Let's say Clemens ended up north of 215 wins and 3,000 strikeouts while keeping his ERA+ over 130. Despite his ability to fool hitters consistently, Boston general manager Dan Duquette opted to let Clemens depart for the Blue Jays via free agency, infamously declaring that the 34-year-old was in "the twilight of his career. As things stand, Clemens is, at bare minimum, a top-five decorated pitcher in history with pretty strong ties to the use of PEDs, but zero failed drug tests or suspensions. His 140.3 career WAR ranks third behind Young (168.4) and Walter Johnson (165.6) and is nearly twice the total of the average Hall of Fame starter (73.9); the only other post-World War II pitchers above 100 are Seaver (110.5), Maddux (106.8), Randy Johnson (102.1) and Warren Spahn (100.2). By way of reminder, a candidate must be named on at least 75 percent of submitted BBWAA ballots in order to be elected into the Hall of Fame. He won yet another ERA crown with a 1.87 mark in 2005. Clemens was named throughout the 2002 Mitchell Report commissioned by MLB, in which his former personal trainer and Yankees trainer Brian McNamee said he injected Clemens multiple times with Winstrol. “Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should be in,” said Reggie Jackson, a 1993 inductee to the Hall of Fame, in an interview with Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe. It's to say that if we're going to claim Barry Bonds was a Hall of Famer "without the juice," so was Clemens. Considering the era in which Clemens pitched, again, he has an argument for the best pitcher ever. That one strike against his candidacy is still proving difficult to overcome. Of course, Clemens’ alleged participation in that era is the only strike against him. Despite widespread speculation that he would pitch another game for the Astros—thereby bumping his Hall of Fame eligibility back another five years, distancing himself from the controversy—he did no such thing. 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens gain support, but not enough for induction Bonds and Clemens only have three years remaining on … For those intangible things some people like in Hall of Famers, Clemens has them all. “It’s time.”. He was an 11-time All-Star. Leading up to the announcement of the 2017 Baseball Hall of Fame class on Jan. 18, we're examining each of the 34 candidates on this year's BBWAA ballot. Despite all of that, the Today's Game committee felt that Selig met the integrity, sportsmanship and character standards in the character clause that BBWAA voters have used to justify voting against Bonds, Clemens et al. He was found not guilty on all six counts. Bonds testified in 2003 that he unknowingly took a clear substance and a cream from a trainer who was indicted in the government’s investigation into steroid distribution from the Bay Area-based BALCO. Any assertion otherwise on the latter front rings false given that, as acting commissioner, Selig had to have known about the FBI’s Operation Equine, an early ’90s investigation into PED distribution that included McGwire and Canseco. We saw it recently with Bert Blyleven in 2011 elected in his penultimate year on the ballot, then with Tim Raines in 2017 and Edgar Martinez this year get into Cooperstown in their final year of BBWAA eligibility. Jose Canseco said Clemens used steroids, and several of his allegations has since proven to be true. He had won three Cy Youngs, led the league in ERA four times, WHIP twice, strikeouts three times, complete games twice, shutouts five times, wins twice and innings once. Meanwhile, the election of Selig via the 2017 Today’s Game Era ballot could carry significant long-term ramifications for how voters handle PED-tinged candidates. For those who want to play the "He was a Hall of Famer before he touched the stuff" game, consider just what Clemens did with in Boston. He nearly painted himself into a legal corner and was subject to a high-profile trial for six counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to Congress. That's not to say that Clemens is as pure as the driven snow. The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2018 Hall of Fame ballot. Neither Barry Bonds nor Roger Clemens were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, both falling short of the required 75% of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America. His 54.1% overall suggests that he’s on his way to election, given that Gil Hodges and Lee Smith are the only candidates who surpassed 50%, aren’t currently on the BBWAA ballot, and haven’t otherwise been voted in. The countdown is based on voting by our power rankings panel, which includes five Hall voters. That's it. The high school sophomore quarterback has the game to live up to his famous name. He’s hardly hiding from public view, but largely lurking in safe spaces. One thing I do want to tackle is this "he was already a Hall of Famer before he juiced" notion that we often hear about Barry Bonds. Contrary to legend, Clemens did not emerge whole from the Texas soil. In his fourth start, he set a major league record by striking out 20 against the Mariners; he didn't walk anyone and allowed just three hits and one run. “Vote this guy in,” Hall of Famer Willie Mays said in August 2018 at Bonds’ number retirement ceremony with the Giants. In 2015 the Hall of Fame made an important change to its voting process, culling the field of eligible BBWAA voters to essentially only active or recently active members. This is up from 57.3% for Clemens and 56.4% for Bonds in 2018, and continues a path of steady growth in their time on the BBWAA ballot. On Sept. 18, in what proved to be his third-to-last start for the Sox, he tied his own major league record by striking out 20 Tigers, again issuing no walks. In other words, Clemens and Bonds will need some current voters to change their minds. That 11.9 WAR season in 1998 ranks fourth among all pitchers since 1915, 0.2 wins behind the totals of Alexander (1920), Carlton ('72) and Dwight Gooden ('85). By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Alas, whatever claim "The Rocket" may have on such an exalted title is clouded by suspicions that he used performance-enhancing drugs. Alas, fate intervened in the form of sloppy relief work by Calvin Schiraldi (an ex-college teammate of Clemens's who had been traded to Boston in November 1985), a wild pitch from Bob Stanley and a ground ball through Bill Buckner's legs. Limited to just 15 starts the following year due to shoulder soreness, he was diagnosed with a torn labrum by a then-obscure orthopedist named Dr. James Andrews, who repaired the tear arthroscopically—a novel treatment for the time. Not even close. Clemens was named on 59.5% of the submitted ballots while Bonds received 59.1%, falling 66 and 68 votes shy, respectively. Clemens was one of the most dominant pitchers in major league history, tallying 354 wins, a 3.12 earned run average (ERA), and 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all time. McNamee, who also served as a personal trainer for Clemens and Pettitte in the 2001–02 off-season, claimed to have performed multiple injections on Clemens and to have stored the used syringes in empty beer cans. Through age 33, some of his top statistically-similar players were Tom Glavine, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver and Greg Maddux. That Clemens and Bonds reached the 50% threshold is probably what compelled Morgan to send his letter to voters, but his belated, simplistic and disingenuous plea ignored baseball’s long history of amphetamine abuse—and amphetamines are most definitely PEDs, illegal without a prescription since 1970—and the presence of such users in the Hall of Fame, to say nothing of the strong possibility that steroid users have already been inducted as well.

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