THOMA COLUMN | 25 currents for Cooperstown

Sep. 27—Hall of Fame season for baseball generally comes in midsummer, but the general is on leave quite a bit these days.

Cooperstown had its induction ceremony (Derek Jeter, Ted Simmons, Larry Walker, Marvin Miller) earlier this month. The Twins had their own HOF induction, for Justin Morneau, on Saturday.

These put me in a frame of mind to think about which of today's players are Cooperstown-bound.

Hall of Famers aren't all that rare, in reality. Two of the men in the starting lineups in the very first major league game I ever attended (April 25, 1970) have plaques in Cooperstown — Al Kaline of the Detroit Tigers and Harmon Killebrew of the Twins.

I think there's likely at least one future Hall of Famer in a heavy majority of major league games. If there is an average of one future honoree per team, that's 30. So who might they be?

Start with eight guys who, if their careers ended today, would be obvious picks: Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Joey Votto, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer.

There seems to be a consensus that Yadier Molina belongs in this group; I don't see him as that obvious a selection. But we'll count Molina here, and that brings us to nine.

Which brings us to the Buster Posey issue. Prime Posey was far better than Prime Molina, but Posey lost time to two significant injuries and opted out last year. While he's having a good bounce-back season this year, Posey is clearly on the downside of his career. No post-WWII position player with less than 2,000 hits has been elected, and Posey is unlikely to reach that milestone.

It's my list, and if I'm including Molina I'm including Posey.

OK, players who are well on their way to earning a place but cemented it yet. In many cases, they haven't hit the 10-year minimum or gotten their 2,000 hits. (Trout hasn't gotten 1,500 hits yet, but still...)

Mookie Betts, Francisco Lindor, Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado. (You may scoff at Machado, but it's my list.) We're at 16.

The ones with black marks: Nelson Cruz has a PED-related suspension on his resume. The sign-stealing scandal taints Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman. I'm guessing that will keep them out, but that's purely a guess. Set them aside.

Jose Abreu got a late start — he debuted in his age 27 season, and at age 34 has neither the 10-year minimum nor a clear shot at 2,000 hits. He's a unique case. I'm counting him.

The dreamers — guys with obvious talent, guys who haven't yet established their true level of ability but have no ceiling. Fernando Tatis Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ronald Acuna Jr. (Anybody else seeing a trend there?)

More of them: Juan Soto, Rafael Devers, Bo Bichette, rookie Wander Franco. I'll put Shohei Ohtani, another unique case, in this group as well. The odds are that some of them will flame out, as did Andruw Jones and Cesar Cedeno. But some of them will have full and brilliant careers.

For now, I'm counting them all. They have great expectations, and I'm holding them to those expectations. That's 25.

And there I stop. These are all (yeah, Ohtani) position players. It's easy to watch Tatis Jr. and expect 15 to 20 years of this. Pitchers are different beasts. Walker Buehler might match Justin Verlander's career, or he might turn into Chris Archer.

And the way pitchers are used has changed drastically in the past decade or even the past five years. The standards of greatness are changing with the usage, and I don't have a good handle on the standards.

But there are, assuredly, at least five pitchers now in their 20s who will be in Cooperstown. They will be the guys who stay sound, who last as long as Kershaw and Scherzer. Jose Berrios? Buehler? Nobody can have any idea, but those two have established that they can go into the sixth or seventh inning every fifth day and stay off the injured list. That may be half the battle.

Edward Thoma is at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. Twitter @bboutsider.