I can feel my quads shaking just imagining trying to hold this batting stance while some slow poke like Josh Beckett is on the mound.

From 1994-2000 there was no better first baseman in the National League than Jeff Bagwell.  It took the arrival of Albert Pujols to change that moreso than any sharp decline from Bagwell.  He had another four good years after Pujols came on the scene.  Bagwell played fifteen seasons – all with the Houston Astros and in four of them he played every game.  He hit all of the meaningful awards:  Rookie of the Year in 1991, Most Valuable Player in 1994, All-Star four times (surprisingly low number in my opinion), Silver Slugger Award three times and Gold Glove Award in 1994.  He could hit for high average (.297 career), power (449 HR) and for a first baseman he was an asset on the base paths (202 SB).

Although he had won Rookie of the Year three years earlier, 1994 was the year he truly burst on the scene as the premier first baseman in the League.  His season was incredible: a .368 average with 39 homers; 116 RBI leading the league; 104 runs tying for the league lead; 15 steals and a league leading .750 slugging percentage.  He dipped in 1995, but was back on top in 1996 to reel off six straight seasons with over 100 RBI.  In 1999 he finished second in the MVP voting with a .302, 42 HR, 106 RBI and 30 steal campaign.  Then, in 2000 he was even better with a .310, 47 HR, 102 RBI season.  He must have gotten off to a horrible start that season, because it wasn’t even good enough to get him to the All-Star game and he slid to 7th in the MVP vote.  The baseball writers must have killed him for his falloff from 30 to 9 steals!

Throughout his career Bagwell was a constant in the Houston lineup and consummate run producer.  His 162 game average over 15 seasons was to drive in 115 runs and score another 114 himself.  There just isn’t much to criticize with his game.  He often walked more than striking out, was solid with the glove and the offensive numbers speak for themselves.  There are some contemporaries with more homers and RBIs than Bagwell, but it took most of them another five seasons of mediocrity to accumulate those totals.  It only takes ten seasons to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, so one could argue that a player’s ten best seasons are what should be considered.  I’m not going that far, but to me Jeff Bagwell was the best at his position and close to the top for long enough that he deserves enshrinement in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Last year was Bagwell’s second on the ballot and he appeared on 56% of the ballots.  Only Jack Morris returns with more support next year.  Some of what may be hurting Bagwell is that  the era of performance-enhancing drugs has skewed the context of power numbers.  In seasons where he reached the mid-40’s in homers, guys like McGwire, Sosa and later Bonds were passing 60.  I won’t make the argument that Bagwell deserves to be in because he accomplished his feats without P.E.D.’s  There is really no way to know that.  I’ve arrived at a certain philosophy when considering players from the P.E.D. era for Cooperstown that I won’t go into here.  What I do know is that regardless of who was doing what, Bagwell was the best at his position for a long time and if you do that you’re a Hall of Famer.

The stats below are from www.baseball-reference.com, a great resource for researching baseball history through the numbers.  Baseball Reference gives four Hall of Fame metrics – at least a couple of which are derived from Bill James – on a player’s page.  Bagwell measures up as Hall of Fame worthy on three of them.  He falls just short on the metric that considers the number of times leading the league in certain stats.