Continuing a series examining the candidates eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The writers' ballots are due by December 31st and the Class of 2013 will be announced in early January.
Out of all the first basemen who have debuted in the major leagues since 1950, only five have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Does Jeff Bagwell deserve to be the sixth?
The five who made the cut: Willie McCovey, Eddie Murray, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Perez, and Orlando Cepeda. Bagwell makes this exercise pretty easy, because he was better than all of them:
Career On-Base Plus Slugging: Career Wins Above Replacement:
Bagwell: .948 Bagwell: 76.7
McCovey: .889 Murray: 63.4
Killebrew: .884 McCovey: 60.7
Cepeda: .849 Killebrew: 55.8
Murray: .836 Perez: 50.1
Perez: .804 Cepeda: 46.1
In fact, Bagwell's career OPS would be 5th-best among all Hall of Fame first basemen, and his career WAR would be 7th-best. There was even a brief window during which he was able to call himself the best first baseman of the past half-century (a window that shut abruptly when Albert Pujols came along). Yet only 56% of the baseball writers voted for Bagwell last year, well short of the required 75% threshold. Here's a deeper look at his candidacy in an effort to unearth what the baseball writers don't like about him.
Bagwell spent his entire 15-year career with the Houston Astros, and for the first nine of those seasons, he played his home games in the Astrodome. Since that ballpark was one of the tougher hitting environments of the day, Bagwell's gaudy offensive numbers suddenly become all the more impressive. He hit an all-around-awesome .297/.408/.540 for his career, along with 449 homers and 1,401 walks. But he also used his speed to steal 202 bases and score 1,517 runs. He scored 152 runs in 2000, the highest single-season total for any player since the 1930s. Bagwell was the truly unique slugger who excelled at both driving in runs and scoring them, a rare combination only exhibited by inner-circle Hall of Famers like Rickey Henderson.
Bagwell did win an MVP Award, in 1994. He hit .368/.451/.750 with 39 homers, 116 RBIs, and 104 runs. Incredible numbers considering he only played in 110 games. That 1994 season was shortened due to the strike, which unfortunately overshadowed Bagwell's best year. He also put up MVP-caliber seasons in 1997 and 1999, finishing 3rd and 2nd, respectively, in the MVP voting those years. During his eight-year peak between the 1994 MVP and 2001, his cumulative line was .306/.428/.589, and he averaged 37 home runs, 120 RBIs, 110 walks, and 18 steals per season. Remarkably, over that eight-year stretch, he walked more times than he struck out (877 to 871), one of the telltale signs of an elite hitter.
Bagwell is clearly a slam-dunk Hall of Famer. Yet he's already appeared on the ballot twice, and both times he didn't receive enough votes to get inducted. There are two possible explanations for this oddity. One is the usual: suspicions of performance-enhancing drugs. Suspicions based on little more than, "well, he had big muscles." He wasn't named in the Mitchell Report and didn't fail a drug test. Letting rumors and hearsay dictate who gets into Cooperstown just demeans the institution.
The other possible explanation is Bagwell's short career length. He only played for 15 years before an arthritic condition in his shoulder forced him to retire. Old-school baseball writers might think that Bagwell isn't Cooperstown-worthy just because he didn't play long enough to reach a major milestone, having retired with "only" 449 home runs and 2,314 hits.
Here's why that's wrong. Despite his abbreviated career, Jeff Bagwell still accumulated a total of 76.7 Wins Above Replacement. Only 35 position players accumulated more WAR in baseball history. Of those 35, 30 are in the Hall of Fame. The other five are named Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones, and Ken Griffey Jr.
That company says it all.
My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mike Piazza
4. Craig Biggio
5. Jeff Bagwell
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