Last year’s Hall of Fame class featured three inductees with some sort of connection to New York’s baseball teams when CC Sabathia and Ichiro Suzuki were inducted along with Billy Wagner on his sixth try.
This year’s possible inductees on the BBWAA ballot possess a New York connection with Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones the most prominent holdovers and players who spent a portion of their career with the Mets or Yankees.
Besides Beltran and Jones, there are nine other players whose spent a portion of their careers on a New York team, though it would be 11 if Gio Gonzalez actually pitched for the Yankees in 2019 after signing late in spring training and if Matt Kemp actually appeared for the Mets in 2019.
Alex Rodriguez is the most prominent name as his inclusion appears while HBO is airing a documentary about him. While Rodriguez has seemingly mended fences 12 years after his Biogenesis Suspension by becoming part of FOX’s baseball coverage, those activities have dogged him on the ballot and last year he finished seventh at 37.1% after starting out at 34.3% on the 2022 ballot.
Rodriguez’s 696 homers are fifth all-time and his 3,115 hits are 23rd but the unknown for many voters is how many of those were done without PEDs, something he admitted to doing during his three years with the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003 and again with the Yankees resulting in a 211-game suspension in 2014, which cost him about $40 million.
Next is Andy Pettitte, whose 27.9% percent placed him ninth, one spot ahead of Felix Hernandez. Pettitte’s case can be made with 256 career wins and along with 19 postseason wins but he has small PED ties for admitting to using human growth hormone to heal an injury and his 3.849 ERA ties with for 763rd all-time through last season.
Of pitchers whose career ERA is 3.50 or higher, the only major leaguers inducted are Red Ruffing (3.798), Sabathia (3.736) Mike Mussina (3.683), Ted Lyons (3.668), Jesse Haines (3.641), Herb Pennock (3.598), Waite Hoyt (3.588), Early Wynn (3.542), Tom Glavine (3.536), Burleigh Grimes (3.527), Dennis Eckersley (3.501).
Sabathia and Mussina getting in with ERAs over 3.50 might bode well but then again Sabathia owns a Cy Young along with four other top-five finishes while Pettitte was a runner-up in 1996 and placed in the top five four other times. Mussina won 270 games, including 20 in his final season in 2008 when he was a teammate of Pettitte, who was 14-14 with 4.54 ERA.
Pettitte’s final season with Mussina is among nine seasons where he finished with an ERA of 4.00 or higher. By comparison Sabathia had eight of those seasons and Mussina had six.
In theory weighing those factors may nudge Pettitte higher than the figure from last season but he is on his eighth year and would likely need a massive jump to be a possibility by his final season.
Behind Pettitte is Bobby Abreu. While primarily known for hitting .303 in nine seasons with the Phillies, Abreu appeared in 372 games for the Yankees and 78 more for the Mets.
He wound up with 2,470 hits and batted .295 with the Yankees before ending his career with 33 hits for the 2014 Mets. Abreu received 19.5 % in his sixth year on the ballot and is 107th on the all-time hits list and the quartet directly ahead of him in Fred McGriff, David Ortiz, Ted Simmons and Joe Medwick are in the Hall, though McGriff finishing near 500 homers and Ortiz getting 541 helped their case.
Other holdovers with a New York connection are two prominent Mets in Francisco Rodriguez and David Wright.
Rodriguez is on his fourth year after getting 10.2% last season and his 437 saves are sixth on the all-time list and 15 ahead of Wagner, who threw 903 innings compared to 976 for Rodriguez, whose 2.86 ERA is 55 points higher than Wagner.
Wright returns after getting 8.1% percent last season and in many ways could get some sentimental votes to keep him on the ballot considering how well-regarded he is as a person and the Mets’ all-time hits leader. Wright might have gotten bigger consideration if not for a series of debilitating injuries that limited him to 77 games from 2015-2018 and prevented him from getting near 2,000 hits by finishing with 1,777.
As for newcomers with a New York connection on the ballot, Edwin Encarnacion is debuting and he hit 13 of his 424 homers in 44 games over the final three-plus months of the 2019 season for the Yankees, who needed a big bat due to numerous injuries.
Best known for his time with the Blue Jays, Encarnacion is 54th on the all-time list and two behind Billy Williams, whose .290 career average is 30 points higher than the slugger.
Daniel Murphy is also on the ballot 10 years after his memorable home run barrage vaulted the Mets into their most recent World Series. Murphy batted .288 in seven seasons with the Mets and just missed a batting title when he hit .347 with the 2016 Nationals in one of four seasons of hitting at least .300 but his 1,572 career hits likely does not keep on the ballot for long.
Rick Porcello is the final entrant, and he finished with 150 wins and a 4.40 ERA. Porcello is best known for going 22-4 with the Red Sox to win the AL Cy Young and his time with the Mets is hardly memorable since he was 1-7 with a 5.64 ERA in 12 starts during the 60-game pandemic season.
The voting is always interesting, especially as new voters emerge and the final percentages are often interesting, notably for those with ties to the New York area in some shape or form.
