Adrian Beltre’s Hall of Fame credentials
By Bill Felber
Adrian Beltre has announced his retirement…now it’s time to take his measure for Cooperstown
Adrian Beltre’s announcement that he is retiring touched off an immediate spate of discussion concerning his Hall of Fame qualifications. The consensus: He’s in…possibly on the first ballot.
A deeper look at the statistics behind the argument largely supports that view, although some of those stats leave just enough room for a dedicated naysayer to make an opposing case.
In considering the case for or against any Hall of Fame candidate, the first question is: what are the standards? The Hall offers only general guidelines. But as a general proposition, contemporary voters tend to focus on two “new” stats: Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Park Adjusted OPS (OPS+).
We’ll look at those, but we’ll also consider some old-time metrics: batting average, home runs and plate appearances. We’ll also look at honors and awards: How many times was the player among the top five finalists in the MVP voting? How often was he selected as an All Star? Finally, for each of those measurements we’ll consider the difference between the player’s career performance and peak performance, which we’ll define as each player’s best five consecutive seasons.
Our field of study will include Beltre as well as the 14 players presently enshrined in Cooperstown whose primary position was third base. For context, we’ll also include five very good third baseman who, despite being eligible, have never mustered Hall of Fame-level support. The five non-Hall of Famers, selected from different eras, are Buddy Bell, Ron Cey, Stan Hack, Ken Boyer and Scott Rolen.
Considering how Beltre fares within that field of 20 ought to give us a pretty good indicator of whether his Hall of Fame candidacy will hold up to voter scrutiny five years from now.