2024 Hall of Fame Season, Part 3

The New Guys on the BBWAA Ballot Who Have No Case

When I say these guys have “no case” for being elected, that’s obviously my personal opinion. As you’ll see, there are cases being made for some of these guys depending on how you view certain stats or how you feel about peak performance being recognized over longevity. I don’t personally view them that way, and don’t see any of these guys as being deserving of the Hall of Fame, but that’s just one view.

The bigger problem these guys face is finding enough votes to stay on the ballot in future years. In a couple of cases I’m hopeful they get the 5% necessary to return next year, but I see that as a longshot in most of their cases. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Carlos González

I’ll be honest, I really don’t know why Cargo made it onto the ballot when others didn’t. Here are three outfielders who retired after the 2019 season. I don’t see any real difference in their careers.

Sure, González hit better, bit not by a significant amount once you account for the Coors Field factor. He had a .993 OPS for his career in 630 games in Denver, and that skews a lot of those numbers. His career road OPS was .724, the same as the career OPS of Carlos Gómez and more than 20 points worse than Martín Prado’s career mark. Their neutralized stats are pretty close.