The Nominees for the 2011 Major League baseball Hall of Fame are…

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Now that the Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 2010 has been elected, I have turned my attention to next year’s Class of 2011. From various sources, there are twenty-nine players who retired between 2005 and 2006 and who are eligible for the class of 2011. Hold on to your seats for these potential nominees:

Wilson Alvarez
Carlos Baerga
Jeff Bagwell
Bret Boone
Kevin Brown
Cal Eldred
John Franco
Juan Gonzalez
Marquis Grissom
Bobby Higginson
Charles Johnson
Al Leiter
Tino Martinez
Raul Mondesi
Hideo Nomo
Jose Offerman
John Olerud
Rafael Palmeiro
Paul Quantrill
Steve Reed
Kirk Reuter
Rey Sanchez
Benito Santiago
BJ Surhoff
Ugueth Urbina
Ismael Valdez
Larry Walker
Dan Wilson

In my opinion, the following potential nominees will not make it to the ballot or will be eliminated after the first year of voting for not receiving the minimum 5% to stay on the ballot:

Wilson Alvarez – 102 career wins

Carlos Baerga – A career .291 hitter, 1,599 career hits and one of three former Long Island Ducks on this list (I am a former Director of Operations for the Long Island Ducks of the Independent Atlantic League)

Bret Boone – A career .266 hitter with 52 home runs

Kevin Brown – 211 career wins and 2,397 strikeouts and probably best known for punching a wall and hurting his team’s chance of winning a World Series

Cal Eldred – Only 86 career wins

Juan Gonzalez – Another former Long Island Ducks player who hit 434 career home runs but did not have a .300 career batting average and under 2,000 career hits.

Marquis Grissom – A career .272 hitter with only 227 home runs

Bobby Higginson – The same .272 batting average but hot less than 200 career home runs

Charles Johnson – Considered one of the best catchers for a few years, his defensive dominance will not overcome his career .245 batting average with very little power

Al Leiter – 162 career wins with 1,974 strikeouts

Tino Martinez – A career .271 hitter with 339 career home runs and nearly 2,000 career hits. He also may be most well known for his grand slam in Game 1 of the 1998 World Series.

Raul Mondesi – A career .273 hitter with 271 career home runs and under 900 career runs batted in

Hideo Nomo – The first Japanese player to play in the United States had a career 123-109 record. His first game in the United States was for the Bakersfield Blaze, another minor league baseball team I have worked for.

Jose Offerman – The third of the former Long Island Ducks, and also known as Jose “Awful”man for his defensive prowess for some of his career had a career .271 batting average, with 1,551 career hits.

John Olerud – Considered a fantastic defensive first baseman, Olerud had a .294 career batting average, with 255 career home runs and over 2,200 career hits.

Paul Quantrill – A pitcher who spent most of his career in the bullpen amassed a career 68-78 record with 725 strinkeouts.

Steve Reed – Another pitcher who pitched primarily out of the bullpen had a career record of 49-44.

Kirk Reuter – His career 130 wins is combined with less than 1,000 career strikeouts

Rey Sanchez – A light hitting infielder with a career batting average of .272 and a career 1,317 hits.

Benito Santiago – Did you know he wore the number “09” so that you could see his number on his back with his catcher’s gear on? He had a career battiung average of .263 and over 1,830 hits.

BJ Surhoff – His career .282 batting average is near the top of this group of potential nominees, with over 1,100 career runs batting in and over 2,326 career hits.

Ugueth Urbina – A career closer with 237 career saves.

Ismael Valdez – A career 104 wins and over 1,100 career strikeouts

Dan Wilson – The last player on the list had less than 100 career home runs and under 1,100 hits.

As I said above, none of these players will most likely get past the first year of the ballot, if on the ballot at all. To me, there are no players on the list that make me say “He is a Hall of Famer”.

The players from the original list that I have not discussed yet because they have a chance to be elected are: Jeff Bagwell, John Franco, Rafael Palmeiro and Larry Walker.

Jeff Bagwell:
Bagwell is a career .297 hitter(250th all-time), hitting 449 career home runs (34th all-time), with 1,529 career runs batted in (45th all-time) and 2,314 career hits (133rd all-time). Bagwell scored 1,517 runs (59th all-time) during his career and had a career on-base percentage of .408 (40th all-time). He consistently had over 300 total bases each season (64th all-time), with a career slugging percentage of over .500 (38th all-time). Bagwell was an all-star five times (once as a Designated Hitter), winning the Most Valuable Player awared once and finishing in the top ten of that award a total of five other times. He won the Gold Glove once during his career and had a career fielding percentage of .993.

Conclusion on Jeff Bagwell:
Jeff Bagwell has a better career batting average than Hall of Famers such as Duke Snider, Orlando Cepeda, Frank Robinson and Lou Brock. He has more career home runs than Hall of Famers such as Andre Dawson, Cal Ripken, Jim Rice and George Brett. He has driven in more runs than Mickey Mantle, Robin Yount and Brooks Robinson. However, he does have detractors. He was not considered the best player at his position during his career. Others feel that he was not the best player on the Astros consistently during his career. Looking at his numbers only, I would say Bagwell will be elected into the Hall of Fame. It may not be in his first ballot, but Jeff Bagwell will one day have a plaque in the Hall, however it will be a few years after he becomes eligible for election.

John Franco:
Franco has the most career saves by a lefty, 424 and is, in fact fourth on the all-times saves list. But, is he a Hall of Famer? Relievers have just started to be elected into the Hall of Fame. Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter were the trend setters and have been elected. However, when the one player eligible for the Hall of Fame with more saves than Franco has not been elected yet (Lee Smith), I wanted to take a look at their career statistics and see how they match up. Franco has 424 career saves and Smith has 478 on his career record. Franco led the league in saves three times, with amassing 30 saves eight times during his 21-year career. Smith led the league four times, saving 40 games during four seasons and at least 30 saves during seven other campaigns during his 18-year career. In 1,119 career games, Franco had a career earned run average of 2.89, pitching 1,245.2 innings and striking out 975. Smith pitched in 1,022 games in his career, with a 3.03 ERA wile pitching 1,289.1 innings and striking out 1,251. Franco is a four time all-star and won the Rolaids Relief Award twice. Smith is a seven time all-star and won the Rolaids Relief Award three times. Smith has been eligible for the Hall of Fame since 2003, receiving his highest percentage of votes (47.3%) in 2010.

Conclusion on John Franco:
Franco is definitely one of the greatest relievers of all-time, however his career statistics are not greater than Lee Smith’s statistics. Eckersley, Fingers, Gossage and Sutter were elected into the Hall of Fame because of their innovation, domination and the way that they each had an impact tot he game of baseball. Franco does not have that impact. After they each retire, Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera will be elected into the Hall of Fame on their respective first ballots. However, I believe John Franco will have to wait until Lee Smith first gets his call before Franco receives his.

Rafael Palmeiro: Rafael Palmeiro sat in front of Congress in March of 2005 and said, “I have never used steriods. Period.” Five months later, he became the highest-profile baseball player to that date to be suspended for using steriods. When he was 40, Palmeiro did not deny testing positive for steroids but has said that it weas an accident that he ingested them. He is one of only four players that have 3,000 career hits and 500 career home runs. Palmeiro does not have any chance to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writes as some now doubt the legitimacy of his career statistics.

Larry Walker:
Walker is a career .313 hitter (82nd all-time), hitting 383 career home runs (55th all-time), with 1,311 career runs batted in (93rd all-time) and 2,160 career hits (179th all-time). Walker scored 1,355 runs (99th all-time) during his career amd had a career on-base percentage of .400 (58th all-time). He consistently had over 300 total bases each season (91st all-time), with a career slugging percentage of over .565 (16th all-time). Walker was an all-star five times, winning the Most Valuable Player award once. He won the Gold Glove seven during his career and had a career fielding percentage of .986, an excellent fielding percentage for outfielders. Only 14 outfielders in the history of baseball has won more Gold Gloves than Larry Walker.

Conclusion on Larry Walker:
Larry Walker does not have the same offensive statistics as Jeff Bagwell. However, his fielding was considered to be at a far greater level. One of the biggest knocks against Walker was the fact that he played at Coors Field, well known for inflating offensive statistics. He did not play his whole career in Colorado, he also played in Montreal and St. Louis. However, the bulk of his years and the seasons with the best statistics were the years he played half of his games at Coors Field. Before I make my decision on Larry Walker, I wan to show you his career home vs. away statictics. His batting average at home was .348 and away was .278. In 16 less games at home, he scored 789 runs at home and 566 runs away. He had 1,193 hits at home and only 967 while on the road. He hit 47 more home runs on the road, had an on-base percentage 61 points greater at home and his slugging percentage was .637 at home and under .500 on the road. The Hall of Fame voters will know these stats and see that he was partially a product of his home ballpark. However, he was a great outfielder. Just like Bagwell, I believe that Walker will be elected one day. However that day will not be in 2011.

Final Conclusion:
The writers will induct Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Blyleven has two more attempts to be elected by the writers as 2011 will be his 14th year on the ballot. In the past four years, the percentage of writers that voted for him increased from 47.7%, to 61.9%, to 62.7% and finally receiving 74.2% in 2010 (One vote more than 75% is needed for induction). With no outstanding candidates on the ballot in 2011, Blyleven will finally receive the additional votes needed to earn his plaque in the Hall of Fame. In his first year of eligibility, Roberto Alomar received 73.7% of the votes for induction into the Hall of Fame. With the same logic as I just used for Blyleven, Alomar will receive the call from the Hall in 2011.