The Baseball Hall of Fame announced its Class of 2017 on Wednesday, and there are three players joining the ranks: OF Tim Raines, 1B Jeff Bagwell, and C Ivan Rodriguez.
A few words about each player:
First, this is our tenuous A’s connection. We will be listed as one of his teams on his plaque! Not holding my breath that he’ll wear our hat, though. He played 58 games for the 1999 A’s, and he was even slightly above replacement level despite not hitting at all. That 1999 team was sort of like the mini version of 2012, but the gritty reboot prequel where we didn’t quite make the playoffs at the end — rookies coming up and contributing, some random veterans and role players joining the party and playing over their heads, and the whole motley crew shocking everyone by making an actual run (87 wins!