The 2025 season concluded with one of the most thrilling endings in a very long time (unless you are a Blue Jays fan), but now we’re in the Baseball Offseason, with a very long and cold winter ahead of us before there’s more baseball to watch.
We’re also in Hall of Fame season! This winter, BBWAA voters will decide whether any new players will be elected into the Hall. While there’s some exciting first time players on the ballot, there are also some very interesting ones returning for another year.
We’ll use Stathead, the Internet’s #1 Baseball Stats Search Engine, to take a look at three candidates returning to this year’s ballot. Let’s see why, or why not, they deserve a spot in Cooperstown.
Carlos Beltrán
Receiving over 70% of the vote in his third year on the ballot, Carlos Beltrán seems like the safest bet for induction in 2026. How did someone with just one top-10 MVP finish in his career become a Hall of Fame lock? Let’s dig into the numbers!
Beltrán provided elite offense at a premium defensive position. From age 21-33, years where his primary position was center field, Beltrán posted an .853 OPS. He had seven seasons with an OPS over .850 while primarily playing center field. In the last 50 years, only four other CFs had more .850 OPS seasons.
Then, there’s Beltrán work in the field. He had four seasons with at least 10 Rfield, the fielding component of WAR. Rfield is scaled to runs, meaning he contributed around 10 runs of value (equivalent to about one win) four separate times in his career. Since 1990, only 38 OFs have done that four times, most of whom don’t have anywhere near the offensive numbers that Beltrán has.
Putting it all together, Beltrán is one of eight OFs in the last 50 years to have three or more seasons with an OPS of .850 and at least 10 Rfield.
Chase Utley
Switching to the infield, Utley scored a respectable 39.8% in last year’s voting. He still has a ways to go to reach election, but the numbers show why his candidacy is growing.
From 2005-09, Utley posted a ridiculous 39.7 WAR. Individually, those were seasons of 7.3, 7.3, 7.8, 9.0, and 8.2. When your worst season in that span is equivalent to Cal Raleigh’s 2025, you must be doing something right.
How to put that in context? There’s a few ways of looking at Utley’s run here:
- From 2005-09, Utley ranked second in WAR, with only Albert Pujols producing more wins above replacement in that span
- Chase Utley ranks 13th all-time among hitters in WAR from age 26-30, his age in those seasons.
When you factor that those five seasons all had Utley as a top five player in WAR, something only six other 2B have done, it’s clear that he has a strong case for the Hall thanks to one of the 2000s’ most impressive peaks.
Félix Hernández
Speaking of peaks, Félix Hernández got 20.9% of the vote last year, as voters weighed whether or not his run as arguably the best pitcher in baseball was enough to counteract a career that was shorter than the average Hall of Fame pitcher.
King Félix won one Cy Young and finished in second two more times. In all three seasons, he had an ERA+ of 170 or better, meaning his ERA was 70% better than the average pitcher when you account for league and ballpark.
That, it turns out, is a very rare achievement. Only 11 pitchers in MLB history have had three or more seasons where they threw 200+ innings and posted a 170+ ERA+. Of the 11, six pitched before Integration. The other five? Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Pedro Martínez, Greg Maddux, and Félix Hernández.
This is a sponsored post from Stathead Baseball.
