Before moving on to consideration of the individual players on this year's ballot, I thought I would start off by establishing the ground rules that I use to evaluate the "Hall-worthiness" of an individual player.
There are four ways a player can meet what I consider the Hall qualifying standard.
1. Ten years as one of the best players at a position
This is the standard that should apply to most inductees: a period of roughly a decade (or more) during which the player was one of the top pitchers or hitters in the game. For purposes of the HOF, I categorize players as starting pitchers, middle infielders, catchers, and 'hitters' (corner infielders + outfielders + DH). I consider MIs and catchers separately due to the defensive value of the positions and (particularly for catchers) the physical demands of what they do. For example, if you compare the career value of the average Hall of Fame catcher using a sabermetric stat like WAR, you will find that the average catcher has substantially less accumulated value than, say, the average left fielder. This is because catchers tend to play less games, may have shorter careers in terms of length of service, and on average don't hit as well as players who field a less challenging position.
Looking at it another way, in my eyes catchers, middle infielders and (obviously) pitchers can be Hall of Famers by virtue of their ability to prevent the other side from scoring runs even if they are less than stellar offensively. The same doesn't apply to other hitters. I'm not saying that being an elite 1st baseman rather than a lousy one counts for nothing, but I wouldn't consider a 1st baseman who was a mediocre hitter a Hall of Famer regardless of how well he played defense. Nor do I see much value in separating, say, left fielders from 1st basemen. Neither play a particularly challenging position, and if they are Hall of Famers it is by virtue of what they do with the bat.
2. Five or more years of transcendence ("The Sandy Koufax rule")
I wouldn't exclude a player from the above category for 9 (rather than 10) great years. But what about the rare player who plays at not only a great, but a historically notable level for a relatively short period of time? The obvious example here is Sandy Koufax, who was basically a journeyman for the first six years of his career, and then spent the next six 1961-66 playing at a level that still gets him mentioned on most short lists of 'greatest pitcher ever'. There has to be an exception for the rare player like Koufax whose flame burns quickly, but very, very bright.
This is not a rule that will qualify a player who performed at a 'mere' Hall of Fame standard for 5 or 6 years (recent examples would include Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly)...they aren't Hall of Famers. This is a rule for a different level of greatness, a guy who was a "Willie Mays Hall of Famer" for several years.
This is a rare category, because most all time great players functioned at such a high level that even their 'decline' phase was at a Hall of Fame level. The peaks of Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, for example, were close to, at, or above Koufax's peak, but they also both clearly meet the first standard. The only players on this ballot who might have a case by this metric are Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (more on that later).
One other player who will soon be up for consideration and may fall into a version of this category is Mariano Rivera. You may have noticed that I didn't include relievers at all under category #1, and that was intentional. Relievers--at least as they are used in the modern game--are usually failed starters and I don't think that their value is sufficient to warrant HOF induction unless they do something truly special. Being one of the best closers in the game for a long time isn't sufficient--but when you look at a guy like Rivera who played well above the HOF level for relievers for the entirety of his career...I think that qualifies as 'transcendent'.
3. Being clearly better than a contemporary at the position who was elected by the writers
Like category 2, this is quite rare. There are many players under consideration who are arguably about as good as recently elected players. Alan Trammell, for example, had a career eerily similar to that of Barry Larkin.
That isn't what this category is about. I'm not putting players in the Hall on the basis of close calls.
It also isn't about comparing a recent player to someone elected by the (generally) lower standards of the various incarnations of the Veterans' Committee, or a player from a different era. Yes, I know Rabbit Maranville is in the Hall of Fame. Yes, Alan Trammell was clearly a better shortstop than Rabbit Maranville (67.1 vs. 39.4 career WAR). And no, I don't think that makes Alan Trammell a Hall of Famer. If 'better than Rabbit Maranville' is the Hall of Fame standard, they're going to need a bigger plaque room.
But occasionally there is a player who mystifyingly gets elected to the Hall despite being...well...not all that good. A guy from the same era who played the same position and was indisputably better automatically has a very strong Hall of Fame case in the event of such an election. The most recent example is Goose Gossage. When the writers decided to reward Bruce Sutter with HOF induction for inventing, or popularizing the split-fingered fastball, or something (neither of which actually happened), the Goose had an ironclad case.
Likewise, if Jack Morris defies the odds and gets elected this year, then Curt Schilling, Mike Mussina, and Tom Glavine (if not elected already) are going to have a very compelling argument for induction.
4. Magic numbers
This is the category that inspires pushback from sabermetricians who see no value in 'round numbers'. To some extent, I agree. What it meant to hit 500 home runs from 1988-2005 is clearly not at all the same thing as hitting 500 home runs from 1955 to 1972. The home run number is, more or less, meaningless in isolation at this point, at least for the purposes of HOF induction.
I am still clinging to the idea that some of the revered marks do have value in the context of recognizing players who were truly exceptional "accumulators"--players who were at a "Hall of Very Good" standard for a long, long time. In particular, if you look at the career WAR levels of each player with 3000 hits or 300 wins, invariably you find a player who is at (and usually well beyond the Hall standard).
And so I still consider 3000 hits and 300 wins 'golden' numbers for Hall eligibility.
A common objection is "Well, what about a player like Jamie Moyer or Johnny Damon? If they had managed to hit the magic numbers, would they be Hall of Famers?" My cop-out answer is "hasn't happened yet", but if pushed, I think the answer is yes. If Jamie Moyer had somehow kept on winning 8-10 games per year into his fifties and finally hit 300...well, it certainly wouldn't mean that Jamie Moyer was ever a great pitcher, but it would mean that he was exceptional. And I think it's OK for the Hall to have room for that.
That being said, I think this criterion ranks 4th of 4 in comparison to the others above. In a stacked ballot like this one, a player whose case is built around having hit one of these magic numbers will be excluded in favor of a player meeting one of the other three standards, should an exclusion prove necessary (remember, the real writers can only vote for ten players, and I held myself to the same standard).
Are there any other "magic numbers"? I'm not convinced that others are necessary, although I can see some merit in the 3000 strikeout club as well. One interesting question is whether a certain number of saves can qualify a reliever for the Hall. As above, I think that Mariano Rivera is in a class by himself when it comes to relievers, but is Trevor Hoffman's 600 saves "Hall-worthy"? I think it remains to be seen...if no one is in range of 600 ten years down the line, then that would strengthen the case that 600 saves is a historically rare achievement that might merit induction in and of itself.
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