It didn’t have to be this way. Two years ago, I argued that we needed to vote as many as we could into the Royals Hall of Fame for fear they’d fall off the ballot. Last year, those fears were realized to some degree, with Jarrod Dyson falling off the ballot. This year, Yordano Ventura has fallen off. Maybe you don’t think either of those guys should have been elected – I would argue with you about Dyson – but because other players on those ballots weren’t elected, we are now faced with a nasty conundrum.
There are 12 former Royals on this year’s ballot. I believe that 11 of them likely deserve to be inducted, all but Ian Kennedy. Unfortunately, because voters can only select up to five and candidates must receive 75% of the vote to be inducted, not all of them will be added this year. In the best-case scenario, six players could be elected, but only if the ballots were nearly perfectly divided among those six, and likely most, if not all, of the remaining six would fall off the ballot forever.
Realistically, it would be a stretch to even see three of these guys voted in this year. That makes me want to try to organize voters around three guys to make sure they get in, but a lot of these cases are so good that even if I could reach every single Royals fan, I’m not at all sure that I could convince everyone to rally around those three. Honestly, I’m not sure I can convince myself to rally around just three guys. How am I supposed to pick?
If you listened to the latest episode of the Royals Rundown podcast, you know that I really did struggle with this. I figured out my top four pretty quickly.
- Mike Moustakas
- Eric Hosmer
- Lorenzo Cain
- Wade Davis
It’s insane to me that Wade Davis is still on the ballot. I was so sure he would be elected that I decided not to vote for him when he first became eligible following the 2024 season. I voted for him last season as I thought we might get all of HDH in all at once, with Greg Holland becoming eligible for the first time. Kelvin Herrera has been on there as long as Davis and while I believe he is completely deserving, I can understand why he might not get elected. Davis stands out as an absolute travesty to me. From 2014-2016, he put together three of the most dominant relief seasons we have ever seen in baseball, posting a 1.18 ERA and 2.38 SIERA.” He allowed exactly THREE home runs over those three seasons, all in 2015. Mason Miller, who had one of the best individual seasons by a reliever of all time this year, also gave up three home runs, despite pitching in a much less hitter-friendly environment.
Hosmer, Moustakas, and Cain are all newcomers to the ballot this year. And while I know many of you will plan to vote for HDH as your first three, I choose to vote for them as the two biggest leaders of the 2014-2017 squads and the most talented player on those teams, respectively. It’s been interesting to see opinion morph over time to suggest that Salvador Perez has always been a leader on this team, but I was there in 2014, and I assure you he was not then a leader. He was one of the hearts, maybe the most important heart, of that roster. But those clubs belonged to Moose and Hos, or at least that’s how the story was told at the time. There were all kinds of stories of things Moose or Hos said or did to inspire or lead the club. I don’t say any of this to take anything away from Sal, but I don’t want people to forget just how important these corner infielders were to their teams.
Cain, of course, hit in the heart of the order and defined 2015 with his third-place MVP finish, while convincing every kid in the KC metro area that the best way to swing was the LoCain Lean-Back. He was also perpetually seen hanging around Salvador Perez, both sporting their giant smiles. I said Sal was the heart of those squads, Lorenzo was his twin, the two beating in harmony.
So how do I choose the final vote? This is the hard part. I can no more choose Holland over Herrera than Ernie could choose rubber over ducky. To me, Davis can stand above them, but it’s still an absolute sham that they didn’t all get inducted together last season. That leaves me debating between the current Cooperstown resident, Carlos Beltrán and future resident Zack Greinke.
Of course, that means I’ve already written off Alcides Escobar, Billy Butler, and Joakim Soria in addition to the ones I’ve already discussed. But what else can I do?
Ultimately, I think my choice has to be Zack Greinke. Carlos brought home a Rookie of the Year award, and he was part of “Dos Carlos”, which was a lot of fun. But Greinke brought home the team’s only Cy Young Award of my lifetime, and he did so with one of the greatest pitching seasons we’ve ever seen. He is tied for the 58th-best single-season fWAR of all time with 8.7. There have only been six better pitching performances this century, and three of them are Randy Johnson. Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Jacob DeGrom each have one. Roy Halladay tied the mark one year.
I hate leaving off six extremely deserving candidates, but what else can I do?
Well, I thought of one thing. Something to sate my curiosity at least. I created a ranked-choice poll with all 12 Hall of Fame candidates on it so everyone could rank them in order, and I can see how Royals fans would rank them all if they weren’t just selecting five in any order. I hope you’ll go vote on it. If we get enough votes, I’ll write about the results.
