Steve Garvey

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by rats60

It depends on what you want from your cleanup hitter, walks or rbis. Garvey played on 5 pennant winners and 1 Championship team. He led the each one of those teams in rbis. Between 1974-80, Garvey reached 200 hits 6 times and 100 RBIs 5 times. He won a MVP, 2 LCS MVP, 4 gold gloves and was a 10 time All star.He was excellent in the postseason ..338/.361/.550/.910. He holds the NL records for consecutive games played and most consecutive games without an error. He is top 10 in fielding percentages at 1b.

Garvey doesn't score high on WAR because he didn't walk much and didn't hit a lot of home runs playing in Dodger Stadium. I would rather my cleanup hitter try to drive in runs than try to walk. I would take Garvey's actual wins and championships over hypothetical wins. If the Veteran's Committee is going to elect players, Garvey should be near the top of the list.

RBI's are a terrible way to judge performance because the batter had nothing to do with the player's getting on base in front of him.

WAR is not just about walks and homers, it's about production and Garvey is simply not even in the top 40 or so at 1b and that's not even close to HOF worthiness.

Garvey has a 116 wRC+ for his career (16% above avg hitter)

career fWAR of 37.8 is nowhere near HOF caliber, I mean not even in the same state much less the ballpark

career OPS of .775 at 1b is mediocre

272 homers at 1b is mediocre (power matters)

career ISO of .152 at first base is mediocre

by fWAR Garvey is 61st all time for 1b

by wRC+ Garvey is tied for 153rd among 1b all time


Heck Garvey barely makes the hall of the very good.