A friend of mine, Keith Law, may have the most tortured ballot of all among the many writers for The Athletic who have Hall of Fame ballots.

Keith Law’s ballot

Barry Bonds
Todd Helton
Andrew Jones
David Ortiz
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Scott Rolen
Gary Sheffield

The all-time home run king, fourth all time in WAR among all players (behind only Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson and Cy Young — all of whom played before baseball was integrated), recipient of seven MVP awards and deserving of two more, seventh all time in on-base percentage, eighth all time in slugging percentage, still the only member of the 500 HR/500 stolen base club … this isn’t about Bonds’ statistical case, though. His Hall of Fame candidacy has become a referendum on the “steroid era,” which is a misleading moniker, at best. We don’t know who did or did not use performance-enhancing drugs in most cases. Bonds himself never tested positive for anything, and the vast majority of players who tested positive were decidedly less than superstars. The only argument whatsoever to omit Bonds from a ballot is based on a broad reading of the character clause, and in his case, I don’t think that argument suffices to keep out of Cooperstown one of the best players in MLB history and someone who was on a Hall of Fame track even before his physical appearance seemed to rapidly change.

Complete breakdown of Law’s ballot

In the breakdown:

Not on my ballot

Roger Clemens: Clemens did not appear on my ballot, which I think is the first time I have stopped voting for a player for whom I voted in the past. We’ve known for a while now that Clemens had an inappropriate relationship with the late country singer Mindy McCready, which the New York Daily News reported began when McCready was 15 and Clemens was 28. McCready confirmed to the Daily News that the two had an affair, though she later said that it didn’t begin until she was 18.  I was wrong to vote for him in the past. The character clause is not well defined by the Hall of Fame, and there are players in the Hall whose character was questionable and players on my ballot whose character was questionable. But if Clemens’ transgressions with McCready don’t call for invoking the character clause, then we might as well remove it entirely. That’s why I declined to vote for him now, a small and perhaps futile stand on principle in his last year of eligibility.

Bobby Abreu: Abreu is the one player who was borderline for me but didn’t make the cut. I could change my mind at some point, but even as someone who argued that Abreu was underrated during his career, I see a Hall of Fame case lacking enough of a peak to get my vote. Abreu was never the best player at his own position in any year of his career, and that’s enough of a reason for me to keep him off my ballot when he was already on the border (60 WAR in both systems).