Hall of Fame thoughts: Derek Jeter and Larry Walker

Derek Jeter

Does it really matter who the one person is who didn't vote for Derek Jeter in this year's Hall of Fame balloting?

I am not among the righteously indignant who needs to know the answer to the question. I also don't care why that person didn't vote for Jeter. All that really matters is the former New York Yankees shortstop got 99.7 percent of the vote, easily clearing the 75 percent threshold for election, and there's certainly no shame in that.

Maybe I'm not bothered by this because I was never a huge Jeter fan. Don't get me wrong: The guy is the best offensive shortstop I've seen in my lifetime, bar none. Through the years, I simply got tired of ESPN analysts insisting that Jeter was a great defensive player, when he was merely adequate at his position.

Again, nothing wrong with being adequate. But it's not unfair or wrong to say Jeter didn't stand out for his defense.

What set him above the crowd was his bat. In the past century, Jeter's 96.3 offensive WAR is the best among shortstops by a wide margin -- Robin Yount's 83.1 is second.

Jeter had eight 200-hit seasons. No other shortstop in my lifetime has had more than four. Jeter had nine seasons of 120 OPS-plus or better. He batted .300 or better 12 times. No other shortstop in my lifetime has batted .300 more than six times. (There are three that have done it six times: Nomar Garciaparra, Alan Trammell and Alex Rodriguez.)

Jeter's career OPS-plus is 115. That's even better than Cal Ripken Jr. (112), who is the second-best offensive shortstop I've seen in my lifetime.

So, yeah, Jeter was an easy Hall pick because he was just tremendous, historically great, with a bat in his hands. Just don't try to tell me how allegedly awesome he was with the glove. I won't buy it.

Joining Jeter in the Hall is Larry Walker, the former Montreal Expos, Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals outfielder. This was Walker's 10th and final time on the ballot, and here's the thing that's so curious about his election: Only four years ago, he received just 15.5 percent of the vote.

This week, he cleared the 75 percent threshold by six votes. That's a slim margin, but it counts. It's just kind of strange how people didn't think Walker was a Hall of Fame four years ago, but now they do. He's still the same man; his career accomplishments have not changed.

Walker is a three-time batting champion who finished his career with a .313/.400/.565 slash line. He was the National League MVP with the Rockies in 1997, when he hit .366 with a league-best 49 homers and 130 RBIs. He also won the Gold Glove in right field that year, one of seven times in his career he earned that honor.

The main knock on Walker? He played a lot of his career at the offensive paradise known as Coors Field in Denver. No doubt that career .965 OPS benefited from the thin mountain air, but the thing is, Walker's .865 career OPS on the road is still higher than several notable Hall of Famers, including Ken Griffey Jr. (.860), Dave Winfield (.841), Eddie Murray (.838), Rickey Henderson (.836) and Tony Gwynn (.835), among others.

Would I have voted for Walker? Ehh, probably. I think playing in Montreal and Colorado for most of his career hurt his profile. If he had played in an East Coast media market, chances are he wouldn't have been waiting 10 years to get into the Hall.

The Hall of Fame voting is broken

The Baseball Writers Association of America announced it's 2014 ballot on Tuesday, so this is as good a time as any to point how derelict in its duty to elect worthy players the BWAA has been in recent years.

Among the first-time candidates are former Cubs and Braves ace, Greg Maddux, a four-time Cy Young Award winner with 355 wins to his name, and all-time White Sox great Frank Thomas, who collected two AL MVP awards and belted 521 home runs to go along with his .301 batting average and .419 on-base percentage.

With fellow first-timer, 300-game-winner Tom Glavine, it looks like there are three no-doubt Hall-of-Famers added to this year's ballot.

But what about the rest of the ballot?

Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina are two more additions who I think have pretty strong Hall cases. Kent ranks among the best-hitting second basemen of all time. Mussina didn't collect as many wins or pitch as many innings as Glavine, but you could argue they were better innings.

How much traction Kent and Mussina -- or even Maddux, Thomas and Glavine -- receive really depends on how the BWAA approaches the backlog of candidates on the ballot.

Among the holdovers are Craig Biggio, Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, Edgar Martinez, Curt Schilling, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. I mention those players by name because they are the players I would vote for if I were a BWAA member. And if you could include more than 10 players on your ballot.

That's ignoring Rafael Palmeiro, Jack Morris, Lee Smith, Larry Walker, Fred McGriff and Don Mattingly. None of whom I'd vote for, even as a Big Hall supporter, but are other guys who have a strong statistical case (Palmeiro, Walker) or support from other corners (Smith, Morris).

How is it so many obviously qualified guys are getting left out?

If it were just a matter of the BWAA voters being stingy with who gains entry, that would be a good explanation. Except the voters have enshrined guys like Jim Rice (not that good), Tony Perez (also not that good) and Kirby Puckett (not good for long enough).

Part of it might also be a reluctance to render any verdict on baseball's Steroid Era, particularly with regard to Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro and others.

This is another area where the logic gets fuzzy. Some of those players are suffering the steroid stigma when the evidence of PED use is flimsy and anecdotal at best (Bagwell, Piazza). Sometimes it's downright convoluted ("I think Bagwell was a 'roider, and that Biggio guy must have been, too!").

Other writers feel like it's just a great opportunity to grandstand, so submit ballots with no selections, thus demonstrating they don't really take the vote all that seriously. At least not seriously enough that we should pay attention to their nonsense. Just abdicate the duty if you don't want it.

Perhaps it will take a Veterans Committee to sift through some of these candidacies once more time has passed, though for my part, I don't think you can whitewash any steroid era, or pretend like it never happened.

The games were played, and for the most part they were with none of those players violating any MLB rules. They can't be replayed with any retroactive standard in place.

Though baseball, by and large, hasn't tried to follow professional cycling down that rabbit hole to nowhere, stripping its former champions of hardware with the largest effect being to taint the entire sport, the Hall of Fame seems willing to let column-writing voters test the institution's relevancy.

So it goes, I guess.