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Hall of Fame Poll: Fred McGriff

Would you vote Fred McGriff into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Fred McGriff

This is the Crime Dog's 9th time on the ballot, last year he was on 21.7% of the ballots. The last two ballots had him jump from the 10% range to just over 20%. That’s not going to do it for him, he’s only got two more times on a ballot.

I'm biased, but I don't know why Fred McGriff doesn't get more support for the Hall. 493 home runs, 1305 RBI, a 1550 RBI and 1305 walks with a.284/.377/.509 slash line. Baseball Reference has him at a 52.5 career WAR.

I really liked him when he was a Jay. When they traded him, and Tony Fernandez to the Padresfor Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter, I told my friend that we were trading away a future Hall of Famer. 30+ homers, 100 walks a year seemed like a guy that should keep.

We got him in a lopsided trade with the Yankees. We got him, Dave Colins (who was a pretty good left fielder) and Mike Morgan (who wasn't good for us but went on to be a pretty good pitcher) for Dale Murray (who had a 4.73 ERA in 62 relief appearances for the Yankees) and Tom Dodd (who never played in the majors for the Yankees, he would go on to play 8 games with the Orioles, 4 years later).

Fred made 5 All-Star teams and had 3 Silver Sluggers. He was always close to the top of the league in OBP and Slugging. The top 4 players on his Similarity Score list are Willie McCovery, Willie Stargell, Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas.

His problem is that he played in an era where there a number of good first basemen and, of course, when steroids were all around. I don't remember Fred being accused of using PED,

If he had those 7 more homers to get to 500......

Matt’s chart:

McGriffHOF

Similar Players: Ernie Banks (elected BBWAA), Billy Williams (elected BBWAA), Jeff Kent (on ballot), Sammy Sosa (on ballot), Gary Sheffield (on ballot), Bobby Abreu (awaiting ballot), Darrell Evans, Ted Simmons, Luis Gonzalez.

Poll

Would you vote Fred McGriff into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

This poll is closed

  • 76%
    Yes
    (270 votes)
  • 23%
    No
    (81 votes)
351 votes total Vote Now