Committee Chairman

The Craig Biggio Debate: 2015

Dec 19, 2014

Published in Hall of Fame Debates

This is the second 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: Let’s stay in Houston shall we? From one “Killer B” to another, we have Craig Biggio entering attempt number three on the ballot. Biggio was two votes shy last year and with Pedro, Johnson and Smoltz essentially replacing Maddux, Glavine and Thomas on the ballot, he feels like he is in the exact same position he was last year, though how he didn’t get inducted in 2013 without “first ballot locks” I can only speculate that some of the voters did not see Biggio as a “First Ballot Inductee”, which whether the Hall wants to see it that way or not, certainly has an unspoken hierarchy. Let’s say as some speculate Pedro, Randy and John (and I am not convinced that Smoltz is first ballot material) get in; none of us were alive when the Hall inducted four modern era candidates. Am I wrong to think that Biggio is forced to wait again, or could he take that “third spot” from Smoltz?

Darryl: It is puzzling as to why Craig Biggio has not been elected in his first two tries, although as I've noted before, 3000 hits is not a first-ballot lock. But if your speculation about Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz is correct, and all three are elected this year (and I've written previously calling all three "no-brainer" Hall of Famers), then it would suggest that voters are rewarding only pitchers judged to be "clean" during the PEDs era and only hitters such as Frank Thomas, a "clean" player who made his opposition to PEDs crystal-clear from the start. Back to Biggio: Two data points are not enough to define a trend, but he did debut on the ballot in 2013 with 68.2 percent of the vote, and last year, as you note, he was two votes shy of 75 percent—and that was with the addition of Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, both 300-plus-game winners, and Frank Thomas, who hit 521 home runs, to the ballot. Biggio has waited long enough, and I think voters know that.

D.K.: Biggio was extremely versatile. When he arrived in the majors from Seton Hall University (New Jersey) he was a catcher but would also excel in the majors as a second baseman and in the outfield. 20 years with one franchise - aside from Derek Jeter, how often are you going to see that these days - and there were a lot more perks staying with the Yankees for DJ than Biggio would enjoy as an Astro. 3,060 hits. I believe he’s second in home runs leading off games and second in being hit by pitches in MLB history. 290+ home runs for your lead off and at times #2 hitter; - Can’t beat that. He also ranks 5th all-time in doubles with over 650. Add the fact that he missed election by the smallest of margins (2 votes) last year and I think 2015 is going to be his year - and it’s kind of a disgrace that it has taken the voting writers three elections to give Biggio his due.

Chairman: So if I read this right, all three of us think that that Biggio will enter this year, or at the very least come close to the door. I know that I agree with both of you that he waited long enough and has more then enough of a Hall of Fame resume. Seriously, I think the team he played for hurts him. Let’s put what he did with the Yankees or the Red Sox, and with the added playoff games that would have come with it. If he was there, I think we would not be having this discussion; he would already be in. Maybe, I am being an elitist, but come one, there is an unspoken team bias involved here right? Either that or I am running anther one of my conspiracy theories, which may very well be a trend for me in this series.

Darryl: I would hate to think that there is a team bias, but I don't think it's far-fetched. Of course, I've been stating my own pet theory in previous pieces that with Bagwell presumed to have used steroids--with no evidence of it--and with Biggio having been his long-time teammate, that is a case of guilt by association stemming from guilt by supposition.

You're right that had Biggio played in Boston or New York, or even Detroit or Chicago, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. I've been looking at previous inductees to see if their teams and/or lack of postseason presence was a hindrance. Ernie Banks was first-ballot, and he never played a postseason game although he reached a Cooperstown milestone of 500 home runs. Luke Appling never played in the postseason with the White Sox, and he was voted in on his seventh try, keeping in mind that it took longer because during his time on the ballot in the late 1950s and early 1960s the writers voted only every other year. Robin Roberts played in only one postseason with the Phillies, in 1950 with the "Whiz Kids," and he was 14 games shy of 300 wins but got in on his fourth ballot; Roberts also lost a lot of games (245) and his 3.40 ERA was fairly high for his era, but he did make, as he should have.

You would hope that today's writers would see through both guilt by association and team bias, but maybe not.

D.K.: Although there is at least one case on record of a player who got over 74% of the vote, but less than 75 % (Jim Bunning 1988) and then saw his vote total decline the next year (the next three years actually until he was off the writers’ ballot) and had to wait until the Veterans Committee elected him several years later – that (vote decline) was clearly an aberration.

Usually if you come that close to election you’re elected the next year and that should be the case for Craig Biggio - deservedly so! If he was a big bopper he’d be in already. Because he was a superior all-around player and good contact hitter, with some power and not a genuine power hitter he gets unfairly left off some writers ballots in this home run-crazy age. Biggio’s fifth-best all-time, 650+ Doubles is not as impressive as 650+ home runs and never will be, but it shouldn’t be ignored by Hall of Fame voters either.

Chairman: Two Astros in on my ballot. I vote yes, with a belief that he may very well get in this year. Now Houston fans make him proud and show up in substantial numbers for his induction speech!

Darryl: It is frustrating that Craig Biggio did not get voted in his debut two years ago, and a travesty that he fell just short last year. I vote yes.

D.K.: There’s no question that Craig Biggio was the best holdover candidate in this election and I rate him as the second best candidate overall behind Randy Johnson. - A BIG YES vote from me.

The Jeff Bagwell Debate: 2015

Dec 18, 2014

Published in Hall of Fame Debates

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.

The Chairman's votes on the Fictitious Athlete HOF

Oct 06, 2014

Published in From the Desk of the Chairman

The Chairman's votes on the Fictitious Athlete HOF

I have been granted the honor of announcing the Class of 2014 for the Fictitious Athlete Hall of Fame December 1st on the Bob McCown show, a program that is syndicated across Canada on the radio and shown nationally on television on Sportsnet.

How Chris Von Erich kept the Macho Man from the WWE HOF

Apr 14, 2014

Published in From the Desk of the Chairman

Is it possible that there is hope for Randy “Macho Man” Savage to enter the WWE Hall of Fame after all? Based on a recent comment this past month by his brother, “Leaping” Lanny Poffo to the Tampa Tribune, we think that there just might be.