OT: Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez retiring....HOFer?
Pudge is retiring and already the debate of whether he goes into the Hall is heating up. He is one of the greatest catchers to ever play the game, no doubt, but it will be interesting to see how the writers vote come ballot time. Pudge should be a first ballot HOF, IMO (on his defensive ability as a catcher alone), but Cansecos's accusation might keep him out, at least for some time. Although there really is not a whole lot of evidence, other than Jose's accusation, Jose has some credibility in that his accusations have proven to be accurate, for the most part. Sport writers may therefore pause and hesitate before checking off Pudge's name on the ballot.
My guess is that he will not get in on the first ballot. He will likely suffer the same fate of a player like Bagwell. Pudge's case is actually worse than Bagwell's because while Pudge was actually accused by Jose, there is NOTHING out there on Bagwell, nothing. In fact, if anything, Bagwell's deterioration towards the end of his career would go against the argument that he used roids. While juicers like Bonds and Clemens flourished, Bags was slowly burning out. So if you have writers who are not voting for Bags because he was a great stocky player who happened to play in the roid era and "may have been using" (justification of some idiot writers to keep Bags from the Hall) Pudge will have to sit out, IMO, for AT LEAST a few years, if not more. That being said, I do feel he will eventually get in. He is one of the greatest catchers to ever play the game, no doubt....
April 19th, 2012 at 12:52 PM ^
I hope he gets in. I certainly appreciate the time he put in with my Nationals.
April 19th, 2012 at 12:54 PM ^
no question IMO
April 19th, 2012 at 12:55 PM ^
How to put this lightly....he better be. Growing up as a catcher, before my knees started bothering me as a 14 year old, I idolized Pudge and still do to this day, despite the Mauer-like move to 1B lol. I love Pudge and hope he gets into the Hall ASAP. I loved when he stopped by Detroit for a stint.
April 19th, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^
He was definitely one of my favorite players when he was a tiger. Loved watching him throw from behind the plate. Seemed to have the best arm of any catcher I watched. No slouch at the plate either. I would love to see him in the hall of fame.
April 19th, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^
I think he'll have an easier time than most from that era. He only had one year with over 30 HR and 100 RBI. His reputation was based more on being a great defensive player with solid offensive numbers rather than pinball machine stats.
Doesn't mean he wasn't juicing, but the writers will probably be more lenient for a guy who wasn't just a slugger and can be included for other reasons. On the flip side, a guy like Bagwell probably suffers less from suspicion than from the fact that his numbers aren't as impressive as the guys from his era who probably were juiced to the rafters.
park that was not batter friendly, so he does not have as many HRs as he probably would have had had he played in other parks, Bagwell played 15 years, all for the Astros, hitting .297 (pretty darn good) with a .408 on-base percentage, a .540 slugging percentage and 449 home runs in a park that, like I said, it was not easy to his a HR. I think his candidacy has been dogged, in some ways, by the profound power numbers put up by others in his era, steroid suspicions that Bagwell has denied and probably a lack of recognition for his 1,401 walks that helped make him statistically the most valuable Astro ever and among the top first basemen of all-time. I am slightly biased but I think he is one of the most underrated greats of the roid era. I get the sense that Bagwell would be in easily if not for the irresponsible steroid speculation surrounding him
Steroids aside, if he'd put up the same numbers in the '70's or '80's he'd be in without a doubt. I've just never heard any specific suspicions about Bagwell. To me the thing that hurts him is playing in an era where guys like Thome and Sosa put up over 600 HR and Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, and Manny Ramirez have over 500. Carlos Delgado has more career HR than Bagwell.
Obviously a lot of those guys are clearly dirty, but Bagwell is in a logjam where unless he is clearly exonerated and those guys are clearly guilty it is tough for writers to make a case that he should leapfrog all of them into the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, but it's not all about power numbers. He hit within .03 points of .300 for 11 straight years, all with reasonably average BABIPs. That kind of consistency for so long is remarkable, on top of his defensive ability.
Not knocking Pudge's play, I definitely think 'roid controversy aside he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Just pointing out that he may not suffer from the 'roid debate because he was never a guy who hit a preposterous amount of home runs. As such, the writers may give him the benefit of the doubt under the assumption that he would have had a great career in any era, as opposed to a guy who hit 35 jacks every year but may have only hit 25 without the juice.
April 19th, 2012 at 12:59 PM ^
which ain't bad at all. I personally think he should be a first ballot HOF but I also feel that way about Bagwell (one of the most underrated greats of the past 20 years IMO) and many lame brain sports writers have not been voting for Bags because "he may have used PED and I would not feel comfortable voting for someone who may have given himself unfair advantage". Notice, the operative words are "may have". IMO, lame brain writers like that should have their voting rights revoked. I feel that the same fate may befall Pudge.
That is all.
I don't give a fuck what Canseco said about steroids and Pudge. I don't even give a fuck if it's true. Dude took a chance on the Tigers after they had hit rock bottom and broke out the jackhammers, and was one of the primary catalysts for their turnaround. For that I'm eternally grateful, and yes, first-ballot HOFer.
Possibly not a first ballot HOFer, but I see no way they can keep him Cooperstown. He was one hell of a defensive catcher and it didn't hurt that he knew how to swing a bat when needed.
Great, great ballplayer, but helping revive the Tigers isn't a HOF qualification. He was accused by Jose, he shrunk 25 lbs in the several months after it became far more difficult/risky to juice, and he was walking around on that Ranger locker room floor that must by now be completely saturated with clear, cream, and anything else those vampires at BALCO were mixing up in those days. If you ask me there is more than a little evidence against the guy.
He's a product of the era. The year he slimmed down (Ivan "slim" Rodriguez) a dozen other guys dropped weight at the same time. It was one of the talks of spring training, and everyone knew what was going on.
Pudge will likely get the same evaluation that everyone else in the Roid era did, and that will hurt his ability to make the Hall in his otherwise deserving way. I suspect he'll get in, as a catcher with historically good pedigree, but he will rise or fall with the Roid era tide.
I agree with everything you said. Should he get in? I honestly have my doubts. Take 15 or 20 points off his BA and 50 homers away...Then reduce his percentage of catching guys at 2nd by 10%.... and we go from sure-fire first ballot-Top 5 all-tiime catcher to Trammell, Whitaker/Morris territory. I don't know whether my output reductions make sense or not, but they were honest on my part.
Now look at Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens...these guys (hopefully) won't make it in spite of the fact that they absolutely would have made it without roids (just lacking the numbers that put them in Ruth/Cobb/Mays territory).
Good conversation, terrible thing for the history of baseball.
I don't know if you should take points off his BA. In his 4+ years in Detroit, he was approximately a .300 hitter, right at his carreer average and this was on the "downside" of his career and after he dropped all the weight largely presumed to be steroid related. If you keep his BA but reduce his other numbers accordingly, I think he's still a clear first ballot HOFer. As I say below, I hate making these judgments. He's either in because he was among the very few best players in baseball for a significant amount of time, or he's out because the entire era is tainted by steroids.
Sidenote: Trammell should be in and I don't care what anyone else says.
Stronger guys hit the ball harder and get more hits - I stand by the lower (theoritical non-roid) BA. Also, the first couple years in town he was still big and when he lost weight IIRC his power numbers dropped to nothing.
Both Trammell and Morris should be in, maybe Whitaker as well. Certainly if they played in Chi, NY, LA, or Boston it wouldn't be a discussion (see P. Rizzuto)
First ballot. Difference between him and Bagwell, there was a bunch of 1B/DH types of his era with similar profiles: Thome, Thomas, McGwire even Edgar Martinez and Palmiero. For catchers it was Pudge and Piazza. Bagwell will and should get in, but it might take hime awhile. He doesn't have the flash, milestones or siginifcant post-seasons to set him apart.
Baseball either needs to ignore steroids as a criteria for the HOF or not elect anyone from the era. The entire basis of not electing based on whisper campaigns is ridiculous as is eliminating the few HOF-level players who were caught and/or admitted usage. We'll never know a full list of steroid users during the era, so we need to treat everyone the same. Either throw out the arbitrary statistical "benchmarks" and decide who was HOF worthy on performance as compared to others in the era, ignoring any and all steroid accusations, or keep them all out. Either scenario sucks for those that didn't use PEDs during the steroid era, but I don't care. Any of them could have stepped up and helped end what was a known problem in the clubhouse. Note: If they "banned" the entire era, I'd make an exception for Frank Thomas. That was one guy who did what he could to rid the game of steroids.
Not going to happen, especially since there are still PEDs in effect today, though harder to detect and perhaps not as significant.
The fact is that for 10-15 year period baseball was dominated by players that juiced. The resulting surge in hitting statistics has unbalanced the record books of baseball and permanently damaged the historical comparability of baseball. The magical numbers that I grew up hearing about are no longer magical. The great records are no longer great. Career statistics that used to be baselines for HOF consideration are no longer accurate.
During that era there were players who were great without juicing, players who were good or great that juiced and were even better, and players that would have been merely average that juiced. The challenge for the HOF voter is to determine which is which. Griffey was probably clean, and he was great, right? McGwire juiced his whole career, right? What about Bonds, who put up unhuman numbers and was a colossal jerk, but for the first half of his career was HOF great and apparently clean?
The historical value of baseball statistics has been irreperably harmed by the steroid era. It is a tragedy of incalculable significance--what was once the greatest historical game in sports, with numbers as great as the players that set them, has become just another game whose historical stats are irrelevant to the present day. Fathers will no longer tell their sons about the home run records and the players that set them. Stats like "50 home runs" no longer have any real weight. Something important has been lost.
This is perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of baseball. It happened on Bud Selig's watch. For whatever else he did that was good, he should and will be judged primarily on his failure to control the steroid era and limit its catastrophic destruction of the sanctity of one of baseball's greatest assetts: Its historical statistics.
I do think he is a 1st year on the ballat HOF.
I don't want to hijack the discussion of Pudge Rodriguez; but as long as we are talking about catchers on the cusp of Cooperstown, how about the University of Michigan's own two-sport star, Bill Feeehan? Compare his record with Pudge.
Freehan was named to 11 consecutive All-Star teams and won five Gold Glove Awards. An iron man in the toughest position on the diamond, he played in more than 140 games in five seasons.
In 1968 (a World Championship season, in which the deciding play was likely his own), and '69 and '70, the pitchers whom he caught were world-beaters including Denny McLain's 31 games in '68.
His career statistics are:
BA=.262, HR=200, RBI=758, OBP=.340, SLUG%=.412, OPS=112, FLD%=.993, CS%=.37
And, for Michigan fans:
He was the best best catcher of his era hands down. He is one of the most complete catchers of all - time. If i was building an all time team Im pretty sure Id pick him as my catcher for his combo of hitting and defense. I loved watching this guy pick guys off not paying attention leading off first base.
Are you kidding? First ballot HoFer!
Pudge should already be in the HOF. I hope he gets in on the first ballot, It'll give him good reason to put up another statue of himself. Go Pudge!
Yes, he belongs in the HOF.
The HOF voters believing he did 'roids would be the only thing potentially keeping him out.
Great catcher, great hitter and (judging from his stint with the Tigers and Nationals) great teammate. On Mike & Mike, they had on their baseball guru, who ranked Pudge 9th all time on list of catchers, slightly behind Fisk and Carter. Personally, I would have him higher, certainly above those two, as almost all of his batting stats are significantly better than their stats and he did get 13 or so gold gloves.
To me, his most amazing stat is that he threw out 46% of the guys who tried to steal (more than 10% higher than Carter or Fisk), and had 7 seasons where he threw out more than 50% (highest season was 60%). You have to believe that a lot of folks who otherwise would have been stealing bases stayed on first and sometimes stayed close enough to first so that they could not go from first to third on a single.
I've never understood the whole "first ballot" debate when it comes to certain players. If a guy deserves to make the Hall of Fame, shouldn't he always be voted in on the first ballot? I don't understand the argument that a guy deserves inclusion but not right away. Either he's HoF material or he isn't, right?
It's part of the discussion, especially in Baseball. "First-ballot" has a special cachet, someone who was so good that it's not even a worthy topic for discussion. Whether you think it should be that way or not, that has been how the HOF voting has worked for a long time.