'Cooperstown Chances' examines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. This week: Mets third baseman David Wright.
Who he is: After doctors diagnosed New York Mets third baseman and seven-time All Star David Wright with spinal stenosis this spring, Bryan Grosnick of Beyond the Box Score wrote:
No one's jumping to the conclusion that David Wright's career is over, at least just yet. However, there's at least the possibility that the defining player for the Mets over the last dozen seasons has played his last meaningful (game). If this were to be the case, Wright would end his playing days with a career that is at worst enviable and, at best, a borderline Hall of Fame career.
Wright logged just 38 games this season and has struggled through the postseason so far, going 2-for-23 at the plate. He's dealt with injuries in general the past few years, averaging 126 games from 2011 to 2014 after averaging 156 games his first six full seasons. Such is often the case with infielders, but it's always jarring to see. If history's a guide, one would be foolish to bet on Wright returning to pre-injury form.
The New York Times recently chronicled everything Wright has to do before a game to ease his aching back, bringing to mind the routines of Sandy Koufax for his arthritic elbow near the end of his career. At 32, Wright looks like a long shot to return to being a regular All Star. And barring a miracle, it looks as though Wright will fall just short of Cooperstown.
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Cooperstown chances: 25 percent
Why: Wright's best Hall of Fame case comes through with sabermetrics, as it usually does with third basemen. For whatever reason, the position is fairly under-represented in Cooperstown with a number of very good, if not great third basemen on the outside looking in. Just ask Graig Nettles, Darrell Evans and Buddy Bell, to name three.
Right now, sabermetrics has David Wright as nearly a borderline candidate for Cooperstown. Baseball researcher Adam Darowski, founder of HallofStats.com, has Wright with a 97 Hall Rating, with 100 being the benchmark for Hall of Famers. Darowski ranks Wright as the 20th best third baseman all-time. He also rates him similarly to John McGraw, who's in as the legendary New York Giants manager but could've also had a case for being one of the best players of the 1890s.
Meanwhile, Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated gives Wright 45.1 in his Hall of Fame metric JAWS, with 55 JAWS the standard for enshrined third basemen. JAWS has two components, peak and career WAR. By peak WAR, Wright is just shy of Hall of Fame status: 40 WAR over his best seven-year stretch, with 42.7 the standard for enshrined third basemen according to JAWS. For career WAR, he falls well short: 50.1 WAR, with 67.4 WAR the standard.
This is all good enough that maybe a few writers will pen columns that Wright belongs by peak when he appears on the Baseball Writers' Association of America's Hall of Fame ballot, but that's about it. Wright will be lucky to draw 20 percent of the BBWAA vote his first time out. If his health doesn't hold up, and he retires in a year or two, he might be a one-and-done Hall of Fame candidate. It's a little cruel, but then Hall of Fame voting is almost always more about stats than sentimentality. If a sentimental favorite gets in, it's generally because a statistical case can be made for them.
Sabermetrics don't typically get a player enshrined, particularly one with a borderline case. Adrian Beltre, perhaps the surest bet for Cooperstown among active third basemen, only solidified his case after signing a few years ago with the Texas Rangers, whose hitter-friendly confines helped push him toward 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, and shouting distance of a .300 lifetime batting average.
Anyone into sabermetrics before could have noted that part of Beltre's problem in the earlier part of his career was his unfortunate penchant for playing in pitchers' parks in Los Angeles and Seattle. To everyone else, Beltre just liked an underachiever who only performed in contract years.
Wright doesn't look nearly as appealing these days through traditional stats as Beltre. While Wright boasts a .298 batting average, he has 1,746 hits and 235 homers. It's more or less statistically impossible for Wright to get to 3,000 hits and 500 home runs at this point. There simply isn't enough time left in the career of a player with an uncertain bill of health who'll turn 33 in December. And even if Wright gets to 2,000 hits or 300 homers, it won't make his chances for Cooperstown that much better.
According to Baseball-Reference.com, 13 players have 2,000 to 2,500 hits and 300 to 350 homers. Not counting the recently retired Raul Ibanez, Miguel Tejada and Scott Rolen (who's more underrated than Wright and also due to get the shaft in Hall of Fame voting), three of these players are enshrined: Ron Santo, Gary Carter and Chuck Klein. Wright doesn't really rate a comparison to fellow third baseman Santo. Adjusting for their different eras, Santo boasted comparable hitting and far greater defense and longevity than Wright and is an easy selection for Cooperstown by both JAWS and Hall Rating.
The other seven players in this group are: Reggie Smith, Don Baylor, Chili Davis, Edgar Martinez, Ruben Sierra, Shawn Green and Moises Alou. Martinez might get in Cooperstown at some point, at least through the Veterans Committee, but none of the other six have a chance. None were bad players, and at their peak, at least a few ranked among the best players in baseball. Such can also be said about Wright, but it doesn't make him a Hall of Famer, at least not right now.
There's a certain career statistical threshold Wright has to cross and probably will fall well short of due to his injury history before more BBWAA voters will take his case seriously. Hall of Fame voting shouldn't have the reliance that it does on raw, unadjusted statistics, particularly for infielders like Wright. That said, it is what it is.
'Cooperstown Chances' examines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. Series author and Sporting News contributor Graham Womack writes regularly about the Hall of Fame and other topics related to baseball history at his website, Baseball: Past and Present . Follow him on Twitter: @grahamdude .