Hall of Fame Class of 2015 to be Unveiled
By Joseph Jacquez
Good Morning Diamondbacks fans! Hope your Tuesday is off to a great start! Today is the big day! Today we will finally know who will represent the Hall of Fame Class of 2015 in Cooperstown.
This is a special day in Diamondback land, as it’s pretty much guaranteed that the “Big Unit” Randy Johnson is going to be elected, and in my mind it should be unanimous. When he is elected, he will the first player in Diamondbacks franchise history to reach baseball immortality.
Of course we all hope that he chooses the Diamondbacks as the team he goes in with. Sure he had a great career with the Mariners, but his resume with the Dbacks is far better.
He won four consecutive CY Young Awards from 1999-2002, and he won a World Series MVP in 2001, leading the Dbacks to their only World Series title.
If you look at the numbers, then his case grows. He struck out more batters (4,875) then any southpaw in history, and he accumulated more WAR (104.3) than any lefty expect for Lefty Grove. His career ERA+ which measures run prevention, the basic job of a pitcher, of 135 is far above league average.
I hope that Curt Schilling gets in, but he probably won’t. He was one of the best postseason pitchers of all time, and his career ERA+ of 127 was in the top 10. His career WAR 7 which measures a players seven year peak was 49.0 which is ahead of Tom Glavine, Jim Palmer, and Don Sutton, and just behind Pedro Martinez, and Greg Maddux. His K/BB ratio is 2nd all time.
Both Schilling and Johnson deserve to get in, and let’s hope they both get in today. The announcement will come in five minutes on MLB Network and MLB.com.
Here is my ballot: Biggio, Johnson, Smoltz, Schilling, Pedro Martinez, Raines, Trammell, Mussina, Bagwell.
As you can see I don’t vote for anybody suspected of using PED’s, and I probably never will. That means no Bonds or Clemens.
Here is the thing that I will be watching for. This year is going to be hard for people like Mussina, Trammell, and Raines to get in because of a crowded ballot. If as many as five players get in, that will help make it easier for those guys to get in. The only unanimous guy on the 2016 ballot is Ken Griffey Jr.