Three days after the UConn baseball team named Garrett Coe and Ryan Hyde captains for the spring season, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America released the 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. I may not be eligible to submit a ballot because I have not been covering Major League Baseball for at least 10 consecutive seasons, but that is not going to stop me from crafting a hypothetical one.
Writers can vote for at most 10 out of over 25 players who they believe deserve a spot in the Hall of Fame. Any player that receives 75% of the votes will be inducted into Cooperstown. It is hard some years to pick 10 deserving athletes, but for my ballot, I chose the 10 players who had the best chance of being selected for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Writer’s Note: Any player with an asterisk in their heading is who I predict will get inducted in 2024.
Adrián Beltré – 3B; 1st year on ballot*
3,166 hits (17th all-time), 93.5 career Wins Above Replacement (third all-time among third basemen), five Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers and 477 home runs. This is as much of a lock as selecting closer Mariano Rivera in 2019. He might not be a unanimous selection, but Beltré could very easily end up on 92–94% of all ballots.
Andruw Jones – OF; 7th year on ballot*
Any player who wins 10+ Gold Gloves already has a Hall of Fame resume, and Jones is one of 16 players to ever do so. Add in his 62.7 career WAR primarily as a centerfielder and 434 home runs (fourth all-time among players with at least that many Gold Gloves), and I am surprised he has remained on the outside looking in for the past six years.
Todd Helton – 1B; 6th year on ballot*
Helton finished 11 votes shy of induction in 2023 but saw significant strides as 54 returning voters added his name to their ballot. With the total number of eligible writers projected to remain the same at 389, the career Colorado Rocky could be inducted this year because more voters will appreciate his 61.8 career WAR and five seasons where he batted above .300 outside of Denver.
Billy Wagner – CL; 9th year on ballot*
Rivera and Trevor Hoffman overshadow Wagner’s career as one of the top closers of his time. Even though he never led the league in saves during any of his 16 seasons, the Virginia native ranks sixth all-time and second amongst lefties with 422 saves in 491 tries. Beyond closing out games, Wagner’s 187 ERA+ and .997 WHIP rank second among Hall of Fame relievers behind Rivera while his 11.92 K/9 is the best among all pitchers with at least 900 innings pitched.
Carlos Beltrán – OF; 2nd year on ballot
I see a world where Beltrán gets into Cooperstown on his first ballot without the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. Regardless of that issue, the switch-hitting outfielder’s 70.1 career WAR, 2,725 hits, three Gold Gloves, two Silver Sluggers, .837 career OPS and underrated speed on the basepaths make him a very enticing selection on any ballot.
Gary Sheffield – OF; 10th and final year on ballot
The one controversy holding Sheffield, who smacked 509 career longballs, hit north of .300 eight times and recorded over 2,600 base knocks, back is that he admitted to taking steroids in 2002. Without that scandal, the five-time Silver Slugger and 1997 World Series champion would have been in Cooperstown much sooner.
Joe Mauer – C; 1st year on ballot
Mauer is one of many what-ifs among first-year candidates, as a concussion prevented him from playing for 20 years. Transitioning from catcher to first base later in his career, the 2009 American League MVP posted a 55.2 WAR (seventh among backstops) and batted over .300 nine times in 15 seasons. Only two first-overall MLB Draft picks, outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. and third baseman Chipper Jones, have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I expect Mauer to be the third.
David Wright – OF; 1st year on ballot
Wright is another one of those what-ifs as injuries derailed his career after he turned 30. In addition to his four Top 10 finishes in NL MVP voting between 2006 and 2012 as well as seven seasons batting above .300, the lifelong Met is one of four third basemen ever with 350+ doubles, 200+ homers and 150+ stolen bases. The other three all entered Cooperstown on their first ballot.
Chase Utley – 2B; 1st year on ballot
If Wright was one of the league’s best third basemen in the late 2000s, Utley was the top second baseman. The UCLA alum had a five-year stretch from 2005 until 2009 where he had at least a 7.0-WAR season every year and went yard 30+ times in three of them. While he never won a Gold Glove at second, Utley’s 64.5 career WAR and 10 straight seasons with an OPS+ over 100 cannot be ignored.
Jimmy Rollins – SS; 3rd year on ballot
Even though their career numbers are similar, I went with Rollins over outfielder Bobby Abreu because of consistency. The Oakland native finished with 15 fewer career hits than his seven-year teammate, but the 2007 NL MVP recorded 100+ hits in all but three seasons and stole 10+ bases all but twice. On top of being a plus defender at short (his .983 fielding percentage is fourth among all shortstops), Rollins holds the single-season Major League record for at-bats at 716.
Just because I omitted athletes like Abreu and Matt Holliday from my ballot does not mean that I won’t include them in future versions if I do this exercise again. While only theoretical, I predict that most of the players that I picked will enter Cooperstown at some point between now and 2030. Until then (and the official reveal on Jan. 23, 2024), let the voting commence.