On Monday, we learned of a 12-page brochure supporting Juan Gonzalez’s Hall of Fame candidacy that’s currently making the rounds.
As it turns out, the pitch for fellow two-time MVP Dale Murphy is a bit lighter. Longtime Braves GM John Schuerholz sent out a letter to voters appealing for Murphy that started with a personal note and followed with two pages of facts supporting his case.
Murphy, who picked up 12.6 percent of the vote last year, is on his next-to-last year on the ballot. There’s no chance at all that he’ll be elected by the BBWAA before his 15 years are up in the next cycle, but there is a case for Murphy as a peak candidate. Mike Schmidt was the only National Leaguer more valuable than Murphy in a six-year span from 1982-87. Murphy led the NL in homers twice, RBI twice, slugging twice and OPS once. During his six-year peak, he played in 162 games four times and 160 and 159 games in the other seasons.
Unfortunately, Murphy pretty much fell off a cliff at age 32. His OPS+ stood at 132 through age 31. After that, he came in at 96 in six seasons. Unable to stay healthy, he retired at age 37 still two homers short of 400.
With a more graceful decline, Murphy likely would be a Hall of Famer. There’s certainly a good argument that he was a better player at his peak than recent electees Andre Dawson and Jim Rice. Plus, Murphy was perhaps the sport’s ultimate good guy of his era and more than a few younger sportswriters grew up watching his Braves teams on TBS. There are certainly plenty of people who would love to vote for him if only his numbers were a little better.
