Minnesota baseball fans have had a good run over the last three years with Hall of Fame candidates. Joe Mauer was elected this past year. In 2022, Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat were elected into the Hall of Fame on the Classic Baseball Era’s Committee while the writers voted in former Twin David Ortiz.
There are only two former Twins on the BBWAA ballots this year: Torii Hunter will have his fifth try to get voted in, and long-time reliever and short-lived Twin Fernando Rodney. Their chances of making it in are slim. Hunter has never had more than 9.5% of the vote in his previous four years on the ballot. While Rodney had an impressive 17-year run in the majors, he holds the lowest JAWS of any player on the ballot at 7.9 in the last five years.
FanGraphs Senior Writer Jay Jaffe created JAWS during his time at Baseball Prospectus. JAWS evaluates the peak of a player’s career by weighing their career WAR (wins above replacement) and averaging it out with the peak of their career over seven seasons. The most likely players to be elected off the ballot in this year’s class, Ichiro Suzuki and C.C. Sabathia, had JAWS of 51.9 and 50.8.
However, Twins fans and fans of baseball’s history in the state of Minnesota will not have to lament over the possibility of no representation in the Class of 2025. Three players on the Classic Baseball Era’s Committee Ballot with Twins and Greater Minnesota connections have a much better chance of being elected: John Donaldson, Tommy John, and Luis Tiant.
Donaldson may be the player Twins fans are most unfamiliar with. He never had the chance to play in the major leagues because he was a Black man from Glasgow, Mo., born in 1890, 57 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional sports. Donaldson spent only five seasons in the Negro Leagues from its inaugural year in 1920 to 1924, all seasons with the Kansas City Monarchs.
Donaldson’s last season with the Monarchs was short-lived. By May 4, 1924, he was in Bertha, Minn., with their barnstorming team. Donaldson would continue playing with barnstorming teams across Minnesota towns such as St. Cloud and Lismore over the next six years and retired from his playing days in 1940 at the age of 49.
Donaldson was also the only Black player on any Minnesota team during his time. Because of that, his legacy’s contributions to the game of baseball don’t jump off his stat pages. His short-lived time in the Negro Leagues only accounts for a JAWS of 2.7. But the stats and impact of Donaldson still exist in tidbits of fact and urban legends, but most importantly, his barnstorming career would influence Satchel Paige’s lengthy career.
John is most famous for the revolutionary surgery performed on him in 1975, more so than his career. He never pitched for the Twins, but he was a part of the Twins TV broadcast crew from 1994-96, working alongside Dick Bremer, Al Newman, and Bert Blyleven, among others.
John’s time broadcasting with the Twins came during the player strike that ended the 1994 season in August, delayed the 1995 season to start in late April, and ended during the 1996 season. Paul Molitor will be a part of the era committee voting on John and got his 3,000 hit in 1996. John was also on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in 1995 and had 21.3% of the vote.
The writers never gave him more than 31.7% of the vote, with some arguing he benefited from counting stats due to his 26-year career’s longevity. But his longevity came from the surgical procedure named after him. He pitched more seasons after the surgery than before and still accumulated 288 career wins a 3.31 career ERA, and JAWS of 48.1 which is higher than Ortiz’s (45.3), Mariano Rivera‘s (42.5) and Joe Mauer’s (47.1).
Tiant only pitched one season with the Twins. Former Twins owner Calvin Griffith let him go just a week before the start of the 1971 season because he didn’t want to pay him $35,000 for the season. Tiant battled injuries during his 1970 season with the Twins but was still a solid performer when healthy, posting a 3.40 ERA in 92 innings.
He may have had his best seasons with Cleveland before joining the Twins. However, Tiant still had a solid stretch with the Boston Red Sox in the eight years following his time in Minnesota. His best performance may have been in 1972 when he split time between the Red Sox rotation and bullpen and captured the American League ERA title with a 1.91 ERA. Tiant also has the highest JAWS of all players on the Classic Era’s Committee ballot, sitting at 55.1, also placing him above Suzuki and Sabathia.
If Tiant’s peers vote him in this week, it’s unlikely he’d be wearing a Twins hat on his plaque. Still, he will always remain one of the biggest ‘what if he stayed’ in franchise history. However, if Tiant is voted in, it will only come two months after his death on Oct. 8, making him one of many on the committee ballots to be elected in postmortem.
There’s no clear-cut answer on whether any of the three men tied to Minnesota baseball history will be voted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday. Dick Allen is the only player on the Classic Baseball Era Committee who may be predicted as an easy yes. He fell short by one vote to make it in the Class of 2022 alongside Oliva and Kaat.
Still, the committees provide a time to reflect on players who are often considered borderline Hall of Famers and discuss their cases, which have long been left behind by the writers.
