by Jeff FletcherFiled under: Astros, MLB Hall of Fame
Over the next four days, MLB FanHouse's Hall of Fame voters will break down the particulars of select players up for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2011. The results of the balloting will be made public on Jan. 5.
As a relatively new Hall of Fame voter -- this will be my fifth year with a ballot -- I still struggle with peer pressure. Yeah, I know it's wrong. Can't help it. Thing is, the pressure comes from both sides. There are my fellow baseball writers, many of whom have very high, and often vague, standards. ("If I have to do research to see if he's a Hall of Famer, he's not.") And then there are millions of people out in the web-o-sphere applying cold, hard, numerical standards.
Often, the two sides don't agree.
Which brings me to Jeff Bagwell, who seems to have set up camp right in the middle.
Applying the eyeball test to Bagwell, which is usually all I do with players before it's actually decision time, my instinct was that he was not a Hall of Famer. I don't remember at any time through Bagwell's career thinking that this was a guy who deserved to be enshrined with the likes of Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. (I sometimes wish there were a wing of the Hall of Fame to separate the legends from those who "meet the statistical standards," but that's another story.)
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
Source: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/12/20/jeff-bagwell-an-unexpected-yes-for-hall/
No comments:
Post a Comment