Bonds, Clemens Facing Hall Elimination As Kent Voted In

With the latest round of voting, the National Baseball Hall of Fame has issued a death sentence to Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. At the same time, the 16-person Contemporary Era Committee elected second baseman Jeff Kent on Sunday, signaling the institution is simply running out of viable candidates.

Because of new rules enacted this year by the Hall’s Board of Directors, Bonds, Clemens, Gary Sheffield and Fernando Valenzuela received less than five votes from the 16 members making them ineligible for the ballot when the same committee electing players whose careers began post-1980 votes in 2028.

If they get selected for the ballot in 2031, which is not a given considering the intense process of just doing that, and receive less than five votes again, these four players will no longer be eligible for the Hall.

In an interview last spring, Bonds said the Hall for him is a dead issue.

“I don’t know why you guys keep bringing that up,” Major League Baseball’s all-time leader with 762 home runs said. “It’s like, why? Why not kill that bird and let it go? Why do you want to keep beating that drum? There’s no need to keep beating that drum. There’s no need to make a headline out of it. Just let it be what it is. That’s how I look at it now. Move on.”

New Rules Effect Length of Hall eligibility

Rules for voting on the Baseball Writers Association of America ballot and what was once simply called the Veterans Committee ballot often change. But let’s be clear. The Hall finally has the so-called steroid candidates like Bonds, Clemens and soon to be Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez right where they want them: banishment. Sheffield and the late Valenzuela are just collateral damage.

In 2014, early during their candidacy on the BBWAA ballot, the Hall changed the eligibility for all former players from 15 years to 10, a reduction of 33%. There’s no way of knowing, of course, but Bonds and Clemens were both trending upwards in their final years. Bonds was at 66% of the vote in 2022 and Clemens was at 65.2%, the highest of their 10 years.

Had they had another five years from that point they might have reached the requisite 75%, like Jim Rice, who made it in his 15th year, or Bert Blyleven, who earned induction in his 14th. Those two benefited from an evolution of the electorate and a change in perception of their candidacies.

From there, the Era Committees are a much tougher slog, as Bonds and Clemens have already discovered twice when they received less than five votes. They were grandfathered into the new rules and given a reset.

The ballot has been reduced from 10 candidates to eight. A committee member can vote for only three of them instead of four. With just 16 members, there are 48 votes to go around. You need 12 to reach 75%. Hence, you get results like Sunday’s: Kent, 14; Carlos Delgado, nine; and Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy six each. That’s 35 right there. Since for some unknown reason the Hall doesn’t announce specific totals below five, that means there were only 13 votes left to go around for Bonds, Clemens, Sheffield and Valenzuela.

That leaves three of the players eligible for the next Contemporary Era Committee: Delgado, Mattingly and Murphy. Mattingly and Murphy have now been on 19 Hall ballots, 15 from the BBWAA and four of the committee ballots without getting elected. There’s a strong argument, and within the spirit of the new rules, that enough is enough.

It will be a tough search to find five more candidates from that era. The Hall can always induct the very good as opposed to the great with these committees as has been proven in recent years with the inclusion of Harold Baines, Fred McGriff, Alan Trammell, Ted Simmons, and now Kent, just to name a few. All had failed miserably on the BBWAA ballot.

Kent Seemed To Be A Compromise Candidate

That brings us back to Kent, who also never generated much traction on the BBWAA ballot. His first six years he garnered less than 20% of the vote, topping off at 46.5% in his final year. This was his first time on the Contemporary Era ballot.

There were good reasons for Kent’s exclusion. While he played for six teams in 17 seasons and hit a record 377 homers for a second baseman – 351 in games he started at that position – Kent’s six years with the San Francisco Giants playing with Bonds from 1997 to 2002 were his most tumultuous.

Despite revisionist history, the two never got along, as illustrated by an incident on June 26, 2002, at San Diego when Bonds and Kent tussled in the visiting dugout on camera and for everyone to see. Bonds interceded in an argument between Kent and David Bell and shoved Kent in the chest. The two had to be separated.

Earlier during that spring training in Scottsdale, Ariz., Kent showed up with a broken left wrist. His cover story was that the injury happened during a mishap while he was washing his truck. But 911 calls at the time reported a motorcyclist crashing while doing some stunts near the ballpark. Kent was prohibited from motorcycle racing by terms of his contract.

“I hear the rumor is floating around,” Kent said at the time. “Sure, I guess. However, you want to write it. It’s still a broken wrist.”

Kent was back for 2002 opening day and, despite his squabble with Bonds, the Giants won the National League pennant and lost a seven-game World Series to the then California Angels.

Bonds took the high road Sunday and congratulated Kent on Facebook for his election to the Hall.

“We spent six seasons together with the Giants and shared many successes as teammates,” Bonds wrote. “I would also like to extend my congratulations to his wonderful wife and entire family.”

Kent responded by saying Sunday night that Bonds as a teammate helped him: “I believe I [also] helped [Bonds]. I believe he was one of the best baseball players I ever saw.”

As far as whether Bonds deserves to be in the Hall, Kent demurred.

“You argue through it, and if he’s not he’s not, and if he is he is,” he said. “It’s not going to matter to me one way or the other.”

Kent is in, Bonds isn’t. The death sentence has been issued.