Francisco Lindor’s Growing Hall of Fame Trajectory
One of the most highly-debated occurrences on the baseball calendar is almost here. On January 21, the BBWAA will release the results of 2025 Hall of Fame balloting. That said ballot includes six former New York Mets; Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Curtis Granderson, Francisco Rodríguez, Billy Wagner, and David Wright.
With how slow the offseason is currently moving, and all this Hall of Fame talk, it is interesting to think about which current Met may have the best shot of being inducted to Cooperstown one day. Of course, the easiest answer is star shortstop Francisco Lindor. Analysis into his case, even with his deal not set to expire until the end of the 2031 season, is a very encouraging one.
One of the better ways to analysis a player’s Hall of Fame “worthiness,” is by using the Jaffe WAR Score system (JAWS). According to Baseball Reference, this metrics was, “developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness.” Further, this metric is simply, “a player’s JAWS is their career WAR averaged with their seven-year peak WAR.” Looking at this metric alone, potential injury and quick regression brought on by age aside, Lindor is well on his way in making a strong case to Cooperstown.
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Lindor currently comes in at No. 20 on the JAWS shortstop list. Behind him, there are 12 members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. According to the JAWS metric, Lindor has already had a more Hall of Fame “worthy” career than 12 current members.
In front of Lindor in the JAWS metric are only three individuals who have not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame. Those consist of Alex Rodriguez, Bill Dahlen, and Jack Glasscock. Of course, Rodriguez has yet to be elected due to his performance-enhancing drug ties, meanwhile, Dahlen and Glasscock played in the 1800s and early 1900s when advanced metrics were not as prevalent. The 16 other shortstops in front of Lindor on the list are already enshrined.
If you look at just WAR, Lindor does have some work to do. His 49.6 bWAR comes in at 24th among shortstops all time. Still, despite that, there are eight Hall of Famers that have less WAR than Lindor already does.
To get to the average WAR of the 23 Hall-of-Fame shortstops, Lindor needs 18.1 more bWAR. Over the last three seasons, Lindor has posted bWAR seasons of 5.6, 6.0, and 6.9, respectively. If you take the worst season among those (5.6), he would need to average that for a little more than three seasons to hit that average WAR of all the shortstops in the Hall of Fame. That would bring him to his aged-34 year, with likely a few more years of positive WAR seasons ahead of him after that.
When looking at the WAR statistics, there is no doubt Lindor is well underway to posting a career worthy of a Hall of Fame selection. Of course, and for better or worse, not all voters take into account the advanced analytics, however, as time continues to pass, and new voters are added, the reliance more on analytics should continue to grow, benefiting guys like Lindor greatly.
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Luckily, if analytics aren’t for you, the traditional statistics are very strong as well. For Lindor, the 2,000 hit mark, 350 home run mark, and 1,000 RBI mark are all attainable. If Lindor averages 150 hits per season, he’d reach 2,000 hits in just a shade over three seasons. Meanwhile, he will need to average 25 home runs a year for just a shade over the next four season, and 80 RBIs over the next three years to hit the 350 home run and 1,000 RBI plateaus, respectively.
For comparison sake, if he hits 2,000 hits, 350 home runs, and 1,000 RBIs, he would be only the fourth shortstop all time to his these thresholds. The other three; Alex Rodriguez, Ernie Banks, and Cal Ripken Jr.
Not to mention, the 31-year-old Lindor already has four All-Star game appearances, two Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, and a Platinum Glove to his name. Those numbers should increase over the next however many seasons as well.
Long story short, if he stays healthy, Lindor is well on his way to accumulating enough accolades and statistics to go into Cooperstown when he retires. At only 31 years old, he already measures up very well to several Hall of Famers when it comes to the analytics. Not to mention, the traditional statistics should be there by his career’s end as well.
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