Kuzul

In light of a recent article I wrote concerning Baseball Hall of Fame voting criteria, or lack thereof, I would like to submit the following for your perusal.

First and foremost, the voting should be snatched away from the Baseball Writers Association of America, like a thief in the night. They have taken a national shrine to baseball greats and made it a ridiculous load of fodder.  

Irresponsible comments coming from the writers’ own pen is a good place to begin. Concerning Roberto Alomar, one of them said that he was being “punished” by not being elected on the first ballot.

The alleged punishment would be restitution for his spitting at umpire John Hirschbeck in 1996. Hirschbeck subsequently forgave him and they became acquaintances.

I must say the incident soured me on Alomar as well, but not to the point that I am blinded by the fact that if any middle infielders belong in that hallowed Hall, he is the one.

The same venom comes from the pen of another who stated that the boys who made trips to Steroidville would be punished as well or even more severely.

That is a different kettle of fish completely. Steroids by their own definition are a “performance enhancing drug” or PED as we like to call it now. When your performance is being aided by anything other than your own natural abilities, you become a baseball outlaw.

To “punish” a player for one year or 14 is irresponsible and disingenuous. They are supposed to be the judge and jury of this matter, but not the legislative branch. They should not be permitted to take it upon themselves to rewrite rules or laws as they go.

Since there are very few rules the writers have to go by, let’s just have a look. A player must have been retired for five years to be eligible for placement on the ballot. Special situations may occur that precipitate an earlier vote (such as the cases concerning the deaths of Lou Gehrig and Roberto Clemente).

Currently a player must be on the ballot of 75 percent of the writers to be enshrined. A voter is entitled to vote for 10 players or less. If a player receives fewer than five percent, he is eliminated from further consideration. A player may remain on the ballot for 15 years provided he has received at least five percent each year.

After 15 years the player is removed from the ballot and his only chance then rests in the hands, and sometime feeble minds, of the Veterans Committee.

Now let’s talk, you and I. An earth-shaking question: Does a player get better in five, 10 or even 15 years of idle retirement? Does he become more HOF worthy?

Recent cases of Jim Rice, Andre “Hawk” Dawson and Bert Blyleven have pushed that question to the front of the line.

Rice’s case is extremely interesting. Of the 15 years in which he appeared on the ballot, Rice increased his percentage 10 years while his stock decreased in four of them.

He only garnered more than 60 percent from 2006 until his election in 2009, when he was elected by the skin of his teeth with 76.4 percent. Another thing of note about him is that he declined 2006 to 2007 by 1.3 percent.

So, did he get better as a player from 1995 to 2009? Was it the competition each year?  During his run 23 men were elected to the HOF. Of those, 14 were elected on their very first ballot.

We all can argue that 500 career home runs should get a man in like it did years ago. If there was a vote today, with Eddie Mathews on the ballot, he would be lucky to draw 30 percent of the votes. Even though when he retired in 1968 he was No. 7 on the all-time list. He had hit more home runs than any left-hander in history besides Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.

The magic number in terms of wins used to be 300.  Bill James, the SABR community and maybe even the Mensa International decided that the win statistic was not what your grandfather thought it was.  That may be debated until Christ returns, but it was good enough to be used for over 100 years of baseball.

Perhaps wins should be replaced by quality starts. But see, again we are legislating on the fly. Should we restructure the entire game to accommodate the theories of mathematicians? I can see all of you young bucks, sneering as you read this, cursing me to a life in hell with an abacus or a slide rule.

I am sure you are aware that Major League Baseball has no real affiliation with the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Just about the only thing that matters to the latter is that a player has not been blackballed by the former (my apologies to two of the best players ever, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose).

So, where does this leave us? We still have no concrete forms that we can pour the players into and see how they mesh. It is so speculative that it makes me want to puke.

Many questions arise. Should we judge them on their entire careers? How about judging them on the best five years of their career? Curt Schilling is a very good example of that. He had only a mediocre career, yet he had two or three great years. Don’t start with the postseason crap. You can look up the records on the roster of the HOF and you won’t see postseason mentioned.

Should the middle infielders be granted a special form of offensive amnesty because of their defensive prowess? Any way you slice it, Phil Rizzuto, Bill Mazeroski, Luis Aparicio and Pee Wee Reese do not belong in Cooperstown. They are just a few that came right into my mind.

Back to topic, if we take the vote away from the BBWAA, to whom should it be given? If anyone should have to vote at all, it should be the players. All players who have ever played at the major league level should have a vote. Managers and coaches would certainly be included as well.

But if some guidelines were laid out, it wouldn’t even need an election. Several categories could be used as a format. An example for batters could be as follows: 500 HR, 3000 H, 1500 RBI, .300 AVG, .400 OBP, 135 OPS+, 500 SB, five All-Star selections, two MVP, five GG, five SS. That is 11 categories. If a player meets or exceeds any four categories, he is automatically enshrined. Remember, this is only an example.  If it would be decided to use “new age” math as well, we could still throw in some for kIX (that is new age for kicks).

Seriously, if the new math is seen as the way to go by the powers that be, a new format needs to be implemented because it is not right to compare Chase Utley with Nap Lajoie.

The same thing could be done for pitchers.

Obviously, this would not affect any players who may have been elected prior to the new format. A designation could be made between the older format and the new. The old guys would just be grandfathered in.

Since there would be no elections, it would not be necessary for someone to remain on a ballot for 15 years of seasoning.

I mean seriously, if a person is qualified for the HOF after 15 years, should he not have been considered qualified during his initial ballot?

I would only serve as the new Czar of the HOF for the first five seasons. After that, my WAR would not be what it should be.  I mean, face it, the older we get, the better we were.

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For the first time in 17 years Andy Pettitte won’t be putting on pinstripes (he even wore pinstripes during his Houston stint).

Pettitte suited up for the Bronx Bombers in 13 of his 16 seasons in the big leagues. In his career he amassed 240 wins and 138 losses (Yankee record: 203-112). Pettitte is third all time in career wins in the Yankees organization.

Think about that for a minute. Andy Pettitte is third all time in wins for an organization that’s done nothing but win since they won their first World Series way back in 1923.

So is he get the call to Cooperstown? It’s not an easy question to answer.

Why he is a Hall a Famer:

Andy Pettitte joined the Yankees back in ’95. In ’96 he went 21-8 and the Yankees won their first World Series since 1978. He played 11 more seasons in New York after that, and was the one constant in the Yankees rotation during their five championships. 

Pettitte is one of four Yankees (Jeter, Posada, Rivera) that has been apart of all five championship teams since ’96. I believe the other three guys will all be in the Hall one day.

His 240 career wins are more than the likes of Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and John Smoltz. Pettitte won over 20 games twice in his career, and won 15 or more games eight different times. He finished in the top five of the Cy Young in four different seasons. 

Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case will come down to more than what the back of his baseball card reads. His role in the Yankees championship runs should carry a lot of weight on whether or not he gets in the Hall of Fame. Try and name another starting pitcher who has won five World Series championships over the last 20 years.

That’s what I thought.

Why he won’t get the call the Cooperstown

Pettitte wasn’t always the Yankees ace when they were winning championships (though he definitely was in ’96). The Yankees had  Mike Mussina, David Wells, Roger Clemens, and David Cone during their championship runs. In many of those years Pettitte was the third guy in the rotation (behind Clemens and Mussina). I personally don’t think that should be knock on him, but there will be voters that will hold that against him.

Pettitte’s numbers are good, they’re really good, but they aren’t great. In this day and age a pitcher needs to win 300 games or have been the most dominant pitcher in the game for a part of his career if he’s going to get in the Hall of Fame (see Pedro Martinez http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martipe02.shtml). Pettitte doesn’t have either on his resume.

The biggest mark against Pettitte is his admission of HGH use. He was one of the first players to come out and actually admit to using performance enhancing substances. Pettitte was sincere in his apology and actually earned a lot of respect for coming clean. But that doesn’t change the fact that he used PED’s.

The Hall of Fame hasn’t been kind to players who’ve used PED’s; Mark McGwire only recieved 19.8 percent of the votes on last years ballot. So Pettitte’s odds don’t look very good in that respect.

However, over time the steroid issue will begin to die down, and some of the players from that particular era will eventually get in. There will be new baseball writers that get a Hall of Fame vote in the future; many of them will have grown up during the height of the steroid era. Will these new voters keep out all of their childhood heroes? Only time will tell.

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Center fielder and Cardinal great Jim Edmonds is retiring. After deciding his injury is too severe to risk a comeback, the eight-time Gold Glove winner is retiring as a member of the team he is most associated with. It’s a shame, too, as he was very productive last year with the Brewers and Reds. 

Nevertheless, as with all retiring greats, talk now moves to Edmonds’ chances to make the Hall of Fame. And if you don’t think of Edmonds as a good choice for the Hall, you may want to reconsider.

His straight counting stats do not immediately jump out as Hall of Fame numbers; he only reached 393 home runs and 1949 hits. His .284 batting average may also seem lackluster.

However, there is much more to these facts than meets the eye.

For example, as Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Talk notes, Edmonds compares quite well to center fielders already in the Hall.

Only seven center fielders have 350 or more home runs and most of those are considered legends. In some cases, they are even recognizable by one name: Mays, Griffey, Mantle, Dimaggio and Snider. The only other player on that list is active outfielder Andruw Jones.

Additionally, his offensive case is strengthened by 998 career walks and 3615 total bases, giving him a .376 on-base percentage and a .527 slugging percentage. His .903 on-base plus slugging is already remarkable; when accounting for league and home park, Edmonds had an OPS+ of 132, meaning he was 32% better than an average hitter over the entire course of his career. That ties him with Hall members Joe Morgan, Al Simmons and Tony Gwynn, and puts him ahead of Rod Carew (131), Wade Boggs, Roberto Clemente, Dave Winfield (all 130), Eddie Murray and Carl Yastrzemski (129), to name a few.

Of course, his offense is only part of his case, as Edmonds is also noted for his incredible defense.

Over his career, he won eight Gold Gloves and was a nightly fixture on Web Gems. More advanced stats agree on his defensive reputation; for example, Total Zone has that Edmonds saved 91 runs over the course of his career with his glove, the equivalent of over nine wins. And this came while manning a demanding position (most analysis has center field roughly on level with third base for difficulty to field, with both just after second base).

As an all-around player, Edmonds is definitely worthy.

One final note; a newer stat, Wins Above Replacement or WAR, encompasses a player’s offense, defense and position to determine roughly how many wins they are worth to their team.

60 WAR is usually where a player enters into the Hall of Fame discussion, and 70 WAR is usually where players are considered a lock for Cooperstown. Edmonds has 68.3 career WAR, putting him in a virtual tie with Hall members Luke Appling, Brooks Robinson, Tony Gwynn, Duke Snider, and Carlton Fisk and contemporaries Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez and Barry Larkin.

In fact, Edmonds has a serious claim as seventh-best center fielder in baseball history. Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Joe Dimaggio are all clearly better. After them, Edmonds and Snider are neck and neck (Snider was the better hitter, but Edmonds was easily the superior fielder). 

As a Cardinals fan, Edmonds brought an excitement to the game through his excellence in every part of the game.

Hopefully, in five years, the BBWAA will realize this and make the right choice.

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Pitchers and Catchers Report.

For many, those four special words signal the beginning of the end of the long winter months and the unofficial start of the new sports calendar. 

In the recent weeks, I have been compelled to think about the current commissioner, Bud Selig, and his impact on the game of baseball.

Few public figures are more polarizing than Bud Selig, as discussions about him are often in a tone usually reserved for politicians and prostitutes. However, very rarely does the average fan ever show support for Selig’s legacy; on the contrary, most people tend to attribute all of the bad things that have happened specifically to him while giving him little to no credit for the positive developments. 

This is a shame, because when one takes a look at the entirety of Selig’s legacy, it looks a lot better than anybody realizes.

Hear me out on this.

Payroll and Parity

Perhaps the greatest complaint toward the Bud Selig era has been the dramatic inequality of payrolls between the big-market and small-market teams, which has led to a belief that the game lacks parity. 

In terms of raw numbers, payrolls are uneven in MLB; the game does not have a hard salary cap (or salary floor), and an explosion in local revenue has given the Yankees a tremendous financial advantage over just about everybody. Last year, the Yankees’ payroll was six times as large as the Pirates, who had the lowest payroll among MLB teams. 

At the same time, people see the NFL’s hard salary cap and massive revenue sharing and assume that there is so much more parity in football than in baseball.

However, this issue is hardly new, as the Yankees have held a financial advantage over the rest of MLB for virtually all of MLB history; if recent trends are any indication, that advantage may be narrowing (see chart), particularly as greater attention is given to what is done with shared revenue.

And contrary to popular belief, MLB actually shares a lot of revenue—more revenue than ever, in fact. Their national television contracts—valued at approximately $670 million per year—is divided up evenly among all 30 teams, as is approximately $500 million generated by MLB.com and other online revenue streams (an idea pioneered by Selig). 

This accounts for about 16.7% of all MLB revenue and works out to about $39 million per team. Add in the $404 million handed out from luxury tax and shared local revenue (which is handed out according to need), and it’s easy to see where some teams could be receiving as much as $70 million in total shared revenue in a given season. 

Perhaps the question we should be asking isn’t why the Yankees spend so much, but why the Pirates spend so little.

Of course, all of this is largely irrelevant when talking about MLB’s parity. Truth be told, MLB has the greatest amount of parity of any team sport. 

Thanks to the sheer number of games in an MLB season, the maximum and minimum winning percentages are naturally going to be closer than in any other sport. As for the playoffs, MLB has had more organizations win the championship (nine) than any other sport; the same number of teams make the championship game as the NFL (14) and more final four teams than the NFL (22 to 21), even though MLB has four fewer teams make the playoffs.

As far as parity is concerned, the thing we should be telling Bud Selig is “Keep up the good work.”

Labor Issues

I’ll say this straight-out: The cancellation of the 1994 World Series is the third-worst stain in the MLB history books (behind the death of Ray Chapmen and the Color Barrier, respectively), and it is the one issue of the Bud Selig era that I find to be unforgiveable. 

At the same time, the damage of the 1994 strike was so great that it convinced both sides that they have a serious interest in working together to solve the game’s problems. As a result, MLB has gone longer without a strike (16 years and counting) than it ever has since Marvin Miller was hired to lead the MLBPA in 1966. 

Selig has never gotten credit for this: The 2002 and 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreements are the only ones in MLB history that were ratified without a strike or lockout, and the relationship between the owners and the MLBPA is as strong as it has ever been. 

As a result, baseball is booming. Last year, MLB pulled in approximately $7 billion in total revenue in 2010. Keep in mind that when Selig started, MLB was at $1.2 million.

Remember these facts during the next year, as the NFL and NBA are expected to have intense and damaging negotiation sessions that could lead to a strike, while the most contentious issues in the MLB negotiations involve the allocation of shared revenue and new bat regulations.

Bud the Innovator

Another faulty perception is that Bud Selig has been fiddling his harp as MLB was burning; in fact, the opposite is true. 

Think about all of the ways that MLB has changed during the Selig era: Both leagues went to a three-division format; the Wild Card was created; Interleague play was started; Jackie Robinson’s number was retired by all of MLB (and the anniversary of his debut was subsequently made an MLB holiday); the MLB network and MLB.com were launched; the All-Star game was given actual meaning in the form of deciding home-field advantage for the World Series; and the World Baseball Classic was created to help spread the game’s popularity internationally. 

Selig is also spearheading the discussion about how to improve MLB’s current playoff system with the goal of giving extra incentive to winning divisional titles, though it remains to be seen if any changes will be made in the near future.

Now, you may disagree about whether or not these changes are improvements (I, for one, don’t care for the All-Star game impacting the World Series), and certainly not all of these ideas are solely Selig’s—but you cannot say that Bud Selig is not coming up with ways to try to move the game forward. 

And if you are going to hold him accountable for the things you in the game, it’s only fair to give him credit for the things you like.

PEDs and Drug Testing

Of course, for many people, the one thing they can never forgive Selig for is the fact that MLB experienced a PED scandal under his watch, which has resulted in the game’s most cherished records being set by a PED user and deep mistrust for the previous generation of statistics. 

The general perception is that Selig drug his feet on the issue of steroid testing and had to be strong-armed in order to get it done, making him the one most responsible for the scandal.

However, blaming Bud Selig for the PED scandal is like blaming Germany for World War I or Gorbechev for the collapse of the Soviet Union: The seeds of the problem were planted long before he ever came along.

I’ve pointed out before that the issue of PEDs in baseball dates back as far as 1889, but it’s also important to keep in mind that steroids—the PED that people really care about—was first determined by the federal government to be widespread in the MLB ranks in 1973. The Mitchell Report makes no secret of this fact.

So why is Bud Selig any more responsible for the PED scandal than Bowie Kuhn, Peter Uberroth, Bart Giamatti or Fey Vincent, all of whom have held the title of MLB commissioner since 1973?

This brings me to another fact about Selig that nobody wants to acknowledge: He got a PED testing program put in place when no other commissioner before him was able to do so. 

It seems rudimentary by today’s standards: One year of “anonymous” random testing, then punishments (a ten-game suspension for a first offense) were implemented in 2005 after it was determined that over 5 percent of players were using. However, it was a testing program, and more importantly, it worked. 

More people were caught in the first year of testing than in any subsequent year, despite an increase in testing and punishments.

Conclusion

I am sure there is nothing I can write to convince people that Bud Selig has been good for Major League Baseball; there’s just too much polarization attached to his name. 

This is unfortunate, because Bud Selig’s total impact on Major League Baseball is right up there with Kennesaw Mountain Landis and Happy Chandler.  

MLB is in a great place right now, and Selig is a big reason why.

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Originally, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York was created to honor the best and most important people in the game’s history. The first class of players—Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb—are some of the biggest names the game has ever seen (how Cy Young was omitted from selection that first year is baffling, given his credentials). 

In the decades that have passed since 1936 there have been many more entrants elected to the sacred hallways of Cooperstown, most deserving the honor.

However people are elected for different reasons and different times, and not voting system is perfect.  Therefore sometimes those who deserve entry are overlooked for one reason or another, and in other cases people whose merits lack Hall of Fame worthiness are enshrined.

Today there are more ways to get elected to the Hall of Fame then ever before.  Players have twenty years from the time they retire to be elected by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America (BBWAA).  If they fail to receive the necessary 75 percent of votes in all 15 years on the ballot (after waiting the five-year hiatus post retirement) they are dropped from the ballot. 

Any player receiving less than 5 percent of the votes in any given year on the ballot is also dropped.  However that is not the end of their chances. A special group set up by baseball and the Hall of Fame, known as the “Veterans Committee,” also votes each year to elect players, executives, umpires and managers of the game who otherwise would not be elected.

Players today also benefit from circumstances players of the past did not—the designated hitter rule, for instance. Players of yesteryear did not have the opportunity to extend their careers by taking off three-quarters of the game while still padding their offensive statistics. And while we have not come up yet on all the bigger named PED users like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and the like, the enhancement of medicine has not hurt today’s player either.

This is a look a the top-10 players honored with a plaque in Cooperstown that gained entry when their play on the field did not merit it. Managers, executives and umpires are not factored in. Neither are Negro League players or anyone who’s career ended prior to the modern era (1901-current).

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Baseball is, for the most part, an exact science.

That is why we can compare Tony Gwynn and Tris Speaker, even though 75 years passed between their respective debuts. We know that Speaker’s .345 average is still very comparable to Gwynn’s .338.

Of course the game has changed slightly. Speaker averaged 25 stolen bases a season, four more than Gwynn. But 25 steals was less impressive in the 1910s than 21 was 80 years later.

For the most part, however, the numbers have remained fairly constant, especially since the dead ball era came to an end in 1920.

Yet it is this exactness and consistency, which gives birth to the most inexact part of the sport: the Hall of Fame.

People will argue to their dying day that player X should make it and player Y should not. That is why it took Bert Blyleven and Jim Rice so long, and why people still fight for Luis Tiant. (In all seriousness, how is Catfish Hunter in Cooperstown when Tiant is not?)

HoF voting is painted in many shades of grey and there will never be a right answer. Bear in mind, there were people who did not vote for Willie Mays in 1979.

But whilst debating the merits of one player can be at once entertaining and infuriating, comparing two similar players can be even more so.

Enter Andy Pettitte. The longtime Yankee announced his retirement earlier this month and instantly sparked debate about his Cooperstown credentials. Even his most ardent supporter will admit that his regular season numbers are not good enough and that you have to look at the postseason to see his true value. The same argument is made for Curt Schilling.

The two have had quite similar careers. Although an incredibly inexact measurement, Baseball Reference’s “similar pitchers” section lists Pettitte as being most like David Wells, Kevin Brown and Bob Welch. It has Schilling as being most similar to Brown, Welch and Orel Hershiser. It is an awful tool for comparison, of course, but it is interesting, at least.

So let’s compare. Do either deserve a spot? (Incidentally, although Schilling retired in 2008, his last game was in ’07, so he will be eligible in 2013, three years before Pettitte.)

Invariably, the first stat everyone looks to is wins.

In 16 seasons, Pettitte went 240-138 for a .635 winning percentage.

In 20 seasons, Schilling was 216-146, a .597 winning percentage.

There will be those who will cry that neither is close to 300 wins, so neither deserves to make the Hall. The answer to their argument? Sandy Koufax. Yes, injury curtailed his career at just 12 seasons, but he only won 165 games. Anyone want to argue that he is not one of the greatest pitchers of all time?

Wins are a poor statistic. A pitcher has to rely too heavily on his teammates helping him out. If they cannot, his win-loss record will suffer, something known now as the Felix Hernandez Deficiency.

Curt Schilling played on some terrible Philadelphia teams in the ’90s. The Phillies had a winning record just once in his time with the franchise. Andy Pettitte on the other hand, was on a New York side about to become a dynasty. He debuted in 1995. The Yankees won the World Series in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000, and won the AL pennant in 2001 and 2003.

Simply put, he got more help than Schilling ever did.

That is not to take anything away from Pettitte; he was a good pitcher, but he was never great. Look at his ERA.

Schilling had a sub-3.30 ERA nine times. Pettitte managed it four times. In seasons with at least 160 IP, Schilling accomplished it eight times to Pettitte’s two.

Over the course of their careers, it is closer, but Schilling still wins it 3.46 to 3.88.

In any case, neither player probably deserves a place in Cooperstown based on their regular season records. But then you look at the postseason. It was only after the calendar flipped to October that each made a name for himself.

Five-time champion Andy Pettitte won 19 games in the playoffs, more than any other pitcher in history. However, as has been established, wins are a poor indicator of a pitcher’s ability by themselves. Remember, Pettitte has pitched in a staggering 42 playoff games. His record of 19-10 is very good, but it is not incredible. Neither is his 3.83 postseason ERA.

Curt Schilling—who has three rings—is another matter. In 19 playoff starts, he went 11-2 with a 2.23 earned run average and a WHIP below one. Just give the man a plaque.

Both are borderline cases, but in almost every category, Schilling is closer to being HoF-worthy.

He deserves to be in the Hall. Pettitte just falls short. And then we reach the question of performance-enhancing drugs.

Andy Pettitte has admitted taking them and in the eyes of some, his honesty has exonerated him from the same blame and hatred that has befallen Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, et al. There will be others, though, who will never vote for him.

The issue might be moot, anyway. Although Pettitte is retired, there is a strong feeling that he will pull a Roger Clemens and return midseason.

Somebody warn Suzyn Waldman.

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When Andy Pettitte’s name hits the ballot for the Hall of Fame in five years, the Baseball Writers of America Association (BBWAA) will have a very difficult decision on their hands.  His candidacy touches on so much of what has happened in the last 20 years in baseball. 

The case for Pettitte is built on one simple premise: He has been one of baseball’s biggest winners over his 16-year career. We are talking about five World Series titles in eight trips. We are talking about a career winning percentage of 63 percent and a playoff winning percentage of 65 percent. 

Pettitte retires as the winningest pitcher in postseason history (19 wins). During the period from 1995 to 2009, no major league pitcher accumulated more victories. His 148 wins from 2000 to 2009 were the most in the decade. Pettitte also possessed one of the best pick-off moves in the history of the game. 

Pettitte’s defining season was his sophomore campaign. In 1996, he lead the league in wins (21) was third in win-loss percentage (.724) and was eighth in the AL in ERA (3.87).  He made his first All-Star team and finished second in the AL Cy Young. 

His legacy as a winner was born, however, in the World Series. Game 6 of the World Series was the defining win of the recent Yankee dynasty and the signature victory of his career. Quite simply, the Yankees do not win three titles in four years without Andy Pettitte’s 1-0 victory of future Hall of Famer John Smoltz. 

His consistency can be measured by his 2009 performance. He finished with 14 wins against eight losses, with ERA and WHIP near career norms. More importantly, he was the second starting pitcher in history to win three series-clinching games (ALDS, ALCS and World Series) in the same postseason. In addition, Pettitte won the game where the Yankees clinched the division.

There are many who would dispute his Hall of Fame candidacy. I can see the arguments:

Human Growth Hormone

To those in the BBWAA who would dismiss his candidacy based on his admittance of HGH use, you are all hypocrites. The BBWAA is just as culpable in turning a blind eye towards the Steroid Era.

You cannot, on the one hand, wax poetic about how Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire’s home run chase brought the fans back to baseball after the strike and then take the moral high road and point to them as all that is wrong with the sport. Put them in the Hall of Fame and let their plaques explain the context of the day. It will be their Scarlet Letter.

Milestone Misses

Pettitte falls well short of the 300-win plateau that would bring “automatic” enshrinement. He is light on All-Star and Cy Young finishes. His ERA and WHIP would be near the bottom of pitchers in the Hall of Fame. 

The flip side to the argument is that he won when it mattered. He’s got five World Series rings in eight tries (mirroring his career winning percentage). He’s pitched nearly two full seasons in the playoffs and is the career playoff starts leader and second in World Series starts. 

The Greatness Test

Wallace Matthews of ESPNNewYork.com posted an interesting article articulating how Pettitte falls short. 

In response to Matthew’s article, I argue that Pettitte’s Hall of Fame candidacy will only grow as time goes by. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte are the Core Four.

As distance grows on this recent Yankee dynasty, perspective will change on how instrumental Pettitte (and Posada) were to the Yankees’ championships. 

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It’s every boy’s dream to one day get that call from Cooperstown and become a Hall of Fame ballplayer. Nothing is different for those already in the big leagues, but few of the MLB’s players will actually make the cut.

We are getting to watch some future Hall of Famers; some in their prime, others riding into the sunset and others just getting started.

Here are cases for 25 stars to make the Hall of Fame.

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When the new list of inductees to the Hall of Fame came out this year, I couldn’t help but wonder why Jeff Bagwell did not make it in.  He seems like a definite Hall of Famer in my eyes, and I just did not understand his omission.

I understand that he played in the steroids era and that anyone playing in that era is immediately tainted.  Despite the fact that Bagwell was never a huge slugger, he made his money on being a consistent hitter that also had some pop when he needed it.

While the steroid era is likely what is keeping him out, he really doesn’t fit in with most of the people who really tarnished the image of baseball.  I doubt that you would see his name on any list that includes Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, or Sammy Sosa. 

So, despite never being directly associated with anything involving steroids, what may have hurt him the most was the positive test of one player:

Rafael Palmeiro.

There is much about Bagwell and Palmeiro that is very similar.  They had long, quality careers in which they consistently contributed to their teams’ success. 

They were both very reliable hitters that were very highly respected by the fans and the players.  I, for one, was quite upset when Palmeiro was no longer a Texas Ranger.

Then came Palmeiro’s fall from grace.

I was as shocked as anyone because he had always seemed like such a clean cut, quality guy.  The last guy you would ever expect to cheat.  And, maybe that is why it hurt so much.

But, the people who are likely hurt the most are players like Bagwell. 

Guys that worked hard and did their best to help their team in any way they could.  Guys that got dirty and did the small things needed to win. 

In short, the guys that fans love the most and earned their respect through quality play on the field. 

I think Bagwell will make it in eventually, and he really should. But, it is a shame that the actions of some are doing damage to the reputations of everyone else, including those that are clean. 

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have Alex Rodriguez and Lou Gehrig on the same team? I often have and wondered if there was a way to make it happen.  

With this idea in place, I decided to compose a 25-man roster complete with batting order and pitching rotation.

The twist on this is some of the convenient adaptations I have made to the team.

Also, I tried not to choose players who had their prime and best years outside Yankee pinstripes. 

So don’t expect Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson on this team. 

The Lineup and Positions

1. Derek Jeter SS

2. Joe Dimaggio LF

3. Babe Ruth RF

4. Lou Gehrig 1B

5. Mickey Mantle CF

6. Alex Rodriguez 3B

7. Roger Maris DH

8. Yogi Berra C

9. Willie Randolph 2B

The Bench

OF/DH – Reggie Jackson

3B – Graig Nettles

2B – Phil Rizzuto

C – Bill Dickey

OF – Bernie Williams

1B – Don Mattingly

The Rotation

1. Whitey Ford LHP

2. Ron Guidry LHP

3. Red Ruffing RHP

4. Lefty Gomez LHP

5. Andy Pettitte LHP

Bullpen

Closer – Mariano Rivera RHP

Set-up – Goose Gossage RHP

Lefty Specialist – Sparky Lyle LHP

Longman- Ramiro Mendoza RHP

Middle Innings – Jeff Nelson RHP

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