2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

McGwire admitted he took PEDs. Palmeiro got caught. Bagwell is just slanderous speculation.

 

As I'm sure I've mentioned here before, the guy for me who symbolizes the problem of using steroids as a major factor is Mike Piazza.

What are you going to do with him?
Do you believe he was clean?
Do you want to penalize him for suspicion?

 

Completely agree on McGwire. Even without the steroid allegations, he was one of the most overrated players around. He had that three-year stretch in Oakland where he had the .201 season and then two others where he was in the .230 range. Very Dave Kingmanesque...

 

The way many of the old farts with votes like to keep a small Hall, there's no need to expand it. There won't even be 10 who make it this time.

 

He and Bagwell would be the two that would give me the most trouble... I think both used, but I don't know that I would feel comfortable keeping either out of Cooperstown based on those suspicions.

I don't have any issues with keeping McGwire, Sosa or Palmeiro out, even though Sosa's use was never proven.

 

I can't say "I'm going to penalize Barry Bonds for using but I'm going to vote for Mike Piazza."

So I'll vote for both of them.

 

When the whole McGwire/andro flareup happened in 1998, the first other name mentioned as a user of andro was Jeff Bagwell. He was a skinny kid coming up in Boston who turned into a massively yoked Astro with the help of a personal trainer. He did this all in the exact years that were baseball's steroid golden era, and when testing began his body and career fell apart as quickly as any other player's. He went from 39 home runs in 2003 to 27 in 2004 to 3 and out of the game in 2005.

Believing he was clean because his name hasn't come up, and that the only thing he was doing was the GNC over-the-counter stuff, requires the same kind of naivete that got baseball into the mess in the first place. To me he's the biggest question on the whole ballot and the reason that anyone who doesn't vote for Bonds is doing a disservice. We just don't know who was doing what, and to pretend we do is folly.

 

You cannot penalize people for what you THINK you know. That's a witch hunt, pure and simple. It's not as if Bagwell was the first guy in baseball whose career fell off a cliff and came to a sudden end. That happened before steroids were invented. Before the lively ball, too.

 

Sandy Alomar Jr.
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Mike Piazza
Sammy Sosa
Jeff Bagwell
Rafael Palmeiro

 

There's next to no evidence from Bagwell's HR totals that suggest steroids.

At 23 he hit 15. He then went 18-20-39-21 (in 114 games)-31-43-34-42-47 (peaked at 32)-39-31-39-27.

He hit those 27 homers as a 36 year old. Then hit three in 39 games at 37 and his career was done. That seems like natural progression.

 

I think you wait.
This isn't a matter of penalizing anyone, as long as they remain on the ballot. Any real penalty would only come if a guy goes 0-for-15 years on the ballot.
I'm assuming that Piazza and others who might be saddled with suspicions or rumors or hunches or whatever still get enough votes to remain on the ballot.
I'd be in favor of doing away with that 5% rule and keeping eligible everyone, as long as they retired between 5 and 20 years ago.
If we don't have more info, or better context on steroids, 20 years after a guy has retired, THEN we make the tough call.

 

The problem is that by limiting the number of votes and the people on the ballot leads to the inevitable logjam. I'll be conservative and suggest that only Morris and Biggio get elected. If you vote for steroid guys, who do you leave out of this group in 2013 — Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Sosa, Schilling, Bagwell, Raines, and newcomers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, Jeff Kent and Mike Mussina.

That's 12, not counting the Edgar Martinezs' Lee Smiths and etc. who get votes.

And let's say that Glavine and Maddux, as 300 game winners, are the only ones elected.

The next year you'd have this at the top of the ballot — Bonds, Clemens, Piazza, Sosa, Schilling, Bagwell, Raines, Thomas, Kent, Mussina, plus newcomers Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and John Smoltz.