October 15, 2009; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins (11) and second baseman Chase Utley (26) celebrate following their 8-6 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in game one of the 2009 NLCS at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports Christopher Hanewinckel-US PRESS
It's hard to talk about one of Chase Utley or Jimmy Rollins without mentioning the other. However, the long-time double play combination are trending in entirely different directions on the Hall of Fame ballot.
Andruw Jones and Carlos Beltran were the only two players elected on the Baseball Writers Association of America's 2026 ballot, but Utley received votes on 59.1% of ballots in his third year of eligibility. 75% is needed for induction, but with seven more cracks at it, Utley seems destined to one day be elected to Cooperstown.
Unfortunately for Rollins, he received votes on 25.4% of ballots in this cycle. Considering it was his fifth year on the ballot, Rollins has already used up half of years as a candidate. He's going to continue to get enough votes to stay on the ballot, as you only need 5%. But he doesn't really have any momentum towards election.
BBWAA elects Carlos Beltran, Andruw Jones to Hall of Fame. pic.twitter.com/NpBXWv9Q2S
It may surprise some Phillies fans that this may end up with only one of two of Utley and Rollins getting elected when the pair were kind of a package deal during their careers. If you're trying to understand why Utley is getting traction and Rollins isn't, there are a few things to consider.
Many more analytically-inclined voters look at three key metrics when considering a candidate: WAR, WAR 7 and JAWS. By now, you likely have at least a basic understanding of WAR. WAR 7 is just the top seven single-season WAR totals in a player's career — not necessarily in order — added up to get an idea of how good they were at their peaks. JAWS is a metric that was created by Jay Jaffe, now of FanGraphs. Here's a brief explanation of how the metric works:
"A player's JAWS is their career WAR averaged with their 7-year peak WAR. Note that only batting or pitching WAR are used in determining the averages at a given position. The current Hall of Famers are then grouped by position and a position average JAWS is computed."
When Rollins is compared to the average Hall of Fame shortstop in these three categories, it doesn't do him any favors.
Average Hall of Fame Shortstop: 67.7 WAR, 43.2 WAR 7, 55.4 JAWS
Rollins: 47.9 WAR, 32.7 WAR 7, 40.3 JAWS
Utley, on the other hand, looks like one of the top 15 second baseman ever when compared to Hall of Fame second basemen.
Average Hall of Fame Second Baseman: 69.1 WAR, 44.1 WAR 7, 56.6 JAWS
Utley: 64.6 WAR, 49.3 WAR 7, 56.9 JAWS
With Utley, the debate is pretty simple — he was definitely a Hall of Fame level player at the height of his powers, it's just a matter of whether you think there were enough peak years.
Despite being a six-time All-Star, Utley is lacking in some key award areas, though that may be more indicative of the voters at that time than him.
He never won a Gold Glove, but he finished third among all position players in defensive runs saved (136) between 2004 and 2014. That trailed only Yadier Molina (154) and Adrian Beltre (143), who have 14 Gold Glove Awards between them.
Utley never finished higher than seventh in NL MVP voting, but FanGraphs says over the 2004-2014 stretch that encompasses his peak, he posted the third-highest WAR among position players at 59.2. That trailed only two future first-ballot Hall of Famers in Albert Pujols (65.7) and Miguel Cabrera (60.1). Ask yourself if someone with that profile really was never one of the five best players in the NL, if not all of baseball.
Where you can make a case against Utley is just that outside of his peak, there wasn't a ton. He was one of the oldest players in baseball during his last campaign in 2018, when he played for the Los Angeles Dodgers at age 39. But because he was blocked by Plácido Polanco, he didn't play in more than 100 games until his age-26 season. Injuries limited Utley to 301 of a possible 486 games in his age-31 through 33 seasons.
Because of that, Utley finished his career with "only" 1,885 hits, and some older school voters refuse to support anyone under 2,000 career hits. However, the aforementioned Jones just got in with 1,933 hits, so the tides may be turning on that. Utley will be an interesting test of whether a player's peak can be so great that enough voters overlook some of his counting stats, because there's not really a debate about whether peak Utley was a Hall of Fame-level player.
Rollins is kind of the opposite. He has the counting numbers, but how many of his peak seasons were superstar ones, as opposed to very good?
Let's not discount the counting stats. The 470 stolen bases Rollins posted in his career are 11th among all shortstops ever. He finished his career with 54 defensive runs saved, a pretty remarkable number consider the stat wasn't tracked until 2003, Rollins' third full MLB campaign. Most notably, he is the all-time leader in hits by a Phillie at 2,306, and if you add in late-career stints with the Dodgers and Chicago White Sox, he finished with 2,455 hits overall, which puts him at 14th all time among shortstops.
But the problem for Rollins is while he was unquestionably a superstar when he won NL MVP in 2007, he was more like very good — particularly offensively — for many other peak years. We noted his standing among shortstops in WAR, WAR 7 and JAWS above, but what stands out the most is this is someone whose case includes a heavy reliance on his total hits, but he only hit .264 for his career. Rollins never hit .300 in an individual season.
There's been a tendency by some to compare Rollins to Barry Larkin, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2012. Both won an MVP, and Rollins actually finished his career with 115 more hits than Larkin. But Larkin trounces Rollins in some other key areas:
Larkin: .295 batting average, .815 OPS, 70.5 WAR (Baseball Reference's calculation)
Rollins: .264 batting average, .743 OPS, 47.9 WAR
In the defense of Rollins, he hit 33 more home runs, doubled 70 more times and tripled 39 more times than Larkin. There are definitely some areas where he was better than Larkin. But the in vogue stats favor Larkin, and at the very least, suggest that the best path towards getting Rollins traction isn't to compare him to Larkin.
Over the same span from 2004-2014 that Utley finished third among all players in WAR at 59.2, Rollins, per FanGraphs, was 10th at 43.3. That's really impressive, and certainly makes him worthy of consideration. It doesn't stand out the same way as Utley, though.
And thus far, voters have decided that for as much as Utley and Rollins are associated with each other, they aren't a package deal as far as Cooperstown is considered. What you do with that information is up to you.
Maybe there needs to be a better campaign behind the areas that Rollins stands out at, and that will help him to eventually get in, either on the writer's ballot of one of the Era committees down the road.
It's also possible that Utley gets into the Hall of Fame and Rollins doesn't. If that's what happens, it shouldn't change anything as far as the Phillies are concerned. Hall of Fame are not, Utley and Rollins are two inner-circle Phillies who should have their numbers retired by the team. Ryan Howard should as well, for that matter. But Rollins may end up like Howard as far as the Hall of Fame is concerned.
