Baseball Hall of Fame 2025: Classic Baseball Era Committee

Major League Candidates

"Co-stanza!" Remember that one from Seinfeld? Jason Alexander's George Costanza once described his method of winning over a woman who was not attracted to him as persisting in his pursuit until some little irritating thing about him began to stick in her ear like an advertising earworm—"by Mennen!"—and, despite her better judgment, she began to feel attracted to him.

That's the way it looks for the six non-Negro Leagues candidates on the Classic Era Committee ballot. All spent the full 15 years on the ballot of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA, or "the writers'") save for Dick Allen, who was dropped after his 1983 debut but by popular demand was reinstated in 1985 for the next 13 ballots. All have been evaluated by the veterans committee more than once, Allen and Ken Boyer most recently in 2022; Steve Garvey, Tommy John, and Dave Parker in 2020; and Luis Tiant in 2018.

None of the them provoke an instinctual initial rejection like George's prospective conquests do. Rather, they are the best kind of Baseball Hall of Fame candidate: They are on the bubble. You can't say definitively that they do belong in the Hall, but neither can you say that they don't. You crunch the numbers. You do the eye test. You check out the bling, the awards and leaderboards. You ponder any postseason glory they had. And, depending on what day it is or what mood you happen to be in, you put your thumb up. Or down.

Exemplifying the classic "bubble" candidate, will pitcher Luis Tiant get a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down for the Hall?


All of which is academic since the decision rests exclusively with the veterans committee, which is the Hall of Fame's star chamber that very often games the ballot to produce a desired outcome. The 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee gamed the ballot in favor of Fred McGriff, and the 2017 Today's Game Era Committee gamed the ballot against Mark McGwire.

This makes the return of all six of these candidates look as if somebody really wants to see at least one of them in the Hall. (Hey, it worked for Gil Hodges. Eventually.) Without hazarding a guess how the still-unannounced committee members will vote (another star-chamber fillip: who lurks beneath the hooded robes?), I'll simply note whom I would and would not select.

Why Are They Even Still in the Running?

The surgical procedure named for Tommy John (ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction) has kept his name evergreen as every other pitcher these days (or so it seems) blows out his arm trying to maximize his spin rate, but that surgery, which the left-hander had at age 32 while with the Los Angeles Dodgers, came after he had been pitching in the Majors for 12 years, and it enabled him to pitch for 14 more seasons after which he retired at age 46.

Thus, Tommy John is the consummate compiler. His 288 wins rank 26th all-time, as do his 46 shutouts. and he is in the top 25 in games started (700; 8th), hits allowed (4,783; 10th), batters faced (19,692; 18th), games lost (231;19th), and innings pitched (4710.3; 20th). John had three top five finishes for the Cy Young Award—all three coming after his eponymous surgery—including two runners-up in 1977 and 1979. Yet John, in a career spanning a quarter of a century, was selected to just four All-Star squads. His career 62.1 WAR puts him into the Hall of Fame conversation, but he had just three seasons of 5.0 or more WAR, with 5.0 indicating an All-Star-caliber player.



The surgery named for him may be Hall of Fame-caliber, but Tommy John has been evaluated for Cooperstown too many times. Time to hang it up?

While Tommy John was on a BBWAA ballot for all 15 years (the limit at that time), his best showing was 31.7 percent in 2009, his final year. In four appearances on a veterans committee ballot, he has made no traction. With several excellent players from John's era who have yet to be evaluated by the committee (Keith Hernandez, Reggie Smith) or are starting to make inroads (Dwight Evans, Lou Whitaker), this stalwart best-known for his longevity made possible by the surgery that bears his name has been weighed and has been found wanting. Many times. Set Tommy John aside and let others have their chance.

John's teammate Steve Garvey spent 14 of his 19-year career in Dodger Blue and became a franchise icon as the first baseman helped anchor the team's celebrated 1970s infield. The four-time Gold Glove Award-winner had five top ten finishes for the National League Most Valuable Player Award, winning it in 1974. From 1974 to 1981, "Mr. Clean," so-nicknamed for his freshly-scrubbed Southern California image, was selected for eight consecutive All-Star teams, with two more selections subsequently, and was named the All-Star Game MVP twice. Garvey had six seasons with 200 or more hits, leading the NL twice, and finished one hit shy of 2600 hits, which include 440 doubles and 272 home runs.

Advanced metrics have not been kind to Steve Garvey's career as his 38.0 WAR and 33.4 JAWS put him at 51st all-time among first basemen ranked by JAWS—and the Hall is hardly hurting for first basemen. (JAWS, the JAffe WAR Score system, is a derivative of WAR.) However, Hall voters, first the writers and then the veterans committees, might have had sensed that there was less to Garvey than met the eye. While he remained on the BBWAA ballot for the maximum allowable time, he never bested his debut voting percentage of 41.6 and exited in 2007 with 21.1 percent, his second-worst showing.

Is Steve Garvey really Gil Hodges 2.0? Another Dodgers first baseman keeps swinging for the Hall. It did work for Hodges eventually . . .


Similarly, he made no headway in the veterans committees during his first three showings although in 2020 he did snag a half-dozen votes. This upcoming Classic Era Committee vote may show Garvey to be Gil Hodges 2.0, but at least Hodges garnered at least half the BBWAA vote two out of three times during his 15-year stint on that ballot and at least half the veterans committee vote five times out of eight. Garvey isn't half the candidate that Hodges, still a marginal inductee, had been.

Nothing to Sniff At? Or Did He Really Blow It?

For a five-year stretch starting in 1975, Dave Parker looked—and performed—like a Hall of Famer as the right fielder with a deadly arm posted a .321/.377/.532/.909 slash line for the Pittsburgh Pirates, resulting in a 147 OPS+, and averaged 188 hits including 37 doubles and 23 home runs, 95 runs scored, 98 RBI, 17 stolen bases, and 6.2 WAR every year during that stretch. "The Cobra" struck for back-to-back batting titles in 1977 (.338) and 1978 (.334), claiming National League MVP honors in the latter year.

In 1979, Parker's prowess prompted the Pirates to proffer a five-year deal worth $5 million, making him the first million-dollar-a-year figure in American team sports. During his 11-year tenure in Pittsburgh, Parker had three more top ten MVP finishes, won three Gold Gloves, and was named to four All-Star squads. In 1979, he helped the Pirates to a World Series championship as part of Willie Stargell's "We Are Family" Bucs that overcame a 3–1 deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles. Then it all went up in smoke. Or was it up his nose?

After five straight seasons hitting .300 or better, Parker dipped a bit to .295 in 1980, but it soon transpired that he had been dipping into something else as he became mired in a cocaine scandal centered on the Pirates but also on other players including future Hall of Famer Tim Raines and should-be Hall of Famer Keith Hernandez.

Signing with the Cincinnati Reds, Parker resurrected his career in the mid-1980s with two more top ten MVP finishes including runner-up in 1985 when he had career highs in home runs (34) and RBI (125); with the Reds he also won two Silver Slugger Awards and was picked for two more All-Star teams. Parker's curtain call came in 1990, his age-39 year, with the Milwaukee Brewers as he garnered his third Silver Slugger and his seventh All-Star appearance.



Starting his career with a Hall of Fame-worthy tear, Dave Parker's Cooperstown chances seemed to have taken a powder with his involvement in the 1980s cocaine scandal.

With a career slash line of .290/.339/.471/.810, producing a 121 OPS+, Dave Parker compiled an impressive record including 2712 hits, 526 doubles, 339 home runs, 1272 runs scored, 1493 runs batted in, and 154 stolen bases. Yet his career WAR is 40.1, with 34.0 of that coming from his first eight years in Pittsburgh, which may be why he is appearing on a Classic Era ballot, which has a defined cutoff of 1980, when Parker's career extended for 11 more years from 1981 to 1991. His offensive prowess stalled during his drug problems although he rebounded, albeit briefly, twice; meanwhile, the defensive abilities of his early years disappeared quickly before plummeting into a major liability.

Even before advanced metrics emerged, Hall voters seemed to pick up on Parker's illusory greatness, or, in a precursor to the PED era, they might not have fully forgiven him for his cocaine usage. (Hernandez, on the same BBWAA ballots as Parker, never did better than ten percent before dropping off after nine years and has yet to appear on a veterans committee ballot—move over, Steve Garvey and Tommy John.)

Parker's best showing on a BBWAA ballot was 24.5 percent in 1998, his second year on the ballot, and he reached the 20-percent plateau only once more. His first two stints on a veterans committee ballot were negligible, but in 2020 he appeared on seven of 16 ballots, and he may fare better this year.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Overlooked and underrated? During his career, Luis Tiant never seemed to stand out among starting pitchers, finishing in the top five for Cy Young honors just twice—although he did finish in the top ten for Most Valuable Player voting twice—yet he did win 20 or more games in a season four times and captured two earned run average titles twice over a 19-year career most notably with the Boston Red Sox, with whom he made his only World Series appearance in the legendary 1975 Series against the Cincinnati Reds; "El Tiante" won two games in three starts including a five-hit shutout in the opening game.

The right-hander with the distinctive delivery, seemingly always checking on a runner at second even if there wasn't one, began with the Cleveland (then-)Indians and in his fifth season won his first ERA title with a 1.60 in 1968 while also pacing the American League with nine shutouts, four of them consecutively. That was the "year of the pitcher" as Bob Gibson posted a dead ball-era 1.12 ERA while in the AL Denny McClain ran away with the Cy Young Award by winning 31 games, the last time any pitcher reached the 30-win mark, although Tiant did finish fifth in AL MVP voting.



Pitching for Cleveland in 1968, Luis Tiant won the first of two earned run average titles, yet he has struggled to raise sufficient support for election to the Hall of Fame.

That 1968 season prompted Major League Baseball to lower the pitching mound from 15 inches to ten inches as Tiant inverted his win-loss record in 1968 from 21 wins and nine losses to nine wins and an MLB-worst 20 losses in 1969, although this was an Indians team that had gone from 86 wins in 1968 to 99 losses the following year. After a season with the Minnesota Twins, Tiant arrived in Boston in 1971, where he won his second ERA title in 1972 with another sub-2.00 mark, 1.91, while splitting his time as a starter and reliever.

Tiant went on to have three 20-game seasons with the Red Sox and made two All-Star teams to go along with his one All-Star appearance with Cleveland. Retiring after the 1982 season, Tiant left a 229–172 win-loss record, a 3.30 ERA, a 114 ERA+, 49 shutouts (21st all-time), and 2416 strikeouts for the writers to contemplate, but despite a promising 30.9 percent of the vote on his first BBWAA ballot in 1988, he never even cracked 20 percent over the next 14 years. His stints on his first three veterans committee ballots during the 2000s mirrored that tentative initial support before cratering in the 2010s, with the 2018 Modern Baseball Era Committee ballot his most recent appearance.

Like his contemporary Tommy John, Luis Tiant reached the 60.0 WAR plateau with 65.6, but unlike John, who pitched seven more seasons than did Tiant thanks to, well, Tommy John surgery, Tiant had six seasons with a WAR of 5.0 or higher including a career-high 8.5 in 1968. Moreover, Tiant's S-JAWS (a JAWS variant tailored to starting pitchers) of 53.7 ranks him 44th all-time, nestled in the same neighborhood as Jim Palmer and John Smoltz and a tick ahead of Don Drysdale and Red Ruffing, all of whom are Hall of Famers. By contrast, John's S-JAWS of 47.5 ranks 77th, one tick ahead of dead-ball Hall of Famer Joe McGinnity, whose career lasted just ten seasons.

Luis Tiant is a classic bubble candidate. Crunch the numbers and he looks promising. Give him the eye test and maybe not so much, and he doesn't really have the bling although his two sub-2.00 ERA titles are impressive, and he was also impressive in limited postseason action. I wouldn't vote for El Tiante first, but I wouldn't mind if enough actual committee voters did.

Why Aren't They in the Hall of Fame Already?

Two candidates I would vote for—in a heartbeat—are Dick Allen and Ken Boyer, both of whom, along with Tommy John and Luis Tiant, began their careers as both the lingering stench of segregation and the increasing effects of talent compression resulting from integration (which, indirectly, would include Tiant as his Cuban father had pitched in the Negro Leagues) could be felt. That talent compression favored John and Tiant as pitchers held the upper hand through 1968 prior to the lowering of the pitching mound for the 1969 season.

In fact, Boyer's career began in 1955, less than a decade after Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson began the integration of the Major Leagues, and ended in 1969, although Boyer had ceased to be a starting player by 1966. As for African-American Allen, he endured racial abuse as a minor leaguer in Arkansas before he had to face it from Philadelphia fans, still notorious for their pugnacious behavior, as he began his career with the Phillies in 1963.

After a September call-up in 1963, Dick Allen roared to life the following year as the starting third baseman for the Phillies, punching out a .318/.382/.557/.939 slash line that yielded a 162 OPS+ based on 201 hits including a career-high 38 doubles, an MLB-leading 13 triples, and 29 home runs, all combining for a league-leading 352 total bases, another career high, as he paced the Majors with 125 runs scored while adding 91 runs driven in to run away with National League Rookie of the Year honors while placing seventh in MVP voting.

But while Allen continued his tear through NL pitching during his seven years in Philadelphia, that stint proved to be an ordeal as perceptions grew that he had an attitude problem, which prompted fan hostility to such an extent that, to shield himself from being pelted by items that included flashlight batteries, he took to wearing a batting helmet when he played in the field, giving birth to his nickname "Crash," short for crash helmet.

Despite this harassment, Allen continued to rake against NL pitching including 112 runs scored, 110 RBI, and a career-high 40 home runs in 1966, which garnered his second top-ten MVP finish, and a league-leading .404 on-base percentage the following year. Despite fans' hostility, Allen was named to three All-Star teams during his time in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, Allen's contentious relationship with both the Philadelphia fans and team prompted his demand to be traded, which the Phillies did for the 1970 season.

That move inadvertently immersed Allen in controversy—and history: The Phillies were supposed to receive from the St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Curt Flood, who famously refused to be traded and even sued MLB to contest it, a case that went all the way to the US Supreme Court; Flood lost that battle, but MLB players eventually won the war against the Reserve Clause and for the introduction of free agency a few years later.

Making another All-Star squad while with the Cardinals, Allen hit 34 home runs and drove in 101 runs before St. Louis traded him to Los Angeles for the 1971 season. By now shuttling among first base, third base, and left field—Allen was never a defensive ace—Allen generated 5.4 WAR, his sixth season with 5.0 or better, with 23 home runs, 90 runs batted in, and a 151 OPS+ before the Dodgers shipped him off to the Chicago White Sox after the 1971 season, the trade that brought Tommy John to Los Angeles.

In his first year with the South Siders, Allen set the house on fire with what is arguably his best overall season. Now a full-time first baseman, he led the AL in home runs (37) and RBI (113) while batting .308, third overall and just ten points shy of leader Rod Carew and thus this close to a batting Triple Crown, as he was easily named the AL MVP and was also selected for the All-Star Team; he would go to the Midsummer Classic in all three seasons with the White Sox.



Will his monster 1972 season with the Chicago White Sox push Dick Allen into Cooperstown this year?

Allen's superlative 1972 effort earned him a three-year, $750,000 contract, at the time the largest deal in baseball, but injuries dogged his 1973 season, and despite returning healthy enough in 1974 to lead the AL in home runs (32) and the Majors in slugging percentage (.563), Allen quit the team with two weeks left in the season, reputedly because of conflicts with Ron Santo, with the White Sox in his final season after spending his Hall of Fame career on Chicago's North Side with the Cubs. Sold to the Atlanta Braves, Allen instead announced his retirement after refusing to join them although he returned for two unremarkable seasons with the Phillies and a final one with the Oakland A's before officially retiring.

Dick Allen garnered 3.7 percent of the vote on his BBWAA ballot debut in 1983 and thus was dropped for 1984, but writers' protests brought him back in 1985 although he never polled higher than 18.9 percent in his penultimate year before bowing out in 1997.

The slugger's tenure on the various veterans committee ballots followed the BBWAA trend until 2015, when Allen, as well as Tony Oliva, fell one vote shy of election; also on that ballot were Ken Boyer and Luis Tiant along with Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, and Minnie Miñoso who, with Oliva, would be elected by the Golden Days Era Committee in 2022.

With Boyer also on that 2022 ballot, Allen again fell one vote shy. Having come so close the last two times he was up for consideration, Dick Allen would seem to be poised for the Hall of Fame this year, his fate in the hands of whoever will be staffing the Classic Era Committee. Let's hope they sense the trend and give him at least 12 votes to usher him into Cooperstown.

Unlike his fellow third baseman, Ken Boyer has a tougher path to Cooperstown as, like Luis Tiant, he is both overlooked and underrated. Actually, Boyer is the poor man's Ron Santo, or at least he was the prototype for the superlative two-way third baseman, a slick-fielding and hard-slugging hot-corner wizard who could hit in the middle of the lineup, with Mike Schmidt, Scott Rolen, and Adrián Beltré being outstanding contemporary examples set by Boyer.

Prior to Boyer's debut on the 1975 ballot, the BBWAA had elected only one third baseman, Pie Traynor from the segregated era, who squeaked in with just under 77 percent of the vote on his eighth try. The veterans committee hadn't been much better, voting in just Jimmy Collins and Frank Baker before blessing Freddie Lindstrom in 1976, although the Negro Leagues Committee had sent Judy Johnson to Cooperstown the year before.

Boyer himself never reached five percent of the vote on his first five BBWAA ballots and was dropped after the 1979 slate. However, protests brought him back along with Flood and Santo in 1985, and after a spurt of low 20-percent showings between 1986 and 1988, he dropped into the teens until his final year of eligibility in 1994. (Boyer had died of cancer at age 51 in 1982.) His tenure on veterans committee ballots, six of them between 2003 and 2022, also evinced some support over the first three before falling off in 2012; 2015, which saw Santo elected; and 2022, although it may be a good sign that he has returned for this go-around.

Becoming the St. Louis Cardinals' starting third baseman in his inaugural 1955 season, Ken Boyer showed early promise with 18 home runs and 62 runs knocked in. The following year, Boyer's OPS+ of 124 resulted from his slash line of .306/.347/.494/.841 as he hit 30 doubles and 26 home runs while scoring 91 runs and driving in 98 while making the first of seven All-Star teams, all with the Cardinals. Although he slumped in 1957, Boyer returned to form the next year as he reeled off seven consecutive seasons of 20 or more home runs and 90 or more RBI.

Boyer enjoyed a banner year in 1964, leading the Majors with 119 runs knocked in and claiming the National League's Most Valuable Player Award, the culmination of four years of top-ten NL MVP finishes. The culmination for the Cardinals came with a World Series championship, the first for the Redbirds since 1946 as they beat the New York Yankees in seven games—with Boyer's grand slam to overcome a 3–0 deficit in Game Four enabling St. Louis to even the Series; Boyer also homered and scored three runs in the deciding Game Seven.

Playing in the pitching-dominant environment of the 1950s and 1960s, Ken Boyer in a nine-year period from 1956 to 1964 had a seasonal slash line of .299/.364/.491/.854, producing a 124 OPS+, as he averaged 175 hits, including 25 doubles and 25 home runs, 93 runs scored, 96 RBI, and 6.1 WAR.



The poor man's Ron Santo, Ken Boyer was the prototype for the slick-fielding, slugging third basemen already in the Hall.

Beginning his career five years after Boyer, Ron Santo also faced hurdles on his Hall of Fame path, finally elected by the veterans committee two years after his December 2010 death. Each third baseman won five Gold Gloves, and although Santo in four top-ten finishes for National League Most Valuable Player never won the award, he made nine All-Star teams, two more than Boyer.

The following tables compare each player's batting volume and batting rate statistics and their fielding statistics.

Although each played for 15 seasons, Santo notched 200 more games and 1100 more plate appearances; otherwise, they are roughly the same hitter. Santo did hit more home runs and walked at a much better rate; he led the NL in bases on balls four times.

Slash Line: Batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage/on-base plus slugging percentage

OPS+: Adjusted on-base plus slugging percentage, league- and park-adjusted and indexed to 100

wRC+: Adjusted weighted runs created, league- and park-adjusted and indexed to 100

oWAR: Offensive Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference version)

bWAR: Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference version)

JAWS: JAffe WAR Score system ([WAR + WAR7* / WAR]) (*Sum of top seven WAR seasons)

fWAR: Wins Above Replacement (Fangraphs version)

Boyer's better ability to get a hit mitigates the gap in his on-base percentage although offensive rate statistics clearly favor Santo, particularly FanGraphs' WAR projection, which is close to Baseball Reference's; however, FanGraphs calculates a significantly lower WAR for Boyer.

NOTE: These are cumulative totals at all positions.

Ch: Total chances

PO: Putouts

A: Assists

E: Errors

DP: Double plays turned

FP: Fielding percentage

Rtot: Total Zone total fielding runs above average

dWAR: Defensive Wins Above Replacement (Baseball Reference version)

A durable player, Santo played in 150 or more games in 11 consecutive seasons while Boyer played in 150 or more games seven times. (Boyer's first seven seasons occurred when the National League had a 154-game schedule.) Santo was also dedicated to third base, making all but 53 of his 2183 defensive appearances at the hot corner, which is why his defensive volume statistics are markedly higher; Boyer, who primarily played center field in 1957, made 1785 of 1956 defensive appearances at third base. By rate stats, Boyer does emerge as the better fielder, particularly by Total Zone total fielding runs above average, and a full 2.0 wins above replacement in dWAR is a significant edge.

Overall, Santo is the better third baseman; he is ranked eighth by JAWS while Boyer is ranked 14th. But of the top 15 third basemen ranked by JAWS, only Boyer, Buddy Bell, and Graig Nettles are not in the Hall of Fame. (Dick Allen is ranked 17th although he spent more time at first base.)

Moreover, current Hall of Famers George Kell, Freddie Lindstrom, and Pie Traynor don't even make the top 50, so adding Ken Boyer does not cheapen the Hall of Fame third baseman brand. We waited a long time for Ron Santo to be inducted into Cooperstown. We've waited even longer for Ken Boyer. Note to the Classic Era Committee: End that wait this year.