ORLANDO, Fla. – There was a lot of irony going around. voting results of the Modern Baseball Hall of Fame Era Committeewas announced Sunday night at the MLB Winter Meetings.
Perhaps most poignant is this: If it weren't for Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent – the only one of the eight players in question selected on Sunday – might not have gone to Cooperstown. Although Kent is the best hitter among second basemen, he was on the same ballot as Bonds, who hit more homers than anyone else at any position.
During the press conference after the announcement, Kent recalled how he and Bonds pushed, prodded and sometimes irritated each other during their six seasons as teammates. San Francisco Giants. These were Kent's best seasons, a fairly late career peak that came from 1997 to 2002, during which Kent accumulated 31.6 of his 55.4 career bWAR.
The peak came in 2000, when Kent enjoyed his career season at age 32, hitting .334 with a 1.021 OPS, hitting 33 homers with 125 RBIs and posting a career-best 7.2 bWAR. Ranked fourth behind Bonds and his .440 OBP, Kent hit .382 with runners on base and .449 with a runner on first base.
During Kent's six years in San Francisco, he was one of only five baseball players to reach base with at least one runner on base at least 2,000 times, and the other four all played at least 48 more games than him. Turns out, falling behind Bonds is a pretty good career move.
To be clear, Kent was an outstanding player and the numbers he produced were his and his alone. When you see how election news affects players, it's special. I'm glad Jeff Kent is now in the Hall of Fame.
But the Hall of Fame itself doesn't suit me. While Kent's overwhelming support—his name was mentioned on 14 of 16 ballots, two more than the minimum required to take office—took me by surprise, what didn't surprise me were the overall voting results. Hall's official press release read in fine print: “Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela each received fewer than five votes.”
Under the new guidelines the Hall adopted for its ever-changing era committee process – guidelines that went into effect with this vote – Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield and Valenzuela are ineligible to participate in 2028, when the modern era is next considered. They could be nominated in 2031, and if they are, they probably will be. If they don't get on at least five ballots, they're finished. And there is no reason to believe that they will receive more support next time.
I thought the composition of this committee was biased against players associated with PEDs, but that is a subjective assessment. And who knows what happens during these discussions. With so many players from the 1970s and 1980s in the group, this seemed to bode well for Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy. But they were both included on just six ballots. Carlos Delgado had the second support position with nine.
Why? Beats me. I have given up trying to interpret the veterans committee/era committee processes that have existed over the years. But the latest guidelines seem perfectly designed to ensure that for the next six years there will be no reason to complain about the exclusion of Bonds and Clemens. And that’s it in 2031.
Meanwhile, the classic era will be up for debate again in 2027, when Pete Rose could and likely will be nominated. Possibly also Shoeless Joe Jackson. What happens next is anyone's guess, but by the second week of December 2031, we could see a Hall of Fame roster that includes the long-ineligible (but not over) Rose and perhaps Jackson, but the forever-excluded never-ineligible Bonds and Clemens – arguably the best hitter and pitcher, respectively, who ever played.
If and when this happens, another kind of symbolic exile will occur: with these revised guidelines, the Hall has condemned itself to always being less than it should be. And the significant shadows of Bonds and Clemens will continue to loom larger and larger over time, just as they did with Rose and Jackson.
Ironic, isn't it?
