I’m skipping a few again:
Carlos Pena had a up and down 14-year MLB career, hitting .232/.346/.462 with 286 home runs in 1493 games adding up to a 25.1 bWAR. His best season, by far, was 2007, when he hit .282/.411/.627 with 46 home runs and a 7.2 bWAR. That and the next season were the only ones he had WAR values of over 3.1. He had MVP votes those two seasons, finishing 9th both times. He won 1 Silver Slugger, 1 Gold Glove (at first base) and made 1 All-Star team. He finished 8th in Rookie of the Year voting in 2002.
Brad Penny was a pretty good right-handed starting pitcher for 14 MLB seasons. He missed a fair bit of time with injuries. Career he had a 121-101 record, with a 4.29 ERA in 349 games, 319 starts and a 19.0 bWAR. He pitched over 200 innings twice, made 2 All-Star teams and finished 3rd in Cy Young voting in 2007 (his best seasons, going 16-4 with a 3.03 ERA in 33 starts with the Dodgers). He had 6 seasons with more than 10 wins. A nice career, but well short of Hall of Fame numbers.
J.J. Putz pitched out of MLB bullpens for 12 seasons. Career he had a 3.08 ERA in 572 games with 189 saves. He made one All-Star team, had 30+ plus saves 4 times. His career bWAR was 13.1.
Brian Roberts played 14 seasons in the majors. He hit .276/.347/.409 with 97 home runs and 285 steals in 1418 games. 30.4 career bWAR. He made 2 All-Star teams. He had a very good 6 season stretch in the middle, where he was a good leadoff hitter, hitting .290/.365/.438 with 212 steals. A pretty good peak but he lost a lot of time to injuries and comes up short of being a Hall of Famer.
It is Andy Pettitte’s second time on the ballot. He received 9.9% of the vote last year. I expected him to do better.
I was never a big fan of Pettitte. For one, he was a Yankee. And I always thought he was overrated. Plus I could never remember how many Ts there were in his name.
But he did have a pretty nice career. 18 seasons. 256-153 record with a 3.85 ERA. 531 games, 521 starts. He is 40th all time in games started. He had a 60.7 bWAR, good for 60th all-time among pitchers.
He was 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting in 1995. The next year he went 21-8 with a 3.87 ERA coming in second in Cy Young voting (Pat Hentgen won it that year, in a very close vote). He would win 21 games again in 2003.
Pettitte pitched 9 seasons with the Yankees and then signed with the Astros as a free agent. After three years there he went back to the Yankees. He played there 5 years, and then ‘retired’. After sitting out the 2011 season, he went back to the Yankees for 2 more seasons. In 2013 he went 11-11 with a 3.74 ERA in 30 starts at age 41. After that he retired for good.
Andy won 5 World Series rings, 4 with the Yankees and 1 with the Astros. He holds MLB playoff records for wins (19), starts (44) and innings (276.2).
And, of course, there was some controversy. Pettitte admitted to using human growth hormones to “help recover from elbow surgery”. He said Roger Clemens’ trainer got it for him. He also said that Clemens used PEDs. It think there should be points for honesty.
Andy’s career numbers are here.
Poll
Would you vote Andy Pettitte ino the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Manny Ramirez was terrific hitter. 19 seasons, a .312/.411/.585 line with 555 home runs, 1831 RBI. bWAR of 69.2.
This is his fourth time on the ballot. He was on 22.8% of the ballots last year. He has a big hill to climb to make it to the Hall.
He made 12 All-Star teams, picked up MVP votes 11 times (finished 3rd twice, and in the top 10 9 times), 9 Silver Slugger awards, won the Hank Aaron award twice and was World Series MVP in 2004. And he finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 1994, after playing in just 91 games.
And, I know it shouldn’t impress me, but he drove in 165, back in 1999, with Cleveland.
He played 8 seasons with Cleveland, 8 with the Red Sox, 3 with the Dodgers and 1 each with the Rays and White Sox.
Manny played left field (1037 games), right (904) and DH (332). He was pretty terrible defensively.
He also played 111 playoff games, hitting .285/.394/.554 with 29 home runs. He has two World Series rings.
On the negative side, he was suspended for PEDs twice. Players lose votes for rumors of PED use, but with Manny they have proof. For me, it is often a question of if I think the player would have been a Hall of Fame type without the help. Manny is kind of a tough call, but his numbers are pretty terrific. I’m not sure how much to discount them because of the PEDs.
Ramirez stats are here.
Poll
Would you vote Manny Ramirez into the Baseball Hall of Fame?
It is Scott Rolen’s third time on the ballot. He only got 17.2% of the Writers’ vote last year. He’s one of those who doesn’t have that one great stat that Writers can look at and say ‘he should be in’, but then he was good at all parts of the game. Bobby Grich is a good comparable in that way. Grich should be in the Hall, but the Writers have a hard time with guys who do everything well.
Scott played 17 seasons in the MLB, 7 with the Phillies, 6 with the Cardinals, 4 with the Reds and, most important, 2 with the Jays.
He hit .281/.364/.490 with 316 home runs in 2038 games. He was Rookie of the Year in 1997, won 7 Gold Gloves, made 7 All-Star teams, and received MVP votes 4 times. And, for a brief period, he was the GOAT. He had a stretch of 7 straight season with 25 or more home runs.
He was a favorite in his short time with the Jays. It helped that he started his Jays career with a 7 game hitting streak. He came to us in trade for Troy Glaus. And he left us for Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Roenicke and Zach Stewart.
His bWAR was 70.2 (fWAR 70.1), which putting him 67 all-time among position players.
I was just looking at Brooks Robinson’s career, Rolen looks like a better version of Brooks (with a shorter career) so I’ll vote yes. Of course, they played in different eras.
You can see Scott’s stats here. For comparison, Brooks Robinson is here.