Baseball's Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame (38 page)
However, those were Hoyt’s last big seasons, and the only two Hall of Fame type years he ever had. Even though he was also a fine pitcher from 1921 to 1924, it could not honestly be said that he was among the top five pitchers in the game in any of those seasons. He only had those two 20-win seasons and, with the exception of his 22 victories in 1927, never led the league in any other statistical category. He was a good pitcher, but, like Pennock, was aided tremendously by the Yankee teams he played for. As proof of this, his career record with New York was 157-98; with all other teams he played for, it was 80-84.
Both Pennock and Hoyt were fine pitchers who were among the better ones of their era. However, if either man had spent the majority of his career pitching for a team other than the Yankees, it is unlikely he would even have been considered for the Hall of Fame. While neither pitcher was a particularly bad choice, Pennock’s 1948 election by the BBWAA and Hoyt’s 1969 selection by the Veterans Committee were both ones that probably should never have been made.
Jesse Haines
Jesse Haines spent his entire 18-year career with the St. Louis Cardinals and was a member of four pennant-winning teams and three world champions. Haines, a regular member of the St. Louis pitching rotation from 1920 to 1931, was a key contributor to much of the success the Cardinals had during that time.
He had his first big season in 1921 when he finished 18-12 with a 3.50 ERA. Two years later, Haines won 20 games for the first time when he compiled a record of 20-13 and an ERA of 3.11. His best seasons, though, were 1927 and 1928 when he finished 24-10 and 20-8, respectively, with ERAs of 2.72 and 3.18. He led the National League with 25 complete games and 6 shutouts in 1927, and finished eighth in the MVP voting. Haines also had two other fine years. In the Cardinals’ world championship season of 1926, he compiled a 13-4 record with a 3.25 ERA. When St. Louis won the championship again in 1931, he finished 12-3 with a 3.02 ERA.
However, those were the only six good years Haines ever had. In no other year did he win more than 13 games, and he failed to finish above .500 six times. In 1920, his won-lost record was 13-20, and he finished 8-19 in 1924. He was the National League’s best pitcher in 1927, but was rated behind Dazzy Vance and Burleigh Grimes in his other top seasons. In fact, he would have been ranked among the league’s top five pitchers in only his three 20-win seasons. Haines led the N.L. in complete games once, and in shutouts twice, but he never led in wins or ERA. He was a good pitcher, but there were many others who were just as good who have not been elected to the Hall of Fame. One of those pitchers was Bob Shawkey. Let’s take a look at the career numbers of both men:
Shawkey spent parts of three seasons with the Philadelphia Athletics before joining the Yankees for good in 1915. During his 15-year major league career, Shawkey won at least 20 games four times, and at least 15 four other times, even though many of his best years came before the Yankees became a powerhouse ballclub. He had his finest season in 1916 when he finished 24-14 with a 2.21 ERA. Shawkey also won 20 games and finished with an ERA less than 3.00 in 1919, 1920, and 1922. He was arguably among the five best pitchers in baseball in each of those years. Yet, he was never given serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. Shawkey was a good pitcher, but his credentials were not quite good enough for election to Cooperstown. Neither were those of Haines. His 1970 selection by the Veterans Committee was a mistake.
Eppa Rixey
Of his 21 major league seasons, lefthander Eppa Rixey spent eight with the Philadelphia Phillies and 13 with the Cincinnati Reds. Rixey’s best season for the Phillies was 1916 when he finished 22-10 with a 1.85 ERA. After being traded to Cincinnati prior to the 1921 season, he had three more 20-win seasons for the Reds. In 1922, he won 25 games while losing 13 and finishing with a 3.53 ERA and 26 complete games. The following year, he finished 20-15 with a 2.80 ERA and 23 complete games. Then, in 1925, he compiled a 21-11 record with a 2.88 ERA and 22 complete games. However, those were the only outstanding seasons Rixey ever had, and the only ones in which he would have been ranked among the top five National League pitchers.
In his eight seasons in Philadelphia, Rixey topped the .500-mark only twice, and he was a 20-game loser on two different occasions, finishing 16-21 in 1917 and 11-22 in 1920. While it is true that, in his years in Cincinnati, he was a 20-game winner three times and a 19-game winner two other times, he also lost 18 games twice, finished with a losing record three times, and finished no better than one game above .500 on four other occasions. Rixey did win 266 games during his career, but he also lost 251. He managed to lead National League pitchers in wins and shutouts one time each, but he never led in any other statistical category. Rixey had only five or six good seasons, and only two or three in which he could have been included among the best pitchers in baseball. His 1963 selection by the Veterans Committee was one of the most questionable ones ever made, and one of the most mystifying.
Rube Marquard
Just as mystifying as the selection of Rixey was that of lefthander Rube Marquard, who pitched for four different National League teams during his 18-year major league career.
With John McGraw’s New York Giants from 1908 to 1915, Marquard had several mediocre seasons, losing as many as 22 games in 1914. However, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball from 1911 to 1913, winning well over 20 games in each of those years. In 1911, he finished 24-7 with a 2.50 ERA and a league-leading 237 strikeouts. The following season, he led the league with 26 victories, against only 11 defeats, while compiling a 2.57 ERA. In 1913, he finished 23-10 with a 2.50 ERA. Marquard had two more good years with Brooklyn, finishing 13-6 with a 1.58 ERA in 1916, and going 19-12, while compiling a 2.55 ERA the following season. In all, he led N.L. pitchers in wins once, and in strikeouts once.
However, those three 20-win seasons with the Giants were the only Hall of Fame type seasons he ever had. Furthermore, those other two years with Brooklyn were the only other good ones he ever had. Five times during his career, as a regular member of his team’s pitching rotation, Marquard finished with a record below .500. He won as many as 14 games only five times, and he lost at least 14 games five times as well. Marquard’s career won-lost record of 201-177 and ERA of 3.08, pitching mostly in the Deadball Era, were far from spectacular, and he was a good pitcher for only five years. Even at his best, he was not the ace of his own team’s pitching staff, being ranked well behind teammate Christy Mathewson. In fact, he would have been hard-pressed to be ranked among the five best pitchers in baseball in any single season, since he would also have taken a backseat to the likes of Grover Cleveland Alexander, Walter Johnson, Eddie Plank, Ed Walsh, and Smokey Joe Wood at different times.
In short, Marquard was a very good pitcher for three years, and a good one for a few others. But at no time was he a great one, and his 1971 selection by the Veterans Committee was one of the poorest ones it has ever made.
Having reviewed the qualifications of all the current members of the Hall of Fame, let’s take a look ahead and see which players are looming as future inductees into baseball’s greatest shrine. As we have seen, there have been many players elected to Cooperstown in the past who were not truly deserving. No doubt, that trend will continue, and there will be others voted in who don’t really belong, thereby lowering the standards even further. The approach taken here, though, will be to acknowledge only those players who have established themselves as legitimate Hall of Famers by attaining a level of excellence during their careers not even approached by most of their contemporaries. Outstanding players who might perhaps qualify as borderline candidates will also be mentioned. However, too many such players have already been voted in, so it will not be possible, with a clear conscience, to endorse their elections. The criteria used for selecting these Future Hall of Famers will be the same ones used throughout this book. Therefore, the standards will be fairly high, and several players who many might consider to be legitimate candidates will probably be missing from the list.
These Future Hall of Famers can be divided into four groups. The first is comprised of those players who are either not yet eligible to be voted in since their playing careers ended within the last five years, or who recently became eligible for induction. The second consists of players who are still active, but who have already accomplished enough during their careers to merit induction, even if they were never to play another game. The third consists of players who have performed exceptionally well at the major-league level for an extended period of time, but who must accomplish more before they can be deemed worthy of induction into Cooperstown. The final group is comprised of players whose career accomplishments clearly make them legitimate Hall of Fame candidates, but whose names have been linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Thus, their status as Future Hall of Famers is somewhat tenuous, since, if guilty, the extent to which their career numbers may have been affected by the use of steroids must be factored into the equation.
Let’s take a look at these four groups of Future Hall of Famers
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RECENTLY RETIRED FUTURE HALL OF FAMERS
Roberto Alomar
Jeff Kent
Edgar Martinez
Jeff Bagwell
Mike Piazza
Greg Maddux
Roberto Alomar
For more than a decade, the finest all-around second baseman in baseball was Roberto Alomar. While playing for seven different teams, Alomar was also one of the best all-around players in the game in several of those seasons.
Alomar first established himself as the game’s premier second baseman with the San Diego Padres in the late 1980s. After being dealt to the Toronto Blue Jays, he quickly became one of the very best players in the American League. With Toronto in 1993, with Baltimore in 1996, and with Cleveland in 1999 and 2001, a case could be made for Alomar having been not only the best second baseman in baseball, but one of the top five all-around players in the game. Here are his numbers from those four seasons:
1993:
17 HR, 93 RBIs, .336 average, 109 runs scored
1996:
22 HR, 94 RBIs, .328 average, 132 runs scored
1999:
24 HR, 120 RBIs, .323 average, 138 runs scored
2001:
20 HR, 100 RBIs, .336 average, 113 runs scored
Those figures are quite impressive. However, the thing that truly set Alomar apart from other second basemen was his fielding ability. The winner of 10 Gold Gloves, Alomar’s career fielding percentage of .984 is the highest of any American League second baseman in history.
Alomar finished in the top five in the league MVP voting twice, and placed in the top ten another three times. He was selected to the All-Star team a total of 12 times. Alomar hit more than 20 homers three times, drove in more than 100 runs twice, scored more than 100 runs six times, batted over .300 nine times, and stole more than 30 bases eight times. Although the majority of baseball historians probably would not consider him as such, a valid case could be made for Alomar being one of the five or six greatest second basemen in baseball history. If not, he was certainly among the top ten. That, in itself, should be sufficient to earn him a place in Cooperstown, quite possibly in his first year of eligibility.
Jeff Kent
Jeff Kent was always just an average defensive second baseman, with limited range. He also was never particularly popular with most of his teammates. Of course, the same things could be said about Rogers Hornsby, the man considered by many to be the greatest second sacker in baseball history. However, another thing that Kent shared with Hornsby was a propensity for compiling huge offensive numbers. Indeed, not since Joe Gordon slugged home runs and drove in large numbers of runs for the Yankees from 1938 to 1942, did any second baseman put together a string of offensively productive seasons comparable to the one that Kent compiled for the San Francisco Giants from 1997 to 2002.
After five seasons with the Mets, Blue Jays, and Indians, Kent arrived in San Francisco in 1997 and immediately provided the Giants with the kind of offensive firepower rarely supplied by a second baseman. Over the next six seasons, he averaged 29 home runs, 115 runs batted in, and 95 runs scored, while batting over .300 twice. He was voted the National League’s MVP in 2000, one of three times he finished in the top ten in the balloting. That year, Kent hit 33 home runs, knocked in 125 runs, scored 114 others, and batted .334. Kent also had outstanding seasons for the Astros in 2003 and 2004, and for the Dodgers in 2005, averaging 26 home runs and 102 runs batted in those three seasons.
In all, Kent topped the 20-homer mark twelve times, surpassing 30 on three separate occasions. He also drove in more than 100 runs eight times and batted over .300 three times. Kent was selected to the All-Star Team five times, and he was the best second baseman in the National League in virtually every season from 1997 to 2002. Although Roberto Alomar was a better all-around player for most of their careers, Kent was arguably the better player, and the top second baseman in the game, in 1997, 1998, and 2000. With 377 career home runs, most of which came as a second baseman, Kent hit more homers than any other second sacker in baseball history. He also had 1,518 runs batted in and 1,320 runs scored, along with a lifetime batting average of .290—all extremely impressive numbers for a second baseman. Factoring into the equation Kent’s reputation for being just a mediocre fielder, those figures may not be good enough to get him elected to the Hall of Fame the first time his name appears on the ballot. But they should earn him admittance at some point during his period of eligibility.
Edgar Martinez
It is difficult to endorse the election of a player who was essentially one-dimensional, so much so that he was strictly a designated hitter for the better part of his career. However, the Seattle Mariners’ Edgar Martinez was just that good a hitter.
Originally a third baseman when he first came up to the majors in 1987, Martinez served almost exclusively as a DH, beginning in 1993. From that point on, though, he filled that role better than any other player ever has. During his career, Martinez batted over .300 ten times, topping .330 on four separate occasions. He hit more than 20 home runs eight times, drove in more than 100 runs six times, scored more than 100 runs five times, collected more than 40 doubles five times, and drew more than 100 walks four times.
Martinez won his first batting title in 1992, when he batted .343 for Seattle. He led the league again in 1995, when he batted .356 and hit 29 home runs, knocked in 113 runs, scored 121 others, and collected 52 doubles. His .356 average that year was the highest by a righthanded hitter in more than 40 years. Martinez’s most productive season, however, was the 2000 campaign. That year, he established career highs in home runs (37) and runs batted in (145), while batting .324.
Martinez led the American League in runs batted in once, batting average twice, doubles twice, runs scored once, and on-base percentage three times. He finished in the top ten in the league MVP voting twice, and was selected to the All-Star Team six times. He was one of the five best hitters in baseball in 1992, and from 1995 to 2000. In those seven seasons, he never batted below .322, while hitting more than 20 home runs six times and knocking in over 100 runs five times.
Martinez ended his career with 309 home runs, 1,261 runs batted in, 1,219 runs scored, 2,247 base hits, 514 doubles, a .312 lifetime batting average, and a career on-base percentage of .418. Those are, for the most part, borderline Hall of Fame type numbers. That fact, coupled with the one-dimensional nature of Martinez’s game, may cause many of the baseball writers to withhold their vote when he eventually becomes eligible for induction. Therefore, it will probably take Martinez several tries before he is finally admitted. But, in the end, his stature as one of the finest hitters of his generation should elevate him to his rightful place in Cooperstown.
Jeff Bagwell
One of the best-kept secrets in major league baseball for the longest time was the Houston Astros’ Jeff Bagwell. For 12 consecutive seasons, from 1993 to 2004, he hit at least 20 home runs, surpassing 30 homers in nine of those years, and topping the 40-mark three times. Bagwell also drove in more than 100 runs eight times, scored over 100 runs nine different times, batted over .300 six times, and drew more than 100 bases on balls seven times. In addition, he is the only first baseman in history to hit more than 30 home runs and steal more than 30 bases in the same season, accomplishing the feat in both 1997 and 1999.
Bagwell had his first truly dominant season during the strike-shortened 1994 campaign. In only 400 official at-bats that year, he hit 39 home runs, knocked in 116 runs, batted .368, and scored 104 runs, to earn N.L. MVP honors. With the possible exception of Frank Thomas, he was the best first baseman in baseball and the game’s most dominant hitter that year. Bagwell was also the league’s top first baseman, and one of the five or six best players in baseball, in both 1997 and 2000. In 1997, he finished with 43 home runs, 135 runs batted in, 109 runs scored, 127 bases on balls, 31 stolen bases, and a .286 batting average. In 2000, he hit 47 homers, knocked in 132 runs, scored 152 others, and batted .310. Although frequently overlooked, Bagwell was among the ten best players in baseball in seven of the eight seasons between 1994 and 2001, averaging 37 home runs, 120 RBIs, and 120 runs scored over that stretch. He led the National League in runs batted in once, runs scored three times, and bases on balls, doubles, and slugging percentage one time each.
Further evaluating the legitimacy of Bagwell’s Hall of Fame credentials, he was selected to the All-Star Team only four times— a relatively low number for a potential Hall of Famer. But, in addition to winning the MVP Award once, he finished in the top ten in the balloting five other times, placing in the top five a total of four times.
Bagwell ended his career with 449 home runs, 1,529 runs batted in, 1,517 runs scored, and a .297 batting average. While those are all outstanding numbers, considering the era during which he compiled them, some might feel they make Bagwell somewhat of a borderline Hall of Fame candidate. Furthermore, Bagwell had only seven or eight true Hall of Fame type seasons. Consider, though, that he posted exceptional on-base (.408) and slugging (.540) percentages over the course of his 15 big league seasons, was a consistently productive player for 12 consecutive years, and was both a good baserunner and a solid fielder, even winning a Gold Glove in 1994 for his outstanding defensive work at first base. Indeed, it could be argued that Bagwell was the finest all-around first baseman of his era, and one of the two or three best of the last 50 years. The members of the BBWAA should strongly consider those arguments when Bagwell’s name is added to the eligible list. Although it may take him a few tries to gain admittance, Bagwell should eventually be voted into Cooperstown.
Mike Piazza
Although Mike Piazza’s reputation as an all-around catcher suffered through the years because of his inability to throw out opposing baserunners, he more than compensated for that particular shortcoming by establishing himself as arguably the greatest hitting catcher in major league history.
A look at Piazza’s career numbers elicits the inevitable question: has there ever been a better hitting catcher to play in the major leagues? (We will exclude Josh Gibson from this debate). Piazza compiled 427 home runs during his career, and the 397 he hit as a catcher are the most by any receiver in history. He also places high on the all-time list of catchers in both runs batted in (1,335) and runs scored (1,048). Furthermore, his .308 career batting average places him third among receivers, behind only Mickey Cochrane (.320) and Bill Dickey (.313), neither of whom had nearly as much power as Piazza. Piazza’s career .377 on-base percentage also places him third on the all-time list, behind only Cochrane (.419), and Dickey (.382), and his .545 slugging percentage is 45 points higher than that of runner-up Roy Campanella. Thus, although it would be difficult to compare Piazza favorably to the likes of Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Bill Dickey, and Roy Campanella as an all-around receiver, a strong argument could be made that he is indeed the greatest hitting catcher of all-time.