Outside the Box

Outside the Box - User Comments

Rasputin put together a nice display of Don Mattingly's stats that were murdered in the formatting. I'll re-present them here with the formatting improved. Note the following are not my words, but are Rasputin's (not the real one, at least I'm presuming he's not).

Before going on, let me give you two stat lines:

     G   AB    R    H  2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
A 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
B 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462

Both men were first basemen. Both men were left-handed hitters.
Both men won an MVP award.
Player A won 9 Gold Glove awards. Player B won none.
Player A was an All Star 6 times. Player B was an All Star 4 times.
Player A played in the postseason once -- a divisional series.
Player B played 4 World Series and 5 League Championship Series.

The first man, clearly, is Don Mattingly, subject of much Hall of Fame discussion.

The second man played during the 1960s, an era of depressed run scoring. There's much debate about
Mattingly, but no one is debating Boog Powell's credentials. No one, not even this orange-bleeding
Orioles fan, thinks Powell is a Hall of Famer. And Powell's credentials are about as good as
Mattingly's, maybe even a bit better.

This argument is Phil Rizzuto squared. Yankee fans cannot scream for credit for playing on great teams,
as Mattingly played for the Yankees during their worst stretch of the free agent era. He's a nice guy,
so what? So's Kent Hrbek ... let's throw Hrbek in here:

     G   AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
DM 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
BP 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462
KH 1747 6192  903 1749 312 18 293 1086  838  798 37 26 .282 .367 .481

He's also a first baseman who batted left-handed. He never won an MVP award, though he did play in the
World Series twice, and he was an All-Star once. But he was very popular here in Minneapolis, and his
teammates loved him, much as Mattingly's did. Mattingly's numbers may be better, especially considering
the difference in ballparks, but they're not much better.

While we're at it, how about Cecil Cooper? Wally Joyner? Norm Cash? Keith Hernandez? Mark Grace?

     G   AB    R    H   2B 3B  HR  RBI   BB   SO SB CS  Avg  OBP Slug
DM 1785 7003 1007 2153 442 20 222 1099  588  444 14  9 .307 .358 .471
BP 2042 6681  889 1776 270 11 339 1187 1001 1226 20 21 .266 .361 .462
KH 1747 6192  903 1749 312 18 293 1086  838  798 37 26 .282 .367 .481
CC 1896 7349 1012 2192 415 47 241 1125  448  911 89 49 .298 .337 .466
WJ 1980 6979  959 2024 404 25 201 1092  820  807 59 38 .290 .364 .441
NC 2089 6705 1046 1820 241 41 377 1103 1043 1091 43 30 .271 .374 .488
KH 2088 7370 1124 2182 426 60 162 1071 1070 1012 98 63 .296 .384 .436
MG 1910 7156 1057 2201 456 43 148 1004  946  561 67 48 .308 .386 .445

Who is the best player out of this cadre of left-handed hitting first basemen? Easy, Norm Cash. He
played during the run-depressed 1960s and still has the highest Slugging Percentage of this group, and
the second best On Base Percentage. His credentials are clearly better than those of Mattingly, who
looks only a tiny bit better than Cecil Cooper, when not adjusting for park factors and defensive play.
And all of these men played in a World Series -- all except Don Mattingly.

So, why is Mattingly such a popular candidate?

* He played in New York.
* He hit for average as his primary skill.
* He did have four big years from 1984-1987. The rest of career may have been worthless, but he did
have four huge years.
* He had a nickname that sounds like it should be one for a Hall of Famer -- Donnie Baseball.