Hall of Fame Poll: Mike Piazza

I'm skipping Troy Percival, he was a very good reliever, saves 358 games, but I have a hard time seeing him as a Hall of Famer. He played 14 years, made 4 All-Star teams, had 781 strikeouts in 708 innings.

It is Mike Piazza 's third time on the Hall of Fame ballot, he had 57.8%of the vote in his first year and 62.2% last year, so he's close. Piazza is where the one that the BBWAA bug me the most, someone said he had back acme and that's enough for a conviction with the Writers fine sense of justice. By that logic I was using from age 13 to age 30. It is just stupid.

Piazza was probably the best offensive catcher of all-time. He holds the all-time record for home runs as a catcher.

Over 16 seasons, Piazza hit .308/.377/.545 with 427 home runs, 2127 RBI in 1912 games.

He was Rookie of the Year in 1993, played on 12 All-Star teams, won 10 Silver Slugger awards, got MVP votes 9 times, never winning but coming in 2nd twice, 3rd once and 4th once.

Mike has an offensive WAR of 59.4, good for 121st  all-time among position players. He also caught 2 no-hitters.He wasn't thought of as a great defensive catcher. I wonder if more modern metrics would like him better.

A pretty amazing career for a guy that was drafted in the 62nd round, only because Tommy Lasorda was his Godfather.

He also had a couple of run ins with Roger Clemens. He was hit in the head by a Clemens pitch, which put him out of the lineup with a concussion. Then, in the World Series, Clemens threw a piece of a broken bat in his directions. Clemens said he was throwing it to the bat boy, but I don't know why he would throw a broken bat that hard at a bat boy. Anyone that gets on Clemens' bad side gains extra points with me.