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| Friday, April 19 Updated: April 20, 10:00 PM ET Bagwell builds Hall of Fame case By Joe Sheehan Special to ESPN.com |
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We're at the tail end of a great era for first basemen. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a crop of first sackers came into the game and played at an exceptionally high level for a long time. Their stellar play coincided with a rise in offensive levels in the 1990s, so as these players reach their past-peak seasons, their career numbers are making a strong case for them as Hall of Famers, given historical standards for that honor. The debates are already beginning for some of these guys. Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff are making late charges at 500 home runs, and have continued to hit well deep into the nominal decline phase of their careers. Mark Grace and Don Mattingly have people pushing HoF cases. Before the decade is over, Jim Thome, Frank Thomas, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton and Carlos Delgado are going to squeeze their way into these arguments.
One player about whom there should be little disagreement is Jeff Bagwell. While his career totals aren't up there with those of Palmeiro or McGriff just yet -- he's three and four years younger than those guys, respectively -- he's been consistently excellent for 11 seasons now. Bagwell had an amazing offensive peak (topped by his MVP season in 1994), played Gold Glove-caliber defense for a few years in the mid-'90s, and had speed that is well above average for his position. Just based on rate stats, Bagwell is one of the 50 greatest hitters ever. Coming into 2002, his career .415 OBP and .554 slugging average are each among the top 30 ever, and his career 969 OPS and 157 adjusted OPS are among the top 20 ever. While he's played in an era of high offense, Bagwell also spent the majority of that time in one of the great pitchers' parks in MLB history, the Astrodome. His ability to hit for average and power in that environment was simply amazing. Taking a look at some of the measures of a career we use to determine Hall of Fame worthiness -- thanks to the tremendous baseball-reference.com -- we see that Bagwell compares well to players already enshrined in Cooperstown:
Now, these tools aren't adjusted for position, so it's fair to mark Bagwell down for being a first baseman. Nevertheless, he isn't a borderline Hall of Famer by any of these measures: he's well inside the ropes by all of them, and he's still just 34 years old. Another way of judging a player's worthiness is by using similarity scores to see who his career matches statistically:
1. Frank Thomas (917) The presence of Thomas at the top of the list is eerie, because the two players' careers parallel in many ways. Each was the premier first baseman in his league in the 1990s, each had a ridiculous .350/.450/.700 peak in 1994, each winning the MVP in that strike-shortened season. Neither has ever been on a team that won a postseason series (more on that later). Oh, and they were both born on the same day: May 27, 1968. And just where is Rod Serling these days? The rest of Bagwell's list includes two Hall of Famers Mize and Greenberg) and a handful of guys who already are (Allen) or who are destined to be (Martinez, Gonzalez) part of HoF arguments. This list is a considerable point in Bagwell's favor. Of course, Bagwell is still playing at a high level and racking up numbers. If we just look at players through age 33, who are Bagwell's comps?
1. Frank Thomas (917) Even better. Still just two Hall of Famers, but Thomas, Murray and Bonds are all in, Allen and Belle show up again, as well as the two contemporaries of Bagwell we discussed earlier. Again, this list bodes well for Bagwell; he doesn't even need to have the late-career kick that Bonds, Palmeiro, and McGriff have had to be a contender. As long as he avoids the Belle or Jim Rice career paths, he should be a shoo-in. Bagwell's numbers make him a Hall of Famer, but don't entirely define his career. As mentioned, he won an MVP in 1994 (one, it should be mentioned, that he would not have win without the strike; he was out for the season with a broken hand), and he was a Gold Glover that season as well. He won the NL Rookie of the Year Award in 1991. If you take put Bagwell through the "Keltner List" -- a series of 15 questions designed by Bill James to frame a player's career -- he stands up well, as he was an MVP, a candidate in many other seasons, performed well in pennant races, was at time the best first baseman in the league, and was the best player on contending teams for many seasons. The one negative issue that is always going to come up with Bagwell is his postseason performance. As mentioned, his Astros have never won a postseason series (in four tries) and his work in those series has been lousy: .174/.345/.174, with no extra-base hits in 46 at-bats. There are some who want to blame him for the Astros' inability to get out of the first round, even though his teammates have been equally inept and the Astros have repeatedly faced the best pitchers of his era in those games. My feeling is that no player has ever been excluded from Cooperstown for what he did in the postseason. There are players whose postseason heroics have added to a Hall of Fame case, or put them over the top, but never has an otherwise qualified player been left out because of a few at-bats in October. Bagwell isn't going to be the first, nor should he be. There are a lot of great first basemen building Hall of Fame cases, but the line begins with two guys who share a birthday and an MVP season. Frank Thomas is in, and Jeff Bagwell is right behind him. You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus (tm) at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com. |
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