No Hall yet for Houston Astros' Jeff Bagwell, but he's hopeful for 2017
Jeff Bagwell, one of the premier power-hitting first baseman of the 1990s, was not voted into the MLB Hall of Fame on Wednesday — but he received 71.6 percent of the vote.
In order to be inducted, players are required to be named by at least 75 percent of eligible ballots — so Bagwell is pretty close.
Upon finding out that he was not part of Wednesday's elected class (that honor went to Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza), Bagwell conveyed that he's content to wait for next year to maybe make his trip to Cooperstown. As quoted by Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle:
“It’s OK,” Bagwell said. “It’s my sixth time, it’s not like it’s my first. I know there’s a process. I’ll wait my time. ”
Brian McTaggart of MLB.com quoted Bagwell as describing the process of thinking about the results all day, only to find out he wasn't getting the call:
"I tried not to think about it, but it's pretty hard not to. My standard line right now is Junior [Ken Griffey Jr.] was in a hot tub the entire day not worrying about anything because he knew he was going to get in. It's the other guys that were struggling.
"But it's all good. Things turned out well. We'll see what happens. Nothing is guaranteed, but I'm hopeful that next year will be my time and I'll be prepared for that kind of day, just trying to wait around and see."
Bagwell's longtime Astros teammate Craig Biggio made it into the Hall last year after falling just short in 2013 and 2014, knows what Bagwell is going through. As he said to McTaggart:
"I obviously feel his pain a little bit," Biggio said. "I was hoping his name was going to get called, and they said he was 15 votes shy, and obviously we were two votes shy that one year. I feel for him. He's absolutely a Hall of Famer and hopefully next year is the magical year."
Throughout his 15-year career, which was spent entirely with the Astros after being traded by the Boston Red Sox as a prospect, Bagwell hit 449 home runs with 1,529 RBI, won the 1991 NL Rookie of the Year and 1994 NL MVP awards and posted a 79.6 WAR (per baseball-reference.com) before retiring after the 2005 season.
