Best players ever with no black ink
 

Yogi Berra and Scott Rolen never lead the League in anything and therefore have no black ink.

Carlos Beltran, Lou Whitaker and Bobby Wallace only led the League in games played.

Any other great players with no black ink for meaningful stats?

Barry Larkin (no black ink).
Ivan Rodriguez (only black ink is for leading the league in GIDP in 1999).

Alan Trammell only ever led the league in sacrifices (twice).

Jim Edmonds has no black ink either.

Of the players we mentioned, here is their gray ink:

Scott Rolen: 27
Lou Whitaker: 31
Ivan Rodriguez: 37
Jim Edmonds: 60
Barry Larkin: 66
Carlos Beltran: 76
Bobby Wallace : 80 (including 5 as a pitcher)
Yogi Berra: 138

So Scott Rolen managed to get into the HOF with no black in and only 27 gray ink. A lot of steroids guys ahead of him. Also shows how impressive Rolen was at defense, as that may have carried him into the HOF. Rolen ranks tied for 25th all-time with another 3rd baseman, Graig Nettles in Total Zone Runs. The only 3rd basemen that rank higher are Brooks Robinson and Buddy Bell.

The only black ink Buddy Bell had was for games played, at bats, and sac flies, and he had only 33 gray ink, to go along with his 66.4 WAR.

I hope Whitaker gets in soon. He deserves it.

Torii Hunter has 0, he’s pretty high up the list of the best to never get even 1 point.

Mike Cameron and Devon White are two other centerfielders with over 45bWAR that also have no black ink.

Jorge Posada never led in anything except double players. Probably did lead categories among catchers though.

Torii Hunter and Jorge Posada are two other good examples of great players that never had any black ink (Grounding into double plays doesn't count).

David Wright is another one. Wright led League in sac flys twice, but you don't get black ink points for that category.

None of the Yankees great or near great catchers, Dickey, Berra, Howard, Munson or Posada registered any black ink.

Wow, that's pretty crazy. That's 5 MVPs between 5 catchers, and another 14 top 10 finishes.

He hit more home runs than any other second baseman and won an MVP but Jeff Kent never led the league in anything except sacrifice flies.

Harold Baines led the league once in Slugging %. That's it.

Neither Ozzie Smith or Omar Vizquel ever led the league in any meaningful offensive statistics.

Catchers historically have a hard time accumulating much black ink. Carlton Fisk has 1 black ink mark, amazingly for "triples" one year (tied with Joe Rudi).

Gary Carter led the league in RBI's once in a really down year for that stat (tied with Mike Schmidt).

Ray Schalk has no black ink either, very few HOFers in that category but as a defense centered catcher hardly surprising.



More interestingly to me, fellow catcher Rick Ferrell has no black ink AND 0 grey ink (https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...erreri01.shtml). While rightfully counted as an undeserving hall of fame selection, Ferrell was a fine ball player who made 8 all-star games. Is there anyone better who also posts 0 grey ink for a career?

Well, another catcher. You could argue Jim Sundberg was better (or at least more valuable) using analytics. No Grey ink.

Bob Boone, also no grey ink, though modern analytics seems to like Sundberg much more then Boone, Boone got much more support during his HOF voting years.

That said, Ferrell appears much better offensively than both (on paper anyways, maybe not so much comparing eras), and who knows how accurate DWar can possibly being going that far back, and relying solely on antiquated box scores of the time.

I don't begrudge ANY catcher getting into the HOF. Toughest and most grueling non-pitcher position on the field by a longshot IMO. They should only be compared to other catchers...full stop.

I think of Sundberg and Boone as being pretty similar, surprised to see such a large % gap in their WAR. dWAR I have 0 faith in for a number of reasons, it seems to especially undervalue catchers in general, so perhaps it should not be surprising.

I'm fine with adding more catchers, it's a tough position and I wouldn't expect superstar offense for a top catcher, but Rick Ferrell was a bit of a stretch when compared to those catchers who are in and those who are out. I probably wouldn't vote for him, but in an odd way the bottom tier of the HOF becomes very underrated. They became so known as 'the guys who shouldn't have a plaque' that that perception comes to overwhelm that pretty much all of them were still all-star excellent players.