Scott Rolen and Fred McGriff’s Induction Says More About the Hall of Fame Than It Does About Them
Both were great talents — but both also fall below the HOF average at their positions.
After a couple of Hall of Fame classes headlined by huge star power — Derek Jeter in 2021 (delayed from 2020) and David Ortiz in 2022 — the Class of 2023, which gets inducted on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET, features more subdued figures. Longtime Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen will join former Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves first baseman Fred McGriff to receive the Cooperstown call, becoming forever immortalized among the sport’s greats. But in light of who continues to not be in the Hall, the understated quality of both McGriff and Rolen’s careers feels indicative of the different standards applied to different players from baseball’s most problematic statistical era.
McGriff and Rolen were both tremendous talents, to be clear. Each was a World Series champion (McGriff with Atlanta in 1995; Rolen with St. Louis in 2006) and both earned at least five All-Star nods. Rolen almost immediately became the Phillies’ answer to his Hall of Fame divisional rival at the hot corner, Atlanta’s Chipper Jones, while McGriff was iconic on multiple levels: From the uniquely cool helicopter follow-through of his swing, to the fact that Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium literally caught fire the day he was acquired by the Braves, and of course his presence in Tom Emanski’s classic Defensive Drills video.
So both players could make compelling Hall of Fame arguments for themselves. But both were also repeatedly rejected by the writers on the ballot: Rolen took six tries to crack the 75 percent voting threshold, while McGriff never made it in 10 attempts before being selected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. Each ranked among the Top 5 in MVP voting just once in their careers — McGriff was fourth in 1993, Rolen was fourth in 2004. Among contemporary observers, it was not at all obvious that either Rolen or McGriff were future Hall of Famers during the time they played.
Nor is it terribly obvious by the numbers in retrospect. Only once in each player’s career did they lead their position in Wins Above Replacement (WAR): McGriff was No. 1 among first basemen in 1988 — but was essentially done as even a Top-10 1B after the 1994 season — while Rolen led all third basemen in 2002. And although McGriff led his teams in WAR four times overall, he was merely the 10th-best player on the 1995 Braves’ championship roster, trailing such legends as Steve Avery and Ryan Klesko. For his part, Rolen was No. 2 on the 2006 champion Cardinals (trailing only Albert Pujols), but he was only ever the best player on his team by WAR twice — for the 2001 Phillies and the 2004 Cardinals.
Does any of this really matter when you have a fancy bronze plaque of yourself sitting in the Hall of Fame? Obviously no. And again, I’m not pointing out holes in McGriff and Rolen’s HOF résumés to argue they shouldn’t get inducted this weekend. But with both players’ careers overlapping significantly with the Steroid Era, Rolen and McGriff are symbolic of the premium placed on so-called “clean” numbers by the Hall’s gatekeepers.
Barry Bonds had more than twice as many WAR as Rolen and nearly three times (!) as many as McGriff, but he was soundly dismissed by the same committee that stamped McGriff’s Cooperstown ticket. If that doesn’t send a message, I don’t know what does. Yet at the same time, it seems strange to induct lesser players as a means of punishing high-profile accused performance-enhancing drug users. If few experts in the moment thought McGriff or Rolen were Hall of Famers, does it make sense to rewrite their history because they happened to play at the height of the Steroid Era?
That’s why it will be somewhat peculiar when McGriff and Rolen take their place among the immortals on Sunday. Both were extremely good players, some of the best in history. But compared with the players still waiting to get in the Hall, admitting two who fall below their positions’ average standard rings a bit hollow.
Filed under: Baseball