Rolen could open HOF door to more third basemen. And soon

Scott Rolen is the top returning vote-getter on this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, and there are many, many valid reasons to support his candidacy, more than we can list here. But beyond anything specific to Rolen and his own individual case, we have a vested interest in this because of one simple reason:

Rolen is a third baseman, and the Hall of Fame does not induct third basemen.

That’s it. That’s the entire premise here. For whatever reason, third basemen have been historically underrepresented in the Hall of Fame, compared to the seven other non-pitcher spots.

Helpfully, the Baseball Hall of Fame site maintains a page that breaks down the collected legends by position, and you can see it right there: Just 17 third basemen, the fewest of any non-DH position group. It’s the only position without at least 19 members inducted, and if you set aside catchers, who are their own animal entirely, it’s the only group without at least 20 members.

But even that doesn’t really tell the full story, does it? Because when you look at the list of 17 names listed as third basemen by the Hall of Fame, you’ll notice some things.

Sure, you'll see Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt, all-time greats who spent most of their time at the hot corner. But there’s also Freddie Lindstrom, who moved off the position after his age-24 season. There’s Paul Molitor, who started more than 100 games at the position only five times, despite 21 seasons in the Majors. They may have played more third base than any other position, but were they really third basemen?

Maybe a better way to look at it, given that players like Molitor moved around to different spots before spending years as a designated hitter, is to not worry about anyone’s primary listed position. Let’s just take all of the Hall of Famers who ever lived, and see how many games they played at each position. (For these purposes, only AL/NL time from Negro League inductees is accounted for, given the ongoing work to improve Negro League statistical accounting.)

Again, if you look past catcher, a unique position with its own demands, third base is short by a _lot_, at just under 29,000 games played. It’s not even three-quarters of the way to first base, which is at nearly 40,000 games played – in part because first base is viewed as an easier position, one that players can move to as they age. But third base, comparatively, is underrepresented.

Not convinced yet? Let’s go back to the 17 listed third basemen on the Hall of Fame site, and look at how they break down:

• 6 of them were born in the 19th century

• 12 of them were born before World War II

• 16 of them were born before 1960

• 3 of them never played in the AL or NL (Negro Leagues stars Ray Dandridge, Judy Johnson, and Jud Wilson)

• More than half – 9 – were elected by various secondary committees, not the regular annual BBWAA ballot

Only Chipper Jones (born 1972) was born in the last six decades. Only Pie Traynor, who was born in 1898, was elected via the regular BBWAA ballot (in 1948) in the first four decades of the Hall's existence, until Eddie Mathews joined him in 1978.

So not only are relatively few third basemen in the Hall of Fame, many of the ones who are were never seen by anyone still alive today, having been born well over 100 years ago – or were elected by committees long after their deaths. This has long been a known issue, of course. Here’s the New York Times in 2018; here’s The Hardball Times in 2013; here’s Bill James himself way back in 1995 calling the position “dramatically underrepresented.”

Why? There are certainly examples of great hitters who were moved off third to less demanding positions as they aged – Molitor, Jim Thome, Tony Pérez, and Harmon Killebrew among them – and that’s likely part of the problem, that early-career third basemen didn’t remain late-career third basemen. (Which is a feather in Rolen’s cap: Every single one of his 2,023 career defensive appearances came at third.) Maybe the voters of decades ago didn’t quite appreciate that third basemen had to hit better than middle infielders and field better than first basemen.

But maybe it’s also that the position we know today – the hot corner is where stars live – is in such a golden age that it makes you forget that this wasn’t always the case.

For example, FanGraphs author and Hall of Fame voter Jay Jaffe has long published his JAWS metric, which is a version of WAR specifically focused on Hall of Fame comparison. Eleven of the 13 best third basemen by this metric are in fact Hall of Famers; one is not eligible yet but should be a slam dunk when he’s on the ballot in 2024 (Adrián Beltré); the final one is Rolen. By this measure, the best non-HOF third basemen are Graig Nettles, Ken Boyer, and Buddy Bell -- good players all, yet none who seem like obvious snubs. Rolen aside, it's difficult to argue that there are many deserving third basemen who have been left out.

To further illustrate this, we took the eight non-pitcher defensive positions, looked up Wins Above Replacement at FanGraphs over the decades, and ranked them. For many, many years, third base was a middle-of-the-pack position, almost never deviating from “the middle.” It wasn’t great. It wasn’t poor. It was just there.

Third base WAR rankings through 2009
1920-69: 5th of 8
1970-79: 3rd of 8
1980-89: 4th of 8
1990-99: 5th of 8
2000-09: 4th of 8

Consistent, right? Now look what’s happened since, split both into the decade of the 2010s and over the last six seasons. Third base is dominant.

Third base WAR rankings since 2010
2010-present: 2nd of 8
2016-present: 1st of 8

If it feels like third base is full of superstars, then that’s absolutely true. Five of the top six WAR seasons for the position have come since 2015, and while that’s a little about the fact that there are more players and teams now than there have been historically, it’s mostly about the caliber of player who mans the spot now.

That 2016 date is convenient, because in May of that year, Jayson Stark (then of ESPN) presciently argued that the golden age of third basemen was then, and little has changed. ("It used to be a bunch of big hairy men who were the power hitters in our game," then-Baltimore manager Buck Showalter told Stark. "Now I've never seen so many guys with power who are also great defenders.")

When we recently looked at the current players who might end up in the Hall of Fame, we found three third basemen who seem like they’ll have extremely good cases (Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado, and José Ramírez) and a trio of others (Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman, Evan Longoria) who will likely at least be in the conversation. If even four get in, and we assume that Rolen and Beltré precede them, then the number of Hall of Fame third basemen will have swelled by 35% compared to today.

All of which comes back to Rolen, an eight-time Gold Glove winner who had an eight-year run from 1997-2004 where he had posted the third-most WAR in the Majors – or, if you prefer, the most WAR in the Majors among players who don’t have PED connection issues. Rolen is trending towards Cooperstown immortality because he had a great career, and because leaving him out would be a mistake. But his induction would also go a long way towards correcting another transgression: the lack of third basemen in the Hall.