Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Hall of Fame or Hall of Morally Infallible Baseball Players?

Politics is fun, but baseball is our original passion.

With the Cubs continuing their 105 year swoon, we focus our attention on the growing controversy surrounding the impact of the “steroids era” on the Baseball Hall of Fame. The members of The Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) have submitted their ballots and tomorrow at noon the Baseball Hall of Fame, Class of 2013 will be announced.
 
The ballot consists of 13 previously-eligible candidates who received at least 5% of the vote in 2012, and 24 first-time candidates. Voters may cast votes for up to 10 players, and anyone that receives 75% of the votes will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on July 28th.

Incredibly, on their first year of eligibility, two of the best, most feared, players of all time - Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens – are unlikely to be elected into the Hall of Fame. In addition to the all-time leader in home runs (Bonds), we also predict that five of the top-50 sluggers of all time - Sammy Sosa (8th), Mark McGwire (10th), Rafael Palmeiro (12th), Jeff Bagwell (36th) and Mike Piazza (44th) - will also get passed over by the holier-than-thou BBWAA.

The only possible explanation for excluding these individuals from the Hall is their alleged (and in some cases confirmed) use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) at some point during their careers.

Here is a summary of their statistics, all of which strongly suggest each is worthy of the Hall of Fame:
All-Star
Top-10
Gold
Career WAR/
Years
HR
OPS*
Games
MVP
MVP
Gloves
Rank by Position*
Bonds
22
762
1.051
14
7
13
8
158.1 (1st)
McGwire
16
583
0.982
12
0
5
1
58.7 (16th)
Sosa
18
609
0.878
7
1
7
0
58.8 (18th)
Palmerio
20
569
0.885
4
0
3
3
66.1 (13th)
Bagwell
15
449
0.948
4
1
6
1
76.7 (6th)
Piazza
16
427
0.922
12
0
7
0
56.1 (5th)
*
OPS = On-Base % + Slugging % - know as a better measure of production than batting average.  An OPS of .900 of higher puts the player in the upper echelon of hitters, with league leaders usually around 1.000
**
WAR = Wins Above Replacement Value - a measure of incremental wins attributable to a single player above that of a replacement player, the rank by position is the all-time rank when compared to other Hall of Famers at the same position.

These players are some of the most prolific hitters of all-time.  #3 on the home run list is Babe Ruth, who was born in the 19th Century and played his first game 99 years ago.  Tens of thousands of professional baseball players have played millions of games, and we currently have 4 of the top 12, and 7 of the top 50 home run hitters of all time on the ballot (Fred McGriff (26th) is the other).  

We realize home runs is not the end all and be all of what makes a Hall of Famer, but each player above is also in the top 20 at his position in WAR, which is a more balanced approach to a players value.  If being one of the twenty best players at your position - ever - is not good enough for the Hall of Fame, what is?   How can we not have these sluggers, and their pitching equivalents like Roger Clemens and Curt Shilling in the Hall of Fame?  

We're not condoning steroid use, but from a practical perspective, Major League Baseball did not test for PED’s until 2004.  How can we possibly exclude players from consideration when no conclusive proof exists that one player was using PEDs and another wasn’t?  Do we assume the entire generation was using and exclude everyone, or does each writer arbitrarily decide whether or not there is enough circumstantial evidence to determine if a candidate used PEDs?  Does one cycle of PEDs forever disqualify you from the Hall of Fame, or must there be long term use?  There are simply too many unknowns from this era for a single sportswriter to know who did what and when.
 
There is only one rational solution to the problem.  

The Hall of Fame must ignore any and all PED allegations prior to 2004 when determining Hall of Fame eligibility.  The BBWAA should be instructed to judge players from that era on their accomplishments on the field, not their alleged moral character off the field, whether it be PED use (currently deemed a problem by many) or just being a bad guy (not a problem).  The cloud hanging over this generation can be addressed prominently within the Hall itself, noting that it is widely considered that PED use during this period was rampant, but unproven due to a lack of formal testing.  
  
It's not the Hall of Morally Infallible Baseball Players, it’s the Hall of Fame.  Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have had some of the best careers in the history of baseball.  In addition to their numbers, McGwire and Sosa’s epic home run battle in 1998 single-handedly brought Major League Baseball back into the public conversation after it was all but left for dead after the 1994 strike that cancelled a World Series.
  
I’d love to be able to visit the Hall in 40 years with my grandchildren and talk about how ESPN cut into every Barry Bonds at-bat as he approached Hank Aaron's career home run record, about how I was glued to the TV watching Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire chase after the elusive Roger Maris single season home run record, and how I was in New York for the Subway Series featuring Roger Clemens angrily throwing a broken bat at Mike Piazza.
    
History is what makes baseball great.  It would be historical negligence to exclude an entire generation of baseball players from the Hall of Fame based on incomplete and speculative information about who may or may not have used PEDs. 

Our ballot, if we had one:
  1. Barry Bonds
  2. Roger Clemens
  3. Jeff Bagwell
  4. Curt Schilling
  5. Tim Raines
  6. Rafael Palmeiro
  7. Mark McGwire
  8. Sammy Sosa
  9. Mike Piazza*
  10. Lee Smith
*       * Who I think will get inducted, along with Jack Morris.  There is also a good chance nobody gets inducted this year.

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