The Case for Jeff Bagwell in the Hall of Fame

Wouldn't surprise me if Biggio keeps all the votes from last year, but still comes up short (by less than 10 votes). Unprecedented, yes... but impossible, no.

 

The support Smotlz is getting on his first ballot is pretty surprising... he was great, no doubt, but first ballot HOF great? I think they're pretty much giving him the Maddux/Glavine treatment... which brings up the question as to how a team with 3 first ballot HOFers in the rotation at the same time, with all their primes coinciding, failed to win more than 1 world series?!?!? (and that being in a strike shortened season, no less).

 

as you've stated, there's not ONE shred of evidence (or even ONE allegation) against Baggy.

I wonder how Pedro Gomez would feel if someone started reporting that he was a child molester without a shred of evidence?

The HOF is a sham in my opinion.

I want Biggio to get in, but in my opinion, it's a FLAT OUT TRAVESTY that he's getting in before Baggy. Baggy was definitely the better player, and he should have already been voted in.

Does anyone have Gomez's email address?

 

Gonna be close on Biggio, but i think he gets in.

Bagwell won't, but I never expected him to. Still his results this season will be pivotal. If he doesn't get over 60% of the vote, then it's likely that he's hit the PED voter glass ceiling. The percentage of high and mighty voters who are never gonna vote for him because of baseless accusations.

If he doesn't end up with over 60%, I don't think he ever gets in.

 

Do we know that's the reason why he doesn't vote for Biggio and/or Bagwell? I'm honestly asking because I don't know what his stance has been in the past.

 

It's gotta be that. There's sort of a statistical case against Biggio being a HOFer if you want to argue that he was just a compiler and throw out "hall of very good" type comments, but there's no case at all against Bagwell unless

1. You think that he did steroids based on little or no actual information.

2. You think that matters.

 

When somebody votes McGriff over Bagwell it's clearly a PED slight.

Biggio is less clear, he seems to insinuate both PED and not HOF worthy.

 

Biggio has dipped to 80.99%. Because the voting is self-reported it's looking unlikely that Biggio will get in. I wish the ballots were public.

Bagwell is holding steady at 66.9%.

 

At least 2 voters cut him, with one believing he was going to get in anyway.

Steroids. He doesn't vote anyone he thinks could have possibly used steroids. He also doesn't vote for guys he didn't like personally. He does give votes to guys he liked personally, even if they are clearly undeserving.

 

But he's in the small subset of people who just decided to put the guys who for-sure used PED's in (Clemens, Bonds), and then he doesn't feel as bad about putting those who were guilty by association (Bagwell).

I want to see somebody vote for Bagwell who honestly didn't believe he used PED's (and thus doesn't vote for all those who were proven/implicated)... those are the votes that will be hard for him.

 

Didn't Mcgriffs career overlap with Bagwell? Why would he be immune to steroid talk? Edgar Martinez as well. Why would they get votes and not Bagwell? Or is logic not important?

 

Pretty much this.

McGriff had a pretty steady career even before the mid 90's PED explosion so there is reason to feel he is clean, but Edgar Martinez's career trajectory screams PED.

It's all just random conjecture, and who people liked more. I hate this crap, everybody should have to defend their votes.

 

Ken Caminiti is the difference between Bagwell's presumed guilt and Martinez's presumed innocence.

McGriff's body stayed roughly the same throughout his career, and was a HR hitter from his minor league career forward. His innocence is probably real. He's a borderline guy for me. His best argument is his career was very similar to Willie McCovey's.

I'd like to see writers have to vote 10 guys every time, and develop some system that weeds out the obviously unworthy guys to cut down on throw away votes.

 

There was a BS story called the Bagwell Conspiracy which lauded Jeff Bagwell as the Steroid master mind. The author admits he made it up in 2004, but the story has tarnished Bagwell for years.

Guilty by association is Bagwell verdict.

 

I doubt Mcgriff did steroids as well, but voters can't just pick and choose who they want to label as cheaters. That's bullsh!t.

 

Sure they can.

And a lot of them will proudly and defiantly scream that very fact, and there are no repercussions. Hooray for witch hunts.

 

It was an interesting article, though it took a lot of very ridiculous leaps. Canseco was pretty much the father of steroids in baseball. He probably wasn't the first, but he helped make it rampant.

 

I had a back-and-forth with some dolt on Twitter this morning about Bagwell; I asked who his Brian McNamee was (he had asked how Bags was different from Clemens... these people...) and his response was, "Ken Caminiti"

Your mind will literally cease existing if you try and wrap it around the logical fallacy and inaccuracy of that statement so just move on and know that people are really, truly, epically dumb and that Bagwell is going to have to overcome a whole mess of stupid if he's ever getting in...