The Hall of Fame Case for Steve Garvey

In contrast, both why Garvey isn’t a good candidate, and part of other factors that have affected his candidacy:

Most of it has to do with the general change in thinking about what makes a player valuable we’ve seen since the late 90s and into the 21st century.

Yes, Garvey hit .300 and he hit 20 dingers and he drove in a hundred a bunch of times, but he hardly ever walked. He never walked more than 50 times in a season and he only walked more than 40 times once. That’s pretty astounding for a guy in the middle of a deep and talented lineup on a team that was always in contention. As such, that superficially impressive .294 career batting was matched by a pretty poor .329 on-base percentage.

It also meant that he never scored 100 runs in a season. And while he hit 20 homers a lot, he only once topped 30, which isn’t all that great for a first baseman who doesn’t get on base. He had a pretty 1970s stat line but a pretty lacking late 1990s-on stat line, philosophically speaking. Even if you’re not the most sabermetrically-oriented person, I’d guess you’d agree that Garvey’s case is not as good as it might’ve seemed back in the day.

There’s also some stuff about Garvey that, while I don’t personally think is legitimately part of the case against him, is probably an explanation for why voters soured on him beyond just the baseball analysis. It’s tied up in his image as a player vs. his image following his career and a healthy amount of schadenfreude.

2020 MODERN BASEBALL ERA BALLOT

Nine former big league players and one executive comprise the 10-name Modern Baseball Era ballot to be reviewed and voted upon Dec. 8 at the Baseball Winter Meetings.

Dwight Evans, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Marvin Miller, Thurman Munson, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons and Lou Whitaker are the candidates the Modern Baseball Era Committee will consider for Hall of Fame election for the Class of 2020. All candidates are former players except for Miller, who was the head of the Major League Baseball Players Association from 1966-82. All candidates except for Miller and Munson are living.

Any candidate who receives votes on 75 percent of the ballots cast by the 16-member Modern Baseball Era Committee will earn election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and will be inducted in Cooperstown on July 26, 2020, along with any electees who emerge from the 2020 Baseball Writers’ Association of America election, to be announced on Jan. 21, 2020.

The Modern Baseball Era is one of four Era Committees, each of which provide an avenue for Hall of Fame consideration to managers, umpires and executives, as well as players retired for more than 15 seasons.

The BBHOF season has now started- what say we concerning this ballot?