The Hall of Fame Index: what about Keith Hernandez
Is he underrated by most fans?
Author’s Note: These HOF Index articles are not directly Astros related. I am releasing them as a distraction as we are waiting for real news to talk about. They also happen to coincide with the Veterans Committee and BBWAA votes for the 2025 class. I hope you enjoy them.
From here on out, we are going to pick off guys one by one that come within 20 percent (80/120) of the median for Hall of Fame first basemen. In a previous article, I went through the rank and file first basemen, but the tables cut off for many of you, so I will be comparing each of these players to the median. Therefore, you will see a player’s score and the median.
So that there is no confusion, the median does not include players north of 120 percent of the overall Hall of Fame median. We are not comparing these guys with Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, or Jeff Bagwell. We are also not comparing them with guys like Frank Chance, Jim Bottomley, or Gil Hodges. We are strictly looking at the guys in the middle.
On a more global sense, a study in Keith Hernandez is a study in value. People have an image of a prototypical first baseman in their head and Hernandez really doesn’t fit that. He never hit 30 home runs and rarely ever drove in 100 or more runs. Yet, he was valuable because of the other things that he did. A run prevented is just as valuable as a run produced. No first baseman in the history of the sport was as efficient at preventing runs as Hernandez. As always we start with the counting numbers as a way to explain why he is not in.
