In about a month and a half, the baseball world will learn if there will be any new Hall of Famers from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s 2025-26 ballot. That’s not the only way to earn enshrinement in Cooperstown, though.
The first night of Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings also marked the convening of the Eras Committee. The 16-member group met to discuss eight retired players from 1980 and beyond who passed a screening to appear on the Contemporary Era Committee ballot. All fell off the BBWAA ballot at one point or another, whether it was because they earned under five percent of the vote, or exhausted all years of eligibility. The Eras Committee offers a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) chance before another electorate, which last year helped put Pittsburgh Pirates icon Dave Parker and underrated Philadelphia Phillies standout Dick Allen into the Hall — albeit posthumously.
Eras Committee members could only vote for a maxium of three players, but if any of them earned at least 12 of the 16 votes (a 75-percent threshold, just like the BBWAA vote), then they’d punch their ticket to Cooperstown. The votes are in and … the committee elected just one Hall of Famer.
No, not the guy with the most homers and MVPs in MLB history.
No, not the guy with the most Cy Young Awards in MLB history.
No, not either of the two sluggers and former MVPs who were among MLB’s most popular players of the ‘80s.
If your reaction is: “Well, okey dokey then,” then we’re right there with you. Kent earned 14 of votes to clear induction with two to spare.
In a vaccuum, Kent is not the most undeserving Hall of Famer. He was a very good ballplayer! He broke through some early-career wanderings through Toronto, Queens, and Cleveland to eventually find himself out west en route to 560 doubles and 377 homers, the most of any primary second baseman in MLB history. He was a key part of the San Francisco Giants teams around the turn of the 21st century that made multiple playoff berths and won the 2002 National League pennant. He made five All-Star teams, won the 2000 NL MVP, earned four Silver Slugger honors, and didn’t miss a beat moving San Francisco to Houston, nearly guiding the Astros to an NL pennant of their own in 2004.
There’s just something … not particularly exciting about Kent considering the other options. (And that’s without exploring Kent’s reputation as a prickly personality, even among teammates.)
That guy with the most homers and MVPs in MLB history? Kent’s superior teammate Barry Bonds, who should have also won Kent’s lone MVP? And Roger Clemens, the guy with the most Cy Young Awards? Neither received more than four votes. Under the Hall of Fame’s revised rules, because the same thing happened to them three years ago, they will ineligible for Era Committee induction until at least 2031. The same fate falls on Bonds’ fellow slugger, Gary Sheffield, and former Dodgers ace Fernando Valenzuela.
Fernando had his own tricky case because the pitching stats weren’t as consistently good and he supporters had to try to point to his status as a pioneer bringing so many Mexican fans into the game. It wasn’t a bad argument, to be clear! But it was harder to make to the 16-man committee, and they didn’t support it.
Bonds, Clemens, and Sheffield all have PED connections, even though they played the vast majority of their careers at a time when MLB (and commissioner—excuse me—Hall of Famer Bud Selig) was looking the other way to try to generate more fan interest in wake of the 1994 strike. None were ever suspended. Various writers have said in the past that there are already other PED users in the Hall of Fame anyway (they said so even before David Ortiz got in). But the Hall has already made it clear in so many words that they want no part of them; against the BBWAA’s objections, they truncated candidacies before them from 15 years to 10 with Bonds and Clemens about to hit the ballot, and few members of these Era Committees have been likely to support them. Rendering them ineligible for the next cycle as a penalty—with the potential of being permanently ineligible if there are no rule changes and get so few votes again.
Have we mentioned how embarrassing it is that Selig got into the Hall of Fame instantly and these guys (not to mention Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and others from that era) are on the outside looking in? Hm.
Kent’s Hall of Fame enshrinement is also partly at the expense of the two previously alluded 1980s stars, Braves icon Dale Murphy and Yankees legend Don Mattingly. Both had amazing careers that petered out a little too quickly to earn BBWAA induction, but they seemed to be making headway. On the last Eras Committee vote (which saw Fred McGriff elected), Mattingly got eight votes and Murphy earned six. This time around, Murphy stagnated and Mattingly lost two votes. The committee members are not identical, but that’s still discouraging. Did Kent have a better career? He played in more games and accrued more WAR, so if that’s your go-to measure—and if it is, no judgments—then yes. In terms of the “Fame” aspect though, Kent is not nearly as important to the story of baseball history or its evolution as Murphy and Mattingly were to up-and-coming ‘80s fans. C’est la vie.
The only other candidate who hasn’t been discussed yet is the most surprising. Carlos Delgado went one-and-done on a very crowded BBWAA ballot in 2015. Before this panel though, he got 9 of 16 votes, the second-most and just three shy of induction. The longtime Blue Jays slugger deserved a longer consideration on the BBWAA ballot and would have fared better if he had appeared just a few years later. So even if you’re not 100-percent sold on Delgado as a Hall of Famer, he’s someone who merits discussion and he’ll get another long look in a few years. If you agreed with the Eras Committee’s call of McGriff as a Hall of Famer a few years ago, you’d likely support Delgado’s case as they have very similar numbers.
FanGraphs
Anyway, congratulations I suppose to Jeff Kent, the Hall of Fame’s version of a regular ham sandwich with a few random dabs of hot sauce on it.
