Mark McGwire and the Hall of Fame

For the fifth season, Mark McGwire's name appears on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. In the previous four years, he has received between 21.9 and 23.7% of the vote. In order to gain induction, one needs 75%, so McGwire has been significantly below that threshold for the entirety of his candidacy.

On the surface, it would appear that the reason for his lack of support is due to his being linked to steroids. His pathetic performance in front of Congress when he stated that he was 'not there to talk about the past' certainly did not help his case. In an effort to attempt to help his chances for enshrinement, he apologized for 'mistakes' he made during his playing days, and has returned to baseball in the form of a hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. In doing so, he became reunited with his biggest enabler, Tony LaRussa.

However, there is more to McGwire not being inducted than just the steroid issue. Quite simply, when looking at his statistics, he does not deserve to be enshrined. McGwire did one thing well, and that was hit home runs. In fact, his 583 home runs currently ranks tenth all time. Over his career, he hit a home run for every 10.6 at bats, which is the top rate of all time. Solid numbers, yes.

Yet, McGwire only had a grand total of 1626 hits over his 16 year career, which ranks 463rd all time. He is behind such notable names as Mark Kotsay, Shannon Stewart, Alfredo Griffin, and Tony Taylor. His batting average stands at a very underwhelming .263. While he was relatively valuable with the bat, mainly for his power numbers, his fielding at a fairly critical position was lacking. His defensive wins about replacement over his career was a -3.6. The last full season that he played where he was not a liability in the field was in 1992.

Furthering the argument against McGwire, http://www.baseballreference.com/ provides a list of the top ten players who McGwire compares favorably to. Only two are Hall of Famers, Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey. The list is as follows: 1. Jose Canseco (ironic), 2. Jason Giambi, 3. Killebrew, 4. Carlos Delgado, 5. McCovey, 6. Jim Thome, 7. Norm Cash, 8. Jaun Gonzalez, 9. Dave Kingman, and 10. Gil Hodges. Of the eight not presently in the hall, a case can be made only for Thome. Also, three of the top ten have been linked to steroids in Canseco (who broke the story), Giambi, and Gonzalez.

McGwire was simply a player who could hit for tremendous power, but was essentially useless otherwise. Steroids or not, he simply does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame - not in 2010 or any other year.