Hall of Fame Polls: Bobby Abreu

The Hall of Fame ballot came out today, and the Jays have been inconsiderate by not giving us any news to talk about. So, let’s get an early jump on our Hall of Fame polls.

There have been little bits of MLB news:

• Aaron Nola signed with the Phillies for seven years and $177 million.
• The Cardinals signed Lance Lynn to a one-year deal, getting $10 million next year, with an option for 2025 and a $1 million buyout. There are some incentives, too.
• The Braves signed Reynaldo Lopez to a three-year, $30 million contract. That’s a fair bit of money for a reliever.
• Zack Britton has retired. You’ll remember him best from his role of a spectator when Edwin Encarnacion hit the game-winning home run in the 2016 Wild Card game against the Orioles.
• Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been officially posted.

Bobby Abreu is on the ballot for the fifth time. Last year, he was on 15.4% of the writers’ votes. That was a jump from 8.6% in 2022. That’s a nice jump, but he needs a bunch of jumps to make it to 75%.

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. 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 a good player after the peak.

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 more deserving than you would think at first glance. Rolen made it last year. Will the writers look to Abreu a little closer? By bWAR, Abreu is a 60.2, Rolen a 70.1.

He is the type of player I would love to have on my team. Not many 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.