Carlos Delgado: Hall of Famer?

[The Brain]

The HOF threads aren’t generating much discussion but I’ll give it another shot. This time we’ll talk about Carlos Delgado. Delgado will be on the ballot for the first time in 2015. I know sabermetrics have gotten a lot of attention over the past few years and that trend will probably continue, but it’s still instinct to look at home runs and RBI first when looking at career numbers. Delgado has an impressive 473 home runs and 1512 RBI. He hit at least 30 home runs for ten straight seasons and had at least 99 RBI for eleven straight. Those are hall of fame numbers but not overly impressive given the era in which he played. Numbers like that may have been enough to gain entry a few decades back but the bar has been raised when it comes to power numbers. Delgado has barely over 2,000 hits and a career batting average of .280. Great numbers but not HOF numbers. What I found really surprising is that Delgado was an all star only twice. I won’t hold that against him too much as first base is a historically strong position but I would have guessed he had at least five all star appearances.

While I do recognize Carlos Delgado as one of the better sluggers of the late 90s and 00s, I don’t think Hall of Fame when his name is mentioned. I don’t think he will get in on the first ballot. He may make it some day but as of right now I don’t think I would give him my vote if I had one.

 

[Megatron]

No he's not, and really it's not a tough decision for me. Sure, he had some awesome power, as evidenced by his 473 HRs and .546 slugging %, but he only had a handful of truly GREAT seasons, with only 3 seasons with a fWAR > 5 (by comparison, Miguel Cabrera is well on his way to a 5th straight season with a fWAR > 5). A career 43.5 fWAR is good, but not nearly enough to merit much consideration. For comparison, Don Mattingly had a slightly lower fWAR at 40.9 and his HOF mentions didn't last all that long.

I don't want to use the WAR metric as my only crutch, but he was your typical power hitting, bad defense/baserunning 1st basemen in an era where offense was up. No go on Delgado.