[hijack]The latter don’t show the pattern the former do: a sudden increase in power until they stopped using and then they fell off the table. If I were a voter, I’d make an exception for Bonds anyway. He was a Hall of Famer before he ever put the first needle into his butt.[/hijack]
Thome? I think he’ll make it around year 4-6 of his eligibility. He’ll be one of those that gets like 50% the first time out, and gradually creeps up in the voting.
Hall voters award stat accumulators even if they are nowhere near great. Like Robin Yount and his career OBP of .342. Thome was just fortunate that he stayed healthy because if he lasted 15 years and only managed 450 homers, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
In fairness, McGwire’s power never fell off the table at all. In his last season he hit 29 homers in 299 at bats. But his injuries made him immobile and he was in pain all the time, and as he’d always battled injuries and was not exactly the most graceful man to ever play ball, I don’t see any reason to blame steroids for his injuries.
If anything I suspect steroids are what allowed McGwire to resume his career after 1993-1994.
I also don’t see where Bonds or A-Rod fell off the table. When did A-Rod stop using, anyway? How can you tell based on his homer totals? Bonds in his last year hit 28 homers in 340 at bats.
29 to 0 is a pretty good falling off the table. From 32 from 65, from 70.
I’ll admit I’m wrong on Rodriguez. That pattern is not there.
But why are you focusing on the last years? Bonds went from 28 to 0. He hit 73 at age 36 when he’d never hit more than 49 before, which was in the preceeding year.
I can’t tell if you’re serious. You’re asserting that we should count a guy as having zero home runs in a season after he stopped playing? Um, wouldn’t that mean all baseball players ever had a precipitous dropoff at the end of their careers?
There’s no “Fall off the table” for Bonds that there isn’t for Thome, nor is there for McGwire; Bonds and McGwire remained dangerous home run hitters right to the end. No, they didn’t have their peak season every year, but nobody else does either, so what “pattern” are they demonstrating?
If a team felt that they were still worth playing, they would have been signed. You can’t use their last seasons to prove that they were still solid players. It’s readily apparent that despite the number of home runs Bonds, or McGwire, or–hell–Dave Kingman hit in their final major league season, no major league baseball team felt that they were worth signing for another season. If that’s not falling off the table, what is?
They wanted too damn much money to hang on another year or two.
Frank, honestly, I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. You’re saying that being a solid player in a guy’s LAST SEASON is* not *evidence he was still a solid player at the end of his career?
Er… then what would be? Playing endlessly?
By the way, McGwire retired voluntary. Bonds was blacklisted; he was not avoided for a lack of ability. But that’s irrelevant; even if they wanted to keep playing, it doesn’t demonstrate that they weren’t able to hit home runs.
Logically, your original assertion that some players showed a “Fall off the table” pattern and some did not must be false, because all players eventually stop playing. There’s always a year after their last year when they hit zero home runs. Did Hank Aaron demonstrate this steroids pattern?
Except for players who have not yet retired, what players don’t exhibit this alleged pattern?