I saw an article recently where it said that guys like Fred McGriff, Carlos Delgado, Chipper Jones, Jeff Bagwell & Vladimir Guerrero could possibly suffer from playing during the PED era. Sought of "Guilty by association". which would be a shame since many of there numbers either match up or exceed previous members in the HOF like, Willie Stargel, Andre Dawson, Billy Williams, Orlando Cepeda, Tony Perez, Jim Rice & a few others. What do you guys think?
McGriff Definitely has HOF numbers & only 7 HRs shy of 500, as does IMO, Bagwell, Delgado & Guerrero. And for the life of me I'll never understand why no one gave Delgado (only 17 seasons, 37 yrs old) & only a year removed from 38/115/271 a chance to reach 500 HRS or Vladimir Guererro (only 16 seasons, 36 years old) & only a year removed from 29/115/300 a fair shot at 500 HRs. These guys numbers literally dwarf the career numbers of Rice, Cepeda & Perez.
It's going to be years before we see another player reach 500 HRs. The only 400 HR hitters in the game today are 36 year old Adrian Beltre (413) & 32 year old Miquel Cabrera (408).
When Beltre hit 48 HR's leading MLB in 04, after a dismal 23 HR's in 03, He was juicing then, and I doubt we will ever see Adrian in the HOF due to his use of Roids, he sort of left town in a hurry. Miggy, I have no doubt will hit the 500+ mark, and reach the HOF easily... I'd love to see the "Crime Dog" enter the Hall. I remember reading an article in SI, long time ago, when Fred was in the Yanks Farm System, and taking batting practice in YS. The article stated, "everyone in the ballpark, (all Yankee personnel); stopped what they were doing, and watched in awe, as Fred hit one Upper Decker after another". I may be mistaken, but I do believe McGriff hit one or two totally over the UD in that BP..... If there is no evidence, only hearsay, I don't believe in Crime by Association, unless its a literal crime, like harboring a fugitive.... Bagwell has that air surrounding him, (ie Roid use), yet I'm still to hear where the evidence or failed tests are. Like Andrew Jones, playing like Willie Mays both offensively and defensively, then falls off at the age of 31 like he's 45 yrs old. I had read an article I should of posted on "suspicions on A. Jones use of Roids" ....? As for Chipper, I think he's in...... I wonder about Pettitte though. I'd honestly like to see a new stance out of MLB, which would let Andy in, ie, I believe in a decade or less, we might see MLB loosen up its stance on certain steroids, which have been used post surgery, and ordered for betterment of such surgeries.... BUT, I don't want honest medical use to become mixed up with/or to integrate with issues of: "Cheaters", an honest approach, I believe Andy may fall victim too........or so I'd like to believe. Surgeon ordered used of Corticosteroid, and Glucocorticoid post Operation IMO, should not be an issue in any sport; and We once again need our resident Chemist, Tote's opinion, and insights on this issue..... Rick: I'll check my PC's "History" File and see if I can't find that article on A. Jones, its rather interesting IMO...
Rob I agree on McGriff, Chipper & Bagwell & also believe that eventually all three will get in & deservingly so. I also think that both Delgado & Vlad will & should get in also as both would have easily reached the 500 HR mark had someone given them another chance to play & should have IMO.
Yes, I am a bit surprised both Carlos and Vlad are not getting any (what appears like) serious considerations, and I'm not sure why; I've never known or heard of either as a Roid user. Here's two articles I was talking about earlier, and both point to suspicions of Roid use, with no proof, yet one makes a pretty compelling, or otherwise interesting correlation with or without Roids....? Rick, here's the two articles I was referring to on Andruw Jones: Sometimes certain things can seem so obvious that we don't think they even need to be said, or, for that matter, justified. In the most recent Bleacher Report Featured Columnists Poll, the Bleacher Report Featured Columnists for baseball were asked to weigh in on the chances of certain current players for the Hall of Fame. I participated in this poll and voted against the induction of Andruw Jones without giving it much thought. Reading the article, and its comments after the results of the poll were published, I was kind of surprised to find that most people's opinions of Jones and his credentials for the Hall centered around the value of his once-in-a-lifetime defense in center field and deceptively low-value offensive contributions compared to the brevity of his career. The reason I was kind of surprised was that it quickly became apparent to me that I have been making an assumption about Jones all this time that no one seems to share. It seems pretty clear to me that Jones absolutely must have been using performance enhancing drugs during the course of his career. Am I really the only person who thinks this? First, consider the timing of Jones' career. He debuted in 1996 and played his first full season in 1997. The year he debuted was the year that we all now know Ken Caminiti won the NL MVP while using steroids, and that we all assume Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs while using steroids. His rookie year came one year before Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa "saved baseball" by chasing Roger Maris' single season home run record. We now know McGwire was using steroids at the time, and we assume Sosa was. Suffice it to say, Jones came of age during the absolute peak of the steroid/performance enhancing drug era. In that sense alone, "guilt by association" is enough to at least start the conversation. Second, let's look at his offensive performance over the years. When Jones debuted with the Atlanta Braves in 1996, he hit five home runs and stole three bases in 31 games at the age of 19-years-old. Over the next four seasons, he would average 28 home runs and 23 stolen bases each year. By the age of 23, he had 116 home runs and 95 stolen bases, and looked to be on pace to become one of the greatest power/speed combinations of all time. But then something odd happened. In 2001, at the age of 24, he stole only 11 bases while hitting 34 home runs. Then, at the age of 25, he stole only eight bases while hitting 35 home runs. By the age of 26—by no means old and at a point where most players are only entering their prime—Jones had completely lost the speed element of his game and become exclusively a power hitter. From the age of 25 to 27, Jones hit 100 home runs and stole 18 bases. A transformation had taken place. The transformation continued over the next two years. In 2005, the 28-year-old Jones had his career year, hitting 51 home runs to lead the NL, along with a league leading 128 RBI. In 2006, Jones hit 41 more home runs, for a two year total of 92, and drove in 129 RBI. At the same time, he almost completely stopped stealing bases, amassing only nine over two years. Jones showed the same metamorphosis from a player with good power and good speed to a player with great power and no speed that we have come to associate with steroids: Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Brady Anderson, and Sammy Sosa At the same time, though, relying on such evidence as the increase in home runs and the decrease in stolen bases is, of course, ludicrously circumstantial and nearly disingenuous. And were his home runs and stolen base numbers the only numbers of his to draw conclusions from, this would be a silly exercise. But there is one other factor that, to me, points inexorably towards Jones having used steroids: the fact that he fell off the cliff at the age of 30. In 2007, coming off a two year stretch in which he had 92 home runs, 257 RBI, 202 runs scored, and 637 total bases, Jones simply stopped producing. At 30 years of age, one of the most dynamic players in baseball, one of the best athletes of the previous 10 years, suddenly looked like he was 40-years-old. In that 2007 season, Jones' numbers fell across the board. Sure, some of these declines were subtle; he still hit 26 home runs and finished with 94 RBI and 83 runs scored. He still took 70 walks and hit 27 doubles. But let's go deeper. From 1998 to 2006, Jones' WAR dropped below 4.8 only once, and for the most part, it stayed in the 5-to-7 range. In 2007, it was 1.5. In 1997, Jones posted a 93 OPS+, but after that season it dropped below 110 only once, and his OPS+ in 2005 and 2006 were the best and third best of his career. In 2007, his OPS+ was 87. Jones had never been a great hitter, but his lifetime average through 2006 was .267, and from 2004 to 2006 he hit .261, .263, and .262. In 2007 he hit .222. Again, all of this is circumstantial; 2007 could have just been an injury year. Except he hasn't been back. Over the last three years Jones has been a part time player when he's played at all. He hit .158 in 75 games for the Dodgers in 2008. He hit .214 with 17 home runs playing for the Rangers in 2009—in a ballpark where anybody can hit home runs. This year he is hitting .201 with 15 home runs in another home run friendly park with the White Sox. More importantly, Jones can't field any more either. At one point considered one of the greatest defensive center fielders of all time, Jones hasn't been suitable to play center since 2008, when he played 66 miserable games there. In 2009, he DH'ed for 53 of the 82 games he played, and in 2010 he has played most of his games in right field. And remember to keep this in mind, as Jones has faded into the twilight of his career over the last three seasons, he has been 31, 32, and 33 years old. This is precisely the type of career arc we saw from guys like Anderson, Caminiti, and Juan Gonzalez. Guys we either know or assume used steroids. Frankly, watching a limber, athletic, once-in-a-lifetime talent turn into a bloated, oafish, lumbering player with no apparent skills at the age of 30, when most players are in their prime, leads me directly to the following conclusion: Frankly, watching a limber, athletic, once-in-a-lifetime talent turn into a bloated, oafish, lumbering player with no apparent skills at the age of 30, when most players are in their prime, leads me directly to the following conclusion: And there is no way a player like Jones gets into the Hall of Fame. Frankly, I'm just surprised it had to be said. From: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...ndruw-jones-obviously-a-steroids-user-or-what
I don’t think Andruw Jones should be elected to the Hall of Fame. He will be eligible for inclusion on the BBWAA’s 2017 Hall ballot. With near blindingly brilliant stretches in a career spanning 17 seasons, The Curacao Kid still remains a borderline case at best. I can afford him approbation, but without scraping sycophancy. From 1997 to 2001, Andruw Jones was the gold standard for center fielders. It seemed as if no ball was out of reach, persuading fans watching SportsCenter that he made plays this awesome every game. He won a Gold Glove the last four straight years of that span (and six more straight after that, too). Jones amassed nearly 100 Fielding Runs Above Average* in that span. That included an insane, maybe even unbelievable, 39.0 FRAA in 1999. Even the old “eye test” came back with glowing reviews of his naturally lithe and expansive range in center. He was an absolute joy to watch, and was most certainly a good friend to all those studly starters the Braves had back then. Oh yeah, and he could hit, too. Now, he wasn’t as elite as Ken Griffey, Jr. with the stick in his hands, but he was a top of the line talent. A career OPS of .823 is nothing to sneeze at. Eighty four points higher and he’d be Griffey. Hey, how about you tack on 434 career homers while you’re at it, Mr. Jones. In the 1996 World Series, he decided to introduce himself to the baseball world outside of Atlanta by homering in his first two at-bats. I guess he can garner some style points for that. However, it is when you start to dig deeper into his career numbers that Jones appears to be destined only to get into the Hall as a ticket-purchasing visitor. Those 434 bombs leave him shy of the magical plateau of 500 career home runs, a number that may mean less and less as time marches forward. And while we can all agree that batting average isn’t what it used to be as a measuring stick, a career average of .254 is pretty poor for a player to get his mug Han Solo-ed and put up on the wall in Cooperstown. And what about that career .823 OPS? Sure, I said it wasn’t anything to sneeze at. It isn’t, but there are only five Hall of Fame center fielders with a lower career OPS than Jones. That group includes Max Carey, Lloyd Waner, Richie Ashburn, Edd Roush, and Andre Dawson. Let’s throw out the first four, since they aren’t contemporaries of the Curacao Kid’s (which isn’t to say Dawson is by pure definition of the word, as their careers didn’t overlap, but it is a better comparison than the other four; playing in the 1980’s is more familiar to the so-called Steroid Era than in the 20’s-50’s). That leaves The Hawk as a comparable. Dawson’s career OPS is .806, a negligible difference at 17 points apart. Are the Hawk’s extra 1300 or so plate appearances at advanced age on crappy knees enough to pull that OPS down? Sure, Dawson took 4 more seasons to hit four more home runs, but it still points to him as a comparable player. It should be mentioned, as the folks over at HighHeatStats so astutely pointed out, that, while Dawson’s numbers are comparable on the surface (and in particular the slightly lower OPS), Dawson achieved this in an era thirsting for offense in relation to Jones’s time. In fact, if you parse out just slugging percentage, Dawson’s .482 to Jones’s .486 is even more telling. It’s not a strict correlative, but accounting for the changes in offense, The Hawk’s slugging percentage shines a bit more. Just as an aside, I don’t want anybody out there thinking this is an indirect argument that Dawson shouldn’t be in the Hall, because that’s not what this is. Taking into account the context of offensive change from era to era, it certainly should be clear I’m not calling Dawson’s Hall legitimacy into question. It should further strengthen the argument against Jones. Back on track. I haven’t even gotten around to WAR (or JAWS! I didn’t forget you Jay Jaffe!). There are 18 Hall of Famers who played the majority of their careers in center field. Their average WAR is 70.4. Andruw Jones compiled a career WAR of 62.8* (Dawson slightly bests him with 64.5, by the way), which hurts his chances a bit. His WAR7 is 46.4, compared to the HoF center fielder average of 44.1. That is hardly analogous to winning a swing state like Ohio. Then, when you inspect his JAWS score of 54.6 (compared to the HoF average of 57.2), Jones’s candidacy comes under more scrutiny. It is clear that the BBWAA has yet to adopt utilizing advanced metrics in their voting processes across the board, but for those voters who are hip to it, this should lean them towards excluding Jones from their ballots. In regards to the BBWAA, one thing they have adopted in recent years is a moral gate to Cooperstown in their collective process. As Bud Selig has designated us looking clearly at the Steroid Era in the rear view mirror, the BBWAA is implicitly assigned as the janitorial crew to the aftermath of that era. Players with dozens of emboldened numbers on their baseball-reference.com pages are wallowing far below the 75% approval line. While I am not at present arguing the cases of those players, it is clear, no matter your stance on the issue, that they have suffered, in regards to induction, because of their guilt and/or association with PEDs. Though there is no evidence of Jones having any ties to PEDs, my argument would be, essentially, one last nail in The Curacao Kid’s Hall of Fame coffin. If we (fans, MLB, journalists, and the BBWAA) are using a moral compass to script revisionist history based on the “morally abject” and “dirty” usage of PEDs, then where do we stand on domestic violence? Andruw Jones was arrested for attacking his wife a little over two years ago. How are we measuring the moral depravity of “cheating” as opposed to a player beating his wife? I would say, that “cheating” undoubtedly carries with it, in the eyes of the baseball community (aforementioned “we”), the additional transgression of shaming the game. We’ve all heard that, in any generation. Shoeless Joe Jackson shamed the game. So did Pete Rose. And on and on and on, ad nauseam. That attitude is a moral shame in and of itself, but our veneration of the game above all else blinds us to that. So, due to the new rules, which have shrunk the window of opportunity to be voted into the Hall from 15 years to 10, the BBWAA will have ten years to make up their minds on how to approach Andruw Jones. On the merits of his on-field performance and the detriment of his off-field behavior. Andre Dawson barely scraped over the line, at 77.9%, on his 9th year on the ballot. That is without speculation as to the use of PEDs or any evidence of domestic violence. I just don’t see Jones making it in with five fewer years of ballot eligibility, slightly unconvincing numbers, and a sketchy off-field track record. *According to baseballprospectus.com **According to baseball-reference.com From: http://www.baseballessential.com/news/2015/03/15/why-andruw-jones-isnt-hall-of-fame-worthy/
