Fred McGriff elected to National Baseball Hall of Fame

The 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee on Sunday elected former big league first baseman Fred McGriff to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Whenever I hear McGriff's name, the first thing I think of is the Tom Emanski defensive drills video, which, of course, has McGriff's "full endorsement":

 

The irony is, McGriff was not a particularly good defensive first baseman. He's been elected to the Hall of Fame because he could hit the damn ball.

In 19 seasons, he totaled 493 home runs and collected 2,493 hits. He finished in the top 10 of MVP balloting six times and was chosen to the All-Star team five times.

McGriff had 10 seasons of 30 or more home runs, and he hit 30-plus homers for five different franchises. He was a member of the 1995 World Series champion Atlanta Braves. He had 1,550 RBIs in his career, and finished with a .284/.377/.509 career slash line.

In order to be elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, a player needs 12 of 16 votes, or 75% of the ballots. McGriff was unanimously chosen.

Don Mattingly (8 votes), Curt Schilling (7 votes) and Dale Murphy (6 votes) were others who received consideration and fell short.

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Albert Belle and Rafael Palmeiro were also on the ballot, but all received less than four votes.

Trivia question answer: Carew, Ichiro, Palmeiro, Beltre and Clemente

Rod Carew

On Saturday, I posted a trivia question that I found interesting: Name the five players with 3,000 or more hits who were not born in the United States.

I added the hint that the five men came from five different countries: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Panama and Puerto Rico.

Now for the answer:

Rod Carew: The infielder from Panama played 19 seasons in the big leagues from 1967 to 1985. He was with the Minnesota Twins for 12 seasons, mostly as a second baseman, before playing seven seasons with the California Angels, mostly as a first baseman or designated hitter.

A lifetime .328 hitter, Carew totaled 3,053 hits and made the All-Star team a remarkable 18 times. He was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1967, and won the American League MVP award with the Twins in 1977, when he hit .388/.449/.579 with 38 doubles, 16 triples, 14 home runs, 23 stolen bases and a career-high 100 RBIs.

Ichiro Suzuki: We've seen more players come to the U.S. from Japan in the past couple decades, and there's no question in my mind that Ichiro is the best of that group. He played 18 years from 2001 through this past season with the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees and Miami Marlins, totaling 3,089 hits and a lifetime slash line of .311/.355/.402.

Ichiro took the American League by storm in 2001, winning both the Rookie of the Year and the MVP award for the 116-win Mariners. In that season, he hit .350/.381/.457 with a league-best 56 stolen bases. That was the start of a decade of dominance for Ichiro, as he appeared in the All-Star Game and won the Gold Glove in each of his first 10 seasons with the Mariners.

Rafael Palmeiro: The Cuban-born slugger became the fifth player in baseball history to accumulate both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs, reaching those benchmarks in July 2005. Days later, he tested positive for steroids, and he probably will never be inducted into the Hall of Fame despite his gaudy statistics.

Palmeiro played 20 seasons for the Cubs, Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles, totaling 3,020 hits and 569 home runs. He only played in four All-Star games and never finished higher than fifth in MVP voting, despite hitting 38 or more home runs from every year from 1995 to 2003.

The left-handed hitter, who broke into the majors with the Cubs in 1986, left the game in disgrace after being booed by his home fans in Baltimore during that 2005 season.

Adrian Beltre: The 39-year-old from the Dominican Republic is the one active player on this list. He has 3,166 career hits and 477 home runs. He might be able to join that 3,000/500 club if he has one more good season left in him.

Beltre has been in the majors for 21 years, first joining the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1998. He since has played with the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers, and appears to be a good bet for the Hall of Fame when you combine his impressive counting statistics, consistent production and strong defense at third base. Beltre has won five Gold Gloves, and on the whole, has been more appreciated as a player in the latter years of his career.

Roberto Clemente: Perhaps the greatest player Puerto Rico has ever produced, Clemente had his life cut short when he died in a plane crash on New Year's Eve 1972. He played 18 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 until the time of his death, posting a career .317/.359/.475 slash line with 3,000 hits and 240 home runs.

Clemente made the All-Star Game in 12 out of 13 seasons from 1960 to 1972, and he won the National League MVP award in 1966, when he hit .317 with a career-high 29 home runs and a career-best 119 RBIs. He also won a Gold Glove in each of his final 12 seasons and is regarded as one of the best defensive right fielders in the history of the game.

Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine elected to Hall of Fame

I'll admit it: I was nervous. I wasn't sure former White Sox slugger Frank Thomas would be elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

I was worried the Baseball Writers Association of America would hold a grudge against Thomas because he played a majority of his career games as a designated hitter.

Fortunately, common sense prevailed. Thomas was elected to the Hall of Fame on Wednesday; his name appeared on 83.7 percent of the 571 ballots cast. He was comfortably about the 75 percent threshold needed for election.

Thomas finished his career with a .301 lifetime batting average, 521 home runs, 1,704 RBIs, a .419 career on-base percentage and a .974 career OPS. He also won two MVP awards and finished in the top four of MVP voting on three other occasions. Nine times, he placed in the top 10 of the MVP balloting.

There's no question that is a Hall of Fame resume, and kudos to the voters for putting aside the silly anti-DH argument and giving Thomas his proper place in Cooperstown.

Thomas will be joined in the 2014 class by two other deserving honorees, pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.

Maddux, the former Atlanta Braves and Cubs ace, earned the most votes from the electorate, appearing on over 97 percent of the ballots. He is eighth all-time on the wins list with 355. He won four consecutive Cy Young awards -- one with the Cubs and three with the Braves -- from 1992 to 1995. He also was the best fielding pitcher of his era, earning a record 18 Gold Glove awards.

Glavine, Maddux's former teammate with the Braves, totaled 305 career wins and won two Cy Young awards. The left-hander was also comfortably above the 75 percent threshold; his name appeared on just under 92 percent of the ballots.

The two former Atlanta pitchers will be joined by their former manager, Bobby Cox, at July's induction ceremony. Cox, Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa were elected to the Hall in December for their managerial successes. 

A couple of other interesting things about this vote: Craig Biggio just missed. His name was on 74.8 percent of the ballots. That means he was exactly two votes short of induction. More than likely, he'll get into the Hall in 2015, which will be his third year on the ballot. It's a little unusual for a player with 3,060 career hits to have to wait three years. I'm not sure what the reasoning was by those who did not vote for Biggio. He seems like a no-brainer to me.

It also was notable that both Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens actually lost support. Bonds went from 36.2 percent to 34.7 percent, while Clemens dropped from 37.6 to 35.4.

What's interesting is the voters seem to draw a distinction between Bonds and Clemens and some of the other steroids guys like Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro. The latter three aren't getting near as many votes. Palmeiro, in fact, will fall off the ballot after only getting 4.4 percent of the vote this year. Sosa was at 7.2 percent, while McGwire got 11 percent.

Why are Bonds and Clemens different? Well, I think those two guys could have been Hall of Famers without using steroids. You look at their performances going back into the 1980s before all the steroid scandals started, and they seemed to be on the path to the Hall. In the case of these two men, the PEDs seemed to lengthen their careers and allowed them to put up unbelievable numbers into their late 30s and early 40s.

They aren't going to get into the Hall because that drug use taints their legacies, but there are some voters who are supporting them because their greatness is only partially attributed to steroids. Both Bonds and Clemens were elite players pre-steroids. They didn't really need to take that stuff, but for whatever reason, they chose to do so.

In the cases of Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro, more than likely they would have just been ordinary players without the juice. At minimum, there's a perception their greatness was completely the result of steroids, and that's why they are getting little support from the electorate.

Lastly, I think it's time for the BBWAA to take a look at its own membership and review whether the guys who are voting on the Hall are qualified to do so. Right now, the standard is you have to have been a BBWAA member in good standing for 10 years in order to get a vote. Personally, I think the voters have made several errors in recent years. They've inducted some guys with marginal resumes, while making some guys who should be slam-dunk choices (like Biggio) wait.

You wonder how much baseball some of these voters actually watch. Are they really "baseball writers" anymore? Or are some of them former sports editors and former columnists who are no longer really in the industry? I wish I had a little more trust that these guys are all actually qualified to vote.

At least they got Maddux, Glavine and Thomas right. But you're allowed to vote for 10 guys each year, and it's not real hard to find other deserving players on that ballot who were left out again.