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.
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