I love the halls of fame and Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, and Trevor Hoffman were just announced to join Veteran’s Committee appointees Alan Trammell and Jack Morris in the 2018 MLB Hall of Fame class.  As a Brave’s fan seeing Chipper go in is great.  I loved him as a player and his switch hitting career stands up against the all-time greats who hit from both sides of the plate.  A career .303 hitter he played all 19 of his seasons with Atlanta and won a batting title at age 36.  It is great when a legend can spend their entire career with the same team so it was fun to see it all take place with the Braves.

Jim Thome had a heck of a career.  His slugging and on base stats were crazy good while doing it all with a career batting average of .276 over 22 years.  He’s 8^th all-time in homeruns.  Really glad to see Thome make it in on the first ballot.  Well deserved.

I was a bit slow coming around to Vladimir Guerrero but if you pay any attention to his stats you just say “wow”.  Maybe the best right handed hitter of his era this guy put up great numbers each year.  For his career he batted .318 with 449 homeruns, and got on base at a .379 clip for 16 years.  This guy could hit!

In the discussion for closers there is Mariono Rivera and then there is Trevor Hoffman who are in a class of their own – numbers one and two.  Then there the guys well below them in this conversation.  Even if you aren’t a believer in the closer role there is something to be said for a guy who took the ball in the 9^th for 18 years and excelled.  Major props to his wife for wearing the AC/DC shirt when he got the call from the Hall of Fame representative (his walk up song was Hells Bells). 

Glad to see Alan Trammel and Jack Morris get in.  I always thought Trammel deserved to be in and was on the fence with Morris.  In 20 years with the Tigers Trammel had a .285 average and was great with the glove.  Morris won 254 games and was the epitome of ace during two World Series which helped cement his legacy.