Quote:
Originally Posted by pewe
Well, I guessed you believe Sosa has low vote % due to PED suspicions. I was just trying to get a handle on how strong his candidacy would be regardless. 60 WAR OF feels borderline?
Not sure it’s a useful comp, but Ortiz generated nearly 40% more oWAR. And has a lot of the intangible “face of MLB”, “most popular player in MLB” and “leader of Red Sox to exorcise the curse”. I guess Sosa might not have similar storylines?
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Uhh yes, Sammy Sosa isn't in the HOF only because of steroid allegations.
Sammy Sosa was incredibly popular. I don't know what your memory could have been of 1998, but he and McGwire - talk about storylines - were credited with
saving baseball.
And I don't know about Ortiz winning any of those popularity contests. Maybe he did. I know he was a contemporary of a guy named Jeter, and that covers most of his career.
But we are talking about bias here. and that's the point. There wasn't actually a curse. He didn't perform a miracle. He was a part of very good, very expensive teams in a large market that won the WS. And he gets points for how he played. For sure. But if a 60WAR OF who helped save baseball is borderline, how is a 50 WAR DH who won some titles with Boston somehow so much better?
And how does fellow Bostonian Manny Ramirez who is TWICE suspended for Peds getting more votes year in and year out?
The 6 released names on the 2003 steroid list came out and MLB was silent. Let Sammy Sosa go through all these votes without mentioning that REALLY we can't hold him accountable for that. But Mafred lays it all out for David Ortiz. Well if that's the case, it works for Sosa too, right?
So why isn't it?
I know you won't say Pewe, I know. Let me help you. They really like Ortiz. They really like his intangibles. His smile sets them aflutter. He gave that awesome speech after the marathon attacks.
Sosa famously took the field after 9/11 running across Wrigley with a fluttering American flag, but that's been forgotten I guess. Because he took steroids. And we know he did because he failed a 2003 test. A test that mattered right up until the point when someone questioned Ortiz. And suddenly, to a whole lot of people, that test didn't count anymore. Except for the others, like Sosa.