Washington Nationals: Evaluating who gets into Cooperstown
Max Scherzer seems like a lock for Cooperstown. Will any other current Washington Nationals join the righty in the Baseball Hall of Fame?
The Washington Nationals are still looking for their first Hall of Famer.
Sure, six people affiliated with the Washington Senators are in the Hall, along with four Montreal Expos. But those don’t really count for current Nats fans. The only inductee to ever spend time in a Nationals’ uniform is Ivan Rodriguez, who played his final two seasons in Washington, posting a meager .632 OPS in the process. While he had a stellar career, he never really seemed like a National.
Starter Livan Hernandez did spend five years in D.C., and is making his first appearance on the ballot this year. But he is likely to fall off the ballot after one go-around due to the Hall’s five-percent rule.
Fortunately for Nats fans, this current star-studded era of D.C. baseball has several players with Cooperstown potential.
For a franchise that has not had any postseason success, its players have certainly collected plenty of individual awards, which is the real indicator of Hall-worthy talent. Since 2009, Nationals players have accumulated 12 Silver Sluggers, two Cy Youngs, an MVP award, and 23 total all-star appearances.
So as we inch towards the Jan. 24 Hall of Fame announcement deadline, let’s run through the current Nationals players who are Hall of Fame locks, the one’s who have a chance, and who should sniff the ballot.
Lock: Max Scherzer
Scherzer is one of the most stone-cold locks among active MLBers after winning his third Cy Young this past season. Of the nine other pitchers with at least three total Cy Young Awards, seven are in the Hall of Fame, one is still active (Clayton Kershaw), and the other is an alleged PED-user (Roger Clemens). When his time comes, Scherzer will waltz into Cooperstown.
Until then though, Scherzer is still very capable of padding the back of his baseball card, which is already checkered with bold ink. On top of the three Cy’s, he has two additional top-five finishes and has garnered MVP votes twice.
He is also a five-time All-Star, and does not turn 34 until July. There seems to be plenty left in the tank; his fastball velocity remains in the mid-90’s, and he has surpassed 200 innings in five consecutive seasons.
There are still a few milestones for Scherzer to break as well. He enters the 2018 season only 59 wins away from 200 victories, and 851 K’s short of 3,000 strikeouts. He could certainly reach both totals by 2021, which also happens to be the final season of his current seven-year contract with Washington.
Scherzer’s Hall-status is already set in stone. Now, let’s just see how high he can climb those leaderboards.
On-pace: Bryce Harper
Harper entered the league with such unimaginable hype that it feels like he has underwhelmed in some aspects.
Don’t let the haters fool you – Harper is already on a Hall of Fame pace.
Looking at the totality of his career, Harper has racked up five All-Star appearances, a Silver Slugger, the 2012 NL Rookie of the Year, and the unanimous 2015 NL MVP by age 25.
He also owns 150 career homers, and a sturdy .285/.386/.515 career batting line.
If he can stay healthy, which has been a problem so far in his young career, he will own baseball for a decade. Aaron Judge broke out with a MVP-caliber year in his second season at 25 years old. Harper, who still has not played in his age-25 season, already has six elite years under his belt. Now that he is entering his prime, prepare for some historic numbers that will propel him to Cooperstown.
On top of the elite stats, Harper has that it factor, which is something that matters when counting Hall of Fame votes.
He has been in the spotlight for nearly a decade already, and is a headline-grabbing name. Paul Goldschmidt is a phenomenal player for Arizona, and actually holds a slightly higher career OPS+ than Harper. But fair or not, it is called the Hall of Fame. Harper combines numbers with flair, which should put him over the edge, while players like Goldschmidt strictly rely on statistical arguments.
Has a chance: Stephen Strasburg
Strasburg will turn 30 years old in July, and already has three All-Star games and two top-ten Cy Young finishes under his belt.
We’ve seen how dominant Strasburg can be in stretches, from his scorching start in 2010, to his light-out finish to 2017 (just five earned runs in his final 10 starts, including the playoffs).
The “rate stats” are all there for the big right-hander – Strasburg is top-15 all-time in WHIP, K/9, and K/BB. He also owns a career 3.07 ERA. Now, Strasburg needs to rack up some quantity. If he can string together a few seasons of relative health and elite pitching, he’ll have a chance.
Strasburg is sort of the anti-Harper. Despite garnering plenty of attention as a prospect after being drafted first overall, he has flown under the radar for much of his career. Statistically, he has been one of the 10 best pitchers in the majors since 2012, but injuries have held him in the shadow of other NL aces like Scherzer, Kershaw, and Madison Bumgarner.
It would help if Strasburg could add an exclamation point to the resume. A Cy Young award or a deep playoff run would go a long way to boosting his name into the Hall of Fame conversation.
Has a chance: Anthony Rendon
Right now, Rendon is not close to earning a Cooperstown bust. The All-Star process has left him out in the cold thus far, and while those may have been misguided misses, All-Star nominations are still a general Hall of Fame barometer. All-Star games and other individual honors are simple check marks to show whom the top players were in a given season.
But there is still hope. Rendon has already grabbed two top-six MVP finishes, and at 27, just led the National League in WAR. He is an extremely valuable two-way player, and certainly has the talent to put together a five-year run as one of the best players in the game.
Rendon reminds me of Scott Rolen, who is currently a borderline candidate in his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot. Rolen was a slick-fielding third baseman and posted a 128 OPS+ in his first five full seasons, a tick higher than Rendon’s 116 OPS+ through five years. But Rendon’s numbers are suppressed by his injury-plagued 2015 campaign – 2017 showed what he can do at full strength.
As Rolen entered his prime, he garnered more attention, and racked up All-Star nods and MVP votes. If Rendon can maintain or build on his 2017 season, and capture national attention going forward, he just might be able to pile up enough offensive and defensive accolades to merit consideration.
As is the case for all of these guys, an MVP or World Series trophy would be a real feather in Rendon’s cap. It also helps that third base is currently an underrepresented position in the Hall.
It’s already too late for Zimmerman to make a real Hall of Fame push, but he should appear on the ballot at the very least. Zimmerman has garnered MVP-votes twice in his career, and snagged two Silver Sluggers and All-Star nods apiece. He also became the face of a franchise at a crucial time, and was the one true holdover from Washington’s early struggles to its now sustained success. If he can put together a season or two similar to his 2017 campaign, Zimmerman will cruise past 300 homers, 1,000 RBIs, and 1,000 runs for his career.
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Gonzalez has been the model of consistency across his 10-year career. He has paired a 3.58 career ERA with two All-Star appearances and a couple top-six finishes in the 2012 and 2017 NL Cy Young races. And while he is not a pure innings-eater, Gonzalez has averaged 31 starts and 189 innings pitched since 2010.
Gonzalez is in the final year with the Nationals, but at age 32, he should have several solid seasons remaining. He probably won’t hang on the ballot for long, but he deserves at least one year for his consistency and occasional high-end seasons.
Through 2015, Murphy was not even on the Hall of Fame radar. But after two spectacular seasons in D.C., the 32-year-old has raised his profile.
Murphy now owns three All-Star appearances and two Silver Sluggers, and has garnered MVP votes twice, including a top-two finish in 2016. He has been one of the best hitters in baseball over the past two seasons, slashing .334/.387/.569 with the Nationals. If he can hold even 90 percent of that pace through age 35, he will have racked up five seasons with an elite bat. Murphy also put together a historic postseason in 2015 with the Mets en route to the NLCS MVP.
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Barring an unprecedented late-career run, Murphy will fall well short of the Hall, but the totality of his career and recent surge still merits a ballot appearance.