Betrayed by his knees, Cardinals first baseman Lance Berkman may never appear in a baseball game again. He's had five knee surgeries already; he's currently sitting on the disabled list with a right knee injury; and a recent MRI revealed compromised cartilage behind his left knee. If Berkman's career really is over, where does he stand with regards to a Hall of Fame induction?
Probably a lot closer than the baseball writers will ever allow him to get. Lance Berkman was one of the best hitters of the previous decade, excelling in undervalued skills like walking and hitting doubles. The only players with a higher OPS than his .972 mark between the years 2000 and 2009 are Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, Todd Helton, and Alex Rodriguez. Berkman's OPS is better than Jim Thome's, Chipper Jones', Vladimir Guerrero's, Sammy Sosa's, and David Ortiz's over that same span.
In fact, Berkman's career OPS (.953) is the 19th-best career OPS of all-time. All 18 players ahead of him are either in the Hall of Fame, or deserve to be there.
Unfortunately for Berkman, the Hall is stingy when it comes to first basemen. Only about 25 have ever been inducted, thanks to the high standards of offense that the position comes with. Berkman's career line is actually very similar to Edgar Martinez's, and he hasn't gotten in yet, either. Other current first-base candidates like Jeff Bagwell, Mark McGwire, and Rafael Palmeiro have all met resistance on the ballot too, though their troubles have more to do with expected steroid use than career statistics.
The last first baseman to be inducted in the Hall is Eddie Murray, in 2003. So it makes sense to compare him to Berkman.
Murray's hits and home runs: 3,255 and 504
Berkman's hits and home runs: 1,842 and 360
Based on those numbers alone, people would assume Murray was the far better player. However:
Murray's career line: .287/.359/.476
Berkman's career line: .296/.409/.545
Berkman has the better rate statistics. Murray simply has more counting stats because he played longer. How you compare the two careers depends on how much value you place on Murray's ability to hang around at the end of his career, racking up hits and home runs to reach the 3,000 and 500 milestones that the baseball writers adore.
Judging players solely by the total number of hits and home runs they accumulate is silly. Sure, durability and career longevity are baseball skills. But over the final seven years of his career, Murray posted an OPS over .800 just once and was essentially a league-average hitter. Hardly a Hall of Fame player. It was during this mediocre span that he got the 900 hits and 125 home runs he needed to reach those coveted milestones. How much stock should we really put into Murray's gaudy hit and home run totals, considering how they were achieved?
No, Eddie Murray did not make the Hall of Fame just because of seven mediocre years that allowed him to reach the 3,000 hit and 500 home run plateaus. He's in the Hall of Fame because of his best years. His ten-year peak looked like this:
Murray, 1978-1987: .298/.376/.506, 1677 hits, 278 home runs, 143 OPS+
That was Murray at his best. Now, hey, let's look at Berkman's ten-year peak:
Berkman, 2000-2009: .300/.413/.559, 1553 hits, 309 home runs, 148 OPS+
Very very similar players. Berkman may even have a slight edge. So the only difference between the two was Murray's ability to hang around as an average player for seven years? Is that what makes Murray a better baseball player than Berkman? A more worthy Hall of Famer than Berkman?
Quite simply, if you contend that Murray was a Hall of Fame player, it's hard to argue that Berkman isn't. When both men were playing their best baseball in the prime of their careers, they were at least equals. The advantage Murray holds over Berkman is a bunch of mediocre years at the downswing of his career that were far from Hall of Fame-caliber, when Murray piled up the counting stats that Berkman never got.
At the end of the day, Berkman is somewhat of a test case for the baseball writers. Does a Hall of Famer just need a great peak to be enshrined, or does he also need some additional longevity, even if those extra years aren't Hall of Fame-like? Specifically, in Berkman's case: is ten years as one of the best hitters in the game (unblemished by steroid use) good enough for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame? Based on how poorly similar players like Edgar Martinez and Jeff Bagwell have fared on the ballot, Lance Berkman might not win this battle.
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