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3 former Mets who deserved more Hall of Fame recognition on their one and only ballot

They didn't get nearly enough attention when they were on the HOF ballot.

By Tim Boyle |
New York Mets
New York Mets / Focus On Sport/GettyImages
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Arguing over who is a first ballot Hall of Fame player and who deserves to get in on their fifth try is such a tacky and incomprehensible debate voters will get into. You’re either a Hall of Fame player or you’re not. Unfortunately for these three former New York Mets players, voters were united in not voting for them.

While not quite there as locks for Cooperstown, these three barely received any attention at all when they were first featured on the ballot. They were quick one-and-done.

1) John Olerud

John Olerud is one of those former Mets players who gets better as more statistics get created. Walking as much as he did and hitting for such a great batting average all while adding some power make him a baseball nerd’s dream come true. It helps that he even added a couple of Gold Gloves late in his career after leaving the Mets for the Seattle Mariners.

Olerud isn’t a Hall of Famer and yet there are some numbers that stand out. His .295/.398/.465 slash line at a position other than first base probably would get more attention. Hitting just 255 home runs at a traditional power spot while playing through the Steroid Era definitely cost Olerud some Hall of Fame recognition. His 2239 career hits weren’t nearly enough to put him among the greatest of all-time.

When Olerud landed on the ballot for the one and only time, he received a measly 0.7% of the vote. Seeing only two All-Star selections might have been enough to convince voters he wasn’t better than many of his peers. This may be true, but it’s hard to see how a guy as well-rounded as Olerud would fail to even crack a percentage point.

The 2011 Hall of Fame ballot results weren't pleasant for Mets fans who also saw Leiter get the same 0.7% from four votes. The Hall of Fame class was headlined by Roberto Alomar whose time with the Mets we all try to forget.

2) Carlos Delgado

Carlos Delgado was a much different player than Olerud. A little bit ironic, he is the one who took over Olerud’s first base job with the Toronto Blue Jays. The two were teammates briefly in the early 1990s yet somehow ended up with similar paths and entirely different skills.

Delgado was a power hitting first baseman who, like Olerud, would make only two All-Star teams in his career. He did top 2000 hits and his 473 home runs put him just shy of the famed 500 Home Run Club. What if he was able to stay healthy for that final year with the Mets in 2009? In those 26 games, Delgado had 4 whilst coming off a year where he knocked 38 bombs. Asking for 27 more wasn’t too much of a reach.

Delgado was more than a slugger. A lifetime .280/.383/.546 slash line to go with it, he was a force at the plate in more ways than just swinging for the fences.

On his one and only Hall of Fame ballot in 2015, Delgado received 21 votes for a 3.8% of the available ones. The class featured four players getting in, including ex-Mets teammate Pedro Martinez, plus nine more who would get in later on. Mike Piazza at 69.9% was the one who just missed the cut.

3) David Cone

A five-time All-Star with a Cy Young on his resume, why didn’t David Cone last longer on the Hall of Fame ballot? His career started off so well with the Mets in the 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s. He wasn’t just a clinger for those New York Yankees teams in the Dynasty Era who happened to pitch a perfect game. Cone finished fourth in the 1998 Cy Young race while winning a league-best 20 games.

A career record of 194-126 with a 3.46 ERA, one could say he was a few wins shy of hitting a milestone with an ERA a bit too high for Cooperstown. For the era he played in, those numbers are more than acceptable.

Cone was on the 2009 Hall of Fame ballot. This was the year Rickey Henderson went in and Cone received 3.9% of the vote to fall short. Several other Mets were one and done that same year. Mo Vaughn, Jay Bell, and far more notable, Jesse Orosco, all got fewer votes than Cone.

The lack of huge strikeout numbers or eye-popping ERAs beyond his breakout 1988 season, voters clearly viewed Cone a rung below many of his contemporaries. Five World Series wins with two different teams didn’t seem to add much to convince anyone he should’ve been on the ballot longer.

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