A Tribute to the Hall of Fame Class of 2015

Every year, in a small upstate New York town named Cooperstown, there is a magical day, usually in the glowing sunshine, in which legends of the sport of baseball are bestowed with the game’s greatest honor, induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Well, not every year.  Two years ago, despite the presence of two of the best players in history on the ballot for the first time (Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens), not a single player was elected, ruining Cooperstown’s annual celebration. There was one player honored that year (Deacon White, elected by the Veterans Committee) but he missed his day in the sun by 74 years; White played in the 19th century and passed away in 1939.

Last year, the Hall opened its doors to the living again, enshrining pitching greats Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine and slugging first baseman Frank Thomas.  Tomorrow, for the first time in 60 years, four players, voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America, will have their plaques unveiled and their moment of immortality.

Pitchers Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz were elected in their first year of eligibility, while second baseball Craig Biggio made the Hall on his third try.  Below is a tribute to these four greats who will enjoy their richly deserved day of glory tomorrow.

When I first heard about Randy Johnson, it was the late 1980’s, and I was a voracious reader of Baseball America, a publication devoted primarily to players in the minor leagues.  Johnson was a top prospect in the Montreal Expos organization, having been a 2nd round pick out of USC (where he was a teammate of Mark McGwire).  Johnson, a full 6 feet and 10 inches tall, struggled mightily to find the strike zone.  He had eye-popping velocity but struggled with wildness, walking nearly a batter per inning in the minor leagues.  In spring training of 1988, All-Star left fielder Tim Raines, a full 5 foot 8, dubbed Johnson “The Big Unit,” a nickname that stuck throughout his career.

In 1989, the Expos had a chance to acquire one of the top young pitchers in baseball and included Johnson in a trade to the Seattle Mariners for Mark Langston.  Of course, this would turn out to be one of the worst trades in baseball history.

Johnson continued to struggle with his control in his early years in Seattle, leading the American League in walks for three years in a row.  In August 1992, the M’s were hosting the Texas Rangers and the Big Unit had a conversation with legend Nolan Ryan, then in the twilight of a long career.  Ryan, throughout the first half of his career, also struggled with his control, routinely leading the league in both strikeouts and walks.  The Big Unit and the Ryan Express chatted for awhile, and Johnson credits that conversation with turning his career around.  Prior to that meeting, Johnson had posted a 4.52 ERA for the year; for the rest of the season it was 2.65.

Whatever Ryan said stuck because Johnson went on a 12-year run in which he was the best of the bumper crop of great starters now getting inducted into Cooperstown.  He won 5 Cy Young Awards, finished 2nd three times, and 3rd once.  The tall, lanky lefty would finish his career with 303 wins and 4,875 strikeouts (2nd best only to Ryan).  Because of his height, his near 100 MPH fastball velocity, and his occasional wildness, the Big Unit was one of the most intimidating pitchers in the history of baseball.  Even the best left-handed hitters in the game occasionally woke up with a mysterious ache or pain on the day he was supposed to pitch.  Only 12% of the batters he faced batted from the left side, and those who did managed just a .199 average against him.  This at bat from John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star Game is classic evidence about how left-handed hitters felt against him.

Johnson, with his long hair and scowl, was truly fearsome on the mound.  In his own words, Johnson pitched with anger. Two of the most memorable moments in his career occurred when he actually didn’t start the game but came out of the bullpen (a la Madison Bumgarner in Game 7 last year).  In 1995, in one of the epic games in MLB history (Game 5 of the Division Series between the M’s and the Yankees), Johnson came out of the pen in the 9th inning of a tie game on just one day of rest, putting the Seattle crowd into a frenzy.  Manager Lou Piniella likened it to a gunslinger busting through the saloon doors.  Johnson tossed three innings and was the winning pitcher in the 11-win that culminated with Edgar Martinez’ double that led to Ken Griffey’s mad dash home.  This “gunslinger” moment was repeated in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series when he came out of pen (having thrown 104 pitches the night before) to get the last four outs; he was the winning pitcher after Luis Gonzalez’ walk off bloop single off of Mariano Rivera.

Johnson was a true workhorse: he threw 120 or more pitches in more than one third of career starts (213 out of 603). To put this into perspective in today’s pitch-count-conscious baseball world, there were a grand total of 58 games in 2014 in which the starting pitcher tossed 120 pitches or more.  That’s 58 out of 4,860 (barely 1%).  Want more?  The Big Unit threw 140 pitches or more 42 times.  That’s been done only 16 other times in the entire 21st century, spanning over 75,000 games started!

Anyway, let’s look at the numbers to see how Johnson stacks up against his luminous contemporaries from 1993-2004, the 12-year run of excellence that began after that fateful conversation with Ryan.

(Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is an advanced statistic that takes multiple factors into account, such as the park in which a player pitched, the quality of their opponents and quality or lack thereof of the defense playing behind them).

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Four of the five pitchers listed here have been enshrined in Cooperstown in the last two summers (Clemens of course would already be in if it weren’t for the PED issue).  To me, what separates the Big Unit from Pedro is the complete games and shutouts.  He was able to finish, something that the smaller Martinez wasn’t able to do (as painfully evidenced by Game 7 of the ALCS when the Yankees came from behind to beat the Red Sox).

Like Johnson, Pedro Martinez was traded early in his career in another of the worst swaps in baseball history.  Pedro came up with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1992, four years after his older brother Ramon.  Pedro, besides being four years younger, was also five inches shorter and the Dodgers didn’t feel like he had the stamina to be a starting pitcher.  After the ’93 campaign, the Dodgers felt like they needed an upgrade at 2nd base and wanted to add more speed to their lineup so they traded young Pedro to the Expos for 24-year old speedster Delino DeShields.  This trade turned out to be even worse for the Dodgers than the Johnson-Langston deal had been for the Expos.  DeShields stole plenty of bases but didn’t hit a lick in his three years in LaLa land while the 22-year old Martinez promptly turned into a solid starting pitcher and a Cy Young winner by 1997.

The Expos, having already traded one future Hall of Famer (Johnson) decided to trade another after 1997.  This of course wasn’t because they didn’t know what they had but because they were in the middle of a salary purge that would ultimately doom the franchise and relocate it to Washington.  The Boston Red Sox were the beneficiaries of Pedro’s golden years.  In his first six years in Beantown (1998-2003), Pedro had a ridiculous 101-28 record with a 2.26 ERA. He featured one of the greatest change-ups in baseball history and was simply (like Maddux) one of the greatest thinkers on the mound.

He was nearly a foot shorter than Randy Johnson, but Pedro Martinez was also an intimidating presence on the mound. Early in his career, he had a reputation for being a head-hunter. He was famous for brawling with the Reds’ Reggie Sanders (while an Expo) and the Devil Rays’ Gerald Williams (while a Red Sox) and of course the legendary 2003 ALCS fracas in which Pedro threw down 72-year old Yankees coach Don Zimmer.  Pedro hit 141 batters in his career, 13th most in baseball history and a really high total for a pitcher with such great control on the mound.  Pitching inside was simply part of Pedro’s game.

With all respect to the brawl with Zimmer, the highlight of Pedro’s time in Boston was in July 1999 when he started the All-Star Game at Fenway Park; I had the privilege to attend and watch this masterpiece in person.  The National League lineup was fearsome but Pedro struck out five of the six batters he faced.  He struck out Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Jeff Bagwell.  Larkin is a Hall of Famer, McGwire and Sosa would be were it not for their use of steroids, Bagwell probably would be if it weren’t for suspicions of PED use and Walker is a worthy candidate as well.  Those five players hit a combined 2,222 home runs in the major leagues but Pedro whiffed them all.

If you add in his Cy Young season with the Expos in 1997 (when he posted a 1.90 ERA), Pedro Martinez had a 2.20 over a seven year period, nearly half a run better than the next best (Johnson’s ERA was 2.70 for those years). It is for this remarkable seven-year run (which included three Cy Youngs, two 2nd place finishes and one 3rd) that makes Pedro Martinez a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Pedro was brilliant but not as durable as his fellow inductee Johnson; he was effectively finished by the age of 35 while Johnson pitched effectively into his 40’s.

So, with a career that ended early, Pedro finished with totals that usually don’t equal a Cooperstown plaque (219 wins). But that seven-year run was Koufax-ian.  Compare Pedro’s first six seasons in Boston (1998-2003) to the last six years of Sandy Koufax’s career (1961-1966), the six years that made him a first ballot Hall of Famer.

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This is going to sound like sacrilege but Pedro Martinez was a significantly better starting pitcher at his peak than Sandy Koufax.  This is to not meant to diminish the man known as The Left Arm of God and Koufax was instrumental in three World Series titles for the Dodgers compared to Pedro’s one in Boston.  But the simple fact is that, considering where they pitched and when they pitched, Pedro’s numbers dwarf Koufax’s.  The only statistics in which Koufax was superior are in complete games and shutouts; of course this is also reflective of the eras in which they played.  Pedro six-year ERA is nearly identical to Koufax’s while pitching half of his games in Fenway Park, in the American League with the DH, in the tough AL East and during the height of the steroid era.  In the meantime, Koufax dominated in pitcher friendly Dodger Stadium during a low run-scoring environment.  This is why Pedro’s ERA+ (in which 100 is average and factors such as ballparks and league trends are considered) is 56 points higher.

The third pitcher who will be inducted into Cooperstown tomorrow is John Smoltz.  He was a terrific pitcher in his own right, not of the legendary status as the other two but highly worthy of the honor.  Like Pedro, he didn’t finish with a gaudy number of career wins; Smoltz won 213 in his career.  However, unlike Pedro, Smoltz’s “excuse” is not that his career ended early but because he spent four seasons as a relief ace rather than as a starting pitcher; he piled up 154 saves from 2001 to 2004.

Johnson, Martinez and Smoltz have two key things in common (besides being inducted to Cooperstown on the same day): they each won just one World Series title despite their extended brilliance and they also were all three traded early in their careers in deals their original teams would come to regret.  In Smoltzie’s case, he was dealt before reaching the major leagues; he was traded by his hometown Detroit Tigers to the Atlanta Braves in August 1987 in exchange for Doyle Alexander. To be fair, Alexander did exactly what the Tigers needed him to do: he went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA; they won the AL East title by two games over Toronto, which they certainly would not have done without him. However, Alexander did not deliver in the playoffs, giving up 10 runs in 9 innings while losing two starts in the ALCS against the eventual champion Twins.

Alexander got bombed in his two starts against the 1987 Twins but Smoltz, as a member of the Braves, delivered two quality starts against Minnesota in the 1991 World Series; his scoreless duel in Game 7 against Jack Morris is one of the epic games in the history of the Fall Classic.  Smoltz appeared in the post-season 14 times in his career (all but one of those with Atlanta) and he is rightfully considered one of the best clutch pitchers in baseball history.  He finished his career with 209 October innings pitched, with a 15-4 record and 2.67 ERA.  The Braves played the role of bridesmaids for many years (winning their only title in 1995) but Smoltz was very rarely the culprit in those disappointments.

Smoltz missed the entire 2000 season due to Tommy John surgery.  When he returned, after a handful of starts, the Braves asked to transition from starter to reliever.  It wasn’t something he really wanted to do but Smoltz was always a team first player and did what was asked, and did it really well.  In his four years out of the pen, only Mariano Rivera saved more games than Smoltzie’s 154.

The final member of the Cooperstown Class of 2015 is Houston Astros 2nd baseman Craig Biggio.  Unlike the three others, Biggio spent his entire career with one organization.  He was the 22nd overall pick in the 1987 draft (from Seton Hall College) and was in the big leagues just one year later at the age of 22.  Biggio was the Astros catcher for the first four years of his career before moving to 2nd base in 1992.  He finished his career with 3,060 hits, 292 home runs, 414 stolen bases, and four Gold Glove awards.  Bob Costas called him the “swiss-army knife” of baseball players.  He stole bases, he hit doubles, started his career as a catcher, spent most of it at 2nd base but also played center field, giving him extensive time at three of the most important four defensive positions on the diamond.

Despite the benchmark of 3,000 hits, it took Biggio three tries on the ballot to reach the necessary 75% of the vote. There are two bones that some voters had to pick with his career: one, that he limped across the finish line to 3,000 hits, that he was no longer worthy of an everyday role in his final season at age 41.  The second complaint is that Biggio did not win any championships and was a poor post-season performer in general.

The post-season complaint is valid: both he and the other member of the “Killer B’s” (Jeff Bagwell) stunk it up in three consecutive first-round exits from 1997-1999 in the N.L. Division Series.  Biggio hit an anemic .119 in 50 plate appearances (Bagwell .128 in 48 PA’s).  In his first 17 post-season games overall (through the first 3 games of the 2004 NLDS), Biggio hit .138 with a grand total of one RBI.   He did better in the 2005 post-season run that led to Houston’s one and only World Series appearance, but he went 4 for 18 in the Series, which the Astros lost in a four-game sweep to the Chicago White Sox.

As for the other complaint, that he limped across the finish line to 3,000, I’m not buying it.  While it’s true that he was a below-average player in his final season (2007), this is not uncommon at all, especially considering what Biggio meant to the Houston organization for two decades (think Derek Jeter a year ago).  In the previous season, even as his defense and batting average was slipping, Biggio hit 21 home runs, fourth most among all major league 2nd basemen.  But this complaint also neglects the fact that Biggio was an on-base machine throughout his career.  There are some players who reach the 3,000 hit plateau who were far less valuable as hitters than others who fell shy.  Babe Ruth didn’t get 3,000 hits; Ted Williams didn’t get 3,000 hits; neither did Frank Robinson or Barry Bonds.  These players were so feared that they walked too many times to have the opportunities to reach the 3,000 hit plateau.

Biggio is not in the same class as those men but when you add his hits with his walks and HBP, he reached base a total of 4,505 times in his career, a number bettered by only 17 other players in history (he’ll be passed shortly by Alex Rodriguez).  This total of 4,505 times reaching base is better than fifteen members of the 3,000 hit club, all but Rafael Palmeiro who are Hall of Famers.  He reached base 849 times more than Roberto Clemente, 672 times more than Lou Brock, and 550 more than Tony Gwynn.  Biggio is also 5th in history with 668 doubles and 15th with 1,844 runs scored.

Biggio and Randy Johnson will be the 9th and 10th former Astros players to be enshrined in Cooperstown.  You read that right: free-agent-to-be Johnson was traded to Houston for the last two months of the 1998 season.  Biggio will be the first player to have an Astros logo on his Cooperstown plaque.  Expect a huge contingent of fans to make the trek from Texas to upstate New York.  In another first, Johnson will be the first player to have an Arizona Diamondbacks logo on his plaque.  Seattle still doesn’t have any but they’ll get theirs next summer when Ken Griffey Jr. takes the stage.

One of the great things about induction day is the introduction of the existing Hall of Famers, living legends who take the stage behind the podium as the new inductees prepare to join their most exclusive fraternity.  We can expect that these speeches will be moving, there may very well be tears.  Pedro Martinez will certainly pay tribute to Juan Marichal, the Dominican Dandy who inspired generations of boys from the Dominican Republic to play the game of baseball; Pedro will only be the second player from the Dominican to earn the honor of a Cooperstown plaque.  Randy Johnson will certainly thank Nolan Ryan for helping turn his career around. For John Smoltz, he’ll have two teammates sitting behind him (Maddux and Glavine) as well as his long-time manager (Bobby Cox).  And I’m guessing that Biggio will be stumping for his teammate and friend Jeff Bagwell to join the club in the near future.

I worked for ESPN from 1989-2001 and one of the highlights of my career was the first time I was assigned to cover the induction ceremonies as a producer for Baseball Tonight.  It’s hard to describe how awe-inspiring it was to be in a room with living legends before the ceremonies begun.  It’s one of the reasons I try to never miss the ceremony on TV.  It’s baseball history and it brings back the little kid in all of us.

Thanks for reading!

Chris Bodig