Hall of Fame Polls: Garcia, Garland, Hafner

The next three names on the Hall of Fame ballot are guys who had very good careers, but aren’t going to get more than a handful of votes.

Freddy Garcia had a nice career. 15 seasons. He finished with a 156-108 record and a 4.15 ERA. That’s fewer wins that what will generally get you into the Hall, but then that’s the future, we aren’t going to see many 300 win pitchers anymore. We won’t see all that many 200 win pitchers, for that matter . And Freddy has a nice win percentage. His bWAR is 34.4.

His rookie season, he went 17-8 with a 4.07 ERA in 33 starts. He came in second in the Rookie of the Year voting and 9th in Cy Young voting. And hit first 6 seasons were the best of his career. He went 116 and 71 with a 4.01 ERA in 251 starts. If his career had continued like that, he might have a shot at the Hall. But the next 3 seasons were injury filled and he only made 23 starts. Then he had a couple of good years, going 24-14, with a 4.15 ERA in 53 starts. A couple more years dealing with injuries and he was out of the game.

He made 2 All-Star teams and got Cy Young votes twice (finishing 3rd in 2001). He was good, but a fair bit short of a Hall of Famer.

Jon Garland had a very nice 13-year career.

He finished with a 136-125 record and a 4.37 ERA in 365 MLB games, 342 starts. His bWAR is 19.6. He had a stretch of 4 straight 200 inning seasons and 6 in his career. And he was over 190 3 more times. He made 1 All-Star team and received Cy Young votes once, finishing 6th. And he has a World Series ring, winning with the White Sox in 2005.

He’s pretty much what you’d want as an innings eater. A good 3-4 man in a good rotation. But well short of being worthy of the Hall.

Travis Hafner played 12 seasons in the MLB, mostly at DH, mostly with Cleveland. A left-handed batter, he was a platoon player for much of his career. He hit .273/.376/.498 with 213 homers in his career.

He had an excellent 4 year stretch, hitting .296/.410/.567 with 127 homers, in 558 games. I’d love to have a guy getting on base 41% of the time and averaging over 31 homers a year. He received MVP votes in 3 of those years, finishing as high as 5th. But he never made an All-Star team. Other than those four seasons he never played more than 118 games in a season. Again a good career, not one that should get him into the Hall.