by Scott Fennessy
Well the results are in, and while I personally was thrilled for Johnson, to a lesser extent Smoltz I was surprised to see Martinez get such a high percentage of the votes considering how short his career was for injuries. I have no problem with his numbers during his times on the hill, but does this open the door for lesser "injury prone" players? I just don’t want to hear a presentation start with "When healthy, he was one of the best in the game", because to me "When healthy" translates to "usually on DL".
I am not either thrilled or upset with Biggio, as he was a good player, but his numbers only started to rise when they acquired one of the king ‘roiders in Caminiti, and his last years were really only devoted to staying on a roster to get 3,000 hits. That said we can all agree Ruth and Aaron did the same, and I doubt anybody doubts their place in the hall.
I am happy to see that for the most part the obvious cheaters are actually moving further from induction, though Bonds seems a bit of a different case as he seems destined to be inducted similar to Santo, the committee will wait until he dies before they finally let him in (hopefully never in my book).
My big gripe is when does Lee Smith get his due. He remains continually at the same point total despite being one of the most dominant closers ever. Do we really have to wait until Rivera goes in 5 years from now?
Hope this did not sound like a rant. Hope you are all doing well and rolling 66’s.
Good piece, Scott. I agree with most of it but like I told you offline, I think you might be a little hard on Biggio. He’s one of my favorites.
Bill James ranks him real high, too. Probably too high but he makes some good points. Biggio’s intangibles made him pretty invaluable.
Hiya Tom!
I agree, Tom!…Bigg’s uncle & aunt had an oil company in Haskell, NJ!.. My youthful stomping grounds.
Thanks again for the super site!
All the best!
Jim
“I was surprised to see Martinez get such a high percentage of the votes considering how short his career was for injuries.”
Pedro Martinez pitched 18 years in the majors.
He started 409 games. Only 116 pitchers started more games. He had more games pitched than Juan Marichal, Joe McGinnity, Amos Rusie, Bob Lemon, Chief Bender and Clark Griffith, all of whom are in the Hall.
His career was not “short.” ShortENED in 2001 and at the tail end, but not “short.”
You should not be surprised at the percentage of votes he received. Not given his dominance from 1997-2003, three Cy Youngs and two second place finishes.
Hi. Perhaps I should have phrased that better. Yes, I meant shortened. I don’t doubt his abilities, I believe he is the career for lowest ERA by a starter, and while I don’t know what his WHIP is, he is probably pretty high on that list as well.
I just felt that because he missed a fair number of starts that he may have had to wait a few cycles, especially this year as I knew Johnson and Smoltz would probably both go in.
Biggio is not better than Bagwell, Piazza, Dave Parker, Davey Concepcion or even George Foster. He got in kind of like Brett but without the superstar play (Good guy; one team entire career; 3,000 hits). The Hall of Fame needs better criteria for Hall of Famers. Gil Hodges, Lee Smith and a bunch of other guys were better than Biggio… opinion, of course.
Hi Scott!
Good observations!…I think Pedro’s a worthy addition. . Kinda like Koufax getting there on his run to hurling history. .A joy to read, thanks for posting!
Best regards,
Jim (Kirb)