3 percent, with 297 of 389 writers checking his name.

He still can’t believe it.

“For me to sit here and say, ‘Oh, yeah, me and Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron,’ I mean, that’s not really,” Rolen said last week. “That is not a realistic situation. These guys are true legends and I get the chance to share that gallery with them, which is a great honor for me.”

For some fans, the Hall of Fame should be reserved for only the very best; the comments about McGriff and Rolen were decidedly unkind back then in Major League Baseball greeted them in a tweet from January.

However, the reality is that many fans wouldn’t be familiar with at least half of the Hall’s 342 members. The room would be pretty cozy if Cobb, Ruth and Aaron were the standard. The hall’s membership reflects the attitudes of voters at the time, and this lesson shows how quickly those attitudes change.

Part of the reason for McGriff’s low support and Rolen’s sudden rise is logistics; writers are limited to 10 selections, and superstars with steroid ties (Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and others) put a block on voting that was only recently eased. But as the electorate gets younger and other stats become more popular, the old access keys no longer open the hall door.

Remember McGriff, who said every year he tried to hit 30 homers, drive in 100 runs, and hit as close to .300 as possible. Those were the basic stats in baseball for generations.

“You set yourself goals every year to hit home runs and RBIs because RBIs and batting average used to be important,” McGriff said. “It’s a little different now, but it used to be important. And so you constantly had goals.”

McGriff batted .284 with 493 home runs and 1,550 runs batted in. Only nine players who debuted before him could match all those stats: Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Foxx, Ott, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Aaron, Frank Robinson and Eddie Murray. All (except Ott, unbelievably) were elected on the first ballot in the Chamber.

“I always go back to Joe Morgan and how we talked in Cincinnati,” Rolen said, referring to the Reds’ Hall of Fame second baseman. “I thank him for this statement, but I like to use it because it’s exactly how I feel: as a player you knew who the Hall of Famers were with whom and against whom you played every day in your day. And so – no criticism of the writers or the process of any kind – but I’ve always believed that Fred McGriff was a Hall of Famer.

McGriff played 422 more games than Rolen, so of course he hit more home runs and drove in more runs (Rolen had 316 home runs and 1,287 runs batted in). But he also has a higher batting average than Rolen, who hit .281, and also ranks above him in both on-base percentage (.377 to .364) and slugging percentage (.509 to .490).

What he doesn’t have is Rolen’s total value as measured by wins over replacement at Baseball reference: 70.1 for Rolen, 52.6 for McGriff. Context and a more rounded skill set help explain the difference.

Rolen earned eight Gold Gloves and McGriff earned none. Rolen is also among the best hitters of his time at third base, which remains the least represented position in the Hall at 16 members. There are 26 Hall of Fame first basemen, and sluggers are more common in that spot. This was especially true during McGriff’s prime – although some, such as Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mo Vaughn, were documented steroid users.

That scandal never ensnared McGriff, who had 10 seasons of at least 30 homers but never hit more than 37. He has often been mentioned as a clean slugger in a juice age.

“I took it as a compliment, having integrity and going out and playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” McGriff said.

McGriff’s introduction is a victory for the traditional stats he was supposed to produce – and he did. Rolen’s is a victory for a more nuanced definition of greatness, increasingly appreciated by front offices, players and the news media.

“The people we see every day talking about the game on MLB Network are slowly changing that understanding,” said Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Evan Longoria, who has more career WAR (58.9) than Hall of Famers like Willie Stargell, Hank Greenberg and David Ortiz.

“For the average fan, there’s not really a concrete idea of ​​how a man really influences the game. I don’t think there are enough casual baseball fans who understand the value of OPS and WAR and all those advanced stats. They just deviate from the batting average, like, “Why the hell is this guy making $100 million while he’s hitting .240?” But if you look at his WAR, he advances, steals a base, plays good defense and influences the game in many different ways.”

The Hall of Fame is all about impact, and there’s more than one way to evaluate that. McGriff represents the old school and Rolen the new, but the diploma looks the same either way.