With all the Hall of Fame polls being posted on the site these days, I figured it would be fun to look at the current Blue Jays roster and see if there is any future Hall of Fame inductees on it. It seems that the four most likely players to eventually make the Hall of Fame would be: Mark Buehrle, R.A. Dickey, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion.
Obviously all these players have a lot of work left to do to get into the Hall of Fame and there's a good chance that none of them actually do, but it doesn't hurt to wonder. Mark Buehrle has 13 solid years of reliable pitching, but has never been able to take it to the next level and become an ace. Four Gold Gloves is nice but a career ERA of 3.84 would be the highest ever inducted to the Hall of Fame. Red Ruffing currently owns that distinction and he pitched 22 years in the major leagues! As Buehrle's career winds down you have to think that he won't be disrupted from playing with his pit bulls when he retires with a call from Cooperstown.
R.A. Dickey only has about four years of above average pitching and would need about five more years of great numbers before even being considered. Unfortunately for R.A., the peak of his career came a little too late and the odds of him getting into Cooperstown are about as slim as J.P. Arencibia going a full game without missing his knuckleball.
As with Dickey, Jose Bautista has had about five good years of play under his belt and is running out of time to put together a more complete résumé for a Hall of Fame shot. The last half-decade has seen Bautista rack up a .384 OBP, which is Cooperstown quality, but it needs to continue for another five years before it would hold much weight in the Hall of Fame argument. Bautista is only 33-years-old and could have a few more 50+ home run seasons in him, but the odds aren't very good of Jose getting the call from Cooperstown.
Lastly, Edwin Encarnacion has a slim chance at being considered for the Hall of Fame as well. His three solid years were preceded with a lot of average play meaning Edwin needs to pick it up a notch if he wants to make a case for himself. A .364 OBP in the past three seasons is good, but he still isn't be considered a superstar by most people. Encarnacion is only 30-years-old, but it's hard to believe the Dominican has much of a shot at getting into the Hall.
As you can gather (and probably knew) the current Blue Jays roster isn't exactly brimming with future Hall of Famers like the 2009 Yankees were. Maybe someone unexpected will emerge as a possible Cooperstown inductee in the coming years for the Blue Jays or maybe Alex Anthopoulos will get Roy Halladay back again. At the very least we can hope that Halladay is inducted one day and chooses to go in as a Blue Jay, What do you Banterers think on this quiet Friday afternoon?