Philadelphia Phillies fans and the MLB Hall of Fame vote

When articles speculating about MLB Hall of Fame vote roll around each January, many Philadelphia Phillies fans likely scroll or page right by those pieces. They’re thinking: “What’s the point? When was the last one anyway? About 30 years ago.”

This is only about half right, of course, but does have a kernel of truth to it. In paging back through history to the induction of Mike Schmidt and Richie Ashburn in 1995, the Philadelphia faithful would actually pass five other HOF players who contributed significantly to the Fightin’ Story, but they were players whose primary teams are not considered by the Hall to be the Phillies.

These players were Roy Halladay (inducted in 2019), Jim Thome (’18), Pedro Martinez (’13), Ryne Sandberg (’05), and Jim Bunning (’96). Of course, Sandberg’s contribution was mostly as an annoyance, first as a HOF player traded away after only 13 games with the Phillies, and later as an annoyingly ineffective manager of the team.

How is it that all of this year’s HOF-eligible Phillies were former annoying players? (Oh, except the guy who got no votes.)

Schmidt and Ashburn’s primary team, inarguably, was the Phillies.

Anyway, that’s why this piece didn’t precede this year’s vote. Why speculate? Before Tuesday’s vote announcement there were five Phillies deserving of at least a few votes for the Hall, Scott Rolen, Jimmy Rollins, Billy Wagner, Bobby Abreu, and Jayson Werth. (Chase Utley’s first vote will be next year.)

Let’s consider them in their reverse order of eventual election probability before yesterday’s vote announcement:

Jayson Werth

Werth, of course, was the principal right fielder on the five straight Phillies NL East championship teams that began their run in 2007. He had a nice MLB career, gathering nearly 1500 hits in what amounted to the equivalent of 13 full seasons.

He had more than a few nice moments in red pinstripes, including a three-run homer to back Jamie Moyer’s record complete-game shutout in May, 2010, and memorably snapping at a fan who interfered with his effort to catch a fly foul just over the railing along the right field line in Philly later that year. Despite some media hand-wringing over the latter incident, many, many Philly fans approved of Werth’s outburst.

He had a bit of a prickly personality by many accounts, but he was our prickly player. He was an All-Star in ’09 and gathered some MVP votes in four different years. Unfortunately, Jayson Werth is not the player immediately springing to mind when one hears “Hall of Fame,” and it seemed entirely possible he might fall off the ballot in his first year with less than 5 percent of the vote.

And that is exactly what happened. Werth got no votes, which may strike some Phillies fans as wrong by a trifle. Not totally unexpected, though, this matter presents us with an interesting modern fact: A player who was paid over $122 million for the last seven years of his career (in Washington) got no votes for the Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Rollins

Jimmy Rollins is the second most important infielder in Phillies history behind only Mike Schmidt. Rollins eventually passed Schmidt to take the current career record for hits by a Phillie (2306), and his overall numbers are in the rough equivalent of Hall of Famer Barry Larkin’s.

Larkin’s lead in batting average is offset by Rollins’ lead in runs scored. Rollins’ lead in home runs is offset by Larkin’s superiority in OBP, and so forth. Both shortstops won MVP awards, one apiece, and Rollins gathered four Gold Gloves to Larkin’s three.

Rollins was his team’s vocal inspirational leader, as opposed to Chase Utley’s leadership by quiet grit. Famously, the shortstop declared the Phillies the team to beat in 2007, and indeed they were, running down the Mets for the division championship in the season’s final days.

And yet, Inquirer.com writer Scott Lauber suggested by an article header that Rollins could have fallen off the Hall ballot after getting 9.4 percent of the votes in his initial vote last winter.

Early public votes this year, according to Lauber, had him at 11.4 percent before Tuesday’s final tally reveal. For whatever it’s worth, the chatter on “MLB Now” Monday night designated J-Roll a “down ballot” player worth more attention.

Perhaps that remark drove a couple of votes. Or not. In any event, Rollins’ vote percentage “jumped” 3.5 points to 12.9 percent. Good news in a way. The only player elected this year (see below) started out at 10.2 percent and was finally elected in his sixth year.

Bobby Abreu

Abreu’s case is interesting to contrast to Rollins’ because, while Rollins annoyed Philly fans by not always running out groundballs at full speed, Abreu consistently disappointed the locals by an apparent lack of the passion that Rollins generally demonstrated. In Philly, Abreu was seen as afraid of hitting the wall in right field that was part of his defensive territory.

However, Abreu had 15 more hits in his career than Rollins (2470), a batting average 27 points higher at .291, and over 400 more RBI. Granted, he batted in a lineup spot likely to produce more RBI, but Abreu is also one of only seven players with 250-plus home runs (288) and 350-plus stolen bases (400). All but two of those other players are enshrined at Cooperstown, and both of them are named Bonds.

And yet, Abreu’s percentage of the Hall vote in his first three years of eligibility had been 5.5, 8.7 and 8.6. From a point of view in the Abreu household, that 0.1 drop had to be concerning. However, it’s very likely that few Phillies fans even knew of this paltry showing for three years running. They always seemed to vaguely dismiss a player who batted .305, drove in 94 a year, and stole an average of 29 bases each season for his first eight years on the team. He was traded in the middle of his ninth year.

Abreu also hit the first home run in the history of Citizens Bank Park.  That was a line drive through a steady rain into the left field seats. For likely other reasons, in his fourth year of eligibility, Abreu’s stock nearly doubled to 15.4 percent. This is a good sign since the only player elected Tuesday (again, see below) once doubled his vote between years.

If Abreu can keep moving up, look for his eventual election in 2026 or ’27.