This story was excerpted from Rhett Bollinger¡¯s Angels Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
ANAHEIM -- The National Baseball Hall of Fame¡¯s Class of 2025 was officially announced Tuesday with Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner voted in by the Baseball Writers¡¯ Association of America.
Lost in the shuffle is that three former Angels will remain on the ballot, as Bobby Abreu received 77 votes (19.5 percent in his sixth appearance), Francisco Rodríguez garnered 40 votes (10.2 percent in his third appearance) and Torii Hunter got 20 votes (5.1 percent in his fifth appearance). Players must receive 5 percent of the vote to stay on the ballot and can remain on the ballot for 10 years.
But a few former Angels also fell off the ballot, as second baseman Ian Kinsler received 10 votes (2.5 percent) in his first year eligible, while closer Fernando Rodney didn¡¯t garner any votes. The Angels, though, did see Dave Parker, who played 119 games with the club in 1991, get elected via the Classic Baseball Era Committee in December.
Abreu, who played with the Angels from 2009-12, saw his total rise from 14.8 percent last year, getting 20 more votes. He has an underrated case to be a Hall of Famer, as he had a blend of power and speed, reaching the 30-30 club twice with 288 career homers and 400 career stolen bases in an 18-year career. The two-time All-Star was a career .291/.395/.475 hitter and reached 100 RBIs and 100 runs eight times each.
Abreu, whose best years came with the Phillies from 1998-2005, will remain on the ballot for four more years. And while it doesn¡¯t seem likely that he¡¯ll get enough support to eventually reach Cooperstown, it¡¯s worth noting his career 60.2 WAR is right in line with other right fielders in the Hall of Fame such as Vladimir Guerrero (59.5 WAR) and Enos Slaughter (57.6). Parker accrued 40.1 WAR during his career, which is much lower than Abreu.
Rodr¨ªguez also saw his total slightly increase, going from 30 votes (7.8 percent) last year in his first year on the ballot to just above 10 percent this year. Rodr¨ªguez holds MLB¡¯s single-season save record with 62 set in 2008 and played a pivotal role in helping the Angels win the 2002 World Series as a rookie with five wins in relief that postseason.
He pitched with the Angels from 2002-08 as part of a 16-year career and racked up 437 career saves, which ranks sixth all-time. He led the league in saves three times and posted a 2.86 ERA with 1,142 strikeouts in 976 innings. But he also had off-the-field issues, including two arrests.
Hunter, meanwhile, saw his total drop from 28 votes (7.3 percent) to just over 5 percent to remain on the ballot. Hunter, who played with the Angels from 2008-12 as part of a 19-year career, was a five-time All-Star and won nine Gold Glove Awards and two Silver Sluggers. He registered 50.7 WAR, which is a bit lower than Abreu, and hurts his case.
MLB.com¡¯s Matthew Leach, the new beat reporter for the Twins, spoke to Hall of Fame expert Jay Jaffe about Hunter¡¯s chances to make it to Cooperstown. Jaffe, the creator of the JAWS Hall of Fame predictor model, said advanced statistics, especially defensively, hurt Hunter¡¯s chances.
¡°The traditional case as it would¡¯ve been understood 20 years ago is that here you¡¯ve got a nine-time Gold Glove-winning center fielder, five-time All-Star, who hit over 350 home runs, who stole almost 200 bases, collected almost 2,500 hits,¡± Jaffe said. ¡°Was on a whole bunch of playoff teams. Never got to a World Series but consistently helped his teams toward the playoffs and did OK, had some big postseason moments. I think there¡¯s probably a point in Hall of Fame history when he would have been, I don¡¯t know about an easy call, but I don¡¯t think his election would have particularly raised eyebrows if it had come along 30 years ago.
"The counterargument to that, the advanced-stat case, is that the fielding metrics that we have for him do not paint him as a particularly elite fielder. The contrast between that and the nine Gold Gloves is doing a lot to limit his value and therefore how he measures up in terms of wins above replacement and JAWS.¡±