Every time the Baseball Hall of Fame announces a new class without even a serious conversation about John Franco, the institution quietly reinforces one of its longest-running blind spots: how it evaluates relief pitchers, especially those who didn’t fit a neat, modern archetype.
Franco never threw 100 mph. He never struck hitters out at video-game rates. He didn’t arrive with a singular postseason moment that could be looped endlessly on MLB Network. What he did instead was something far more difficult, and far more rare: he was great for a very long time, in the hardest role in the sport, while doing it left-handed, and he did it better than almost anyone who has ever taken the ball in the ninth inning.
