Jeff Bagwell Can Wait For Hall

Sorry, Jeff, I’ve got to let your lifetime stats marinate for a while before I am completely convinced that you belong in the Hall of Fame.  Jeff Bagwell’s numbers are very good, many better than others that I advocate for inclusion, but numbers are not everything.

The long-time Houston Astros first baseman slugged 449 home runs in a 15-year career. Very good. He batted .297. Also very good. He knocked in 1,529 runs. Very, very good. But when it came to individual seasonal honors Bagwell did not rack up a whole bunch. Yes, he was a four-time All-Star and a three-time Silver Slugger Award winner, but many other players not on the Hall of Fame ballot did equally well, or even better.

Bagwell was the 1991 National League rookie of the year and he won the 1994 NL Most Valuable Player award. Good for him. But he only won one Gold Glove award. Not so good for him. He totaled 2,314 hits, good, but not great. He topped 40 homers in a season three times, with a high of 47 in 2000 and he did drive in more than 100 runs eight times, three times notching 130 or better. Also very good.

What would really have been interesting to see was how Bagwell might have finished his MVP season without a strike ending the year in August. He finished with a .368 average (Tony Gwynn was flirting with .400 that year), 39 home runs, 116 runs batted in and 104 runs scored. Mighty fine considering he had just 400 at-bats. In fact, Bagwell had a .750 slugging percentage in that truncated season. That’s Babe Ruth territory. Some might say Bagwell was a victim of bad luck with the season ending early. However, he was already a victim of bad luck because he broke his hand the day before the strike started and he probably would not have played the rest of the season anyway. So the fact that everyone’s season ended early benefited him and highlighted his phenomenal season.

I think it possible that Bagwell’s candidacy for the Hall will mature with time and he might get in eventually, but not on the first ballot as voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America by Saturday for the class of 2012 in Cooperstown.

Bagwell spent his whole career with the Astros, which most of the time did nothing special in the standings. He grew up in the Boston area and was originally drafted by the Red Sox. Trying for an immediate pennant the Sox made the mistake of shipping Bagwell to the Astros for relief pitcher Larry Anderson in 1990, and I don’t care if Bagwell becomes a Hall of Famer or not, that is one whopping boo-boo in talent judgment. Where was Theo Epstein when the Red Sox needed him? Oh, probably in junior high.

Bagwell appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time last year and attracted 41.7 percent of the vote with 75 percent needed to be elected. Many players have added to their vote totals throughout the years as time passed, keeping their scores above the five percent threshold to remain on the ballot for up to 15 years.

However, when Bagewell’s name first came up for review there was some whispering in the blogosphere (if whispering is possible in that forum) that maybe his power stemmed from performance-enhancing drugs. He did play during the steroids era, but I do not recall any hint that he was an abuser when he was playing and it seems unfair for such an issue to be raised now without a shred of proof.

Bagwell is not first on my list among contending candidates this year, but depending who the competition is in a given year I can picture the day when he does become a Hall of Famer.

Be sure to check out Lew’s other Hall of Fame profiles.