This is the first of our series where we here at Notinhalloffame.com, do what else? Debate the merit of twenty-four men on the most loaded Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in our lifetime.
Joining me, the site's Committee Chairman, in this debate are D.K. of the site's Phillies Archivst blog and Darryl Tahirali of the site's DDT's Pop Flies blog. This looks to be a very important part of our site, and we hope you will enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it.
Chairman: Gentlemen, we start off with Jeff Bagwell, who is on the ballot for the 5th time, and was actually #1C (the ineligible Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson are 1A and 1B) when we started this website, and though he dropped #6 this year, that is only a testament to the great players who have become eligible since. The Baseball Writers gave him only 41.7% in 2011, made it to 59% in 2013, but so much talent on the ballot last year cost him five points and he is back down to 54.3%. On first glance, I see a guy who could drop or gain five points, but I don’t see much of a change this year.
Darryl: Which only goes to show that a) Jeff Bagwell was underappreciated during his career—he made only four All-Star squads—and b) the performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) whispering campaign against him has taken its toll. I've been touting Bagwell as a Hall of Famer since I started writing for this site three years ago, and the numbers bear this out. Jay Jaffe's JAWS system ranks him as the sixth-best first baseman ever—ahead of Frank Thomas, who sailed into the Hall last year on his first ballot, but who lacks Bagwell's dimension. Bagwell was a better defender, and he was as close to a five-tool first baseman as we're likely to see. Bagwell is the only first baseman in the 30 home run-30 stolen base club—he did it twice—the only first baseman to hit at least 400 homers and swipe at least 200 bags, and the only first baseman since World War Two to steal at least 200 bases. With respect to PEDs, it's put-up-or-shut-up time: If there is no evidence that he used them—and his decline phase is consistent with a clean player—there is no reason why voters would not check his box except for prejudice and superstition. He should have been first-ballot.
D.K.: Jeff Bagwell would have reached 500 home runs if back injuries hadn’t shortened his career (he finished with 449 HR). He’d driven in 1510 runs by age 36 and played sparingly after that due to injuries. He had a number of .300 seasons and his lifetime batting average is just under .300. He deserves to be in the HOF, but with so many good candidates, among the pitchers and his old teammate Craig Biggio, Bagwell may have to wait another year. Then again sometimes there is a “coattails effect’ where if writers vote for one of a pair of longtime teammates they automatically vote for the other. We’ll see if this happens January 6.
Chairman: So it sounds like we are all in agreement that Bagwell deserves to be inducted. Part of me, and this is coming from someone who has had limited exposure at best to the Houston Astros over…well, my entire life, though here I am thinking how cool it would be for the fans of the Astros to see both Biggio and Bagwell enter the same year. I mean, if I was a fan of the Astros, I would forego seeing Bagwell and Biggio pushed back a year to make it a Houston spectacle. Seriously, what else have they had in the last forty years to cheer for?
I think that ties in with D.K.’s coattail argument and Darryl’s point of “putting up or shutting up”. Saying that, is he getting in this year? My Spidey Sense is tingling and telling me that he is not, though he will get in at some point on the writer’s ballot.
Darryl: Although I think that Biggio is going to get the necessary 75 percent of the vote this year, I do not think Bagwell will get enough votes.
Not to be flippant or sniggering here, but with respect to the voters' perceptions, and if you think about it in terms of trying to seduce a woman, Bagwell may have already passed into the "friend zone": He did not impress enough voters in his first four tries, and now that window may have closed as "hotter" candidates come onto the ballot and divert attention away from him. Which is a damned shame because Bagwell is definitely getting screwed from both ends and doesn't even have a kiss to show for it.
D.K.: There was no “coattails effect” last year. In fact, just the opposite occurred as Biggio’s vote total increased by 6 or 7 per cent while Bagwell’s percentage took a nosedive.
Bagwell is going to have to get elected on his own merits some time in the future because I’m pretty sure Biggio, with his close call last year is close to an “automatic” this year and whether Bagwell increases his vote total or not in January, he won’t raise it to the required 75%, at least not in 2015.
Chairman: Now it’s time to use our fictional votes, and based on our debates so far, it seems like we are all going to use our allotted ten; the maximum that the Baseball Writers can use.
I have would have voted for Bagwell every year since he has been on the ballot, and as you have deduced his name is etched here. I vote yes.
Darryl: For this final round, I will keep my speechifying to a minimum. I have shilled for Jeff Bagwell from my very first article for this site, and I sure as hell ain't gonna stop now. I vote yes.
D.K.: Bagwell rates in the middle of the pack of the 10 allotted votes each of us has (5th on my list to be exact). - I vote yes.
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