Newmie
http://mlblogs.mlblogs.com

Very impressed.

And my goodness, I’m shuttering in my boots that I have incurred your ire. You must come over and incur some of mine sometime.

I know the argument is that Bagwell is one of the best first baseman in history if you view it by ranking the regular season numbers…”

This, Barry? This is why you’ve drawn my ire. (Well this and, you know: Garvey, or “Garv” as you so affectionately referred to him.) Jeff Bagwell made 9,431 regular season plate appearances and the results of those plate appearances place him among the 100 greatest players to ever play baseball. So let’s start here – he is not on any bubble. If, anecdotally, you want to draw that conclusion because you haven’t yet had time to sit down and look at his overwhelming statistical resume, OK. But a gaggle of nerds have been diligently working the past 40+ years to greatly enhance and deepen the statistical well available to us so that you don’t have to rely on spotty, hazy memories. We *know* Jeff Bagwell is not on any bubble.

Meanwhile, you’re allowing what is the equivalent of 1% (129 postseason plate appearances) of his total regular season plate appearances to define him. How can you possibly defend that point of view? How?! You can’t. It makes absolutely no sense and, with all due respect, it chips away at your creditability as an observer of baseball when you so stubbornly hold to it. No player, in any sport, should have their career boiled down to such a finite standard. It’s illogical.

Further, the ring-or-bust mentality (which would ensnare *a lot* of really good players in every sport – including at least 10 baseball players just in the past two years that you’ve either voted or have stated your intention to vote for) is really unfair to an individual player and, invalidates the fact that the Astros were a *very* good baseball team during Bagwell’s era. The franchise’s success before and after his career are, not coincidentally, much worse. He absolutely, positively impacted winning when you expand your scope beyond a handful of October games.

This isn’t hard, Barry. It really, truly isn’t. You’ve been handed an overwhelming case for Jeff Bagwell. And I’m sorry but “I’ll continue to evaluate him during his 15 years on the ballot and will I’m sure eventually vote for him.” simply isn’t good enough. You’ve been tasked with preserving and promoting the game of baseball, in large part because your experience (supposedly) makes you more qualified to tell a better, more accurate account of its history. To blithely ignore Jeff Bagwell as a player you’ll maybe, probably address at some point, possibly… risks telling an incomplete history of America’s pastime.

And so I put it to you, Barry – isn’t that an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to me, but I’m not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!…