The Dodgers’ Hall of Fame shutout streak

Results from the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame vote will be announced on January 25. That’s still more more than two weeks away, but we can still check in on how some Dodgers are doing on the ballot.

Thanks to the work of Ryan Thibodaux, Anthony Calamis, Adam Dore, and John Devivo, every Hall of Fame ballot that trickles out — when members of the BBWAA decide to reveal them — is kept in one nicely organized place: the Hall of Fame tracker.

There are only two newcomers on this year’s ballot who played for the Dodgers. Jimmy Rollins as of Thursday night has been named on 11.5 percent of publicly-revealed ballots. That’s nowhere near the 75 percent required for induction into Cooperstown, but at least comfortably above the 5-percent threshold that keeps a person on the ballot.

So far, through 140 ballots that have been revealed, the other Dodgers newcomer, Carl Crawford, has yet to be named. Barring a surprise, it seems unlikely that he will get to five percent, which last year required 20 votes. Crawford being a one-and-done on the ballot seems like a sure thing at this point, but there’s still a chance for him to receive at least one vote.

Not getting shut out would end a streak, as there has been at least one former Dodger to receive zero votes in each of the last 12 years:

• 2021: Dan Haren, Shane Victorino
• 2020: Josh Beckett, Chone Figgins, Rafael Furcal
• 2019: Jon Garland, Ted Lilly, Derek Lowe, Juan Pierre
• 2018: Orlando Hudson
• 2017: Casey Blake, J.D. Drew
• 2016: Brad Ausmus, Mark Grudzielanek
• 2015: Jason Schmidt
• 2014: Paul LoDuca
• 2013: Roberto Hernandez
• 2012: Brian Jordan
• 2011: Lenny Harris, Charles Johnson, Raul Mondesi
• 2010: Todd Zeile

Former Dodgers reliever Jesse Orosco getting one vote on the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot prevented this shutout streak from extending back 13 years.

This isn’t to downplay any of these careers. Just getting on the Hall of Fame ballot is an accomplishment in itself. Juan Uribe played the requisite 10 major league seasons, for instance, and could have been included on this year’s ballot, but he didn’t get selected by the committee. Crawford was a four-time All-Star, and led his league in stolen bases and triples four times each. He had a great run.

During those dozen years with no-vote Dodgers on the ballot, several former Dodgers have also been elected to Cooperstown, including Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Mike Piazza, and Jim Thome. The franchise will be represented in July when Gil Hodges gets inducted via the Golden Days Era committee.

Getting into the Hall of Fame is hard, as it should be.

Links

• Eno Sarris at The Athletic wrote about pitchers due for a bounceback in 2022. Andrew Heaney wasn’t among the four hurlers specifically profiled, but was included in a table of pitchers whose Pitching+ ranking was much better than his ERA- rank in 2021.
• Anthony Castrovince at MLB.com looked back at the brilliant yet injury-shortened career of Pete Reiser, the Brooklyn Dodgers star whose power and speed were as known as his penchant for getting hurt, which eventually led to padded walls across MLB.
• Corey Knebel talked to Matt Gelb at The Athletic about joining the Phillies and trying for his first fully healthy season since 2017. But Knebel also touched upon how he found success with the Dodgers, with whom he had a 2.45 ERA and 2.90 FIP in 2021: “They really liked my curveball ... And they said, you’ve been more reliant on your fastball your entire career. So now we’re going to change that around. You’re going to throw your curveball in a lot of curveball and fastball counts. I feel like I threw a lot more than I ever have. My confidence has already been pretty high with my curveball, but I gained it even more.”