For the fun of it, where do you rank Bagwell all-time with both leagues? Obviously Gehrig is ahead of him. Who else?
Well, here's the list of HOF first basemen: http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/HOF_register_position.shtml Sticking to the "modern era" guys (post 1920's), and excluding guys like Brett, Carew, Yaz, etc... who played most of their careers at other positions, here's my list: Lou Gehrig Jimmie Foxx Harmon Killebrew Frank Robinson Rafael Palmeiro Hank Greenberg Jeff Bagwell Johnny Mize Willie McCovey Willie Stargell Mark McGwire Bill Terry Tony Perez Eddie Murray George Kelly Orlando Cepeda I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody.
okay, but let me preface this by saying that bagwell has been my favorite player since i was a little kids just starting to follow baseball, so obviously i'm more than a little biased in favor of bags. of the top of my head i'd say gehrig and foxx are the only one clearly ahead of bagwell. It gets harder to compare against players like mize or greensberg who lost numbers of year due to war service. Bagwell has better career numbers, but greensberg probably had higher peak value, while mize had high peak value as well. if i had to rank them i'd rank bagwell behind greensberg but ahead of mize. greenberg (when you factor in lost years due to war) cap anson (though hard to really compare to modern ear player) I think bagwell ranks slightly ahead of Mcgwire and Thomas, although thomas, really more of a dh than a 1st baseman, could be rank ahead of bags if he can stay healthy for a few more productive. Bagwell's overall talent on the field annd in the basepath, i tihnk is enough to put him ahead of these two. i'd also rank him ahead of murray and palmiero due to having a higher peak value. Mccovey is a more similar but more interesting case, cause while, bagwell had a high peak value, mccovey was very productive well into his 40's. like mcgwire and thomas though, i'd rank bagwell ahead of him, due to baserun and fielding as mccovey was not a good fielder or baserunning. this i just of the top of my head and glancing at baseball-reference, i'd be interested is seeing statistics like jaws, winshares fromthese guys. sorry if this is a disjointed answer (and for any typos) trying do this while finishing up work for the week
I'm not sure Frank Robinson and Killebrew count as first basemen since they spent most of their careers playing elsewhere.
