MLB: The one-and-done All-Star team of Baseball Hall of Fame rejects
By Bill Felber
When the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame voting results are announced Tuesday evening, not all of the interest will be at the top of the ballot. Attention will also be drawn to the fate of a strong slate of potential one-and-done candidates, among them Jimmy Rollins, Mark Teixeira, Ryan Howard, and Jake Peavy.
Unlike some of their better-known contemporaries — Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, and Manny Ramirez — there’s no consensus that any of those guys will even reach the 5 percent threshold to stay on the ballot for a second year. They could be one and done.
There are many who view that prospect as sad. Rollins, they assert, was one of his era’s best middle infielders. Teixeira was a talented first baseman who doubled as one of the best switch-hitting mid-order guys since Eddie Murray.
The truth is that one and done guys have been a sad fixture of Hall voting for decades. Since 2000, the names of 276 of the game’s best came and went from the Hall ballot in the veritable blink of an eye.
And some of those 276 were pretty salty.
What follows is an All-Star team of sorts, but one that neither Rollins, Teixeira, Howard, nor Peavy want to be joining tonight.
It’s a one-and-done MLB All-Star unit, the best players at each position who, despite their performance, got only that single shot at making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
It’s no cheap collection of wanna-bes. The players recognized on the following pages made a combined 56 All-Star Game appearances, won 15 Silver Sluggers, and 18 Gold Gloves. They starred on 15 World Series winners, won two Rookie of the Year awards, an MVP, two Cy Youngs, five ERA titles, and a Rolaids Reliever of the Year plaque.
Yet none of that got them as much as a second look in Cooperstown. This is not to say these players deserve induction. It is to say they deserved more than that single fleeting glance.
The team is comprised of the best player at each position, plus a designated hitter, a right-handed starter, left-handed starter, and closer. All of these players have been considered by Hall voters since 2000.