September 3, 2021

By Neil Munro

Canadian Baseball Network

Next Wednesday, Larry Walker will become the second Canadian to be inducted in to hallowed halls of Cooperstown, joining Ferguson Jenkins with that honour.

For those of you with access to it, the ceremony will be covered on the MLB television network (starting at 1:30 p.m. E.T.).

There has been some speculation recently as to whether Joey Votto (Etobicoke, Ont.) might become the third Canadian to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. By the sheerest of coincidences, Votto now has almost exactly the same number of batting plate appearances as Larry Walker compiled in his career.

Votto actually passed Walker during his last outing and now has 8,033 plate appearances to Walker’s 8030. Thus, we have a basis for realistic comparison of these two Canadian baseball superstars.

Now if we consider the players’ contributions as defensive position players, Walker clearly has the advantage having won seven Gold Glove Awards compared to the one captured by Votto. As well, Walker is usually thought of as one of the best performers ever to patrol right field while Votto is probably just a cut above average as a first sacker. Just the same, a baseball player will have to earn his admittance to the Hall of Fame on the basis of his skill with the bat and not the glove. The only exceptions are for outstanding middle infielders in the mold of an Ozzie Smith or Bill Mazeroski. So, we will only address the comparison of these two players in terms of their offensive contributions herein.

First, I will examine the basic counting statistics such as home runs and RBI (shown in the first table below). Walker actually has almost 250 more at bats than Votto because the latter player draws so many walks by comparison. Still Walker’s rate of connecting for base hits, doubles, triples and homers certainly exceeds Votto’s record.

Primary Career Counting Statistics

TPA (total plate appearances) represents the sum of a batter’s walks, sacrifices, time being plunked by a pitch added to his at bats. In the interest of a complete accounting, a batter who is interfered with by a catcher when swinging at a pitch is awarded first base and the instance is included in his total plate appearances. These are extremely rare occurrences and in fact neither Votto nor Walker was ever credited with such an event. Runs scored and RBI may depend to a great extent on the contributions made by a player’s teammates. In that regard, the Rockies almost always had other players in their lineup who placed near or at the top of the league leaders in run production. On the other hand, you can count on one hand the number of Cincinnati teammates that had even as many as 100 runs scored or RBIs in Votto’s entire career with the Reds.

Secondary Career Counting Statistics

The statistics in the second table (above) should be familiar to most baseball fans with the possible exception of TOB, which represents the number of times that a player reached base by a hit, a walk or being hit by a pitch. Votto’s superior total in bases on balls enables him to gain an advantage over Walker in this regard. In fact, Votto led the National League in walks five times (to none for Walker) and also led the league in times reaching base safely five times (again Walker was shut out in this category). It is worth mentioning that Votto has the three highest TOB single season figures in the history of the Cincinnati Reds, and they had some very fine ball players such as Pete Rose that regularly led the N.L. in this category.

In terms of running the bases, Walker has almost three times as many stolen bases as does Votto. Actually, their rate of success in base stealing is pretty comparable – Walker was successful 75.2% of the time to Votto’s success rate of 73.4%. I’m not sure a player would want to excel in the category of being hit by a pitch, but Walker was plunked more than twice as many times as Votto was.

The final table outlines a comparison of the usual batting percentages as well as the more common analysis tools that are becoming increasing popular these days.

Percentage and Analysis Career Statistics

In addition to the obvious batting categories given here, POW represents power average or the number of extra bases earned on doubles, triples and home runs, divided by at bats. Modern day analysts use a variety of different names for this statistic, which was first coined by Branch Rickey as an attempt to evaluate the slugging potential of prospects in his farm system. Typically, its value is 50 to 100 points lower than the more recognizable batting average statistic. Only two players in MLB history compiled career POWs in excess of .300 – Babe Ruth (at .348) and Barry Bond (.309). The current active leader in POW is Mike Trout who boasts a rate of .278. A career mark in excess of .250 (as per Walker) is quite unusual, even for most power hitters.

Clearly, Walker has the superior batting average, and for the first century of MLB, this was the one most important yardstick used to judge a player’s value. In fact, if Votto plays another two or three years, his average is sure to drop below the .300 level. However, Walker benefited considerably from playing nearly half of his games at altitude in Colorado. If we compare their respective batting averages while playing on the road, we gain a better insight in comparison. Walker hit a blistering .348 at home and just .278 on the road. Votto has a .306 batting average on the road compared to .298 at home. In fairness, Walker’s figures do include his stints in Montreal and St. Louis, and Olympic Stadium was perhaps the most pitcher-friendly stadium in the league when he played there.

Of all of the percentage statistics in use, the on-base percentage may be the one that analysts and general managers value the most. Votto currently ranks 22nd all-time in career OBP, a fraction ahead of Stan Musial. This includes all players back to 1876. In addition, he has led the National League in OBP a remarkable seven times in his career (and he lost an eighth title by a mere 0.001 of a point to Bryce Harper in 2015. In baseball history, only four players have led their league in OBP more than seven times – Ted Williams leads with 12 such titles, Ruth and Bonds have 10 titles each, and Rogers Hornsby led the league nine times. Just for the complete record, Ty Cobb also led his league seven times in OBP. That’s some very impressive company for Votto to be a part of!

OPS and the remaining categories are actually combinations of two or more other batting statistics. Of course, OPS is the sum of a player’s on-base percentage and slugging percentage. It may be the favourite tool for a full comparison of a batter’s offensive contributions in use today. An OPS of 1.000 is the usual standard for excellence here. At this moment in the season, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the only American League batter above this level (with an OPS of 1.004). Bryce Harper and Fernando Tatis Jr. are slightly higher right now, with figures of 1.014 and 1.003 respectively. Interestingly, both Votto and Walker led the National League two times in OPS. OPS+ is probably an even better means of comparison in that it adjusts a batter’s stats for the benefit or liability of the effects of their home ball park. An OPS+ of 100 means that the batter is exactly average, or would be in a neutral stadium.

WAR, or wins above average, is probably the second most favoured modern analysis tool for comparing the contributions of ball players today. For example, Walker contributed to an extra 73 wins for his team in his career as compared to what would be expected if he had been replaced by an average player for his position. The best offensive WARs in history were accumulated by Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds (with 162.7 each). Every player in MLB history with an offensive WAR above 80 was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. Albert Pujols (currently at 99.5) and Adrian Beltre (93.5) are not yet eligible, but it is safe to say that they will both be elected to Cooperstown in their first year on the ballot.

There have been a number of systems developed for predicting the likelihood that a player will eventually be elected to the Hall of Fame. Perhaps the best known of these is the method proposed by Bill James, shown here as HOF. His point system uses a few dozen distinct categories for batters and for pitchers in generating HOF points. In addition to the obvious statistical categories, these include times winning various awards and times appearing in post-season play. It is easiest to use the description from Bill James himself in describing the outcome: a score of 100 means that a player has a good chance of being elected while a score above 130 denotes that a player is a virtual lock for induction. Since some of the points are awarded for longevity in accumulating important statistics, Votto is sure to exceed the 100-point plateau if he has a couple more good seasons as a regular.

Finally, the MVP category comparison calculates the equivalent number of MVP awards that a player would in theory accumulate over his career based on the proportion of votes he actually receives. For example, if a player wins the award unanimously, he obtains 1.00 award shares. Last year’s American League winner, Jose Abreu, took 374 of a possible 420 votes, for a 0.89 MVP share. Votto’s current 3.06 share is quite impressive and is higher than the shares accumulated by such legends as Joe Morgan, Al Kaline, Mel Ott, Roberto Clemente and Vladdy’s dad, Vladimir Guerrero Sr. This statistic especially benefits a player with a couple of outstanding seasons as opposed to a career of routine excellence. For example, Paul Molitor has a career MVP share of 1.43 in his 21-year career in which he had eight all-star appearances to go with 3,319 career base hits. On the other hand, Roger Maris has 1.40 MVP shares even though he never once batted as high as .285 in a single season, and accumulated just 1325 career base hits. Canada’s own Justin Morneau accumulated 1.49 MVP shares in his career.

So, the tools are there for you to decide if Joey Votto will in fact become the third player from Canada to be elected to the Hall of Fame. He will benefit significantly from the fact that modern day voters place an overwhelming emphasis on the types of analysis statistics shown above. My personal prediction is that if he has a couple more seasons as a productive regular with the Reds, he has a better than 50-50 chance to make the grade.