Jeff Bagwell
Jeffrey Robert Bagwell is an American former professional baseball player and coach. A first baseman, he spent his entire 15-year Major League Baseball playing career with the Houston Astros.
Originally a Boston Red Sox fourth-round selection from the University of Hartford in the 1989 amateur draft, Bagwell was traded to the Astros in 1990. Bagwell was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 1991 and won the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 1994. Bagwell and longtime Astros second baseman Craig Biggio and teammate Lance Berkman were known as the "Killer B's", and the team experienced consistent success during their careers; Houston finished in first or second place in the NL Central division in eleven of twelve seasons from 1994 to 2005. During that period, the Astros qualified for the playoffs six times, culminating in Bagwell's lone World Series appearance in 2005.
Bagwell hit 449 home runs for the Astros, the most in club history, and set numerous other franchise career and single-season records. He is a four-time MLB All-Star, a three-time Silver Slugger winner and a Gold Glove recipient. The only player in MLB history to have six consecutive seasons with thirty home runs, 100 RBIs, 100 runs scored, and 100 walks, Bagwell is one of twelve players in history to hit 400 home runs and record an on-base percentage of.400. He is the only first baseman with at least 400 home runs and 200 stolen bases. Overall, Bagwell batted over.300 six times, had a career OBP of.408, and had a slugging percentage of.540. He was elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2017, Bagwell was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Early life
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, as the only son of Janice and Robert Bagwell, Jeff Bagwell and his family moved to Killingworth, Connecticut, when he was one year old. Much of Bagwell's family is from the Greater Boston area, including both his parents, and are avid fans of the Boston Red Sox. His favorite baseball player, Carl Yastrzemski, was a longtime left fielder for the Red Sox. Robert, from Watertown, pitched college baseball at Northeastern University and as a semi-professional. Janice, a police officer, grew up in Newton and played softball in local Boston leagues until her 20s. Bagwell's parents divorced when he was 11. Precocious and demonstrating much athletic ability early in life, he played a wide variety of sports as a youth. Recalled Janice, Jeff "could throw a ball before he could walk. When he was six months old, we'd throw a ball to him and he would throw it back."Bagwell graduated from Xavier High School, a private all-male Catholic school located in Middletown, Connecticut. A versatile athlete, he excelled at soccer, setting the school goal-scoring mark, played shortstop, and lettered in basketball. In early 1989, Bagwell was honored by Xavier for his character and generosity. He also excelled in American Legion Baseball under coach Fred Tremalgia for Post 75 in Middletown and went on to be named the 2003 American Legion Baseball Graduate of the Year.
College career
, head coach of the University of Hartford, offered Bagwell a scholarship in spite of baseball not being his primary sport. Bagwell's acceptance of Hartford's baseball scholarship was based at least in part on the lack of a professional soccer league in the United States at the time. At Hartford, Denehy switched Bagwell to third base. Over three seasons playing for Hartford, he batted.413 in 400 at bats, a school record, and, for a time, a New England collegiate record. He also was the school's career home run and run batted in leader when he was drafted, and a two-time Eastern College Athletic Conference player of the year. In 1987 and 1988, he played collegiate summer baseball for the Chatham A's of the Cape Cod Baseball League, and in 1988 was named the starting third baseman for the East Division in the league's annual all-star game.Professional career
Draft and minor leagues
The Boston Red Sox selected Bagwell in the fourth round of the 1989 Major League Baseball draft. Throughout his career, Barry Axelrod served as his agent. For his first professional assignment, the Red Sox appointed Bagwell to the Single-A Winter Haven Red Sox of the Florida State League in, where he batted.310 with two home runs. In, while playing for the Double-A New Britain Red Sox, Bagwell won the Eastern League Most Valuable Player Award. In 136 games with New Britain, he batted.333 with 160 hits, four home runs, 61 runs batted in, 34 doubles, seven triples, 73 bases on balls, 57 strikeouts,.422 on-base percentage,.457 slugging percentage and.880 on-base plus slugging percentage. He finished first in the league in hits and doubles, second in batting, OBP and OPS, fourth in walks, fifth in SLG, ninth in runs scored and tenth in RBI.Late in the 1990 season, the Red Sox, who were in search of relief pitching to improve their chances of making the playoffs, contacted the Houston Astros about Larry Andersen. Stan Benjamin, who scouted the New England region for the Astros, recommended that they ask for Bagwell in return. The Astros initially hesitated owing to his sparse home run production, but Benjamin persuaded them, quipping that New Britain's Beehive Field was so large that "Babe Ruth couldn't hit home runs in that ballpark." On August 30, 1990, the Red Sox took the Astros' offer. The trade is now considered one of the most one-sided trades in baseball history; in 2001, ESPN's readers named it the second-worst trade in sports history, behind only the Red Sox trading Ruth to the New York Yankees. Although Andersen pitched well down the stretch in 1990, he allowed three runs in 22 innings to help the Red Sox secure the American League East division title on the final day of the season, the Oakland Athletics swept them out of the American League Championship Series. They then lost Andersen after the season when he was declared a "new-look" free agent due to the third collusion settlement.
According to the Red Sox' then-general manager, Lou Gorman, the trade made sense at the time. Gorman spent the ensuing years defending the decision-making process that led up to the Bagwell trade. In his 2005 autobiography, One Pitch from Glory, Gorman noted that Boston already had Wade Boggs at the major league level at third base, and had rated prospects Tim Naehring and Scott Cooper higher than Bagwell on the organization's depth chart. Bagwell had seen some time in the minors at first base, but he was blocked from that position by Mo Vaughn. Gorman pursued Andersen only after receiving assurances from MLB's player relations committee that Andersen would not be lost to the new-look free agency. Nevertheless, it is considered one of the most one-sided trades in baseball history. Not only did the Red Sox lose Andersen to free agency after one month, but both Naehring and Cooper were out of baseball by 1997. The disproportionate results of the trade notwithstanding, Bagwell eventually became acquainted with Andersen and they formed a friendship. "I knew LA and I love him," Bagwell asserted. "He used to make fun of me when I was playing bad. He said, 'you're making me look bad, you have to step it up.' Look up his numbers. He was pretty good at what he did."
Houston Astros
In spite of the unexpected detour early in Bagwell's professional baseball career, he blossomed in Houston, becoming one of the most accomplished players in Astros franchise history. He spent his entire major league career in a Houston uniform and, along with teammate Craig Biggio in their 15 seasons playing together, were a prodigious offensive and defensive unit known as the "Killer B's", synonymous with the Astros throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. During their 10 peak seasons from 1994 to 2003, they appeared in nine All-Star Games, won five Gold Gloves, ranked in the top five of the Most Valuable Player Award voting five times and averaged 226 runs scored. They totaled 689 home runs, 2,485 RBI and 3,083 runs scored while the Astros advanced to the postseason six times.With an exaggerated and unusual batting style, Bagwell waited for each pitch in a low crouch, with legs wide open and knees bent nearly 90 degrees, appearing as if he was sitting on an invisible bench. He stepped back with his front foot as he began his swing. Next, he would rise from his stance and rotate his hands with the bat forward into his powerful, uppercut swing. "That wide stance keeps him from over striding", Joe Torre observed, "which can be your biggest problem when you're trying to hit for power." The low crouch also shrunk his strike zone, allowing him to walk more often. Standing 6 feet tall and weighing, he did not present the image of an imposing, home run-hitting giant that would cause pitchers to be very careful when he batted after he began his major league career.
Rookie of the Year Award and early career (1991–1993)
The Astros invited Bagwell to major league camp in spring training of 1991. Bagwell, expecting for the club to assign him to their Triple-A affiliate in Tucson, enthused them with his play. Because they, too, already had an established major leaguer at third base in Ken Caminiti, they approached Bagwell about shifting to first base, which he accepted. Having not previously played the position as a regular, Bagwell received a crash course, playing minor league games in the morning and Astros games in the afternoon until Opening Day. Observed The Sporting News: "Rookie Jeff Bagwell never played first base before this spring, but the position is his to lose. It's up to his bat." Thus, Bagwell made the major league club without an assignment to AAA, making the uncommon jump from AA to the major leagues, and made his major league debut on Opening Day. On May 6, he hit the ninth-ever upper-deck home run at Three Rivers Stadium off Bob Kipper in a seventh-inning pinch hit appearance, estimated at. Bagwell hit.350 in September. He finished the year hitting.294 with 15 home runs and 82 RBI while leading the Astros in several offensive categories. He was named the 1991 National League Rookie of the Year, the first Astros player to win the award, Baseball America's Rookie of the Year, The Sporting News Rookie of the Year and postseason All-Star and on the Topps' Rookie All-Star Team.Bagwell's power hike piqued the curiosity of many baseball observers. In two minor league seasons from 1989 to 1990, he had managed six home runs in 932 at bats–a ratio of 155 at bats per home run. With 15 home runs in his first year in Houston, that average shrunk to 36.9. He also exhibited extraordinary plate discipline for a rookie: while ranking tenth in the league in walks with 75, his OBP placed fifth at.387. Of the power surge, commented Bagwell to hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, "That's awesome", to which he reacted, "Awesome? We can get more out of you than that." By altering an approach to contact the pitch with topspin as he did when he arriving to Houston, Jaramillo taught Bagwell to hit with backspin, resulting in a soaring trajectory rather than nose diving. He also habituated Bagwell to manipulate the count, waiting for a pitch to drive instead of indiscriminately swinging at any pitch that appeared to be a strike. Accounted Bagwell of the newfound advantage, "I didn't hit many home runs in the minor leagues, but when I hit one, when I got backspin on it, it went a long way."
Although firmly established as the Astros' first baseman from Opening Day in 1991, Bagwell remarked years later that transitioning from third base was not automatic. First basemen approach fielding plays from their right side, which is opposite to playing third base. He recounted one conversation that occurred during an Astros pitching change in a game against St. Louis. Shortstop Ozzie Smith was on first and asked Bagwell, "How's it going?" Bagwell responded, "I'm really struggling with my backhand." Smith replied, "Well, here's what you do. You can't field the ball deep. You have to get out in front of it." Remarked Bagwell, "I was basically being given a lesson from Ozzie Smith at first base during a pitching change. It's pretty cool."
The next year, Bagwell hit.273, driving in 96 runs with 18 home runs. In 1993, the Astros improved to a third-place finish in the National League West division, and in mid-September, Bagwell was batting.320 with 20 home runs and 88 RBI. However, a pitch from the Philadelphia Phillies' Ben Rivera broke the fourth metacarpal bone in Bagwell's left hand, ending his season prematurely. It was the first of three successive seasons that ended early or was interrupted due to an incoming pitch breaking the same bone in that hand. His tendency to dip just before starting to swing made his hand more vulnerable to being hit by inside pitches. His.320 average was sixth in the NL. In February 1994, Bagwell and the Astros agreed to a one-year contract with a $2.4 million base salary.