Marcos Mendoza | May 31st, 2019
Yadier Molina is one of the games most respected players. Most casual fans would say that Yadi is a slam dunk first ballot HOFer. Do his offensive numbers decrease the chances of him getting into the Hall?
Yadi’s career slash line is .282/.333/.405 (.738 OPS), 100 wRC+, 150 HRs, 892 RBIs, 1,900 Hits and a 53.4 career WAR. Since entering the league in 2004, here are his career ranks (these rankings are from 2004-2018):
WAR = 10th (53.4)
wRC+ = 353rd (100)
SLG = 465th (.405)
OBP = 302nd (.333)
AVG = 120th (.282)
RBIs = 44th (892)
HRs = 135th (150)
Hits = 21st (1,900)
He’s never had 100 RBI season, only 2 seasons of 20 HRs or more, and 6 seasons of .300+ BA.
Molina does have a ton of accolades, but he does not have an MVP to his name. Molina has two Top Five MVP finishes, where he finished 4th in 2004 and 3rd in 2005. He does have nine All-Star selections and nine Gold Gloves. He has two NL Wilson Defensive Player of the Year awards and four NL Platinum Gold Gloves. He has one silver slugger award, which was in 2013. Yadi also only has two Top Ten WAR seasons, finishing 2nd in 2012 and 7th in 2013. He has also never led the league in any offensive category in his 16 year career.
Here are the averages for a player in the HOF per Baseball Reference:
All-Star selections = 6
WAR = 69
Hits = 2,410
HR = 225
RBIs = 1,229
Career Slashline = .302/.376/.465 (.841 OPS)
The only one that Yadi has on this list is All-Star selections. For catchers here are the JAWS averages (Jaffe WAR score system) to measure a player’s HOF worthiness, WAR 54.3, WAR7 (7-year peak) 35.1 and JAWS 44.7. Among all catchers, Yadier Molina ranks 28th in catcher JAWS. Molina is a long way from reaching any of those HOF averages and he’s on the tail end of his career and his numbers will only decrease.
Yadi has had an outstanding major league career and he deserves the respect he has. He has been a very good player since entering the league in 2004 but he hasn’t been among the best. I think it will be very hard for him to make the HOF without any major accolades such as an MVP. His defensive numbers and awards may get him a strong push to be a HOFer but I don’t believe it warrants him to be one. Look Hall Of Famers are for recognizing the best of the best and I believe his offensive numbers substantially decrease his chances for the HOF.
Questions and comments?
thescorecrowsports@gmail.com
Follow Us on Twitter @thescorecrow
Follow Us on Reddit at u/TheScorecrow
Follow Us on Facebook at The Scorecrow
Follow Us on Instagram at The Scorecrow
Follow Marcos Mendoza on Twitter @MendozaM_12
Main Image Credit: [getty src=”1141848925″ width=”594″ height=”396″ tld=”com”]
