Quietly, as he seems to do everything in baseball, Chase Utley is wrapping up one of the finest careers for a second baseman in the game’s history.
The 38-year-old Utley is a famously tough interview, well-known among media members for his unwillingness to say much. Some players and coaches hold court in the clubhouse before games, happy to expound when approached. This isn’t Utley. He has all the joy answering questions of a person giving a deposition.
He admits only sparingly, for instance, that people sometimes talk about him as a future Baseball Hall of Fame candidate.
“I mean, you hear it once in awhile but it’s something that I don’t really focus much on at all to be honest with you,” Utley told Sporting News on Monday, hours before the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants were set to face one another at AT&T Park.
Asked if he’s heard breakdowns of his value by sabermetrics, which have painted him throughout his career as a superb all-around player, Utley offers a quick no. He’s either unaware or selling himself short.
By sabermetrics, Utley ranks among the top 10 second basemen in baseball history. His 42.1 Wins Above Average are eighth-best ever among second basemen. By WAR -- which doesn’t rate Utley as highly due to his late career start and frequent injury issues that have limited his playing time -- he’s the 14th-best second baseman all-time.
Utley’s struggled the past few years with the Dodgers after a glorious run with the Philadelphia Phillies, which might obscure what he once looked like -- maybe the best second baseman currently in the game. For many years, it was maybe between him and Robinson Cano, who has a chance at 3,000 hits and a Hall of Fame selection.
MORE: Robinson Cano nearing Hall of Fame numbers — will voters agree?
As it stands, Utley could easily wind up being overlooked by Hall of Fame voters when he arrives on the ballot five or seven years from now.
Cooperstown chances: 40 percent
Why: Utley might be the closest thing in baseball today to another Southern California native, former Angels second baseman Bobby Grich.
This doesn't bode terribly well for Utley.
Like Grich, Utley has done many things well as a player without any single thing that paints him as an easy Hall of Famer. Like Grich, Utley’s value must be contextualized. Grich’s .266 lifetime batting average and 1,833 hits likely doomed him with voters, with no player who's retired since 1959 in Cooperstown with under 2,000 hits. Utley’s .276 clip and 1,841 hits as of this writing won’t do him any favors, either.
Voters likely had no clue when Grich arrived on the Hall of Fame ballot for his only appearance in 1992 that his 43.2 Wins Above Average are sixth-best among all second basemen. Grich received just 2.6 percent of the Baseball Writers of America Association’s vote for Cooperstown in 1992, which prevented him from receiving additional consideration from the writers.
He’ll be eligible this fall on the veterans’ ballot, through the Modern Era Baseball Committee which weighs contributors who made their greatest mark on the game between 1970 and 1987. But don’t expect Grich to be holding his breath.
MORE: Bobby Grich on Baseball Hall of Fame chances: ‘I’m not optimistic at all’
Grich isn’t the only example, either, of an underrated second baseman getting bypassed by Hall of Fame voters. Willie Randolph, who ranks 14th among second basemen with 35.7 Wins Above Average, drew just five votes or 1.1 percent for Cooperstown on the 1998 ballot, not a particularly strong ballot at that.
The following year, when Nolan Ryan, Robin Yount and George Brett all sailed into Cooperstown as first-time candidates, Randolph might have drawn a single pity vote sometimes thrown at veteran candidates.
Lou Whitaker is another egregious “one-and-done” candidate, the term for players who appear on the ballot and receive less than the necessary 5 percent of the vote to stay on for another year. He drew just 2.9 percent of the vote in 2001 when Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett, each of whom he outranks for Wins Above Average, were enshrined.
More: Lou Whitaker on the Hall of Fame: ‘I didn’t even get daylight’
Baseball, at least in terms of its Hall of Fame voting, doesn’t seem to have changed that much. It was hard for underrated second basemen 25 years ago. It was hard roughly 15 years ago. It’s hard now.
It doesn’t seem to be an area of huge concern for Utley, though, who’s quick to cede credit when asked the secret to his success as a player.
“I think I’ve been pretty fortunate to be on a lot of good teams,” Utley said. “I think that’s probably No. 1. I played in Philadelphia for a long time and we had a number of years where we were going to the postseason with legitimate chances to win the World Series. Having guys that are talented around you just kind of raises the bar a bit.”
Teammates included Phillies mainstays like Ryan Howard, Carlos Ruiz and Jimmy Rollins, the last of whom might get some traction as a Hall of Fame candidate when he becomes eligible in the fall of 2021.
“He played a long time and he had a lot of great years and he has an MVP under his belt,” Utley said of Rollins. “I’m not sure what the exact criteria is to be in the Hall of Fame, but playing with him for so many years, he was definitely one of the best players on the field.”
A first-round pick out of University of California Los Angeles in 2000, Utley didn’t have his first season with 500 at-bats until he was 26 in 2005. But he doesn’t spend too much time thinking what his numbers might be had he broken in with Philadelphia a few years sooner.
“I feel fortunate to be able to play this game at this level for a long time,” Utley said. “I don’t focus on ‘what ifs’ or what I could have done. I’m proud of the fact that I feel like I’ve played the game the right way for a long time.”
Even with the Dodgers sputtering in recent weeks, he remains optimistic about the team’s postseason chances, saying the team has “a good group of guys in this clubhouse that want to win, that know how to win. So we still have a few weeks to get back on track.”
The only other question is how much longer Utley, who will turn 39 in December, intends to play. Ever coy and reticent to say much, Utley offers only a baseball cliche about what kind of timetable he’s keeping for the rest of his career.
“One day at a time,” he said.