Hall of Fame Polls: Abreu

Since the Jays won’t give us some news to write about, let’s start the Hall of Fame polls.

Bobby Abreu is on the ballot for the fourth time. Last year he was on 8.6% of the writers’ ballots. Of course, there have been times when players start in the single digits and gain votes to make the Hall over the years, but Abreu’s numbers aren’t growing.

Abreu was a much better player than I thought.

Abreu had a very good 18-year career. He hit .291/.395/.475 with 288 home runs and 400 steals (that surprises me) in 2425 games. To me, the significant number is the 1476 walks (good for 20th all-time). He took over 100 walks in 8 straight seasons. In addition, he had OBPs above .400 in 9 seasons. I’d love the Jays to have a player who could get on base like that.

Bobby received MVP votes in 7 seasons (though his high mark was 14th. He had one Gold Glove, made 2 All-Star teams, and one Silver Slugger. Career, he had a 60 bWAR.

He doesn’t have the single stat writers like to point to when voting. He doesn’t have 500 home runs, and he doesn’t have 3000 hits (but then 2470 hits isn’t bad), but he did everything well. His career had a high peak, but he also had a long stretch of being useful after the peak.

To me, Abreu is similar to Scott Rolen, good at so many things (though not in the same class defensively), not a traditional Hall of Famer but someone who is more deserving than you would think at first glance.

He is the type of player I would love to have on my team. Few thought of him as a Hall of Fame player during his career, but he was an excellent player. In some ways, he is like Scott Rolen, a player who was good at everything. There are players in the Hall who I think are less deserving.

You can see his career numbers here.