Jeff Kent

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Jeff Kent

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Jeff Kent

Five facts about Jeff Kent:

Jeff Kent was named to five All-Star teams and received MVP votes seven times.

Kent won the National League MVP award in 2000. That season, Kent batted .334/.424/.596 with 41 doubles, 33 home runs, 125 RBI, and 114 runs scored.

Kent hit 20 or more home runs twelve times in his career, including nine consecutive seasons from 1997 through 2005. He hit 377 career home runs, 351 of them as a second baseman. This is the most home runs hit by a second baseman in major-league history.

Kent had 100 or more RBI eight times in his career, the first six consecutively from 1997 through 2002. This is the longest streak of 100-RBI seasons by a second baseman in major-league history.

Jeff Kent created Women Driven and the Jeff Kent Women Driven Scholarship Endowment, which provide scholarships to female athletes at his alma mater, UC Berkeley. (source. Kent's SABR Bio by J.P. Garrett)

The first two tables below present Jeff Kent's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
+– 1992		24	102	9.8	9.6	1.1	0.2
	NYN		37	3.7	3.3	0.8	0.4
	TOR		65	6.0	6.2	0.4	-0.2
1993	NYN	25	140	16.1	17.9	0.0	-1.6
1994	NYN	26	107	14.8	12.7	3.6	2.2
1995	NYN	27	125	15.2	15.6	1.3	-0.2
+– 1996		28	127	13.6	13.2	1.2	-0.1
	CLE		38	3.2	2.9	0.5	0.2
	NYN		89	10.4	10.3	0.7	-0.3
1997	SFN	29	155	21.4	18.2	5.3	3.3
1998	SFN	30	137	20.7	16.7	6.0	4.1
1999	SFN	31	138	18.1	15.1	4.7	3.1
2000	SFN	32	159	22.6	16.4	8.3	6.4
2001	SFN	33	159	21.4	17.2	6.1	4.1
2002	SFN	34	152	23.9	17.3	8.8	6.8
2003	HOU	35	130	18.5	16.6	3.8	2.1
2004	HOU	36	145	20.1	16.9	5.1	3.3
2005	LAN	37	149	21.2	18.7	4.2	2.4
2006	LAN	38	115	14.1	12.9	2.6	1.3
2007	LAN	39	136	16.6	16.7	1.5	-0.0
2008	LAN	40	121	13.3	14.5	0.2	-1.1
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,297	301.3	266.1	63.9	36.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			49	5.4	4.8	1.2	0.7
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,346	306.7	270.9	65.1	37.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
+– 1992		24	102	9.9	9.4	1.4	0.5
	NYN		37	3.6	3.5	0.5	0.2
	TOR		65	6.3	5.9	0.9	0.4
1993	NYN	25	140	17.0	17.1	1.7	0.0
1994	NYN	26	107	14.6	12.8	3.2	1.9
1995	NYN	27	125	15.9	14.8	2.9	1.4
+– 1996		28	127	13.8	13.0	1.7	0.3
	CLE		38	3.1	3.0	0.4	0.1
	NYN		89	10.7	10.1	1.3	0.3
1997	SFN	29	155	20.6	18.9	3.8	1.9
1998	SFN	30	137	20.6	16.9	5.9	4.0
1999	SFN	31	138	17.5	15.6	3.7	2.0
2000	SFN	32	159	22.0	17.0	6.8	4.9
2001	SFN	33	159	21.1	17.6	5.4	3.4
2002	SFN	34	152	22.9	18.2	6.9	4.8
2003	HOU	35	130	18.1	16.9	3.2	1.5
2004	HOU	36	145	19.0	18.0	3.2	1.3
2005	LAN	37	149	21.6	18.3	5.1	3.3
2006	LAN	38	115	14.0	13.0	2.3	1.0
2007	LAN	39	136	17.2	16.2	2.5	1.0
2008	LAN	40	121	13.4	14.4	0.5	-0.8
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,297	299.2	268.2	60.1	32.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			49	5.3	4.8	1.0	0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,346	304.5	273.0	61.1	33.0

This is Jeff Kent's eighth year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Jeff Kent has been on the BBWAA ballot. Here is what I wrote about him last year.

Vote Prediction

In Jeff Kent's first six years on the ballot, his vote percentage was fairly steady, ranging between 14.0% and 18.1%. Last year, his seventh on the ballot, his vote percentage surged from 18.1% the previous year to 27.5%. Kent only has three more years on the ballot, including this one, and three more 9% spikes would still leave him about 20% short of election.

Despite the little surge last year, I feel like Kent's very much stuck in a holding pattern. He has his supporters (of which I am one - although I don't have an actual vote) but not enough of them. And honestly, even among his supporters, I feel like he's nobody's first choice. I haven't noticed a Twitter account devoted to electing Jeff Kent or anything like that. The lighter ballot will likely help Kent this year, but I'm not sure how much. I suspect his gains this year will be fairly modest - maybe 3-5% - and he'll mostly muddle along below 40% for his remaining three years. I'll predict he hits 33.0% this year (a 4.5% gain from last year).

Player Won-Lost Records and Jeff Kent

Jeff Kent's Hall-of-Fame case is essentially this: he was one of the best hitting second basemen in major-league history. One could expand that to include shortstops and argue that Kent was one of the best-hitting middle infielders in major-league history. Here, for example, are the top 25 players for whom I have calculated Player won-lost records (i.e., since 1916) who earned at least half of their player wins as a middle infielder, ranked by career batting wins over non-pitcher average.

		Top 25 Middle Infielders (ranked by Batting Wins over Non-Pitcher Average)
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Rogers Hornsby	228.0	146.0	0.609	77.1
2	Joe L. Morgan	233.5	178.0	0.567	49.0
3	Arky Vaughan	166.7	128.2	0.565	33.7
4	Charlie Gehringer	202.0	163.8	0.552	32.1
5	Ernie Banks	231.1	192.4	0.546	31.2
6	Rod Carew	207.4	178.4	0.538	26.8
7	Jeff Kent	207.4	174.8	0.543	26.7
8	Bobby Grich	162.2	135.5	0.545	26.1
9	Jackie Robinson	128.9	100.3	0.562	24.6
10	Joe Cronin	182.7	154.0	0.543	23.0
11	Vern Stephens	161.4	133.6	0.547	22.8
12	Derek Jeter	238.9	215.9	0.525	21.9
13	Craig Biggio	238.3	209.6	0.532	21.2
14	Lou Whitaker	194.4	173.5	0.528	20.9
15	Hanley Ramirez	146.5	122.7	0.544	20.8
16	Robinson Cano	190.8	168.8	0.531	20.7
17	Eddie Collins Sr.	138.4	114.8	0.546	19.8
18	Tony Lazzeri	144.2	120.5	0.545	19.4
19	Ryne Sandberg	182.8	158.7	0.535	18.1
20	Chase Utley	159.7	137.4	0.538	17.9
21	Robin Yount	233.4	215.6	0.520	17.7
22	George Grantham	114.7	93.7	0.550	17.7
23	Joe Gordon	136.3	114.3	0.544	17.5
24	Bobby Doerr	167.3	144.4	0.537	17.3
25	Cal Ripken	250.8	234.7	0.517	16.0

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Obviously, fielding and baserunning matter too. But I think that's a very strong Hall-of-Fame case for Kent.

Article last updated: November 28, 2020

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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