The MLB Hall of Fame announced its new class of inductees, and all 3 players chosen by at least 75 percent of the voters are deserving: third baseman Adrián Beltré (ranked 4th all time at his position); catcher Joe Mauer (7th); and first baseman Todd Helton (15th). Beltré and Mauer are all-time greats as we have explored earlier; Helton is a more subjective case, but we have no issue with his induction. Congratulations!

Yet what stood out to us were two things, one a data point and the other a subjective ignorance: first, somehow, Helton (79.7) got a higher percentage of the vote than Mauer (76.1), and second, there has been some criticism that none of these players won a World Series during their illustrious careers—as if that was a prerequisite for being admitted to Cooperstown. We will address these thoughts one at a time now below.

Why did Helton—who never won an MVP Award—get more votes than Mauer? The Colorado Rockies star won a batting title in 2000, but outside that season, the only other significant achievement was topping the National League in OBP once (2005). Meanwhile, Mauer won 3 batting titles (2006, 2008, 2009) and took the AL MVP vote in 2009, too. Helton’s stats are inflated a bit by his home-field edge, as well, fair or not.

We’re surprised voters didn’t take this into account more, especially since Helton is “lesser” than the average first baseman (24 of them) in the Hall already; conversely, Mauer is “greater” than the average catcher (16 of them) already enshrined in Cooperstown. Everything being contextual and relative in an analytical age of critical thinking, it’s quite apparent the voters are still stuck in twentieth-century mindset in voting choice.

As to players in the Hall of Fame without a World Series championship to their credit, we automatically think of someone like Ty Cobb: it’s a circumstantial thing to win a ring, but modern-day mediots (ESPN, namely) have promoted the idea that the ring is all that matters, as if it’s some requirement for greatness. This is prominent in all sports, too, as if the ring somehow finally “validates” the career of a great player.

Complete shit, of course: we would say that right away since our NFL GOAT never even played in a Super Bowl. Beltré reached 1 World Series with the 2011 Texas Rangers, who should have won that title but lost it through a fluke moment that had nothing to do with Beltré’s play. Is that his fault? Should it be held against him? Fuck no. Forgive our profanity, but it’s such low-IQ thinking ESPN has promoted for years now.

Likewise, Helton only reached 1 World Series: 2007 against the cheating Boston Red Sox. He hit .333 in that Fall Classic, so it wasn’t his fault Colorado lost to the Fenway Frauds. As we have discussed before, cheating in sport takes a lot away from the victims, so it should never go unpunished. Trying to diminish Helton’s career because he lost his singular trip to the World Series against a cheating team is just totally insane.

Mauer never reached the World Series: heck, the Minnesota Twins never even won a single playoff game during Mauer’s career, losing in the AL Division Series via sweep in 2006, 2009, and 2010 before losing the AL Wild Card Game in 2017. Those final 7 playoff losses came to the New York Yankees, too, which is just bad luck for a small-market team like the Twins to have to face the high-spending Bronx Bombers so often.

We know the realities of winning the World Series in the last two decades anyway, which was in the prime of the careers for this trio: you gotta spend money, and you often have to cheat, too. If players don’t play for high-spending teams and/or teams that need to cheat to overcome decades of failure, why should we blame the player for that as he’s on his way to Cooperstown these days? We shouldn’t, so it’s a silly subjectivity.