Roundtable: Ben Zobrist receives zero Hall of Fame votes
A travesty.
Ben Zobrist — a generational talent that changed the way the game is played in the modern era, and a World Series MVP in 2016 with the Chicago Cubs — did not receive a single vote for the Hall of Fame. Personally, I feel this just further cements that the Hall of Fame voting process is a sham and an embarrassment.
Ian Malinowski
I very honestly think Zobrist is more a Hall of Famer than the whole bottom half of the ballot. It’s a hipster pick but a legit one. Yes, with 42.7 fWAR, his aggregate career numbers are below most inductees, largely because he didn’t complete his first full major league season until he was 28. But even that number lies.
Zobrist was among the best second basemen in baseball, and among the best right fielders in baseball. He also played a totally competent shortstop, and could fill in anywhere else as needed. That flexibility helped his team, but it hurt his stats. Imagine for a moment that he could only play second base (a position with a +2.5 positional adjustment for fWAR) and never went to RF (a position with a -7.5 positional adjustment) or anywhere else. Then prorate his career innings everywehre else with his second base UZR and and the second base positional adjustment and he gains 1.6 WAR on paper, with much of that coming during his peak.
No that’s not a lot but it takes him above Pedroia on the leaderboard and I’m petty.
Now consider the careers of Matt Joyce and Sean Rodriguez, who from 2010-2014 combined for 16.4 fWAR. No, we don’t just add that in full to Zobrist’s total but that’s a 3 WAR platoon that the Rays were only able to use because they also had the Zobrist wildcard.
What can get lost in all of this is just how good of a defender he really was — he’s got a little bit of the Andruw Jones thing HoF bugaboo going on but worse, in that a large portion of his value was defense (at non-premium positions) and baserunning (but not huge steals numbers).
If you weren’t paying a lot of attention you probably didn’t really notice or care about this. But it was real and spectacular, and those who did notice were confirmed when Statcast fielding measurements debuted in 2016, because it turned out that the 35 year old Zobrist, coming off a knee surgery, had the 27th quickest reaction in all of baseball. That was on par with prime Adam Eaton, and 23 year old Mookie Betts.
When Mookie eventially goes into the Hall of Fame it’ll be as confirmation for the role Zobrist created.
Brian Menendez
There will never be another Ben Zobrist.
It’s fair to say that his body of work may not stack up to other HOFers, but he is in the best to ever do it category for what he was, much like Mariano Rivera and Edgar Martinez. We wouldn’t consider closers of DHs for the hall of it wasn’t for those two, and Zobrist did actually have a HOF worthy peak.
Danny Russell
The leading voice on HOF candidacy Jay Jaffe introduced the case for Ben Zobrist by discouraging the focus from being on his impact on the game itself, instead insisting the body of work merits a candidacy unto itself:
Calling Ben Zobrist a utility player — or even a superutility player, given that he could play the outfield as well as the infield — is like calling Citizen Kane a movie about a sled.
But it cannot be dismissed either. Baseball is a different game today because of Zorilla.
Adam Sanford
The next ‘Ben Zobrist’
This term is used a lot by people hoping a player coming up through the system will be able to be a swiss army knife for their team and assist the organization any possible way. The player should be able to field at an above average level at mutliple positions. The player should be able to hit above average against lefties and righties. The player should have solid to above average speed and be able to provide value running the bases.
However, since Ben Zobrist started the trend of of being a successful utility player, no one has come close to being the next Ben Zobrist.
He was a one of a kind player.
Overall, Zobrist hit .266/.357/.426 with 167 HR and 116 SB, registering 116 wRC+ and accruing 42.7 fWAR over 1651 games.
During his prime from 2009 through 2016, Zobrist had the 9th highest fWAR (40.1) of anyone in baseball, while playing more positions than anyone ahead of him on that list. Over that stretch of time, Zobrist had 31 DRS in right field and 22 DRS as a second baseman; Zobrist also spent notable time at shortstop, left field, and center field. There were also times in which Zobrist manned the hot corners compently.In MLB history, among players to have played every position besides catcher, Zobrist ranks 5th in bWAR. However, his career was much shorter than those above him on the list and he actually rates better than a couple of those players in bWAR accrued per game played.
- 75.6 - Paul Molitor (.028 bWAR per game)
- 66.4 - Buddy Bell (.028 bWAR per game)
- 53.0 - Bert Campaneris (.023 bWAR per game)
- 50.9 - Tony Phillips (.024 bWAR per game)
- 44.5 - Ben Zobrist (.027 bWAR per game)