Alan Trammell has been on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot for 13 seasons and has been overlooked by the baseball writers each year.
Unfortunately 2014 was no different.
Despite a ground swell of support by media pundits over the last couple of months, Alan Trammell was only able to muster 25% of the vote (75% is needed to get in) and now will likely have to depend on the veterans committee to allow him entry into MLB’s hall of baseball immortals.
Tram is officially eligible until 2016 but with more big names coming up for election it is unlikely that the baseball writers will rally behind Trammell’s induction. If not elected by 2016, hopefully the veterans committee will finally put Trammell in the Hall where he belongs.
Alan Trammell played 20 seasons all with the Detroit Tigers and amassed an imppresive state line of 185 HR 1003 RBI, a career batting average of .285 and a career WAR of 70.4. Tram’s tradiotnal numbers aren’t guady by hall of fame standards but are comparable to other shortstops who have been recently inducted, namely Barry Larkin.
Larkin was inducted in 2012 with 198 dingers, 960 ribbies a career average of .295 with a WAR of 70.2. So why Larkin and not Trammell? With no logical answer, that is the question that will be eating away at Trammell backers as they discuss the 2015 class.
Although Trammell deserves to be inducteed into Baseball’s Hall of Fame it is understandable with first ballot locks Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez on the ballot. The bad news for Tram, the road isn’t going to get any easier.
2015 Class Is Solid
With Alan Trammell being the notable exception, its hard to argue with the 2015 Hall of Fame class.
Randy Johnson was an absolute lock as a first ballot hall of famer. With 303 Wins, 5 CY Young award (4 consectuive) and a world series MVP it’s hard to blame the voters for including the Big Unit on their ballots.
Pedro Martinez was also a favorite to be voted in on the first ballot. 291 wins to go with 3 Cy Young awards are impressive but it was his postseason heroics with the Boston Red Sox that put him over the top.
John Smotlz was also a first ballot inductee becomeing the third starter from the 1990’s Altanta Braves rotation that dominated the National League. Tom Glavine, Gregg Maddux and manager Bobby Cox have all been previously inducted.
Craig Biggio had to wait for his third year on the ballot to be inducted. Biggio was a hit machine at multiple positions amassing 3,060 hits over a 20 year major league career.
Not This Year
Mike Piazza (69.9%), Jeff Bagwell (55.7%) and Tim Raines (55%) all missed the cut this year but are just a few votes aways from induction. Steroid Era players like Mark MacGwire, Barry Bonds and Rogers Clemens are still getting snubbed by the baseball wirters for being linked to performance enhancers. Of those player The Rocket recieved the highest vote total with 37.5%.