The 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot is, admittedly, a relatively weak one. There are probably a handful of players on it who will eventually make it in, but in the last 15 voting cycles, we’ve seen ballots crowded with 10 future Hall of Famers. The 2014 ballot, for example, had 14 players, so far, who eventually made it to Cooperstown. That’s where this one is weak.
The top newcomer is Cole Hamels. My hunch is he never gets into the Hall of Fame and it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that’s how it should be. I think the kneejerk reaction for most baseball fans will be that Hamels is not a Hall of Famer. There’s a case here, though, and I’m going to try and make a good one right now.
The numbers never tell the full story, but we have to start with them. In parts of 15 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves, Hamels was 163-122 with a 3.43 ERA (123 ERA+), 1.18 WHIP and 2,560 strikeouts in 2,698 innings. The four-time All-Star got Cy Young votes in four different seasons, topping out at fifth place in 2011. In 17 playoff outings, he went 7-6 with a 3.41 ERA in 100 ⅓ innings. He won the NLCS MVP and World Series MVP in 2008.
With 59.0 WAR, he ranks 71st all-time among starting pitchers. We could start there. Do you think there should be 71 pitchers in history in the Hall of Fame? There are 67 right now. I’m not saying every player better than the worst Hall of Famer should get in moving forward. Not at all. That said, I have every right to push for players toward the bottom of the established Hall of Fame standard.
I’ve been making the case the last several years that we need to lower our standard — just a bit! — for starting pitchers in this era. They don’t work as deep into games anymore, which costs them in the counting stats like wins, innings pitched, complete games, WAR, etc. It should never have been an argument anyway, but we really need to stop people in their tracks when we hear things like, “did he win 300 games?” Check Sandy Koufax’s win total. He’s a special case! OK, then check the win totals for Lefty Gomez, Rube Waddell, Ed Walsh, Dazzy Vance and Jack Chesbro.
One could argue that this new era helps today’s pitchers in ERA and WHIP, since they don’t see the order a fourth time, for example. That’s fair, but I still think we can measure the greatest pitchers by ERA vs. the rest of the league. Hamels was almost 25% better than the average pitcher of his time by ERA.
Let’s latch onto the era argument for a second. I’ve long made it a habit to point out to people that, despite their own personal tastes and desires of what it should be, the Hall of Fame isn’t just Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson and Cy Young and Greg Maddux. It’s also Joe McGinnity and Hal Newhouser and Jim Bunning and Early Wynn.
If we isolate 2000-present, the top tier of pitchers is pretty clearly the threesome of Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. There’s a slight step down to the next tier of Hall-worthy pitchers like CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke and Roy Halladay. After that, it’s Mark Buehrle, Chris Sale, and, yep, Cole Hamels. If we went by just WAR — it isn’t the only stat that matters, I say to the strawman some people just started to build — Hamels is eighth in the 2000s behind, in order, Verlander, Kershaw, Scherzer, Greinke, Halladay, Sabathia and Buehrle. That’s more than a quarter of a century.
Let’s grab a similar sample with 1950-75 to illustrate my point. By WAR, Gibson is the leader with Robin Roberts, Warren Spahn, Gaylord Perry and Tom Seaver rounding out the top five. Juan Marichal, Don Drysdale, Bunning, Fergie Jenkins, Whitey Ford and Koufax get us to 11. There are a few other Hall of Famers in there like Hoyt Wilhelm, Jim Kaat, Phil Niekro, Wynn, Jim Palmer, Catfish Hunter, Don Sutton.
The point is, as much as so many people wish the Hall of Fame was for only the Verlander/Kershaw/Scherzer tier, that’s just not what it is nor what it has been since around, say, the late 1950s. Past generations have so many more Hall of Famers than my generation has. The people who love to cry about how “the Hall of Fame standard just keeps getting lower and lower” are totally mistaken. It’s actually the opposite. Just look at that 1950-75 list and compare it to where we are with the 2000-present group. We can’t only look at current Hall of Famers, but we’re smart enough to know that Kershaw, Verlander and Scherzer are going to fly in while also recognizing the road is really hard for Hamels, Buehrle and Félix Hernández (there will be a mea culpa coming here in the next few weeks, by the way, from yours truly) and will be in the next few years for Adam Wainwright and Jon Lester.
“So you’re comparing Jon Lester to Whitey Ford?” you say. No, I’m not doing that. I’m saying there’s room in the Hall of Fame for different types and levels of Hall of Famers. If we say Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States and then also say James K. Polk was president of the United States, we aren’t “comparing” Lincoln and Polk.
I’m again arguing, quite desperately, that we’re smart enough to know the difference between a Tom Seaver-level Hall of Famer and a Burleigh Grimes-level Hall of Famer. Hamels fits in fine with the latter. The Hall won’t be worse for it if he gets in and I’m going to continue to fight for this generation of starting pitchers, which I believe is getting an unfair shake.
Hamels will get my vote this year.
Add Comment