Mauer and Utley clear the bar

At least for this voter, each year’s Hall of Fame ballot usually presents some sort of Private Idaho saga that needs to be resolved.

This year’s quandary turned into a needed reminder on the hazards of making assumptions.

That wasn’t the case when re-voting for Billy Wagner, Carlos Beltrán, Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez. Those four votes came down to a muscle-memory exercise that took less than two seconds.

And I didn’t need to put a ton of time into checking the box of newcomer Adrián Beltré. This wasn’t because I covered his single year with the Red Sox in 2010 and knew then he was destined for Cooperstown — he was not — but I had looked over his stats enough since he retired to know he was worthy.

So how did I almost make an ass out of I and me?

Because when I first glanced at the list of non-Beltré newcomers, my flawless, razor-sharp memory goaded me into believing nobody else was worthy.

But two names kept nagging at me.

I knew Joe Mauer and Chase Utley had outstanding careers, but weren’t those careers too short for Cooperstown?

And while there will always be Koufaxian exceptions — players who didn’t play long enough to meet the traditional counting standards but whose careers burned with enough brightness and intensity to justify their election — then “surely,” whispered my inner, lazy voice, Mauer and Utley weren’t Koufaxian enough.

The insinuation set off certain detectors.

Better make sure.

Mauer’s case wasn’t as hard to prove. Him moving to first base and DH for the final five seasons of his 15-year career was not a deal-breaker. He played well over half (921) of his 1,526 games as catcher, and his first six seasons — offensively and defensively combined, or WAR — left him in the company of alltime greats at the position.

I assume (heh) he’ll make my vote for Buster Posey easier in a couple of years.

As for Utley, the research took longer, which in my book frequently leads to the realization that if I have to take long to make a case for someone, I’m overthinking it. In which case, close the book and look at the candidate again with a fresher or different eye in one year and see what’s changed. (Re: Todd Helton, nothing’s changed.)

It almost came to that for Utley, whose spotty attendance record — 120 games on average a year — over 16 seasons led to a number of counting stats that fall short.

But further research, both online and over the phone, led me to the conclusion that while Utley grazes the bar, he still clears it. A big lift comes from a Koufaxian-ish five-year period beginning in 2005 in which Utley was one of the most productive hitters in the game, and a career in which he excelled in defense and baserunning. Fangraphs’s Jay Jaffe goes into far greater detail than I will here, but his case for comparing Utley favorably to other Hall of Fame-worthy second basemen is a strong one.

I’m swayed, enough.