The Futility Infielder

Last week, Rafael Palmeiro joined the 3,000 Hit Club, the 26th player to reach that milestone. More interestingly joined Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray as just the fourth player to reach 3,000 hits and 500 homers. Yeah, those guys could hit. Despite all of this, ESPN Page 2's Skip Bayless published an article critical of Palmeiro's Hall of Fame credentials, consigning him (and Murray as well) to "the Hall of Very Good."

There is a case to be made against Palmeiro. He's played his entire career in hitter's parks: Wrigley Field, Arlington Stadium, the Ballpark at Arlington, and Camden Yards. He's never won an MVP award, never won a World Championship, and of his three Gold Gloves, one of them tainted by the fact that he got the nod after playing just 28 games at first base (Tino Martinez got jobbed). He's made only four All-Star teams. He's made only four All-Star teams. He never led the league in batting average, home runs, RBI, slugging percentage or on-base percentage; his only major category leads come in hits, runs and doubles -- each once.

However, Palmeiro scores extremely well using the Jaffe WARP Score system (a.k.a. JAWS). Coming into this season (the last time I compiled full JAWS scores; Clay Davenport's WARP formulas have since been recalibrated, though not to any drastic effect), Palmeiro's JAWS score was 132.6 career WARP3/ 46.4 peak WARP3/89.5 JAWS, well above the Hall of Fame standards at any position. In fact, Palmeiro's score places him fourth among Hall of Fame first basemen, behind only Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Murray and ahead of such luminaries as Willie McCovey, Johnny Mize, and Harmon Killebrew, to say nothing of questionable inductees like Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda. Among active and recently retired players, only Barry Bonds, Cal Ripken, and Rickey Henderson rank ahead of him among hitters, meaning that he outpaces Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell and Roberto Alomar, all of whom should wind up in Cooperstown. The only two players with similar or better JAWS credentials who aren't in the Hall are Pete Rose (who's ineligible, but put up a 96.7 JAWS) and Bert Blyleven (talk about jobbed, 92.5 JAWS).

Will Carroll invited me to make the case for Palmeiro on this week's edition of Baseball Prospectus Radio. You can hear what I had to say here (starting at 30:50 into the show), on an episode that also includes interviews with Ray Knight and Buck O'Neill. One of my better BPR performances, if I do say so myself. Check it out.

Labels: JAWS