In this four-part series, Jonah Birenbaum of theScore's MLB staff will assess all 34 candidates on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot, placing each player into one of four categories: Jokers, Maybes, PED pariahs, or Cooperstown Kings.
Check out the first installment of the four-part series here.
Check out the second installment of the four-part series here.
PED Pariahs: Some of history's greatest players fall into this contingent, but connections to performance-enhancing drugs will likely keep these sullied stars out of Cooperstown
Jeff Bagwell
% of vote (2014): 54.3%
JAWS*: 63.9
AVG. JAWS (1B): 54.2
Bagwell's crouched batting stance belied a player whose offensive talents simply couldn't be contained, as the goateed first baseman was easily one of the greatest hitters to ever take the field. Wielding tremendous plate discipline, superb contact skills, immense power and surprising speed, Bagwell managed a .297/.408/.540 line over 15 seasons in the majors, posting a career 149 wRC+ representing the 13th-best mark in history among first basemen. Bagwell eclipsed the 30-homer plateau in nine different seasons and swiped double-digit bases 10 times throughout his career. Only 55 players in the live-ball era walked more frequently than Bagwell - he managed a 14.9 percent walk rate - and he's one of just two players in history to record multiple seasons with at least 40 homers and 30 steals. (The guy directly beneath him on this list did it, too.)
Barry Bonds
% of vote (2014): 34.7%
JAWS: 117.6
AVG. JAWS (LF): 53.3
No player represents a bigger threat to undermine the credibility of the Hall of Fame than Barry Bonds, probably the greatest baseball player to ever inhabit this planet. Over more than two decades in the majors, Bonds dismantled preexisting standards of excellence, putting up offensive numbers that still just don't make sense. He surpassed the legendary Hank Aaron by clobbering 762 career home runs and set the single-season record by smashing 73 in 2001 at the age of 36. Unanimously feared, Bonds drew 2,558 walks in his career - 688 were intentional - that contributed to a .444 on-base percentage, the sixth-best mark in history. He also stole 514 bases and won eight Gold Glove awards. At the height of his career, though, Bonds was nothing short of a god - from 2001 to 2004, Bonds hit .349/.559/.809 (256 OPS+) while walking in nearly 31 percent of his plate appearances.
Roger Clemens
% of vote (2014): 35.4%
JAWS: 103.3
AVG. JAWS (SP): 61.8
It's astounding that even when you consider the ridiculous volume of innings logged by dead-ball era hurlers like Cy Young and Walter Johnson, the all-time leader in WAR among pitchers is still Roger Clemens. A fierce competitor who revolutionized the way pitchers operate, Clemens earned seven Cy Young awards throughout his 24-year career in the majors - no other pitcher has won more than five. Armed with a blazing fastball and devastating splitter, Clemens fashioned a 3.12 ERA with a 1.17 WHIP across stints with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees and Astros, fanning 23.1 percent of opposing hitters while yielding just 0.66 homers per nine innings. When adjusting for both the eras and parks he played in, however, Clemens's success is nearly unparalleled: only seven pitchers have managed a better ERA- than Clemens (min. 1000 IP).
Mark McGwire
% of vote (2014): 11.0%
JAWS: 51.9
AVG. JAWS (1B): 54.2
McGwire started hitting home runs the moment he arrived in the majors - he clobbered 49 homers as a rookie in 1987, a record that has yet to be broken - and the burly first baseman never stopped, finishing his 16-year career with 583 round-trippers. No player ever smashed home runs with greater efficiency: McGwire's 10.61 at-bats per home run stand as the best mark in history, while his dramatic pursuit of the single-season home-run record in 1998 remains one of the most memorable storylines of the last two decades.
Mike Piazza
% of vote (2014): 62.2%
JAWS: 51.2
AVG. JAWS (C): 43.1
With all due respect to Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra and Joe Mauer, there's never been a catcher who could hit like Piazza. His 59.4 career WAR are the fifth-most in history among those to don the tools of ignorance. Selected as a favor in the 62nd round of the 1988 draft, Piazza quickly vindicated the Dodgers by hitting .318/.370/.561 with 35 home runs in his inaugural season and quickly cemented his position as one of the game's top catchers. Across his 16-year career, Piazza compiled a 143 OPS+ while clobbering 427 home runs, both of which represent all-time highs among catchers.
Gary Sheffield
% of vote (2014): N/A
JAWS: 49.0
AVG. JAWS (RF): 58.1
Controversy punctuated Sheffield's career, but the confrontational outfielder was blessed with both preternatural bat speed and uncanny contact skills that allowed him to become one of the greatest hitters since integration. Sheffield, whose signature bat-wag inspired legions of imitators, compiled a .292/.393/.514 (140 OPS+) over 22 years in the majors and joined the hallowed 500-home run club during his final season. Among the 64 players in the live-ball era to receive at least 10,000 plate appearances, Sheffield is one of just 25 to walk more frequently than he struck out.
Sammy Sosa
% of vote (2014): 7.2%
JAWS: 51.0
AVG. JAWS (RF): 58.1
After meandering through nine solid seasons in the majors, Sosa unexpectedly exploded at the age of 29, turning a solid career into a superb one. From 1998 to 2003, Sosa averaged 55 home runs per season, eclipsing the 60-homer plateau three times during that span. It was this surge that enabled the prolific slugger to join the exclusive 600-homer club in 2007, his final season in the majors, wherein he joined a fraternity comprised of only seven other players.
*The JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe - first at Baseball Prospectus in 2004 - as a means to measure a player's Hall of Fame worthiness by comparing him to the players at his position who are already enshrined, using advanced metrics to account for the wide variations in offensive levels that have occurred throughout the game's history ... A player's JAWS is his career WAR averaged with his 7-year peak WAR (not necessarily consecutive years).
