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Roughly a year from today, Ichiro Suzuki will be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Suzuki is a mortal lock to not only reach the 75 percent vote threshold required for enshrinement but could venture near the unanimous status achieved only by Mariano Rivera in 2019. The following year, Derek Jeter, one of Rivera’s contemporaries, received the highest percentage of votes (99.7 percent, with only one of 397 voters not ticking off his name) among position players in history.
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Much like this year’s ballot, which features a no-doubt inductee (Adrián Beltré), the 2025 slate has an easy choice in Suzuki and then some interesting candidates who will generate much of the discussion and even some of the same arguments. This year’s results will likely influence the outlook for next year’s potential class.
Second basemen
Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler
Is Chase Utley a Hall of Famer? That question will impact two first-year players on the upcoming ballot, fellow second basemen Pedroia and Kinsler.
One of the best ways to look at Hall of Fame cases is by using the Jaffe WAR Score System, better known as JAWS, a metric developed by baseball writer Jay Jaffe that takes a player’s career WAR and combines it with a player’s top seven WAR seasons. The result is a way to look at not just a player’s longevity, but also just how good he was at his peak, striking a balance between the two. At second base, Rogers Hornsby leads all players in history in JAWS (100.5) and Joe Morgan is the leader at second base for post-integration players.
The average JAWS score for enshrined second basemen is 57, with Utley nosing right up to that average at 56.9. Neither Pedroia nor Kinsler are at that level, with JAWS of 46.5 and 46.1, respectively.
Like Utley, Pedroia is remembered as a winner and leader. Utley won a ring with the Phillies in 2008, while Pedroia played for winners in two World Series, earning his first a year before Utley and his second in 2013. (Pedroia has a third ring for being a member of the 2018 team.) That’s not the only hardware the two have. Utley had six All-Star appearances and four Silver Sluggers. He doesn’t have a Gold Glove, but in retrospect, that seems like an oversight of the voters, as he is regarded as one of the best defenders at his position during his time. Pedroia has four Gold Gloves, six All-Star appearances and a Silver Slugger award, and he was Rookie of the Year and an MVP.
Like Utley, Pedroia has fewer than 2,000 hits, amassing 1,805 over his career that spanned 14 seasons. The two have similar numbers, with Utley putting up a career .275/.358/.465 slash line, good for a 117 OPS+. Pedroia had a career slash line of .299/.365/.439 and a 113 OPS+. Utley had just 80 more hits than Pedroia, whose career ended prematurely due to a knee injury that limited him to just 28 games after his 34th birthday. Utley’s career started late, with him debuting at 24 years old in 2004. However, in their primes, the two were the best second basemen in baseball.
At first glance, Kinsler doesn’t have the same case as those two, but he has a similar one. He has the same number of rings as Utley (one, with the Red Sox in 2018), the same number of All-Star appearances as Pedroia (four) and a pair of Gold Gloves. He had more hits than either, falling just a single hit short of 2,000. His career slash line is .269/.337/.440 with an OPS+ of 107. He has just two fewer home runs (257) than Utley and is best both in steals (243, 89 more than Utley, and 105 more than Pedroia.) It’s hard to argue Pedroia is a Hall of Famer without checking a box for Kinsler, as well.
Twenty-first-century starters
CC Sabathia, Félix Hernández
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