Three new players officially entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame this past weekend: Jeff Kent, Carlos Beltran, and Andruw Jones. It’s a great time to reminisce about their careers…and also remember all the great players who still deserve more consideration — like first baseman Carlos Delgado.
Kent is an interesting part of this story because he gained entry into Cooperstown via the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee. It’s the same committee that, back on December 7, was just a few votes away from sending Delgado to the Hall with him. Delgado landed at nine of 16 votes, three shy of the 75% needed. It’s the closest he’s ever been to the Hall, and it happened on the same ballot Kent cleared.
That’s a very different outcome from his original Hall of Fame ballot experience. After finishing his MLB career in 2009 with the New York Mets, the 17-year veteran became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2015. He quickly fell off the ballot after getting just 3.8% of the vote. At the time this happened, he became just the third member of the 400-homer club to fall off the ballot so quickly, joining Jose Canseco and Darrell Evans.
If we just strictly look at the numbers, though, having this happen was absolutely outrageous (and I think it’s validated by his performance on this year’s Contemporary Era ballot).
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Carlos Delgado’s Career Numbers & Achievements
Delgado played at the height of the steroid era. While he was never connected to performance-enhancing drugs, it was more difficult for him to rack up the type of individual accolades that could’ve strengthened his Hall of Fame case.
The left-handed slugger was a two-time All-Star and three-time Silver Slugger winner. He also finished in the top 20 of MVP Award voting six times. The closest Delgado came to winning the honor was in 2003 when he slugged 42 homers with a league-leading 145 RBI and a 1.019 OPS for the Toronto Blue Jays.
But still, his career stats jump off the page. Delgado played in 2,035 games across 17 seasons. He hit .280/.383/.546 with 473 home runs, 483 doubles, 1,512 RBI, and 1,241 runs scored.
Would it have been a different conversation if he played another year or two and reached the 500-homer plateau? Maybe, but as Gary Sheffield has shown us, that also doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
He Was a Consistent Force at the Plate Every Year
Delgado appeared in 82 games between 1993 and 1995 for the Blue Jays. His first full season came in 1996 as a 24-year-old. He impressed with a .270/.353/.490 line to go along with 25 homers and 92 RBI.
That began a dominant stretch in which he slugged at least 20 homers and 87 RBI in a season for 13 consecutive years. This stretch included nine years of 30-plus homers and 100-plus RBI. If he had accumulated just one more RBI in 2004 for Toronto, he would’ve reached these benchmarks nine seasons in a row.
Delgado surpassed the 40-homer plateau three times: 44 in 1999, 41 in 2000, and 42 in 2003. Each time that happened, he also drove in at least 130 runs. It’s worth noting that he hit 30-plus homers in a season for 10 straight years between 1997 and 2006. An average year for him during this span included a .287/.397/.571 line with 37 homers, 38 doubles, 116 RBI, and 97 runs scored.
Playing on mostly unspectacular teams throughout his career didn’t help because he didn’t have an opportunity for any signature postseason moments. But the one time he did get to play in October, he took advantage of it. Delgado hit .351/.442/.757 with four homers, 11 RBI, and eight runs scored in 43 plate appearances for the Mets in the 2006 playoffs.
Is Carlos Delgado a Hall of Famer?
Will Delgado be enshrined in Cooperstown one day? For years, it seemed unlikely because of the backlog of other deserving players. However, December’s vote could be foreshadowing that he has a shot of it eventually happening. Outside of Kent, the nine votes he received were more than all other players on the Contemporary ballot.
Delgado was a consistently elite producer for his entire big-league career, but this is not me saying he should absolutely be in the Hall of Fame. Do I think he had a Hall of Fame-caliber career? Yes, I do. But more than anything else, he deserved multiple years on the BBWAA ballot so people could appropriately look back on what he accomplished as a player.
Even if he didn’t eventually get in — which would be understandable — Delgado deserved better than to join a long list of one-and-done injustices. Three years from now, he might have another shot at gaining enshrinement.
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