The Baseball Story of Dale Murphy / Is Dale Murphy a Hall of Famer?

This article was founded in the following conversational sequence between myself and Other Joe:

Me: So you got any suggestions for people for me to look at as my next topic for either "The Baseball Story of..." or "Is He a Hall of Famer?"
Other Joe: Dale Murphy.
Me: Is Dale Murphy already a Hall of Famer?
Other Joe: Sounds like you have an article to write.

So I started looking into Dale Murphy (not already a Hall of Famer, by the way). And as I delved into his history, his stats, his awards, I became really uncertain as to whether or not he was legitimately a Hall of Famer.

My decision became that I'm going to write this article, not knowing where I'm headed at the end, and try to be open to whatever result to which my writing brings me. And because I want to get the whole picture, this is going to be a combination of an abbreviated version of "The Baseball Story of Dale Murphy" and "Is Dale Murphy a Hall of Famer?" You get like 1.5 articles for the price of one. Which is still nothing, but hey, the price is right either way.

Early Days

Dale Murphy was drafted by the Braves 5th overall in 1974, and was a September call-up in 1976 and 1977. He acquitted himself nicely in his second September (.316-2-14), and managed full-time at-bats for Atlanta in 1978, going .226 with 23 homers and 79 RBI. He also led the league in strikeouts with 145, the first of three different times pacing the league in that category.

From 1979-81, he'd have his share of ups and downs, batting anywhere from 2nd to 7th as he would average .270-22-65 per year. He'd settled in as a solid bat for the Braves, but was hardly a potential HOFer.

A Monster Stretch

From 1982-1985, Murphy was arguably the most exciting hitter in baseball. He played in every game for the Braves all four of those years, and earned MVP awards in 1982 and 1983. His average season was as follows: .296 batting average, 114 runs scored, 36 home runs, and 110 RBI. And remember, this is in an era when baseball went without a 50 HR hitter for twenty years.

Murphy picked up a bunch of that notable "black ink," the kind of stuff that would catch your attention on the back of a baseball card. He led the league in HR twice, RBI twice, SLG twice, and R, BB, and SO once each.

He had a down year in 1986, but bounced right back in '87 with a career-high 44 home runs as well as another season of 105+ runs and RBI. He finished 11th in the MVP voting with the Braves languishing towards the bottom of the standings.

Vanishing from Relevance

That was pretty much the end of his reign of terror, though. His free-swinging ways started to get the best of him, as he piled up 125+ strikeouts in each of his next three seasons, slipping back into the 6-hole all-or-nothing hitter he had been at the beginning of his career. He joined the Colorado Rockies for their inaugural season, but only managed 49 plate appearances, and didn't make much of them when he got them, hitting .143 with one double being his only extra-base hit. He played his last game in May of 1993.

Is Dale Murphy a Hall of Famer?

So, time for some comparables, right? That's how we judge people most effectively, against other people. Two people who come to mind pretty quickly are a pair of guys who also played for the Rockies, but with a lot more flourish.

Andres Galarraga was a solid middle-of-the-order hitter for the Expos in the late 80s and early 90s, though he shared Murphy's penchant for swinging and missing; he led the NL in strikeouts for three consecutive seasons from 1988 to 1990. He really took off after joining the Rockies in 1993, batting a scorching .370 in their inaugural season. He followed that with five years that matched Murphy's relative mastery, averaging a .305-102-39-120 line.

But the whole league was trending upwards, and he only finished as high as sixth in MVP voting. Let's try another guy, a pitcher this time.

Tim Lincecum had a pair of Cy Young awards in his second and third seasons, but trailed off mightily in the second half of his career. He reached the same heights as Murphy, though he had more team success and less longevity.

What's the Verdict?

I think Dale Murphy falls just behind Juan Gonzalez in my assessment of his Hall of Fame credentials. While Gonzalez may very well have been a beneficiary of illegal supplements, he has always denied that, and no legitimate proof has ever been produced to indicate decisively otherwise. And his production, particularly during his prime, was exceptional. He averaged .302-36-116 for ten years from 1992-2001, and earned a pair of MVP trophies himself. His lows were higher than Murphy's, and he had a longer, more productive career.

And all of that considered, I think Gonzalez (and as a result Murphy) falls short of the Hall of Fame.

While Gonzalez and Murphy had great years, and Gonzalez even had a fairly prolific 10-year stretch, baseball has always been a game about longevity. Cal Ripken Jr. is one of the legends of the game because he played every day for years and years and years. The big numbers in people's minds when they consider players for the Hall of Fame aren't 200 hits or 300 strikeouts or even 60, 61, or 70 home runs. The big numbers are 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins. Longevity matters.

Hall of Fame status should be reserved for those players who embody what we love most about baseball, not just the highlights, but the grind.

Hank Aaron never hit 50 home runs in a single season, but he's lauded as perhaps the greatest home run hitter of all time, because he did it every year for many, many years.

Ted Williams is revered not just for hitting .406 in the third season of his career, but for somehow battering 521 home runs during a career that gave up perhaps its three best years to fighting World War II.

That's not to say that you can't be Joe DiMaggio and do something no one has ever done like hit in 56 consecutive games to solidify your spot in Cooperstown. But you have to already be close, and while Murphy and Lincecum Gonzo had a couple of MVP (or Cy Young) seasons, none of them has the "never-been-done-before" nature to it. Plenty of guys have won MVPs.

Wrap-Up

So anyways, that's the whole story about Dale Murphy. It was an interesting little investigation, though I wish I'd come back with a positive result. I feel like this whole series is becoming, "Why Doesn't XYZ Belong In the Hall of Fame?" Ah well, I'm sure there'll be an ebb and flow to it, as there is to all things.

The Baseball Story of Bret Saberhagen

This past week, Phil Hughes set an all-time record for strikeout-to-walk ratio for a season, breaking Bret Saberhagen's twenty-year-old record. That got me thinking about Bret Saberhagen, which led us here. Rock and roll.

It should be noted that, while advanced statistics support claims that Saberhagen was an exceptional pitcher, he doesn't have any actual connection to the term sabermetrics.

Immediate Dividends

Saberhagen was drafted straight out of Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, California by the Kansas City Royals in 1982. He blew away hitters at single- and double-A in 1983, compiling a 16-7 record with a cumulative 2.55 ERA and 1.13 WHIP in 27 starts. Unsurprisingly, Saberhagen broke camp with the major league ballclub in 1984.

Saberhagen was effective as a rookie as well. He went 10-11 with 3.48/1.10, and that WHIP is what's most impressive. Not many rookies are able to control innings as well as he did, and he did so with tremendous control and pitching to contact. He walked just 36 batters in 157.2 innings in his rookie season, a great rate for anyone and an amazing rate for such a young pitcher (he was 19 entering the season). As I mentioned at the beginning, that's kind of Saberhagen's thing, not walking guys.

Interestingly, Saberhagen didn't receive a single vote for Rookie of the Year. Granted, his numbers weren't tremendous, and the top two vote-getters absolutely deserved the lion's share: Alvin Davis won the ROY with .284-27-116, and Mark Langston finished second with 17-10, 3.40, and 204 strikeouts in 225 innings. But among the guys who managed to nab a single vote were Ron Romanick (12-12, 3.76, 87 K in 229.2 IP) and Saberhagen's teammate Mark Gubicza (10-14, 4.05, 111 K in 189.0 IP).

The only explanation I can think of is that innings pitched was a real barn-burner back in the early 80s. Although I don't think the innings disparity makes up for how much better Saberhagen was than Romanick and Gubicza, I'm okay with innings pitched getting a little more credit as a statistic. We talk all the time about the value of guys getting deep into games, giving their bullpens a break. Maybe we should acknowledge that effort in the raw statistics that give us that information.

Anywho, back to Sabes, who didn't let his lack of ROY votes get him down. Like, at all.

Winning, Winning, Winning

In 1985, Bret Saberhagen had a banner year. He started perfectly fine, with a record of 7-4 and an ERA of 3.23 through the end of June. But that's when he turned it on. Here's a list of amazing things that Saberhagen did in 17 starts from July 3rd through October 5th:

• posted a win-loss record of 13-2
• threw seven complete games, including a 10-inning game on August 19 against the Tigers
• pitched into the ninth inning or beyond in 10 different games
• walked two or fewer batters in every start
• yielded an absurdly low .256 OBP to opposing batters

Oh, and the Royals went from two games over .500 to twenty games over .500, edging the California Angels (I just love typing that) by a single game for the AL West crown. Saberhagen had a rough series against the Toronto Blue Jays in the ALCS, going only 4.1 and 3.0 innings in his two starts, but the Royals were able to squeak into the World Series with George Brett basically willing them there.

Then, after dropping the first two games at home to the St. Louis Cardinals, Dick Howser gave the ball to Saberhagen, and Bret answered with a complete game one run, six-hit win. Then in game seven, under the brightest lights, Saberhagen posted another complete game, this time a shutout. His two masterpieces earned him the World Series MVP award; his dominance all season earned him the 1985 Cy Young Award.

From 1986-1988, Saberhagen had his share of ups and downs. He won 18 games in 1987, but then gave up more hits than anyone in the league in 1988.

Then in 1989, Saberhagen was brilliant. Once again he was phenomenal after the All-Star break. From July 14 on, he went 15-2, receiving the decision in every start. By the end of the year, he led the AL in...everything?

• 23 wins
• .793 winning percentage
• 2.16 ERA
• 12 complete games
• 262.1 innings pitched
• 0.96 WHIP
• 4.49 K/BB ratio

He received 27 of 28 first place votes to win his second Cy Young Award (some crackhead gave Dave Stewart a vote).

Dethroned

The legacy of Bret Saberhagen, though, is inconsistency. He missed time in 1990 and 1991 with various ailments, though he did throw his only no-hitter in August of 1991, and the last no-hitter in Kansas City Royal history to date.

That offseason, Saberhagen's time with the Royals ended (get the "dethroned" title now?) as he was traded to the New York Mets along with Bill Pecota for Gregg Jefferies, Kevin McReynolds, and Keith Miller in a fierce collection of mostly irrelevant players. Saberhagen was solid for the Mets when he was able to stay healthy, maintaining his disdain for free passes. In 524.1 innings with New York, he issued just 77 total walks. In the strike-shortened 1994, he set the aforementioned previous record for best strikeout-to-walk ratio in a season at 11.00. But he also never managed more than 25 starts, again due to a variety of ailments, or perhaps just one big one that hadn't been detected yet...

Saberhagen was traded again in the middle of the 1995 season, this time to the playoff-bound Colorado Rockies, ruining fantasy owners everywhere. His ERA at the time of the trade was 3.35, but ballooned up to 4.18 in nine starts for the Rockies. Colorado still made the playoffs, but lost in the divisional round to the Braves. Saberhagen was no help, yielding six runs in 4 innings in his only start.

An Injury Unlike Any Other

Then, leading into 1996, Saberhagen found himself extremely bothered by an unresponsive shoulder injury. After multiple tests, he was found to have a torn anterior capsule in his pitching shoulder. Up to that point, surgery had been conducted to repair this injury exactly zero times. The reason you don't really hear about it is that the injury actually isn't often "successful." Among the folks who've had the surgery are a litany of "hey remember how good ____ was" names: Rich Harden, Mark Prior, Chien-Ming Wang, Johan Santana.

That said, Saberhagen actually recovered fairly well from the surgery. He missed all of the 1996 season and entered free agency. The Boston Red Sox signed him to a $500k contract for the year, and he missed most of the 1997 season as well, coming in for six starts starting in August. He wasn't impressive by any stretch (6.58 ERA, 1.54 WHIP), but the BoSox saw enough to keep him around, and it paid off handsomely. Over the next two seasons with Boston, he'd go 25-14 in 53 closely-monitored starts, and earning another award for his cabinet: 1998's Comeback Player of the Year.

Unfortunately, the year 2000 was not a new start for Saberhagen, as he encountered more shoulder problems and underwent another shoulder surgery. The Red Sox stood by him through it all, but this spelled the beginning of the end. Sabes made three starts for Boston in 2001, but it was clear he simply didn't have it, and he retired at the end of the season.

Of course, in those 15 innings, he didn't walk a batter.

Final Statistics
Career win-loss record: 167-117
Career ERA: 3.34
Career WHIP: 1.14
Career K/BB ratio: 3.64
Career complete games: 76
2 Cy Young Awards (1985, 1989)
1 World Series MVP Award (1985)
Career earnings: $47,688,230

The Baseball Story of...Freddy Sanchez

This is a new series I'm going to try to run with for a little while. I'm not sure how it's going to play out, but it seemed like an interesting idea, so I figured I'd give it a shot. If it goes well, I'll do more. If not, this'll probably be the last one you see.

The rules of "The Baseball Story of..." will be as follows:

1. The player can't be a Hall of Famer. They can be players who were good for a stretch, but if a player looks like he has any chance at making the Hall of Fame, he's ineligible for this series.
2. The player has to have won something. Whether it's a Cy Young, a home run title, or a World Series MVP, the guy has to have been noteworthy at some point. I'll bold the mention of it in the article, so you can see it at a glance.

A friend and I were reminiscing about old trades in our fantasy baseball league, and he reminded me of a trade that centered around Freddy Sanchez for Hanley Ramirez. While Hanley's career has been up and down, he's still very relevant in fantasy circles. But Freddy Sanchez, I had completely forgotten about. So, I did a little research, and with that completed, here and now, I give you:

The Baseball Story of Freddy Sanchez.

Boston Red Sox

Sanchez began his career in the Red Sox organization. He was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 30th round out of high school, but elected not to sign. After a college career at three different schools (culminating at Oklahoma State), he was again drafted in the 11th round by the BoSox.

If there's one thing you can say for sure about Freddy Sanchez, it's that he was too good for minor league baseball. He hit .288 in low A ball in 2000, and then never dipped below .300 again before making the majors. Sanchez didn't have it quite so easy in the big leagues though. In two brief stints with the Red Sox, he hit just .220 with only a pair of doubles and zero homers in 52 plate appearances. Luckily that wasn't the end of his story, because the Steel City saw something they liked.

Pittsburgh Pirates

In the summer of 2003, the Red Sox were chasing the Yankees, and they wanted to beef up their rotation. They acquired Jeff Suppan from the Pirates, who was having the best season of his career to-date. He boasted averages of 3.73/1.26, going 10-7 for another bad Pirates team. They sent Sanchez along with Mike Gonzalez to Pittsburgh for Suppan, Brandon Lyon, and Anastacio Martinez. Lyon and Martinez had marginal careers, Martinez's being far more marginal. Suppan was pretty bad for the Red Sox, his ERA jumping nearly two runs after the move to the junior circuit, and he went unused during the 2003 postseason.

Meanwhile in Pittsburgh, Sanchez spent most of 2003 and 2004 on the disabled list due to an ankle injury. The following season, however, was a coming out party of sorts. Sanchez got into 132 games, playing second, third, and short. He finished third on the team in hits, doubles, and triples, and second on the team in batting average.

Sanchez became a national story in 2006. He won the NL batting title at .344, and tied with Grady Sizemore to lead the majors with 53 doubles. He managed to make the All-Star team that year as a reserve. He also received 5 vote points in the NL MVP race, putting him just 383 points behind winner Ryan Howard (come on, you had to expect me to troll a little).

Sanchez continued a similar level of production for the next few years. He made two more All-Star teams with Pittsburgh, in 2007 and 2009. Later in 2009, the Giants were hurting at second base. They'd tried Emmanuel Burriss, Matt Downs, and Kevin Frandsen, but they batted a combined .210 that season. They just needed someone who wasn't a drag on their offense. So...

San Francisco Giants

...they traded minor leaguer Tim Alderson to the Pirates for Sanchez. Some Giants fans hated this trade apparently, though the content of that blog post makes me think it was irrational (a guy who has trouble striking out batters in the minors doesn't project to be a particularly good major leaguer). Alderson was a first round pick in 2007, but he'd yet to blow people away in the minors, and as I mentioned above, the Giants were a dead zone at second base.

Sanchez hit .284 the rest of the way with San Francisco, though he failed to display much pop; he had only two extra-base hits in his 25 games with the Giants in 2009. The next year was more of the same for Sanchez, though he was able to crank a few more doubles, more along his career pace. He was by no means vital, but he was an everyday player for a team that would eventually go on to win the World Series, putting a bow on a solid career so far.

Unfortunately for Sanchez, that title did somewhat put a bow on his career. He suffered a serious shoulder injury in 2011 diving for a ground ball. After attempting to rehab it for about 8 weeks, he eventually decided to get season-ending surgery. Sanchez was hitting .289 at the time.

Freddy started 2012 still on the disabled list, and just before the All-Star break, Sanchez underwent back surgery, which again ended his season, and eventually his career. He was granted free agency at the end of the season, and hasn't played since.

The most recent news on him was in January of this year, when he stated that he hadn't officially retired from baseball yet, and was still open to the possibility of coming back. While I wouldn't hold out much hope for that, and despite the fact that Sanchez played mostly for two teams I don't really care for, I hold no ill will towards Freddy, and wish him the best.

Final (?) Statistics
Career batting average: .297
Career runs: 434
Career hits: 1,012
Career doubles: 215
Career home runs: 48
Career earnings: $32,117,000