The Curious Case of Richie Ashburn and the Hall of Fame

There are a number of borderline members in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Many times, these players have been inducted by the Veteran’s Committee because they could not get the requisite 75 percent of the votes to be elected by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Less than 2 percent of the 19,000 players who have ever played in the big leagues have a plaque in Cooperstown. That’s how it should be. The Hall of Fame should be reserved for the best of the best — the very greatest players to have ever taken the field.

Unfortunately, that standard is not always maintained. When borderline candidates are granted induction into the Hall, they lower the bar for entry to other borderline or marginal candidates.

No one should ever be able to argue, “Well, he’s as good as that guy and he got in,” as an excuse for a borderline candidate’s entry.

One of those borderline candidates who still managed to become immortalized in the HOF is Richie Ashburn.

Ashburn had a fifteen-year career in the majors, spent largely with the Phillies, though he also played two years with the Cubs and spent his final season with the Mets. Ashburn was named to the All-Star Game six times in that span.

The left-handed hitter collected 2,574 hits in 8,365 at-bats. However, he had at just three 200-hit seasons and averaged 172 hits per season, the vast majority of which were singles. In fact, Ashburn led the NL in singles four times. All of that is nice, but not particularly remarkable.

Ashburn hit a grand total of 29 homers in his career (that's not a typo) and amassed a total of 317 doubles, an average of just 21 per season. He notched a career-high 32 doubles in 1955. It’s safe to say that Ashburn was not an extra-base machine. In fact, he had a career-best 274 total bases in 1951 and averaged just 213 per season. All of that is quite pedestrian and not Hall-of-Fame-like.

The Nebraska native totaled a mere 586 RBI in his career and scored 100 runs just twice in 15 seasons. In fact, Ashburn averaged just 88 runs per season and, while nice, that's not the stuff of a Hall of Famer whose strong suit was getting on base.

In short, Ashburn didn’t create many runs. The whole point of an at-bat is to either drive in a run or to get on base and score. Starting in scoring position helps a lot with the latter. But Ashburn didn’t do either very often. It’s hard to score from first or to drive in a run with a single, which represented a disproportionate number of his hits.

Ashburn stole 234 bases over the course of his career, with a career high of 32 in 1948, his rookie season. However, he averaged less than 16 steals per season. Oddly, Ashburn was considered a very fast player, yet he was not a big stolen base threat. So, the issue isn't just that he didn’t generate many extra-base hits; he didn’t steal many bases to get himself into scoring position either.

The center fielder did post a very healthy .308 career batting average (highlighted by NL batting titles in 1955 & 1958) and had an impressive .396 career on-base percentage, finishing first in four seasons. However, his career slugging percentage was a meager .382, which is really weak.

Ashburn never won an MVP Award and he finished in the top-10 just twice in fifteen seasons. He had a career WAR of 63.6, while the average career WAR of a Hall of Famer is 69.

Yet, somehow, the Veteran’s Committee still elected Ashburn to the Hall of Fame in 1995. It’s really puzzling.

Ashburn had a nice career, but in most respects he was pretty average to slightly above average. There is nothing about his career that befits the Hall of Fame. Yet, he has been immortalized in Cooperstown anyway.

If it seems that I’m picking on Ashburn, I’m not. He had a fine career and was a very good hitter. But he just isn’t worthy of the Hall of Fame and neither are 98 percent of the players who have ever put on a uniform. It’s not an insult; it’s the norm.

There are dozens of players not enshrined in the Hall of Fame who had better, in some cases much better, careers than Richie Ashburn. They have a right to feel confused or even bitter.

Richie Ashburn epitomizes the problem with putting borderline candidates in to the Hall; they lower the bar for everyone and make marginal candidates seem like reasonable candidates.

In reality, Ashburn wasn’t even borderline or marginal. He had a good, solid career, but never did anything to warrant a place in Cooperstown. The fact that he has a plaque there just isn’t right.

Remember When Nomar Seemed Destined for the Hall of Fame?

When the Red Sox drafted Nomar Garciaparra in the first round of the 1994 draft, they knew they were getting a special player. Garciaparra had batted .427 in his final season at Georgia Tech, was an Atlantic Coast Conference All-Star and a first team All-American in 1993 and 1994. He had also helped the Yellow Jackets reach the College World Series title game in '94, though they lost to Oklahoma.

Garciaparra excelled in the minors and moved quickly through Boston's farm system, making his Major League debut on August 31, 1996.

The next season, Garciaparra launched himself onto the national scene, when he batted .306 and posted a 30-game hitting streak, setting an American League rookie record.

The 23-year-old also smashed 30 home runs (a rookie shortstop record), collected 209 base hits (a Red Sox rookie record) and drove in 98 runs, setting a major league record for a leadoff hitter. As if all of that wasn’t enough, Garciaparra also stole 22 bases and led the league with 11 triples.

That extraordinary performance earned him his first All Star selection, the Silver Slugger Award and the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

Garciappara looked like a budding superstar. His potential seemed boundless.

The next season, 1998, he found a way to improve on his stellar rookie campaign. After moving up in the batting order to third or cleanup, Garciaparra belted 35 homers and drove in 122 runs, while batting .323, which was sixth-best in the league. As a result of his stunning sophomore performance, he was the runner-up for the AL MVP Award.

Garciaparra finished off the year by having an outstanding postseason, in which he batted .333 with 3 homers and 11 RBI, though Boston lost to Cleveland in four games in the ALDS.

Nomar's rookie season was no fluke; this guy had the goods. He was the real deal.

Yet, somehow, Garciaparra still managed to take a step forward in 1999, winning the batting title by hitting .357. He was still a solid run producer too, hitting 27 homers and driving in 104 runs, despite appearing in just 135 games. Nomar also started his second straight All Star Game, which took place at Fenway Park.

He led the Red Sox back to the postseason, where they took revenge on the Indians in the ALDS, beating them in five games. Garciaparra hit .417 in the series and followed that by batting .400 with two homers against the Yankees in the ALCS, which Boston lost in five games.

In 2000, Garciaparra, who was batting .403 as late as July 20, won his second batting title by hitting .372. It was the highest batting average by a right-handed batter in the post-war era and Nomar became the first right-handed batter to win consecutive titles since Joe DiMaggio. Garciaparra also homered 21 times and drove in 96 runs, as well as drawing a career-best 61 walks.

Nomar finished in the top 10 in MVP voting for the third-consecutive year. There was now a legitimate argument across baseball as to who was the best shortstop in the game: Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter or Garciaparra.

Agent Scott Boras ran a statistical analysis of Garciaparra which predicted that, by age 40, Nomar would have totaled 513 home runs, 3,581 hits and a .336 career batting average. The shortstop’s career was clearly on a Hall of Fame trajectory.



If there was one weakness evident in Garciaparra’s game at that point, it was that from ’98-’00, he played in only 135-143 games per season. Nomar seemed prone to injury. Some said he was fragile. But he was fantastic, nonetheless.

In 2001, Garciaparra suffered a split tendon in his wrist, exacerbating an injury he'd sustained during the ’99 season. As a result, the 27-year-old had to start the season on the disabled list and did not play in his first game until July 29. The injury plagued him through August, at which point the Red Sox finally shut him down for the year. Nomar played in only 21 games that season, a significant derailment for such a brilliant, young superstar. His average fell to .289 and he hit just 4 homers with 8 RBI.

Nomar’s wrist injury, which required surgery and would trouble him for the rest of his career, was an omen of bad things to come.

In 2002, however, Garciaparra remained healthy enough to play in a career-best 156 games. He rebounded nicely, batting .310 (which was still low, by his standards) with 24 homers, a league-best 56 doubles and 120 RBI. Garciaparra made his fourth All Star team and in September he became the fastest Red Sox player to record 1,000 hits, reaching the milestone in his 745th career game.

The real Nomar was back.

Garciaparra made his fifth All Star team in seven seasons and finished the year with 28 home runs and 105 RBI. He had enough speed to steal 19 bases, hit a career-best 13 triples (second-most in the majors) and score 120 runs (second in the AL).

However, he batted “just” .301. That was a bit worrisome, given that his career average was .326 entering that season, which included the .289 average he posted in his injury-shortened 2001 season.

The good news, however, was that he tied his career high by playing in 156 games for the second-consecutive season.

Nomar batted .300 against Oakland in the ALDS, but didn’t drive in a run. He then hit .241, with an uncharacteristic 8 strikeouts, against the Yankees in the ALCS.

In an era of extraordinary offensive output, Nomar had not only solidified his position as one of the best shortstops in baseball, he was widely viewed as one of the premier players in the game.

Little did anyone know, 2003 would be the last elite season of Nomar’s career. The wheels were about to come off his wagon at age 29.

Due to a contract stalemate and, perhaps, concerns about Nomar's health, the Red Sox were ready to move on. The club attempted to send Manny Ramirez to Texas in exchange for A-Rod, who would have supplanted Garciaparra at short. Boston was working on a simultaneous deal that would have sent Nomar to the White Sox in exchange for outfielder Magglio Ordóñez. Of course, the MLB Player’s Association nixed the A-Rod trade, which scuttled the planned trade of Nomar to Chicago. Consequently, the bridge between Nomar and the Red Sox had been burned.

Entering the 2004 season, Garciaparra suffered an Achille’s injury that kept him out of the lineup until June. He returned to play in 38 games for Boston, batting .321 with 5 home runs and 21 RBI. However, the Achille’s problem limited his range at shortstop, thus hurting the team’s overall defense. Despite the Sox being in a pennant race, the injury forced Nomar to take regular days off to facilitate the healing process.

Boston grew weary and finally traded their star shortstop, the face of their franchise for the previous seven seasons, to the Cubs at the trade deadline. The "Nomar era" in Boston had come to an unfortunate and uneventful end.

Garciaparra wrapped up his Red Sox career at age 30, with a .323 average, 178 home runs, 690 RBI and a .535 slugging percentage over parts of nine seasons.

Nomar’s Hall of Fame trajectory was suddenly derailed. He was never again the same player. Though he was an All Star with the Dodgers in 2006, a season in which he slashed .303/.367/.505/.872, with 20 homers, 31 doubles and 93 RBI, it was the last, great hurrah of his career. The performance earned him NL Comeback Player fo the Year honors.

Nomar hadn't hit more than 9 homers in any of the previous four seasons and he would never again hit more than 8 in any of his final three. Furthermore, his batting averages after leaving Boston, a period spanning 2005-2009, ranged from .264-.303. Nomar slugged .500 just once in the five seasons of his post-Red Sox career. Additionally, he never played in more than 122 games in any of those years and averaged just 85 per season.

Garciaparra was haunted by his Achilles’ injury, as well as a torn left groin injury that occurred in 2005. Though he continued to play for the Cubs, Dodgers and Athletics, he was a shadow of his former self and never again the extraordinary player he had been in Boston.

In 2014, Nomar was inducted into the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame, along with former pitchers Pedro Martínez and Roger Clemens. It was a well-deserved tribute, but it raised some lingering questions.

Just how great would Nomar’s baseball legacy have been had he remained healthy and in Boston for the duration of his 14-year-career? Nomar retired at 35, an age when he still should have had a couple productive seasons remaining.

These are question that we're all left to ponder, as we wonder what might have been. After all, for seven seasons, Nomar was one of the elite players in the game and on the path to the Hall of Fame.

Instead, he will only visit that hallowed hall like the rest of us: as a tourist.

Three True Outcomes Making Baseball Boring and Predictable

Rangers' slugger Joey Gallo epitomizes the all-or-nothing approach that plagues baseball today.

More and more, baseball is becoming a “three true outcome” game, ruled by home runs, walks and strikeouts. Hitters have taken an all-or-nothing approach, becoming almost entirely focused on the long ball.

Last season, MLB set a league record with 6,105 total home runs, which was 26 percent higher than the average from the previous five years. Clubs encourage hitters to create loft and swing for the fences.

MLB Home Runs Last Four Seasons

2014: 4,186
2015: 4,909
2016: 5,610
2017: 6,105 (MLB record)

Look at that -- the number of home runs hit across the majors rose by nearly 2,000, or 50 percent, in just a four-year span!

The problem with this go-for-broke approach is that it often leads to a whole lot of nothing on the field.

League-wide, average fastball velocity has increased every season since 2009, a span of nine seasons, from 91.8 mph to 93.6 mph, according to FanGraphs. This had led to a lot more swings and misses.

There were 40,105 strikeouts in 2017, surpassing the record of 38,982, set just the previous season. The league-average strikeout rate has risen every year since 2006, and set a new all-time record every year since 2008.

The Red Sox, for example, set a franchise record last season with 1,580 strikeouts, led by Chris Sale’s league-leading 308.

Yes, more pitchers now throw in the high-90s than ever before, but batters also swing and miss an awful lot.

Last season, 140 hitters stuck out at least 100 times and 26 of them struck out at least 150 times. Whiffing has become an epidemic.

Strikeouts are different from other kinds of outs because the ball is not put in play and cannot result in a run scored. A sacrifice fly or a ground ball in the infield can score a run. Batters can reach base on an infield hit or an error, but unless there is a wild pitch or a passed ball, a batter who strikes out cannot reach base. Simply put, striking out is an unproductive at bat.

The problem with the three true outcomes is that the ball is not put in play often enough to make the game as interesting, or as fun, as it should be. There were 9.1 percent fewer balls put in play last year than just two years earlier. Meanwhile, players across baseball recorded a 33.5 percent three-true-outcome rate last season, surpassing 2016’s record of 32.3.

This means a third of the plays involved only the pitcher, the catcher and the batter. If that’s not boring, it’s certainly a lot less exciting and a lot more predictable.

Last season, 58.3 percent of Texas slugger Joey Gallo’s plate appearances ended in one of the three true outcomes. Aaron Judge was second, at 55.2 percent.

The 6’ 5”, 235-pound Gallo typifies all that is wrong with three-true-outcome baseball. Though the Rangers' masher hit 41 home runs last year, he batted just .209 (in other words, he didn’t even bat his weight), while striking out 196 times, which amounted to whiffing in 37 percent of his plate appearances.

The over-reliance on home runs for scoring has come at the cost of small ball. There is now less emphasis on bunting and base stealing (which is at a 45-year low), for example. With so many strikeouts and walks, fans aren’t witnessing many of the things that have traditionally made baseball so exciting, such as the squeeze play, the double steal and the hit and run. With the ball in play less frequently, it also eliminates the chance for great defensive plays.

The three true outcomes have taken fielding, and fielders themselves, out of the game. It would be hard for Brooks Robinson or Ozzie Smith to look so otherworldly while fielding their positions in today's game. Furthermore, they’d likely be bored by having so many fewer opportunities.

In short, the three true outcomes have led to a more boring and predictable brand of baseball. Instead of trying to get runners on base, methodically advancing them into scoring position and then bringing them home, the game has shifted to a jackpot style of baseball where everyone relies on the instant bonanza of the home run to score and win.

One of the results is that hitting is becoming a lost art.

While 117 players racked up 20 or more home runs last season (the most in history), only 25 hit .300 or better. Hitting ability is now the rarest offensive skill.

Last season, Judge, the New York Yankees’ right fielder, broke Mark McGwire’s rookie home run record and finished the year with 52 long balls.

Judge led the American League with 127 walks (also a rookie record). However, he also led the big leagues with 208 strikeouts.

Judge embodies the all-or-nothing approach of today’s major league sluggers. His high walk total is a by-product of pitchers fearing his extraordinary home run power. It’s safer to issue him a free pass than to take the chance that he’ll clear the bases with one swing.

It’s worth repeating that Judge had 208 whiffs last season. He also had a record-setting streak of 37 consecutive games with at least one strikeout.

Here's some perspective:

Joe DiMaggio struck out 39 times in his rookie season, which was the highest total of his career. In 1941, he struck out just 13 times!

Babe Ruth’s highest strikeout total in any season was 93. Despite his historic home run totals, Ruth never whiffed 100 times in any season. In 1931, the Babe had 199 hits, 46 of which were homers, posted a .495 OBP and fanned just 51 times.

Lou Gehrig topped out at 84 strikeouts in 1927 and had just 31 in 1934. The Iron Man had seven full-time seasons with less than 50 strikeouts.

Ted Williams had a career-high 64 strikeouts in his rookie year. He fanned fewer than 50 times in almost every other season.

While viewed as great sluggers, the above players were all pure hitters, who also happened to possess great power.

Those kinds of hitters are a relic of the past. Today’s players are, for the most part, either hitters or sluggers — not both.

Judge looked like the perfect combo in the first half of last season. Though he finished the year batting a very respectable .284, he may ultimately prove to be just another slugger, with a high OBP (.422) and a ton of Ks.

Fans have always loved the long ball, so perhaps MLB is unconcerned about the rise of the three true outcomes. But perhaps it should be. Walks and strikeouts are boring to most fans, especially the casual variety. If fans stop coming to games and tune out of local broadcasts, MLB will take notice.

As it is, there is already a concern that younger fans — millennials — are less interested in baseball than previous generations. Their main complaint: baseball is too slow. The three true outcomes have to be viewed as a primary culprit.

It’s pretty widely accepted that the baseballs used over the past 2-3 seasons are juiced. MLB could reduce the number of home runs by returning to the previous baseballs, which weren’t wound so tightly. But it won’t; fans love the long ball too much.

However, organizations, instructional leagues and coaches could certainly preach and teach the art of hitting, while shaming the absurd amount of strikeouts that now plague the game. There is no reason that home run hitters can’t hit for average or that great hitters can’t also hit for power.

If they could see today’s game, DiMaggio, Ruth, Gehrig and Williams would all be shaking their heads. They’d wonder how so many of these guys still have jobs... and massive paychecks.

Who Were the Best Third Basemen of the '80s?

The short list includes Boggs, Brett and Schmidt. How about Molitor?

There are 319 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Do you know how many of them were third baseman?

Remarkably, the answer is just 16 -- and only seven of them were elected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA).

From 1984-1998, a period of 15 years, just one full-time third baseman was enshrined in Cooperstown: Mike Schmidt.

Third base is such a demanding position that many players are eventually moved off the hot corner to a less challenging spot on the diamond.

I did some research into the best third baseman of the 1980s and was surprised by the dearth of talent. After Mike Schmidt (105.5 WAR), Wade Boggs (91.1 WAR) and George Brett (88.4 WAR), the quality really falls off.

According to the Subjective Baseball blog, Boggs was the best third baseman of the ‘80s. The writer makes a pretty good argument, which you can read here.

Paul Molitor (75.4 WAR) also makes many lists as one of the best third baseman of that era, which made sense to me. After all, he's a Hall of Famer.

However, Molitor played just 791 of his 1,495 career games at third.

While looking at Molitor’s career stats, something really jumped out at me: his numbers are relatively unimpressive for a Hall of Famer. He amassed over 3,000 career hits, so he always seemed like a no-brainer inductee… until I closely looked at his career.

Molitor played more than half of his 1,495 games at the hot corner and also DH’d quite a bit. Both are premium power spots in any lineup. Yet, Molitor had relatively little power, homering just 234 times over 21 seasons. That’s an average of 11 long balls per season. It’s not that his power faded as he got older either. HIs career high was 22 homers at age 36. His next best season was 19 HR at age 24.

However, power is just one facet of the game. Clearly, there are other important factors too.

But here’s where it gets really weird:

Over Molitor's 21 seasons, he scored 100 runs just five times; had 200 hits just four times; posted a .400 OBP just three times; had 40 doubles just twice; and drove in 100 runs just twice.

When I view Molitor’s numbers in sum total, his career was very good, but not elite. His greatest offensive asset was his batting average. Molitor posted a lifetime .336 average and batted at least .300 12 times, which is very impressive.

Molitor was a seven-time All Star and won four Silver Sluggers, which is nice. But he played 21 seasons, which suggests that he wasn’t often the best player at his position. Additionally, Molitor never won an MVP.

None of that seems like the stuff of a Hall of Famer.

But defense is really important too, right?

Here’s the clincher: Molitor never won a Gold Glove. In fact, in 1982, he led the AL with 29 errors at third. As a third baseman, he had four seasons in the top 10 for errors and as a second baseman he had two seasons in the top 10.

Molitor did win one World Series, with Toronto in 1993, and was the MVP.

Yet, the real reason Molitor made the Hall of Fame was longevity. He was a very good hitter, whose excellent batting average allowed him to stay in the game for an extended period (the average career of a Major League Baseball player is just 5.6 years).

The strength of Molitor’s HOF argument was this: he is one of just five players in major league history with at least 3,000 hits, a .300 lifetime batting average and 500 stolen bases. The other four are Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins and Ichiro Suzuki.

But get this: Molitor stole 40 bases just four times and had 10 seasons in which he stole 20 or less. He wasn't Rickey Henderson; he just exhibited consistency at base stealing over a very long career.

The conclusion is that Molitor is a borderline HOF candidate in every sense. Yet, I never knew that until I carefully analyzed his numbers.

That means there were even fewer truly great third baseman in the ‘80s than I had realized.