Revisiting the Fan's Ripken Angst

The recent debate on Alan Trammell's career and his Hall of Fame worthiness made me revisit his career stats and compare them to the "legendary" Cal Ripken, Jr. The fact that Trammell compiled less statistics than Ripken because his career was so much shorter doesn't diminish that the career numbers are pretty similar...and wanting.

If you take away Ripken's iron man streak and view his career without that as a perspective, he was a pretty average player. Ripken did change the prototype of the thin and rangy, punch-and-Judy hitting shortstop to the power position it is today. But was he a great player? Not in my opinion. Let's look at some of the numbers.

Ripken had six years where his on-base percentage was less than .325. He had ten years (out of twenty) where he hit less than .270. He only slugged over .500 five times in his career. He had two brutal stretches in his career wrapped around his two career years, at a time when he was supposedly in the prime years.

1991 was Ripken's best year. He batted .323 with 368 total bases and a slugging percentage of .566. He hit 34 homers and drove in 114. The following year, he was just as bad as he was good the year before. In 637 at bats, he batted .251, had an on-base percentage of .323 and slugged an unbelievable .366. That was a direct result of having 145 fewer total bases than the year before!

The thing I always heard while he was playing was that he was so serious in his baseball study that he positioned himself in the field better than anyone else to make up for his range. Really? Would anyone guess that he made over 20 errors six times in his career, five times as a shortstop? Would you guess that his lifetime fielding percentage was almost the exact same percentage as Trammell and that Trammell made over 20 errors just twice in his career? How about that Trammell's double play percentage was at 13.3 percent of his total chances. The exact same figure as Ripken.

Ripken just wasn't that great a player. His streak was selfish at times and much like Bond's assault on Aaron's record, the thing became of a life of its own and overshadowed his teammates and their objectives while placing his managers in the position that they couldn't always do what was best for their teams. It is interesting that his best years were early and under Earl Weaver.

After looking everything over, it is my conclusion that Trammell doesn't belong in the HOF. But Ripken is in for similar numbers (except the totals which result from a longer career), so if he's in, then Trammell should go too. Bottom line: Ripken wasn't worthy to fit in Lou Gehrig's shoes.