These 10 players are the best to receive only one year of consideration for the MLB Hall of Fame before dropping off the ballot.
Sometimes it’s an honor just to be nominated. This often holds true for entertainment awards shows as well as Hall of Fame voting. With less than two weeks to go before the 2017 class is announced, we can be fairly certain that Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines will be elected while players like Arthur Rhodes and Matt Stairs can put even appearing on the ballot once as their crowning achievements.
Once nominated, players can remain on the Hall of Fame ballot for 10 years (down from 15 up until a couple years ago); however, if a player fails to appear on five percent of ballots his eligibility terminates. Usually star players who aren’t quite Hall-caliber players hang around for multiple years, but occasionally some greatness falls through the cracks. Over the years, quite a few players appeared on the ballot with numbers deserving of strong consideration, yet were unable to crack that five percent barrier and never reappeared.
Here are the 10 best players to go one-and-done on the Hall of Fame ballot. This list does not include players who received less than five percent but were granted amnesty and later reappeared (see Dick Allen and Ron Santo). The driving, though not exclusive, factor in this list is wins above replacement from Baseball Reference (bWAR) and Fangraphs (fWAR). Career longevity is thus a factor, as is actually appearing in games. If you’re looking for relief pitchers, you won’t find them here. Sorry, Dan Quisenberry fans.
Defense is also factored into WAR calculations, for better or worse. Carlos Delgado was well on his way to some Hall-worthy numbers before hip problems ended his career prematurely. Even so, he hit at least 30 home runs in 10 consecutive seasons from 1997-2006 and had a tremendous career batting line of .280/.383/.546. Poor defense at first base throughout his career suppressed his WAR totals and even though he ended his career with 473 home runs without so much as a whisper of PEDs, he received only 21 votes (3.8%) in 2015. But he’s not among the top 10 players to meet this fate.
An honorable mention should go to Javier Vazquez. With 43.3 bWAR and 53.9 fWAR, Vazquez would not crack this list. He does, however, rank 30th in career strikeouts and had a very productive 14-year career that was also cut short by injuries. Vazquez would have been eligible to appear on the ballot this year, but is noteworthy here for not even being nominated.
Here are the 10 best players to appear just once on a Hall of Fame ballot.