Hall candidate: Clemens' credentials sullied by PEDs
- Roger Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards and 354 games for four teams
- Clemens would be a slam dunk HOF choice if not for his link to performance-enhancing drugs
- Like Barry Bonds and others, Clemens probably won't be voted in on his first try in 2013
(Editor's note: USA TODAY Sports is publishing sketches of the top Hall-of-Fame candidates on this year's ballot. It is an intriguing group, ranging from players with first-ballot accomplishments marred by the cloud of performance-enhancing drugs to unsullied players nearing the end of their 15-year eligibility. The Baseball Writers Association of America will announce Jan. 9 who, if anyone, accumulates the 75% of the vote necessary for induction.)
Name: Roger Clemens
Position: Pitcher
Career: 1984 to 2007; Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, Astros
Year on ballot: First
Why he should be inducted: Because his statistics are no-argument, slam-dunk, first-ballot stuff. His seven Cy Young Awards are unmatched and he has seven ERA titles, five strikeout titles, six 20-win seasons and 11 All-Star selections. He ranks third all-time in strikeouts (4,672) and ninth in wins (354). It was after the 1996 season – and a four-year stretch in which Clemens was 40-39 with a 3.77 ERA compared with 136-63, 2.66 over the previous seven years – that Boston general manager Dan Duquette chose to let Clemens move on, saying the pitcher was in decline. As the manager of another team that considered signing Clemens at the time told USA TODAY Sports, "We saw his medicals; he was done."
But Clemens came back better than ever, winning 162 games and four Cy Youngs over the next 11 seasons. If suspicion over how Clemens might have enhanced his career is going to impact voting, it's his post-Boston years that would come under scrutiny. That said, Clemens' 77.7 WAR just in his Boston years is higher the 67.9 career average for pitchers in the Hall.
Why he shouldn't be inducted: Because Clemens ranks right up there with Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire in an environment that doesn't require much more than performance-enhancer innuendo to keep a candidate from induction.
Clemens has the smoking guns of the under-oath allegations of his former trainer, Brian McNamee, and his former buddy and teammate Andy Pettitte nudging him under the bus. Clemens' defiant and very public denials in the almost constant controversy since he retired have only made him the most visible reminder of the steroid era and its shadow over the Hall of Fame. It became so sordid, we even learned that his wife had HGH injections.
For any voter considering penalizing suspected users, the Clemens case is one of the easier decisions.
Numbers don't lie: Clemens is third among career Wins Above Replacement among pitchers. In fact, his career WAR is eighth all-time for any position.
Verdict: The PEDs stench is too thick for Clemens to get in on his first try. His numbers are so overwhelming that if the anti-PEDs voting bloc erodes over the years, Clemens might be one of the first beneficiaries.