This is the twelfth of our series where we here at Notinhalloffame.com, do what else? Debate the merit of twenty-four men on the most loaded Baseball Hall of Fame ballot in our lifetime.
Joining me, the site's Committee Chairman, in this debate are D.K. of the site's Phillies Archivist blog and Darryl Tahirali of the site's DDT's Pop Flies blog. This looks to be a very important part of our site, and we hope you will enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed writing it.
Chairman: Donnie Baseball. Mattingly is on his 15th year on the ballot, and I didn’t even realize this until I looked it up. Last year, Mattingly had 8.2 percent of the ballot, his lowest total ever. His highest was 28.2 percent, which was on his first year of eligibility. The second year was 20.3. I really like him, but here is a guy who might be this generation’s Steve Garvey; and I don’t mean because he pretended to be a really good guy in public. Basically, I am saying that sabremetrics is not his friend. With this loaded ballot, I could conceivably see him fall under fiver percent. Now I’m too lazy to look up if anybody ever fell below that 5 percent threshold on their final year, but that would have to be a first right?
Darryl: Well, the saber numbers are not his enemy—it's the counting numbers that are hurting him: Don Mattingly simply doesn't have the big career totals. Only six of his 14 seasons saw him play 150 or more games, and that is indicative of the injuries that dogged him. In the only season in which he played every game, 1986 in his age-25 year, Mattingly led the American League in hits, doubles, slugging percentage and total bases. He hit 31 home runs, drove in 113, and posted a .352/.394/.573 slash line. He had a six-year peak between 1984 and 1989, which is just a little short and he was not quite the dominant player during that time. That would compensate for the light counting numbers, but it never happened. Mattingly falls just short in both areas. And if he does fall below five percent this year, I think that would be more of an indicator of an overloaded ballot.
D.K.: This is his last year on the Writers’ Ballot Mattingly will be a Veterans Committee candidate two years from now in December 2016, for the HOF Class of 2017. If he is to reach the Hall Of Fame at all entrance to Cooperstown via the Vets Committee is his proper level of the Hall. Injuries prevented him from sustaining the type of dominant performance that adds up to a Writers Ballot HOFer, but I could see him getting in through the Vets.
Chairman: I think whatever metric you use, it comes down to a peak period that just wasn’t long enough and a period after that doesn’t measure up no matter how you slice it. I wonder though if he was on better Yankees teams, and whether we want to admit or not, Major League Baseball is more interesting when the Bronx Bombers are good, that if he played for a better team, that he would be closer to induction. Mattingly was the star of bad Yankees teams, but Rizzuto was what on great Yankees teams, maybe the fifth best player? Sorry…but I know that Darryl will understand when I say that Phil Rizzuto is my Percy Sledge. Holy Cow!
D.K.: There’s not much I could add to Darryl’s comment. He said it all – or at least most of it. Mattingly's Saber numbers or I guess you could call them his qualitative numbers are Hall Of Fame-like. It’s his quantitative numbers or counting numbers that weaken his case. His four or five year peak was not dominant enough over a long enough period of time to rate Hall of Fame enshrinement in the minds of most voters. He will be eligible for consideration by the Veterans Committee just two years from now in December 2016 on the Expansion Era committee ballot.
Mattingly has become part of a historical footnote. He is one of three players who had been through more than 10 BBWAA elections when they decided to shorten the number of years players can be voted in by the writers. Three players are being grandfathered in and will receive their full run of 15 years on the ballot as per the old rules. This will be Mattingly’s final year on the ballot, next year will be Alan Trammel’s final year on the writer’s ballot and Lee Smith will have his final vote in 2017. After Smith’s shot in 2017, the 15-year ballots rule will pass into history.
Darryl: At least Percy Sledge had an R&B hit called "Out of Left Field," so he's at least in the ballpark. I'm tempted to say that whether Mattingly was on a good or bad team doesn't, or shouldn't matter, but I don't know. Mattingly's record matches pretty closely to Kirby Puckett's in several ways. Both played at the same time, and even though Mattingly logged two more seasons, both played in nearly the same number of games although Puckett had about 100 more plate appearances and collected a season's worth more hits; thus, Puckett hit several points higher, .318 to Mattingly's .307, but otherwise their slash lines are about the same. Mattingly won a MVP award and was runner-up the following year; Puckett was top five three times. Puckett of course had postseasons heroics on his side as his Minnesota Twins won two World Series. Mattingly only ever saw one postseason series, in 1995, the AL Divisional Series against the Seattle Mariners famed for the "Edgar Martinez double" that won the fifth and deciding game. But we all but forget that Mattingly fairly raked in the series, knocking ten hits including four doubles and a home run for a .417 average while driving in six runs, so who knows what Mattingly could have done in more postseasons. Puckett is a marginal Hall of Famer, but he was worth about eight wins more in bWAR than was Mattingly, and that may be the real difference.
Chairman: I always like Mattingly…especially in his Simpsons cameo: “Mattingly, I thought I told you to trim those side sideburns!” Still, an appearance for Mr. Burns’ company softball team doesn’t get him on my ballot. I vote no.
Darryl: No.
D.K.: No.
Comments powered by CComment