Continuing our look at this year's Baseball Writers Association of America ballot, we'll take a look at the rest of the newcomers. Some of them probably have no business being here other than their automatic placement following five years' of retirement as players, but we'll look anyway.
And while we're at it, we'll lament further that, among the voting rules, the writers still can vote for only ten players each. That's just one of a couple of log-jamming factors that make every year's Hall of Fame voting more than a little on the tricksy side and still helps, too often, to keep those who belong absolutely to "waiting their turns."
Regardless, here are the newcomers. We'll begin with two players, one who's going to prove a sad near-miss and the other whose reputation isn't going to let him in for a long time despite his performance papers...
One Near Miss...
Carlos Delgado
By the Bill James Hall of Fame measurements — standards and monitor — Delgado misses a no-questions-asked Hall of Fame case by slivers.
He meets 44 of the Hall of Fame batting standards (the average Hall of Famer meets 50) and scores 110 on the James monitor. (The average Hall of Famer: 100). Two of his top 10 player comps (Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey) are Hall of Famers; one (Jeff Bagwell, Delgado's number four comp) should be; one (David Ortiz, his top comp) is making a case despite his DH status. He was also just the fourth man in major league history to hit 30+ home runs a season in 10 straight seasons.
Delgado had a very long and very shining run with the Blue Jays and the Mets, with a spell (sentence?) in Florida in between. He helped get the Mets to the 2006 National League Championship Series. But his hip finally put paid to his career at a time when a still-healthy Delgado might have produced two more seasons in which his Hall case would solidify further. (You know: that pesky 500 home run total, from which Delgado falls shy by a mere 27. All Delgado would have needed was two more seasons below his career averages — he averages 38 homers, 38 doubles, 120 RBI, and 317 total bases per 162 games — to lock his case down.)
The likely outcome — I don't see him as a one-and-done candidate, though I'm not sure I can predict for sure how many ballots he might survive. While I don't quite see him as a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer — the line at first base begins with Gil Hodges and Jeff Bagwell — Carlos Delgado was a great player.
What they won't forget, unfortunately — Delgado was brutalized in the public eye when he refused to stand during seventh-inning playings of "God Bless America" in 2004 in quiet protests of the Iraq war and occupation, but after he was dealt to the Mets he stood as a gesture of conciliation after having felt he'd made his point.
I never quite understood the hoopla. We weren't talking about the National Anthem, which "God Bless America" isn't. There are and have been far, far worse ways to protest a war and a dubious occupation than Delgado's choice. This wasn't exactly some outlying flag-burning radical we're talking about. He simply did it, explained it quietly, then was done with it when he felt his point had been made. You want to hang him for that? Think of the aforesaid worse ways. Then tell me Delgado was some sort of criminal.
Trivia: Delgado habitually kept running notebooks on league pitchers and their tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses and shared it only with teammates. At least 70 percent of the time, he knows what's coming. Guys loved it. It was a daily team thing. He'd say: "Hey, guys, I got him. Do you want him?" — Former Toronto teammate Homer Bush.
... And One Possible Controversy
Gary Sheffield
By the numbers, and strictly by the numbers, especially the counting stats, Sheffield is a a Hall of Famer if maybe not a first-ballot pick. He hit with breathtaking power, hit for average, reached base prolifically and proficiently, and was swift afoot when he got there even if the stolen base wasn't exactly a signature in his repertoire. It's everything else that's going to keep him from getting there right away, particularly his image.
Sheffield was a nine-time All Star whose 162-game average season looks like this: 103 runs scored, 105 runs batted in, 32 home runs, 29 doubles, .907 OPS. He hit 509 home runs lifetime; he's in the top 25 all-time in walks and runs created; he has the thirteenth-greatest power-speed combination in Show history; and, he's 16th all-time in win probability added.
Now, look at his offensive winning percentage: .687, putting him just inside the top one hundred of all time. That's not something to dismiss, but it tells you a little something. A guy this talented with his kind of performance papers should probably have pulled up far higher, particularly playing in a high offense era but also with his overall tools. Defensively he had a good throwing arm, but he wasn't the rangiest player of his time and he actually helped cost his teams a lot of runs in the field.
Sheffield played on several pennant contenders and won a World Series ring with the 1997 Marlins. His home runs may make you (and him) think he's a no-questions-asked Hall of Famer, but taken all around his paucity of black and gray (top-ten finishing) ink leaves him at pronounced tweener status.
Perhaps that ties into one of the two biggest problems Sheffield has. Rightly or wrongly, Sheffield's was the image of being mostly a one-for-one-and-all-for-Gary player, and it only began with his jarring confession that he tanked plays during his early Milwaukee seasons — after formerly suggesting the Brewers were racist for not playing him at shortstop.
That hurts Sheffield even deeper than his apparently peripheral involvement in the BALCO scandal does. (Oh, he was named in the Mitchell Report, but I'm not convinced entirely that Sheffield was one of the big enchiladas of the era of actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances.) But his other big problem has nothing to do with his attitude: He played too much of his career in terrible hitters' parks for his home parks.
Until he got to Atlanta he hadn't played in any home park favorable or at least not harmful to hitters. And he spent just about his entire career battling nagging injuries, which doesn't help in a less than favorable hitting environment as it is. If Sheffield's numbers suggest something less than a bona-fide Hall of Famer considering the high offense era in which he played most of his prime, you'd have to account for his home parks compromising him to a particular extent.
The likely outcome — Sheffield could survive on a few ballots. But he could end up having to wait for a future Veterans Committee arrangement if he's to be in at all.
The Rest of the Newcomers
* Rich Aurilia — Two homers each in each 2002 postseason series for the Giants, and a 6.7 wins above replacement (WAR) level 2001 season in which he also led the National League in hits are probably the highlights of his career. That's all, folks. Aurilia's one of those candidates who's there, most likely, because of his five-years-retirement eligibility; other than the 2001 season and the 2002 postseason, he's about as invisible as invisible gets, though he was a good player for a few seasons.
The likely outcome — Hello and goodbye in the same vote.
Trivia question — Name MLB's only husband-and-wife team to appear on a television soap opera together. Answer: Rich and Raquel Aurilia. They were jurors number 9 and 10 in a trial segment on General Hospital in 2003.
* Aaron Boone — A one-time all-star who had his career-high WAR the following season — in which he just so happened to win a Yankee pennant with a stupefying first-pitch, leadoff bomb off Tim Wakefield in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. Then he tore an ACL playing pickup basketball over the offseason and compelled the Yankees to deal for Alex Rodriguez for third base.
He missed 2004 entirely then became a journeyman for five seasons, enjoyed a brief comeback from aortic valve replacement, and was gone for good. But he'll always have that pennant sailing into the seats off the barrel of his bat.
The likely outcome — He wasn't a Hall of Famer in the best season of his life.
What they won't forget — If you have to ask, you weren't there.
* Tony Clark — This is now: he's the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players' Association, having succeeded the sadly ill-fated Michael Weiner. That was then: for his first four full seasons, Clark resembled almost a stereotypical power-hitting first baseman, until back problems gradually sapped his power and turned him into a part-time journeyman for a very long time. Had one unlikely comeback season in 2005. (1.002 OPS in 393 plate appearances — as a part-timer).
The likely outcome — One and done, probably. He wasn't even close to a Hall of Famer when it all shook out, though there was a brief time when he looked like one in the distant making.
* Jermaine Dye — A few healthier seasons more than he actually had might have gotten Dye knocking on the door. He was a talented player who often flashed Hall of Fame ability — his 2005 World Series MVP should testify to that, especially, as should his two all-star seasons and maybe two others — but his defensive decline as he aged also hurt him a lot more deeply than was thought in the time and place.
The likely outcome — Possibly one and done, though he might — might — pick up just enough votes to linger another year.
* Darin Erstad — The Butch Hobson of his generation with a little less long ball power. Just like Hobson, Erstad took a football mentality into baseball (he'd been a punter on the University of Nebraska's 2004 national champion, in fact) and played just about every inning not like it was bases loaded and two out in the ninth but like it was fourth and goal against a goal line stand with one second left in the game.
The Angels actually traded J.T. Snow to make room for the oncoming Erstad on the grounds that Erstad had the hard-nosed approach they thought Snow lacked. So how come — Erstad's now-flukish 2000 monster season aside — the Giants ended up getting a lot more production for a lot longer time out of Snow than the Angels got out of Erstad, reputedly the soul of their team? (If we have an out, we have a chance was Erstad's once-famous watchword.)
The likely outcome — One and done. But they still love him to death in Anaheim.
What they won't forget — Either his Series-winning catch of Kenny Lofton's fly, or his plowing catcher Johnny Estrada at the plate to score a go-ahead run against the Braves in a 2005 interleague game — for which they probably still hate his guts in Atlanta.
I'm not entirely sure, but Erstad, too, may have started the contemporary tradition of longtime players taking out thank-you ads in the local papers after leaving a team, as he did after 2006. It was a photograph of Erstad going headfirst into a base, inscribed, "Thanks for the ride!" There's something admirable about starting something like that.
* Cliff Floyd — There were times when it seemed the only region of Floyd's body that wasn't sending him to the disabled list was his face. He wasn't the bull-headed type that Erstad was, but he was one of the most talented players of his generation and had breathtaking power, and was often considered one of those quiet but firm clubhouse leaders, but you can only guess at what Floyd's final performance papers would have been if he could have stayed healthy.
The likely outcome — One and done.
What they won't forget — Floyd catching the division-clinching out for the 2006 Mets.
* Nomar Garciaparra — Do you remember when they talked about Nomah in the same paragraphs as Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez as the three premier shortstops in baseball? I do. It wasn't just talk. Time was when Garciaparra was one of those three premier shortstops. And it's those great Boston seasons that ensured him pulling up in the end just short of a Hall of Famer. Like Carlos Delgado, another one or two fully healthy seasons might have pushed him across the line. Might.
Garciaparra's image took something of an unfair beating in 2003-2004, when the Theo Epstein regime in Boston looked actively to trade him, after trying (and failing) to get Alex Rodriguez, enraging Garciaparra to the point where he let it be known he wasn't even going to think about returning to the Red Sox after his 2004 walk year.
The Red Sox finally traded him to the Cubs in June of that year, meaning Nomah would miss out on the Red Sox's at-long-enough-last return to the Promised Land. (They were still classy enough to measure him for a ring, likely in honor of what he'd meant to the franchise for long enough.)
Garciaparra had an injury-compromised stay with the Cubs before making a respectable comeback with the Dodgers in 2006. (His first at-bat against former teammate Pedro Martinez, by then a Met: a two-run homer.) It was downhill and out from there. He eventually signed a one-day deal with the Red Sox to retire as one of the Olde Towne Team.
The likely outcome — Not quite one and done, but I can't see him as an eventual Hall of Famer, either. He might linger on another three ballots. Might.
What they'll never forget — Garciaparra's two game-winning homers in 2006. On 18 September, his two-run blast in the 10th won a game the Dodgers sent to extra innings in the first place in the ninth with four straight home runs. In order, Jeff Kent, J.D. Drew, Russell Martin, and Marlon Anderson were the bombardiers. (Martin and Anderson whacked theirs off closer extraordinaire Trevor Hoffman.) Six days later, Garciaparra won a game with a grand slam.
* Brian Giles — A very good player for a long enough time, but that isn't quite enough. His .450 on base percentage in 2002 was the second best mark in the majors that season.
The likely outcome — Maybe another year on the ballot. Maybe.
What they won't forget, unfortunately — The lawsuit his former girlfriend slapped him with claiming abuse that cause her miscarriage. The miscarriage charge was dropped before trial; a jury found the couple had both abused each other.
* Tom Gordon — If there's a place in the Hall of Fame set aside for players who become subjects of Stephen King novels, Flash would be a first-ballot precedent setter. He's also made 150 starts and saved 150 games, and he was good enough to make a 21-season career, but he wasn't anywhere near the neighborhood of Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz despite his once-monster curve ball.
The likely outcome — One and done, perhaps.
What they won't forget — See Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.
* Eddie Guardado — They didn't call him Everyday Eddie because he was particularly fragile. He had two seasons in which he led the American League in saves and finished second, respectably, setting him up for a big payday in which he made clear he'd pitch in whatever role his team asked of him. Which proved to be mostly as a setup man and a good one.
Had he not shredded his rotator cuff and later needed Tommy John surgery, Guardado might have hung up a career to inspire a solid debate on just how and where guys who close and set up at the top of the line fit in Cooperstown. Unfortunately, that debate will have to wait.
The likely outcome — Probably one and done. And the guy probably deserves better.
* Troy Percival — For his first nine seasons in the role, Percival saved more games than anyone other than Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera. He crowned it with nailing the final out (caught by Darin Erstad, see above) of the 2002 World Series.
With Francisco Rodriguez waiting obviously in the wings starting in the 2002 postseason, Percival was allowed to leave as a free agent in 2004, after he graciously made a show of all but handing the baton to K-Rod. The problem was, Percival was a hard worker on the mound and it finally caught up to him: no sooner did he put on a Tiger uniform than a partially torn flexor pronator mass took him out for half of 2005 and all of 2006.
He had an unlikely comeback on the Rays' 2008 pennant winner, but that was a last hurrah. His back finished what the pronator mass started.
The likely outcome — One and done. Applied to a pitcher who once looked like his Hall of Fame ticket was being printed, that's sad.
What they won't forget — That image of Percival thrusting his arms skyward as he arched backward in triumph seconds before his teammates mobbed and buried him on the mound to end the 2002 Series. Angel fans won't forget for generations to come.
* Jason Schmidt — From 2002-04, Schmidt was one of the best in the business and often seen as a Cy Young candidate. (He finished second in 2003.) It's the 12 years surrounding those three that kill him. Promising and fading too often, then his health betrayed him for keeps. Hindsight: Schmidt actually looked better than he really was in 2002-04, especially being one of the keys to the Giants' 2002 pennant winner.
The likely outcome — One and done.
What they won't forget, unfortunately — The free agency deal Schmidt signed with the Dodgers, following which he spent 553 on the disabled list and needed two surgeries. The Dodgers tried to fight their insurance company over a payout but it turned out they knew Schmidt had a partial rotator cuff tear when he signed the deal. Oops!
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