Donnie Baseball: Hall-of-Famer

Donnie Baseball: Hall-of-Famer

[paypal_donation_button]Donnie Baseball: Hall-of-Famer

Don Mattingly. Donnie Baseball. The Hit Man, if you prefer.

6x All-Star, 3x Silver Slugger, 9x Gold Glove Winner, batting champion, MVP and New York Yankees Captain.

His accomplishments, inside Yankee Stadium and in parks across baseball, grant him immortality. But…is he a Hall-of-Famer?

Since his retirement following the 1995 MLB season, this has proven to be a question considerably more contentious than anyone who watched him at the peak of his powers in the mid-1980s could possibly have guessed. He broke into the league in 1982, at the very beginning of that great dark era of Yankee baseball. As the long stretch of futility began to build, Mattingly kept the torch burning. This was a player who looked like the Yankees of yesterday. This was a player who might bring back the glory days. Mattingly soared to heights that few have ever achieved, and if he’s ultimately a lesser god in that Yankee Pantheon which includes Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle, he’s still a part of that pantheon nonetheless.

But…is he a Hall-of-Famer?

Go back to that list of awards he received and you will see it does not speak of a player who flashed bright and then burned out. Six all-star appearances are indeed on the low-end for a Hall-of-Famer, as is his total of 42.2 WAR over his career. But nine gold gloves….only Keith Hernandez has more at first base. It should also be noted that his MVP and his batting title fell in different years and he could probably make a case at being the best overall player in the game in at least one other year (1986 comes to mind), as well.

We can critique the use of awards as Hall-of-Fame barometers. Awards are necessarily qualitative rather than quantitative. They are awarded by peers and writers and they are biased. Awards do not represent a player’s ‘true’ value in the same way that advanced statistics claim to do so.

However, the Baseball Hall-of-Fame itself is a notoriously qualitative entity. It’s not the Sabermetric Hall-of-Fame, after all. What awards DO tell us is that the people who actually watched him play felt that Don Mattingly was the best player in the American League at least once (he finished second in the MVP race the year after winning the award), the best offensive first baseman at least three times, and the best defensive first baseman NINE times.

But…is he a Hall-of-Famer?

He led the league in doubles three times, breaking Babe Ruth’s franchise record in 1986 with 43 of them. From 1984 until 1989, he was a force of nature. But then his back failed him, after an initial injury in 1987, and the power in his sweet stroke began to falter. His batting average dipped, too. (Although, interestingly his OPB never dipped nearly as much, thanks to a disciplined approach at the plate). His defense never abandoned him, but they don’t put you in Cooperstown on the merit of your defense. (Unless you’re Ozzie Smith, of course).

His peak wasn’t long enough and, sure, he never won a World Series. His Yankees teams only made the playoffs once, in 1995 (his final year), and they didn’t get out of the ALDS. But as mentor to the next generation of stars that would lead the Yankees to four World Series titles in five years, his influence cannot be overstated. Looking back, of course his back would give out. You can’t pick up a franchise and carry it for ten years without feeling the weight. Even metaphorical burdens take their toll.

Even in those final years, when he was a shell of the player he’d been, he didn’t complain. He didn’t excuse his decline on the congenital back defect that had plagued him his whole life. Instead, he hit .300 and earned a pair of top-20 MVP finishes. Just a little more qualitative evidence that among the people who watched the most baseball—Donnie Baseball was still well worth watching.

So, the answer is a resounding YES. In every way that means anything, inside Cooperstown or outside, he’s a Hall-of-Famer.