Per Reader Request: Robin Ventura's Hall Chances

I'm always happy to answer reader questions (read: please send me ideas for free content) so here's the latest from user SHAFTR:

To be honest, Robin Ventura was one of my favorite players back in the day (meaning when I was 10), so I'm interested to see where he stands as well at the moment. My gut instinct is that he does not make the cut, but we'll see if I'm wrong. We'll use the same format as Palmeiro, the with/without tables to see where Ventura would rank within the Hall of Fame. By the way, I'm including Paul Molitor in the third basemen section. Keeping him at designated hitter does not work for me yet, and having him included helps us understand the peak and career value of third basemen a little better.

The players are ranked by JAWS. Using that table, we can see what the average Cooperstown third basemen looks like. Now let's add Ventura into the mix:

Ventura brings down a few figures, most notably Career WARP3 and JAWS, but he brings up the peak score (although only by 0.1) as well as increasing the fielding requirements by a good deal. Still, with the third basemen who are in there, Ventura would rank 7th in JAWS, and he would fare better if I did not include Molitor as a third basemen.

Herein lies the problem; Ventura would rank 7th among third basemen if he were to enter the Hall of Fame today. Problem being, there are more deserving third basemen who merit consideration and would help the Hall of Fame more. Ron Santo and Darrell Evans have been snubbed by the voters; let's see if Ventura would still be as deserving when we include what the BBWAA and Veterans Committee should have done.

Evans and Santo both have better values than Ventura (except for when it comes to fielding, and in Evan's case, peak WARP as well) and bring up the standards of the Hall. As you can see, Ventura would have a much harder time sneaking in at this point than if he was dealing with reality (which I guess is how it would work huh?). As you can also see, Ron Santo has the second highest Peak WARP among third basemen behind Wade Boggs and in front of Mike Schmidt. Many people have gone into how much of a travesty it is that he is not in the Hall of Fame, so I won't get into a rant here. I'll wait til its Veterans Committee voting time again to do that.

To answer your initial question, it is my judgement that Ventura, while having a very good career as a third basemen, is not up to par when considered along with those other players who are deserving of the Hall of Fame but have not gained entry. He barely sneaks on as is, but when you include Santo and Evans it makes it out of reach. If one were to include just Santo (as I'm sure not everyone feels Darrell Evans has Hall of Fame numbers) then it becomes even more difficult for Ventura. A great player during his time, and one of my favorites, Ventura is one of the key reasons I created the Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame. Its not Cooperstown, but its also something. I'm happy to see certain players get their due in some form.