Sosa has the bat issue. And his peak was really short. He seems to be entirely a product of the juice. I am Luke warm on his induction.
I used to think that about Sosa too but I was looking at it again recently and he actually had about a decade where he was putting up the numbers. And while I definitely believe a lot of the power numbers from that era are inflated the fact that he was getting mvp votes all those years shows he was still performing well even when compared to other players of his inflated era. He hit between 36 and 66 HRs nine years in a row. Granted his 600 homeruns were not as valuable as they would be if he hit them in an era where runs were harder to come by (which shows in his total WAR number) but I think it's enough to get him in. Or course like you said, there is still the bat incident.....
I have a hard time being TOOO critical of the pre-testing “juicers” because there were no rules against the juice and the allegations (no matter how obvious most of those allegations are), are just allegations. But Sosa has the allegations AND the bat. At some point, you just gotta say, “Seriously, dude?”.
At least he never had 18 inches of pine tar on his bat like Brett. That guy is the real monster
A corked bat is different than pine tar being slightly past the acceptable line.
Sosa’s peak was better than Ortiz’ career. McGwire is clear cut. Sure he used the juice but his brittle body still got 600 HR’s. Sure he cheated but Hank Aaron got the record because of longevity not because anyone considered him a HR hitter. Bad comparison but peak should matter. Ask a semi decent hardcore baseball fan and when bringing up HR’s Hank Aaron isn’t brought up until someone runs out of arguments. Roger Maris is always brought up and if Sandy Koufax is in the hall then Roger Maris should be. They need to have one set of rules, not just picking and choosing by writers who are as qualified as a local NYC plumber. It can’t be peak and longevity, can’t be magical numbers but then fictitious numbers like Ozzie Smith vs Omar Vizquel.
Sorry, unrelated rabbit hole here…
I just looked at his career stats. He's great for the first 10 years of his mlb career. He probably should have hung it up then at around age 37. But then he played another decade with no power. I guess he just loved the game that much that as long as some team wanted him he was going to keep going.
Yeah, it is called longevity. If you ask a baseball historian and you talk about home run hitters, it will take about 30 guys into even talking about Hank Aaron. There isn’t a single person that would ever put Hank Aaron on a Mt Rushmore, just like no one would ever say Pete Rose was the best hitter of all time. But there are plenty of people who will argue Sandy Koufax is the best pitcher of all time or Hack Wilson had the best offensive season ever.
And whoever hit behind him had a huge advantage because Rickey would mind-r@pe the pitcher
www.baseball-reference.com
Of course, .820 is much better than .757 but the thing I'm saying is similar about them is if you hack off the last 10 years of their careers those OPS numbers will be considerably higher.
