FOR THE WIN

Who will be the next Hall of Famer from each of the 30 MLB teams?

Ted Berg
USA TODAY Sports

What follows here is only an exercise. With the announcement Wednesday that Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ivan Rodriguez will be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame this summer, I got to wondering which player will be the next Hall of Famer to represent each of the 30 MLB teams. For some clubs, it's fairly easy: There's no doubt Mariano Rivera will head to Cooperstown as soon as he's eligible, and there's no doubt he'll go in as a Yankee. Teams like the Oakland A's, meanwhile, have few seemingly Hall-bound recent retirees associated and no obvious candidates for potential future induction on their roster.

For each team, I attempted to identify the likeliest player to next wear that club's cap on his Hall of Fame plaque. That means some totally arbitrary speculation about which hats which guys will wear and which guys will go in without any one logo - like Greg Maddux and Tony La Russa did in 2014. In other words, Ichiro Suzuki can't count as the Marlins' entry on this list because there's no way he's going into the Hall of Fame as a Marlin. You get it.

Here we go. I'm starting with the AL West because it feels like long lists usually end with the AL West:

AL West

Adrian Beltre (USA TODAY Sports Images)

Texas Rangers: A fairly easy choice, even with Pudge heading in. It's Adrian Beltre. Just a couple of seasons ago, Beltre's Hall case still seemed up for debate, but he's managed so stay so effective in his late 30s that there's now little doubt he'll get there. He should clear 3,000 hits sometime in 2017 and he maintains some chance at joining the 500-homer club before he's finished. Beltre played more games with the Dodgers than he has to date with the Rangers (though that will change soon if he stays healthy), but most of his best seasons have come in Texas, as have the overwhelming majority of his postseason appearances.

Seattle Mariners: It says here that Edgar Martinez gets in, either next year or in 2019 in his final season on the ballot. The longtime DH and Mariners lifer has momentum on his side now, not to mention a higher career OPS than fellow DH and inevitable Hall of Famer David Ortiz. Ichiro will likely go in as a Mariner, too, but he'll have to retire first and it's not clear that'll ever happen. Dude was still an above-average hitter at age 42 last season.

Houston Astros: This one's tougher. With Bagwell and Craig Biggio both now enshrined, there aren't any no-brainers to again rep the Astros in Cooperstown soon. There are Hall of Fame cases to be made for both Billy Wagner and Lance Berkman, but Wagner, for all his late-inning dominance, didn't rack up counting stats to match those of Trevor Hoffman and Marino Rivera in roughly the same era, and Berkman feels like he'll fall in the category of great-hitting corner bats like Brian Giles and Albert Belle who didn't quite do it long enough for induction. The top players on the Astros' current roster are all quite young, but the one that appears furthest along a Hall of Fame trajectory is Jose Altuve. Understand this: I'm not saying Altuve's a Hall of Famer or anywhere close yet, just that he appears the most likely current Astro to wind up in that pantheon. At only 26, Altuve already has more than 1,000 hits, he's a solid defender at an up-the-middle position, and his top comps through his age include Hall of Famers Billy Herman, Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar and Paul Molitor, not to mention Pete Rose.

Mike Trout (PHOTO: AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Los Angeles Angels: Vlad Guerrero will get in next year after falling just short in 2017, but he seems most likely to go in as the last Hall of Fame Montreal Expo, at least in their original incarnation. Obviously Albert Pujols is going to the Hall of Fame, and if he plays out his entire contract with the Angels, he'll finish up with nearly as much time in Orange County as he had in St. Louis. But Pujols likely won't come anywhere close to matching his aggregate Cardinals production with his current club, and - as much as everyone loves tweaking Cardinals fans - it would seem an injustice if he wore an Angels cap on his Hall plaque. So it's Mike Trout, who is 25 years old and surpassed 32 Hall of Famers in career WAR this season alone. Like Altuve - and this will be a theme, because most teams don't have no-doubt Hall of Famers in their ranks - Trout isn't exactly a lock yet. But at this point, he'd have to get really bad really fast to fall off the fast route there, and that would suck so hard for everyone. Here's hoping Trout dominates baseball until at least 2030, and the day he retires they waive the Hall of Fame waiting period and rename the museum The Mike Trout Center for Baseball Greatness.

Oakland A's: Huh. As noted, the A's are pretty much the hardest team in baseball for which to identify a possible future Hall of Famer. Jason Giambi put up some truly remarkable numbers during his prime in Oakland, but if Carlos Delgado fell off the ballot after only one season, it seems unlikely Giambi ever gets in. The copout answer is Billy Beane, who could make it in as an executive if the club better capitalizes on its next window of contention, but the goal here is to find a player. There's no player on the Oakland roster who's on any sort of Hall of Fame trajectory, and not even that many who haven't yet established themselves as sub-Cooperstown caliber players (hardly an insult). And unless the team figures out its stadium situation soon, it seems unlikely any Hall-bound player on the current club will remain with the A's long enough to ultimately wear sport their hat in bronze. So, uhh, maybe Sonny Gray by default? He's only 27 and already has a couple real good seasons under his belt (and a real bad one in 2016). But, again, it feels inevitable Gray will be traded away if and when he regains his 2013-15 form, and he'd need to stay at that level for quite a long time to register on the Hall of Fame radar. So if not Gray, it's either your pick of their best prospects or the slim hopes they lock up a younger guy like Marcus Semien on a long-term extension and he randomly goes all Jose Bautista on everybody.

AL Central

Cleveland Indians: Ol' Jim Jam! Jim Thome hit 612 career homers and spent the bulk of his career - and most of his best years - with Cleveland. Thome might get in as soon as next year, his first on the ballot. This site holds that he should skip his induction speech entirely and instead thrill the crowd by jacking a bunch of monster taters from the podium.

Detroit Tigers: One of only a small handful of active players that would make the Hall if they retired right now, Miguel Cabrera seems by far the best bet here. At 33, Cabrera's two months younger than Justin Verlander, but Verlander likely needs a couple more seasons like his strong 2016 for a legit Cooperstown bid. Cabrera, meanwhile, remains one of the game's elite hitters and should clear 3,000 hits and 500 home runs fairly easily.

Kansas City Royals: Another difficult one. Carlos Beltran should make it, but his production has been so spread out across different teams that he seems like a no-logo guy. For a club that recently reached the World Series in back-to-back years, the Royals really don't have a lot of transcendent superstars - just a bunch of good but not Hall of Fame-caliber players already in the midst of their primes, like Alex Gordon, Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain. Wade Davis has pitched like a Cooperstown-worthy reliever for the last three seasons, but he'll need to do it for many more years to get there, he's already 31, and he's no longer on the Royals. With about 10 more dominant seasons and a change in perspective on the value of setup men, Kelvin Herrera could get in, but - and this might sound ridiculous - I'll guess that if it's anyone on the Royals, it's Salvador Perez: Salvy's going to have to make some serious offensive steps forward to even sniff a Hall of Fame vote, but he's already an elite defensive catcher and a four-time All-Star at age 26. Also, Hall of Fame scent.

Chris Sale, future Hall of Fame tailor.(PHOTO: Dennis Wierzbicki/USA TODAY Sports Images)

Chicago White Sox: Every White Sox fan I know loves Paul Konerko so much that I feel sort of mean noting that Konerko pretty decidedly had a Hall of Very Good career that won't get him to Cooperstown. There's a world in which Jose Abreu stays effective and healthy long enough to hit his way into the Hall, but I'm guessing it's more likely the now-departed Chris Sale is the club's next representative. Sale's White Sox career may be over and it'll take at least another five years as a dominant starter before he's in the Hall of Fame conversation, but unless the Red Sox lock him up to an extension before his contract expires after the 2019 season, I'm guessing Sale won't spend more time with any future team than the six-plus years he spent on the South Side. If not Sale, it may be one of the prospects they landed by dealing the lefty and Adam Eaton this winter.

Minnesota Twins: The Twins have a host of young and talented position players already in the Majors, but none of Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Miguel Sano is on anything like a Hall of Fame pace this early in his career. Baseball writers love Torii Hunter enough that he'll certainly spend some time on the ballot, but Jim Edmonds falling off the ballot after only one season doesn't bode well for Hunter's chances. So - and this may infuriate a subset of Twins fans - I'm going to go with Joe Mauer. Mauer obviously isn't a catcher anymore, but he spent six full seasons and a few part seasons as an elite all-around backstop, which is no small feat. By JAWS, Jay Jaffe's system for evaluating Hall worthiness, Mauer stacks up pretty well against the catchers already enshrined, but his case is complicated by his relatively short tenure behind the plate. Mauer's nowhere close to the offensive standards necessary for Hall of Fame first basemen, but he's good enough to keep playing, and if he finds DH or first-base work in a cozier ballpark after his time with the Twins ends, he could compile enough numbers to make his way in. After third base, catcher is the position least represented in Cooperstown, and Mauer should finish with a career WAR higher than the average backstop - even if much of it was compiled at less premium positions.

AL East

(Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports Images)

Boston Red Sox: Roger Clemens will probably get in within the next few years, and Clemens has said in the past that he'd want a Red Sox cap on his plaque, since it's where he got his start and where he pitched most of his games. This site is skeptical, given Clemens won four of his seven Cy Youngs and both of his World Series rings outside Boston. So in part under the guess that Clemens goes in sans logo and in part to pander to the Red Sox fans (whose relationship with the longtime ace is generally complicated), I'll say David Ortiz. Maybe Manny Ramirez eventually gets in after scoring 23.8% of votes in his first year on the ballot, but Ortiz - assuming he stays retired - will inevitably get the necessary 75% within his first couple seasons on the ballot. Or maybe Manny and Papi go in together in 2022 and induction weekend becomes the greatest party ever thrown. Rooting for that.

Baltimore Orioles: Hard to say for sure that he'll go in as an Oriole, but the smart bet here is Mike Mussina. In his fourth year on the ballot in 2017, the ever-durable Mussina got 51.8% of votes, and most dudes who get that many ultimately get in. Mussina spent slightly more time and had slightly more success with the Orioles than he did the Yankees, and all five of his All-Star nods came with Baltimore.

Toronto Blue Jays: His era of dominance didn't last very long and his career rate stats are a bit colored by some lousy seasons at the beginning and end of his big-league tenure, but for a ten-season stretch from 2002-2011, Roy Halladay averaged 219 innings a season with a stellar 148 ERA+. Halladay's almost the opposite of Mussina: He didn't quite compile the counting stats typically associated with Cooperstown, but every time he took the mound in his prime he felt like a Hall of Famer: A massive, stone-faced righty hellbent on going nine innings every time out. Plus he threw a no-hitter in a postseason game. It feels like it may take a few years on the ballot before Halladay gets in, but if he's still on there in 2023, he'll have my vote.

(William Perlman/USA TODAY Sports)

New York Yankees: Layup: It's Mariano Rivera. An obvious first-ballot guy, the best of all time at his position, and a guy who - get this - threw 141 career postseason innings with a 0.70 ERA. Tack those innings on to his career regular-season totals and it'd lower his ERA from an astonishing 2.21 mark to an even more astonishing 2.06. Rivera pitched through one of the best offensive eras in baseball history and yielded Deadball Era numbers.

Tampa Bay Rays: This one would have been a lot tougher had Evan Longoria not enjoyed a resurgent offensive season in 2016. Longoria's hardly a Hall of Famer yet, but he's still only 31, he's played in at least 160 games in each of the past four seasons, and he's under the Rays' control through 2023. Again: Third basemen are generally underrepresented in the Hall, and if Longoria can put together about four or five more healthy and productive seasons he'll be right where he needs to be to get there. Obviously that's easier said than done, but in terms of Hall likelihood, there's a very steep drop off between Longoria and the next Rays candidates.

NL West

Clayton Kershaw (Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports)

Los Angeles Dodgers: That fellow in the photograph above is named Clayton Kershaw and he is extraordinarily good at pitching. Kershaw's still a season shy of the minimum 10 years required for ballot eligibility, but that's about all he'll need to cement a Hall of Fame case. He'll surpass Sandy Koufax in career WAR sometime early next season. His career 159 ERA+ is second only to Mariano Rivera among all pitchers with at least 1,000 innings pitched. Kershaw's only 28 and should have plenty of good years left, but even if by some catastrophe he doesn't, he's been dominant enough to date that he should get there anyway. Man, Clayton Kershaw is good.

San Francisco Giants: Arguably the best baseball player since Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds w ill get in within the next few years. If you don't remember him, he hit 762 career homers (a record!) and rocked a .349/.559/.809 line over a four-season stretch (!!!) from 2001-2004. Also owns this dog:

Colorado Rockies: Larry Walker deserves to make the Hall - by career WAR, the longtime Rockies outfielder was slightly more valuable than Derek Jeter. But Walker is perhaps unfairly penalized for the inflated offensive numbers he posted at mile-high altitude, and got only 21.9% of votes in this, his seventh year on the ballot. Todd Helton has a case, too, but even playing his home games in Coors did not collect the type of counting stats typically required for first basemen to reach Cooperstown. Troy Tulowitzki could still make a bid if he manages to avoid more of the nagging injuries that hampered his final seasons in Denver. But I'm going young here: Nolan Arenado has led the NL in homers and RBIs for two straight years, and he's an outstanding defender at third base. He's only 25 and obviously he has a lot more to do to get there, but Arenado's significantly improved plate discipline in 2016 bodes well for his future.

Arizona Diamondbacks: It pretty much has to be Paul Goldschmidt, even after a down year by his standards in 2016. Goldschmidt got a relatively late start in the Majors for a hitter of his caliber, but hitters of his caliber tend to remain effective for a long time. Maybe he winds up in the aforementioned Lance Berkman category of great corner bats that fall just short, but even if it's still a longshot, Goldschmidt appears by far the best bet among players who would rep the Diamondbacks, since Curt Schilling spent only four seasons there.

San Diego Padres: Maybe the easiest on the whole list: Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman came only a few votes shy of entry this year, which means he'll almost certainly get in next year. And man - with due respect to Hoffman - am I glad for the delay: Finding the next Padres Hall of Famer after Hoffman would be a significantly bigger challenge.

NL Central

(Photo by Jon Durr/Getty Images)

Chicago Cubs: Hey, here's a funny thing: For all the Cubs' talent, the club's best players are so young that none has really come close to establishing a Hall of Fame resume. Jon Lester might someday get in, but he spent way more years with the Red Sox. Of the whole host of young and youngish guys on the Cubs, 27-year-old Jason Heyward has by far the highest career WAR, but his value is all wrapped up in corner-outfield defense and he had an awful offensive season in 2016. So Anthony Rizzo, though still far away, may be the furthest along. At 27, Rizzo's coming off his third straight season of outstanding production, he's one of the faces of a franchise that seems primed to become a dynasty, and he's one of the sport's best defenders at first base. But it'll take about five more good seasons, a graceful decline phase, and probably a few more postseason showcases to get him there.

St. Louis Cardinals: By WAR, Albert Pujols is the second best first baseman of all time, behind only Lou Gehrig. The overwhelming majority of that production came during his sensational tenure with St. Louis from 2001-2011. The 37-year-old Pujols still has five years left on his contract with the Angels, but it'd seem odd for him to go in for any team but the one for which he hit his first 445 homers and won two World Series rings.

Pittsburgh Pirates: It's hard to pick Andrew McCutchen after the rough year he endured in 2016, but it's harder to pick anyone from the Pirates besides McCutchen, who has five All-Star nods and an MVP Award under his belt. Players as good as McCutchen was from the start of his career through 2015 don't often fall apart entirely at age 29, and Cutch seems like a strong bounceback candidate for next season. Like a lot of guys mentioned here, he's certainly not there yet, but he's not yet out, either. A few more All-Star caliber seasons and some decent performances in his mid-to-late 30s and we'll start talking about his Hall case.

Ryan Braun. (PHOTO: Benny Sieu/USA TODAY Sports)

Milwaukee Brewers: The NL Central has a bunch of dudes whose Hall of Fame cases will depend on their performance on the backsides of their primes, but Ryan Braun comes with complications in the form of both his PED suspension and the awful way he handled initial suspicions. While PED users from the era before the league began testing will likely make their way to Cooperstown soon, it remains to be seen how the electorate will or should handle guys who actually cost their teams their services by doping after the league started policing it. Braun probably won't get in, but he's been good enough for long enough that he will likely wind up with a better case than anyone else currently on the Brewers and any recent Brewers retirees.

Cincinnati Reds: The third established, early-30s superstar in the NL Central triumvirate, Joey Votto ranks 9th among all qualifying Major Leaguers since 1900 with a career .425 on-base percentage - behind only Barry Bonds and a bunch of inner-circle Hall of Famers. Votto's a weirdly divisive player considering how good he has been, but there's really no doubt he has hit like a Hall of Famer, and he hasn't yet shown signs he's slowing down. Of McCutchen, Braun and Votto, Votto seems the most likely Hall of Famer to me. He didn't become a big-league regular until he was 24 so he'll need a few more years of greatness, but his performance through his peak holds up against the average Cooperstown first baseman.

NL East

Max Scherzer (PHOTO: Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports)

Washington Nationals: If you're discounting Vlad Guerrero - who'll go in next year and presumably do so as the final representative of the original incarnation of the Montreal Expos - it's harder to find a clear candidate from the fairly star-studded Nationals. It took Max Scherzer a few years in the Majors to become one of the best pitchers in the game, so he'll need to remain effective for several more seasons before he approaches the Hall plateau. But Scherzer has stayed healthy his entire career - a promising sign - and there's nothing to indicate he's yet in decline. He'll clear 2,000 strikeouts sometime next season, as he's racking them up at ridiculous rates. Every guy to reach 3,000 save Clemens and Schilling is in Cooperstown.

New York Mets: And then he came into our world, gracing us with his poise and purpose and piety, an unlikely hero in pursuit of an impossible dream. Tim Tebow hit .194 with a .538 OPS while playing among guys nearly 10 years his junior in the Arizona Fall League, but when baseball writers look into his piercing green eyes and know the purity within his soul they will certainly endorse him for the sport's grandest honor as soon as he is eligible, if not before. If by some odd and unfair whim of this cruel world Tebow does not wind up in Cooperstown - and it'd practically have to require conspiracy - then the Mets' best shot at a Hall of Famer is probably whichever young pitcher stays healthiest the longest. Noah Syndergaard looks like the best bet among them right now, but at 24 and with less than two big-league seasons under his belt, he's a long way away. David Wright appeared on track for Cooperstown as recently as 2014, but the back issues that limited him to 75 total games over the past two seasons seem likely to prevent him from racking up the necessary numbers during his decline phase. Carlos Beltran will go in and enjoyed his best seasons with the Mets, but it seems far from a certainly he'll go in as a Met.

Miami Marlins: Another tricky one. Giancarlo Stanton has Hall of Fame-caliber power, but the injuries that have kept him off the field for long stretches of four of the past five seasons do not bode terribly well for his long-term prospects. Jose Fernandez looked like a Hall of Famer in practically every one of his 76 big-league starts before a boating accident ended his life and career far too soon. This feels like a longshot for a number of reasons, but I'm going with Gary Sheffield here. Sheff got only 13.3% of votes this year, his third on the ballot, but it says here that time will smile upon his Hall case. For one thing, the voting base's softening attitude about PED use means his fellow BALCO patient Barry Bonds will get in fairly soon, perhaps leading to a more thorough shift in voting trends. For another, Sheffield's case is hurt, more than most, by WAR, which penalizes him for a career's worth of generally lousy defense spread across five different positions. But on offensive stats alone, Sheffield holds up well against likely future Hall of Fame DHs like Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz, and it seems silly to punish him for being willing to stand in the field. One of the most feared and most electric hitters baseball has ever seen, Sheffield's a Florida native who had his best season and won his only World Series ring with the Marlins.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

Philadelphia Phillies: Cole Hamels' wildly underrated and extremely durable pitching should give him a strong Hall case by the time he's finished, whereas Chase Utley would likely fall short of Cooperstown standards if he retired today. But Utley, currently a free agent, had a lowkey useful season for the Dodgers last season and, even at 38, could hang around a few years yet. By some measures, his career already holds up well against those of other Hall of Fame second baseman, and Utley was the best player on a Phillies team that dominated the NL East for five seasons and won the World Series in 2008. He has never seemed like the type of guy you bet against, and his induction would be perhaps history's most Philadelphian festivities. The streets of Cooperstown will run orange with Cheez Whiz.

Atlanta Braves: An easy place to finish: It's Larry "Chipper" Jones. Arguably the best switch-hitter since Mickey Mantle and the best position player during the Braves' incredible NL East dynasty, Jones will likely get in on his first ballot next year.