How Gwynn Stacks Up

To follow-up on David Berri's comment from my Hall of Fame post, I took a look at all the players who were voted in on the first ballot, based on a list that USA Today recently compiled. That list excluded the initial round of entrants into the Hall of Fame - Cobb, Ruth, etc. The point, per Berri's comment, was to see how Tony Gwynn stacks up against other first-ballot Hall of Famers. I share Berri's skepticism about just how great Tony Gwynn was as a player. To be clear - he's is, unquestionably, a deserving Hall of Famer. But the commentariat's effusive praise for Gwynn, and the results of the voting suggest that he is an upper echelon Hall of Famer. About this latter point, I have had my doubts.

Having identified the first ballot Hall of Famers, I took a look at a couple of measures of performance, but I'll only bore you with one: a modified form of win shares. First developed by Bill James, win shares measure all of a player's contributions - offensive, defensive and pitching (where applicable, obviously) and produce an easily digestible whole number. A season total of 15 win shares means you are, more or less, a competent regular. 20 or above is an all-star range performance. 30 and over is an MVP type season. Scores above 40 (and many seasons lack a single player who scores 40 or better) mean you've had a season for the ages. Scores over 50 - there have been only a handful of these in baseball history - basically means you're Barry Bonds from 2001-2004 or Babe Ruth.

I found a list of win shares normalized to every 648 plate appearances (this only applies to hitters) and noted where each first ballot Hall of Famer fell on this list. To my surprise, Gwynn does pretty well here. He is the 96th best player of all-time, by this measure, one spot ahead of Reggie Jackson. That leaves him well behind other first balloters like Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Ted Williams Mike Schmidt, Joe Morgan and their ilk. But, it puts him comfortably ahead of many other first ballot Hall of Famers. For example, Gwynn's co-inductee, Cal Ripken, who received even more votes than Gwynn, is 306th all time. That may surprise some of you. But, the reality is that Ripken had two careers. His first was as a great shortstop who re-defined the position because he was such a good offensive player. The second, however, was spent largely at third base as a decidedly below average hitter for a fairly extended period of time.

Another long-time Orioles' infielder, first-balloter Brooks Robinson, was 469th on this list (to repeat, win shares accounts for defense). Two modern outfielders - Carl Yastrzemski and Dave Winfield - are 230th and 290th respectively.

Now Gwynn, like Ripken, wasn't merely a first ballot Hall of Famer, but one of the top vote getters of all time, in the select company of those named on over 90% of all ballots. Among the players on that list that Gwynn out-polled were Hank Aaron, Mike Schmidt, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle (actually Mantle only received 88% of the vote - according to the measure above, he's the second best player of all-time; Williams is third).

There is no doubt that the single thing Gwynn did best - hit for average - is a statistic that voters pay lots and lots of attention to. And, given that Gwynn made his mark as a hitting craftsman in an era of sledge-hammer wielding muscle-men, the curmudgeonly voters might have given Gwynn even more credit for that skill. But, when you factor in Gwynn's good defense and running ability and, driven by his average, his high on-base percentages (Gwynn had season OBPs of .447 in 1987 and .454 in 1994), you've got an excellent player. Add to that the fact that Gwynn, unlike Ripken, was a solidly above average hitter for every full season of his long career, and you've got a player whose credentials I underestimated.

Comments

[dberri]

Thanks. I would not have guessed Gwynn looked so good. It is interesting that Ripken looks so poor. Now, how does McGwire stack up?
You don't have to answer that. You probably have other stuff to blog on.