As I pondered my Hall of Fame ballot, my initial reaction was to make an exception to my policy regarding players from the Steroid Era. While I have decided not to exclude players who were found to have use performance-enhancing drugs from my ballot since we really have no way of knowing who used and who didn't, I paused for a long time when I came to Rafael Palmeiro's name. Palmeiro is different than the other sluggers from the Steroid Era. Who can forget when he went before a congressional subcommittee in 2005 and pointed as he adamantly insisted he had never used PEDs. Five months later, of course, Palmeiro was suspended by Major League Baseball when he tested positive for steroids, though he still insists it was tainted B-12.
My initial reaction was to not vote for Palmeiro. Then I did some soul searching.
I covered baseball throughout the Steroid Era and I fell for the lines that came out of various players' mouths during spring training. Invariably someone would report to camp 25 pounds heavier than the season before, but look at Mr. Universe. I'd ask him about his new physique and he would talk about a new workout regiment, better nutrition, and so on and so forth. Not once did I ever have the foresight to ask, "Did steroids make you this big?"
Reporters are supposed to know the right questions to ask and not be afraid to ask the tough questions. I failed on both counts. Thus, it would be hypocritical to punish someone for using PEDs now when I never questioned him about it at the time it was happening and, in retrospect, was so obvious.
Oh, and one other thing, MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association didn't think steroid use was a very big deal in 2005. All Palmeiro got was a 10-game suspension, the same he would have received if he used a corked bat or was found to use a foreign substance on a baseball if he were a pitcher.
So, I voted to induct Palmeiro. I know it won't be popular and that I'll be in the vast minority of the voters, but the guy had 569 home runs, 3,020 hits, a .371 on-base percentage, and a .515 slugging percentage. Those are Hall of Fame numbers. As far as how he might have achieved them, well, I'm not the morality police.
In all, I voted for eight players, but let's first look at those that didn't get my checkmark. I quickly passed on Carlos Baerga, John Franco, Juan Gonzalez, Marquis Grissom, Lenny Harris, Bobby Higginson, Charles Johnson, Al Leiter, Tino Martinez, Raul Mondesi, Jack Morris, John Olerud, Kirk Rueter, and B.J. Surhoff. Good players all, to be sure, but not good enough to affix HOF at the end of their autograph.
After more debate, these players didn't make the cut: Harold Baines, Bret Boone, Kevin Brown, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Mark McGwire, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Benito Santiago, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell.
And the other seven, in alphabetical order, who got my vote:
Roberto Alomar—It was a crime he didn't get in last year in his first year of eligibility, and that should be rectified when this year's results are announced Wednesday. It's hard to say no to someone who was selected to play in 12 All-Star Games and won 10 Gold Gloves.
Jeff Bagwell—His numbers and his character have come under scrutiny for no other reason than playing in the Steroid Era, but there is no doubt in my mind he belongs. He hit 449 home runs despite playing much of his career in the Astrodome, a rat-infested pitchers' park. Throw in his .297/.408/.540 slash line and it says Cooperstown.
Bert Blyleven—It has become the cool thing to vote for him in recent years and that makes me chuckle inside. I was voting for Blyleven back in 1998 when hardly anyone was in his corner. Two numbers always seal the deal for me: 3,701 strikeouts and 60 shutouts. A 3.31 lifetime ERA makes a strong case that he deserved a far better record than his 287-250 career mark.
Barry Larkin—Put it this way: If Derek Jeter had range, he'd be Barry Larkin. That's not a knock on Jeter, just how little Larkin was appreciated because he played away from the spotlight with the Reds during his entire 19-year career. He won nine Silver Sluggers, three Gold Gloves, and had a .371 OBP.
Edgar Martinez—The only reason he doesn't get more support is because some voters stubbornly believe that designated hitter isn't an actual position, though the rule has been in effect for nearly four decades. Martinez wasn't flashy and didn't hit a lot of home runs, but he did go deep 309 times while posting an outstanding .312/.418/.515 slash line in 18 seasons with the Mariners.
Tim Raines—Our own Jay Jaffe has swayed my opinion on Raines, who was truly an unappreciated great player as he had the misfortune of being just the second-best leadoff hitter of his generation behind the great Rickey Henderson. Raines had 300 more walks than strikeouts, a .385 OBP, and stole 635 bases at an outstanding .847 success rate.
Larry Walker—He is interesting in the fact that he is the first Hall of Fame test case of a player who built a sizeable portion of his numbers while calling Coors Field home. My initial reaction was to not vote for Walker but the more I studied his numbers and thought back on his career the more I realized he belongs. The .313/.400/.565 slash line complements seven Gold Gloves quite nicely.
—
There may not be a more entertaining baseball-connected Twitter account than that of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's middle son. Oney Guillen lost his job with the White Sox in spring training for blasting general manager Ken Williams, and he went after former closer Bobby Jenks last week.
Jenks signed a two-year contract with the Red Sox last month after becoming a free agent in November when the White Sox non-tendered him. Jenks took a shot at Ozzie Guillen in an MLB.com story, saying, "I'm looking forward to playing for a manager (Terry Francona) who knows how to run a bullpen."
Oney Guillen fired back at Jenks with a series of tweets. Guillen accused Jenks of having drinking and marital problems as well as punching a clubhouse attendant in the face during spring training. The most cutting tweet read: "u cried in the managers office bc u have problems now u go and talk bad about the sox after they protected u for 7 years ungrateful."
That tweet brings up the issue of manager-player confidentiality. However, Oney Guillen said he does not feel his attack on Jenks will affect his or his father's relationships with the players.
"I grew up around clubhouses my entire life," Guillen told the Chicago Sun-Times. "My relationship with players will not change one bit. They know what I'm about. They know why I said what I said."
Oney Guillen also wouldn't apologize for his attack on Jenks, claiming he was defending his father.
"Maybe in hindsight I shouldn't have said a couple of things, but I did," Guillen said. "The reason I got so mad about what Bobby said was he is basically saying my dad is a (terrible) manager. Sorry, but no one knows what will happen with the Sox this year, and who knows how a statement like that could affect my dad's future? That's my dad. If anyone heard someone talking (stuff) about their dad, and it was stuff that wasn't true or stuff from a guy that their dad did a lot for the past six or seven years, how would they react?"
—
The Rays have lost seven players to free agency this winter, and seven more are still on the open market. Conversely, they've added just three major-league players, all relievers, by signing free agent Joel Peralta and acquiring left-hander Cesar Ramos and Adam Russell from the Padres in a trade for shortstop Jason Bartlett.
Not surprisingly, the Rays have a long shopping list. They would like two experienced late-inning relievers along with a pair of hitters who could fill holes at first base, left field, or designated hitter.
The challenge is fitting those players into a payroll that will be significantly lower than last year's $73 million figure. Thus, the Rays are looking for players who, in executive vice president Andrew Friedman's words, are "under-the-radar type guys that we feel fit us well and have a lot of upside."
"Right now, we're upside players," Friedman said. "That's what our mindset is and what we're going to aggressively try to accomplish."
The Rays, as always, are trying to compete on a tight budget in the American League East against the game's two biggest spenders in the Yankees and Red Sox. Yet after winning two division titles in the last three years, the Rays believe they will be competitive again this year.
"You can just interchange the names; we go through this conversation every offseason," Friedman said. "It just accentuates what we're up against."
—
While it's at the expense of plenty of offense, the Marlins' infield defense figures to get better with Omar Infante replacing Dan Uggla at second base. However, the outfield defense is a different matter, as the Marlins will have converted infielders at two of the three positions.
Logan Morrison will again play left field; he moved from first base last season for fellow rookie Gaby Sanchez. Chris Coghlan, who was the National League Rookie of the Year in 2008 as a third baseman, will be the center fielder. That leaves Mike Stanton as the only natural right fielder.
The makeshift outfield is seemingly a concern considering the Marlins were 11th in the NL and 22nd in the major leagues last season with a .683 defensive efficiency. However, the Marlins are quick to point out that Coghlan did make the transition to left field last year before injuring his knee in July, which prompted the call up of Morrison from Triple-A.
"There is not great concern on the club's part with those three guys in the outfield," baseball operations president Larry Beinfest said. "With Chris, we have to take what we know: he made himself a left fielder in a short period of time, so we believe he'll be able to take that over to center field."
Coghlan is looking forward to the move despite not having played center field during his five professional seasons.
"Center field is going to be fun," Coghlan said. "I've got confidence in my ability to be able to play that position at a high level."
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Palmiero: 20 seasons, 3020 Hits, 1663 Runs, 569 HR, 1835 RBI, 97 SB, 288/371/515
The answer is sustained excellence. Palmiero was steadily elite for over ten years, while McGwire had ups and downs over a shorter career. His traditional numbers make him a borderline candidate at best. He has just too many seasons where he was a merely above-average slugging 1B, and not a HOF-bound one. His career before age 30 has more in common with Jack Cust than it does with the HOF 1B's.
The fun thing is comparing those two guys to Bagwell, who had only 15 seasons.
Bagwell: 15 seasons, 2314 hits, 1517 Runs, 449 HR, 1529 RBI, 202 SB, 297/408/540
Crazy to think what HE could have done with 20 seasons.
You are saying this about McGwire, but it actually applies to Palmeiro.
The sum of McGwire's best 10 years are considerably better than Palmeiro's 10 best. McGwire - 60.5 WARP, Palmeiro - 50.3.
The only reason Palmeiro's career WARP is sort of close to McGwire's is because of Palmeiro's 10 seasons where he posted WARPs in the 1-3.5 range. Those are not "elite" seasons.
My point is that every year, the same arguments come up for various players: He wasn't good enough for long enough, hurt too often, too many bad seasons (McGwire had more "average" seasons than Palmeiro did), blah blah blah. You can throw WARP around all you want, and I'll agree with you, but unfortunately only a handful of actual voters give a rat's patootie, and so the argument is sadly irrelevant. By today's standards, with today's voters, with today's arguments, Palmeiro has a better HOF case than McGwire does. Incidentally, WAR (sorry to drag in a competitor, BP!) rates Palmeiro higher than McGwire, with a 66 WAR to Mac's 61.
I'm ignoring walks because it's a direct function of his being an extreme power hitter (one tool). Adam Dunn gets a lot of walks for the same reasons, but that doesn't make him a Hall-of-Famer. Actually, to this point in his career (age 30), Dunn has a stronger HOF case than McGwire did by that age (go check his stats) yet who has mentioned Dunn in the same sentence with Cooperstown? Also, Palmiero's career contact rate is 85%, compared to McGwire's 71%, meaning he was apt to take less walks because he was more likely to put a pitch outside the zone into play and didn't NEED to watch them all go by waiting for that meatball he could knock out.
It seems to me that you're giving Palmiero credit for his Hits, but not the rest of what he's done, while McGwire is getting credit for his homers, but people are ignoring the fact that the rest of his game was no better than above-average for his position.
I, too, am curious about what tipped your vote against some of those borderline players, if you choose to share your decision process. Thanks again.
Raines should have been a 1st-ballot guy.
Trammell Yes.
Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker, Yes.
That all being said, I'd vote for Larkin in a heartbeat if I had a vote.
Bagwell was a fourth-round draft choice, picked 110th overall, and was never higher than #32 on Baseball America's top prospects list. Few players go from such modest college and minor league careers to contend for the Hall of Fame, especially with a comparatively short MLB career. Whatever the circumstances were that allowed Bagwell to do that, they were unusual.
On a more serious note, Willie Mays only had 12 MiLB homers in two partial seasons, which is a 55 to one ratio, not as big as Bagwell, but still significant.
This doesn't count what he did in his short tenure in the Negro League though, and I can't find any record of what he did there, so I don't know if he showed more power then.
Larkin is .295/.371/.444 for his career with 69.8 fWAR, 68.9 rWAR and 86.2 WARP.
I being up the other non-BP metrics to point out that, basically, Jeter has been a better hitter throughout his career and it isn't particularly close. While WARP has a ton of value as measuring stick, it's hardly determinative. For Jeter to be slightly better than Larkin in 2 of 3 evaluations it means his offense has been far superior to make up for his highly negative defense.
Looking at all the fWAR SS qualifiers with at least 25 wins, Jeter has BY FAR the worst defensive numbers. Only Michael Young (-71.6) and Toby Harrah (-97.0) (Harrah spent more time at 3B) have worse than a -50 run value for defense, Jeter's is -113.4. Jeter overcomes that to lead Larkin in the overall evaluation.
So, basically, if Jeter retired today I can see your point - but Jeter has at least 3 more years to accumulate offensive numbers while likely limiting the defensive damage as he'll probably move off short at some point in the length of his current contract.
Jeter comes out better in 2 of the 3 statistics you cited because he's had almost 1500 more PAs than Larkin in three less seasons. While staying healthy has value, it doesn't make Jeter a better hitter when his rate stats are pertty much the same as Larkin's (plus assuming he plays till 40 his rates will likely drop a bit).
Thus, the comment that Jeter + range = Larkin is fairly accurate (although you can argue that it should be Larkin + health).
I'll echo Dianagram's comments on people being rude, if you disagree just be respectful as the HOF discussions are supposed to be fun.
I think John's ballet shows someone that has thought about the process, considered each candidate on their merits and voted accordingly.
It would have been the easiest thing for him to take the JAWS analysis and put his ballet in as a group think of BP. John clearly is his own man but is prepared to listen to reasoned arguement. Isn't that what you want in a HOF voter?
Walker is being rewarded for playing in just about the best hitting environment ever, and Trammell is being punished for...I don't know what for.
When has that ever been the case, if the player excels at nothing else? Does Kenny Lofton have a real HOF case, since he's 15th all-time on the stolen base list?
People can't look past the homers.
He's a one-trick pony, period.
CRP13, whether or not we're talking SABR or traditional voters here, there are essentially just 2 real tricks for any position player: offense and defense. Just because Bags stole 200 bags (at an extremely sub-optimal rate, btw) doesn't mean that he was a more valuable than McGwire. And while there are no truly trustworthy defensive metrics that we can lean on, McGwire has a much better defensive reputation than you are giving him credit for.
For all the teams that LaRussa has fielded, and all the HoF players that have played under him, Big Mac is still in his top 2 favorite of his own guys, only behind Big Albert. More than Rickey, more than Eck.
You keep insisting McGwire is a "one trick pony" over and over, but who cares about that? Your point has no significance.
Hitters can contribute in a number of ways - they can get hits often, they can walk a lot, they can hit extra base hits, they can steal bases. In the end, things like HRs, SBs, singles, walks, advancing from 1st to 3rd on a single, etc - these things all contribute to scoring runs.
Stats like WARP and WAR directly compare a "one trick pony" like McGwire against a well rounded Palmeiro. WARP says that McGwire was clearly better than Palmeiro. WAR from BRef still has McGwire's peak better than Palmeiro's, and career WAR is very close.
Why do you think that a player whose value comes entirely from hitting for power is worse than a player whose value comes from different areas, assuming that their overall value is the same?
People act like I called the dude the antichrist or something.
Answer: No.
Minus away, you're reading only what you want to read instead of what I actually am saying.
Yes, McGwire was a power hitter, and not much else. Being a power hitter is an excellent thing to be, if you are really good at it. And he is one of the best ever.
I guess if McGwire had a better arm he might have gotten your vote.
I'm sure your comment was facetious, but making such a claim about Dante Bichette is absurd. The man hit 274 home runs in his actual career. Let's give him the balance of his career, which is parts of 7 seasons, in Colorado instead of Milwaukee, Anaheim, Boston and Cincinnati (a hypothetical, given that the Rockies didn't even exist for the first five years of his career). He may have reached 300 HR, perhaps even a few more. Certainly nowhere near enough to get any serious consideration.
Like Jeter, he is a historic player. If we're setting aside the steroid judgement for Raffy - who *never* led the league in HR, BA, RBI, BB, OBP, SLG, or OPS (when Mac did so 15 times, cumulatively speaking) - McGwire is in the Hall. Period.
How come NOBODY's talking about how Alomar played during the steroids era and had his best years between 1995 and 2001, same as Bagwell, McGwire, and Palmeiro?
I'm not insinuating anything about Alomar, I'm just asking the question: Do huge home run numbers really indicate who was or who wasn't taking PED's when there's little evidence otherwise? It's not like Jason Grimsley was a flamethrowing 350-game winner, after all.
This smells like a double-standard to me, or at least hypocrisy.
On to your point about Alomar... The fact that nobody is "talking" (as you put it, I'd probably phrase it another way: irresponsibly insinuating made-up narratives) about Alomar using is a GOOD thing, because there's no reason to believe he did. Even the awful look-at-these-before-and-after-pictures "proof" doesn't apply to Alomar. I'd hope the reason behind finger pointing would be reasonable, public evidence and not big home run numbers or hunches.
Not all the benefits of PED's will show up in home run or strikeout numbers (see Grimsley, Jeremy Giambi, Brian Roberts, etc).
With the circumstantial "evidence" surrounding Bagwell just because he played with Caminiti, is it a stretch to say that Alomar, who played during the same period and had no more or less evidence against him than Bagwell does, and whose peak years coincided with the heyday of the steroid era, MAY have been a user as well?
You're looking for an argument where I'm not making one. Steroids are bad. Steroids help players in various ways. My point is home runs don't indicate who took what, and Alomar's career was SMACK in the middle of the worst of the controversy, so whose to say he wasn't a user also? And nobody is mentioning it.
This is exactly what my first paragraph was arguing against. You can't say that PEDs didn't show up in these guys' HR or K numbers just because that didn't have a ton. Who's to say they wouldn't have had even LESS than they already did if not for PEDs. Conversely, I can't say they definitely would have, as there is NO way of knowing.
The rest of your post is just you taking stabs at the dark. What evidence is there that Bagwell juiced? He looks bigger than he used to be? Not nearly good enough. Your logic condemns everyone who played during the era as a user without having ANY evidence whatsoever.
My point is home runs don't indicate who took what, and Alomar's career was SMACK in the middle of the worst of the controversy, so whose to say he wasn't a user also? And nobody is mentioning it.
I don't think anyone is saying "He definitely did not use PEDs." We can't say that with any certainty. Nobody is mentioning it at all, however, in light of the fact that there is not a single bit of reasonable evidence to do so. NONE. You seem to take exception to this for some reason, and I can't figure out why anybody would be in favor of MORE slanderous, baseless finger pointing from the media than there already is (see: Bagwell).
So how is making assumptions about Bagwell solely on his production during the steroid era and association with Caminiti OK, while it's NOT okay to make the same assumptions about Alomar?
That's the double-standard I'm talking about.
Damn, read before replying! You and I are saying the same things!!!
I have no idea whether Alomar took PED's, nor do I care. I'm pointing out the double standard of accusing Bagwell (and others who have no evidence against them) while voting Alomar into the Hall in a landslide.
It's absurd. What's funny is somebody actually -1'd you for YOUR comment here before I read it.
It seems like BP's system might have been designed to avoid comments of the level of stupidity seen on ESPN boards, but I don't think that's an issue among BP subscribers.