Keith Hernandez: A Hall of Fame Case

At first glance, Keith Hernandez seems like a pretty solid candidate for the Hall of Fame. He was both a good contact hitter (career .296 BA, 2182 H) and a decent on-base guy (.384 OBP, 1070 BB). He could both score runs and drive them in (1124 R, 1071 RBI). He was a batting titlist and MVP (both in 1979) and the starting first baseman for two World Series winning clubs (the ‘82 Cardinals and ‘86 Mets). He was recognized as one of the best players of his era, having been selected to five all-star games, winning two Silver Slugger awards, and receiving MVP votes in eight straight seasons. Sabermetrically speaking, he posted a 60.0 career WAR and a 128 OPS+, both of which are right at the borderline for a career first baseman. Above all, he is arguably the greatest defensive first baseman of all time, standing as that position's all-time leader in Total Zone Runs and backed up by his 11 consecutive Gold Gloves.

However, there’s seemingly one big problem: he wasn’t a power-hitter, despite playing a position largely defined by power. He hit less than 200 career home runs (162 to be exact), and his career ISO was only .140. He doesn't exactly look like your typical Hall of Fame first baseman. In fact, he looks more like a Mark Grace, or a John Olerud, or even a Will Clark, and those other non-power-hitting first basemen don’t exactly have a great track record of getting into the Hall. Accordingly, although Hernandez's name appeared on nine Hall of Fame ballots, he never received more than 10.8% of vote, nowhere near the 75% he needed for induction.

With that being said, one must consider the era in which Hernandez played. The 1970s and 1980s were not exactly the heyday of big-time slugging first basemen; in fact, it is pretty clear that there was a significant power drought at the position during this period. Taking a closer look, there were only three 40-home run seasons by a first baseman between 1969 (when Harmon Killebrew and Willie McCovey both won the MVP) and 1987 (Mark McGwire's rookie season). None of those seasons were by a career first baseman; the three players to do so were Hank Aaron and Carl Yastrzemski (traditionally outfielders) and Darrell Evans (who played much of his career at third base). 

It wasn't as if there were no other players hitting home runs then. Overall, there were 27 40-home run seasons from 1970 to 1986. That means that only about 11% of those were by a first baseman. By contrast, the rate was about 28% (30 of 108) from 1920 to 1969 and a little under 32% (59 of 128) since 1987. Looking at the overall percentage of home runs hit by first basemen, that rate was at about 18-20% from 1969-1971, peaking at 22% in 1972. From there the percentage declined precipitously, falling to below 14% in 1983-84, before rebounding to over 17% by the end of the decade.

Looking at ISO numbers instead, we see a similar pattern. The ISO of the average first baseman was about 40-50% higher than the league average from 1969-1971, also peaking in 1972 at 57%. This number then also declined, to below 15% by 1984, then rebounding to over 30% within a few years. These trends are graphed on the chart below, with the red line representing the home run percentage and the blue line representing the relative ISO.

Additionally, we can see that this period was low on individual players with high ISO seasons, especially compared with other periods. The percentage of qualified players who had an ISO greater than .200 who were first basemen between 1973 and 1986 was only 17.5%. This was far lower than it was from 1920 to 1972 (24.7%) or than it would be from 1987 to 2015 (22.6%). As the next graph shows, this period saw more qualified first basemen with ISOs less than .200 than any other; indeed, Hernandez's MVP season of 1979 was the peak year.

In other words, Hernandez played in an era with few, if any, elite power-hitting first basemen. And among the group of primarily contact hitters, he was right toward the top. In terms of batting runs from 1970 to 1994, Hernandez was behind only Rod Carew and Eddie Murray, both of whom are already Hall of Famers (it should also be noted that Carew played second base through 1975). Over the span of his career, 1974 to 1990, Hernandez was just behind Murray (63.2) and ahead of Carew (54.0) in total WAR. Of all first basemen who played entirely in the second half of the twentieth century, Hernandez ranks behind only Murray and McCovey, and ahead of Hall of Famers Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda.

Hernandez will never be placed among the ranks of Gehrig, Foxx, Mize, Greenberg, and McCovey who came before him, or McGwire, Bagwell, Thomas, Palmeiro, and Pujols who came after, but he doesn’t have to be to be a Hall of Famer. He did exactly what an elite first baseman of his era would be expected to do offensively, and that, combined with his all-time great defense, should be enough to put him into Cooperstown.

(As a side note, it would be interesting to see what cap he would be given on his plaque in Cooperstown were he to be inducted. His best seasons clearly came with the Cardinals, but he has generally been associated with the Mets in his post-playing career, particularly in being a part of the legendary Mets broadcasting crew alongside Gary Cohen and Ron Darling.)