Who are the current top Baseball Hall of Fame candidates among active players?

A few years ago, Bill James devised a formula that works well hand-in-hand with Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system. Bill called it Hall of Fame Value (HOF-V) and it was simply the sum of a player’s Win Shares* and four times his Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference version).

* Win Shares is a player value stat that was shared publicly by Bill in 2002. You can learn more about it here and find individual player totals here. 

After studying the data, Bill noted that an HOF-V of 500 was generally a good indicator of a player being Hall-worthy (with a caveat that, in most cases, the system evaluates position players better than pitchers). The more a player’s HOF-V is over 500, the more deserving the player is of election.

Here are the active leaders in HOF-V:

The players at the top of this list feel like locks for induction or very strong candidates: Players like Mike Trout, Freddie Freeman, Justin Verlander, Paul Goldschmidt, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, and Max Scherzer.

The intrigue within this list is among those players who are in the 450 to 530 range. Let’s do a quick review of those.

Andrew McCutchen (530) – HOF-V likes McCutchen better than any of the publicly available Hall of Fame evaluation systems. His 333 Win Shares are better than (among others) recent Hall inductees Todd Helton, Larry Walker, Scott Rolen, and Ichiro Suzuki.

What hurts McCutchen from a WAR perspective is his defense. He ranks 16th in the offensive component of WAR among those whose primary position was center field, but bad defensive numbers drag him down to 32nd overall at the position.

Jose Altuve (504) – Altuve will be in his age 35 season in 2025. He’s shown he can still hit but he too has defensive deficiencies to address. And he’s also got the residual effects of the Astros cheating scandal to deal with whenever he does retire, though Carlos Beltrán’s likely Hall election next year may help clear a path for Altuve too.

Manny Machado (500) – Machado is 32 years old and seems to still have some skill left. Another couple of good years could push him to the 600 range in which case he’d be a very strong candidate.

Bryce Harper (483) – Barring an injury or something unusual happening, Harper will clear 500 HOF-V this season and is probably headed to a 600-plus career total. In any event, he’ll probably be undervalued by this system given that it doesn’t recognize awards and his being one of the faces of baseball.

Nolan Arenado (459) – After a spectacular 2022, Arenado’s last two years have been blah, both as a hitter and fielder, and he’s probably going to be traded by the Cardinals before the season starts. He may need a resurgence to make himself a little more Hall-viable.

José Ramírez (453) – Ramírez is trending up. He has a streak of four straight seasons with at least 5 WAR. Another good year at age 32 should push him past the 500 threshold and at the rate he’s going, 600 isn’t out of the question within a few years. Two years ago he was well behind Arenado in the third base pecking order, but the gap between them is much closer now.