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If I Had a Vote in the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Election

If I Had a Vote in the 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Election
23 Dec
2015
Not in Hall of Fame

Index



Return Engagements

There are 17 returning candidates on the 2016 ballot, ranging from two who debuted last year and managed to secure at least five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot to two candidates whose last chance to be elected by the BBWAA to the Hall of Fame is now.

The following table lists all 17 returning candidates, ranked by the number of years they have been on the ballot, with selected voting percentages.

2016 Baseball Hall of Fame Returning Candidates, BBWAA Voting Summary, Ranked by Years on Ballot

Player

First Appearance

Years on Ballot

Debut Percentage

2015 Percentage

Highest Pct. (Yr.)

Trammell, Alan

2002

15

15.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

Smith, Lee

2003

14

42.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)

McGwire, Mark

2007

10

23.5

10.0

23.7 (2010)

Raines, Tim

2008

9

24.3

55.0

55.0 (2015)

Martinez, Edgar

2010

7

36.2

27.0

36.5 (2012)

McGriff, Fred

2010

7

21.5

12.9

23.9 (2012)

Bagwell, Jeff

2011

6

41.7

55.7

59.6 (2012)

Walker, Larry

2011

6

20.3

11.8

22.9 (2012)

Bonds, Barry

2013

4

36.2

36.8

36.8 (2015)

Clemens, Roger

2013

4

37.6

37.5

37.6 (2013)

Piazza, Mike

2013

4

57.8

69.9

69.9 (2015)

Schilling, Curt

2013

4

38.8

39.2

39.2 (2015)

Sosa, Sammy

2013

4

12.5

6.6

12.5 (2013)

Kent, Jeff

2014

3

15.2

14.0

15.2 (2014)

Mussina, Mike

2014

3

20.3

24.6

24.6 (2015)

Garciaparra, Nomar

2015

2

5.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)

Sheffield, Gary

2015

2

11.7

11.7

11.7 (2015)


For several of the old-timers on the ballot, what is noticeable is how their support spiked in 2012. This was before the Furor of 2013 and the Fawning of 2014 and 2015.

The Furor resulted from the ballot debut of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the two poster boys for performance-enhancing drugs that brought the PEDs controversy to a head, and that led to a Hall of Fame ballot overstuffed with qualified candidates from which not one was elected—although one player was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013 courtesy of the Pre-Integration Era Committee, which ushered in Deacon White, a 19th-century ballplayer and apparent member of the Flat Earth Society. That overstuffed ballot scattered support across the board, enabling no one candidate to secure the 75 percent needed for election.

The Fawning resulted from the 2014 ballot debut of Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas, all of whom were quickly elected while leaving returning candidate Craig Biggio two votes shy of election. More Fawning ensued in 2015 with the debut of Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz, all of whom, as in the previous year, leapfrogged over the seemingly motley crew of returnees except for Biggio, who was pulled into the Hall along with the other three. And if you're puzzled by where the "Fawning" comes in, all six first-ballot Hall of Famers in the last two years seem to be repudiations to the entire Steroids Era—five pitchers and one position player who had never even been suspected of using PEDs; indeed, as a player, Thomas had been openly critical of PEDs usage, and during his eligibility period he crowed about how he played "the right way."

The following table ranks the 17 returning candidates by bWAR along with their voting percentage from 2015 and their highest voting percentage to date.

All 2016 Returning Hall of Fame Candidates, Ranked by bWAR with Selected Ballot Results

Rk.

Player

bWAR

fWAR

2015 Pct.

Highest Pct.

1

Bonds, Barry

162.4

164.0

36.8

36.8 (2015)

2

Clemens, Roger

140.3

139.5

37.5

37.6 (2013)

3

Mussina, Mike

83.0

82.5

24.6

24.6 (2015)

4

Schilling, Curt

79.9

83.2

39.2

39.2 (2015)

5

Bagwell, Jeff

79.5

80.3

55.7

59.6 (2012)

6

Walker, Larry

72.6

69.0

11.8

22.9 (2012)

7

Trammell, Alan

70.3

63.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

8

Raines, Tim

69.1

66.4

55.0

55.0 (2015)

9

Martinez, Edgar

68.3

65.6

27.0

36.5 (2012)

10

McGwire, Mark

62.0

66.3

10.0

23.7 (2010)

11

Sheffield, Gary

60.2

62.4

11.7

11.7 (2015)

12

Piazza, Mike

59.2

63.6

69.9

69.9 (2015)

13

Sosa, Sammy

58.4

60.4

6.6

12.5 ((2013)

14

Kent, Jeff

55.2

56.6

14.0

15.2 (2014)

15

McGriff, Fred

52.6

57.2

12.9

23.9 (2012)

16

Garciaparra, Nomar

44.2

41.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)

17

Smith, Lee

29.6

27.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)


The following table ranks those 17 returning candidates by their 2015 voting percentage along with their WAR values (bWAR and fWAR) and highest voting percentage to date.

All 2016 Returning Hall of Fame Candidates, Ranked by 2015 Voting Percentage

Rk.

Player

bWAR

fWAR

2015 Pct.

Highest Pct.

1

Piazza, Mike

59.2

63.6

69.9

69.9 (2015)

2

Bagwell, Jeff

79.5

80.3

55.7

59.6 (2012)

3

Raines, Tim

69.1

66.4

55.0

55.0 (2015)

4

Schilling, Curt

79.9

83.2

39.2

39.2 (2015)

5

Clemens, Roger

140.3

139.5

37.5

37.6 (2013)

6

Bonds, Barry

162.4

164.0

36.8

36.8 (2015)

7

Smith, Lee

29.6

27.3

30.2

50.6 (2012)

8

Martinez, Edgar

68.3

65.6

27.0

36.5 (2012)

9

Trammell, Alan

70.3

63.7

25.1

36.8 (2012)

10

Mussina, Mike

83.0

82.5

24.6

24.6 (2015)

11

Kent, Jeff

55.2

56.6

14.0

15.2 (2014)

12

McGriff, Fred

52.6

57.2

12.9

23.9 (2012)

13

Walker, Larry

72.6

69.0

11.8

22.9 (2012)

14

Sheffield, Gary

60.2

62.4

11.7

11.7 (2015)

15

McGwire, Mark

62.0

66.3

10.0

23.7 (2010)

16

Sosa, Sammy

58.4

60.4

6.6

12.5 ((2013)

17

Garciaparra, Nomar

44.2

41.5

5.5

5.5 (2015)


If you're a betting person, you might do well to put a wager on Mike Piazza. He debuted in the Furor of 2013 but polled quite respectably with more than half the vote, and he has been trending upward since then to the point where he can start to knock on the door to Cooperstown. If BBWAA voter engagement remains strong, meaning that we can see multiple inductees this year, Piazza is the most likely returnee to make it.

That path is steeper for Jeff Bagwell and especially Tim Raines. Bagwell has been dogged by suspicions that he used PEDs, which may be why he needs substantial additional support to get to the 75 percent threshold. He has made some inroads since his 2011 debut, but with tenure on the ballot now down to 10 years, his gains cannot be incremental. Raines feels that pressure keenly—next year is his last chance on a BBWAA ballot—and considering that he has gone from a quarter of the vote in his 2008 debut to his best showing of more than half the vote last year, his case is not hopeless. However, he needs a quantum jump.

Tim Raines
Voters had better hustle if they want to elect Tim Raines to the Hall of Fame--he's running out of time.

As for the other 14 returnees, their fate hinges on their tenure and notoriety. Alan Trammell is on his final ballot, with Lee Smith on his penultimate ballot; both are the last of the grandfathered candidates from when ballot tenure had been shortened for the 2014 ballot and subsequently. Smith peaked with half the vote in 2012, but with relievers Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner debuting this year, he is facing more pressure than a bases-loaded jam in the ninth. Trammell's prospects are grimmer—he has never garnered more than a third of the vote, and with just one-quarter of it last year, he needs a miracle.

Mark McGwire is also in his last year, but he has been a PEDs target for a decade now and is effectively done; McGwire has even declared publicly that, in effect, he won't get into Cooperstown unless he buys a ticket. Two of McGwire's other PEDs cohorts, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, have been holding at around one-third of the vote since they debuted in 2013, and given the Fawning of "clean" players over the past two years, an appreciable increase in support seems very unlikely. Similarly, McGwire's partner during the 1998 home run chase, Sammy Sosa, has disappeared into the woodwork and will probably disappear from subsequent ballots, going the way of Rafael Palmeiro. Having debuted just last year, it is difficult to determine what will happen to Gary Sheffield, also implicated with PEDs, although he certainly polled higher than McGwire and Sosa.

Of the "clean" returnees not yet discussed, Curt Schilling may have the fourth-best voting results, but at just below 40 percent it is both puzzling and discouraging, which can be said about Edgar Martinez, who is starting to feel that tenure pressure as he faces his seventh ballot this year, as well as about Fred McGriff, but McGriff doesn't even have an award named for him; meanwhile, Larry Walker seems unable to escape the notorious park effects of pre-humidor Coors Field, at least in voters' minds. Mike Mussina has seen incremental support but could be another Alan Trammell, although with fewer years in which to impress voters. Jeff Kent may be the new Fred McGriff, while Nomar Garciaparra managed to hang on by his fingernails in his debut, but only this year's results will tell whether all his courtesy votes will spark a closer look at him.

Voting results, of course, only tell part of the story of these returnees, who for our purposes can be placed into three groups: the SABR Darlings, the Wallflowers, and the PEDs Pariahs.

The SABR Darlings

As is the case with all the returning candidates, I have written about them before, and for those ballot veterans I have been writing about them for years. Thus, it is hard to write about candidates whom I evaluated for the 2015 ballot, for the 2014 ballot, for the 2013 ballot (and that ballot with a substantial history lesson, too), and the 2012 ballot because I am simply repeating myself.

In the case of Tim Raines, I evaluated him for legacy in 2002, long before this website existed, and even before he had retired. I had done so as a classroom assignment on feasibility reports, which evaluate alternatives and recommend one. My "assignment" was done as a fictitious "Underdog Committee" looking at upcoming retired players who would be considered borderline Hall of Famers. Along with Raines, I chose Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, and (don't laugh) Andres Galarraga (hey, he looked impressive at the time) for analysis, with the goal of choosing one to recommend for the Hall of Fame. I didn't do an extensive analysis, but because I did use positional scarcity and on-base percentage as criteria, I suppose I was entering the realm of sabermetrics, named for its association with the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Going into the project, I figured I would end up choosing Martinez, but to my surprise, I found myself choosing Raines.

I still choose Tim Raines, who is a SABR Darling along with Mike Mussina, Alan Trammell, and Jeff Kent, and I think that all four are worthy of the Hall of Fame. What makes them SABR Darlings is that they don't look like Hall of Famers, but when you look at their numbers, they sure played like Hall of Famers.

Tim Raines is the poor man's Rickey Henderson. Raines is fifth in lifetime stolen bases with 808, and he ranks 13th in stolen base percentage with an 84.7 percent success rate. In 2502 games played, he banged out 2605 hits including 430 doubles and 170 home runs while adding 1330 walks, 1571 runs scored and 980 runs driven in.

Here is the SABR part: Raines's qualitative statistics compared to Rickey Henderson's:



BA

OBP

SLG

OPS

OPS+

wOBA

wRC+

Rickey Henderson .279

.401

.419

.820

127

.372

132

Tim Raines

.294

.385

.425

.810

123

.361

125


Henderson is the lifetime leader in runs scored and stolen bases (and times caught stealing), and in 500 more games than Raines he did reach 3055 hits including 510 doubles and 297 home runs while collecting 2190 walks. Henderson was a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Raines still finds the sand slipping away in his hourglass. Jay Jaffe's JAWS (Jaffe's WAR Score) system ranks Henderson as the third-best left fielder of all timewith Raines in the eighth position, and both of them are above the average JAWS ratings of all left fielders in the Hall of Fame.

On his first try, Tom Glavine entered the Hall of Fame with 305 wins and a 3.54 earned run average. With 35 more wins and a fractional drop in earned run average, Mike Mussina, with 270 career wins and a 3.68 ERA, is Tom Glavine. In fact, Mussina was worth 83.0 wins above a replacement player in his career while Glavine was worth 81.4 WAR, and Jay Jaffe's JAWS ranking system puts Mussina as the 28th-best starting pitcher of all time—two slots ahead of Glavine as both pitchers rank more highly than the average of all starting pitchers in the Hall.

Mike Mussina
Mike Mussina is every bit a Hall of Fame pitcher as first-ballot inductee Tom Glavine--but why don't voters know this?

Yet we will be looking at Mussina pretty much like this guy . . .

Of the 16 shortstops ranked by JAWS above the average values for all shortstops in the Hall, Alan Trammell ranks 11th, just above Derek Jeter. Yet Jeter is all but certain to be elected in his first year of eligibility—and Jeter has every reason to be. He had more than a thousand hits than did Trammell while hitting 25 points higher than he. Yet Trammell was still a fine hitter while his 22.0 defensive WAR is 34th all-time among all position players—and Jeter cost the Yankees nearly 10 wins over his career from his fielding. Trammell had the misfortune of being a great two-way shortstop at the same time as Cal Ripken, Jr., and just before they became commonplace.

Admittedly, Jeff Kent is a borderline pick for the Hall: He is ranked by JAWS as the18th among all second baseman all-time, below the average values for all Hall second sackers, yet better than Hall of Famers Billy Herman, Bobby Doerr, Nellie Fox, and Tony Lazzeri. With 560 doubles and 377 home runs, including the 351 he hit while playing second the most by any player at that position, Kent looks like a poor man's Rogers Hornsby—all right, a very poor man's Hornsby, but nobody looks rich next to the Rajah—and was certainly one of the most formidable second basemen of his generation.

Considering that in my 2002 assessment of Tim Raines I also evaluated Edgar Martinez and Fred McGriff, you might think that they would be among the SABR Darlings too. No, I've assigned them to another special circle of Hall of Fame hell.

The Wallflowers

Just like those bashful hopefuls looking on expectantly from the periphery at the school dance, the Wallflowers get overlooked in the rush to grab the most attractive—but any one of the Wallflowers could indeed blossom into the belle of the ball. (If only Albert Belle were in the Hall, I could have made that into a pun—the Belle of the Hall.)

Truth be told, I think that only Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Larry Walker, Edgar Martinez, and Curt Schilling are Hall of Famers, with Fred McGriff just below the threshold, Lee Smith further on down, and Nomar Garciaparra considerably further from that.

Barring a sudden collective change of heart by voters, Mike Piazza looks to be busting moves at the Hall of Fame cotillion as his voting trend in just three ballot appearances points that way. Yet Piazza is still a Wallflower—he got leapfrogged by six first-timers while Craig Biggio, who debuted in the same year as Piazza, also got asked to dance before him. The greatest hitting catcher of all time blah blah blah. Ranked fifth by JAWS. The music's starting. Ask him already.

While you're at it, ask Jeff Bagwell already. Of course, Bagwell has a reputation, as they used to say while smoking in the boys' room—which is why I deliberately did not include him among the PEDs Pariahs because all there has ever been are whispered innuendoes that he must have been juicing because . . .. well, just look at him. That might have worked in Salem during the Witch Trials, but modern individuals expect evidence. Don't have any? Then induct him already. Why? I'm getting sick of answering that question because every year I keep making the argument for Bagwell, all the way back to the very first article I wrote for this site. Five-tool first baseman—how rare is that? The only 30-30 first baseman in history. Ranked sixth by JAWS—and look at all the great first basemen there have been. The music's still playing, but there is still time to dance.

Jeff Bagwell
Arguably the best all-around first baseman ever, Jeff Bagwell is overdue for the Hall of Fame.

Another Wallflower I wrote about at the start is Larry Walker, and later I even went into why the Coors Effect is bunk. A five-tool right fielder. Ranked tenth by JAWS—and .you know how many great right fielders there are? There are 24 of them in the Hall of Fame already. That may be too many—Chuck Klein (*cough* the Baker Bowl *cough*)? Ross Youngs? Tommy McCarthy?—but of the JAWS top ten, the only one not in the Hall of Fame is—

Then there is Edgar Martinez. What poetic justice were Martinez to be inducted alongside longtime Seattle Mariners teammate Ken Griffey, Jr. And apparently having an award named after you—that would be the Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award—is still not enough to convince voters that he is a Hall of Fame-caliber player. (Would Cy Young not make the Hall in today's environment?) Looking back at what I wrote about Martinez for the 2012 ballot assessment, I see that I did say that I would pick Frank Thomas as my DH of choice. But Thomas made the Hall on his first ballot, which affects Martinez's Hall of Fame credentials not at all. And although Jaffe's JAWS system does not evaluate designated hitters, Martinez is still ranked as the 11th-best third baseman all-time, a position at which he did make 532 starts.

Curt Schilling is not the most uncontroversial candidate around, and his anti-Muslim tweet in August 2015, in which he went Godwin and subsequently got himself suspended by ESPN, won't endear him to Hall voters who see the "integrity" clause in voting guidelines as a license to adjudicate morality—but is it simply personality that accounts for his not being elected to the Hall already?

His Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez was elected last year in his first year of eligibility. For comparative purposes, here are some representative statistics for each pitcher: win-loss record, ERA, ERA+, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings, strikeouts to walks, and wins above replacement (Baseball Reference version).



W–L (Pct.)

ERA

ERA+

SO

SO/9

SO/BB

bWAR

Pedro Martinez

219–100 (.687)

2.93

154

3154

10.0

4.15

84.0

Curt Schilling

216–146 (.597)

3.23

127

3116

8.6

4.38

79.9


Curt Schilling is the poor man's Pedro Martinez—and if that's "poor," I want to move to that neighborhood. Moreover, Schilling's postseason performance is richer (totals include all levels of postseason play):



W–L (Pct.)

GS

IP

ERA

SO

SO/9

SO/BB

Pedro Martinez

6–4 (.600)

14

96.1

3.46

96

9.0

3.20

Curt Schilling

11–2 (.846)

19

133.1

2.23

120

8.1

4.80


Schilling's iconic postseason moment? The "bloody sock" with (appropriately enough) the Boston Red Sox in Game Six of the 2004 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees. Schilling guts it out, Red Sox win game, then ALCS, then go on to win first World Series in 86 years. Oh, and Schilling was, with Randy Johnson, co-MVP of the 2001 World Series as the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in a thrilling seven-game series; then, way back in 1993, Schilling pitched a five-hit shutout against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game Five of the World Series to keep the Philadelphia Phillies' hopes alive.

Martinez's iconic postseason moment? With the Red Sox, playing the Yankees in Game Seven of the ALCS from the previous year. Eighth inning, Yankees threatening as Boston leads 5–2, four outs from winning series and advancing to World Series for the first time since 1986. Martinez convinces manager Grady Little that he's got enough gas in the tank to get out of trouble. Gives up three runs, Yanks win in extra innings, Little's contract is not renewed.

By the way, JAWS ranks Pedro Martinez as the 21st best starting pitcher of all time. Curt Schilling is ranked 27th. Reminder: First-ballot Hall of Famer Tom Glavine (Class of 2014) is ranked 30th.

If only, if only, runs one tale about Fred McGriff. En route to a monster season with the Atlanta Braves in 1994, McGriff and everyone else found that the season had been halted by the salary-cap dispute that resulted in the players' walkout in August. The first baseman had already clouted 34 home runs in 424 at-bats after 113 games before play was halted, a robust home run frequency of one every 12.5 at-bats, a rate that could have added up to 14 more round-trippers to his total had the season continued. What's the tale here? McGriff has 493 career home runs—and had 1994 been a full season, he would have surely reached the 500-homer plateau, and perhaps his credentials for the Hall would look more convincing. We do love our neat tiers in baseball stats, but "Crime Dog" is the same hitter at 493 dingers as at 500, and that hitter is very good but not Hall of Fame good. (And as far as the "if only" thinking goes, McGriff could have sustained a season-ending injury in Game 114 of the 1994 season.) McGriff ranks 29th among all first basemen, and while that is better than Hall of Famers Orlanda Cepeda, Frank Chance, and Jim Bottomley, if only, if only the various veterans committees had not selected them in the first place.

As we saw in the examination of Trevor Hoffman and Billy Wagner, Lee Smith is stuck in relief-pitcher limbo between the stalwart firemen who preceded him and the precision specialists who succeeded him, even if he was essentially the prototype of the one-inning closer. Smith had been the all-time leader in saves until Hoffman, and then Mariano Rivera, passed him, and although both Hoffman and Rivera benefited from the relief-pitching strategy that Smith helped to develop (and although both may have been more shrewdly marketed than Smith), Lee Smith, as with Fred McGriff, is a very good pitcher but not Hall of Fame good. (JAWS ranks Smith as 14th all-time among relief pitchers—but WAR and JAWS are not accurate measures of a reliever's effectiveness, and with only five relievers in the Hall so far, with two of those ranked below Smith, the sample is a small one.)

The road to the Hall of Fame is like trying to get to Mordor in the The Lord of the Rings: It's long and treacherous, and you might get ambushed and not get anywhere near your destination. Surprisingly, Nomar Garciaparra, who did look like a Hall of Famer in his first few seasons, garnered five percent of the vote last year and thus is able to remain on the ballot this year. One data point doth not a trend make, though, and it will be interesting to see what voters will do with Garciaparra this year.

But even the Wallflowers, whose chances for the Hall of Fame look grimmer than an overweight video-game addict with acne and halitosis hoping to be asked to dance, don't have the very special circle of hell reserved for our next bunch.

The PEDs Pariahs

Let's face it: When it comes to the Hall of Fame, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa are radioactive, with a half-life that won't see them cool to an acceptable form for some time. That is the impression that has been reinforced by voters on the last few ballots, who, collectively, have shown a third of the support for one of the greatest hitters (Bonds) and for one of the greatest pitchers (Clemens) of all time while demonstrating outright disdain and even contempt for any player with admitted, alleged, or even suspected associations with performance-enhancing drugs.

However, could that hard line be weakening? Because, again, let's face it: Even with rules and penalties now clearly outlined with respect to PEDs, players are still using them. The Biogenesis scandal that broke in 2013 resulted in the simultaneous suspension of thirteen players. That is more than had been suspended at any one time since 1921, when the eight Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series had been banned by baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Three more players tied to Biogenesis—Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon, and Yasmani Grandal—had been suspended for 50 games in 2012.

Among those suspended in 2013 were Ryan Braun and three players—Everth Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, and Jhonny Peralta—who had been named as All-Stars that season, although the most notorious suspension was to Alex Rodriguez, whose suspension saga ultimately entailed his missing the entire 2014 season, with his initial 211-game suspension the longest ever meted out to a player.

But despite the intense speculation during the suspension as to whether Rodriguez could return as a major-league talent in 2015, his age-39 season (he turned 40 in July), Rodriguez returned with a productive season that saw him reach the 3000-hit, 2000-run, and 2000-RBI plateaus as he passed Willie Mays for fourth all-time among career home run leaders; in fact, Rodriguez attained the distinction of becoming the fifth player in MLB history to combine at least 3000 hits with at least 500 home runs—a distinction last achieved by Rafael Palmeiro, who had been unceremoniously dumped following a poor showing on the 2014 Hall of Fame ballot.

So, how surreal was it to see, during the 2015 postseason, a Fox Sports team of baseball analysts that included Rodriguez and Pete Rose, analysts whose discussion included punished-for-PEDs Bartolo Colon, pitching for the New York Mets, and Jhonny Peralta, playing shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals? (Rose's banishment from baseball for violating gambling rules was again upheld in December 2015 by Commissioner Rob Manfred, who cryptically, although accurately, noted that Rose's Hall of Fame eligibility was not within his purview.) Adding to the surreality was the presence of analyst Frank Thomas, one of the most outspoken opponents of PEDs.

Following his 2012 suspension, served while he was with the San Francisco Giants, Melky Cabrera signed a two-year, $16 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, and then in 2015 he signed a three-year, $42 million contract with the Chicago White Sox.

Jhonny Peralta served his 50-game suspension while with the Detroit Tigers, who had no problem adding Peralta to their 2013 postseason roster when he returned from his suspension (unlike the San Francisco Giants, who chose not to add Cabrera to the World Series roster after he had become eligible during the National League Championship Series). Following the postseason, Peralta inked a four-year, $53 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals, and while there were some protests concerning the deal being made with a known violator of stated drug policy, the Cardinals seemed satisfied that his having served the suspension closed the matter.

Nelson Cruz served his 50-game suspension while with the Texas Rangers in 2013, after which he became a free agent. He turned down the Rangers' qualifying offer of $14 million to take his chances in the market, but his suspension must have cast doubts among buyers because he finally accepted a one-year deal offered by the Baltimore Orioles for "only" $8 million just before 2014 spring training. Cruz went on to lead the majors in home runs with 40, which must have encouraged the Seattle Mariners, who offered him a four-year, $57 million contract at the end of 2014. Cruz responded in 2015 by posting perhaps his best full season yet, with career highs in hits (178) and home runs (44), for a team that finished fourth in the American League West.

Ryan Braun, the 2011 NL Most Valuable Player while with the Milwaukee Brewers, tested positive for elevated testosterone levels at the end of 2011, but he successfully challenged the sample-collection process on a technicality, publicly professing self-righteous innocence as he did so. Then he was linked to Biogenesis of America, the Coral Gables, Florida, clinic that had been supplying major-league players such as Cabrera, Peralta, and Rodriguez with performance-enhancing drugs. Handed a 50-game suspension for his involvement, Braun accepted the suspension without appeal—and he was handed an additional 15 games for his conduct during his appeal of the initial drug test. Braun was then openly branded a liar for his sometimes pugnacious dissembling during the affair. Braun returned from his suspension to play right field for the Brewers with no seeming stigma, although his performance has yet to match his MVP-caliber play.

Already a PEDs pariah for his positive results in 2003, Alex Rodriguez returned to the apparent delight of Yankees fans, who saw Rodriguez help the Bronx Bombers to a postseason wild-card spot as he passed a number of individual milestones during the regular season. Coverage of Rodriguez, which in 2013 and 2014 centered on his record suspension for violating drug policy and, if he did return in 2015, whether he could continue to perform at the Major League level—assuming, of course, that the Yankees were willing to have him try—now lauded his accomplishments. Capping his successful return was his postseason stint (once the Yankees had been knocked out in the first round by the Houston Astros) as a television analyst.

Huh?

Beginning in the early 2000s, outcry over the use of performance-enhancing drugs grew until it resulted in a revamped drug policy for Major League Baseball, the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program adopted by the MLB Players Association and the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball in 2006, and an independent investigation by former United States Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine), whose 2007 report on his findings identified dozens of players alleged to have used PEDs including current Hall of Fame ballot candidates Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Troy Glaus, and Gary Sheffield.

In a sense, the December 2007 release of the Mitchell Report represented the culmination of the PEDs outcry. Earlier that year, Barry Bonds had broken the career home-run record then held by Hank Aaron in a "grim, joyless" assault on baseball history (as sportscaster Bob Costas described it); however, after having become the all-time home-run king, Bonds, who had been indicted in November on perjury and obstruction of justice charges resulting from his 2003 testimony in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) investigation, found himself unemployable in Major League Baseball. (In 2011, Bonds had been convicted of felony obstruction of justice, but that conviction was eventually overturned in 2015.)

Mark McGwire made his debut on the Hall of Fame ballot in 2007 and received less than one-quarter of the vote; he has never received more than that during his decade-long sojourn on the ballot. Thus the outcry over PEDs has been extended into legacy. Rafael Palmeiro, only the fourth hitter in MLB history to collect at least 3000 hits and at least 500 home runs, received at best half the support that McGwire had since his 2011 ballot debut; then, in 2014, he received less than five percent of the vote, thus booting him from future BBWAA ballots.

Mark McGwire
The 2016 ballot is Mark McGwire's last chance to swing for the fences of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Of course, this is the same Rafael Palmeiro who, while under oath, declared emphatically to a Congressional hearing in March 2005 that he had never used PEDs—only to be suspended for ten games in August later that year for failing a drug test and testing positive for an anabolic steroid. Sammy Sosa, too, has had at best half the support that McGwire, Sosa's foil during the historic 1998 home run chase that "saved baseball" following the 1994 strike, has received; Sosa, with just 6.6 percent of the 2015 vote, less than half the support he got on his 2013 debut ballot, threatens to go the way of Palmeiro as Sosa, eighth all-time with 609 home runs and the only hitter ever to have three seasons of 60 or more home runs, sees those accomplishments as a PEDs-stained liability.

The polling results of Sosa's fellow debutantes on the 2013 ballot, Bonds and Roger Clemens, made it clear that the Hall of Fame ballot is an unofficial referendum on players with associations—accused, admitted, or merely suspected—with PEDs. The same organization, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA), that had voted Bonds and Clemens, respectively, the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner an unprecedented seven times each has subsequently mustered one-third the votes required for them to enter the Hall of Fame.

In other words, the BBWAA has tacitly appointed itself the arbiters of morality for baseball's history by withholding the privilege of Hall of Fame enshrinement to players it deems guilty of having used performance-enhancing drugs and thus have "cheated" to enhance their careers and, ultimately, their legacy.

But despite the sustained outcry against PEDs, which have resulted in more stringent penalties for players caught using them, baseball players are still using them. And even if players are caught and suspended, baseball teams are still hiring them, seemingly without regard to stigma but with the goal of "putting the best product on the field." Because baseball is a business. It always has been, and all its stakeholders seem willing to do whatever is necessary to improve that business. Branch Rickey may be lauded for having helped to integrate baseball, but his pragmatic interest was that African-American players like Jackie Robinson could help him to win championships, which increase a team's marketability.

Thus, the moral dudgeon of Hall of Fame voters rewarding players who "played the game the right way"—such as Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Frank Thomas—and punishing players who, in their eyes, did not—from Rafael Palmeiro, guilty of a sitcom-like hypocritical comeuppance, to Jeff Bagwell, guilty of merely looking as if he had used PEDs with no proof of that extant—is itself hypocritical: These voters, particularly now that they must have been writing about baseball in the last ten years in order to remain a qualified voter, must surely see that cheating is simply part of the cost of doing business, much like a company that is fined for polluting or for underreporting its taxes.

Today, players fail drug tests. They are suspended. Once they have served their suspensions, they are hired by teams willing to pay handsomely for their services. A decade ago, by contrast, Barry Bonds—who had never been suspended from baseball—could not get signed by any baseball team after he broke Hank Aaron's career home run record in 2007. Granted, he was 42 years old, although hitters half his age would have envied his 2007 season, but his notoriety spelled career death at the time.

Moreover, players such as Cabrera, Cruz, or Peralta are unlikely to be serious contenders for the Hall of Fame (although Alex Rodriguez is unquestionably a contender), so in one sense their scrutiny is academic to the question of legacy. But that is not the point. The point is that they represent how the game is played, not just today but how it has been played previously. How the game is and had been played becomes part of baseball's history—and excluding players because they are emblematic of the conditions of their times becomes a denial of that history.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa are Hall of Famers. Gary Sheffield is on the borderline, and although I do not think he is a Hall of Famer, his credentials are still much better than several other players already enshrined, and his induction based on his playing record would not be egregious.

Nor would his induction based on his connections with PEDs. Had the "Steroids Era" that peaked from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s been an aberration, it would be easier to see Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sheffield, and Sosa as PEDs Pariahs, marked by their associations with illegal substances, even if the bulk of their careers occurred before baseball finally codified its policies and penalties in 2006 (with updates occurring subsequently). But we are still living in a "Steroids Era" as players are still using PEDs, and although they may be suspended for failing drug tests, they are still playing baseball because teams have no compunction about hiring them.

It is an embarrassment to baseball that its all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, its all-time home run leader, Barry Bonds, and one of its greatest pitchers ever, Roger Clemens, have not yet been inducted into its Hall of Fame, baseball's monument to performance greatness. You can maintain that all three, and others like them, transgressed by breaking the rules of baseball conduct, which is true enough. Yet there is a depressing tendency in the sport to punish the individual for failing his personal responsibility while ignoring the collective responsibility of the environment, Major League Baseball, in which the individual operates.

Is it that "a few bad apples" have managed to infiltrate the barrel? Or is it the very nature of the barrel itself that causes apples to go bad? In the last few years, following the furor of the Steroids Era that continues to be played out annually during Hall of Fame voting, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Jhonny Peralta, and Alex Rodriguez have all been suspended for violating drug policies that did not exist in their current form when Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and Sosa were at the height of their careers. Yet Braun, Cabrera, Rodriguez, and the others have resumed their playing careers and often have been awarded handsome contracts as if their transgressions were minor errors in judgment—and as if the Steroids Era were simply a mistake from the past.

We are still living in the Steroids Era. Players who have been caught using performance-enhancing drugs and have been penalized for it are still being hired by baseball teams. Induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is indeed a privilege, not a right; it is a conferred honor, not an automatic requirement. And if it were just "a few bad apples," some of those with Hall of Fame-caliber careers, under evaluation, then voters could feel justified in their refusing to confer the honor upon those players. But the current crop of Hall of Fame candidates are representative of an era that tacitly condoned their behavior—and continues to condone it. And for voters who continue to deny that reality are painting an incomplete and ultimately dishonest version of baseball. You evaluate the baseball you have, not the baseball you wish you had.


Last modified on Thursday, 12 May 2016 00:49

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