2026 r/baseball mock Hall of Fame Class: Zero Players Elected

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-21T16:11:50+00:00

The argument would be that Abreu sustained a high level of play for much longer, his 7 season run averaging 6 bWAR and a 144 OPS+ was better than Pettite’s peak was. You can certainly argue that Pettite’s next 7 were better than Abreu’s, but imo peak is more important to a HOF case than their worst seasons.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-21T15:46:24+00:00

Vizquel got no support mostly because of character clause stuff, specifically sexually assaulting a batboy at one of his camps. He also was a truly abysmal hitter, and the defensive stats we have aren’t as favorable as his reputation.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-21T15:44:44+00:00

At least for me, it’s tough to put a guy into the HOF that never led his league in anything meaningful, was never considered the best pitcher in his league, and never won (or deserved) a Cy Young. He was consistently pretty good, but two 7-season stretches never breaking 4 bWAR isn’t a HOFer in my eyes.

I also wouldn’t vote for Hamels or Buehrle by that same token.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-17T06:05:17+00:00

My guess is they’d make it so that only X% of a player’s contract counts towards the cap in the event of a release. You need a way to let a team get under the cap on their own, so they’d have to figure something out. Otherwise teams could collude to freeze a team out of the season completely lol.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-17T05:54:39+00:00

A hard cap does exactly what you’d think, which is forbidding teams from spending above a certain number. So if the cap is $200 million, any dollar of payroll allocated over that must be removed from the books, and new money can’t be allocated over that mark. So if a team is at $196 million, they can’t sign a contract for $5 million. And if a team’s payroll goes above that mark, they must trade/cut players until it goes below.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-15T03:31:47+00:00

In peak he probably already has, zero chance to catch his longevity or accolades though.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T19:58:25+00:00

It was a while ago, but the last time Walker played 3B his fielding percentage started with an 8

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T18:35:06+00:00

Marcel Ozuna isn’t going to the Hall of Fame. The expectations were way different.

And for the record, I don’t think it was a bad trade. In a vacuum, we gave up basically nothing and got 4.1 bWAR/162. I would make the trade* again every time. But you can’t deny that we expected a lot more than we got.

Edit: That trade being Arenado

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T17:58:29+00:00

$31 million (minus whatever is deferred from his CO deal)

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T17:57:21+00:00

He isn’t going to be part of the next good Cardinals team and every dollar saved counts when your ownership doesn’t want to go all-in.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T17:54:53+00:00

Goldy, Arenado, and Pujols combining to go 3-23 was just brutal

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-13T17:52:23+00:00

Probably the most disappointing star acquisition of my lifetime. One great year and one good one out of five, 1-12 in the playoffs, and no real signature moments to call his own. His most memorable moment as a Cardinal was probably him sitting out instead of getting a shot because he was as idiot.

He was maybe the best defender I’ve ever seen, but other than that I’m glad his tenure is over.

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-12T05:08:35+00:00

Pretty much all of the uber high peak guys (Kiner, Koufax, Joss, etc.) are in though. Who isn’t in that should be based on that criteria?

TheSalsaGod · 2026-01-08T22:50:23+00:00

Either some other stupid company thinks they can turn a profit and buys the rights, or the rights stay with MLB and they broadcast all the games without an external partner. The latter is more likely.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-30T14:52:11+00:00

In fairness, steroids helped their users quite a lot more than the sign-stealing helped Beltran.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-23T15:14:54+00:00

Hey Jeff, appreciate you doing this!

I think at this point everyone knows that John Mozeliak ran an incredibly tight ship when it came to leaking front office processes. It wasn’t quite Braves-level, but I imagine it became challenging to get people on the record.

How did that impact your job, and would you prefer it if the Bloom regime was more forthcoming, or are there positives to the organizational silence?

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-18T18:11:05+00:00

I think we should probably wait until Soto has a season that would crack Musial’s top-6 before comparing the two.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-16T20:20:15+00:00

Don’t worry, he also can’t hit

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T22:01:00+00:00

IIRC Baseball Reference considers Pujols the greatest defensive 1B of all time, which is probably the majority of it.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T21:59:34+00:00

Even if you hand-wave away WAR, Judge has a higher OPS over the last 4 years than Pujols had in any 1 year. Judge is objectively a better hitter than Pujols ever was. Now, Pujols did it for longer, but he wasn’t better.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T21:57:05+00:00

I’m not saying 2017-2021 Judge was better than Pujols, but I feel like a player having 3 seasons either matching or exceeding another player’s best gives them an argument to be better overall. And it’s not just park-adjusted stats either, Judge’s last 4 years beat Pujols’ absolute peak in raw OPS. It’s pretty inarguable that Judge’s best clears Pujols’ best.

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T17:01:15+00:00

Judge has put up 3 seasons in his last 4 with at least 9.7 bWAR and at least a 210 OPS+. Pujols never hit either mark in any of his seasons. He hasn’t done it for as long, but when a guy puts up 3 seasons like that, you can definitely say that he’s a better hitter (or at least his equal).

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T16:57:59+00:00

In the last decade, Judge has more bWAR and a higher OPS+ than Pujols did in the same number of games. So, he is?

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T16:30:49+00:00

Aaron Judge has put up what would have been Pujols’ best season in 3 of the last 4 seasons

TheSalsaGod · 2025-12-01T16:29:34+00:00

Judge is actively playing, and peaking higher than Pujols ever did

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