Breaking down Jim Kaat's chances of making the Hall of Fame

Jim Kaat is once again a finalist for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

This isn’t earth-shattering news. The Zeeland native has been a finalist on the old Veterans Committee and current Golden Era Committee ballot every time there has been a vote since he fell off the writer's ballot.

Kaat won 283 games during his career and won 16 Gold Glove awards as the best fielder at his position. He has received a lot of support over the years from the writers and later the committees.

But what are his chances this time (and the chances of his former teammates)?

It is a difficult question to answer.

The immediate answer is “Good.” Kaat got 10 of the 16 votes the last time the Golden Era was voted on, in 2014, missing election by a mere two votes.

However …

Despite Kaat being just two votes short, he was still behind two returning candidates. His former teammates, Tony Oliva and Dick Allen, both missed election by just one vote in 2014 — and have had to wait an extra year than the five-year rotation when the Hall of Fame pushed back the vote one year because of the pandemic.

The most tragic part of that delay was that Allen died last year, never knowing if this election was finally going to be his time.

Kaat and Oliva are both alive, as is Maury Wills, who missed by three votes. The committee might not want what happened to Allen to happen to anyone else and might lean toward candidates who are alive.

Of course, not everyone thinks that way. The best is the best, and that works against Kaat a little bit.

Allen and Oliva have better Hall of Fame cases than Kaat, as does Minnie Minoso, who missed by four votes last time.

Minoso was the first Black Latino pioneer in the majors, arriving from the Negro Leagues seven years before Roberto Clemente. Now, he was not as great as Clemente (very few were), but Clemente is assumed by many to be the first Black Latino star in the game, which is false. Minoso was a nine-time All-Star and has a strong Hall of Fame case on numbers alone, but his place in history as a pioneer makes it a little head-scratching that he is not already in Cooperstown.

Oliva was a three-time batting champion, Rookie of the Year, five-time hits leader and two-time runner-up for MVP. He batted .304 for his career and led the league in several other categories before a knee injury shortened his career. Had he not been injured, he would have made the Hall of Fame long ago, but he still did enough to merit election and was in the argument for best player in the American League in the 1960s.

“You talk to catchers during that era, the one guy they feared late in the game was Tony Oliva. He was a combination of power and average. He very well could have been in the MVP in 1965,” Kaat said. “He belongs in the Hall of Fame.”

Allen is one of the players most whose case has been bolstered by analytics, making his numbers during the low-offensive 1960s. He hit 351 home runs and didn’t reach any huge milestone, but he was one of the most feared hitters in the game and had an elite power-high average combination, batting .292 for his career. He won an MVP and a Rookie of the Year and his 58.7 WAR looks strong, but his OPS+ (on base percentage plus slugging percentage, while factoring in ballparks and eras) is 156 which is staggering.

“The things he did things in the field were just legendary,” Kaat said of Allen.

On the flip side, Kaat and Wills have seen their cases look less compelling because of analytics.

Kaat’s WAR is 50.5, which is pretty good, but he also pitched 25 years to get it, while someone like Luis Tiant (who also belongs in the Hall of Fame), was 66.1 in six fewer seasons.

Kaat’s earned run average is 3.45, which again is solid, but in an era that produced a plethora of Hall of Famers like Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Steve Carlton, Juan Marichal, Don Sutton, Jim Palmer, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, it still ranks Kaat behind them and Tiant.

Now all of those pitchers are in, and Kaat shouldn’t be punished for playing in the best pitcher's era of the past 100 years, but his place among his era affects his chances.

But the biggest hurdle is his competition on the ballot. With just 10 finalists — Kaat, Oliva, Allen, Minoso, Wills, Ken Boyer, Roger Maris, Gil Hodges, Billy Pierce and Danny Murtaugh — there are a lot of deserving candidates who have been stuck in this logjam for two decades.

Ron Santo is the only player from his era to be elected since 2001.

A reasonable argument can be made for all 10 candidates, and most of them have come close over the years. This era desperately needs to elect some players.

It looks favorable that Allen and Oliva will be elected after missing by one vote. Minoso is arguably the best case with his place in history added to his numbers.

But Kaat has seen support as well, and all four of those guys have a good shot.

Hopefully, they don’t take votes away from each other and some candidates actually make it this time. No matter who makes it, if one — or let's hope two or three candidates make it, it is a victory for all.

If Kaat isn’t one of those elected, having others elected will get them out of the way and only help Kaat’s chances in the future.

The logjam has to end sometime, and this could finally be the year.

— Contact Sports Editor Dan D'Addona at Dan.D'Addona@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanDAddona and Facebook @Holland Sentinel Sports.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Breaking down Jim Kaat's chances of making the Hall of Fame