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Positive test may doom Palmeiro's shot at Hall
The baseball world was stunned Monday by the news that 20-year veteran and presumptive solid citizen Rafael Palmeiro failed a random test for performance-enhancing drugs and has been suspended for ten days. The latest installment in the game's ongoing scandal is perhaps its most important, and it raises a number of vital questions.
For the moment, we'll lay aside issues such as whether Palmeiro perjured himself before Congress, the vaulting credibility of Jose Canseco and the apparent potency of MLB's testing program. Instead, let's ponder what it means in terms of Palmeiro's Hall of Fame chances and, in the here and now, for the Orioles' playoff aspirations.
On the numbers alone, Palmeiro is an incontrovertible Hall of Famer. He's truly a poor man's Hank Aaron who, by the time he retires, could eclipse 600 homers, 3,000 hits, 600 doubles, 2,000 RBI, 1,750 runs scored, 1,500 walks and 100 steals. Throw in his strong defense and the fact that he's one of only seven players in history to hit at least 500 home runs while having more walks than strikeouts, and you have what should have been an easy first-ballot selection.
Those who assail the excellence of Palmeiro's career are emphasizing peak value at the expense of career value; while he was never the greatest player in the game for an extended period, his sustained excellence is matched or exceeded only by luminaries like Aaron, Willie Mays, Dave Winfield and Eddie Murray.
If Palmeiro has a statistical calling card, it's his defiance of age (he's working on what would be one of the ten best seasons ever by an age-40 hitter) and the lofty career totals that ensued. Unfortunately for him, it's exactly that quality these latest revelations call into doubt. Would he have been able to reach that litany of career benchmarks without the aid of performance-enhancing drugs? Probably not.
Given the groundswell of anti-Palmeiro statistical sentiment, this is a player whose Cooperstown case, while not tenuous, is certainly somewhat vulnerable. Now that it appears he's been cheating at least of late, it's difficult to project what will happen. Unlike, say, Mark McGwire or Barry Bonds, Palmeiro has failed a test and, as a result, has something far more forceful than anecdotal evidence working against him.
On the other hand, McGwire hits the ballot a little more than two years after he positioned himself as the villain of the recent Congressional hearings. Palmeiro, at the earliest, will be up for vote five years from now. That's a lot of time for anger to quell and for the tenor of the debate to change.
Still, absent some mitigating evidence — such as a "false positive" test result or proof that he used a non-banned, over-the-counter substance — Palmeiro seems a reach for first-ballot induction. Normally, a dose of non-scripted contrition would go a long way, but in light of the vehemence Palmeiro showed before Congress, a belated admission-cum-apology may not play well. If there's less to this story than it appears, then the onus is squarely Palmeiro's to demonstrate to us why that's the case.
In any event, if recent statements are any guide, that doesn't appear to be Palmeiro's tack. Voting writers are justifiably outraged over the steroid scandal, and the vast majority took Palmeiro at his word when he denied — complete with finger-wags and everything — ever juicing.
After all, who are you going to believe in a "my word against yours" showdown, an esteemed veteran like Palmeiro or an oily opportunist like Jose Canseco? Well, after Monday's bombshell, it's advantage oily opportunist.
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So it's not only that Palmeiro failed a test, it's also the righteous indignation he showed at the very idea of it all. Those factors in tandem with the (admittedly misguided) idea that his career is something less than stellar will shanghai his election, at least early in his period of eligibility. If there's a guess to be made, it's that he'll slide down to the veteran's committee, at which point he'll eventually be voted in. Should he be? If, as it appears, he knowingly took a banned performance-enhancing substance, no, he shouldn't be admitted to Cooperstown.
Then, of course, there's the matter of what it means to Baltimore's fraying pennant hopes. Since May 26, when the Orioles were a season-best 14 games over .500, they've gone 21-38. At present, the O's are seven-and-a-half games behind the wild card-leading Oakland A's and even further behind Boston in the AL East. According to the postseason odds report at Baseball Prospectus, Baltimore, as things stand now, has roughly a 3.0 percent chance of making the playoffs.
It gets worse.
Of Baltimore's remaining 57 games, 45 come against winning teams. Yep, winning teams constitute almost 80 percent of the Orioles' schedule from this point forward. That's a gruesome stretch drive for a team already circling the drain. All of this is to say that Baltimore wasn't going to make the postseason regardless of what became of Palmeiro, the team's fourth-best hitter to date.
So what will Palmeiro's suspension for violating MLB's drug policy mean to his team? Not much at all. What will it mean to his Hall of Fame hopes? Probably — and deservedly — a great deal.
