I'll limit myself to the 10 selections the writers can make, but I'll also say that I'm extremely happy that Alan Trammell got into the HoF on the Veteran's Committee vote this year as he should have gotten in on the vote when he was eligible years ago.
Anyway, my 10 (in no particular order):
1. Fred McGriff - Nearly 500 HRs, career 280ish hitter. If I had to design a 1st baseman from the ground up and I ended up with the Crime Dog, I'd feel pretty damn good about my design. Should have been in years ago, IMHO.
2. Trevor Hoffman - The NL version of Mariano Rivera. Second most career saves in history. He was lights out for years for the Padres.
3. Edgar Martinez - The quintessential DH. The award is named after him for Christ's sakes.
4. Barry Bonds - He was HOFer before the steroids, he is a HOFer afterwards. Steroids don't make hand to eye coordination.
5. Mike Mussina - If I was a manager and I had to pick a pitcher from the last 20 years to start a game that my life depended on, Mike Mussina would be on a short list. He won nearly 300 games and if he would have played another season plus he would have made it and would have been a first ballot HOFer.
6. Jim Thome - 600 plus career home runs and just an all around great human being. He should be a non brainer for election.
7. Chipper Jones - He is a terrible human being for some of the shit he tweets, but so was Ty Cobb. He has the stats, let him in.
8. Curt Schilling - Hybrid of reasons stated above of Chipper Jones and Mike Mussina.
9. Roger Clemens - See Barry Bonds.
10. Sammy Sosa - This is where my fandom catches up to me. He probably used steroids to reach his numbers, but I'm sorry, he was one of the most feared right handed hitters in baseball for a stretch of about five years in the late 90s/early 2000s.
I really had a tough time with limiting to 10 selections and it's going to get crowded quickly the next few years. I hope the writers elect a ton of people this year otherwise it will be a mess in the next few years with Rivera, Jeter, etc. becoming eligible. I could have made cases for Vizquel, Ramirez, and Guerrero (Vizquel and Guerrero I think will get in this year or next, McGriff, Martinez, and Sosa are getting close to dropping off the list due to time or vote totals).
