It's Okay To Think About Jeff Bagwell

He has apparently already decided to vote for Clemens and Bonds – two players against whom there is significant evidence of PED use. But for Bagwell – for whom there is absolutely zero evidence of PED use, Hennings refuses to vote for him. It seems if he is truly concerned about PED use, then the first guys he would refuse to vote for are Bonds and Clemens, not Bagwell.

I don’t necessarily believe that keeping someone out for steroids is the right thing to do, but it is certainly a valid opinion. However, Lynn Henning (who’s work I’m not very familiar with) is saying that he will not vote for Mark McGuire but will vote for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens because he thinks that they would have been HoF players without them. That’s pretty crazy. Henning can’t possibly know how much the PEDs helped or when the players started taking them.

Not voting for Bagwell after he’s been out of baseball for 6 years because you’re “waiting for more evidence” is a politically correct way of saying, “I think he did steroids and I know I have no proof.”

I can say, without an iota of regret or hyperbole, that I NEVER thought Rob Neyer would be discussing something written by Lynn Henning in a quasi-positive light. Lynn Henning is, generally, a writer who disregards fact and advanced statistics in favor of Wins, RBI, and “Sound of the bat.”

Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised to see Hennings ballot this year, and was totally shocked to see the omission of Jack Morris.

Has Rob posted a “My Hypothetical HOF Ballot” article yet? Are you planning to? It seems that if you’re going to get on “bloggers” and “fans of bloggers” (isn’t that us, btw?) for doing something “the easiest way”, you should at least tell us all where you’re coming from.

Judging from the end of this article and some of your comments, is your ballot: Larkin, Trammell, Raines, Bagwell?

Okay my bad, I’ll go take a look for it (when I get home from work). Thanks, Rob. I’ll come back, though, if I dislike your reasoning!

Would anyone around here NOT vote for Bagwell?

The ONLY question here is whether or not he took roids right? Otherwise, the guy’s got to be a no doubt about it first ballot lock, no?

Why not?

Injury-plagued career… big power surge in his early 30s when most shortstops start to decline rapidly… and if you look at pictures from that 1996 or so, he didn’t look thin. He had that boxy muscular look that people say indicates steroids, at least to my eyes.

There’s no good reason to vote for Larkin and not Bagwell. Larkin, really, is exactly the type of player that the Mitchell Report shows used steroids, someone who was trying to maintain or return to a high level of performance in his 30s, especially after injuries.

I hate this witch hunt crap, though. No one has come up with good evidence for Larkin. He has not been implicated. Neither has Bagwell.

I guess they won’t vote for Biggio next year, either, because there’s no reason to believe Bagwell used and Biggio didn’t.

Mock mock mock mock mock.

Why not wait until all of the game’s greatest players are dead before inducting them? That’ll sure boost the crowds at Cooperstown.

rolls eyes

I say yes. Here’s the logic:

1. If something is an American sport, the rules of America apply to that sport.
2. Baseball is an American sport.
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3. The rules of America apply to baseball.

4. Murder, rape, torture, and illegal steroid use are again the rules of America.
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From 3, 4, Murder, rape, torture, and illegal steroid use are against the rules of baseball.

To me, all of these propositions are true. The one that I guess at least one person in this thread finds controversial is proposition 1. I guess there’s no way to settle the matter really. But if you reject it, I think you’re crazy, personally.