Editor’s Note: This is the first of three stories we’ll be rolling out on the active players with interesting Hall of Fame cases. We’ll cover outfielders on Monday and designated hitters and pitchers on Tuesday.
The Baseball Hall of Fame is meant to appreciate the best to ever play the sport. The primary discussion among fans surrounding Cooperstown, however, centers on the borderline cases—the guys who deserve to be enshrined in the minds of some and who simply rise to the Hall of Very Good in the minds of others.
Sure, we honor the shoo-ins such as Derek Jeter, Ken Griffey Jr. and Mariano Rivera. But we vouch hardest for our favorites who are expected to come perilously close to that 75% cutoff of affirmative votes needed for induction. So, this column won’t be devoted to the active MLB players who could already start rehearsing their induction speeches. Instead, I’ll try to get an early start on highlighting the players most likely to spend the maximum 10 years on the ballot … or at least sweat it out for a few years.
