{"id":2501,"date":"2011-01-06T08:37:24","date_gmt":"2011-01-06T14:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=2501"},"modified":"2011-01-06T08:37:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T14:37:24","slug":"paper-or-plastic-doesn%e2%80%99t-matter-how-you-bag-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2501","title":{"rendered":"Paper or Plastic, Doesn\u2019t Matter How You Bag It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So much for it \u201cbeing in the bag,\u201d I guess.\u00a0 As some of my readers may know (although most of you may not), I am a lifelong Houston Astros fan<\/a>.\u00a0 The first piece of sports memorabilia I ever had as a young child was a Colt .45\u2019s jersey.\u00a0 Having been born and raised in Houston for 10 years also helps.\u00a0 I grew up watching baseball in the 8th<\/sup> wonder of the modern world and learned quickly to despise the Cardinals.\u00a0 More times than I can count I was fortunate enough to watch The Wizard himself perform on the Astroturf stage.<\/p>\n

So what is the point of this rambling?\u00a0 As an avid Astros fan, I feel that Jeff Bagwell<\/strong><\/a> should have been elected into the Hall of Fame.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, I find it downright offensive to see that he only received 242, or 41.7% of the votes needed.\u00a0 How could the writers not give one of the original Killer B\u2019s his comeuppance?\u00a0 I understand that some arguments will be made based on him playing in Houston, for a team that never seemed to find a way past the Braves.\u00a0 But let\u2019s just take a look at the stats and see what they have to say.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As a rookie<\/a>, in 1991, Bag Pipes ran away with the Rookie of the Year award after he hit .294 with 15 home runs and 82 RBI- not a bad start.\u00a0 He never seemed to decline either.\u00a0 In fact, Bags had nine seasons with at least 30 bombs, eight seasons with 100+ RBI, and nine seasons with over 100 runs scored.<\/p>\n

Maybe you would rather hear about some speed.\u00a0 How about being the first ever full-time first baseman to have a season with 30 SB\u2019s and 30 Hr\u2019s.\u00a0 How about him having 202 SB\u2019s in his career?\u00a0 Still not enough?\u00a0 Here\u2019s one more; Jeff Bagwell is the only first baseman in the 400 HR\/200 SB club.<\/p>\n

How about the guy\u2019s consistency?\u00a0 He has at least 10 seasons where he played in 155 games or more, and in four of those seasons he played in all 162.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, he also broke his hand in three different seasons.<\/p>\n

Bag Pipes has a career OBP of .408 and a SLG% of .540, giving him a career OPS of .948.\u00a0\u00a0 He only had two years where he had a WAR of less than 3.5 (and those were at the ages of 35 and 37).<\/p>\n

As any analyst will tell you, you can find numbers to tell any story you want to on a player.\u00a0 Jeff Bagwell was a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, a four-time all-star, a Gold Glove winner, a four-time Silver Slugger award winner, and he holds countless records within the Astros organization.\u00a0 The numbers I can\u2019t find are the ones that say Jeff Bagwell should not be in the Hall of Fame.\u00a0 Bill James even wrote that Bagwell was the fourth best first baseman of all time.\u00a0 Bags deserves to be in Cooperstown along with the likes of Cepeda, Foxx, and Gherig.\u00a0 His portfolio of success speaks for itself.\u00a0 Or at least I thought it did.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So much for it \u201cbeing in the bag,\u201d I guess.\u00a0 As some of my readers may know (although most of you may not), I am a lifelong Houston Astros fan.\u00a0 The first piece of sports memorabilia I ever had as a young child was a Colt .45\u2019s jersey.\u00a0 Having been born and raised in Houston […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,17,6,11,13,14],"tags":[1644,1645,637,201,1603,1643],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2501\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}