Hall of Fame Inductees

Alomar was a great player with perhaps some questionable character issues. No doubt in my mind about his hall of fame credentials.

Really happy for Bert Blyleven. Fine player and a winner. One of the best curve balls I have ever seen.

Great to see Blyleven get in. Growing up in the Midwest got to listen to a lot of Twins games and still love hearing him work a game.

Have to think the Hall takes in two more wonderful talents...and missed on one I believe to be very deserving...Jack Morris.

How do you guys feel about Palmeiro?

What we know about him is that he failed one test. He claims to be mystefied by how that could've happened and suggests he got a tainted B-12 shot from Miguel Tejada.

We do know that tests are sometimes inaccurate, and we also know that Tejada was a user and thus a possible source of bad stuff. That doesn't mean that Tejada would have given Palmeiro something without telling him the truth about what it was, though.

I am not a fan of PED users and in general I think McGwire was so one-dimensional that, having tainted his one big stat (HR's), he should never get in. But it seems to me that the case against Palmeiro is pretty thin on evidence. He certainly did not bulk up hugely the way many others did (thinking here of Bonds, McGwire, Pudge Rodriguez, Brady Anderson, et al).

Palmeiro is a guy who could hit from start to finish. He was projected as a guy who would develop power, and he met that projection. He became a very consistent producer, but not someone who put up such eye-popping numbers in just a couple of seasons that it arouses my suspicions. I think he hit 38 HR's on the nose several times. He was often overlooked for All Star voting because he had to compete with guys like McGwire. But for consistency of production, hitting for average too, and also his defense, it seems to me he compares quite favorably to a guy like Eddie Murray.

Does anyone else worry that we're throwing out the baby with the bath water here?

Midlo,
I think you make a very good/great point on who gets "tainted" but was clean.
It appears from the voting that Bagwell falls right into that dilemma. There has never been a scintilla of information, as far as I know, that Bagwell was in any way connected with the PED issue. He played for a long time and put up the best combined average and power numbers for any 1B in many, many years.
When looked at from an offensive and defensive perspective, he probably didn't have a peer during his many years with the Astros.
Didn't help much in the voting...41%.
For Palmeiro, there are too many unanswered or controversial issues for me.
The first is his wagging his finger, under oath, before Congress.
The second is the positive test very close in time to that under oath finger wagging.
The third is throwing Tejada under the bus, and to my knowledge, Tejada never confirming the Palmeiro version.
The 4th is the difficulty I have in accepting the story that Palmeiro "innocently" and without any knowledge let a teammate inject him with anything.
If he needed B12, why not approach the training staff. Why would he be willing to accept/rely on Tejada that it was only B12?
Having/letting a teammate inject him?
With all the current information on the health issues associated with needles/syringes including Hepatitis, etc, that entire story is difficult, for me at least, to process and accept.
Perhaps it is more believable than I can conceive. I have a real problem with the concept that teammates are "injecting" each other and only one of them is "naive" and uninformed.
The positive test and a couple of teammates injecting each other is, for me, more than being "thin" on evidence.
In fact, of the PED suspects listed for HOF consideration, isn't Palmeiro is the only one with a known positive test?

quote:

Originally posted by infielddad:
Have to think the Hall takes in two more wonderful talents...and missed on one I believe to be very deserving...Jack Morris.

I'm a huge fan also of "Black Jack" - maybe next year, he is certainly deserving. Here is how the rest of the voting went down:

Player Votes Percent
Roberto Alomar 523 90.0
Bert Blyleven 463 79.7
Barry Larkin 361 62.1
Jack Morris 311 53.5
Lee Smith 263 45.3
†Jeff Bagwell 242 41.7
Tim Raines 218 37.5
Edgar Martinez 191 32.9
Alan Trammell 141 24.3
†Larry Walker 118 20.3
Mark McGwire 115 19.8
Fred McGriff 104 17.9
Dave Parker 89 15.3
Don Mattingly 79 13.6
Dale Murphy 73 12.6
†Rafael Palmeiro 64 11.0
†Juan González 30 5.2
*Harold Baines 28 4.8
†*John Franco 27 4.6
†*Kevin Brown 12 2.1
†*Tino Martinez 6 1.0
†*Marquis Grissom 4 0.7
†*Al Leiter 4 0.7
†*John Olerud 4 0.7
†*B. J. Surhoff 2 0.3
†*Bret Boone 1 0.2
†*Benito Santiago 1 0.2
†*Carlos Baerga 0 0.0
†*Lenny Harris 0 0.0
†*Bobby Higginson 0 0.0
†*Charles Johnson 0 0.0
†*Raúl Mondesí 0 0.0
†*Kirk Rueter 0 0.0

I have to agree that Bagwell kind of got the shaft considering you can easily make a case for him being greatest ML first baseman after Gehrig, Pujols and Foxx. He was certainly the most complete player first baseman since Gehrig and Foxx until the rise of Pujols. I feel about Bagwell the same way as I do about Albert. If these men were on Juice, they would have been hitting 60 plus HRs since they were better hitters than McGwire and Sosa to begin with and were very powerful men.

Bagwell has never been mentioned in any report and Canseco named everybody and his brother but never mentioned Bagwell. There had to have been some hitters in that era that would have been outstanding 30 and 40 HR men and since Bags was never, ever mentioned as a cheater you have to assume he was one of them. If someone can argue that his numbers are not good enough as they are, then I could accept that, although you KNOW I'm going to come back with my reasoning of why they are good enough. But lets not bar every guy from that era who was not a singles hitter.

I'm happy for Blyleven, in my mind his election to the Hall was a couple years overdue. He didn't have an overpowering fastball like the other top strikeout pitchers, but his curveball sure dropped off the table and was the culprit of many of his 3701 K's. 287 wins (13 short of the magic 300), and a 3.31 career ERA in the AL isn't too shabby. He was never dominant, but always consistent, and one of the good guys in the league.

Roberto Alomar's character (or lack of?) was brought to the forefront after the spitting incident, but you have to admit that he was one of the greatest All-Around second baseman of all time.

I don't believe that Jeff Bagwell should be a first ballot Hall of Famer...but he should have received a larger percentage of the vote. The man was consistent, and as Three Bagger stated, he should be mentioned with some of the other great first baseman of all time...449 HR's, 1529 RBI's, 1517 R's, .297 BA., and 202 SB's for a first baseman!

Bagwell's 162 game Avg. 114 R's, 174 H, 37 2B's, 34 HR's, 115 RBI's, .408 OBP, .540 SLG...hmmm, first ballot numbers!?

Rafael Palmiero's numbers are amazing too, but he has a few things going against him. Number one, he was a teammate of Jose Canseco for two plus years, and Canseco accused him of using. But what hurt him the most IMO, was the televised testimony a few years ago where he and other notable players denied the use of PED's, only to test positive shortly there after. 569 HR's and over 3000 hits is a no brainer for the Hall most of the time, but I don't think he has a chance...only time will tell?

And half of that career in that batter's graveyard the AstroDome which was one of the WORST hitters parks of all time!

Fuel for the Palmeiro fire

Rafael Palmeiro Could be Telling Truth, Says Former Congressman

Bagwell was/is my all time favorite Astro but...

He did get awfully big during "the era" then when the heat was on he got skinny again! (Just like Puljols and Sosa and a lot of other players.)

Surely I'm not the only one who noticed.

The sad part about McGwire is that as a "skinny" rookie (rookie of the year) he hit .289 with a rookie record 49 homeruns and 118 RBIs. Unlike Bonds he started setting HR records as a very young player. He was voted on the all century team and was an all star 12 years. In comparison, Bagwell, as great as he was, only made the all star team 4 times. Both were awarded the gold glove once.

It will be interesting to see how Biggio does on the first ballet. Bagwell deserves to be in the hall of fame and so does Biggio IMO.

I'm sick of players being the only ones punished by something baseball allowed and even promoted at times. There are many who used steroids and didn't put up good numbers.

This is just too confusing trying to figure out who cheated and who didn't. I wish baseball decided who gets in rather than a bunch of sports writers who are probably using Viagra to enhance their own performance. BTW, what ever happened to those Rafael "performance enhancement" commercials? How ironic!

Why doesn't baseball tell us who is not eligible to be inducted because of steroid use. Why leave it up to sports writers to determine who might have used PEDs?

It's obvious by the results that some voters have no idea about who belongs in the hall of fame. 5% of the voters didn't vote for Babe Ruth. More than 5% didn't vote for Willie Mays. 7% didn't vote for Ted Williams or Stan Musial. Some say Rogers Hornsby was the greatest ever, 22% of HOF voters didn't vote for him.

These are the people in charge of selecting HOFers. Anyone here who would not have voted for Babe Ruth?

PG- I agree, it's tough to understand? There appears to be a number of HOF voters that hold grudges against certain players. I didn't mention McGwire on my last post. He was one of my favorite players growing up in So Cal, born and raised about an hour away from my home. McGwire was also a great "2-Way Player" at USC, and as you noted, hit 49 HR's as a young skinny rookie in 1987. He and Sammy arguably did more for the game in 1998 than any other two players in one season (I wasn't around for Maris & Mantle). McGwire should have come clean when he was initially implicated for PED's, maybe the public would have been more foregivng? Looking at his numbers, it appears that he probably started using sometime after a few injury riddled seasons in 93'/94'?

This is really going to get interesting in 2013 when Bonds is eligible. He had three MVP's before his head grew a couple sizes, and was already considered one of the greatest outfielders of All-Time....Maybe as PG suggested, the HOF voters should just put the list out of players that Will Never get in due to PED's?

quote:

who are probably using Viagra to enhance their own performance

What is this "Viagra" of which you speak? Does it help with writers block?

1) I agree with Alomar and Blyleven
2) Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher for a decade. He belongs in the Hall.
3) If MLB places players in the ballot it should be about their playing results not all the peripheral stuff. What about all the players who took greenies in previous decades?

I can see how the hall of fame balloting can be quirky. Other than the 1979 World Series or 1987 Twins, I wouldn't know that much about Bert Blyleven and may have been inclined not to vote for him. I was lucky and got to see him win in Cleveland for five years as he was 48-37 during that time.

He also had some of the poorest run-support of all time imho with a weak-hitting Indians lineup behind him. I know they love him in San Francisco, but Duane Kuiper hit one career homerun for the Tribe ... and he was one of our top homerun hitters

Perhaps hall of fame voting is as much about a person's fame as it is about their respective talent.

Blyleven is easily a hall of fame talent imho but that is only because I was able to see him play. Many people cannot.

Maybe they reduce future hall of fame voting down to an algorithm and thus, take the people-factor out of it. Maybe they can come up with a number for how many times a person has appeared on Sports Center's top 10 highlights. Surpass that number... and the algorithm summarily sends you on to the hall of fame... sorry for rambling but felt like typing for some odd reason...

Think about Sandy Koufax and Gayle Sayers for example. You cannot simply go by their numbers.

cball,

Bagwell got smaller when his shoulder was wrecked and he no longer could lift any more. The last year or two of his career, there were times when he couldn't throw the ball forty feet--all strength was gone from that shoulder. As someone who was fanatical about lifting weights for seven or eight years, I know there are certain injuries where it becomes impossible to lift or lift heavy and your body shrinks like crazy. I have a good example of that on my own Facebook page where my wife posted a picture of me when I was lifting heavy and constantly and pictures of me now. Lots of difference! Most people do forget, you can get big over a three or four year period if you lift heavy and are already an athletic person anyway. There were many that took steroids during that era but when we start punishing people who the only evidence against them after fifteen years is the way they looked, especially the short type build Bagwell started with since it is easier to bulk up than tall lanky guys. I still feel he will go in as around 42% is something to build on. I will state again, if Bagwell and Pujols were on steroids, we would have seen those guys in their best years hitting 58, 60, 63 HRs maybe more, because Sosa and McGwire were not in their league as great hitters. Was Bagwell better than McCovey and Stargell? Certainly!

You can get big without steroids but have you noticed, I'm sure you did, there's a different look to guys that put it on naturally and those that juice.

RJM,

Mark Grace had the most hits in a decade. Does that make him a Hall Of Famer?