Jayson Werth Receives Zero Hall of Fame Votes, Rolen is Sole Inductee

Former Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth received no votes on Tuesday's Baseball Writers Association of America Hall of Fame ballot in a vote that saw third baseman Scott Rolen become the year's only BBWAA inductee.

Although he was a great player and a great addition to the Nationals when he signed with the team in 2011, Werth had not been considered likely to join baseball's legends in Cooperstown. According to Baseball Reference's Hall of Fame statistics page, Werth scored 19 points on the Hall of Fame Monitor stat, a formula designed by sabermetrician Bill James to predict the likelyhood that a given player will reach the Hall. A likely Hall of Famer is said to score about 100 points or greater. By comparison, Scott Rolen weighs in at 99. I've found that the Hall of Fame Monitor is more useful than some of the other formulas listed on Baseball Reference because many of the others don't include defensive performance.

Scott Rolen played just 19 games against the Nationals since the franchise left Montreal, and surprisingly his modest hitting stats against Washington don't look like Hall of Fame-calibre numbers. Rolen slashed .236/.295/.319 when hitting against the Nationals between 2005 and his retirement in 2012. Nats fans can be proud that their team repeatedly kept a Cooperstown hitter at bay. Rolen is considered more of a glove-first infielder, earning himself a whopping eight Gold Glove awards throughout his career.

This year's BBWAA ballot yielded no other inductees, although several other players including Todd Helton and Billy Wagner received votes from more than half of the BBWAA electorate. Rolen was the only player to surpass the 75% threshold for induction, doing so by just five votes. This past December, the Contemporary Baseball Era Players Committee unanimously voted first baseman Fred McGriff into the Hall, he will join Rolen at the induction ceremony this July.

Even though Jayson Werth isn't going to the Hall of Fame, the 2009 All-Star and 4-time MVP vote getter has earned a place in the fond memories of Nationals fans, who will never forget great moments like his walk-off Home Run in game four of the 2012.