Baseball Musings: Stone on Martinez

January 19, 2009

Stone on Martinez

Larry Stone starts beating the drum for Edgar Martinez's Hall of Fame election:

Martinez's credentials, qualitatively superb but lacking in the quantity department, are guaranteed to spur a spirited debate over his worthiness. Throw in the designated-hitter factor, and the Edgar Question shapes up as one of the bigger conundrums in recent years.
Martinez has my unequivocal support, but I'm afraid he faces a steep uphill battle to win over the necessary 75 percent of my BBWAA brethren.

The Martinez candidacy should engender a debate similar to the one about closers. Does a player with a limited role deserve to make the Hall of Fame. For closers, that answer is yes, but at a much higher level than starters or position players.

I'm in favor of Martinez entering the Hall. Martinez is by far the best designated hitter in the history of the game. Baseball created this position to make the game more popular. Ignoring the contributions of these players seems somehow unfair. A DH needs to be extra special to reach the Hall of Fame, and Edgar fits that bill.

If there were no DH, I believe Edgar would have thrived in the majors anyway. A bat like that is tough to ignore. He might of spent most of his career butchering balls at first base, but on the other hand, playing the position day in and day out might have improved his skills as well.

There's more than enough room in the Hall for one DH every 30 years. I hope Edgar is the first.

Posted by David Pinto at 03:08 PM | All-Time Greats | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Since he was a league-average-fielding 3rd baseman for a few hundred games and fielded 1st base just fine when he was playing there, I don't see any reason why he'd have been a butcher at 1st base over the long haul, though. Anyone remember why he was removed from the field pretty much for good starting in 1995? Injuries?

Posted by: James at January 19, 2009 05:00 PM

Dick Allen didn't make the HoF, no way Edgar does.

Posted by: jeremy at January 19, 2009 09:50 PM

Maybe I'm missing something about the DH debate, but shouldn't we treat DHs like *average* fielders? Manny will make the Hall and his defense will be a net minus. If Manny were a DH, wouldn't he be more valuable to his team than he is as a left fielder? I guess the answer must be no or he'd be DHing... maybe the point is that he'd replace a good-hitting DH in favor of a league average LF. But I still have to think that Edgar's offensive contributions warrant his induction into the Hall, and the defense contributes nothing. But at least it's not something negative.

Posted by: David at January 19, 2009 10:34 PM

1993 serious injury limited Edgar to 42 games & only 16 of them at 3rd base. Up till then, he was a very good 3B.
To call him a 1B at all is questionable, only 28 games at 1B in 18 years.
P. Molitor had many DH games & Martinez was a better 3B, had a higher BA, & much higher OB%.

Posted by: Bob S at January 19, 2009 11:07 PM

Molitor was a 2B.

Posted by: bandit at January 20, 2009 10:22 AM

Edgar's problem is, he has too many problems:

*No defensive value
*Relatively short career
*Injury prone
*Played for chronically underachieving teams
*Played in an offense-crazy era

If you were coming up with a list of characteristics to describe the best hitter not in the Hall, you'd probably end up with Edgar.

Posted by: Crank at January 20, 2009 12:00 PM

For Bandit above. Molitor played 791 games at 3B and 400 at 2B. On 3 occasions you have tried to rebut me and been off base each time. Why don't you stick to contributing, which you do sometimes well, and don't always look to rebut others when you don't have a clue. I'm not the only one that you try to rebut in this format.

Posted by: Bob S at January 20, 2009 03:40 PM

He came up as a 2B and save your clicks because I couldn't possibly care less about your advice.

Posted by: bandit at January 20, 2009 04:16 PM

Molitor played nearly 1500 games at a position or about 60%. He played 2b, SS, and CF for the Brewers and played them all capably. He later moved to 3b and then to 1b and there is little question the DH allowed him to extend his career and pile up stats that made him a Hall of Famer. Molitor was an excellent lead-off hitter before he was a #3 hitter. He stole 500+ bases and was successfull 80% of the time.

Martinez played 70% of his games at DH and 30% at 3b and was below average defensively. He was a heckuva hitter and is probably best compared to Frank Thomas or David Ortiz.
Mac

Posted by: Bill McKinley at January 20, 2009 04:49 PM

That's correct - Molitor moved to 3B and replaced Don Money after he came back from an elbow injury

Posted by: bandit at January 20, 2009 10:23 PM