'Cooperstown Chances' examines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. This week: Former Astros slugger Jeff Bagwell.
Who he is: Historically, Jeff Bagwell is already an outlier in Hall of Fame voting terms. According to info culled from Baseball-Reference.com, Bagwell is one of 102 players to receive at least 50 percent of the vote in witthin his first five years on the Baseball Writers' Association of America ballot. Not counting first ballot selections, the average player in this group has gone on to achieve the necessary 75 percent of the vote within three years of hitting 50 percent. At the moment, Gil Hodges, Mike Piazza and Bagwell are the only members of the group who aren’t enshrined.
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Piazza and Bagwell debuted on the Hall of Fame ballot ahead of several great players eligible the past two elections, but where the influx has cost Bagwell votes, Piazza has steadily gained ground. Piazza received 69.9 percent of the vote last year and probably has the best shot of any candidate this year after Ken Griffey Jr. Like Bagwell, some writers have declined to vote for Piazza over speculative rumors he used steroids. But Piazza might be the best-hitting catcher in baseball history. That’ll likely be sufficient for a plaque.
Bagwell, though, has a chance to become the next Gil Hodges for Hall of Fame candidates. The Dodgers first baseman picked up votes early in his candidacy for managing the 1969 Miracle Mets and for his untimely 1972 death but languished thereafter on the ballot as numerous legendary players became eligible. Hodges finally exhausted his eligibility with the writers in 1983 and has since come close to Cooperstown with the Veterans Committee. If and when Hodges gets in is anyone’s guess.
Bagwell, who’s in his sixth year of Hall eligibility and received 55.7 percent of the vote last election, suffers from some of the same problems Hodges did during his candidacy. His career ended prematurely due to injuries. It’s difficult to quantify his reputation for outstanding defense. And by traditional analysis, which for position players is mostly just a quick look at home runs and batting average, Bagwell’s numbers appear less impressive than some of his contempories. This is particularly true if one discounts Bagwell’s stats due to alleged steroid use. Mostly, it’s the steroid rumors that hurt Bagwell’s candidacy.
That said, former Astros closer Billy Wagner, a Bagwell teammate from 1995 to 2003 and a close friend, told Sporting News he never knew of Bagwell using steroids.
“Isn’t it unfair to speculate something like that?” Wagner said. “That’s very unfair to sit there and say, ‘I think he did steroids’ when there’s absolutely no real evidence of that.”
And if Bagwell did in fact use?
"You're going to really get me to go off if you start talking about that,” former Astros manager Larry Dierker told SN. “Hell, everybody used steroids. If you want to get right down to it, if some writers want to do that, they ought to go back and look at the great writers over time and see how many of them were on drugs. It's a 'holier than thou' position."
Cooperstown chances: 80 percent
Why: Some writers have withheld votes for suspected or confirmed steroid users on the basis of the character clause, the BBWAA rule for Hall of Fame election which reads, “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.” Bagwell might actuallly be a great selection for many parts of the character clause, given how highly Wagner and Dierker speak of him. But for some Hall of Fame voters, the character clause is simply a means to turn a player down if they’re thought to have used steroids.
Dierker said he never knew of any Astros using steroids during his tenure, 1997 to 2001, though he said fixating too much on this issue disregards everything else Bagwell did. He considers Bagwell one of the greatest first basemen all-time.
“Having watched him day to day, not only during the times I managed, but before when I was broadcasting, then after I managed, I would say that he had an intensity of focus that was unparalleled,” Dierker said. “Biggio was almost as good but not quite in terms of just never failing to understand the inning, the game situation, the runners that were on base, the reliever that was warming up.”
Dierker added about Bagwell, “What I told a lot of people is that I felt like he had the best baseball instincts of any player I've seen besides Willie Mays."
Managers and teammates can make a lot of exaggerated claims about players that fall apart under the slightest scrutiny, but a deeper look at Bagwell’s numbers makes him seem underrated. His 51.8 Wins Above Average ranks seventh best among all first basemen. Adam Darowski’s Hall of Stats also has Bagwell as the seventh best first baseman ever and 57th best player all-time. Jay Jaffe’s metric JAWS ranks Bagwell as the sixth best first baseman ever.
Bagwell was more than numbers of course. Bagwell helped lead the Astros to four National League Central Division titles and one pennant during his 15 seasons. He was never a particularly vocal leader, more the strong silent type. Dierker remembered one game in which Bagwell was patched up after being spiked, played the remaining innings with a bloody uniform, and then went to the hospital to attend to what turned out to be a fairly deep gash.
Wagner said Bagwell was in a class by himself among National League first basemen during his career. “You look at the bulk of his career, he was the staple for who Todd Helton wanted to be or any of the young first basemen, Konerko and those guys,” Wagner said. “They wanted to be a Jeff Bagwell. He played the game right, was a tremendous leader in the clubhouse and on the field. I think some of these things people want to look at are misleading, but in my opinion, he’s a Hall of Famer.”
'Cooperstown Chances' examines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. Series author and Sporting News contributor Graham Womack writes regularly about the Hall of Fame and other topics related to baseball history at his website, Baseball: Past and Present . Follow him on Twitter: @grahamdude .