(This post is operating under the premise that Vladimir Guerrero will eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA. It's impossible to prove that assumption true, because he won't even be ballot-eligible until 2017. But Sport Illustrated's Hall of Fame guru Jay Jaffe predicted that Guerrero will build up enough support to make the Hall eventually, and most people would probably agree, so we'll go from there.)
Vladimir Guerrero finally retired from baseball last Friday, having gone two years without appearing in a major league game. He's 38 years old with zero healthy knees, so this news didn't exactly come as a surprise. Guerrero's next stop, in all likelihood, will be Cooperstown. And he has the career accomplishments to deserve that honor. But if he does get inducted, it will be just another indictment of the Hall of Fame's comically-inconsistent voting patterns.
First, a quick glance at Vlad's career. Somewhat notably, he was perhaps the last good player that the Montreal Expos ever had. His six full seasons with that now-defunct franchise were phenomenal: he averaged a .995 OPS and .600 slugging percentage between 1998 and 2003. In 2002, he was tantalizingly close to joining the exclusive 40-40 club, when he stole 40 bases and hit 39 home runs. In 2004, he signed with the Angels in free agency. Not coincidentally, the Montreal Expos would cease to exist about a year later.
With his new team, the Los Angeles Angels, Guerrero maintained his torrid offensive pace for four additional seasons. That included an MVP Award in 2004, when he hit .337/.391/.598 with 39 home runs and a league-leading 124 runs scored. After 2007, however, his production finally began to tail off as injuries sapped his playing time. His final four seasons were subpar by his lofty standards -- yet his batting averages in those years were all still above .290. Guerrero is often thought of strictly as a power hitter, but his freakish batting average ability was Tony Gwynn-like.
Guerrero's career was relatively short (only 15 seasons with more than 90 games played), so he isn't making the Hall based on longevity. What he does have, however, is an outstanding ten-year peak between those six years in Montreal and first four in L.A. From 1998 to 2007, Vlad's cumulative line was .327/.394/.586, with a .980 OPS, 151 OPS+, and 52.6 WAR. He averaged 35 homers, 35 doubles, 187 hits, and 16 steals per season. During that stretch, the only outfielders who were better offensively than Guerrero were Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez. His consistency was remarkable: during that decade, he never hit below .307, slugged below .547, or had an OPS below .934.
And it's not like Vlad lacks for cumulative longevity stats. Despite a career that didn't even reach 10,000 plate appearances, he still had 2,590 hits (top 100 all-time), 4,506 total bases (top 50), and 449 home runs (top 40). He was a nine-time All-Star whose teams were successful basically everywhere he went. He garnered MVP votes in 12 different seasons, winning the award in 2004. If you combine Vlad's ten elite seasons with his solid career numbers, and factor in his uniquely intimidating persona, you understand why he's headed to Cooperstown.
Here's the thing, though. If Vladimir Guerrero is widely accepted as a Hall of Famer, then I have a hard time understanding why Larry Walker, Gary Sheffield, and Bobby Abreu are not.
More specifically, I fail to see how a voter could support only one of those four guys and not the other three. They're so similar statistically that to me, they're a package deal. Either all four of them are in, or they're all out. The notion that Vlad somehow belongs on a higher tier than Walker, Sheffield, and Abreu just isn't supported by facts. For instance, here's how the four players are ranked by career Wins Above Replacement, according to both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs:
Baseball Reference
1. Larry Walker (72.6)
2. Bobby Abreu (60.4)
3. Gary Sheffield (60.4)
4. Vladimir Guerrero (59.9)
Fangraphs
1. Larry Walker (69.0)
2. Gary Sheffield (62.5)
3. Bobby Abreu (58.6)
4. Vladimir Guerrero (58.6)
I'd imagine that most people would object to how those players are ordered. Quibble with the exact order, sure, but the point is that the careers of Walker, Sheffield, and Abreu are at the very least on par with Guerrero's. Here's a case-by-case examination.
Vlad vs. Larry Walker
Walker's been on the ballot for three years and (spoiler alert) he's not getting into the Hall. Yet he did everything that Vlad did -- hit for average, hit for power, stole bases, had a great arm, won an MVP, and had a nearly identical career OPS+ (141 for Walker, 140 for Vlad). And he even did some things that Vlad didn't -- he drew more walks, won Gold Gloves in right field, and was an excellent baserunner (Guerrero was actually terrible in that regard). Both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs see Walker as having about 13 more WAR than Guerrero, and that's completely believable. How can somebody vote for Guerrero but leave Walker off the ballot?
Vlad vs. Gary Sheffield
Sheffield has reached the 500 home run plateau, but has an uphill climb to get into the Hall thanks to connections to performance-enhancing drugs and a poor personal reputation. Based solely on his performance, however, his career has a lot in common with Guerrero's. The numbers say that Sheffield's defense was horrible, much worse than Guerrero's, but Sheffield made up some of that deficit by accumulating almost two thousand more plate appearances than Guerrero. So it's unclear who had the more valuable career. Who had the better peak? Again, it's very close:
Guerrero, 1998-2007: .327/.394/.586, 151 OPS+
Sheffield, 1996-2005: .303/.417/.552, 154 OPS+
Sheffield has the advantage when it comes to longevity (he tops Guerrero in every meaningful career statistic), and their peaks were similar. Penalize Sheffield for his defense (and connection to performance-enhancing drugs, if that floats your boat), but how big is the gap between these two players, really? Big enough to put one in the Hall of Fame and leave the other one out? Hardly.
Vlad vs. Bobby Abreu
Out of this foursome of late-1990s/early-2000s right fielders, Abreu feels like the one that doesn't belong. The truth is that Abreu is one of the most underrated players of this generation. Remember Guerrero's ten-year peak from 1998 to 2007, in which he hit .327/.394/.586 and produced 52.6 WAR? Well, from 1998 to 2007, Bobby Abreu hit .302/.411/.505 and produced 51.3 WAR. His problem was that his skills -- on-base ability, doubles-hitting, baserunning -- weren't as flashy as Vlad's home runs and bullet throws. Guerrero was likely the better player, but Abreu was much, much closer than anyone thinks. So ushering Guerrero into the Hall while simultaneously dismissing Abreu's case out of hand is wholly unfair.
The point here is not to diminish Guerrero's accomplishments, or claim that he isn't worthy of the Hall of Fame. Quite the opposite. The point is to hold Guerrero up as a Hall of Fame standard, and then apply that standard consistently to honor all of the players who performed at that elite level. Why Guerrero, but not Walker, Sheffield, or Abreu? Drawing an arbitrary line somewhere between those players is the definition of unnecessary nitpicking. Sometimes, baseball's obsession over maintaining an 'exclusive' (and therefore, somehow, more 'meaningful'?) Hall of Fame results in the exclusion of worthy candidates. If the voters maintain the trajectory they're on, then the future Hall will claim that the best right fielders of this generation were Vladimir Guerrero and Ichiro. That version of the Hall of Fame isn't as interesting, as complete, or as accurate as the hypothetical one that also includes Walker, Sheffield, and maybe even Abreu.
I would like to see Vladimir Guerrero in the Hall of Fame. Not only because he deserves it, but also because his induction might open the door for some of his equally worthy peers.
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