I was just thinking about this because I saw that he only got 21.9% "Yes" votes, which was 10 votes less than last year. The BBWAA or whatever the stupid acronym is just recently voted down the idea of a "steroids committee" for HoF voting. I'm curious to how everyone feels about McGwire / steroids era players. I personally would vote yes. Steroids or not, he and Sosa provided a great boost to the baseball community with their race. He finished with 583 career homeruns. His OPS+ was 162 and was over 200 in 1998.
I say no, but not because of steroids. I just don't think he was a Hall of Famer. He was a completely one-dimensional player.
If he was good enough to win a gold glove once, he must have had a pretty decent glove. Most older 1st basemen struggle in the field. I wouldnt call him one dimensional, its just that his bat overshadowed his glove by so much....
Gold gloves mean nothing. Absolutely nothing. That said, I don't know much about his fielding either. You can debate that he didn't last long enough to be Hall worthy, but "one-dimensional" might be a bit much. His one dimension was hitting, period. He had a great eye and he pounded the ball.
Gold Gloves are a terrible measure of defense. Palmeiro won one when he played 28 games at first one year. Not that he was horrible defensively, but he was average at best. But even offensively, he hit a lot of home runs but that was about it. He was a very good player, but to me that's not enough to get into the Hall.
That doesn't apply to McGwire since he never failed a drug test. They didn't even test when he played.
The Hall of Fame should be a historical account of the great players of the game. I think he should be voted in, and they should simply make an account of what was going on in the time he played. From 1992-2001, the dude's OPS was 1.088. That's Hall of Fame worthy in my book. ETA: And he's tied for 12th place all time in adjusted career OPS+.
I think everybody knows and accepts the Steroid Era for what it was. I say yes, but I agree he was one dimensional. He could have been multidimensional early in his career, but when he bulked up it kind of killed that. Still, he and Sosa made baseball popular again in '99 and I think he's earned his spot.
Are we willing to completely write off the last 20 years because of steroids? The guy was a Hall of Fame hitter. Let's move on.
Rafael Palmeiro won one with 28 games. Derek Jeter won one because of one play. David Wright won two and although he makes some great stops, he makes some horrendous throws and maybe shouldn't have won it. That's just off the top of my head. Gold Glove is almost as pointless as the ASG.
Yeah, guess you better kick out Whitey Ford, Gaylord Perry, Grover Alexander, and Mickey Mantle, among others.
You fail to mention a terrible defensive player in that post. I see where you are going, but those are bad examples of terrible defensive players.
In terms of pure power, few could match him. He was above average defensively as well. If it's based on play on the field, he's in without a doubt for me.
Career OBP of .394, career OPS of .982, OPS+ of 162 over 16 seasons. Those are Hall of Fame numbers. Plus, he wasn't a numbers compiler. He put up a few monstrous seasons (including breaking the single season home run record), had four straight seasons of 52, 58, 70, and 65, respectively. 245 homers in the span of four seasons. He won Rookie of the Year and won a World Series. Honestly, this guy is in without a doubt without the PED scandal.
