In the most recent Hall of Fame election, the writers finally elected Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar. Normally, I would be excited because both of these players clearly deserve to go to the Hall of Fame. Also, because I joined the blogosphere, I am required to believe that Blyleven is a better Hall of Fame choice than Jack Morris. However, I found myself still angry at the BBWAA, which I am sure I will never be allowed to join. This will be the first post in a series to explain my frustration.
I will start with one player who I considered a lock to be in the Hall of Fame. That is Jeff Bagwell. Here is his baseball reference player page: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bagweje01.shtml
In my own assessment of player rankings, I have Jeff Bagwell as the 4th greatest first basemen of all-time. He is behind Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Albert Pujols. I already realize that my opinion of a player does not matter but let's dwelve into his stats a little bit.
First, I'll present the WAR argument (if you don't like WAR skip to the next section). I averaged his WAR (baseball reference version) and fangraphs version. A quick aside, according to baseball reference a 8+ WAR season is an MVP season, 5+ an all-star season, 2+ servicable starter, below 2 an acceptable substitue mark, and 0 or below actual replacement level. Jeff Bagwell had a total of 8 seasons of 5+ WAR, so he had 8 seasons where he reached the level of an all-star season or higher. A list of first basemen who had the same amount or more than that, with their number in parentheses: Lou Gehrig (13), Jimmie Foxx (10), Albert Pujols (10), Frank Thomas (8), Mark McGwire (8), Johnny Mize (9), Cap Anson (8), Dan Brouthers (9), Roger Connor (8). Hank Greenberg should be included on this list as he 7 of such seasons and probably would have put more seasons of above 5+ WAR (averaged between Fangraphs and Baseball reference) similarily Johnny Mize probably would have more seasons of 5+ WAR both because of lost seasons due to World War II. Jeff Bagwell also had 3 seasons of 8+ WAR or 3 MVP seasons, here's the list of the first basemen who had 3 or more seasons of 8+ WAR with their numbers in parentheses, again: Lou Gehrig (9), Jimmie Foxx (6), Albert Pujols (7), and Dick Allen (3). I'll even put Hank Greenberg on that list again, because he had 2 seasons of 8+ WAR and it's possible, however unlikely, that he would get to that mark during his lost years. There's only 4 first basemen who averaged 5+ WAR each season, they are Gehrig (7.25), Foxx (5.15), Pujols (8.2), and Bagwell (5.45).
That paragraph was getting cluttered. I am still continuing with the WAR argument, sorry for those who wanted to skip it. For his highest, 5 consecutive years he averaged 7.27 WAR per season, the only first basemen who put up a better 5 years consecutively according to WAR: Lou Gehrig (9.19), Jimmie Foxx (9.44), Albert Pujols (7.83), George Sisler (7.63), Roger Connor (7.37), Todd Helton (7.31). It's hard to look at those numbers and conclude that Jeff Bagwell was not one of the very best who ever played his position.
Moving on from WAR, to look at his leaderboard courtesy of Baseball reference. He ranks 40th all-time in OBP, 35th in Slugging %, 21st in OPS, 62nd in runs scored, 66th in total bases, 60th in doubles, 34th in home runs, 45th in RBI's, 27th in walks, 35th in strikeouts (sadly), 37th in OPS+, 37th in runs created, and 55th in times on base. All of these numbers seem to indicate that he is a Hall of Famer.
There are a couple of arguments that I ahve heard against Jeff Bagwell. The first of which is that he did not reach any real milestone numbers in his career, he had 449 home runs, a .297 batting average, 2314 hits. I am not really sure where the milestone numbers are for RBI's and runs scored but he had over 1500 of each. My rebuttal to that argument is that he played 15 seasons, which is a lot but not enough to reach the markers of three thousand hits or five hundred homeruns. It probably would have taken two more years to get five hundred homeruns and depending on how he aged four to five seasons to get three thousand hits. Also, numerous hall of famers do not have these milestone numbers including Hank Greenberg, Johnny Mize, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, etc.
The second argument is that his numbers are inflated due to the environment he played in. This is WAR comes into play as well as OPS+. These two stats are supposed to control for the environment and show how much value a player actually has. This argument plays into a third, smaller argument, about the fact that despite Bagwell's alleged dominance he only made 4 all-star games. I personally hate the all-star game argument because the fans are the ones who vote players in, initially. Jeff Bagwell played in Houston, while a large city, is not usually a staple on mid-90's sports shows. This was also not the internet age where fans could easily access stats and follow every player.
Finally, for whatever reason Bagwell has fallen under PED suspicion. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Bagwell had no suspicions while he played (unlike for instance Mark McGwire who got caught with at least Andro) and was not mentioned in the Mitchell Report like other players (Roger Clemens comes to mind). However, Bagwell was teammates with Ken Caminiti who was a PED user. This allows people to link Bagwell with a connection to PED's. Once that is established, then every single thing falls under the suspicion of PED usage and that is all one can see. This logic is incredibly flawed. Any teammate of a known PED user must come under suspicion under that logic because steroids do not just impact power numbers, just ask Alex Sanchez, Jamal Strong, etc. Unfortunately this PED usage logic, prevails in some circles, and Bagwell was not elected in his first ballot. He had a strong showing 41.7% but it is not guaranteed that he will get elected. This would be a travesty to the Hall of Fame to not have one of the best five players of all-time at his position in the Hall of Fame based just on rumors and speculation without any facts.
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