Assuming he retires after the 2016 season, Alex Rodriguez will be eligible to be elected into the Hall of Fame in 2021. Strictly by the numbers, he should be a no-doubt, first-ballot inductee. In an alternate universe he would even have a case for being the first player to be unanimously voted in.
By Jay Jaffe’s JAWS metric (Jaffe WAR Score system), which was designed to “measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness,” Alex Rodriguez receives the second-highest score of any shortstop in history, behind only Honus Wagner. He ranks well ahead of guys like Cal Ripken, Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith, and Ernie Banks.