Just as 2019 was a record-setting season for home runs (6,776), it also set a new standard for strikeouts (42,823). Amid all that whiffing, both CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander notched their 3,000th career strikeout, becoming the 17th and 18th pitchers in baseball history to reach the milestone, with Sabathia becoming just the third lefty to do it, after Steve Carlton and Randy Johnson.
Recording 3,000 strikeouts is a major milestone for Hall of Fame purposes. From among the 16 other pitchers who have reached the mark, only Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling are outside the Hall, and the latter is likely headed there next year after receiving 70% in last week's balloting. Sabathia and Verlander significantly increased their odds of being enshrined in Cooperstown by reaching that plateau, and each had notable achievements in 2019 that further augmented their eventual cases. The outsized Yankees southpaw, despite making four trips to the injured list in his final season, notched his 250th victory on June 19 against the Rays, while the Astros' power righty, still with plenty of gas in his tank, spun his third no-hitter on Sept. 1 against the Blue Jays.
Who will take significant steps in 2020 toward eventual Hall of Fame election? Here's a look at five candidates, based on both traditional accomplishments and advanced statistics, mainly centered on my JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) system, which takes the average of a player's career WAR and his seven-year peak WAR (Baseball-Reference.com) for comparison to that of the average Hall of Famer at his position.
Though deGrom couldn't quite match his remarkable numbers from 2018 -- when he had league bests in ERA (1.70), FIP (1.98) and WAR (10.1, including offense) -- and had a middling 11-8 record thanks to bad run support and little help from the bullpen, deGrom collected his second straight Cy Young Award in 2019. He accompanied the league's highest totals in strikeouts (255) and pitching WAR (7.3) with a 2.43 ERA, numbers that helped him easily outdistance Hyun-Jin Ryu and Max Scherzer in the voting, as he garnered 29 of the 30 first-place votes.
Now, two Cy Youngs doesn't equal an automatic Hall of Fame berth; just ask Denny McLain, Bret Saberhagen or Johan Santana, the last of whom received just 2.4% of the vote in 2018 due to the brevity of his career, which ended at age 33. A similar fate likely awaits two-time winners Tim Lincecum and Corey Kluber. But three Cy Youngs? Ten pitchers have at least that many. All but Clemens and the still-active Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw are in the Hall, and the latter two have strong enough résumés that I chose not to revisit them here after checking in last April.
While Kershaw and Scherzer are closing in on 3,000 strikeouts and 200 wins, deGrom isn't halfway to either milestone because he didn't debut until five weeks before his 26th birthday. Even so, his first six seasons are very similar to Kershaw's over that span:
Kershaw (2008-13): 77-46, 1,180 IP, 1,206 K's, 2.60 ERA, 146 ERA+, 2.88 FIP, 33.6 WAR
deGrom (2014-19): 66-49, 1101⅔ IP, 1,255 K's, 2.62 ERA, 148 ERA+, 2.78 FIP, 34.9 WAR
Though Kershaw threw more innings, deGrom has been slightly better at run prevention relative to the league. He's missed more bats (which owes something to rising strikeout rates), and he has hit better, which helps push him past Kershaw in overall WAR. Kershaw has a 32.9-32.7 edge in pitching WAR, but offensive WAR is included within JAWS because those extra runs produced count too.
The question is how long deGrom can keep up the Kershaw impression. He's looking good in the near term, as he projects to perform as well as any pitcher in the game in 2020. If he's to become a viable Hall of Fame candidate, he will need to pitch at a very high level into his late 30s. A third Cy Young would fortify his credentials while underscoring just how strong his peak has been.
Like deGrom, Donaldson was something of a late bloomer. A converted catcher, he didn't debut in the majors until age 24 and didn't stick for good until the final quarter of the 2012 season, his age-26 campaign. As such, the newest member of the Minnesota Twins, who just turned 34, has unremarkable career totals in hits (1,048) and homers (219), but thanks to his power and elite defensive play at third base, he already has a seven-year-peak WAR (43.8) that's better than that of the average Hall of Fame third baseman (43.0). That's because he has averaged 6.2 WAR since 2013 even while playing a total of 165 games in 2017 and '18.
Getting to 2,000 hits could be a stretch for Donaldson, and no post-1960 expansion era player has been elected without reaching that milestone, but his WAR might well jump off the page, particularly if he can boost that seven-year peak. Currently, his seventh-best season by the metric is his 75-game 2012 campaign, when he totaled just 1.5 WAR after rebounding from a dreadful start and a summer spent in Triple-A Sacramento. A 5.0-WAR campaign, for example, would boost Donaldson's peak total to 47.3, a mark better than all but six third basemen, all enshrined except for Adrian Beltre, who will be eligible in 2024. Such a season would push Donaldson's JAWS to 48.6, 18th all time. That's still 7.1 points short of the average for Hall of Fame third basemen, but the heaviest lifting would be out of the way.
Until the final month of the season, Greinke stood as the active leader among pitchers in JAWS, but he was overtaken by Verlander, whom he now trails by 0.1 (60.1 to 60.2). Greinke also has the lower peak (48.5 to 49.4). I chose to focus on Greinke here instead of the aforementioned Kershaw (58.8 JAWS) and Scherzer (54.5 JAWS) because the enigmatic 36-year-old righty is the oldest of the trio and has just one Cy Young to their three each, having lost an agonizingly close race to Jake Arrieta in 2015.
Greinke has already passed the 200-win milestone (he's at 205), and while he's still 378 strikeouts from 3,000, that's reachable in two seasons -- which is to say under his current contract, albeit with very little margin for error given that he totaled 386 in 2018-19 without missing a start. If he can exceed his seventh-best season total of 5.2 WAR -- which he's done twice in the past three seasons -- he'll inch that peak score closer to that of the average Hall of Fame starter (49.9).
With the elections of both Mariano Rivera and Lee Smith last year, eight relievers are now enshrined, and it could be a while before we get a ninth unless Billy Wagner's 31.7% share from this past cycle is the start of a more substantial rally. The next wave of closers to hit the ballot (Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon and Francisco Rodriguez) isn't likely to gain traction, which means looking at the trio of Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman and wondering if they can stay on track. With Kimbrel the active leader in saves (346), WAR (19.6) and win probability added (23.3) among relievers, the focus falls on him. Kimbrel also happens to be the youngest of the three (he turns 32 on May 28) by a matter of months.
The 2019 campaign was a lost season for Kimbrel. After a comparatively subpar 2018 featuring career-highs in home run rate (1.0 per nine innings) and FIP (3.13) as well as an erratic postseason even while helping the Red Sox win the World Series, he received a frosty reception in free agency. Failing to find a contract to his liking, he didn't sign with the Cubs until June 7 and didn't debut until June 27. Though he saved 13 games for Chicago, he was lit up for nine homers and a 6.53 ERA in just 20⅔ innings, interrupted with separate trips to the injured list for inflammation in his right knee and right elbow.
The good news for Kimbrel was that he didn't have to hunt for another job; he's signed through 2021, with an option for '22. He has no shot at Cooperstown if he peters out. While he may not recover the entirety of the 2 mph he's lost on his four-seamer over the past two years, any uptick in velocity would certainly help.
Posey, who turns 33 on March 27, has already checked off some significant boxes when it comes to the Hall of Fame. He's been the starting catcher on three World Series winners, won MVP and Rookie of the Year awards, made six All-Star teams and taken home a Gold Glove. (He'd have more if he didn't play in the same league as Yadier Molina.) His seven-year peak of 37.0 WAR is tied for eighth best among catchers and is 1.9 WAR above that of the average enshrined backstop. All of that's before considering his elite pitch framing, the value of which isn't even accounted for in the Baseball-Reference.com version of WAR. He's 123 runs above average in FanGraphs' assessment, which goes back to 2008, seventh in total framing runs and fifth in rate among catchers with at least 4,000 innings behind the plate.
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The bad news is that age appears to be catching up to Posey. Over the past two seasons, the first of which ended with surgery to repair a torn right hip labrum and remove bone spurs, he has played in just 219 games, hit 12 homers and slugged .375. Last year, he set across-the-board career worsts by hitting .257/.320/.368 (84 OPS+) with 0.9 WAR.
While Posey would probably get a fair amount of Hall support if he retired today, regaining some offensive momentum is vital given that he has just 1,380 career hits in light of the aforementioned "Rule of 2,000." An offseason focused on routine rather than rehab could help restore some of his production, as could the move to bring in the fences at Oracle Park, particularly given Posey's increased tendency to go opposite field with his fly balls.