Robert Alomar and Bert Byleven have been elected to Cooperstown this year. Both men narrowly missed out on being elected last season.
Alomar spent time with seven different teams during his Hall of Fame career. It is amazing to that a player of his caliber bounced around so often and never spent more than five seasons with one team. Alomar was a 12-time All-Star and won 10 Gold Gloves as a second baseman. In addition, he also won four Silver Sluggers and was the 1992 ALCS MVP, as well as the 1998 All-Star Game MVP.
Alomar received 90 percent of the writer’s votes this year. It should also be interesting to see what cap he will be wearing on his Hall of Fame plaque.
Byleven will also be enshrined in the Hall of Fame this year. Byleven had a lengthy 22 year career in which he played for five teams. He did spent half of his career with the Minnesota Twins. Byleven won 287 games in his career and also ranks fifth on the all-time strikeouts list with 3,701. He was selected for two All-Star Games during his career.
Byleven received 79.7 percent of the votes this year after narrowly missing out and receiving 74.2 percent last year. It has been argued that the advent of sabermetrics greatly helped Byleven’s Hall of Fame chances. This certainly makes sense as he lacks some of the awards and milestones (such as 300 wins), that many Hall of Fame pitchers have. Byleven actually has the 13th highest WAR for pitchers in MLB history, which certainly helped his case.
There were only two other players who received more than 50 percent of the writers’ votes. Barry Larkin received 62.1 percent of the votes and is someone to keep an eye on in next year’s voting. Jack Morris received 53.5 percent of the votes, which is only slightly more than the 52.3 percent he received last year.
The other story of the voting is tied to players who have been involved with steroids.
Mark McGwire, despite his outstanding career and the fact that he at one point held the single season home run record, was only able to garner 19.1 percent of the votes. Additionally, McGwire’s 583 home runs rank as 10th all-time and he was a 12-time All-Star. McGwire publicly admitted this year that he took steroids.
Rafael Palmeiro was only able to get 11.0 percent of the writers’ votes. Palmeiro is 12th on the all-time home run list with 569 homers. He is also a four-time All-Star. Palmeiro went in front of a congressional committee and testified that he had never used steroids. Just months later, Palmeiro was suspended for violating the MLB’s steroid policy.
Jeff Bagwell was able to get 41.7 percent of the writers’ votes. There is a lot of speculation going around that Bagwell took steroids, but it has never been proven. Bagwell is a four-time All-Star and is also one of the few players with at least 400 home runs and 200 stolen bases.
It is clear that the baseball writers have taken a strong stance on steroid users. McGwire and Palmeiro, both who have been proven to have used steroids, struggled to get votes. Bagwell, who was never physically linked to steroids, was able to get a good percentage of votes for his first year on the ballot. It should be interested to see if this trend continues in the future and how it affects the voting on players such as Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.
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