The Hall of Fame Odds Of Line-Drive Luis
ALSO: DODGERS CORNER THE MARKET ON PRIME-TIME STARTERS
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
LIMITED OFFER FOR HtP READERS:
GET HERE’S THE PITCH 2025
Selected and edited by Dan Schlossberg
(215 pp., $24.95)
This first annual collection of 35 great baseball stories, analysis, memories, and trivia for the baseball fanatics on your gift list (including you) is available now for $24.95 at
http://www.actasports.com
But subscribers to this newsletter get 10% off on one copy or 20% off on two or more copies by calling 800-397-2282, talking to a real live person (not an AI robot), and ordering directly from the publisher. Offer good only through February 1, 2025!
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
Although Derek Jeter and Ichiro Suzuki both missed unanimous election to Cooperstown by one vote, Jeter had a slightly-higher voting percentage because more ballots were cast when his name was considered . . .
As a result, Ichiro has the third-best voting percentage . . .
He’s not complaining, though, since he also won entry to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this month . . .
Both Ichiro and fellow Class of 2025 inductee Billy Wagner are natural right-handers who learned to play baseball left-handed and reached Cooperstown as a result . . .
Brooks Robinson, Rickey Henderson, and Dale Murphy were natural left-handers who found stardom in baseball as righties, while Mickey Lolich went the opposite way: a natural righty who had a borderline-Cooperstown career as a lefty.
Leading Off
The Curious Case Of Luis Arraez: MLB’s Most Unwanted Hall Of Famer?
By Sean Millerick
Another year, another round of every baseball writer’s favorite offseason pastime: debating who and who should not be worthy of entry into the MLB Hall of Fame.
That’s not knocking the practice either.
Personally, I’m looking forward to banging the drum for Andruw Jones next year. That and writing many pieces on the need for voting transparency and possible changes to the process.
People are free to vote as they wish but Ichiro not being unanimous should require an explanation.
And if that explanation was making sure a down-ballot first-timer got some appreciation, it’s probably time to let people just pick as many names as they’d like.
Anyway, let’s stick a pin in that until next fall.
Today I want to spend some time reflecting on an All-Star player in his prime who nobody seems to want, even if he might be well on his way toward earning his own place in Cooperstown one day.
That’d be Luis Arraez.
All right, you can stop laughing.
Yes, he’s largely a one-tool player. A bat-first infielder who doesn’t steal bases, hit for power, or play elite defense.
Hard to believe he’s even rosterable, let alone worthy of enshrinement alongside the greatest to ever play the game of baseball.
However, that one tool is kind-of the whole point of the exercise — particularly at a time when MLB is working to put a greater emphasis on putting the ball in play.
It can’t be denied that Arraez is an amazing hitter, a three-time batting champion.
One batting title? Sure, anyone can do that.
Pretty sure we can agree Tim Anderson and Dee-Strange Gordon aren’t in any danger of garnering many future Hall of Fame votes.
Carlos Gonzalez and Hanley Ramirez were excellent players in their day, and just fell off the ballot in their first year of eligibility. Both of them had batting titles to their names. But neither is getting into the Hall.
But three batting titles — and consecutive ones to boot? That’s much rarer air indeed.
Last year around this time, I wrote about who could potentially be the first Hall of Famer to enter as a Marlin, in the wake of Gary Sheffield just missing out.
That led to a lot of research on the then two-time champion Arraez, and what a third batting title would mean for his chances. At least, if history is to be any guide.
As of today, only 30 players in MLB history have won three or more batting titles. Arraez is one of them. Of the other 29, all but six have already made the Hall of Fame.
Two of those players are Jose Altuve and Miguel Cabrera, virtual locks for future induction. That brings us down to four.
Two of those four only failed to make it because of eligibility issues; Pete Rose due to some gambling issues you might have heard of and Ross Barnes due to not playing the required 10 seasons.
So that leaves only two players, Pete Browning and Bill Madlock. Browning’s omission can probably be attributed to obscurity.
His last game was in the 19th century, and his best years came for defunct losing defunct teams in defunct leagues.
Madlock though, is another story. There’s no getting past his career being a nasty knock for Arraez believers.
Madlock won four batting titles and a World Series and still missed out, despite retiring with a .306 BA.
All the same, there’s no way around the fact that the vast majority of players who do what Arraez has already done have gotten into the Hall of Fame.
Fortunately, the voting body and mindset has changed since 1993, when Madlock fell off after one ballot.
Not everyone needs to have piled up multiple 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons to be worthy of baseball immortality.
Granted, that change means the embracing of a lot of advanced stats who are a big part of the reason Arraez might play for his fourth team in four years in 2025.
Still, what if Arraez were to pull to actually match Madlock — a feat that at least the latest ATC projections have him doing -- and win a fourth batting title?
Obviously, there’s a lot of career left to happen for Line-Drive.
The thing with being a one-tool player is you never get to stop being really good at the one tool. Hitting ages better than speed or power but will slip eventually. Yet he might play the requisite 10-plus seasons and keep that average above .300 by the time he hangs it up.
It’s already hard to see Arraez not spending a few years on the ballot in that case.
Should he grab a fourth batting title though? The only debate should be which cap he wears when he goes in. After all, there’s only so many teams left he can be traded to.
Sean Millerick is a diehard Miami Marlins fan but still finds cause for hope every Spring Training. He currently writes for @CallToThePen. You can findhim on Twitter, or whatever Elon wants to call it, @miasportsminute.
Cleaning Up
How Many Starters Can One Club Have?
By Dan Schlossberg
The signing of Roki Sasaki by the Dodgers gives them an embarrassment of rotation riches, with Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, Tony Gonsolin, Dustin May, and three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw unless the lifelong Dodger but native Texan jumps to the Rangers.
Even with Gavin Stone, Emmet Sheehan, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan set to miss most or all of the 2025 season, the L.A. rotation should run eight or nine names deep. Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, Nick Frasso and Bobby Miller are now nothing more than depth starters or long relievers.
There is a lingering injury risk, however. Glasnow has never surpassed 134 innings in a season. Yamamoto was limited to 18 starts in his rookie season by a rotator cuff strain. Snell has only topped 130 frames twice. Kershaw, Gonsolin and May all missed most or all of last season recovering from serious surgeries. And Ohtani underwent elbow surgery late in 2023 and didn’t pitch last year.
Maybe a trade will break up the logjam. Or maybe an MLB investigation, as reports indicate several teams are complaining that the Dodgers and Sasaki had a deal in place the minute he decided to jump from Japan to the majors.
This is the third straight season the Dodgers have added a player who starred in Japan, the second straight year they added Japan’s best pitcher via the posting system, and the first time in baseball history any club will have three Japanese imports in the same starting rotation.
We’ve come a long way from 1965, when Masanori Murakami became the first player to leap from Japan to the U.S. majors (with the San Francisco Giants).
For Sasaki, who also considered San Diego because of his friendship with Yu Darvish, the allure of Los Angeles was obvious. His arrival sets up the Japanese version of The Three Amigos. It’s a good thing tri-lingual manager Dave Roberts can communicate in their native language.
Will Roberts add the Japanese troika to the National League pitching staff he picks for the All-Star Game in Atlanta? Maybe Ohtani will have to re-hire his disgraced interpreter first.
And what happens if the Dodgers don’t win 110 games or don’t defend their 2024 world championship?
At least it will be a season-long party in Little Tokyo, one piece of Los Angeles that survived the wild-fire catastrophe.
Have fun, Dodger fans. Thanks to your team and the two New York clubs, the competition, equity, and fairness multiple commissioners craved has departed for the dustbin of history. RIP, MLB.
Here’s The Pitch weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is national baseball writer for forbes.com, columnist for Sports Collectors Digest, and contributor to USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Memories & Dreams, and many other outlets. He’s also the author of two Hank Aaron biographies and 40 other books. To book a talk, email Dan at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia: More On L.A.’s Spending Spree
Jack Flaherty, a Santa Monica native who was Max Fried’s high school teammate, desperately wanted to stay in L.A. and spoke out after he was squeezed out . . .
In a social media post earlier this week, the still-unsigned right-hander defended the Dodgers for their unending spending and blamed other teams for not keeping up . . .
“The issue,” he wrote, “is not a certain team that is causing a chasm in MLB but that a lot of the other 29 teams are sitting by as the Dodgers continue to stack their roster through free agency” . . .
In addition to beefing up their rotation, the defending World Champions added free-agent relievers Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, and Blake Treinen, among others . . .
The Dodgers also added key free-agent position players in Teoscar Hernandez, Heyseong Kim, and Tommy Edman . . .
Can super-utilityman Kiké Hernández be far behind?
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@gmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.