Making the case for Chicago Cubs favorite Ben Zobrist to enter the Hall of Fame

In November, Chicago Cubs legend Ben Zobrist got the honor of being featured on the upcoming Hall of Fame ballot. It's a testament to his wonderful career of World Series heroics and utility excellence that he is featured alongside other icons of the game like Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia, and Billy Wagner. Unlike those three, however, his chances of getting called to Cooperstown seem rather slim. The question for him is less whether he reaches the required 75% to get in and more whether he gets the requisite 5% to remain on the ballot for another year.

Whatever the Baseball Writers Association of America decides, I'm willing to argue that Zobrist deserves to be enshrined alongside other legends of the game. While I can't make as full-throated an endorsement of his candidacy as someone like Wagner, there's enough within the switch-hitter's resume to consider him among the best to ever play the game. His case requires not just a look at the stats, but everything he meant to the game of baseball and the Cubs during his career.

Let's start with his overall numbers though. Zobrist spent parts of 14 years in the majors and, over that time, sported a career slash line of .266/.357/.426 with a wRC+ of 116 across 1,651 games. In terms of counting stats, he ended with 1,561 hits, 768 RBIs, 167 home runs, and 116 stolen bases. One of the biggest strengths of his game was also his eye at the plate, with an excellent career 12.2% walk rate and 14.5% strikeout rate.

If those numbers don't sound Hall of Fame-worthy to you, you're not necessarily wrong. The benchmark for Cooperstown often lies in certain counting statistics or remarkable statistical peaks. Zobrist failed to reach 2,000 hits, a mark often seen as the floor for a modern inductee, and, while he had some fantastic years in Tampa Bay, they don't quite match the highs of other standout players at his primary position. It's much more "Hall of Very Good" than Hall of Fame.

JAWS, a statistic developed by Jay Jaffe that combines a player's seven-year peak with career totals to measure a player relative to other Hall-of-Famers, ranks Zobrist 27th among all second basemen with 42.1, below the average. He is still ahead of some inductees like Johnny Evers or Red Schoendienst, but caveats abound, like the fact that standards for the Hall have only increased in years since, and advanced defensive metrics have helped modern players become better appreciated.

For the latter reason, WAR is not the end-all-be-all, though it is useful for getting a snapshot of a player's overall value. By FanGraphs, he stands at 42.7 WAR, good for 33rd all-time at second base. Again, that mark doesn't necessarily sound like it belongs in Cooperstown - most inductees live in the 50 to 70 range. Looking deeper, however, it does start to reveal part of the reason he's worthy of real consideration.