Hall of Fame countdown: Scott Rolen's quietly strong candidacy will pick up steam
Paste BN Sports is counting down the top 24 candidates on the 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in advance of the Jan. 24 election results. The countdown is based on voting by our power rankings panel, which includes five Hall voters.
No. 15: Scott Rolen
Though hardly the most decorated first-year player on the ballot, Scott Rolen earned seven All-Star nods and eight Gold Glove awards during a career that spanned parts of 17 seasons. Injuries limited Rolen at times throughout his big-league tenure and prevented him from racking up big counting numbers, but Rolen played big roles on Cardinals teams that made the World Series in 2004 and won it all in 2006.
Despite nagging ailments that kept him off the field for long stretches of his early 30s, Rolen, who spent his best seasons in Philadelphia and St. Louis, finished his career with 2,077 hits, 316 homers and a sturdy .855 OPS. By reputation, to the eye, and according to advanced stats, he ranked among the best defensive third basemen of his or any generation.
The countdown
Rolen amassed an even 70 WAR as a major leaguer. Every third baseman with more is either in Cooperstown already or -in the case of Chipper Jones and Adrian Beltre -- will be.
The case for: As a gifted defensive player with a good bat, Rolen was always more valuable to his teams than traditional metrics might suggest. Third base is an underrepresented position in the Hall, and Rolen's career WAR is above the average mark for enshrined players at his position.
Despite quarreling with some in the Phillies' organization early in his career, Rolen maintained a reputation as a hard-nosed, team-first player talented in all facets of the game.
The case against: Though Rolen enjoyed many very good seasons, he had few transcendently great ones. He never finished in the Top 3 of MVP voting for his league and only finished in the Top 10 of OPS in his circuit once -- during his career year in 2004. His numbers appear fairly similar to those of another Cardinals third baseman, Ken Boyer, who never landed on more than 25.5% of BBWAA ballots.
X-factors: Rolen's career overlapped with those of a pair of shoo-in Hall of Famers at the same position in Jones and Beltre. He wasn't as good a hitter as Jones, he wasn't as good a defender as Beltre, and he lacked the longevity of either. With slam-dunk Cooperstown candidates like Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera set to join an already crowded ballot in the next couple of years, Rolen won't likely have a clear path to enshrinement until after more controversial candidates like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens either get in or drop off.
Consensus: The guess here is that history eventually smiles on Rolen's case, especially if and when the generation of good all-around third basemen that followed him in the majors -- David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman and Evan Longoria -- fail to match his career achievements. Holistic numbers like WAR hardly dictate the outcome of a player's candidacy, but as the BBWAA electorate skews younger, guys like Rolen, Carlos Beltran and Chase Utley should find supporters who value their overall contributions more than the raw offensive numbers amassed by lesser all-around players.