Posted on 8/27/2007 4:58:53 PM

MLB Betting Odds - Craig Biggio Hall Of Fame Or Bust

By BetUS Staff

Is Craig Biggio a Hall of Fame baseball player? If you take the MLB betting lines into consideration, the answer shifts from “maybe” to “eventually”.

The face of the Houston Astros is in the final stretch of his stellar 20-year career. Last month, Biggio announced his decision to retire at the end of the 2007 season, citing the usual reasons: more family time, the wear-and-tear of playing the game, and the specter of decreased performance. Biggio is posting a .683 OPS, his lowest since his first full season in 1989.

As Biggio prepares to exit stage right, the debate on how his career will be remembered heats up. According to the MLB odds, his chances of entering the Hall of Fame on the first ballot are not too promising: +190, to be exact. Those odds improve dramatically to –140 for Biggio gaining entry before his third year of eligibility.

There are a number of factors that need to be addressed to make a sharp wager on Biggio’s HoF chances. Some involve his actual performance, while others involve the nature of the induction process. Let’s start with the former; Biggio is a seven-time All-Star, first as a catcher in 1991, then as a second baseman, where he also won four Gold Gloves. He has five Silver Slugger awards; at his peak in 1998, Biggio batted .325, hit 20 home runs and stole 50 bases.

Taking a sabermetric approach, in his 2001 New Historical Abstract, Bill James ranked Biggio as the fifth-best second baseman in the history of the major leagues. According to the Hardball Times, Craig Biggio ranks third among active players in career Win Shares, behind only Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. And a look at Biggio’s page on the Baseball Reference website suggests his career is similar to the likes of Hall of Famers Robin Yount, Joe Morgan and Paul Molitor.

Few members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) will be swayed by advanced metrics. What most writers and fans care about is the magical 3,000. On June 28, Biggio joined the 3,000-hit club with a single off Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook. He’s the 27th MLB player to reach that coveted milestone; since 1962, when players were first allowed to be inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, every eligible member of the 3,000-hit club has been voted in immediately.

That streak, though, has to end sometime. Writers revisited the value of the 3,000-hit milestone when Rafael Palmeiro joined the club in 2005; he tested positive for steroid use less than three weeks after reaching that mark, and less than five months after famously testifying at a Congressional hearing that he had never used steroids, “period.”

Biggio isn’t under suspicion of using anything untoward in his career; on the contrary, his public image is squeaky clean. He’s an avowed Christian who does countless hours of community service in Houston, most notably for the Sunshine Kids Foundation. Now that Palmeiro has taken the genie out of the bottle however, writers are looking at Biggio’s negatives for HoF entry: no championships, no MVP-quality seasons, and a fairly low profile playing the same position as Roberto Alomar and Jeff Kent.

Such arbitrary considerations illustrate why bettors need to understand the voting process itself. The BBWAA has come under fire for its voting practices, not only for the Hall of Fame, but for seasonal honors like the MVP and Cy Young awards. As a handicapper, you already take what these writers have to say with a hefty grain of salt. Knowing their way of thinking, though, expect Biggio to be ushered into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He will be widely applauded upon his retirement and there will be a public backlash against those writers who smugly suggest that Biggio only belongs in the Hall of the “Very Good.”

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