Mark Buehrle is a White Sox legend who likely will have to get in a veteran's committee vote.
The White Sox southpaw has his No. 56 retired. He was part of the pitching rotation that dominated the 2005 postseason and finally brought a title back to Chicago after 88 years of misery.
He was a five-time All-Star, four of those appearances came with the White Sox and won four Gold Gloves. Buehrle also posted a 59.1 career bWAR during his 16-year career, with 12 spent being one of the best pitchers the Sox ever had. He also threw a no-hitter and a perfect game.
The problem with Buehrle's Hall of Fame case is he never won a Cy Young; the highest he ever finished in that voting was fifth. His career ERA is 3.81, and that might not be good enough since he only cleared the 200-win mark.
What keeps getting him consideration and staying in the Hall of Fame debate is that he was always good enough and reliable enough to pitch 200 innings for all but two seasons. One of them was his call-up season in 2000 when he threw mostly out of the bullpen and the other was his final season in Toronto where he finished 1.1 innings short of 200.
In an era where now pitching 180 innings for a starter is considered a feat, what Buerhle was able to do to be good enough and healthy enough to keep taking the ball every five days and be very good is why he still gets votes.
Buehrle is currently at 12.7% of the revealed vote. Last year he finished 8.3%.
Omar Vizquel was a great defensive shortstop who played two seasons for the Sox but brought scandal to the franchise as a minor-league manager.
Vizquel is no longer associated with the franchise or any team in baseball after being sued by a batboy with autism for sexual harassment while he managed the White Sox Double-A team in 2019. Vizquel ended up settling the suit.
He also was accused of domestic violence in 2020 by his ex-wife--allegations Vizquel has denied.
Clearly, Vizquel has had off-the-field troubles since leaving the game and it is a good thing the Sox are no longer associated with him, especially the accusations made in the suit.
His playing career did make a case to still get Hall of Fame votes with his ability to play really good defense as a shortstop over his 24 seasons in the majors.
He played two of those seasons with the Sox in 2010-2011 when, once again, Kenny Williams was obsessed with getting former star players past their prime.
Vizquel mostly made a name for himself in Cleveland having won nine of his 11 Gold Gloves there. He won two more with the San Fransisco Giants. Fielding is about the only case he can make as his career OPS+ is 82. In 1999 he did hit .333, but otherwise, he was usually in the .250-.295 range.
Although he also finished with 2877 hits, it just can be attributed to raking up all those hits because he played 24 seasons.