the ballad of the ballot

the hall of fame ballot is out and we can officially begin looking forward to the induction of adrian beltre. i am guessing he will go in as a ranger, but i, of course, think of him as a dodger. i think it was about this time last year that i finally picked up his most coveted (non-parallel) rookie card - 1997 bowman chrome #182

i've left it slabbed since it arrived. i have a tinge of remorse unslabbing a couple of cards so i've been leaving them be for a while. not that i've picked up many - maybe three in the last year.

in addition to beltre, joe mauer is on the ballot

and i would sure vote for him if i could.

there are a couple of interesting cases that have dodger ties - chase utley being one of them

utley is a borderline case for me. he compares well against some of the earlier era hall of fame second basemen like joe gordon, bobby doerr, or tony lazzerri and is actually not that far off from ryne sandberg. still, one could say the same thing about guys like lou whitaker and bobby grich who aren't in the hall of fame so i am not sure about utley.

the other former dodger of note on the ballot is adrian gonzalez

despite the best intentions of the 2016 topps update insert, gonzalez finished well shy of 500 home runs for his career - he hit 317 - and i don't think he has much of a chance to be inducted. he's in mark grace/don mattingly territory for first basemen which is still pretty good, just not hall of fame caliber.

of course, returning players like todd helton, billy wagner, andruw jones, and gary sheffield will get well deserved consideration too. i am looking forward to the announcement in january to see who will join jim leyland (elected by the contemporary eras committee earlier tonight) in the 2024 hall of fame class.