The recent Hall of Fame election got us thinking about active players, but beyond those who are surefire Hall of Famers like Mike Trout and Justin Verlander. We’re more intrigued by the players who are close calls or tough calls and those who still have a little work to do. And we can use statistics to help us understand their situations more closely.

Bill James has a tool, Hall of Fame Value, which is (4 * Baseball-Reference WAR) + Win Shares, the latter a James-created stat meant to assess player value that he invented about 25 years ago, prior to the development of WAR.

There are currently 12 players who have reached the HOF-V threshold of 500 intended to measure Hall of Fame worthiness. Those who hit it last season include Manny Machado, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, and José Ramírez.

Highest Hall of Fame Value (HOF-V) – Active Players

Player	Hall of Fame Value
Mike Trout	731
Freddie Freeman	640
Justin Verlander	606
Mookie Betts	587
Paul Goldschmidt	583
Manny Machado	540
Andrew McCutchen	537
Max Scherzer	536
Jose Altuve	524
Aaron Judge	517
Bryce Harper	514
José Ramírez	505
Francisco Lindor	473
Nolan Arenado	471
Salvador Perez	449
Shohei Ohtani	439
Christian Yelich	432
Carlos Santana	432
Giancarlo Stanton	429
Marcus Semien	426
J.T. Realmuto	417
Chris Sale	411
Corey Seager	389
Xander Bogaerts	387
George Springer	381
Justin Turner	378
Juan Soto	374
Carlos Correa	374
Trea Turner	374
Alex Bregman	372

The most likely player to clear 500 this season is Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who stands at 473. Lindor had 23 Win Shares and 5.9 bWAR last season. His future footing as a Hall of Famer seems solid.

Dodgers DH/pitcher Shohei Ohtani is 61 points shy of 500 and normally we’d say that’s too much to accumulate in one year, but not in this care. Ohtani added 67.8 to his total last season, in which he finished with 37 Win Shares and 7.7 WAR.

Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado is also right there at 471 HOF-V. But Arenado is coming off the worst season of his career, 8 Win Shares and 1.3 WAR. He’ll turn 35 in April and is not anywhere near the hitter (or fielder) he was in his prime. His Hall case is still very good though.

Nolan Arenado – Hall-of-Fame Case

* Six times in top 8 of MVP voting

* 10 Gold Glove Awards, 5 Fielding Bible Awards

* 353 career home runs

* 58 career bWAR (21st among 3B)

Some of the other players whose progress will be interesting to track are Royals catcher Salvador Perez, Brewers DH and left fielder Christian Yelich, and Yankees DH Giancarlo Stanton.

Perez (HOF-V of 449) is 35 and hit 30 home runs and drove in 100 runs last year, though his overall offensive numbers dipped from 2024 to 2025. Win Shares still had him as a Top 50 player last season, though he managed only 0.4 WAR. He added 22.6 HOF-V to his total in 2025.

HOF-V doesn’t take into account leadership aspects (which Perez is praised for) or postseason performance (Perez was a World Series MVP) so if he’s a close call come retirement, those may be the things that push him over the top for election.

Yelich is actually a better candidate than you might think. He had 34.4 HOF-V last year, leaving him at 432 for his career. He’s coming off a 29-homer 103-RBI season If he could match his 2023 or 2025 in each of the next two seasons and get a little closer to being a 300-homer/300 steals guy, he’d be right at 500 HOF-V and then the discussion around him would get more serious. It won’t be easy given that he’s in his age 34 season.

Stanton currently has a candidacy shaped by his 453 home runs (he’s the active leader). His bWAR and Win Shares combo puts him at an HOF-V of 429. He’s been injured often during his Yankees career and played only 77 games last year in his age-35 season. He’s averaged 27 home runs but only 12 doubles per season the last four years, and the sum of his production limits his overall value.

Giancarlo Stanton – Season Averages, 2022-2025

Stat	Season Average
Games	101
HR	27
Doubles	12
BA/OPS	.223/.779
WAR	0.6

Bill has acknowledged publicly that HOF-V tends to work better for position players than it does for pitchers, especially relief pitchers. Once you get past Verlander and Max Scherzer, the next starting pitcher in line is Chris Sale, who has an HOF-V of 411 and then there’s another steep drop to Jacob deGrom (322) and Gerrit Cole (321).

The change in the role and usage of the starting pitcher is going to necessitate a reevaluation of what makes a Hall of Fame pitcher. Where Sale, deGrom and Cole rank among starting pitchers may be more important than what threshold they’ve cleared. The same is true for closers like Kenley Jansen (275), Aroldis Chapman (255, with off-field issues that may hinder his candidacy) and Craig Kimbrel (251).

For another perspective on the Hall of Fame and active players, we always enjoy Mike Petriello of MLB.com’s review, which includes not just the players listed here but younger ones (like Paul Skenes) whose careers are just getting started.