Because his career was cut short and he didn't pass milestone numbers; because the vast majority of writers only saw him in October... Bagwell requires effort. You have to dig a little; you have to properly contextualize. Otherwise, his numbers don't immediately jump out. That, and, obviously, PEDs, are the two big obstacles. Too many writers are lazy. That's honestly why I started the blog: to put all those contextualized numbers out there. How a player can rank 3rd and 5th among HoFs at his position in two prominent categories and not be in the Hall of Fame is mind-bottling.
How do those guys stack defensively with Jeff? A couple might hit better.. none are better baserunners or base stealers. We've seen Pujols and Cabrera's defense. Neither are in Bagwell's league. Surprising, Cabrera's career OPS is only .961 vs Bagwell's .948 and has a much worse BB/K. Cabrera will end up behind Jeff.. and Pujols (.977) too if he continues his recent <.800 performances. Postseason is the only way Bagwell might fall behind those guys. Hopefully he HOF's soon!!
You are seriously underrating Pujols defensively. He was a very good 1B. No amount of defense or base running is going to change Gehrig from being the greatest 1B ever. Foxx & Pujols are also pretty clearly 2 & 3.
And as a credit to him, it was learned after he had already established himself as the best hitter of his generation. He came up as a 3B and was an adventure in awfulness there defensively. IIRC they then tried him in LF and at 1B. He stuck at 1B, where he went from bad to decent to pretty damn good over the years. You are so right about Gehrig. Dude belongs in another world.
I honestly don't think it matters. First base is a not a premium defensive position, and I don't think the metrics can really accurately reflect how good/bad a player was, defensively. Not the way their offensive numbers can, anyway. If they have a reputation of being good/bad defensively, that tends to carry the opinion. Cabrera's posted a .974 OPS last year... In fact, other than 2014, he's posted an OPS better than his current career average (.961) every single year since 2010. Over the same time frame, he's averaged 6.45 WAR/year; at that pace, he'll need just 2.5 years to pass Bagwell. He's not slowing down; he's getting better. Pujols will almost certainly end up with 600 HRs and 100+ WAR, becoming just the sixth player to ever top both milestones. He's so far ahead of Bagwell offensively that he could have been Chris Carter with the glove and it wouldn't matter.
I'll say it again: WTF?? A journalist who is averse to research and "a little digging?" What the hell is the job supposed to entail? But I shouldn't be surprised. Most of the drivel I read from these clowns is nothing I couldn't have come up with sitting on the crapper watching ESPN highlights on my nine-year-old Blackberry. Yup. WTF.
Bagwell is at 90.9% right now, a little over 20 votes in. See the spreadsheet in the tweet below (guy does a great job updating voters' ballots): https://twitter.com/notmrtibbs/status/671924377278001152
Bonds and Clemens are both about 20% higher than their normal vote, which would mean a large portion of these early returns are of those not concerned with steroids. Unfair though it may be, that's what's keeping him out. Edgar Martinez is also much higher. Don't think he has a chance this year, I just want to see some forward momentum in his voter totals.
Similar to what was going on last year. As more ballots came out, the more his number dropped, and then when the actual count was released, it was less than the public % by a decent margin. The important thing to track is that 3 guys voted for him this year that didn't last year.
I think he was pro-Bagwell last year too, but here is Jaffe's article on Bagwell's case for the HoF (link). I don't believe he has a vote yet, but hoping the national platform helps those who might be on the fence. They do talk about the "whisper campaign" around Baggy and steroids and the lack of a concrete link outside of admitted use of Andro and Creatine, which I think makes it a fair article.
I don't like the pro-steroid supporters saying that if Piazza gets in then that opens the door for everyone else that knowingly used ( Bonds and McGwire ect. ). That just doesn't ring true to me. I don't think the voters believe that and I really hope that doesn't happen. There's no logic to it as Piazza and Bagwell still have a clear record. On a personal level if you cheated then your stats mean nothing to me as u had an unfair advantage over everyone else. I'm not against steroids, but I am against having an unfair advantage and playing field. Piazza and Bagwell have nothing on them and so they should be judged as so, as should any other player. David Ortiz if I am not mistaken was caught, fairly or unfairly, leaked or not leaked, so how that happened unfair yes, but he should not be in. I have no sympathy. I think there are some likely users in the Hall already. It could happen. You can't keep it 100% clean. It probably has happened, but that's just how it is. But please keep out the known cheaters. I can understand why they cheated, or why they thought it was ok to cheat, as much as I can understand why Gaylord Perry trued to cheat, but I cannot condone it, as it was well known to be taboo among the players at the time and cheating ). I like Billy Hatcher as an example, but look, he cheated and probably has cheated more than once, and I didn't like that and still don't. I forgive you, but I won't reward you.
Ortiz was on the 2003 list, but claimed he never took steroids. I've always wondered how the whole list was never published. Did the person who leaked it only get a glance at it? What are the odds he would see the names Ramirez, Ortiz, Rodriguez, Sosa, Segui, & Grimsley?
Bagwell traditionally fares significantly better in public ballots (specifically, ballots released prior to the announcement) as that group tends to feature far more younger/progressive voters. His does significantly worse with private ballots. The good news is that a lot of us think (hope) that the new eligibility requirements will wipe out a large portion of the voters who don't release their ballots, and that the early returns on Bagwell might be better indicators of his overall support than they have been in the past. He's not going to obviously sail in with 92% of the vote; but a jump to nearly 65% still seems highly likely.
Well, hopefully this holds true. I think he'll pick up percentage points with many of the bad voters removed. Still, there's the ones like Rick Morrisey who feel like they are the arbiters of right and wrong for the game. In his article about his vote (http://chicago.suntimes.com/baseball/7/71/1118624/griffey-jr-hoffman-trammell-hall-without-nocturnal-drama), he says he researched and researched. He thinks he has the burden of deciding who used and who didn't. No proof...just guessing. Sounds like this jackass is the Lionel Hutz of baseball writers ("Hearsay and conjecture are types of evidence!).
Jaffe is not a voter but a long-time Bagwell supporter. Among "national" writers, Bagwell is actually well-regarded.
That's because he deserves to be. One of the best first basemen of all-time, his numbers destroy the average HOF 1B. It really is absurd that he wasn't in on first ballot.
Let him hear about it: <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">RT if you'd like <a href="https://twitter.com/MorrisseyCST">@MorrisseyCST</a> to read Going to Bat for Jeff Bagwell. He did not vote for him this year. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BBHoF?src=hash">#BBHoF</a> <a href="https://t.co/oKqUGNbFkc">https://t.co/oKqUGNbFkc</a></p>— Bags4HoF (@Bags4HoF) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bags4HoF/status/669156839980818432">November 24, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
