Baseball Hall of Fame: Why Carlos Beltrán, Billy Wagner and Andy Pettitte get votes on Matt Snyder’s ballot

For the first time, I hold in my hands an official Hall of Fame ballot. As I write this, I’m about to mail it out. I made a virtual truckload of homework in anticipation of this and it all started when I was little. For all my history there, I have already presented it.

Specific to this ballot, I have done several months of work and will link to anything relevant as we go through my selections and non-selections.

Feel free to scroll to the names in bold to see who I’m voting for or even to the end to see my ballot. In the meantime, I’m going to provide some explanation, because part of my process is to be such an open book that I’m responsible for my ballots.

First, I feel obligated to explain my “Big Hall” voting position. Remember, I’m just one voter out of about 400. Players need to get 75% of the vote to get into the Hall of Fame. Since, essentially, one “no” vote almost negates three “yes” votes, I’m going to be lenient with my votes. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I think every player I vote for should definitely be in the Hall of Fame. That means I think they deserve my vote and we’ll see how the rest of the voting body feels.

Then the rules mailed to us state that “voting will be based on the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team or teams in which the player has played.”

The obvious start is this little story of the PED which continues to linger on the ballot. I have been saying for years what my position will be and I am a man of my word. If a player was arrested by MLB for violating the joint drug agreement and suspended once the system was implemented, he’s a no for me. If a player was accused of using or even admitted to using before a suspension system was put in place, I wouldn’t blame them because it was a league-wide issue and the league itself benefited while looking the other way. (plus, Bud Selig is in the Hall of Fame).

Basically, I think it’s unsportsmanlike enough to try to bend the rules agreed upon by the players’ association for individual benefit – to the point where it risked harming the team – that I’m willing to refuse my Hall of Fame for the Broken. When there were no rules in place, it was the Wild West, and I’m not worried about the players who were singled out in the reports.

That means I would have been a yes for Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire, but also a no for Rafael Palmeiro. I will be a no for players like Ryan Braun and Robinson Canó in the future.

As for anything related to off-field behavior, I chose to ignore it. The voting rules can be interpreted in many ways, but they read to me that voting should be based on “player record” and “contributions” to the team, as long as we are only talking about the world baseball. I could understand there being an argument against a player getting a suspension for domestic violence harming the team, but none of the ones I strongly consider meet that criteria.

Right off the bat, we can eliminate Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, thanks to my PED rule. A-Rod did nefarious things for years to get around the rules and received a 211-game suspension. He has a very complicated casebut I’m comfortable leaving it aside. Ramirez’s case is not as complicated. He was arrested twice. He came out.

What a disappointment to start with the negative, eh? Let’s move on to YES! votes.

Ichirou Suzuki And CC Sabathiacome down. The only question for Ichiro is if it is unanimous and while I’m pretty sure he will, I’m not going to stand in the way. CC’s case is very strong and I am delighted to be part of the movement for it.

I understand why there would be questions about Carlos Beltran due to the Astros sign-stealing scandal in 2017. To me, a team-wide operation with the goal of achieving team success by reading catchers’ signs is much less disqualifying for the Temple of fame than an individual juice despite the possibility of a 50 match suspension. I can understand why the mileage varies here, but I’m just a voter. We won’t all agree and that’s okay. With him cross the hurdle here for meIt’s an easy yes.

Billy Wagner is one of the greatest closers in baseball history and I have been drive this train for 10 years. I am very pleased to contribute to his induction into the Hall in his final attempt.

Andrew Jones could be the the best defensive center fielder of all time and he also hit 434 career home runs. There is an incident of domestic violence in his past, but it happened after he finished playing. I don’t like it at all, but I’m trying to establish consistency as best I can and sticking to the product on the field here. That means he’s there.

Chase Utley had one of greatest five-year runs in MLB history for a second baseman and put up enough production for the rest of his career to warrant one day becoming a Hall of Famer. He won’t make it this year, but he has a chance and he will get my vote every year until that happens.

I have come to firmly believe that we must relax the standards a little – again, only a little! — for beginner throwersgiven the current climate. This means that I vote for Mark Buehrle And Andy Pettitte. There is a PED connection on Pettitte, but keep in mind that this happened before a testing system was in place and he played nine seasons with a testing system and never been nailed. I’m comfortable with a vote for him.

I have two spots left and some of the players in the group I considered are Félix Hernández, Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, Jimmy Rollins and David Wright.

I ended up going with Bobby Abreuwho was long underestimated and deserves a long look. And I stopped at nine o’clock. I just can’t get there with Pedroia, Rollins or Wright and those were the closest for me. There is also a long-standing tradition among voters when they have open spots to vote on their personal favorites. As a lifelong die-hard Cubs fan, I am forever grateful to Ben Zobrist, especially for his monster hit and 2016 World Series MVP. I just didn’t feel like it was right in my first go-round to hit such a home run when there was justification for the votes for people like Pedroia, Rollins and Wright, so it’s a no.

The official ballot: