Mark McGwire
From BR Bullpen
Mark David McGwire (Big Mac)
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 6' 5", Weight 225 lb.
- School University of Southern California
- High School Damien High School (La Verne, CA)
- Debut August 22, 1986
- Final Game October 7, 2001
- Born October 1, 1963 in Pomona, CA USA
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[edit] Introduction
"When he went up for his last at-bat, I looked up at the scoreboard and saw his stats: 69 home runs, 144 RBIs, and I'm thinking, 'Look at that; that's not a season, that's a career.'" - Tom Lampkin, talking about Mark McGwire in his record-breaking season
Mark McGwire will be remembered as one of the key players during the "Steroid Era". During his first six full seasons in the Majors he averaged 36 homers. During his last four full seasons he averaged 61 per season. However, he achieved fame long before that, as a player at the University of Southern California, a participant on the 1984 Olympics baseball team, and a key player on the Oakland Athletics teams of the 1980's and 1990's.
"He hit a pop-up against us one day that went so high . . . all nine guys on our team called for it." - Marlins coach Rich Donnelly, about Mark McGwire
[edit] With the Athletics
A big man at 6'5", McGwire was drafted by the A's in the first round in 1984. He broke into the majors with them in 1986, appearing in 18 games and hitting .189. It was the year when Jose Canseco was Rookie of the Year. Also on the team that year were Dave Kingman and Dusty Baker, playing the last season of their careers. Tony LaRussa was the new manager of the team, in his first of ten years with the A's after having had a long stint with the Chicago White Sox.
The next year McGwire burst into the public's consciousness as Rookie of the Year himself. He set the record for most home runs by a rookie with 49. Also on the team that year were Reggie Jackson and Ron Cey, playing out the last season of their careers.
In the next several seasons, McGwire developed a reputation as a slugger with a mediocre average. Even as the Oakland A's started winning the division regularly, McGwire's batting average dropped from .289 in 1987 to .260 in 1988, to .231 in 1989, to .235 in 1990, to .201 in 1991. As a result, his Slugging Percentage stayed under .500 from 1988 to 1991, though he was in the top 10 in 1989 and 1990. He also added a lot of value by drawing plenty of walks, leading the 1990 AL with 110. He was second or third in the AL in homers every season from 1988 through 1990.
The public was enamored of him and he was named to the All-Star Team every year from 1987 to 1992, before being skipped in 1993 and 1994, when he was injured. When healthy, the only All-Star team he missed was in his final season.
McGwire, though popular, was usually not Oakland's fan favorite. In 1988, his teammate Jose Canseco was the American League's Most Valuable Player and Dennis Eckersley was the ALCS MVP. In 1989, when the team won the World Series, teammate Rickey Henderson was the ALCS MVP, and teammate Dave Stewart was the World Series MVP. In 1990, teammate Rickey Henderson was the American League's Most Valuable Player, teammate Bob Welch was the American League's Cy Young Award winner, and teammate Dave Stewart was the ALCS MVP.
In 1990, McGwire usurped Don Mattingly's reign and won the American League Gold Glove for his play at first base.
McGwire came back to greater prominence in 1992 as a hitter, hitting 42 home runs with a batting average of .268, but teammate Dennis Eckersley was named both the American League MVP and also the Cy Young Award winner.
In 1993, McGwire got off to a great start, hitting .333 and slugging .726 in his first month, but then was injured and missed the rest of the year. He had an amazing 224 OPS+, a level he would never reach again. In 1994, he again had injuries and appeared in only 47 games. His performance was less impressive this time, hitting .252 with a slugging average of .474. In 1995, he again had injury issues, but appeared in 104 games, hitting 39 home runs. His 200 OPS+ would have led the league, but due to the playing time issues, he was not among the qualifiers.
1996 marked his last full year with the A's, and he made the most of it, hitting 52 home runs in only 130 games. He led the AL in slugging (.731), OPS (1198), homers, OPS+ (203) and OBP (.467) as the top hitter in the league; he was also in the top 10 in many other categories. In 1997, he started the season with them and hit 34 home runs in 104 games, and then, after rumors had him being traded to many different teams, was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals.
[edit] With the Cardinals
With the Cardinals in 1997, McGwire added 24 home runs in 51 games, for a total of 58 home runs for the season. Manager Tony LaRussa, McGwire's manager for so many years in Oakland, had moved to St. Louis in 1996, and the two were now re-united. He set a little-known record for the longest 2-year home run streak, homering in his last 2 games of 1997 and his first 4 games of 1998 (7 home runs in 6 games). His home runs in first 4 games of 1998 tied record for most consecutive games homering at the start of a season (Willie Mays also had 4 for San Francisco Giants in 1971).
McGwire's chase of the home run record, with Sammy Sosa, is well-known, but what may not be as well-remembered is that he did not win the MVP award. In 1998 and 1999, when McGwire hit 70 and 65 home runs, St. Louis finished in third and fourth place respectively, and it was Sammy Sosa and Chipper Jones who won the MVP awards in those years.
There seemed to be relatively little awareness on the part of the public about steroids at that time, and when McGwire attributed part of his success to a legal substance called Androstendione, it was looked harshly upon by the press and mentioned frequently throughout the rest of the season. Manager Tony LaRussa attributed McGwire's performance to hard work. Pictures of McGwire often showed him with his adoring son, David, who was present when he broke Roger Maris' decades-old home run record. Although Canseco later accused McGwire of using steroids, McGwire has refused to say whether or not this is true.
McGwire's career, at such a peak in 1998 and 1999, was nearing its conclusion. In 2000, although he slugged .746, he appeared in only 89 games. In 2001, he hit .187 in 89 games and was done at the age of 37. As he was still drawing walks and hitting homers, his OPS+ was a respectable 106, but not good enough for a starting first baseman in the majors. While it was McGwire's last year with St. Louis, it was also the first year and Rookie of the Year season for Albert Pujols on the team.
[edit] Career analysis
During his career, which occurred before steroid use became a scandal, he was an immensely popular player. He was named to the All-Century Team in 1999, and around the same time Bill James named him the 3rd greatest first baseman of all time (McGwire was, at the time, James' son's favorite player) as "Big Mac" had one of the top 15 OPS+es of all-time and he does equally well on many other measures.
However, his place in history will be considerably clouded, due largely because of his play during the steroid era and the suspicion that he himself used these illegal substances. He is seventh on the all-time home run list with 583. He had "only" 1,414 RBI (59th all-time as of 2006, which places him below Andres Galarraga, Joe Carter, and Rusty Staub on the RBI list), only 1,176 runs scored, only 1,626 hits, and only 262 doubles. Many of his counting stats are low due to a relatively brief career for an all-time star, plus injuries costing him over two seasons' worth of games. Additionally, his strength was not getting hits, but rather walks and homers. He does considerably better with career percentages, ranking tenth all-time in career slugging percentage (.588), twelfth in OPS and number one in career at-bats per home run (10.6). It should be mentioned that although McGwire's RBI totals are below several dozen other players during MLB's 100+ year history, his AB to RBI ratio is an impressive seventh all-time, just barely below Manny Ramirez in sixth place. His RBI per Game totals are equally as impressive. And his Runs Scored to Games ratio is phenomenal for a man who played first base, usually batted 4th or 5th in the order, and was a pure slugger. His RS/G ratio of .62 is on par with Hall of Fame second baseman Joe Morgan's, and just slightly below the ratios of both Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.
In terms of similarity scores, five of the ten most similar players at the end of 2005 were active and five were retired. The five retired players are Jose Canseco, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey, Norm Cash, and Dave Kingman. That seems to be a pretty good summary of McGwire's career: take the hard-hitting, high-walk, middle-of-the-road batting-average performance of Killebrew and Kingman, a solid glove at first and add in a dash of the stigma associated with Canseco, Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro, etc.
McGwire and Co. will probably be elected to the Hall of Fame eventually, since the Hall can hardly leave out a whole generation of sluggers, and because the Hall has a history of letting in stigmatized players (look at all the players in the Hall who threw spitballs or used corked bats or were accused of throwing games). But it will be a while before his, or any of the other accused sluggers', luster is restored.
Bob Feller, in an interview around August 1, 2006, came out against McGwire being added to the Hall of Fame.
At least one sportswriter has opined that McGwire doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame even if you ignore any stigma. Stated Bob Rosen of the Elias Sports Bureau:
"I can't elect a guy for home run hitting alone. If a guy doesn't have 2,000 hits, unless he's a pitcher, or a guy who had a remarkable career that was ended by unfortunate circumstances, I can't vote for him."
Another sportswriter, Jim Hawkins, said something similar, only tied with the stigma:
"The one thing - the only thing - that makes him worthy of Cooperstown consideration is the home run total. And that statistic is so tainted, I can't take it seriously."
Such claims of one-dimensional performance ignore the fact that McGwire posted very good OBPs, drawing lots of walks in addition to his prodigious power, although the above-cited Hall of Fame voters likely did not place great value on walks.
In the fall of 2006, a poll was taken of baseball writers which indicated that McGwire may not get enough votes on the first ballot to even stay on the ballot. However, he did get over 20% of the vote in 2007, and so will stay on the ballot. In Hall of Fame voting in 2008, he received 23.6%.
[edit] Miscellany
- In 1998, Mark McGwire set the major league record with 70 home runs in a season. This record was broken by Barry Bonds in 2001.
- He owns the record for home runs by a rookie - he had 49 in 1987.
- In 1998, Mark McGwire set the major league record for home runs by a right handed batter.
- In 2000, Mark McGwire set the major league record with 32 home runs in 89 games, the most home runs by a player who played in less than 100 games.
- In 2001, Mark McGwire set the major league record for most home runs (29) by a batter who failed to hit .200 (.187).
- Mark McGwire holds the major league record (minimum 3000 at bats) for home run average. He hit a home run in 9.4% of his at bats (.094).
- Never won an MVP award but finished second to Sammy Sosa in 1998.
- Brother, Dan, played quarterback in the NFL.
- His image has recently taken a hit after his 2005 testimony before Congress regarding steroids.
- His main teammates included Jose Canseco (3645), Rickey Henderson (3283), Terry Steinbach (3233), Dennis Eckersley (2693), Carney Lansford (2413), Dave Stewart (2276), Dave Henderson (2141), Ray Lankford (2001), Mike Bordick (1398) and Walt Weiss (1213).
- On September 22, 1996 in a game against the Seattle Mariners, he became the eighth player to reach the upper deck in left field at the Kingdome when he hit a 473' home run to left center field in the fifth inning off Bob Wolcott; Jay Buhner became the seventh the night before. He reached the upper deck again in that same inning when he took Matt Wagner deep to the same area of left center field, this time 481' grand slam -- Wagner was pitching in what would be his final Major League game. In between those two bombs, Scott Spiezio hit his first Major League home run, a three-run job off Rusty Meacham who didn't record an out that incredibly bizarre inning. Those three taters accounted for all eight Oakland runs that inning.
[edit] Notable Achievements
- 1987 AL Rookie of the Year Award
- 1987 Topps All-Star Rookie Team
- 12-time All-Star (1987-1992 & 1995-2000)
- AL Gold Glove Winner (1990)
- 3-time Silver Slugger Award Winner (1992/AL, 1996/AL & 1998/NL)
- 2-time League On-Base Percentage Leader (1996/AL & 1998/NL)
- 4-time League Slugging Percentage Leader (1987/AL, 1992/AL, 1996/AL & 1998/NL)
- 2-time League OPS leader (1996/AL & 1998/NL)
- 4-time League Home Runs Leader (1987/AL, 1996/AL, 1998/NL & 1999/NL)
- NL RBI Leader (1999)
- 2-time League Bases on Balls Leader (1990/AL & 1998/NL)
- 20-Home Run Seasons: 13 (1987-1992 & 1995-2001)
- 30-Home Run Seasons: 11 (1987-1990, 1992 & 1995-2000)
- 40-Home Run Seasons: 6 (1987, 1992 & 1996-1999)
- 50-Home Run Seasons: 4 (1996-1999)
- 60-Home Run Seasons: 2 (1998 & 1999)
- 70-Home Run Seasons: 1 (1998)
- 100 RBI Seasons: 7 (1987, 1990, 1992 & 1996-1999)
- 100 Runs Scored Seasons: 3 (1996, 1998 & 1999)
- Won a World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1989
| AL Rookie of the Year | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1986 | 1987 | 1988 |
| Jose Canseco | Mark McGwire | Walt Weiss |
[edit] Records Held
- Home runs, first baseman, career, 566
- Home runs, right handed batter, season, 70, 1998
- Home runs, first baseman, season, 69, 1998
- Home runs before changing teams, season, 34, 1997 (Second is Adam Dunn, 32, 2008; third is Greg Vaughn, 31, 1996)
- Walks, right handed batter, season, 162, 1998
