Will Edgar Martinez be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Let’s take a look at his stats and try to make an educated guess. And then we will look at the most important statistic concerning Martinez and his chances at making the Hall.
Edgar Martinez - his 162 game averages are as follows: 24 HR’s, 99 RBI’s, 96 runs scored, with a .312 average, .418 OBP and .515 SLG.
His .312 batting average currently ranks 80th on the all time list, and 75th on the retired list.
His .418 OBP currently ranks 20th on the all time list, and 17th on the retired list.
His .515 SLG currently ranks 61st on the all time list, and 42nd on the retired list.
Only 19 players in baseball history have ever had a higher OBP than Edgar Martinez. That is impressive.
Martinez finished his career with 2,247 hits, 309 home runs, 1,219 runs scored and 1,261 RBI’s. He scored over 100 runs five times, and drove in over 100 six times. He led the league 20 times in offensive categories, including two batting titles. He was an All Star seven times.
Anybody who ever watched Edgar Martinez play baseball knows he was a great hitter. But his stats come up a bit short when talking about the Hall of Fame. Also hurting him is the fact that he DH’d for most of his career. But the most important stat that will likely keep Edgar Martinez out of the Hall of Fame is his age.
Edgar Martinez did not play his first full season in the major leagues until he was 27 years old. He did play briefly in the majors at 24 and 25, and a little more as a 26 year old, but only a grand total of 246 at bats over those three years. Critical years for any player in terms of getting into the Hall of Fame.
The average Hall of Famer starts playing in the major leagues at around age 22. So Martinez is missing 5 years. If we take what Edgar Martinez did in his first two full years in the majors and average it out we end up with 85 runs, 157 hits, 13 HR’s and 51 RBI’s.
If we multiply those numbers by 5 and subtract what Martinez did do as a 24, 25 and 26 year old, we end up with 399 runs, 719 hits, 63 HR’s and 225 RBI’s.
Adding that to Martinez’s career numbers we get: 3032 hits, 372 HR’s, 1,486 RBI’s and 1,618 Runs.
Would Edgar Martinez get into the Hall of Fame if those were his career totals? Maybe not because he was a DH, but the 3,000 plus hits would probably get him in.
Edgar Martinez will likely not get into the Hall of Fame not because he wasn’t talented enough, but because he was forced to spend too much of his career playing in the minor leagues.
