The only problem with this idea is that he got a lot of HRs back playing the years he did in MM. I know we figured it out a few years ago and the years in the Dome cost him at BEST about 17 total HRs over his career (had he played his entire career in an average HR ballpark).
So it's not like he would have had 500 HRs playing his entire career in, say, the Vet or old Busch.
Bagwell played longer in the Dome than in Minute Maid. Of his home plate appearances, 2,832, or 60 percent, were in the Dome, and 1,812, or 40 percent, were in Minute Maid.
The Dome's park factor from 1991 to 1999 was 95, meaning for every 100 runs the Astros and their opponents scored elsewhere, they scored 95 runs at the Dome.
Minute Maid's park factor from 2000 to 2005 was 104, meaning for every 100 runs the Astros and their opponents scored elsewhere, they scored 104 runs at Minute Maid.
Over Bagwell's career, the park factor in his home parks was 98, moderately favoring pitchers.
Here are Bagwell's batting splits at the Dome and Minute Maid and on the road:
Park Avg OBP Slg OPS HR%
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Dome .303 .421 .546 .966 5.42
MMP .303 .412 .583 .995 7.17
Road .291 .398 .521 .919 5.42
What Minute Maid did for Bagwell was mask his decline as his shoulder degenerated. But if that counts against him, then consider what he would have looked like had he played his prime in Minute Maid. His first season there, at age 32, he hit 47 home runs, drove in 132 and scored 152 runs. You can count on one finger the number of players scoring that many runs in a season since the Great Depression.
In terms of career numbers and rate numbers, none of the other hitters on the ballot except McGwire is really in the same class as Bagwell. But then Roberto Alomar and Barry Larkin were no-brainers last year, and the BBWAA dicked them around, so it is unfortunate but not surprising that Bagwell may not be selected on this ballot.
All of this is meaningless to most of the BBWAA. Even many of the writers saying they voted for Bagwell seem only to have just discovered him. People can write all they want about Bagwell being on the fence, but had Bagwell posted the same numbers playing for the Yankees or Red Sox, there would be no doubt that he would be elected on the first ballot with no difficulty. This has less to do with Bagwell than it does with the myopia and provincialism of the BBWAA.
