Baseball Hall of Fame tiers: Which active players are on their way to Cooperstown?

New York Times

24-07-2025

It's Hall of Fame weekend — for Ichiro Suzuki, for CC Sabathia, for Billy Wagner and for two men who will be missed on that podium, Dick Allen and Dave Parker. We'll be talking and writing about all of them in the coming days. We promise.
But this is a different kind of Hall of Fame column — because it's time for that question I love to ask every July, as induction weekend arrives:
Which active players will join them someday in the Baseball Hall of Fame's hallowed plaque gallery?
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This is the third straight year I've written about this. And we're starting to get the impression it's a topic you care about, too – if those 1,100 reader comments on last year's column are telling us anything.
So what do you say we make this an annual tradition? Everyone good with that? Great. Let's do this. Again.
As usual, I'm dividing these players into tiers. Then I'll do my best to explain why I placed them in those tiers. Then I'll pretty much duck for cover as you explain to me why I got this so wrong. Thanks in advance for the input! Ready? Cool. Here we go.
Clayton Kershaw
Justin Verlander
Max Scherzer
Mike Trout
Freddie Freeman
Mookie Betts*
Aaron Judge*
(*new to the In Right Now Club)
Bryce Harper
Nolan Arenado
Manny Machado
Paul Goldschmidt
Shohei Ohtani*
Jose Altuve*
(*new to the Red Zone)
José Ramírez
Francisco Lindor
Juan Soto
Chris Sale
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Gerrit Cole
Carlos Correa
Adley Rutschman
Yordan Alvarez
Jacob deGrom
Zack Wheeler
Paul Skenes*
(*first time in this column)
Kenley Jansen
Aroldis Chapman
Josh Hader
Emmanuel Clase*
(*first time in this column)
Salvador Perez
J.T. Realmuto
Cal Raleigh*
Will Smith*
(*first time in this column)
Ronald Acuña Jr.
Alex Bregman
Rafael Devers
Corey Seager
Kyle Tucker
Trea Turner
Corbin Carroll
Cody Bellinger
Xander Bogaerts
Christian Yelich
Corbin Burnes
Matt Chapman
Bobby Witt Jr.
Julio Rodríguez
Fernando Tatis Jr.
Gunnar Henderson
Tarik Skubal
Elly De La Cruz
James Wood
Pete Crow-Armstrong
Joey Votto
All right. Now let's dig in on how I came up with all that.
We have two new members of this club. One is Mookie Betts, who was still hanging out in the Red Zone last year. The other is Aaron Judge, who just long-jumped over everyone and is breaking all the rules for what a mortal-lock Hall of Famer has looked like. That's just how we roll on this list. Everything about Hall of Fame voting is changing, so get on board!
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THE ACES: I've been at this for three years, and it can still be a challenge to figure out which players get dropped into which tiers. But not if their names are Kershaw, Verlander and Scherzer.
You know where Clayton Kershaw ranks, in WHIP and Adjusted ERA+, among all starters in the live-ball era with at least 2,000 innings pitched? In first place would be a good guess. Is a guy like that a Hall of Famer? Seems likely!
Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer own three Cy Young Awards apiece. Do three-time Cy Youngs seem like Hall of Famers? Hmmm. Seems like it. Please address all your Roger Clemens questions to the Mitchell Report. Thank you.
TROUT: Maybe you're one of those people who think Mike Trout has spent so much time not playing over these last five seasons, he must have plummeted into some lower, Not In Yet tier. C'mon. Really?
Just to put his place in history in perspective, here's a partial list of some of the legends Trout has passed on Baseball Reference's career wins above replacement leaderboard just over those last five seasons:
Chipper Jones
Ken Griffey Jr.
Joe DiMaggio
Johnny Bench
So at one month shy of 34, Trout is up to 86.8 WAR, according to Baseball Reference. And everybody at that level or above is already a Hall of Famer, unless they're A) tied to performance-enhancing drugs or B) Albert Pujols, who doesn't arrive on the ballot until 2028. In other words, enjoy watching this man play baseball while you can. He's 33, and already an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Let's focus on that, OK?
FREEMAN: I know it's been a frustrating couple of months for Freddie Freeman, who'd spent his first 15 seasons as the most consistent hitter of his generation. But I handed Freeman a membership to the In Right Now Club last year. That's not the kind of honor I have any reason to take back.
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In columns like this, we don't focus on two-month slumps. We focus on big-picture achievements like this — our handy dandy rundown of all the first basemen in history with at least 2,300 hits, 350 homers, 500 doubles and an Adjusted OPS+ of 140 or better:
Lou Gehrig
Albert Pujols
Freddie Freeman
Cool club. Now add in that World Series MVP trophy Freeman won last October, plus a regular-season MVP award, five top-five finishes and eight top-10s. So is there any debate? Every first baseman who has had Freddie Freeman's career wound up giving a speech in Cooperstown. I can't wait for his.
BETTS: A year ago in this space, Mookie was still calling plays in the Red Zone. But this just in: He can spike that football, because according to the proper authorities — by which I mean me — he has crossed that goal line.
Again, don't get distracted by all his troubles this season, because you know where Mookie now ranks in Baseball Reference's WAR among all active players? That would be second, behind only that Trout guy. So at this point, everyone in the live-ball era with as many career wins above replacement as him (72.6) is a Hall of Famer, except for men who aren't on the ballot yet or the usual PED suspects.
Yeah, I know he has 'only' 1,700 career hits. And any number lower than 2,000 used to prevent us from saying we were watching a sure-fire Hall of Famer. But not anymore — not if you got the memo that those old-fangled counting numbers are no longer what they used to be. And that's an even bigger factor for our other new entrant in the In Right Now Club, a man named …
JUDGE: Aaron Judge hasn't even made it to 1,200 hits, you say? Doesn't matter. You say he might not drive in or score his 1,000th run until 2027? So what? You say there has never been a future Hall of Fame outfielder in American League/National League history with this few hits, runs and RBIs at age 33? Whatever!
I booted Judge up two categories this year and tush-pushed him across the In Right Now line because those counting numbers, in his case, have never felt more irrelevant.
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It's his 10th full season, so he's now eligible. He's within reach of his fourth 50-homer season and his third season with an OPS+ over 200. He's on the road to a third MVP award. And I've already documented why he's the greatest right-handed hitter of the last 100 years.
But do you still need convincing? Then check out all the players in history with 350 homers, a career OPS+ of 170 or better and as many wins above replacement as Judge (59.6):
Babe Ruth
Lou Gehrig
Ted Williams
Mickey Mantle
Barry Bonds
Mike Trout
Aaron Judge
Any more questions? Not for me!
'Trapped in the Red Zone' sounds like a Stephen King horror flick, but it actually describes all the guys in this club who are back for the third straight year: Harper, Goldschmidt, Machado and Arenado. Mookie finally found his way out of this zone, but the other four are all still hovering at about the 3-yard line.
So the big news here is our two new famous additions since last year. You've heard of them!
HARPER: Is Bryce Harper heading for the Hall of Fame? Of course. But this is the third straight season he has gotten stuck in this Red Zone concourse because of an odd collection of injuries and assorted setbacks. So his counting-numbers spinner has been moving in slow motion, and that's never helpful.
But Bryce is still a two-time MVP, a Rookie of the Year, an NLCS MVP and a proud owner of a massive big-game highlight reel, all by age 32. So he won't be trapped in Red Zone limbo forever. It's just that sometimes in baseball, limbo happens.
GOLDSCHMIDT: I love Paul Goldschmidt. I almost elevated him into the 'In' club each of the last two years. But I'm still not quite there, despite his bounce-back season in the Bronx.
OK, I know what some of you are thinking: Yes, I pronounced Joey Votto as 'already in' last year — and Goldschmidt's numbers are strikingly similar to Votto's. But Votto sits above Goldschmidt in every category on the slash line, and was a seven-time on-base percentage champ who reached base more and struck out less. So that's a separator I couldn't get past.
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But a first baseman who has now blown past 64 WAR, is 30 homers away from 400 and might even join Jeff Bagwell in the 200-Steal, 300-Homer Club is grinding his way toward Cooperstown. Can he steam across that goal line by next year this time? I'll let you know.
ARENADO AND MACHADO: I think it helps these two guys that Adrian Beltré and Scott Rolen have restarted the parade of Hall of Fame third basemen over the last two years. So Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado are just waiting for their parade floats to arrive. It won't be long.
Arenado is now two seasons removed from his rock star peak. But that peak was a 10-year run that has literally never been matched by any third baseman not named Mike Schmidt: 10 Gold Gloves, three home run titles, five top-10 MVP finishes and a web gem highlight reel I could watch all day. So no Coors Field asterisks are going to keep him out of the Hall.
Then there's Machado, who is still an elite defender and producer at age 33. He beat Arenado to 2,000 hits and 60 WAR. But otherwise, their Cooperstown cases are remarkably close. So if they don't both power across that goal line by the time I write this column next year, I'll be shocked.
OHTANI: At this point, does anyone think the amazing Shohei isn't going to the Hall of Fame? He's the most talented human ever to play baseball. He fires off so many unreal, unprecedented feats that he's now a human history museum. And by the time he's through, he might collect more MVP trophies than Michael Jordan and LeBron James combined (that's 10 by the way).
So why is this man 'only' in the red zone? Because it takes 10 seasons in Major League Baseball to qualify for Cooperstown eligibility. And this is just Year 8 for Ohtani. So he's on the clock. See you in 2027.
ALTUVE: Of course, I saved the most 'fun' name for last. Yes, it's true that Jose Altuve was a 2017 Astro. I know that's enough to convict him of heinous guilt by association for many of you out there.
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Feel free to overlook the evidence that there were fewer instances of trash-can banging during Altuve at-bats than during those of any regular on that 2017 team. Feel free to boo him, ignore him and/or devalue his career if that makes you happy.
Just allow me to point out that Altuve is now well down the road to the Hall. Here are all the second basemen in history with at least 200 steals, 300 homers and a .300 career average:
Roberto Alomar (Hall of Famer), Altuve and … oh, sorry, that's it. Now add in three batting titles, an MVP award, nine All-Star teams and 2,300 hits, and you can see where this is headed.
By the time Altuve appears on a ballot, I bet Carlos Beltrán will already be a Hall of Famer. So what's the argument that Altuve won't follow him right on into the plaque gallery?
I love this category, now in its second year. It's reserved just for guys with Cooperstown-worthy star power who have to park here until they've done enough to reach the Red Zone. Everyone who was in this club last year graduated. I wonder if these two men will follow their lead.
RAMÍREZ: It sometimes feels as if José Ramírez has been in the big leagues longer than Rich Hill. Yet somehow, here in his 13th season, he just got his 1,600th hit — and still hasn't reached 300 homers or 300 steals. So he's not quite in Red Zone territory yet.
On the other hand, only three players in history — the Bonds family and Bobby Abreu — have piled up more 20-homer, 20-steal seasons than Ramírez (seven). And by next year, he should become the first third baseman ever to reach the 300-300 Club. So he might not have sealed his Cooperstown reservations yet, but he can see the path from here.
LINDOR: Francisco Lindor is still only 31, but now ranks 11th among all active position players in bWAR. Everyone above him has already been mentioned in this column. And Lindor is younger than all of them.
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He has rolled up more WAR (52.4) at this age than Derek Jeter, already has as many top-10 MVP finishes at this age as Jeter (six), and he's on pace to join Alex Rodriguez as the only shortstops with at least six 30-homer seasons. So if he can avoid visiting the orthopedist and churn out more big October moments, we can see where this is headed.
SOTO AND VLAD: I don't think I've ever placed two hitters as young as Juan Soto and Vlad Guerrero Jr. this high on my future Hall of Famer rankings. But you know where guys end up who pile up these sorts of numbers by age 26, right? A cool little town in upstate New York.
Soto is the first hitter with over 1,000 hits and a career OPS this good (.947), through his age-26 season, since Joe DiMaggio.
If Vlad hits eight more homers this season, he'll be just the third first baseman to zoom past 1,000 hits and 180 homers by his age-26 season. The others (Orlando Cepeda and Jimmie Foxx) are Hall of Famers.
So if you listen closely, you can hear their chains rustling.
SALE: I'll dive deeper into the murky starting-pitcher waters shortly. But now that Chris Sale finally has a Cy Young Award trophy, it feels as if he has gathered more Hall of Fame traction than any current starter not named Kershaw, Verlander or Scherzer.
Do we still care about the win column? If we do, then 143 wins at age 36 is a problem for any aspiring Hall of Famer.
But if we don't, then we have a whole different conversation on our hands. Who ranks No. 1 in strikeouts per nine innings among all starting pitchers in history with at least 2,000 innings pitched? Right. Sale, at 11.11.
He also sits at No. 2 in the live-ball era (behind only Kershaw) in WHIP (1.049) and ERA+ (141) — with a real shot at becoming the fourth left-hander ever in the 3,000-Strikeout Club. All Chris Sale/Cooperstown debates are required to include the phrase, 'if he stays healthy.' But this makes two straight seasons of good health — and moving chains. Just sayin'.
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COLE AND ALVAREZ: Gerrit Cole (reconstructed elbow) hasn't thrown a pitch in 2025. Yordan Alvarez (fractured right hand) hasn't stepped into the box since May 2. That'll stall anyone's drive.
CORREA AND RUTSCHMAN: Baseball is hard. Carlos Correa and Adley Rutschman are living proof. As far as we know, Correa hasn't had a recurrence of the plantar fasciitis issues that jabbed at him in 2023-24, but he's in the middle of the roughest season of his career (.266/.319/.392/0.1 bWAR).
And Rutschman, currently out with an oblique strain, hasn't been the same team-changing figure in Baltimore since he got drilled on the hand with a foul ball in June 2024. In 593 plate appearances since June 22 of last season, he's hitting .208, with the lowest slugging percentage in baseball (.328).
They both had That Cooperstown Look before all this. Now … um, stay tuned.
I'd have an easier time predicting the 2035 World Series winner than I would predicting what a Hall of Fame starting pitcher will look like in 2035. But here's my question: Will it look anything like these three guys?
DEGROM: On one hand, Jacob deGrom has two Cy Youngs — and the only sub-1.00 WHIP (0.99) of any starter in the live-ball era with at least 1,000 innings pitched. On the other hand, he's 37 years old and still hasn't reached 100 wins. (He's at 94.) So does that mean 300 is out of reach? Discuss!
WHEELER: On one hand, Zack Wheeler has been the most dominating workhorse of any full-time starter in the sport over his six seasons in Philly — ranking No. 1 in innings, WHIP and strikeout/walk ratio, and No. 2 in ERA (a tick behind the now-injured Corbin Burnes). On the other hand, if Wheeler fulfills his vow to retire when his contract runs out after 2027, he probably won't even make it to 150 wins, let alone 250. Is that a problem? Not sure anymore!
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SKENES: On one hand, Paul Skenes has the most spectacular ERA (1.94) through his first 44 starts of any pitcher since earned runs became an official stat in both leagues in 1913. So nobody will dispute that we're watching greatness every time he throws a baseball. On the other hand, he pitches for a team that never wins — which means he never wins. Could that erect any barriers on his road to Cooperstown? I guess we'll find out.
Are we just going to stop caring about stuff like wins and volume when we vote for the Hall in 2035? Maybe. But if not, we might not elect another starter for the next 1,000 years.
Nobody in North America will be cheering louder, on Billy Wagner's induction day, than these dudes. With Wagner now in, we'll be looking at these men really closely in a few years. Don't you think?
JANSEN AND CHAPMAN: I booted Craig Kimbrel out of this group, since he has faced only three big-league hitters all season, got released the next day and hasn't been seen since. But Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman are still chugging, churning out numbers and building Hall of Fame cases we can't ignore.
You know another thing some voters won't ignore? These two guys have pitched in a combined 18 postseasons — but have never thrown the final pitch of a World Series.
HADER AND CLASE: I try to gaze into the future when I write this column. And Closers Corner was a fun place to do that. Josh Hader and Emmanuel Clase rank fifth and sixth among all active relievers in saves (at 226 and 181, respectively) — with historic dominance to go with them.
Hader is 31. Clase is 27. So they've positioned themselves perfectly for a Hall of Fame debate someday. Want to argue that Edwin Díaz (246 saves, at age 31) is also in that group? I won't argue. It just feels as if we still aren't sure what to make of closers not named Mariano. Will that change over the next decade? I look forward to finding out.
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Salvador Perez and J.T. Realmuto inspired me to invent this category in last year's column. Not much has changed. They've both been in the Best Catcher in Baseball conversation for a long time. And they're a reminder that when we vote on catchers, we need to look beyond WAR to measure them, because that's not fully capturing what they've done or what they mean to their teams.
So this year, I added two more names to this hot corner, because how could I not? Cal Raleigh and Will Smith are two of the most important players on anybody's team in 2025. So let's talk about them.
RALEIGH: No catcher has ever hit 50 homers in a season, let alone 60. I don't know where Raleigh's home run wheel will land, but I do know he's having a season that soars beyond any catching season in history. Oh, and he's not just making an impact with his home run trots. He's also top five in baseball in Framing Runs.
But more than that, he's positioning himself to hang out with the greatest offensive catchers of all time. Three seasons in a row of 30-plus homers? Only Mike Piazza has ever done that. Three 30-homer seasons, period, by age 28? That's more, over a full career, than Joe Mauer, Pudge Rodriguez and Carlton Fisk combined (two). So this conversation is just getting rolling.
SMITH: Exactly one qualifying National League hitter has a batting average over .300 this season … and it's the quiet, ever-dependable catcher for the Dodgers (at .323). Only one catcher (Buster Posey, in 2012) has led the NL in average in the last 85 seasons. So if Smith keeps this up, that alone will get the voters' attention.
But now that he's into his fifth straight season of steady production, and leadership of a built-for-October staff, Smith has also jumped into the Best Catcher in Baseball chat room. This makes five seasons with a bWAR better than 3.0. And the only active catcher with more is Realmuto (seven). I only use WAR as a guidepost at this position. But in this case, it's guiding me toward keeping an eye on the Cooperstown case for the second most famous Will Smith in L.A.
Most of these names don't need explaining. But I have a few thoughts on these three.
ACUÑA: He is still only 27. But Ronald Acuña Jr. already is the proud owner of an MVP trophy, a Rookie of the Year Award and a sizzling 142 career Adjusted OPS+. So that's a man with a Hall of Fame career just waiting to happen. But …
He's also a man with two torn knee ligaments, who has stopped stealing bases (four all season) and whose career volatility means I need a little more time to see what comes next. Take a look.
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Acuña in 2019-23-25 — .310 AVG, .563 SLUG
Acuña in all other years — .273 AVG, .498 SLUG
TATIS: The talent and charisma of Fernando Tatis Jr. can be so dazzling to behold, he jumps off the diamond at you. And you don't run across many guys who have had this career at this age (26) — with 25.5 bWAR, 143 homers, 114 steals and a Platinum Glove. In fact, only three Hall of Famers had 100 homers, 100 steals and a Gold Glove by Tatis' age: Ken Griffey Jr., Willie Mays and Andre Dawson.
But there's also this — Tatis before and after his 2022 PED suspension:
2019-21 — 160 OPS+
2023-25 — 120 OPS+
So what is he doing on that Get Back to Me list? That's what!
SKUBAL: I could have dropped Tarik Skubal into Starters Corner, but he fits here even better. He's towering over the sport right now, and it feels as if we could almost hand him his second Cy Young Award right now.
So what does that mean, when any pitcher wins two Cys in a row? Excellent question. Here are the only other starters who have won back-to-back Cy Youngs by age 28: Greg Maddux (three in a row, at 26-27-28), Pedro Martinez (also at age 27-28) and Clayton Kershaw (at age 25-26). Whoa!
That's some Cooperstown-worthy star power right there. But the non-Cy Young portion of Skubal's career looks very different from those guys' careers, because he got rolling so late in life. And he's well aware of that. Earlier this year, I engaged him in a fun conversation about acehood — that led to him asking me how many career wins he had. He was in the 40s then. He's up to 51 now. Then I told him that Maddux had 131 at this age.
'Shoot,' he said, although that wasn't the exact expletive he spit out. 'Then I've got my work cut out for me. Maybe we can start talking about it when I get to 100.'
In other words, he'd even put himself in the Get Back to Me Club.
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I could keep going here. But I'll leave you to chew on these last three lists on your own, because if you listen intently, you can hear them speaking for themselves. And remember, if — haha, did I just say if? — you have any disagreements with any of this, you know where to direct them!
Giancarlo Stanton
Andrew McCutchen
Luis Arraez
Pete Alonso
Kyle Schwarber
Max Fried
Shane Bieber
Matt Olson
Yu Darvish
Marcus Semien
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Todd Kirkland, Harry How, Sarah Stier, Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)