Ex-Mets Closer Billy Wagner Doesn't Think Alex Rodriguez, Other PED Users Belong On Hall Of Fame Ballot

Ex-Mets closer Billy Wagner doesn't believe Alex Rodriguez, other PED users belong on Hall of Fame ballot.

Slowly but surely.

Despite missing out on being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame again this year, Billy Wagner gained some ground by receiving 51% of the vote after garnering 46.4% in 2021. 

With 2022 being his seventh year of eligibility, Wagner will get three more tries on the ballot and must reach the 75% threshold in order to be inducted into Cooperstown.

Wagner, who spent the majority of his 16-year career with the Astros and Mets, proved to be one of the best closers of all-time during his playing days. From 1995 to 2010, Wagner accumulated a total of 422 saves (sixth most in MLB history), 2.31 ERA, 187 ERA+. 0.998 WHIP and 1,196 strikeouts. The left-hander was also a seven-time All-Star and won the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award back in 1999 with Houston.

Prior to the 2006 season, Wagner chose to leave the Phillies in favor of the Mets. And that's where he spent the next four seasons and became familiar with a tough opponent in crosstown rival third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who was with the Yankees at the time. 

For the first time since retiring in 2016, Rodriguez joined Wagner on the Hall of Fame ballot this year and received 34.3% of the vote by the Baseball Writers Association of America. But as great as Rodriguez was during his career (696 home runs, 3,115 hits, three-time AL MVP Award winner, 14-time All-Star, 10-time Silver Slugger Award recipient), Wagner believes that he should be left off the ballot due to his track record of using performance enhancing drugs - and that goes for the rest of the steroid users from their era.

“To me that is a very easy story,” Wagner told Mike Puma of The New York Post on Wednesday. “If you are caught and proven without a doubt and you are suspended, I don’t know why you are on the ballot.

“I understand that A-Rod was one of the greatest players I ever played against, and when all that stuff changes you just have a hard time. You go, ‘Why? You were already great.’ For whatever reason I just don’t think it’s fair that [illegal PED users] get to enjoy what guys who did it the correct way are forced to deal with. A guy like Dale Murphy who goes out there and hits and gets MVPs and does it correctly, but doesn’t get in, but the guy who takes shortcuts shouldn’t get the same privilege.”

Back in 2009, Rodriguez admitted to using PEDS while playing for the Texas Rangers from 2001 to 2003, but he did not get hit with any consequences from the league for coming clean. However, he was later suspended for the entire 2014 season as a result of obtaining illegal steroids from Biogenesis, which was a South Florida-based lab. 

But A-Rod wasn't the only player on the ballot that was suspended for PEDs (Manny Ramirez). Beyond Rodriguez and Ramirez, the trio of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa were heavily linked to steroid allegations but were never caught. Regardless, Clemens, Bonds and Sosa were not elected this time around, which was their 10th and final year of eligibility. 

This is something that Wagner doesn't agree with. While Wagner feels that players who tested positive or served suspensions for steroids in their careers should not be included on the ballot, he is stuck scratching his head on why the best of the best haven't gotten in.

“I know there’s other guys in the Hall of Fame speculated to have used PEDs and stuff like that and they got in, but to me Clemens, Bonds … it’s real hard to see why the real best of the best aren’t in there,” said Wagner. 

While steroid-use was rampant around MLB throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Wagner thinks that his elite numbers while pitching in this era should only help build his case towards one day being inducted into Cooperstown.

“I feel like it’s a compliment to me that somebody had to go and do this, they had to go and get supplements to be able to compete with somebody like me,” said Wagner. “I do feel that is a credit to what I brought, and to play in that era they had to do that because they weren’t having much success against me.”