Operation Zero: The 2013 Hall of Fame Class

I’ve resisted writing about the 2013 MLB Hall of Fame candidates up until this point. Before detailing why it is insane that no players were elected to the Hall of Fame this year, I thought I would simply cut and past some of my tweets from the BaseballGuys’ Twitter feed over the past few days.

So hypocritical – people are busted weekly in NFL for steroids, no one cares. Merriman made the Pro Bowl year he got popped.

We have the Mitchell Report and what else? There’s no way to know what someone did 15 years ago.

Everyone can think what they want, I just think it’s extremely cynical just to assume everyone who is good is guilty.

Did some players use drugs to enhance their performance? Absolutely they did. Do we know everyone who did/didn’t? There is no way to know.

We have to judge players against others in their era. I’m so sick of Everyone accusing Every player of cheating w/o proof.

My point is that we have NO idea who used PEDs and who didn’t. In USA you’re innocent until PROVEN guilty.

Players in the 1970′s all used “greenies” – do we then say everyone in the 70′s is a cheater and should be downgraded?

Can’t we just say the era is tainted and move on? This PED stuff is soooo played out.

Newsflash people – players have cheated since the game was invented.

And this from Dustin Swedelson, a producer at SiriusXM (@dustinswedelson)

Remember when the writers who vote for baseball HOF’s jobs mattered again because of the steroid era? Didn’t hear them investigate then

Here’s my bottom line. We don’t know who did PED’s. We will never know. Baseball needs to decide how it will handle this. (A) We say everyone who played baseball for 15 years can’t be inducted into Cooperstown. (B) We admit that players cheated, compare them against their contemporaries, and judge them based upon their on the field merits. It’s really as simple as that folks. Without evidence, EVIDENCE, we can’t choose to exclude or include this person or that person because of a feeling. Well people can, but it’s grossly misguided and absolutely nonsensical for people to do so. So stop the madness folks. Decide everyone is out or everyone will be judged based on their performance. Short of irrefutable proof that a player cheated it’s an assault on common sense to exclude players simply because you have a “feeling” they cheated. Preposterous.

Here are the actual results of the 2013 vote.

Here are my thoughts on all the players who received at least 10 percent of the 2013 vote.

Craig Biggio (68.2 percent – 75 percent is needed for election): One of the scrappiest player of the last 30 years, Biggio came up as a catcher, won four Gold Gloves at second base, and then moved to the outfield later in his career. Other than a guy like Pete Rose, who has done that at the level of Biggio? Craig is 15th all-time in runs scored, 21st in hits (3,060) and fifth in doubles. Heck, he even went deep 291 times in his career. He should be enshrined.

Jack Morris (67.7 percent): His support continues to grow, but it’s revisionist history. The guy may have thrown a ton of innings and come up big in some big games, but my HOF has no place for a pitcher who never led the league in WHIP or ERA, and only once led his league in strikeouts (232 in 1983). Heck, he was never even the runner up for the Cy Young Award.

Jeff Bagwell (59.6 percent): My thoughts can be found in The Case for Bagwell.

Mike Piazza (57.8 percent): How in the world can the greatest hitting catcher of all-time not be in the HOF? From 1993-2002 an average Pizza season was a .322 average, 35 homers, 107 RBIs, 85 runs scored and an OPS of .969. How many elite level players ever have a season that good once? – and he did it for a decade. While catching.

Tim Raines (52.2 percent): A travesty he’s not been elected. See HOF: Tim Raines.

Lee Smith (47.8 percent): I gave my thoughts on closers in What is a HOF Closer? The 478 saves are amazing, and his longevity is impressive (13-straight years with at least 25 saves from 1983-95). I’m not overly impressive by guys that throw one inning though. I’m even less impressed by a guys save total as saves are a result of opportunity (we all know some teams use their “better” pitcher in a setup role). A 8.73 K/9, 2.57 K/BB, 3.03 ERA and 1.26 WHIP just don’t do it for me.

Curt Schilling (38.8 percent): He was dominant in the post-season going 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and 0.97 WHIP and that’s great, but someone shouldn’t be in or out based on 133.1 playoff innings. Won “only” 216 games but had a solid .597 winning percentage, and for his career his ERA+ was 127 meaning his 3.46 raw ERA was 27 percent better than the league average, an impressive number. He also struck better than 8.5 batters per nine, and for his career his 4.38 K/BB ratio is elite (it’s the best ever for a pitcher who threw 3,000 innings). He’s in – barely.

Roger Clemens (37.6 percent): One of the 10 greatest pitchers of all-time if you judge base on the numbers. An MVP award, seven Cy Young’s, 9th all-time in wins, 3rd in strikeouts and his ERA+ was 143, forty three percent better than the league average (his raw ERA was 3.12, his WHIP 1.17). The case against him is certainly there, but I’m still putting him in.

Barry Bonds (36.2 percent): There may be no more conclusive case about PED use for a player than the case with Bonds. Fourteen All-Star games, eight Gold Gloves, seven MVP awards – separated by eight years (his last of the ‘first’ cycle was in 1993 and his first in the ‘second’ cycle was 2001). First all-time in homers, 3rd in runs, 4th in RBIs, 6th in OBP, 6th in SLG and 4th in OPS. Oh yeah, he also stole 514 bags. One of the three greatest offensive forces the game ever saw. He’s out, and it’s a shame, but honestly, this call is more an indictment of baseball than Bonds.

Edgar Martinez (35.9 percent): See the argument in Is There Room for a DH?

Alan Trammell (33.6 percent): A really good player who had four Gold Gloves and six All-Star games nods. Still, he only finished as a top-5 MVP vote getter once, only had two 20 homer seasons, only one 100 RBI effort and just three seasons of more than 85 runs scored. Really good, but the Hall of Fame is for great – even if he was a very good fielder.

Larry Walker (21.6 percent): My best guess is that he will never be voted in, not because of PED use, but because people hold Coors Field, pre-humidor, against him. He finished his career with more homers than Joe DiMaggio (383 to 361), had more RBIs than Roberto Clemente (1,311 to 1,305), had more runs scored than Barry Larkin (1,355 to 1,329), a better batting average than Manny Ramirez (.313 to .312) and a better OPS than than all but 15 other men who played the game (.965). He’s also the only man since 1930 to have three straight seasons of hitting .360 (1997-99). Based upon the numbers he’s gotta be in, but with only a handful of huge run producing seasons, only four 140 games seasons, and the Coors Field effect, he’s as close as you can get for me without being included.

Fred McGriff (20.7 percent): See the discussion Is McGriff Hall Worthy?

Dale Murphy (18.6 percent): My favorite player as a kid, and even better than his work on the field is the fact that he is an amazing human being who never once had a hint of scandal. From 1980-89 here are Murphy’s ranks among all players: 2nd in extra base hits, 2nd in HRs, 2nd in RBIs and 4th in runs. He also won 2 MVPs, was named to the All-Star team seven times and he won five Gold Gloves. One other plus. In 1980 Murphy was catcher eligible in fantasy baseball (27 games at C in ’79). He went .281-33-89-98-9. Just barely outside without a key to the door. He will have to hope the Veteran’s Committee votes him in as his 15 years on the regular ballot are up.

Mark McGwire (16.9 percent): An admitted cheater. From 1987 through his final year in the big leagues (2001), here is how McGwire ranked in a myriad of categories for that 15-year stretch: McGwire hit 580 homers, the most in baseball (Barry Bonds had 551). McGwire had 1,405 RBI, third most in baseball (Bonds had 1,494). McGwire had a .590 SLG, the third best mark in baseball (Bonds and Manny Ramirez led the way at .594). McGwire had a .985 OPS, fourth in baseball (Bonds at 1.017). I’ll leave him out since he admitted cheating, but even so, I’m inclined to cast my vote in favor of his election given his work on the field. Being honest actually works against McGwire… does that seem right to you?

Don Mattingly (13.2 percent): Mattingly had a very short peak as an elite hitter (before his back went bad), but from ’84-’89 here are his big league rankings: 3rd in AVG, 1st in 2B, 1st in EBH, 1st in RBI, 6th HR, 5th OPS. Mattingly also won nine Gold Gloves for his work at first base. A great player but he’s on the outside looking in cause his elite performance didn’t last long enough.

Sammy Sosa (12.5 percent): Everyone “knows” he cheated, but unlike McGwire he never admitted it (famously Sosa acted like he couldn’t speak English when he was called in front of Congress). From 1994-2003 here is what an “average” Sosa season looked like: .290-47-122-104-13 with a .958 OPS. Since we don’t have “proof” that he cheated, he goes in on my ballot. Remember, I’m not voting people out because we “know” a guy was dirty.

Finally, two articles.

A very informative piece from the NY Times entitled Hall of Fame Has Always Made Room for Infamy.

Jayson Stark’s Take on what the HOF has become.

By Ray Flowers

Here We Go Again

Ryan Braun was busted for failing major league baseball drug testing. He’s now subject to a 50 game suspension. Some people are calling for his head, and there is even a vocal minority that was his 2011 NL MVP award rescinded and given to Matt Kemp. What do I think about the whole Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) scenario and how it continually rears it’s ugly head in the world of baseball? I wish I didn’t have to address this yet again, but here goes.

On June 19th, 2009, I wrote one of the most difficult pieces of my life that I titled Death of the Hero? In that piece I bemoaned the fact that it appeared that an entire generation of baseball players had been using PED’s. Had sports become so tainted that it was no longer appropriate for a father to tell his child to look up to the great of the game?

Almost exactly two years ago on December 9th, 2009, I wrote an article titled The Hidden Truth. In that piece I talked about baseball’s dirty little secret, that being, how a massive number of big league ballplayers qualified for a Therapeutic Use Exemption that allowed them to take drugs that would normally be ruled illegal (the drugs were/are to treat ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and the article goes into the fact that baseball players were/are taking such drugs at a rate that far surpasses those of us in the public sector).

On January 12th, 2010, I broke down the situation with Mark McGwire who finally, after denying it for years, admitted that he used unnatural means to help him on the filed of baseball (for the story give McGwire: The Day After a read).

Finally, about a year ago, I wrote Innocent Until Proven Guilty in response to the calls of so many out there who basically wanted to throw out all ballplayer’s performances for anyone who appeared in the 1990′s and 2000′s. The common thought was that since everyone was cheating all should be punished (I centered this piece on the case of Jeff Bagwell. The Astros’ former All-Star had finished an excellent career having never failing a drug test. However, because people assumed, with no proof mind you, that he had cheated, so some felt that he shouldn’t be eligible for the Hall of Fame). I had hoped that would be the last piece that I would ever have to write on the subject. How naive I was.

I’m not here to write about the guilt or innocence of Ryan Braun as that situation will play itself out over the coming months (Braun has vowed to fight the failed test in court. He also took a subsequent testing immediately after finding out that he failed the first test and passed without an issue). I am here to say a couple of things though.

(1) Why is anyone surprised that athletes do what they can to gain an advantage? Be it stealing signs or using supplements, athletes will always try to gain whatever advantage they can. They always have.

(2) Why is it that only baseball gets a black eye with all of this? As I’ve written and talked about many times over the years, and detailed in Innocent Until Proven Guilty, players constantly cheat in the NFL, i.e. they use PED’s, and no one cares. The prime example is Shawne Merriman who failed a test for steroids in 2006, was suspended for a quarter of the season, and was subsequently elected to the Pro Bowl that year. Think about that for a moment. The NFL had an admitted cheater in their midst and they named him to the all-star game. Do you think baseball is the only professional sport where guys use PED’s? If you do think that, I feel sorry for you.

(3) With so many worse things going on in the world, why do people get so up in arms about this issue? My favorite football example is Michael Vick. He ran an illegal dog fighting ring and murdered dogs. He goes to jail for his crimes, gets out, and no one cares anymore. Isn’t it worse to be the murderer of sentient beings that it is to stick a needle in your ass? What about the wife beaters, the womanizers, the alcoholics and the recreational drugs users in sports, why do they all get a free pass? I know what people will say, ‘but PED’s give you an advantage on the field while that other stuff is off it.’ To a certain extent that group of people is certainly right. At the same time, I don’t see Arnold Schwarsenegger or Lou Ferrigno playing baseball either, do you? There’s more to playing baseball than looking good in a wife beater. No matter how many weights you lift or how many PED’s you jam in your body, you still have to have the innate talent and drive to be a successful baseball player. Just like I wrote many times about Barry Bonds, Ryan Braun is an elite level performer whether or not he ever used a PED.

I know there are baseball players who cheat. At the same time, baseball players have been cheating since the 19th century so I’m always shocked by the people that seem to think all of this started 15 years ago. I’m not condoning it mind you, I deplore cheating, but put yourself in Braun’s shoes for a moment. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that he is innocent and that the test was in error. Even if that is true, and it’s somehow proven to be the case, many people will never trust Braun again, and his legacy will forever be tainted.

The shame of all of this is that, yet again, baseball is being dragged through the mud even though they are the one professional sport with the stones to take a hard look in the mirror (keep plugging your into the sand football fans – no one in that sport cheats). Too bad that willingness to play the game in an open manner leaves it wide open to criticism from every sports fan in the world.

 

By Ray Flowers

The 2011 Hall of Fame Class

The Hall of Fame vote for 2011 was released today, and unsurprisingly there were two names listed highlighted by the the name of Roberto Alomar, a year after he was denied entry (to all the voters who withheld their vote for Alomar because of the spitting incident, get off your flipping high horse. I’m sure none of you ever did something of questionable moral value). You can read my reasons for having not a scintilla of doubt about the inclusion of Alomar in the Hall of Fame in Who am I? The other player selected was Bert Blyleven who was finally chosen for the Hall in his 14th year on the ballot. Here are the results of the top-5 from this year’s balloting (a player needs to be named on 75% of the ballots to be awarded a spot in the Hall).

Roberto Alomar: 90.0%
Bert Blyleven: 79.7%
Barry Larkin: 62.1%
Jack Morris: 53.5%
Lee Smith: 45.3%

* For the complete results you can visit The Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Two of my personal favorites failed to reach 45 percent of the votes in Jeff Bagwell (41.7%) and Tim Raines (37.5%). You can find my reasons for supporting Bagwell in HOF: The Case for Bagwell. As for Raines, I wrote a report titled simply HOF: Tim Raines. However, I’ve never written much about Blyleven, so I thought I would share some thoughts on his election. Some facts on Blyleven.

He was named to three All-Star teams.
He won a Cy Young Award.
He won 133 games in his first 10 seasons.
He owns a career winning percentage of .542.
He was top-10 in complete games eight times including four seasons in which he led the league.
He has an ERA+ mark of 1.14 (14 percent better than the league average).

Are you ready to have your mind blown like the first time you saw The Sixth Sense? Those aren’t numbers that belong to Bert Blyleven, they belong to Barry Zito. I’ll give you a moment to comprehend what we are working our way up to here by giving you Blyleven’s real numbers.

Blyleven was named to two All-Star games, one less than Zito.
Blyleven never won a Cy Young Award (he was 3rd in 1984-85).
Blyleven won 148 games his first 10 years, an average of 1.5 wins a year more than Zito.
Blyleven owns a career winning percentage of .534, .008 less than Zito.
Blyleven was top-10 in complete games 12 times but led the league only once.
Blyleven has an ERA+ mark of 118, slightly better than Zito’s 114 mark.

I think my point should be evident, should it not? I’m not saying Barry Zito should be in the Hall of Fame, but I think it’s rather poignant to think that Barry Zito has been the equal of Blyleven for the first 10 seasons of his career. So I ask, is there anyone out there that thinks Zito will one day deserve to be in the Hall of Fame even if he has another 10 years like his first 10? I mean really, Bert Blyleven was inducted into the Hall of Fame for being a very good pitcher for an awfully long period of time, but when did the Hall of Fame became the domain of very good ball players?

Let me hit on Jack Morris before I leave you today. Let’s compare Morris to Blyleven in some major categories and see if there are real differences between the two.

Blyleven: Two All-Star games
J.Morris: Five All-Star games

Blyleven: 0.45 career shares in Cy Young voting
J.Morris: 0.73 career shares in Cy Young voting

Blyleven: 287 wins, top-10 in wins six times
J.Morris: 254 wins, top-10 in wins 12 times

Blyleven: .534 winning percentage, ERA+ of 118
J.Morris: .577 winning percentage, ERA+ of 105

Blyleven: Hall of Fame Monitor (120), Hall of Fame Standards (50)
J.Morris: Hall of Fame Monitor (122), Hall of Fame Standards (39)

Maybe it’s just me, but I certainly don’t see a hell of a lot of difference between those two other than the fact that Blyleven does have a sizable strikeout lead (6.7 K/9 to 5.8 K/9). My point is that maybe all those Morris supporters will just have to remain patient as it appears that, with time, the voting body will eventually install him in the Hall of Fame.

ADDENDUM

I love the passionate response by everyone below in the Comments section (below). Love it. Wish everyone would share their thoughts more to make things interesting. My point was to cause everyone to get engaged with the topic, and they certainly did.

Let me be clear.

1- Zito is NOT a Hall of Fame pitcher. Period.

2- Zito is NOT as good as Blyleven when you take into count the overall performance of Blyleven over the course of 22 years.

I was merely stating that Zito had more Cy Young’s and All-Star appearances, a better winning percentage, a better K/9 mark and was tougher to get a hit off of than Blyleven. Those are facts, and you can read whatever you would like into them, but I was just pointing out that Blyleven’s efforts weren’t vastly different in many respects. I never said Zito was a better pitcher.

As for Blyleven’s accomplishments, they are historically substantial in terms of his overall workload which was immense (nearly 5,000 innings). The question continues to be – should we reward durability, or should the Hall of Fame be for the best players?

Think of it. Blyleven NEVER led the league in wins or ERA. He only led the league in strikeouts once and only once did he lead in WHIP. In addition, despite all his innings, he only led the league in that category twice. If I add that all up, I don’t know if that’s good enough for the Hall of Fame.

By Ray Flowers

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I don’t normally climb to the top of my ivory tower and simply bloviate, but today I’m going to do just that.

I’m getting some blow-back from people on Twitter since I posted my piece HOF: The Case for Bagwell. The reason being that there seems to be an undercurrent that Bagwell is unworthy of inclusion in the Hall of Fame because he did steroids. There are quite a few reasons that paint such a view as asinine.

(1) Bagwell never failed a drug test and was never caught purchasing drugs.

(2) Just because a guy is muscular is no reason to simply assume that he is doing Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s). In fact, Bagwell’s thoughts on the matter can be found in Jeff Bagwell tires of steroids talk. Bagwell himself admits that he got too big from trying to make the cover of Muscle and Fitness magazine. Instead of being smart and training like a baseball player should, he just focused on strength and bulk. Bagwell also points out that he was an obsessive weight lifter who literally spent hours in the gym every day.

(3) People are pointing to his offensive explosion in 1994 as some proof of steroid use. I got news for you folks, sometimes people just have out of nowhere performances, and it has nothing to do with PED use. See Jose Bautista in 2010 for a recent example if you have already forgotten. Speaking of Bautista, my Breaking Down piece lists all of the reasons that you should avoid counting on Bautista as a building block for 2011.

(4) Some have pointed out that Bagwell flamed out at the end of his career, to which I respond so what? Bagwell’s weightlifting effectively ruined his shoulder to the point that it was almost impossible for him to throw the ball across the infield. He simply couldn’t swing the bat at the end of his career. Secondly, he retired at 37 years of age. Back in the day almost every player was done, or nearly done, by that age. It’s only recently that players have been able to sustain success into their late 30′s.

Do I think that Bagwell did steroids? No I don’t, but honestly, that’s besides the point. The fact is that he never failed a test, so unless he comes out and admits that he took PED’s then we must presume his innocence (we still do that in the United States right? You know, the whole presumed innocent until proven guilty thing that is a foundational building block of our country).

I find it laughably pathetic that there is such rampant hypocrisy in sports.

Chargers’ LB Shawne Merriman was suspended for steroid use in 2006. That same season he was elected to the NFL Pro Bowl. Where is the outrage for that?

Michael Vick, a convicted felon for torturing and murdering dogs, has been welcomed back to the NFL with open arms to make gazillions of dollars and to be adored by millions for his football talents despite the fact that he is a deplorable human being. He was named to the Pro Bowl the other day.

But what do we do in the world of baseball? We cast baseless aspersions and impugn people’s character and reputation merely on supposition. That sickens me. Any player who has been tied to PED use in the public is roundly scorned, derided, and ultimately their place in history is tarnished to the point that their performance on the field is almost completely ignored – even though there is no proof that they did anything illegal.

Did, and do, baseball players use PED’s? With 100 percent certainty I can agree with that statement. Which players took PED’s? I have no idea, and despite what you think, neither do you. If we don’t know who took them how can we blame anyone? Do we just say that any player who suited up from 1990′s and first decade of the 20th century should be banned from the Hall of Fame?

I know that hypocrisy knows no bounds, but there will be none of it at BaseballGuys.com. Barring incontrovertible proof that would result in a conviction in a court of law, I’m going to go with the principles instilled by our Founding Fathers that all men, and women, are innocent until proven guilty.

HOF: The Case for Bagwell

With the Hall of Fame vote coming up (the results will be released on January 6th), I thought it might be nice to link to the pieces I wrote last year regarding a handful of players that were up for consideration but who failed to be enshrined. Here are those links.

Edgar Martinez – Is There Room for a DH?
HOF – Tim Raines .
Is McGriff Hall Worthy ?
HOF: Mammoth McGwire Misunderstood ?
HOF: Who am I ?

In addition, here is my recap on how the voting actually turned out last year in HOF: What Should Have Been.

As for the vote this year, there seems to be growing support for the candidacy of Jeff Bagwell. Should be be enshrined in the Hall of Fame?

PRO

(1) Bagwell spent his entire 15 year career with the Astros. I know this really doesn’t matter, but in the world of money grubbing by players you have to tip your hat to Bagwell for this accomplishment of staying with one club.

(2) He was the 1991 NL Rookie of the Year, and in 1994 he was named NL MVP. He also finished in the top-10 in MVP voting five times on his way to 2.89 Career MVP Shares, the 35th highest mark in league history.

(3) He was named to four All-Star teams.

(4) He had 1,529 RBI – 45th all-time – and he also scored 1,517 runs, good for 62nd all-time. No player eligible for the Hall of Fame with 1,500 runs and 1,500 RBI isn’t in the Hall.

(5) He finished his career with a .408 OBP, the 40th best mark ever.

(6) He finished his career with a .540 SLG, the 35th best mark ever.

(7) He finished his career with a .948 OPS, the 21st best mark ever. This is a simply stupendous accomplishment for a guy who spent so much of his career hitting in the Astrodome.

(8) Bagwell led the league in runs three times – with a high of 152. In fact, he scored 143 and 152 runs in 1999-2000, and amongst first basemen only he and Lou Gehrig ever had back-to-back seasons of 140+ runs in the history of baseball.

(9) Bagwell hit .297 with 449 homers, 1,529 RBI, 1,517 runs and an OPS of .948. In the history of baseball, only 10 men have reached each of those totals in their career, and oh what a list it is: Stan Musial, Barry Bonds, Mel Ott, Alex Rodriguez, Babe Ruth, Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams and Mr. Bagwell.

CON

(1) He spent his entire career with the Astros. Did anyone notice how great he was since they never saw him play in person or on television?

(2) The strike in 1994 ruined what was shaping up to be a historic season. Bagwell hit .368 with 39 homers, 116 RBI and 104 runs scored… in 110 games. Along the way he led the league in RBI and runs, not to mention SLG (.750) and OPS (1.201). If he had kept that pace up over 160 games he would have produced a line of .368-57-169 with 151 runs scored. If he had produced a season for the ages like that, would more people have taken notice of him?

(3) Despite his tremendous work, other than 1994, was he ever even considered the best first baseman in baseball with players like Fred McGriff, Mo Vaughn, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Carlos Delgado and Todd Helton around?

VERDICT

Bagwell should be a lock. In addition to being a tremendous person and teammate, he was also a dynamic player. His career totals stack up well against pretty much any man who ever played first base, and it’s not his fault there were so many tremendous hitting first basemen in the game when he played. Bagwell was also widely regarded as one of the best base runners in baseball in his career, even with less than scintillating speed, and that reputation should augment the glowing numbers. The Hall of Fame candidacy of many players has been exaggerated of late, but if Mr. Bagwell is enshrined the voting body will be making a decision that will undoubtedly stand the test of time.

By Ray Flowers