Chase Utley on 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for first chance at Cooperstown

Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are together again as Utley officially joined his longtime Phillies double-play partner on Monday afternoon on the ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It is Utley’s first year on the ballot while Rollins returns for his third try after receiving votes last year on 12.9% of the ballots by the Baseball Writers Association of America. A player needs 75% for enshrinement into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and 10% to remain on the ballot for another year. The results of the voting for the 2024 Hall of Fame class will be announced Jan. 23.

Utley has a Hall of Fame case as his 64.5 Wins Above Replacement would rank 10th between Craig Biggio and Jackie Robinson among the 20 second basemen already in the Hall of Fame. His career OPS (.823) would place him eighth and his 259 homers would rank fifth. From 2004 to 2013, he finished second among all position players with 55.4 WAR as calculated by FanGraphs, trailing only Albert Pujols.

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Utley was a six-time All-Star, won four Silver Slugger awards, hit a home run that jump-started the 2008 World Series, and tied Reggie Jackson’s record the next October by hitting five homers in the World Series.

His career was slowed by injuries, which hurts his counting stats as Utley has just 1,885 hits and 259 homers. Since 1970, no player has retired with fewer than 2,000 hits and reached Cooperstown.

But there is no denying that Utley was one of the elite players of his generation. Since 2004, Utley’s WAR is eighth among all players, trailing Mike Trout, Pujols, Adrian Beltre, Robinson Cano, Miguel Cabrera, Mookie Betts, and Joey Votto. All of those seven (except for Cano, who was twice suspended for performance-enhancing drugs) seem like locks for Cooperstown. Utley is in good company.

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Rollins won an MVP Award, four Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger, and made three All-Star teams. He has the most hits in Phillies history and has the highest fielding percentage (.983) among NL shortstops who played at least 1,000 games between 2000 and 2014.

From 2001 to 2013, Rollins ranked second in the NL in runs, first in hits, first in doubles, and third in extra-base hits. He is the only player in history with 20 doubles, 20 triples, 20 home runs, 20 stolen bases, and 200 hits in a season.

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Rollins’ career WAR (47.6) ranks only 25th among all shortstops. In the last 60 years, no shortstop has reached the Hall of Fame with a lower WAR. Utley’s career WAR is 14th all-time among second basemen.

The shortstop’s lack of WAR could be countered by his durability as Rollins played in 95% of his team’s games from 2001 to 2009, racking up the third-highest total of games among shortstops during that stretch. He started all 162 games at shortstop in his MVP 2007 season.