The Three Problems With Hall of Fame Voting

The 2014 Hall of Fame ballot was revealed last week, setting the stage for the next month of baseball discourse. Unfortunately, what should be a stimulating debate about the relative strength of some phenomenal careers is going to be undermined by three critical flaws in the voting process.

1. The "first-ballot" distinction. Some Hall of Fame voters (tenured members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America) will acknowledge that a player is eventually worthy of induction into the Hall, but somehow not worthy of being inducted on their first year of eligibility. This is a dumb idea that somebody just made up one day, and it's caught on, to the detriment of the process. The forty-something first-ballot Hall of Famers don't actually represent an 'upper echelon' of talent like some people believe (the group includes Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, and Eddie Murray, but excludes Jimmie Foxx, Yogi Berra, and Cy MotherEffing Young). This false distinction probably has its origins in the 1950s, when great players like Joe DiMaggio and Rogers Hornsby didn't make the Hall on the first try because there was a ton of backlog on the ballot. Some writers didn't vote for Craig Biggio last year, because, they apparently reasoned, "if Joe DiMaggio wasn't a first-ballot Hall of Famer, then Biggio isn't!" Of all the stupid reasons to withhold your vote from a player, this is among the stupidest.

The whole point of the Hall of Fame is that once you're in, you're on equal footing with everybody. Regardless of what ballot you came in on. All inductees have the same plaque in the same gallery. Willie Mays enjoys the same status as Jim Rice. Ralph Kiner probably said it best:

"It's not like the guys who get elected in their first year get Cadillacs and the rest of us get Chevys."

Refusing to vote in deserving candidates on the first ballot only contributes to the second problem:

2. Backlog, thanks to the 10-man limit. For some reason, writers still aren't allowed to vote for more than ten players in a single election cycle. For a long time, this hasn't been an issue, because it's rare for more than ten Hall of Famers to accumulate on the ballot at the same time. But now it's suddenly a huge problem. The writers' stubborn selectivity when it comes to voting in players on their first ballots, coupled with a new wave of eligible players from the talent-rich 1990s, has stacked this year's ballot with at least twenty players who deserve to have their Hall of Fame credentials debated:

Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Greg Maddux
Jeff Bagwell
Frank Thomas
Curt Schilling
Mike Mussina
Tom Glavine
Mike Piazza
Tim Raines
Craig Biggio
Rafael Palmeiro
Mark McGwire
Sammy Sosa
Edgar Martinez
Larry Walker
Alan Trammell
Fred McGriff
Jack Morris
Jeff Kent
Lee Smith

There are undoubtedly many writers out there who would vote for more than ten of these players if they were allowed to. But the 10-man limit prevents them from doing so. As a result, those writers suddenly have to make strategic decisions on which ten players to vote for. Choose the ten most deserving names strictly based on merit? Or cleverly leave off someone who's a cinch to get elected anyway (like Greg Maddux) in favor of a player who desperately needs the support (like Edgar Martinez)? Either way, genuinely worthy players are going to be left off of ballots -- not by voter choice, but because of the mandated 10-man limit. Those players will end up with artificially-low vote totals, keeping them on the ballot for the foreseeable future ... and exacerbating the backlog even more.

This problem isn't going away by itself. In fact, without a change to this restriction, the ballot is about to become even more clogged than it already is. Next year, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Gary Sheffield will join the field. The following year: Ken Griffey Jr. and Jim Edmonds. After that: Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Vladimir Guerrero. Great players are becoming eligible for the Hall faster than the writers can induct them.

The rule limiting voters to ten names per ballot was dreamed up all the way back in 1936 when the Hall of Fame was first established. Since then, the number of teams has doubled and the pool of eligible players has expanded to include more racial groups and nationalities. It's just logical to expect more Hall of Famers now. The 10-man restriction is a relic of an earlier time, and it needs to go if the ballot is going to be unclogged anytime soon.

3. The obsession with performance-enhancing drugs. Arguably the best position player and the best pitcher in baseball history were both eligible for Hall of Fame induction last year. Yet only about a third of the writers voted for them, leaving them astoundingly short of the 75% threshold needed for enshrinement.

The only reason why Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens aren't in the Hall of Fame right now is their connections to performance-enhancing drugs. The same can be said of Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, and perhaps even the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa/Rafael Palmeiro trio. This is an understandable emotional response to their assumed cheating, but ultimately it's a misguided and unprecedented reason to exclude these players from the Hall. Logically speaking, there are three possible justifications for keeping suspected drug users out, and none of them hold up to serious scrutiny.

Justification #1: PEDs violate the character clause.
Here are the official criteria that the baseball writers are instructed to consider when filling out their ballots:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

The integrity, sportsmanship, and character requirements are usually bundled up and referred to generally as the "character clause." The argument goes, then, that players who took steroids and other PEDs exhibited a lack of character that therefore disqualifies them from Hall of Fame consideration.

This is the weakest of all the logical justifications -- because the baseball writers have never used the character clause to exclude a player from the Hall until, conveniently, right now. In fact, they've never hesitated to induct players whose crimes were far more immoral than drug use. Ty Cobb, the classic example, was a well-known racist whose off-the-field altercations with African-Americans ultimately led to a an attempted murder charge. It has been speculated that Cobb, perhaps along with Tris Speaker and Rogers Hornsby, were members of the Ku Klux Klan. Cap Anson helped perpetuate racial segregation within baseball by refusing to take the field with African-American players. So did Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the first commissioner of baseball. All of these people are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. So too are countless drunks, addicts, abusive spouses, and petty criminals. The sudden interest in judging the 'integrity' of Cooperstown candidates rings hollow given the current moral state of the institution's membership.

Justification #2: PEDs represent a violation of sportsmanship and a mockery of baseball rules.
This argument rests on a more nuanced interpretation of the character clause. Some writers claim that the transgressions of racists and criminals aren't relevant to Hall of Fame voting because they took place off the field. Instead, they would argue that the character clause only applies to conduct and integrity on the field -- in a word, sportsmanship. By this logic, a writer could withhold his support for cheaters like Bonds and Clemens strictly because of their violations of baseball rules, thus keeping their crimes separate from those committed by racists and criminals (which might be morally worse in a vacuum but did not affect baseball's level playing field).

But this justification doesn't work either, because there are already confirmed cheaters and drug users in the Hall of Fame. Gaylord Perry, a member of the 300-win and 3,000 strikeout clubs, admitted that he doctored baseballs during his career (with substances ranging from saliva and dirt to Vaseline and fishing line wax). Don Sutton and Whitey Ford cut and scuffed baseballs. The George Brett pine-tar incident is remembered fondly, but technically represents another instance of cheating. Dozens of hitters have corked their bats (including, allegedly, Babe Ruth). The 1951 Giants won the pennant thanks to an elaborate sign-stealing system.

The cheating extends to drug use, too. It dates all the way back to Hall of Famer Pud Galvin, whose drug of choice in the 1880s was monkey testosterone. More relevantly, legends like Mike Schmidt, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Mickey Mantle all used amphetamines, or "greenies." Willie Stargell allegedly passed them out to his Pittsburgh Pirates teammates. It is naive to believe that steroids in the 1990s was the first instance of widespread performance-enhancing drug use in baseball.

Clearly the writers have never cared about cheating in baseball when it comes to the Hall of Fame, until now. The only difference between a player using amphetamines in 1970 and using steroids in 2000 is that steroids were probably more effective. Both substances provide a boost to performance, both were illegal without prescription in the United States, both were simply part of baseball culture, and both were eventually banned by the commissioner's office. Condoning amphetamines while condemning steroids is a logically inconsistent position. Any writer who does that is basically saying that certain degrees of cheating are acceptable while others are not. Who draws the line? And where is it?

It's not like baseball players in the 1990s were more corruptible or more nefarious than their counterparts in the 1970s. Earlier players just didn't have access to the really good drugs. The realities of human nature suggest that if stars in the 1970s knew about steroids, they would have taken them, too. Here's what Bob Gibson said about that hypothetical:

"I'm just glad they didn't have steroids when I was playing. You know, I don't know what I would have done."

Let's stop pretending that steroid users were the first cheaters or drug users in baseball history. The Hall of Fame has never policed against that stuff, and there's no reason why it should start now.

And finally -- what happens if a player currently in the Hall is revealed to be a steroid user? Is that player expelled from Cooperstown? Or is he allowed to stay while other cheaters are kept out? Neither of those scenarios are particularly compelling.

Justification #3: PEDs make it impossible to objectively judge a player's career.
This is the most nuanced position on PED users, and one that doesn't rely on crutches like character or morality. Basically, some writers don't have an ethical issue with players who used steroids. But they assume that the huge impact of steroids on the statistics of those players makes it impossible to know whether or not that player deserves to be a Hall of Famer. How many home runs would Mark McGwire have hit without the help of drugs? Because the answer to that question is unknown, some writers withhold their votes from PED users just because their true talent level is impossible to discern.

Here's the thing -- we don't know enough about steroids, scientifically, to assume that they had the huge impact everyone assumes they had. Did steroids help McGwire more than the spitball helped Gaylord Perry? Are steroids the only thing responsible for Barry Bonds' transformation from "All-Time Great" into "Maybe The Best Player Ever"? If steroids are an instant talent-giving elixir, then why did so many mediocre-to-bad players see little-to-no boost in their performance after taking them? Because the extent to which PEDs actually enhance performance is unknown, it's unfair to just assume without any evidence that Bonds or Clemens or McGwire could not have achieved their Hall of Fame credentials without artificial assistance.

There are seven players on this year's ballot with varying connections to PEDs: Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Mike Piazza, and Jeff Bagwell. Not voting for McGwire, Sosa, or Palmeiro because of steroids is understandable, because statistically they aren't slam-dunk Hall of Famers anyway -- McGwire wasn't very durable, Sosa had a crazy-high peak but little else, and Palmeiro had no real peak to speak of. But there is no excuse for any writer to withhold a vote from Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, or Bagwell. They were simply too damn good at baseball to be chemical mirages created by magical drugs. And a Hall of Fame that excludes four all-time greats because of some flawed notion of morality or purity will become an institution without any credibility or relevance.

David Ortiz and Cooperstown's Double Standard

Based on what's been written in the wake of his third World Series title, it appears as though this latest round of postseason heroics has pushed David Ortiz over the hypothetical Hall of Fame threshold. He's certainly not a bad choice. In almost 2,000 career games, Ortiz has hit .287/.381/.549 with 431 home runs and a 139 OPS+. Remove his unspectacular stint with the Minnesota Twins and those numbers look even better. And in 82 career playoff games, he owns a .939 OPS, two walk-off home runs, and a host of other memorable clutch moments. But what makes Ortiz's case even more engrossing is his connection to performance-enhancing drugs.

Unlike Manny Ramirez and Rafael Palmeiro, Ortiz has never officially tested positive for a banned substance. He falls into the same category as Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza (and, technically, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens), in that the evidence against him is purely circumstantial:

1. A New York Times report in 2009 claimed that Ortiz was one of the 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during "anonymous" survey testing in 2003, before the current testing system was installed. That famous list reportedly also implicates Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, and Sammy Sosa. Not the best company. It doesn't help that Ortiz was Ramirez's teammate for a number of years.

2. Ortiz's OPS with the Minnesota Twins, from 1997 to 2002, was .809. Since joining the Red Sox in 2003, his OPS has been .962.

3. Ortiz looked like toast in 2009, when he got off to a painfully slow start and hit just .238 for the season. It looked like he might retire at the beginning of 2010, when he hit .143 in April as a 34-year old. In the three years since then, he's recovered in a huge way to hit .311/.401/.571.

These are the indicators that the overly-suspicious baseball community has decided upon as the telltale signs of illicit drug use. They're all there: the unsubstantiated reports, the compromised teammates, the quantum leap in production, the late-30s career renaissance. There's far more "evidence" implicating Ortiz than there is against, say, Mike Piazza, and Piazza was rejected by the Hall of Fame voters last year purely based on skepticism and suspicion. For the sake of intellectual consistency, shouldn't Ortiz get the same treatment?

Spoiler alert: he won't. Ortiz isn't subject to the same level of scrutiny as other Hall candidates. And that tells you everything you need to know about how twisted this process has become.

The best illustration of this double standard comes from Jon Heyman, a CBS Sports analyst with a Hall of Fame vote. His Friday column covered Ortiz's case for Cooperstown, and performance-enhancing drugs was one of the key points he addressed. In the past, Heyman has proudly announced his refusal to vote for players even tangentially connected to steroids (not just Bonds and Clemens, but Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza too). So it was good to see the following paragraph, which suggested he would hold Ortiz to the same tough standard to which he has held others:

"Ortiz is no A-Rod, as anyone reasonably can conclude. But that doesn't mean he gets a free pass, either, not without a serious consideration of the facts. With even more accomplished players than Ortiz such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and others omitted from Cooperstown to date, it wouldn't be right not to at least consider the case against Ortiz. A great nickname, way with words and penchant for maximizing the moment doesn't win Big Papi a free pass. So the case against must be considered."

Very reasonable. Heyman isn't letting Ortiz's narrative affect his broader evaluative method. He then goes on to acknowledge a few of the links between Ortiz and drugs:

"Ortiz was one of 104 players to fail MLB's 2003 steroid survey test ... Ortiz was a marginal player until he got [to] the Red Sox in his late 20s, then took a giant leap to become Manny Ramirez's co-equal runningmate, and he has remained great even into his late 30s after looking like he might be nearing the end at least a couple different times a half-decade ago ... A giant bear of a man, he once seemed like the nicest guy in the world, but more recently has shown occasional signs of surliness and one classic fit of temper ... He knows Manny well."

It's important to note at this juncture that these are all ridiculous reasons to exclude Ortiz from the Hall. One unconfirmed report, some statistical fluctuation, and "signs of surliness" aren't evidence of drug use. That's not the point here. The point is that Heyman -- a Hall of Fame voter -- has a well-established history of withholding his vote from players who have been loosely connected to drugs. Here, he appears to be willing to apply that tough standard to the eminently-lovable Ortiz. That's what's important -- intellectual consistency. Even if I don't agree with Heyman's Hall standard, at least he's got a philosophy that he wields fairly across the board. In his own words:

"... it isn't necessarily unreasonable to omit Ortiz based on this one serious mistake. Players who took steroids or even laced supplements gained an unfair advantage, and I have never voted for anyone linked to steroids."

Again, I disagree with this position, but it's hard not to respect Heyman for sticking to his ideological guns, even when faced with an appealing baseball character like Ortiz.

Except at the very end of this column, Heyman does a complete about-face that highlights the Ortiz double standard:

"Some Hall of Fame voters will exclude players with any link to steroids, no matter how strong that link is, but in this case it fairly boils down to one un-sourced report involving a test for survey purposes.

Is that enough to exclude? Not here it isn't.

Cooperstown it is."

I mean ... what? After all that, Heyman is endorsing Ortiz for the Hall? Here's how the logic of this column breaks down:

1. I, Jon Heyman, have never voted for anyone linked to steroids.
2. Here is a bunch of evidence linking David Ortiz to steroids.
3. I support David Ortiz for Cooperstown!

So much for a reasonably-applied standard. Heyman's voting principles are now completely compromised. Just a year ago, his official Hall of Fame ballot did not include Jeff Bagwell. It did not include Mike Piazza. Both of those players had twice the careers that Ortiz had, but Heyman did not vote for them because of unconfirmed reports and rumors about their drug use. Yet in Ortiz's case, Heyman is suddenly willing to acknowledge nuance and look past the unconfirmed reports and rumors. This confirms exactly what we have come to expect -- baseball writers aren't making Hall of Fame decisions based on reason and logic and sound criteria. They're voting on narratives and personal biases. Bagwell and Piazza? They never won a championship, did anything memorable, or played for great teams, so they probably used drugs. They're out. Ortiz? He's a fun dude with a cool nickname, some clutch moments, and three titles for a historic franchise, so he probably didn't use drugs. He's in.

This is not David Ortiz's fault. He may very well be a Hall of Famer, and his tenuous connection to drugs should not be a factor when the time comes to make that decision. It is encouraging to see an actual voter like Jon Heyman promoting that view. It would just be great if Heyman could provide other suspected users like Bagwell and Piazza with the same benefit of the doubt that Ortiz has apparently earned.

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There's a second aspect of the Ortiz double standard that isn't drug-related. It has to do with another designated hitter: Edgar Martinez. Martinez has been on the Hall of Fame ballot for four years now, and hasn't yet crossed the 40% threshold, suggesting that his chances of induction aren't good at all. But if Ortiz is now being considered a Hall of Famer, then the voters had better take a second look at Martinez, because the gap between these players is striking.

Martinez had the better slash line (.312/.418/.515), his on-base advantage trumping Ortiz's edge in power (.287/.381/.549). Martinez has the better OPS+ (147 to 138). They have similar career games played and plate appearance totals, yet Baseball Reference has Ortiz's career value at 44.2 WAR and Martinez's at 68.3, thanks in part to Ortiz's forgettable stint with Twins. Both were DHs, but Martinez actually spent less of his time there (74%) than Ortiz (86%). Fangraphs.com grades Ortiz as the inferior baserunner and defender. Martinez actually played some third base, which Ortiz probably can't even do in his own imagination. Granted, Ortiz has the postseason accomplishments, but ... what am I missing here? Until he tacks on a few more seasons of elite production, he can't be considered Martinez's equal.

So how can Jon Heyman support Ortiz for the Hall when he didn't vote for Martinez last year? Well, this is what he wrote about Edgar last January:

"Had that pretty slash line of .312/.418/.515. But since he was mostly a DH, I would have liked a bit more power, longevity or speed. Great, but pretty one-dimensional."

Reading that blurb now is devastatingly ironic considering Heyman's more recent endorsement of Ortiz. If he didn't vote for Martinez because he was a slow and one-dimensional DH without enough longevity, how can he possibly justify a future vote for Ortiz, who's an even-slower and even-more-one-dimensional DH with an even shorter career? Again, it's the same illogical approach discussed above. It clearly doesn't have anything to do with merit. It's because Martinez didn't have an outgoing personality or a badass nickname like "Big Papi" or the good fortune to play for great teams in three World Series. It's about narrative. Baseball writers love narrative -- they write it and promote it for a living -- so it's no surprise that narrative has become the most important means of judging a player's ultimate career value. This is not the objective analysis that baseball -- more rooted in statistics than any other sport -- deserves.

Based on Heyman's voting record with respect to Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza, and Edgar Martinez, there was absolutely no rational reason to expect him to support David Ortiz's candidacy as a one-dimensional DH with connections to performance-enhancing drugs. And yet he still wrote that column endorsing Ortiz. It's just another example of how broken Cooperstown's voting process really is. As long as narrative, not merit, determines its membership, the Hall of Fame's relevance as a record of baseball greatness will be undermined.

Chrysler Disapproves of Your Steroid Use

A Chrysler commercial titled "Road to Greatness," featuring Miguel Cabrera, has been airing throughout the MLB playoffs. But it's not just trying to sell you a car -- it's also sending a subliminal message about baseball morality:



So, two things stand out. First, when the voice-over says, "The road to greatness is the same for everyone -- no rest stops, no fast lanes, and definitely no short cuts," this image of a guy holding up a sign appears:

What looks like a Chinese character is probably supposed to be an asterisk. Not coincidentally, the image appears exactly when the voice-over emphasizes the phrase "no short cuts" and the music suddenly becomes ominous. So this has to be a judgmental jab at steroid cheaters like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, who apparently have foregone their chance at "greatness" by taking artificial "shortcuts." According to the supreme moral arbiter known as ... Chrysler. How this is relevant is beyond me.

The message is confirmed later in the commercial, in a far more obvious way. The voice-over continues: "It's a road paved with hardship ... and crafted by hard work. That is how true greatness is made." During that last phrase, this image scrolls by:

Very subtle. Roger Maris' home run record was "true greatness," achieved through "hardship" and "hard work." Cheating asterisks Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, on the other hand, just popped a bunch of short-cutting homer-pills to set their records. No hard work or greatness to be found there.

This tiresome moral lecture is bad enough. But what's truly maddening is the placement of Miguel Cabrera and the Detroit Tigers as the centerpiece of the sermon. The Tigers probably wouldn't even be in the ALCS this year if not for Jhonny Peralta's massive three-run home run in Game Four of the ALDS. Yet Peralta was named in the same Biogenesis drug scandal as the much-maligned Ryan Braun and Alex Rodriguez. He served a 50-game suspension for taking banned substances JUST THIS SUMMER. So yeah, as long as Cabrera and the Tigers are benefiting from Peralta's postseason production, it's hard to take this hypocritical moral indignation -- imported from Detroit! -- too seriously.

On top of that: Chrysler thought it would be a good idea to make a preachy car commercial with Miguel Cabrera as its star ... when Cabrera has a DUI and several other alcohol-related incidents on his record. Here are a few paragraphs from his Wikipedia page:

In the early morning of October 3, 2009, police were called to the Cabrera's home and took Cabrera in for questioning. Cabrera had come home at 6:00am, after a night of drinking at the nearby Townsend Hotel, and got in an argument with his wife. He was seen later that day at a game at Comerica Park, with scratches on his face. Cabrera told reporters that the scratches came from his dog and refused to discuss the matter further. It was later reported he had a blood alcohol level of .26 when tested, which is over three times Michigan's legal limit.

On January 21, 2010, it was reported that Cabrera spent three months in an alcohol abuse treatment center to help him recover from his addiction. He said at the time he had not drunk alcohol since he was taken into custody in October 2009, and that he would continue his treatment into spring training and the regular season.

Television station WXYZ had obtained a police report from an incident the preceding August, in which Cabrera was involved in a verbal altercation with diners at a restaurant inside the Townsend. Witnesses say Cabrera threatened to fight the group outside and indicated that he had a gun. Restaurant employees asked Cabrera to leave and police were called. There was no weapon in Cabrera's vehicle and Cabrera told team officials he did not own one. Cabrera then told team officials he had been dealing with personal issues and got upset, and the diners ended up dropping the matter.

Cabrera was arrested in Florida on suspicion for drunk driving and resisting arrest on February 16, 2011.

Chrysler pretentiously lecturing baseball players on taking "shortcuts" and questioning their "true greatness" is one thing. But doing so while championing a drunk driver as the legitimate standard of greatness, and then using his image to sell CARS, of all things? Talk about undermining your own moral high ground. And hey, speaking of "shortcuts" -- didn't Chrysler get a multi-billion dollar bailout from the federal government just, like, a few years ago? Was that not a "shortcut"?

But hold up, this is getting off track. Let's get back to Chrysler's message, because we cant afford to lose sight of what's really, truly important here: those baseball players who took those drugs that one time.

The Critical Importance of the Miguel Tejada Suspension

On Saturday morning, news broke that Royals infielder Miguel Tejada has been suspended for 105 games. The suspension itself has virtually no impact on the field; Tejada, despite being a former MVP, is 39 years old and his career is over anyway. It does, however, carry a ton of significance when it comes to the off-the-field debate about performance-enhancing drugs. Because Tejada tested positive for amphetamines. Major League Baseball has decided that amphetamines are against the rules, and offenders of those rules deserve suspensions.

These are important ideological distinctions. Because for a period of time within the game (particularly the 1960s and 1970s), amphetamines (or "greenies") were embedded in baseball culture to the same extent as steroids were in the 1990s and early 2000s. The parallels are obvious. Just like anabolic steroids after 1991, amphetamines were illegal in the United States without a prescription after 1965. Yet baseball did virtually nothing to fight the amphetamine problem; they weren't even banned from the game until 1971 and testing for them didn't begin until 2006. Greenies became part of the game, even encouraged in some clubhouses. Jim Bouton famously said that greenies were handed out like candy. Their pervasiveness within the game is easily compared to steroids. Anyone can argue the difference in scale between the two drugs -- amphetamines essentially provide an energy boost, while steroids are perceived as a far more sinister, syringe-induced, body-form-changing elixir of talent-creating cheat-juice. But that's not the issue here. What matters is that they both reside on the same moral plane: forbidden by baseball as a form of cheating.

This is critically important when it comes to the Hall of Fame and the character clause. For several years now, a bloc of holier-than-thou baseball writers have stubbornly refused to even consider (let alone admit) steroid cheats into Cooperstown, from Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire to Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds. The reasoning has been that steroid users broke baseball's rules by taking banned substances, which violated the nebulous character clause of the Hall's voting guidelines. But here's where the mind-boggling intellectual consistency comes into play: by that logic, any player who used amphetamines should be ineligible for induction, too. Morally, there should be no difference between a player who used greenies in 1975 and a player who used steroids in 1995. In both cases, the substance was banned. The specific choice of substance should not matter.

Yet there's a healthy list of Hall of Famers who used amphetamines. In fact, Chipper Jones once said that taking greenies was as routine as putting on one's uniform before a ballgame, so the list is almost certainly longer than we know. Hank Aaron has admitted to trying amphetamines. So has Mike Schmidt. So has Goose Gossage (who is ironically outspoken against cheaters like Clemens ever getting into the Hall). A writer has alleged that Mickey Mantle injected himself with banned substances during his home run chase with Roger Maris. Willie Stargell allegedly provided greenies for his Pittsburgh Pirate teammates. Willie Mays is another alleged user whose locker was supposedly a source of liquid amphetamines ("red juice") for his New York Mets teammates in 1973.

What's the difference between Mays and Stargell using greenies, and Bonds and Clemens using steroids? Steroids were probably more effective and had more obvious side effects. That's really it. In both instances, players went around loosely-defined rules and exploited a comical lack of enforcement to gain a competitive edge. Suggesting that drug cheaters in baseball have only existed since 1990 is ignorant. Players have always sought a chemical advantage, all the way back to Pud Galvin using monkey testosterone in the 19th century. The only difference is that the more recent cheaters have had access to the better drugs.

To become intellectually consistent, the backward-thinking baseball writers have two options. Either evict Hank Aaron and Mike Schmidt and the rest of the admitted "cheaters" from the Hall of Fame for their violations of the character clause. Or stop using the character clause as a selective excuse to keep Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out. Anything in between would be a hideous double standard, which is exactly what we have right now.

The Hall of Fame Shutout

This year's Hall of Fame results were so fitting of the Steroid Era. We saw the strongest class of potential inductees ever -- two players with 3,000 hits, two with 3,000 strikeouts, four with 500 home runs -- and no one was named on enough ballots (75% is the threshold) to earn enshrinement in Cooperstown. Here are each of the candidates, how they performed in the vote, and how many years they've spent on the ballot, along with the significance behind their results.

1. Craig Biggio (68.2%, 1st year): Failing to elect Biggio is so silly. The Hall of Fame voters decided not to support the steroid users because they cheated, and then many didn't support Biggio either ... because he wasn't as dominant as the steroid users. That makes absolutely no sense. Biggio is a Hall of Fame player, and he's going to get in, probably as soon as 2014. Denying him this year was utterly pointless.

2. Jack Morris (67.7%, 14th year): Morris only went up one percentage point from last year's total. 2014 will be his final go-around on the ballot, and he'll be hard-pressed to earn enshrinement with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Mike Mussina gaining eligibility.

3. Jeff Bagwell (59.6%, 3rd year): He moved up from 56% last year. This guy had a better career OPS than Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. 40% of tenured baseball writers whose job it is to cover the sport don't think he's a Hall of Famer. Maybe they just hate the Astros. This might make more sense.

4. Mike Piazza (57.8%, 1st year): There is no evidence, anywhere, that Mike Piazza used steroids or any variety of performance-enhancing drugs. He is the best offensive catcher in baseball history. He should have earned 90% of the vote.

5. Tim Raines (52.2%, 6th year): Easily the most encouraging trend on this year's ballot. Raines moved over 50% for the first time, and will probably get in after a few more years go by.

6. Lee Smith (47.8%, 11th year): A bad year for Smith, whose vote total actually decreased a few percentage points. This isn't a bad thing for the Hall, though -- the standard for relief pitchers should be very high.

7. Curt Schilling (38.8%, 1st year): Schilling getting so much less support than Jack Morris is a joke. Morris pitched 563 more career innings than Schilling -- but allowed a whopping 569 more runs. Schilling had at least six seasons that were each better than Morris's best season.

8. Roger Clemens (37.6%, 1st year): Hey, while we're at it, Roger Clemens's tenth-best season was better than Morris's best season.

9. Barry Bonds (36.2%, 1st year): He had more walks than Jim Rice had hits. I don't care what substances he took or what laws he broke or who he pissed off -- Barry Bonds is hands-down the best baseball player since Willie Mays. He should reach 75% someday. It's also bizarre that Bonds and Clemens didn't finish with the exact same vote total. Who the heck looked at these two and said, "Clemens for sure, but that Bonds cat? No way no how."

10. Edgar Martinez (35.9%, 4th year): Edgar's vote total has stagnated; things aren't looking good for him unless Frank Thomas's upcoming election changes the perspective on designated hitters for a large percentage of writers.

11. Alan Trammell (33.6%, 12th year): The rules prevent the writers from voting for more than 10 players in any one year; otherwise, I would have included Trammell as the 11th name on my hypothetical ballot.

12. Larry Walker (21.6%, 3rd year): Ironically, Walker might have a better shot at Cooperstown if he had never played a game in Coors Field. That Rockies uniform is like the baseball equivalent of the scarlet letter.

13. Fred McGriff (20.7%, 4th year): McGriff is often held up as the best example of a "clean" player who was hurt by the steroid-users because his numbers were marginalized. Well, two things happened to a 35-year-old McGriff in 1999: his OPS went up 142 points from the previous year, and infamous drug-user Jose Canseco became his teammate. This is not to insinuate that McGriff used steroids -- rather, it's to point out the inherent idiocy and hypocrisy in trying to guess from afar which players were clean (Biggio! McGriff!) and which players weren't (Bagwell! Piazza!).

14. Dale Murphy (18.6%, 15th year): Murphy has now exhausted his 15 years of eligibility, dropping off the ballot. Outside of his six or seven great seasons, he was an average player.

15. Mark McGwire (16.9%, 7th year): His vote total is steadily declining now. The most prolific home run hitter in history -- his 10.61 at-bat per homer ratio is best all-time -- is never getting into the Hall of Fame.

16. Don Mattingly (13.2%, 13th year): Suffers from Dale Murphy Syndrome.

17. Sammy Sosa (12.5%, 1st year): A shockingly weak showing. And just like that, we know his fate: Sosa will never be in the Hall of Fame.

18. Rafael Palmeiro (8.8%, 3rd year): Not only will he join Sosa and McGwire in the "Rejected" pile -- he's in real danger of falling off the ballot entirely next year. I have no problem with this. The man was caught red-handed using steroids when testing was actually in place, and his statistical case has holes anyway.

Those were the 18 candidates who earned the required 5% to return to the ballot in 2014 (except for Murphy, who ran out of time). There, is however, one notable name who didn't reach the minimum threshold:

19. Kenny Lofton (3.2%, 1st year): This, I think, is the biggest travesty of all. Worse than no one getting elected, worse than Piazza getting victimized by mere suspicion, worse than all-time greats getting laughably low vote totals due to steroids. Because Kenny Lofton might be a Hall of Famer.

He's right on the edge, a classic borderline candidate. His fate essentially rests on how valuable one thinks his defense in center field was, and current methods of evaluating that skill aren't adequate. Five or ten years from now, those methods will have certainly improved. We'll have a better grasp of where Lofton stands relative to other Hall of Fame center fielders. Ideally, he could have lingered on the ballot until then, provoking discussion and analysis of his excellent career. That's the reason why the 15-year rule exists, so the non-obvious cases can be fleshed out fully. Bert Blyleven, Jim Rice, and Andre Dawson benefited from that process. Jack Morris and Dale Murphy received the same treatment. Lofton, though? He'll never get that. He's gone, abruptly, never to return.

Lofton's one shot at baseball immortality -- even a fair shot at baseball immortality -- was wasted because the writers dawdled. They've refused to elect obvious candidates in a timely fashion, instead choosing to kick the can down the road and letting the ballot swell in size. Bagwell and Raines? Maybe in a few years. Biggio and Piazza? Not right now. Bonds and Clemens? Make them suffer.

Now there's significant backlog. There were at least 15 players with a legitimate case for Cooperstown on the ballot this year. In 2014, they will be joined by Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Mike Mussina, and Jeff Kent. In 2015, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, Gary Sheffield, and Nomar Garciaparra all become eligible. In 2016: Ken Griffey Jr., Trevor Hoffman, and Jim Edmonds. In 2017: Pudge Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Vladimir Guerrero, and Jorge Posada. Hall of Famers are jumping onto the ballot faster than they can be elected. But the writers traditionally induct only one or two candidates per year, which isn't enough to keep pace. And this year's goose egg won't exactly help. Without changes, there will be victims lost in the morass of names. This time, it was Lofton. Next time, it could be someone more prolific.

Short of smacking some voters upside the head, there's an easy fix available: changing the 10-man ballot limit. The archaic rule preventing voters from checking more than 10 names on their ballots dates back to the 1930s, when there were half as many teams as there are today and Jackie Robinson hadn't yet broken the color barrier. Obviously, there are more great players in today's era. The Hall of Fame should let writers vote for 12 or 15 or 20 candidates instead of just 10, or else there just isn't going to be enough room for everybody in the coming years.

With any luck, 2014 will be a banner year for the Hall. The inductees could potentially include Greg Maddux, Craig Biggio, Tom Glavine, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, and Mike Piazza. Maybe 2014 will be less embarrassing. Or maybe it will be just as bad as 2013, the year an unknown writer used an open spot on his ballot to cast a lone vote for Aaron Sele, but Kenny Lofton couldn't even get a callback.

We may never know who voted for Aaron Sele, so we will have to cast suspicion on all baseball writers during that era
— Matt Sussman (@suss2hyphens) January 9, 2013

Cooperstown Candidates: Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff

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.

It might not seem like it, but Fred McGriff and Rafael Palmeiro had nearly identical careers.

They debuted in the same year (1986) and played the same position (first base). Their career lines are startlingly similar: .284/.377/.509 for McGriff and .288/.371/.515 for Palmeiro. Their career OPSes are mere decimal points apart (.886 to .885). Both averaged roughly the same number of home runs and walks per full season. McGriff made five All-Star teams, Palmeiro four. They were consistent and durable but without one exceptional skill or trademark.

Their Hall of Fame cases happen to share the same flaws, too.

Both only had one season with an OPS over 1.000. Neither finished in the top three in the MVP voting during any season. Most damningly, they were never considered among the best players in baseball. In fact, they could rarely even be considered among the best players in baseball at their own position. Other first basemen and DH-types of the era were simply better, like Albert Pujols, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, Jim Thome, Mark McGwire, Edgar Martinez, Todd Helton, and Lance Berkman. Even players like Jason Giambi, John Olerud, and Carlos Delgado were putting up gaudy offensive numbers for a while. McGriff and Palmeiro didn't exactly distinguish themselves above the pack, and that has to do with when they played the game.

Throughout the heart of their careers, the standards of offense in baseball -- especially for first basemen -- were extremely high. While their numbers look good compared to similar Hall of Famers from different time periods, they didn't excel compared to their contemporaries in the Steroid Era. They were very good for a very long time. But they lacked a significant peak and did not meet the higher standards of their era, especially at their position.

With modern statistical metrics, this phenomena can be manifested in cold hard numbers. Adjusted-OPS, or OPS+, normalizes a player's on-base-plus-slugging total by making those crucial adjustments for ballpark and league contexts. An OPS+ of 100 is league average; every point above (or below) that represents one percentage point better (or worse) than average.

If we only use regular OPS, without consideration for context, it might appear as though Palmeiro and McGriff compare favorably to two notable Hall of Fame first basemen from a few decades ago:

Career OPS
Willie McCovey: .889
Harmon Killebrew: .884

Fred McGriff: .886
Rafael Palmeiro: .885

OPS, however, doesn't tell the whole story. OPS+ accounts for the different eras in which these players were active, and suddenly the picture changes:

Career OPS+
Willie McCovey: 147
Harmon Killebrew: 143

Fred McGriff: 134
Rafael Palmeiro: 132

McCovey's offense was 47% better than league average, and Killebrew's was 43% better. Great hitters were rarer back then, so McCovey and Killebrew were more dominant. McGriff and Palmeiro didn't rise above their peers in the same way: their offense was less than 35% better than league average. This reveals how much more common good hitters were in the Steroid Era, lessening the impact of non-elite first basemen like McGriff and Palmeiro. For some context, here are some of those contemporary players, and how their OPS+ figures stack up:

Career OPS+
Albert Pujols: 168
Mark McGwire: 162
Frank Thomas: 156
Jeff Bagwell: 149
Jim Thome: 147
Edgar Martinez: 147
Lance Berkman: 146
-------rough Hall of Fame cutoff point-------
Jason Giambi: 141
Carlos Delgado: 138
David Ortiz: 138
Will Clark: 137
Fred McGriff: 134
Mo Vaughn: 132
Rafael Palmeiro: 132

It's impossible to look at McGriff and Palmeiro and see two of the best first basemen of their generation. Too many other players were just flat-out better at that job. Sure, McGriff and Palmeiro put up some gaudy career statistics. Heck, Palmeiro is one of only four players in baseball history to accumulate both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. But the elevated offensive levels of the Steroid Era lessen the significance of those numbers. Reaching certain arbitrary milestones shouldn't equal an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame anyway -- especially when those milestones were attained during an era in which they were simply easier to achieve.

McGriff and Palmeiro should be commended for their longevity. They just fall short of the Hall of Fame standard.

My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mike Piazza
4. Craig Biggio
5. Jeff Bagwell
6. Mark McGwire
7. Edgar Martinez
8. Tim Raines

Out: Sammy Sosa, Lee Smith, Rafael Palmeiro, Fred McGriff

Cooperstown Candidates: Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa

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.

After Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are the two players most associated with cheating in baseball. McGwire has admitted to using steroids; Sosa almost certainly used too, and was also caught using a corked bat for good measure. There are dozens of sanctimonious baseball writers out there who would rather commit ritualistic suicide than cast a Hall of Fame vote for either of these two sluggers, simply because of a flawed moral stance on performance-enhancing drugs. Well, there's good news and bad news for those writers. The good news: Sosa might not even have the numbers to deserve enshrinement on his own merits anyway. The bad news: McGwire most definitely does.

We start with Sosa, a right fielder most famous for his days with the Chicago Cubs. Baseball has only ever seen eight 60-homer seasons, and Sosa owns three of them. For his career, he hit 612 homers, making him one of only eight men to hit at least 600. The other seven don't need first-name introductions: Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Rodriguez, Griffey, Thome. Sosa is in elite company.

The problem is that much of his career was actually defined by more mediocrity than one might expect from a member of that exclusive club. He arrived in the big leagues for the first time at the age of 20 in 1989 but didn't have his first great season until 1998. What happened in between?

1989-1997: 1,088 games, .257 batting average, .308 on-base percentage, .469 slugging percentage, 23 HR/year, 22 steals/year

For almost a decade, during a stretch of his career that should have included some premier seasons, Sosa was barely an above-average player. A .308 on-base percentage for an everyday player during the 1990s? That's just awful. He stole some bases, but at a 71% success rate, which isn't good either. At least he was a strong defender in right field, or else he would have been nearly useless. Then all of a sudden, at age 29, he exploded. His four seasons between 1998 and 2001 were, for lack of a better word, ridiculous:

1998-2001: 637 games, .310 batting average, .396 on-base percentage, .662 slugging percentage, 61 HR/year

During that four-year sweet spot, Sammy Sosa averaged 61 home runs per year. That's unfathomable. He won an MVP and was the runner-up for another one. He was the best player in baseball not named Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez. After 2001, his production returned to human levels. He had two more very good seasons and then stuck around long enough to reach the 600-homer plateau before retiring after 2007.

So which version of Sosa should be weighed more heavily when considering his case for Cooperstown? Those 637 games of invincibility, or the 1,088 games of mediocrity? This is where subjective arguments come into play. Is a short peak of Sandy Koufax-like dominance good enough to warrant entrance into the Hall? Or is some degree of sustained excellence required? Sosa is certainly lacking on that latter criterion, but some voters will still support him on the strength of his four-year run of Koufaxian supremacy. That's a very justifiable opinion. Plus, for people who like the classic career milestones, 600 home runs is hard to ignore.

Personally, however, I just don't think that Sosa makes the cut. His career line ended up at .273/.344/.534, which is thoroughly unimpressive for a corner outfielder who played in the most offense-friendly era in baseball history. The average career Wins Above Replacement total for a Hall of Fame right fielder is right around 70; Sosa's WAR was just 54.8. Right fielders with more career WAR include Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, and Bobby Bonds, none of whom were inducted into Cooperstown. He's a borderline candidate, somebody I wouldn't hypothetically vote for, but certainly not someone who would "lessen" the Hall if got there someday.

Mark McGwire, a first baseman who played for the Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals, is a whole different beast. He finished two slots behind Sosa on the career home run list (he's in 10th-place with 583). But his peak might have been even better than Sosa's: in the five seasons between 1995 and 1999, he hit .287/.438/.702 with an average of 57 home runs and 110 walks per year. That includes his 1998 season when he hit 70 home runs, shattering Roger Maris's single-season record that had stood since 1961. He finished 2nd in the MVP voting that year despite putting up much better numbers than the winner -- a Chicago Cub by the name of Sammy Sosa.

McGwire also had the sustained run of success that Sosa didn't. In 1,097 games spanning the decade between 1992 and his final season in 2001, McGwire hit .277/.424/.663 while averaging 40 homers per year. That stretch doesn't even include his rookie season in 1987, when he led the league in home runs with a rookie record of 49. Had he not missed significant time to injuries during the early-1990s, there's no telling which stratosphere his career numbers might have ended up in.

McGwire retired as a .263/.394/.588 hitter. That .588 career slugging percentage is 8th-best all-time. His career OPS of .982 is 10th-best all-time. There are 18 first basemen in the Hall of Fame and McGwire hit more home runs than all of them. By career Wins Above Replacement, he would rank as the 9th-best player at his position in the Hall. He fits in very comfortably among the very best first basemen -- and hitters -- to ever play the game.

So if the baseball writers really don't want to see steroid users in the Hall of Fame, they can vote against Sammy Sosa with a clear conscience. There are flaws to be found in his candidacy. But there's no statistical reason to keep McGwire out of the Hall. The only excuse to leave him off a ballot is performance-enhancing drugs. And the Hall of Fame has already accepted candidates who used performance-enhancing drugs, and it will again in the future. McGwire shouldn't be the victim of selective morality.

My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mike Piazza
4. Craig Biggio
5. Jeff Bagwell
6. Mark McGwire

Out: Sammy Sosa

Cooperstown Candidate: Jeff Bagwell

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

Cooperstown Candidates: Craig Biggio and Mike Piazza

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.

There are a whopping 17 players on this year's ballot with a higher career OPS than Craig Biggio's (.796). Compared to his power-hitting peers in the 1990s, his .281/.363/.433 line looks extremely modest. Yet as a multi-tooled player with a clean reputation, in contrast to the bloated steroid sluggers surrounding him on the ballot, Biggio has an excellent chance of getting elected to the Hall of Fame in 2013. Does he deserve that honor, on his own merits?

Biggio spent his entire 20-year career with the Houston Astros. He came up as a catcher, became primarily a second baseman, and played some outfield in his final years. His most notable career accomplishment: 3,060 career hits. That's the magic number. Only 20 players have more, all of whom are in the Hall except for Pete Rose and Derek Jeter. And it wasn't like all those hits were infield singles. Biggio is fifth all-time in doubles, behind only Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, and Ty Cobb. In fact, roughly a third of Biggio's career hits (1,014) went for extra-bases. That's good for 31st all-time. One fewer extra-base-hit than Mike Schmidt. The only middle-infielders with more are Alex Rodriguez and Cal Ripken Jr. Biggio wasn't a glorified singles hitter who just "stuck around" long around to accumulate 3,000 hits.

Biggio did a lot of other things really well. He scored runs in bunches, ranking 15th all-time with 1,844 (and tops among second basemen). He stole 414 bases at a 77% success rate. He is the all-time leader in games played among second basemen. He won four Gold Gloves. In an odd bit of history, he was hit by a pitch the second-most times in baseball history. An unorthodox skill, but one that still counts as a creative way of getting on base.

So all in all, Biggio accumulated 62.1 Wins Above Replacement in his career. How does that stack up against his peers at the position? There are currently 19 second basemen in the Hall of Fame. Nine of them have more career WAR than Biggio, and ten have less. So Biggio slots in perfectly as an average Hall of Fame second baseman. His career numbers are almost exactly in line with those of Roberto Alomar and Ryne Sandberg, two other second basemen recently elected to the Hall. Biggio's case is so easy, it's almost boring. He didn't dominate his position like a Bonds or a Clemens, but he's still more than worthy of a spot in the Hall.

Which brings us to Mike Piazza, a catcher who played primarily for the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers. Piazza is no Biggio. You can actually make a strong case for Piazza as the best player ever at his position. Catcher is such a demanding job with so many responsibilities that the offensive standard for the position is extremely low. Therefore what makes Piazza such a rare baseball specimen is that he was a catcher who hit like Frank Robinson:

Piazza's career: .308/.377/.545
Robinson's career: .294/.389/.537

Piazza is the greatest offensive catcher to ever play the game. His career OPS of .922 is tops all-time among catchers (it's also higher than Willie Stargell's OPS, and Ken Griffey's OPS, and Harmon Killebrew's OPS). The only catcher who even comes close is Mickey Cochrane, who finished at .897 but played in the 1930s. Piazza's OPS was nearly 100 points better than Yogi Berra's and more than 100 points better than Johnny Bench's. Only one other catcher has ever slugged .500 for his career (Roy Campanella, at exactly .500); Piazza slugged .545. No other catcher has ever hit 400 career home runs; Piazza finished with 427. During his peak between 1995 and 1997, he hit .348/.419/.602 and averaged 36 homers per year (as a catcher!!!). Those numbers are basically in line with Alex Rodriguez's best seasons. In those three years, Piazza finished 4th, 2nd, and 2nd in the MVP voting.

Piazza's flaw is his defense, which wasn't abominable (or he would've been moved off the position) but wasn't good. This is a big reason why he isn't the all-time leader in Wins Above Replacement at catcher. He's fifth, behind Johnny Bench, Gary Carter, Carlton Fisk, and Ivan Rodriguez. However, consider that WAR is a cumulative statistic that depends on how long one plays, and Piazza had the shortest career of any of those catchers (16 years). Also consider that his dominance with the bat more than compensated for his shortcomings with the glove. Given his unprecedented level of offense at a valuable defensive position, isn't Piazza worthy of a no-questions-asked, first-ballot induction into the Hall?

He is, but in all likelihood, he won't get it. A few stubborn voters are going to make him wait. Because he had bulging muscles, and because he had back acne, and because players who refuse to be identified accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs. There is no substantive proof anywhere that Mike Piazza took steroids. Yet some writers are actually going to justify leaving him off their ballots by telling themselves "where there's smoke, there's fire." There's a good chance that Craig Biggio will be inducted but Piazza won't, which makes no sense considering the only difference between the two men is that Piazza was the victim of rumors, and Biggio was not.

Why? Why is Biggio above suspicion? Because he wasn't as big as Piazza? Because no one happened to report on his back acne? Because Piazza hit for more power? As discussed above, Biggio actually had a lot of power for a second baseman. His career high in home runs came when he was 39 years old, which certainly looks sketchy. He played in Houston with other guys suspected of steroid use, like Jeff Bagwell and Roger Clemens. Presumably he was familiar with their training regimens. Why does Biggio get a free pass?

The point here isn't to disparage Biggio's career; it's to point out the inherent idiocy in trying to "guess" which players used steroids and which players were clean. Doing so is irresponsible and unfair. Both Biggio and Piazza had obvious Hall of Fame careers. There's circumstantial evidence implicating both of them in steroid use, but the same could be said of almost anyone playing in their era. Voting in Biggio and keeping out Piazza is a silly double standard. Both deserve to be Hall of Famers in 2013.

My Ballot, As of Now
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Mike Piazza
4. Craig Biggio

Cooperstown Candidates: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens

The beginning of 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.

This year's Hall of Fame ballot is easily the strongest ever. The returnees include Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, Mark McGwire, and Edgar Martinez. But those All-Stars are nothing compared to two all-time greats joining them on the ballot for the first time. One of them has the most MVP Awards in baseball history; the other has the most Cy Young Awards in baseball history. They are arguably the best hitter and the best pitcher the game has ever seen. Yet almost certainly, neither player is going to earn enough votes to gain enshrinement in Cooperstown, either this year or in the foreseeable future.

Because their names are Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

If this was only about the numbers, there wouldn't be a debate. Bonds and Clemens would be unanimous first-ballot inductees. Here's why, as concisely as their extensive accomplishments will allow.

In career Wins Above Replacement, Bonds clocks in as the second-best position player ever, behind only -- you guessed it -- Babe Ruth. Bonds reached base safely more times than any other player in history besides Pete Rose. He won seven Most Valuable Player Awards; no other player has ever won more than three. He is, of course, the all-time home run champion, both single-season (73) and career (762). He ranks third all-time in runs scored, fourth all-time in runs batted in, and fourth all-time in total bases. He finished just 65 hits short of the 3,000 milestone for his career. He stole bases too; a total of 514 in his career, at a 78% success rate. Defense? He won eight Gold Glove Awards in the outfield.

Bonds is most famous (and infamous) for being the home run king, but the statistic he truly dominated was the walk, an under-appreciated skill when he played. He walked 2,558 times in his career, easily the most all-time and several hundred more than second-place Rickey Henderson. He also holds the record for career intentional walks at 688. No one else even has 300. In 2001, Bonds set the record for walks in a single season with 177. In 2002, he broke his own record with 198. In 2004, he broke his own record again, with 232. Two hundred and thirty two walks. (By comparison, Adam Dunn led all of baseball in walks last year...with 105.) Bonds' on-base-percentage during that record-breaking year was .609, the all-time single-season record. He was also 39 years old.

His career on-base percentage (.444) is sixth-best all-time, and his career slugging percentage (.607) is also sixth-best all-time, leading to a mind-boggling career on-base-plus-slugging (OPS) of 1.051, the fourth-best ever. He trails only Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig in this department.

Bonds also happens to own four of the eight best OPS seasons of all time. Those four seasons all came consecutively, from 2001 to 2004, when Bonds put together the single greatest offensive stretch that the sport has ever seen. Over that four-year span, his average OPS was 1.368 thanks to a .349/.559/.809 line; he also hit a total of 209 home runs and walked a total of 755 times. He won the MVP all four years. Bonds single-handedly dominated baseball to a degree not seen since Babe Ruth out-homered entire teams almost a hundred years ago. Yeah, Barry Bonds was good at baseball.

The case for Roger Clemens is almost as simple. In terms of Wins Above Replacement among pitchers, Clemens is third-best all-time, behind only Walter Johnson and Cy Young. He won the Cy Young Award seven times, an unmatched feat. His first was all the way back in 1986 (when he also won the MVP) at the age of 23 and his last was in 2004 at the age of 41. He led his league in ERA seven times. He led his league in strikeouts six times. His ERA was below 3.00 in 12 different seasons. He posted dominant statistics across three different decades and in both leagues.

The most impressive thing about Clemens, besides his longevity? He pitched at least half of his career in the heart of the steroid era, when offensive numbers were at their insane peak. He still managed to post a career ERA of 3.12 across nearly 5,000 innings. And he didn't get lucky, either: he finished with 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all-time behind only Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson.

So it wouldn't be very controversial to say that Roger Clemens is one of the five best pitchers of all time, and perhaps the best in the modern era. It would be even less controversial to say that Barry Bonds is one of the three best position players of all time, and undoubtedly the best in the modern era. Their Hall of Fame cases should be slam dunks. Instead, these two men will have to sweat it out because of three awful words: performance-enhancing drugs.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens cheated. They cheated at baseball by injecting themselves with steroids. We don't know this for an absolute fact, but we think we're as sure as we can possibly be. What we do know for an absolute fact is that the baseball writers hate steroid-users when it comes to Hall of Fame voting. Mark McGwire admitted he took steroids, and hasn't even sniffed a respectable vote total yet. Jeff Bagwell is still waiting on the ballot despite an obvious Hall of Fame career just because some people suspect him of using steroids, without any actual proof. Obviously, the baseball writers become very sanctimonious about allowing cheaters into the Hall (proven or otherwise). Why? Because of this clause in the official Hall of Fame voting guidelines:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.

Integrity, sportsmanship, character. These abstract concepts are the justification used to keep the steroid users out of the Hall. "Allowing Bonds and Clemens into the Hall would destroy the sanctity of the game," the writers say.

Here's the problem with that: there is no sanctity in baseball. Pretending such a thing exists is folly. Baseball banned non-whites from playing. Baseball handed out amphetamines like candy. The Hall is full of racists, criminals, segregationists, cheaters, alcoholics, bat-corkers, and drug-users. The 1951 New York Giants won the pennant thanks to an elaborate sign-stealing system that might have helped Bobby Thompson hit the most famous home run in history. The writers who would keep Clemens and Bonds out of the Hall are oddly silent about Ty Cobb's virulent racism, or Gaylord Perry's admission that he cheated by doctoring the ball. By today's rules, if a player is caught using a performance-enhancing drug, the official punishment handed down by Major League Baseball in the case of a first offense is a 25-game suspension. No mention of a ban from the Hall of Fame. Why the selective morality? Why now? Why Bonds and Clemens?

The Hall of Fame is not a church. It is a museum. It keeps a record of baseball's best players from every era, no matter how tainted. Bonds and Clemens dominated the game for twenty years. Leaving them out, while inducting far more mediocre players like Jack Morris and Jim Rice, would be laughable.

I suppose it's acceptable to use steroids as an excuse to exclude borderline players like Sammy Sosa or Rafael Palmeiro, who might not have been Hall of Fame players without artificial assistance. But using steroids as an excuse to exclude two of the greatest players of all time? Ridiculous. Sure, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens aren't model citizens. They are, however, Hall of Famers. Without a shred of doubt.

My Ballot, As of Now:
1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens

Some Things Re: Melky Cabrera's Suspension

In a shocking and disappointing development, MLB's hits leader and All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera was slapped with a 50-game suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug. A heftier version of Cabrera was cut by the Atlanta Braves less than two years ago, but the slimmer model was enjoying a career year in 2012 by hitting .346 with a .516 slugging percentage for the San Francisco Giants.

It's tempting to write off most of Cabrera's newfound stardom as artificial, thanks to the drugs. Prominent baseball writer Jon "Actually Has a Hall of Fame Vote" Heyman has no trouble doing so, in an article for CBS Sports.com entitled "Melky was having a great season, until the day we found out it was all one big fraud." A quick excerpt:

"Maybe Melky's numbers are nothing but a mirage, anyway.

Maybe he really isn't a .346 hitter on a level playing field. Maybe he doesn't have 11 home runs playing home games in a big ballpark, or 60 RBI. Or even 13 stolen bases.

Maybe he doesn't have anywhere near those numbers without the extra help.

Maybe Melky isn't the All-Star Game MVP without the artificial boost. Maybe he doesn't even get to the All-Star Game.

Maybe he is just another guy on a level playing field. Maybe he's the guy who was the flabby, below average player he was in Atlanta. Or maybe's just the decent but clutch guy he was with the Yankees.

Maybe Melky has regrets about the drugs. But maybe he doesn't. We'll never know for sure, because who'd believe him, anyway?

Maybe Melky knew he needed the lift to become the player he appeared to be. If that's the case, maybe Melky understood the risk, took his shot and enjoyed several moments in the sun, including one in Kansas City that's eminently regrettable to all those who witnessed it now.

His career turnaround seemed too good to be true. And so it was."

It's so easy to write stuff like this. It's so easy to use the positive drug test to explain away Melky's seemingly-out-of-nowhere dominance that rational people couldn't explain. But it's lazy. It makes it seem like all "too good to be true" career turnarounds--like, say, Josh Hamilton a few years ago, or A.J. Burnett now--are drug-fueled, because they couldn't possibly happen otherwise. Melky couldn't possibly have anything to do with his own success story. He can't possibly be talented enough or dedicated enough to turn his career around on his own accord. IT WAS ALL THE DRUGS GUYS, DON'T WORRY WE FIGURED IT OUT.

This is in no way to defend what Melky Cabrera did. He admitted to using a banned substance and earned every game of his suspension. What's bothersome is the assumption that players once thought of as "bad" or "lazy" or "fat" who go on to have big years are automatically on steroids. Check this out:

Melky Cabrera's OPS, 2006-2010: .709
Melky Cabrera's OPS, 2011-2012: .849
Percent Increase: 20%

Mystery Player's OPS, 2006-2010: .808
Mystery Player's OPS, 2011-2012: 1.009
Percent Increase: 20%

That mystery player experienced a very similar career turnaround over the same time frame. That player finished second in the MVP vote last year. That player is Matt Kemp.

Not to suggest that Kemp used drugs, too. This just shows that it's possible for someone to experience a Melky-like renaissance without artificial help. It doesn't have to be "too good to be true."

That's Part One of the Melky Debate. Part Two involves which of Cabrera's statistical improvements, exactly, can be attributed to performance-enhancing drugs. Like, sure, he's hitting .346, which is far above his career average of .284, and his slugging percentage is 100 points higher than his career average. But specifically, what is fueling those increases?

It's pretty clear: luck. Cabrera's batting average on balls in play (a statistic notoriously dependent on random chance) is inflated at .379, above his career average of .309. Almost every other one of Melky's statistical indicators have held steady compared to his career norms. He's striking out in 12.6% of his appearances and walking in 7.2% of them; his career numbers in those categories are 12.1% and 7.1%, respectively. His line-drive percentage is 21.8% (career: 19.7%). His groundballs are only slightly up and his fly balls are only slightly down, which probably explains his higher batting average and batting average on balls in play. The sole significant statistical difference is the percentage of his fly balls that become home runs. His career number is 7.3% but that's up to 10.7% this season. It could be argued that the testosterone gave him the extra "oomph" to put a few more fly balls into the bleachers, which would throw some suspicion on his power numbers. Yet even then, his 11 homers don't seem out of place; he hit 18 last year, and had 13 in 2009.

Cabrera is pretty much the same player he's always been. He's simply in shape, running faster, and apparently making a conscious effort to hit the ball on the ground more. All of those things, plus a little luck, have combined to pump up his average to a career high .346. Yeah, the testosterone might have helped rebuild his body and/or inflate his performance. It's just impossible to pinpoint where, or by how much. That fact makes Heyman's bold-faced, character-assassinating accusations impossible to prove. So why make them in the first place?

Call Melky Cabrera a cheater if you so desire. He cheated. And it's a bummer. But don't call him a mirage or a hoax. The numbers don't lie: he's still the same old Melky.

Just Wrong On So Many Levels

Andy Pettitte has been in the news a lot recently, thanks to his high-profile testimony for the government in the Roger Clemens case, during his attempt at a major league comeback. Much has been made of Pettitte's admission that he may have misunderstood Clemens when the embattled former ace supposedly told Pettitte he used Human Growth Hormone. And if there's some controversial baseball news that also happens to include future Hall of Fame candidates, you can bet Jon Heyman of CBS Sports has something ignorant to say. He actually manages to be spectacularly wrong on a variety of different layers in his article entitled, "Pettitte's under-oath about-face costs him one Hall of Fame vote -- this one."

Heyman's words are quoted and in bold font:

"Yankees pitching great Andy Pettitte may have gotten Roger Clemens out of a jail sentence with his misremembering the other day in court. But Pettitte's contradictory testimony cost himself a chance of at least one Hall of Fame vote -- mine."

The above statement shatters all previously-held records for total number of false premises stuffed into two sentences.

"Pettitte's candidacy is a longshot, to be sure, and it depends on at least two factors. 

One, a voter probably has to weigh career impact over career statistics (assuming he doesn't stick around for a few more years and dramatically boost those numbers). And two, a voter probably has to take Pettitte at his word that he only used HGH twice, and only then to recover from injuries."

The voters aren't only taking Pettitte at his word. They're taking the word of everyone who played in the steroid era. Did Jeff Bagwell take PEDs? Mike Piazza? Jeff Kent? Ivan Rodriguez? Pettitte? Who knows? Nobody, really. So we're giving all of them the benefit of the doubt.

"The second claim is suddenly hard to swallow.

Pettitte lied for years when it came to his PED use, denying he ever took any such drugs right up until the day things got serious and baseball-appointed drug czar George Mitchell and the feds got involved. Then Pettitte changed his story to include two instances of HGH use, but only for recovery purposes.

We who knew Pettitte as an exceeedingly pleasant and God-fearing man nodded right along with him. But now, how can we be so sure he was telling the truth then?"

But more importantly, how can we be so sure he isn't an alien spy from Neptune? I for one am horrified that the government is wasting resources on a steroid investigation while embedded space invaders walk amongst our children.

"Suddenly on the stand in federal court last week, Pettitte changed his story about Clemens. And remarkably, he changed it from one day to the next. It is fair to assume he wasn't being completely truthful one of those two days."

There is no way to say this except: You are wrong. Just, like, ignorant of the facts. But rather than explain why, I'll first allow Heyman to present the entirety of his misguided, hyperbole-laden rant:

"Under questioning by government lawyers, Pettitte, who's trying for a baseball comeback with the Yankees, said Clemens told him about Clemens' own HGH use while the pair were working out together back in 1999 or 2000. That was a powerful point against Clemens.

Then only one day later, under questioning by Clemens' lawyers, Pettitte said he may have misunderstood the key HGH conversation. In fact, it's now 50-50 he misunderstood, he answered to Clemens attorney Michael Attanasio. "I'd say that's fair,'' Pettitte lamely answered to Attanasio.

Pettitte's under-oath changeup is so pathetic, Clemens' defense team is arguing Monday to strike his entire testimony, and I won't blame Judge Walton if he agrees. Pettitte's testimony was viewed by many as the key to the government's case, and now it can be thrown out.

While Pettitte won't face charges for his lame, less-then-honest performance (the government is understandably done with the steroids-in-baseball cases after Clemens), Pettitte may have torpedoed a worthwhile yet expensive case of perjury against Clemens with his sudden case of amnesia regarding a conversation he's been testifying consistently about for nearly five years.

I get that Pettitte is conflicted and doesn't want to help send his idol, Clemens, to the slammer. But if Pettitte is willing to bend the truth under oath to aid someone else, why should we believe his own story of two usages of HGH only for recovery and no usages of steroids?"

Okay, so, that was a fun little fantasy. But Heyman completely disregards a crucial fact. Pettitte did admit that there was a 50-50 chance he misunderstood Clemens. But he never suggested otherwise. The story has never changed.

Pettitte has always allowed for the possibility of misinterpretation. Not just throughout this recent testimony. Since 2008.

Pettitte's deposition in 2008 is public record. According to Pettitte, he had a conversation with Clemens in 1999 from which he got the impression Clemens was using PEDs. They had another conversation in 2005, during which Pettitte asked Clemens about his usage. Clemens responded with confusion, claiming Pettitte must have misunderstood the 1999 conversation. In his 2008 testimony, Pettitte was asked about his reaction to Clemens' apparent flip-flop. His recorded answer:

"Well, obviously I was a little confused and flustered. But after that, I was like, well, obviously I must have misunderstood him."

The follow-up question:

"Do you think it's likely that you did misunderstand what Clemens had told you then?"

And again, Pettitte's answer:

"I'm saying that I was under the impression that he told me that he had taken it.  And then when Roger told me that he didn't take it, and I misunderstood him, I took it for that, that I misunderstood him."

So since '08, Pettitte has allowed for the possibility of misinterpretation. Yet Heyman writes as if Pettitte changed his story from one day of last week's testimony to the next. Some of the phrases that appear in the Heyman quotes above:

under-oath about-face
changed his story
wasn't being completely truthful
lamely answered
Pettitte's under-oath changeup is so pathetic
lame, less than-honest performance
sudden case of amnesia
willing to bend the truth under oath

Now, it's not like Pettitte is being 100% clear or helpful. It's fair to call him wishy-washy. But essentially accusing him of changing his story from Day 1 to Day 2 (aka, perjury) when in fact his story has been consistent from Year 1 to Year 5, is bordering on slander.

"There are people who are going to say Pettitte isn't a Hall of Famer anyway, that he didn't win enough games, strike out enough batters or make enough All-Star teams."

Wait--an actual baseball argument being made? Hurrah! Relevant facts stick out like a sore thumb in this article.

Anyway, I agree with the "people" Heyman generally references above. Pettitte really isn't a Hall of Famer based on the numbers, and I didn't need false claims of perjury to sway my opinion on that.

"But Pettitte is the only pitcher to begin his career with 16 seasons without a single losing season (Tom Seaver and Grover Alexander started with 15), his 19 career postseason victories is the most in history (and makes it 259 total victories), and he's one of 26 pitchers who are at least 100 games over .500, with 18 of those pitchers in the Hall of Fame and six more not yet eligible (according to YESNetwork.com)."

And after being wrong about the facts of Pettitte's legal history, Heyman is also wrong about Pettitte's worthiness of Cooperstown consideration. All three of those pro-Pettitte arguments are based on wins. Regular season wins are a reflection of run support, bullpen strength, and luck. Postseason wins are a reflection of all of those things, plus sheer bulk of opportunity. Neither statistic is adequate to evaluate Hall of Fame candidacy. In fact, I scoff at using individual victories to make a Cooperstown case.

"Some from the stat set may scoff at individual victories making a Cooperstown case."

Hey, that's me!

"But there's more. Five times Pettitte finished in the top six in Cy Young voting."

Fair enough. But arguably, he only deserved two of those five finishes. In the other three, his ERAs were 3.87, 4.02, and 4.35. Hardly elite. A lot of those Cy Young votes were based on the success of the Yankees' dynasty at the time, plus his gaudy win totals and the New York media.

"The most similar pitcher to him is Mike Mussina, a clear Hall-of-Fame candidate by most accounts, according to Baseball-Reference.com. So Pettitte is at least a serious Cooperstown candidate based on on-field merit."

I don't know what Heyman is looking at, but Baseball-Reference.com has Mike Mussina listed as the fourth-most similar pitcher to Pettitte. The top three are David Wells, Kevin Brown, and Bob Welch. That seems like the perfect tier for Pettitte--a very good pitcher, and one who will receive some Hall consideration, but ultimately not worthy. Again, this is because his career ERA is pushing towards 4.00 and his career strikeout and WHIP numbers are 'meh' and his peak wasn't very high. Not because of some random testimony against Roger Clemens.

"Some may say still his career comes up short, and that's fine if they do. Others may reflexively rule him out based on using HGH at all, and that's up to them."

Hey, look at that, rational thinking is fun.

"But I was of a belief that his impact via big October wins might earn him my vote..."

Ah yes, Pettitte is a frequent recipient of the Jack Morris Award in the Big October Wins Category. But here's a quick quiz: identify the following Mystery Pitchers.

Mystery Pitcher A: 3.88 ERA, 6.6 K/9, 1.35 WHIP
Mystery Pitcher B: 3.83 ERA, 5.9 K/9, 1.30 WHIP

Pitcher A is Andy Pettitte in the regular season. Pitcher B is Andy Pettitte in the playoffs. So yeah, he had some big postseason wins because he pitched for a postseason juggernaut. But he was basically the exact same pitcher in October as he was in May or August. Hardly a playoff hero.

"...and also that I might be able to overlook the two admitted HGH usages as a pair of weak moments for a pitcher with an imperfect elbow."

I don't agree with Heyman's assessment of Pettitte's career, but I like that he's willing to overlook admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs in general when it comes to his Cooperstown ballot. At least that will give worthier-yet-stained candidates like Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire the consideration they deserve.

Oh, wait, I forgot. Heyman is on the record as saying that he won't ever vote for Palmeiro or McGwire. Bit a double-standard there, maybe?

"Now, though, his own sympathetic HGH story comes into serious question. If he's willing to suddenly misremember under oath for a good buddy, it's easy to think now Pettitte only admitted to what he had to admit to. Maybe Pettitte isn't quite the truthteller we gave him credit for, and maybe there is some other explanation for how his fastball velocity increased to 93/94 mph somewhere in the middle of his career.

I'd say the chances are 50-50 (at best) that Pettitte misremembered his own supposedly very limited usage."

Hey, Jon: you've voted for Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, and Don Mattingly for the Hall, while excluding Jeff Bagwell and Edgar Martinez. You may never vote for Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire. And you're throwing out Pettitte's case because of some ridiculous notion you have about some irrelevant testimony. So tell me, why should I ever listen to anything you have to say?