Carlos Delgado Headed to Boston

A couple of weeks ago, I took at a look at the potential Hall of Fame class of 2015.

Now comes word that Carlos Delgado, a player that I categorized as “on the bubble”, has inked a deal to play for the Boston Red Sox.

According to the Boston Herald, Delgado worked out for the Sox batting cages Friday before their game at Yankee Stadium. The former Blue Jays great had been working out at a facility in Long Island and had previously been linked to a handful of teams including the Los Angeles Angels, New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox.

But ultimately Boston makes the most sense for Delgado, who hasn’t suited up in more than a year. And with All-Star Kevin Youkilis on the shelf for the rest of the season and oft-injured Mike Lowell filling in at first, Delgado’s left-handed stroke and 473 home runs would add a little needed pop to the BoSox lineup.

Delgado is scheduled to report to Triple-A Pawtucket tomorrow, and according to his agent, David Sloane, he’ll only need 10 days to two weeks to be ready after not playing since last May.

According to ESPN.com, the terms of Delgado’s deal calls for him to be paid a prorated salary of $20,000 and includes a an opt-out date of September 1.

If the first baseman is promoted to the bigs, he’d be paid on a prorated salary of $3 million…or roughly $545,000 a month. There are performance clauses that would pay Delgado an additional $75,000 for being ALCS MVP and $100,000 for being named World Series MVP.

But what about those Hall chances?

If you look at Delgado’s overall numbers, he stacks up rather favorably to some players already in the Hall of Fame. Among those players (according to Baseball-Reference) are legends Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey and Duke Snider.

Of the more recent players on the list, Delgado matches up well with Jeff Bagwell, Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga. The problem? None of the three of them are considered shoe-ins…and neither should Delgado.

Delgado’s career totals…a .280 batting average, 473 home runs and 1512 RBI are impressive. Unfortunately, the climate of today’s baseball frontier is such that if you didn’t produce those numbers over the span of a 17-year career…it is deemed a failure of sorts.

No hardware to speak of, only two All-Star appearances and a mere 2038 hits…yeah, Delgado is going to need a little more to get my support.