The high-profile Hall of Fame vote each offseason is the BBWAA ballot and we’ll continue covering that in the next several weeks. There’s another vote each winter, though, divided up into different eras. The Classic Baseball Era Committee, which covers players, managers, umpires and executives “whose primary contribution to the game came prior to 1980,” is voting on eight candidates this year.
The committee will meet at the Winter Meetings on Sunday. A 16-person panel votes and candidates need to get at least 12 votes to make the Hall of Fame. That panel this year features Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith, Lee Smith, Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Joe Torre and Tony Pérez, executives Sandy Alderson, Terry McGuirk, Dayton Moore, Arte Moreno and Brian Sabean along with media members/historians Bob Elliot, Leslie Heaphy, Steve Hirdt, Dick Kaegel and Larry Lester.
This is much more difficult to handicap than the BBWAA vote for myriad reasons. Keep in mind the panel changes each year, so while I’ll discuss past votes, we can’t be sure the voting body will behave the same. Voting is also done in person as a group, which means there’s room and time for debate, discussion and, often, advocacy. That’s where the historians come in on making cases to the current Hall of Famers, for example.
Still, I will give it a shot. Here are the eight candidates sorted in order of their chances to make it in.
Dick Allen
I’ve made Allen’s case before, though I thought he’d be in by now. He was only one vote away in 2015 and I thought his death in 2020 would draw enough attention to his stellar career to push him over the top next time. He missed by one vote again in 2022, when the committee voted in a whopping five new Hall of Famers. In glancing around the ballot this year, Allen appears likely to be viewed as the most deserving.
I predict he makes it.
Dave Parker
Cobra is an MVP and two-time batting champion who made seven All-Star Games while winning three Silver Sluggers and three Gold Gloves. He was a member of two World Series champions. In parts of 19 seasons, he hit .290 with a 121 OPS+ and 2,712 hits, 526 doubles, 339 home runs, 1,493 RBI and 1,272 runs. He’s somewhat close statistically to committee selections like Andre Dawson, Tony Oliva and Harold Baines. He was last on the committee ballot in 2020 and got seven votes (remember, 12 of 16 are needed for induction), trailing Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons and Dwight Evans. Miller and Simmons got in the Hall while Evans isn’t on this ballot.
Again, we don’t know the makeup of the committee, but it looks like maybe only Allen will be in front of Parker in line here?
Vic Harris
In parts of 17 seasons in recorded history in the Negro Leagues, Harris hit .303/.370/.428 and made seven All-Star teams. His case is trickier because a big part of his resume is his managerial career, during which he won seven pennants and the 1948 Negro Leagues World Series. His career regular-season record was 547-278 (.663, which, for a point of reference, averages out to a 107-win season out of 162 games).
It’s difficult to weigh a case that includes both manager and player components, but the committee in 2022 — Harris’ first-ever chance at the Hall — gave him 10 of the 16 votes. He was behind five players who made the Hall of Fame and the aforementioned Allen.
John Donaldson
On that same 2022 ballot, Donaldson got eight votes.
Via the Baseball Hall of Fame, Donaldson “pitched in the Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues for more than 30 years, earning a reputation as one of the best pitchers in the game. Also playing the outfield and managing, Donaldson helped establish the barnstorming business model that was profitable for Black teams for decades.”
There’s plenty of lore behind Donaldson, too, such as his 30-strikeout game. He is said to have thrown 14 no-hitters and two perfect games. In a 1952 poll of players, he was a first-teamer on the Negro Leagues’ best players ever list.
Luis Tiant
The baseball world lost Tiant this year on Oct. 8 at the age of 83. Could that move the needle here? It’s always possible. In his 19 seasons, he won two ERA titles and finished in the top six of Cy Young voting four times. He went 229-172 with a 3.30 career ERA (114 ERA+), striking out 2,416 batters in 3,486 ⅓ innings. He never won a World Series, but went 3-0 with a 2.86 ERA in 34 ⅔ career playoff innings.
Tiant has had awful luck with a ton of chances at getting into the Hall. He was on the BBWAA ballot for 15 years, never getting above 25% of the vote, and he’s been on three committee ballots without having ever received a single vote. He hasn’t been on the ballot since 2018, however, and the more recent committees have started to get a bit more lenient. The combination of that with his death have me a little more bullish on his chances, though I still think he misses the cut.
Steve Garvey
Garvey won an MVP, two NLCS MVPs, four Gold Gloves and was a 10-time All-Star. He hit .294 with a 117 OPS+ while collecting 2,599 hits, 440 doubles, 272 home runs, 1,308 RBI and 1,143 runs in his career. In 55 playoff games, he hit .338/.361/.550 with 11 homers and 31 RBI, playing in five World Series and winning one.
The advanced metrics don’t love him. He sits 51st all-time among first baseman in JAWS, for example, around players like Anthony Rizzo, Boog Powell, Kent Hrbek and Cecil Cooper.
Garvey got to as high as 42.6% of the vote in 15 years on the BBWAA ballot and then was shut out his first three tries in committee votes, but he did get six of the 16 votes in 2020. He certainly has a chance this time.
Tommy John
How about some longevity along with a name being attached to the “fame” pillar here? John is now most famous for being the guinea pig on the procedure that now bears his name. The best guess here is there’s a generation of young baseball players who didn’t even know there was an actual pitcher named Tommy John.
He was an impressive one, though, especially in staying power. He pitched in parts of 26 years, and obviously missed a full season in the middle after he had the surgery. He won 288 games in all, pitching to a 3.34 ERA (111 ERA+) in 4,710 ⅓ innings.
John was a four-time All-Star and finished second in Cy Young voting three times, getting votes two other years. He pitched in 14 playoff games, posting a 2.65 ERA in 88 ⅓ innings.
In 15 BBWAA ballots he peaked at 31.7% of the vote and four tries on committee ballots have seen him get zero total votes.
Ken Boyer
An MVP and five-time Gold Glover, Boyer was a member of the 1964 World Series champion Cardinals. He hit .287/.349/.462 (116 OPS+) in his career with 2,143 hits, 318 doubles, 282 home runs, 1,141 RBI, 1,104 runs and 105 stolen bases. If we zero in on the newer metrics, Boyer has the best case here with JAWS. He sits 14th all-time among third basemen, just slightly below the average Hall of Fame third baseman, nearly even with Home Run Baker of the Deadball Era. He’s ahead of Dick Allen — along with Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado and José Ramírez for the time being.
Boyer has gotten no real traction before. He’s been through six committee votes and in the last three was shut out each time.
Prediction
I believe all eight candidates here have a decent chance to get in. I’ve said it’s incredibly hard to handicap for a reason, so though I have Boyer last, it’s possible he’s the only one to make it from this group. All candidates have an argument.
Officially, though, I’ll say three guys make it: Allen, Parker and either Harris or Donaldson.
