An early look at the 2021 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot

A look at Mark Buehrle and Torii Hunter

It appears that Hudson’s case rests largely on how voters view traditional pitching stats and on whether the lack of strong starting pitching candidates over the next few years warrants the decision that he was an elite pitcher for a long enough time to get in.

Mark Buehrle’s case also depends largely on the latter as well, yet even though he boasts a higher career WAR, he probably has a bigger uphill climb to get in. He has the 200 wins (and it’s looking more and more like 200 is the new 300 in terms of evaluating pitchers), with 214, though that comes against 160 losses. His career ERA is also significantly higher than that of Hudson at 3.81, while Buehrle only placed in Cy Young Award voting once (fifth in 2005).

Buehrle had a long, great run, yet he just wasn’t dominant the way we would expect a Hall of Famer to be. While Hudson at least had three seasons with an ERA under 3.00, Buehrle had no such seasons. Hudson also had more career strikeouts.

The guess here is that Buehrle will fall far short, while Hudson’s case, while strong, won’t quite resonate with enough voters.

As for Torii Hunter, his case rests largely on his defense, as he was a nine-time Gold Glove Award winner in the outfield. He also was a five-time All-Star and placed in MVP voting five times. In addition, he was a very good offensive player, hitting 353 career home runs (including 20 in a season 11 times) while collecting 2,452 career hits.

I think Hunter has a stronger case than people realize, and he might hang around on the ballot for several years, but the guess here is that he won’t get in, either. While he was a game-changing defender, the offensive numbers just aren’t there. Like Buehrle, Hunter is a strong “Hall of Very Good” candidate.