Biggio kept playing well past his prime, though. In his peak years, you see OPS+ totals in the 130s and 140s. By comparison I think Delgado fell off a cliff.
While you can play all kinds of games with counting stats, this also means he was a good player for longer than they were.
He had 3,000 hits, kept the Astros offense going, and was one of the great doubles hitters. And succeeding at 3 positions is pretty unusual.
Seriously? I will hope that my grandchildren will be smart enough to realize that a good hitter at C/2B/CF is way more valuable than one at 1B or corner outfield.
Hell, just playing C as well as another premium fielding position is a story worth telling, way more than yet another juicing slugger playing the corners.
Biggio was a catcher and then a second baseman. I’m not even sure what Sheffield was, and Delgado was a bad first baseman. I mean ,that’s all the difference in the world. You don’t see people comparing Ozzie Smith’s OPS to Ralph Kiner’s.
I watched Delgado play for many years, I’m a Jays fan. He was an excellent, exciting power hitter, and he wasn’t a Hall of Famer. His career WAR is exactly what I suspected it would be. He was basically the same player as Boog Powell.
What would you tell your kids at Carlos Delgado’s plaque? “He was a big guy who hit a lot of home runs.” Well, so was Fred McGriff. Delgado wasn’t the second-best first baseman the Blue Jays came up with during their good run. The problem with Delgado is that lots of guys in the same era played first base or left field and had some flashy power numbers; how can you tell him apart from Jason Giambi or Jeff Bagwell or McGriff or Paul Konerko? If Delgado had been a Hall of Famer he’d have stood out, but he didn’t. He made just two All Star games, because there was always better first basemen.
But who was like Craig Biggio? I can’t think of anyone.
My guess is, taking into account the numbers they’re getting now, the only way either of them gets in is through the veterans’ committee.
Side question: what’s the lowest percentage of votes ever received by someone who would later be voted in by the writers?
I linked here a few pages back, which has a fun little chart, if a little hard to use. The text paragraphs below it have some links to specialized queries you can do on it, including The Climbers, players who started with less than 20% of the vote but were eventually elected. The green dots were voted in by the writers.
Here’s an interesting article on guys who received a single vote at some point, but went on to enshrinement. It’s interesting - back in the day, players were eligible even during their careers (which explains some of the weirdness on that chart).
True about Delgado, and for the reasons you give, I won’t support him, but he’s fun to think about. And I do believe Biggio got one of my ten votes in this poll, although he was down at the bottom and may have gotten crowed out (and that’s with Clemens and Bonds on my wait list.)
Biggio in the HOF, is akin to my having my own personal Food HOF, and deciding that Bread deserves to be in. Not very exciting food, but I use bread in the morning for toast, at lunch for a sandwich, and enjoy garlic bread with pasta. Delgado is Shrimp Fra Diavolo, which leaves a much stronger impression than bread but gets left out of my Food Hall of Fame.
If no one has said it, Bellhorn, I will. Welcome to the board.
Thanks Munch. Maybe you’ll help me out with preparing my case for the veterans’ committee to right the BBWAA omission and put Mark Bellhorn in the HOF. One of only 4(?) players to homer in 3 straight playoff games, and, one of only two players in MLB history to homer from both sides of the plate in the same inning!:rolleyes:
The articles says he didn’t sell his vote.
It is not mentioned in the article, but, as far as I can tell from all the stuff I have read on this, the deal Deadspin made was for money to change hands in exchange for Le Batard’s vote (it was a charitable donation to a cause of his choice). I haven’t seen anything to deny that. Le Batard’s tweet on the matter is that the deal was that “I NOT get anything” which doesn’t preclude a charitable donation being made on his behalf. Agreed that Deadspin themselves have not been clear on the follow up on this though.
For what it is worth, I don’t have a problem with this action and think his reasons to be solid and valid. The well informed fan does know as much, if not more than, many sports writers, particularly in baseball where there is now a nearly 30 year history of amateurs writing and thinking about the game in ways that would likely never have been done by sports writers themselves. Whether Deadspin was a viable avenue for those fans to vote on how the Le Batard vote should have been used is an open question, but their ballot looks a lot more solid to me than some of those that have been revealed by other writers.
The reaction from other writers that I have seen, in the main, merely supports one of Le Batard’s contentions, that sports writers think far too highly of themselves. It is really easy to see this as some sort of self aggrandisement on his part, but I honestly don’t think that was his intention. As I said, I find his statement on this solid, well thought through at least.
As a Braves fan, I’m thrilled to see Maddox and Glavine in. Bobby Cox will be inducted as well. Shame that Biggio missed by two votes. He should have been a first ballot, IMHO.
Just for the heck of it —> Chicks dig the long ball.
If LeBatard’s ballot contained a bunch of joke nominees, there’d be good reason to strip his vote. But as it is, the Deadspin voters picked 10 perfectly good candidates.
Where’s the problem?
I was one of the ones who didn’t vote for Glavine; I’d have him in but for the 10-person limit (he’s probably 12th or so for me). Probably the fourth best pitcher on the ballot this year after Maddux, Schilling, and Mussina. I’m happy he made it in, of course - both because he deserves it and to get the ballot that much cleaner - but him getting 92% and Schilling/Mussina both being in the 20s is yet more evidence of the Power of the Narrative over the voters.
Oh, and bravo Le Batard.
Overall, good choices. I had Maddux and Schilling ahead of Glavine, with Mussina in the 4th spot. Fit them all in, only because I have Bonds & Clemens on a wait-and-see-list.
And screw Le Batard. I read that BS he wrote at Deadspin, but the only reason he sold/donated his ballot to them was to get some attention for his crappy show. As he mentioned in his note, he was afraid that the snarky Deadspin fans might end up voting for Jacques Jones and no one else, so he clearly didn’t give a damn about the integrity of the vote (how would you feel if that was the ballot and Biggio missed by 1 vote?) I hope the BBWAA strips him of his vote and gives Bob Gurnick two! (okay, not really that last part)
Which is a damned shame. Repeat after me very very slowly: 3000 hits 500 home runs. Yes, I know he wasn’t in the same class of hitter as Hurt, but in what sane universe is a guy with those milestones not only denied induction but denied a chance to build his case for the next 13 elections? It’s the falling off the ballot part which I find utterly incomprehensible, even if I fully grasp the math behind the ballot limit. And I await more info on false positives from my GQ thread, but if the only reason he’s now out is because he failed a flawed test, that would indeed be tragic. 
:mad:
I predict that Piazza and/or Bags (suspects in the pin the blame on the steroid donkey game) will cause a slowly-building sea change in voting patterns that will see those other two get in c. 10 years from now.
The BBWAA has taken away his Hall of Fame vote for life, and barred him from attending games as credentialed media for a year.
Phew. For a minute I was worried they might end up looking silly!
The Power of the Narrative elevated a meek, consistent pitcher who spent most of his career in Atlanta over the media darling, Saint Bloody Sock, who won a World Series with the ESPN Red Sox?
The story of Maddux and Glavine going in together is a pretty good one - that almost never happens. But there are plenty of other reasons voters might’ve preferred Glavine to Schilling and Mussina, like the 300 wins and Cy Young awards.
The Power of the Narrative? Glavine got in due to reaching a MAGIC NUMBER. I’m not even sure what “Narrative” you’re referring to.