The Modern Era Ballot: Then and Now- Dwight Evans, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker
I grew up watching baseball as a kid in the 1980s. I remember the upright, very proper batting stance and perfect hair of Steve Garvey, the mustache and eye black of Don Mattingly, the powerful right arm of Dwight Evans, and the tall, gangly body of Dale Murphy. Tommy John was the soft-tossing veteran lefty whose career seemed to last forever. Lou Whitaker was the other half of the Trammell-Whitaker middle infield for the Detroit Tigers.
Sometime in the early 1980s, I saw an ad in Baseball Digest for one of the Bill James Baseball Abstracts. After reading the first one, I was hooked. I read every one thereafter, then the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract book in 1985, Win Shares in 2002, and The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract in 2003. I found BaseballProspectus.com in the late 1990s and Baseball-Reference.com in the early 2000s and FanGraphs in 2009.
This exposure to Bill James and BP and FanGraphs changed how I looked at baseball and how I felt about the players I was watching. I realized the statistics I thought were important when I was watching baseball as a kid weren’t as important as I’d been led to believe.
Pitcher wins and hitters’ RBI and batting average were sent to the back of the line while FIP, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and wRC+ moved to the front. WAR, what is it good for? Valuing baseball players.
The players on 2019’s Modern Era Hall of Fame Ballot exist in a weird space for me. I grew up watching these players before I embraced advanced statistics, so in some cases there’s a significant difference between how I remember them as a kid versus how I consider them now. With that in mind, this week,I’ll go over each player on the ballot with assessments from Me as a Fan in the 1980s versus Me as a Fanalyst (combination fan/analyst) today. Today, it’s the outfielders—Dwight Evans, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker.
Right Fielder Dwight Evans
Me as a Fan: I was eight years old and living in Florida when I fell in love with baseball and the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979. Why the Pirates? I’m not exactly sure. There were no major league teams in Florida at the time. The Atlanta Braves were the closest, but they didn’t interest me much.
My brother was a Dodgers fan and they always seemed so, I don’t know, elite, proper, and polished, which didn’t appeal to me. They’d had essentially the same classic uniform style for decades. I think, looking back, part of the reason I became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan was because they were everything the Dodgers weren’t. My brother liked the Dodgers, so I would like the opposite of the Dodgers.
The Pirates weren’t refined or polished. They had bright gold and black uniforms, with multiple variations. They had that pillbox cap. They had their own theme song (“We Are Family” by Sister Sledge). They were cool and funky and diverse, with the Panamanian center fielder Omar Moreno and African American players all around the diamond and the Dutch pitcher Bert Blyleven. They were the Melting Pot team of the 1970s. Also, they were really good.
What does this have to do with Dwight Evans? Nothing really, but I mention it because rooting for the Pirates made me a National League fan early on. That was a thing back then. Most kids I knew were one or the other, a National League fan or an American League fan, never both. So I focused on the National League in my early years of fandom, which meant Dwight Evans, playing for the Red Sox, wasn’t really on my radar.
That’s not to say I didn’t know who he was. I knew he was the right fielder for the Boston Red Sox for many years, but he wasn’t Carl Yastrzemski or Jim Rice, who were the big stars. My family moved to Seattle in 1981 and suddenly I became a fan of both leagues. I watched the Red Sox when they played the Mariners in the Kingdome. I saw Carl Yastrzemski when he was in his 40s. After Yaz retired, Jim Rice became the guy to watch in that lineup. Then Wade Boggs showed up and overshadowed Evans by winning batting titles seemingly every year.
My view of Evans when I was watching him play was that he was a good player, but he was no Carl Yastrzemski or Jim Rice or Wade Boggs. The thing that stuck out the most about him was his terrific throwing arm and epic 1980s mustache.
Me as a Fanalyst: Looking back with an analytic bent, I know Dwight Evans wasn’t as good as Yaz or Boggs, but I believe he was more valuable than Rice, who is already in the Hall of Fame. Evans wasn’t seen as a Hall of Fame type player at the time because he excelled in areas that weren’t properly valued in the 1970s and 1980s. He “only” hit .272, while Rice hit .298, yet Evans had a .370 on-base percentage in his career and Rice finished at .352. On-base percentage is much more important than batting average and the edge Evans had in on-base percentage made up for the edge Rice had in slugging percentage. They were near equals as hitters, but Evans was also an eight-time Gold Glove Award winner, while Rice was not an asset in left field and played about a quarter of his games at DH.
Not only was Evans more valuable than Rice, he was more valuable than Hall of Fame right fielders Dave Winfield and Vladimir Guerrero, among others. Evans compares favorably on offense to the great Roberto Clemente. Both had over 10,000 plate appearances and the same 129 wRC+, which is an offensive metric that is adjusted for league and ballpark effects so players can be compared across eras. Their 129 wRC+ means they were 29 percent better than average on offense. Evans wasn’t the fielder Clemente was, but he hit as well as the great Roberto.
By Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Evans is the second-best player on the Modern Era Ballot. Another metric I like to use for Hall of Fame discussions is Wins Above Average (WAA). Rather than compare the player to a replacement-level player, WAA compares the player to an average player. To build up a high level of WAA, you have to put up some elite seasons. Evans is second in WAA among the players on this ballot and produced more WAA than Hall of Famer right fielders Dave Winfield and Vladimir Guerrero.
One final thing I like to consider with potential Hall of Famers is how many high-level seasons they had in their career. This chart from the FanGraphs glossary is a good baseline:
2-3 WAR—Solid season (2 WAR is average; 0 WAR is replacement-level)
3-4 WAR—Good season
4-5 WAR—All-Star season
5-6 WAR—Superstar season
6+ WAR—MVP season
Evans played 19 seasons, with 15 of those being above average (greater than 2 WAR). Seven of those 15 seasons were in the “solid-to-good” range (2-4 WAR); eight were in the “All-Star or better” range (4+ WAR). For me, he’s an easy Hall of Fame choice.
Center Fielder Dale Murphy
Me as a Fan: I watched Dale Murphy play more often than any other player on the Modern Era Ballot. In those days long before MLB.TV, the one team you could watch pretty much every day was the Atlanta Braves because they were on superstation WTBS. And they were always on. It didn’t make me a Braves fan because I had already pledged my lifetime allegiance to the Pittsburgh Pirates, but getting to watch baseball nearly every day was a special gift. Thank you, Ted Turner.
The best player on those early 1980s Braves teams was Dale Murphy, of course. He was a tall, lanky centerfielder who crushed baseballs to right field on a regular basis. That was something that not many players did at the time. He could also steal bases, with a 36-HR, 23-SB season in 1982 and a 36-HR, 30-SB season in 1983. He won the NL MVP Award both years, along with the Gold Glove and the Silver Slugger. It seemed like he could do anything.
There was also the sterling image of Dale Murphy. He was the “nicest guy in baseball.” Always upbeat, always positive, but not annoying about it. He had a squeaky-clean image, but unlike the squeaky-clean Steve Garvey, I didn’t dislike Murphy for it (Garvey’s image turned out to be not so squeaky-clean after all, but I didn’t know it at the time). Murphy was so good and so nice; it was impossible not to like him.
Me as a Fanalyst: At his peak, Dale Murphy was a 6-7 WAR player. He reached that MVP level (6+ bWAR) four times, which is tied with Dave Parker for the most such seasons of all the players on this ballot. Murphy also had two “superstar” seasons (5-6 bWAR) and two “solid-to-good” seasons. That’s basically his Hall of Fame case—eight above-average seasons out of the 19 he played, with six of those eight seasons being elite.
We can see how this plays out.
- Pre-peak years, 1976-1979: 253/.310/.428 in 73 G/YR (-0.2 bWAR/year)
- Peak years, 1980-1987: .284/.374/.517 in 153 G/YR (5.3 bWAR/year)
- Post-peak years, 1988-1993: .234/.307/.396 in 110 G/YR (0.8 bWAR/year)
Did Murphy do enough during his peak to be a Hall of Fame choice? He falls a bit short for me. I think he’s comparable to Fred Lynn and Bernie Williams. There are worse center fielders in the Hall of Fame than that trio, but also a handful of players who rank above them (Kenny Lofton, Jim Edmonds, Jimmy Wynn, to name a few). At his best, Murphy was an elite player, but he didn’t maintain a high enough level for a long enough stretch to get my imaginary vote.
Right Fielder Dave Parker
Me as a Fan: Dave Parker could do it all. He hit for average, hit homers, stole bases, and had the best arm in baseball from right field, which he showed off in the 1979 All-Star game. I became aware of him that year, when he batted in front of my favorite player, Willie Stargell, on the Pittsburgh Pirates. Stargell was the leader of the team, the guy who handed out “Stargell Stars” to players who did great things during the season, but Parker was the best player on the squad.
He led the NL in batting average in 1977 and 1978. At the time, batting average was king. It was how the eight-year-old version of me judged players. Parker finished third in NL MVP voting in 1977, then won the award in 1978. In 1979, he won his third straight Gold Glove Award. He also averaged 19 steals per year for four straight years, despite his size (6-foot-5, 230 pounds according to Baseball-Reference.com).
As a young Pirates fan, I loved Willie Stargell more than any other Pirate, but it was Dave Parker who was bigger than life on the diamond. He dominated the game. He was also incredibly cool, with a full-faced beard and the nickname Cobra. He had a closed stance with his bat waving menacingly at head level ready to strike. Hence, the nickname. After taking a fastball to the face in 1978, he returned from the injury and wore a hockey mask in his first game back that made him look like a villain in a horror movie.
Then, all too soon, Parker’s light faded. After hitting .300 or better for five straight years, he hit .295 in 1980, then .258 in 1981, and .270 in 1982. Weight problems, injuries and, unknown to me at the time, cocaine use, contributed to Parker missing considerable time in 1981 and 1982. He played his last season with the Pirates in 1983 and hit just 12 home runs in 144 games. Then he signed a free agent deal with the Cincinnati Reds, where he was forced to shave his beard because of the team’s no facial hair policy. I stopped following him closely after that, but knew he had some good years with the Reds before finishing his career with stints in Oakland, Milwaukee, California, and Toronto.
Me as a Fanalyst: The Hall of Fame argument for Parker is the same as for Murphy—it’s all about his peak. Parker played 19 seasons, but just six were above average (per Baseball-Reference WAR). Four of those six seasons were MVP-level and they came in a five-year stretch from 1975 to 1979. During this time Parker averaged 150 games, 95 runs scored, 23 dingers, 98 RBI, and 17 steals, while hitting .321/.377/.532 (6.2 bWAR/year).
The slide began in 1980, when Parker was 29 years old. He slugged under .500 for the first time since 1976. This was the start of a long-term trend. After slugging .500 or better in four of the previous five years, Parker would reach that mark just once over his final 12 seasons (.275/.322/.444 from 1980 to 1991).
Predictably, as he aged his defense suffered. After 15 years in the National League, Parker moved to the AL in 1988, where he would soon become a full-time DH, hitting .264/.311/.416 in his AL years. That was still slightly above average on offense, but teams hope for more from a bat-only player.
Parker was really good in the mid-1970s. He was also one of the most exciting players in baseball to watch because he could do so many things so well. Unfortunately, he essentially had just one good season from 1980 on, so I don’t believe he’s Hall of Fame caliber.
