I am a day late on this, but the Phillies are in the mist of a 3 game set down in Houston to play the hated Astros. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t hate the Astros. Yes, they cheated to win a World Series and beat us in another, but I just don’t really care about them. They are loathsome in general, but I don’t have any particular extra hate for them, no more than I have for any other out of division team that doesn’t affect me. It would be like me hating the Blackhawks for losing the Stanley Cup to them. Plus, they gave us Brad Lidge.
They also simply aren’t that special. I don’t mean that as a petty take down, but who is the best Astro of all time? It isn’t like they have some long history. Who was the first person to come to mind? You probably thought Killer Bs first and then after going Bagwell and Biggio you couldn’t recall Derek Bell (even though you came up with Lance Berkman just fine). Anyone else? Maybe Altuve? Well, the top 5 War Leaders in team history are:
| Name | WAR | Years | AVG |
| Jeff Bagwell | 79.9 | 15 | 5.3 |
| Craig Biggio | 65.4 | 20 | 3.3 |
| Jose Altuve | 52.7 | 15 | 3.5 |
| Jose Cruz | 51.4 | 13 | 4 |
| Cesar Cedeno | 49.8 | 12 | 4.15 |
I get it that total WAR and especially average WAR are not without flaw in judging careers, especially in how much they meant to a fanbase. Someone with a higher peak might mean more than someone with longevity or vice versa. Still, I was happy to see that my initial opinion that Jeff Bagwell was way better than Craig Biggio was backed up by the catch-all stat. Then I saw something strange… It took Jeff Bagwell 7 years to get into the Hall of Fame but Craig Biggio only 3. What in the world??? Weirder still, Bagwell hung around in the 50%s the whole time while Biggio missed by only .2% in his second year. I’m sure there are bullshit reasons for this, but it made me want to dig into the stats. Let’s investigate.
Tuesday June 24th at 8:10p – Ranger Suarez v. Framber Valdez (L)
Astros vs Phillies at…Daikin Park? No more orange juice?
Wednesday June 25th at 8:10p – Zack Wheeler v. Colton Gordon (L)
Thursday June 26th at 2:10p – Cristopher Sanchez v. Hunter Brown (R)
Thankfully, there are a few control groups with these two. First, they both played their entire careers in Houston. Second, they were both 22 when they got their first call-ups. Biggio is 3 years older than Bagwell, debuted 3 years earlier, and retired 2 years later, so Bagwell’s entire career is within Biggio’s. As for stats, you can correctly assume that Bagwell leads in the power categories while Biggio leads in the speedier one. They both hit a lot of doubles and hit for average, but Biggio gets the 2-baggers while Bagwell gets the base on balls. Let’s look at the accolades
Jeff Bagwell – Rookie of the Year, 10 years with MVP votes, 1 MVP win with 3 Top-5s, 4 All Star games, 3 Silver Sluggers, 1 Gold Glove. Led the league in WAR 2x, runs 3x, doubles 1x, walks 1x. Led league in RBI, slugging, OPS, and OPS+ during his MVP season. 11 straight seasons with 4+ WAR to start his career with 6 straight of 5+ (came .1 short of 9 straight due to injury) with a peak of 8.2. He hit 40+ HRs only 3x, but if you lowered that to 39+ it jumps to 6x.
Craig Biggio – 5 years with MVP votes, 2 Top-5 finishes, 7 All-Star games, 5 Silver Sluggers, 3 Gold Gloves. Led the league in runs 2x, doubles 3x, stolen bases 1x, and HBP 5x (!). 9 straight years of 4+ WAR with 5 straight of 5+ (it would have been 6 if not for the 94 strike) with a peak of 9.4. He hit 40+ doubles 7x.
That is fucking awesome. These two were incredible together for basically all of the 90s. Let’s take a look at their best seasons:
For Biggio, it’s his 1997 season where he played every game, scored 146 runs, hit .309, was hit 34 times (!), and finished 4th in MVP voting behind Larry Walker, Mike Piazza, and – guess what – Bagwell.
For Bagwell, it’s his 1994 MVP season. Sadly, this was the year we didn’t have a World Series. Some all-time records were set to go down that year, but Bagwell was simply solid as hell across the board and won the MVP unanimously. At first glance at his stats, everything seems in order with 39 homers, 32 doubles, 100+ runs, 100+ RBIs and a …WHAT THE HELL, .368 batting average? .750 slugging? 1.20! OPS? Those are insane numbers. Oh right, only 110 games. That’s only about 2/3 of the season. Let’s do some math. 8.2 WAR is a great season, but 12 WAR is an all-timer! It would have been the 2nd best ever by a hitter in the modern era only behind Carl Yastremski in 1967. Yeah, better than Barry Bonds. 57 HRs, 49 doubles, 170 RBI, and 153 runs. Damn.
So far, this is becoming overwhelming for Bagwell. Wait, what about defense? I remember both being considered very good defenders, but 1st base is not nearly as demanding as 2nd base. Well, that 97 season, Biggio managed to rack up 2.3 WAR at 2nd. That’s pretty good. In his MVP season, Bagwell was below average. In fact, Bagwell was below average in 12 of 15 seasons, topping out at .2 dWAR. So Biggio has him, right? Well, Biggio was below average in 11 of his 20 seasons and pretty bad towards the end. Biggio was a -1.5 3x while Bagwell never got that bad. Both are negative for their careers.
I think it is pretty clear that Bagwell was not just better than Biggio, but a not insignificant gap is between them. Bagwell never bottomed out and was steadily at the top of his game throughout his career. While Biggio was great, he stuck around a few years too long but had an unbelievable peak, especially for a 2nd baseman. And there it is. After wasting about 1000 words, we come to the real reason Biggio was enshrined 4 years before Bagwell.
In the history of the Hall of Fame, there have only been 20 second basemen inducted with Biggio the last in 2015. 6 first basemen have been inducted since Biggio and 28 overall. Of those 20 2b and 28 1b, the stats aren’t even close. First basemen put up unbelievable power numbers that second basemen just can’t match.
From that standpoint, Biggio stands up pretty well. Among second basemen all time, his 65.5 WAR 1s 14th all time (Chase Utley is 15th). Among first basemen, Bagwell is down the list at…4th! No, no, I can’t do this with these Hall of Fame people anymore. I get it that Bagwell was the victim of being on the ballot with all-timers like Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Mike Piazza, and Ken Griffey Jr, but still. He should be with those guys.
The only positive to this exercise is that Chase Utley better be getting into the Hall in a few years.
Thank you to Baseball-Reference and Baseballegg.com for the WAR leaders
Philly Front Office 
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