Dale Murphy

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Dale Murphy

2020 Modern Era Hall of Fame Ballot: Dale Murphy

The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2020 Modern Era ballot. One player on the ballot is former Atlanta Braves outfielder, Dale Murphy.

Five highlights of Dale Murphy's career:

Dale Murphy was named to seven All-Star teams. He received MVP votes seven times, winning twice. He won five Gold Gloves and four Silver Sluggers.

Murphy won his first MVP award in 1982. That season, he batted .281/.378/.507 with 36 home runs, a league-leading 109 RBI, 113 runs scored, and 23 stolen bases.

Murphy had an even better season in 1983, winning his second consecutive MVP award, batting .302/.393/.540 with 36 home runs, 121 RBI, and 131 runs scored. Murphy led the league in RBI, slugging percentage, and OPS. He set career highs in batting average, runs scored, RBI, and stolen bases (30 in 34 attempts).

Dale Murphy led the National League in games played four consecutive seasons from 1982 through 1985. He played 740 consecutive games from September 26, 1981 through July 8, 1986, the 13th-longest streak in major-league history.

Murphy was named one of eight co-Sportsmen of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 1987 in part for his career-high .417 on-base percentage and 44 home runs that season and in part for his charitable work.

The first two tables below present Dale Murphy's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1976	ATL	20	19	1.7	1.6	0.2	0.1
1977	ATL	21	18	1.8	2.6	-0.5	-0.7
1978	ATL	22	151	14.6	15.0	-0.2	-1.6
1979	ATL	23	104	10.3	11.2	-0.5	-1.6
1980	ATL	24	156	23.6	16.7	8.0	6.1
1981	ATL	25	104	13.9	12.7	2.0	0.6
1982	ATL	26	162	24.7	18.6	7.2	5.2
1983	ATL	27	162	25.0	17.5	8.5	6.5
1984	ATL	28	162	24.3	20.0	5.5	3.4
1985	ATL	29	162	23.4	19.8	4.7	2.7
1986	ATL	30	160	21.8	18.3	4.5	2.6
1987	ATL	31	159	22.5	18.5	4.7	2.8
1988	ATL	32	156	19.6	21.8	-2.0	-4.0
1989	ATL	33	154	18.3	19.7	-0.6	-2.4
+– 1990		34	154	17.8	18.0	0.4	-1.3
	ATL		97	11.0	10.7	0.7	-0.3
	PHI		57	6.8	7.3	-0.3	-0.9
1991	PHI	35	153	18.1	17.4	1.2	-0.5
1992	PHI	36	18	1.7	2.1	-0.4	-0.6
1993	COL	37	26	0.6	1.8	-1.1	-1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,180	283.7	253.3	41.7	16.1
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			3	0.2	0.4	-0.2	-0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,183	283.9	253.7	41.5	15.8

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1976	ATL	20	19	1.7	1.6	0.4	0.2
1977	ATL	21	18	2.1	2.3	0.2	-0.1
1978	ATL	22	151	14.5	15.1	-0.3	-1.7
1979	ATL	23	104	11.2	10.2	1.5	0.5
1980	ATL	24	156	22.9	17.5	6.5	4.6
1981	ATL	25	104	13.8	12.7	1.8	0.5
1982	ATL	26	162	24.5	18.9	6.8	4.7
1983	ATL	27	162	24.8	17.7	8.2	6.2
1984	ATL	28	162	24.8	19.5	6.4	4.3
1985	ATL	29	162	24.3	18.9	6.7	4.6
1986	ATL	30	160	21.4	18.7	3.7	1.8
1987	ATL	31	159	23.8	17.2	7.2	5.3
1988	ATL	32	156	22.0	19.4	3.1	1.1
1989	ATL	33	154	18.9	19.1	0.6	-1.2
+– 1990		34	154	18.2	17.6	1.2	-0.5
	ATL		97	11.1	10.5	1.0	-0.0
	PHI		57	7.1	7.0	0.3	-0.4
1991	PHI	35	153	18.1	17.4	1.0	-0.7
1992	PHI	36	18	1.6	2.2	-0.6	-0.8
1993	COL	37	26	0.8	1.6	-0.7	-0.8
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,180	289.4	247.6	53.7	28.1
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			3	0.3	0.4	-0.1	-0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,183	289.7	248.0	53.6	28.0

Dale Murphy made the Modern Era ballot the last time this committee voted, in 2018. The remainder of this article is drawn largely from the article which I wrote about Dale Murphy at that time.

One of the key arguments in support of Jack Morris's Hall-of-Fame candidacy (which was ultimately successful in 2018) was that he had the most "wins" of the 1980s. Of course, this referred to traditional pitcher wins and thereby excluded the contributions of batters, baserunners, and fielders from team victories.

I have corrected this oversight with my Player won-lost records and assign (partial) wins to all players based on their contributions. And my pWins tie to team wins - just as pitcher wins tie to team wins.

The next table, then, shows the top 25 players in pWins for the 1980's.

Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
	Most pWins during the 1980s
Dale Murphy	217.1	183.7	23.5	42.6
Rickey Henderson	213.0	165.9	40.2	58.4
Andre Dawson	206.3	172.1	23.7	41.7
Robin Yount	202.1	169.6	35.9	53.9
Dwight Evans	201.2	162.0	31.6	49.3
Ozzie Smith	198.6	176.9	30.4	48.3
Mike Schmidt	187.9	145.9	36.1	52.0
Dave Winfield	184.8	158.3	19.0	35.5
Alan Trammell	184.2	159.0	36.7	53.2
Tim Raines Sr.	183.9	154.9	18.8	35.0
Lou Whitaker	183.6	157.7	32.1	48.4
Willie Wilson	181.0	175.6	0.6	17.6
Eddie Murray	180.3	144.0	25.7	41.4
Cal Ripken	179.5	158.8	31.1	47.1
Jim Rice	178.9	163.4	8.3	25.3
Lloyd Moseby	168.3	163.3	1.5	17.4
Frank White	167.8	163.4	10.7	26.5
Harold Baines	166.5	157.3	2.7	19.2
Ryne Sandberg	164.0	150.5	14.4	29.3
Willie Randolph	163.1	148.2	20.2	35.1
George Brett	162.4	128.5	30.1	44.2
Dave Parker	160.8	148.6	2.5	17.8
Tom Brunansky	160.4	152.4	0.4	15.3
Pedro Guerrero	160.3	128.2	23.9	37.6

While Dale Murphy led major-league baseball in pWins during the 1980s, he actually looked better out of context (eWins) than in context (pWins) through most of his career. In order to put Dale Murphy in the best possible light, then, the remainder of this article will focus on eWins instead of pWins.

Raw pWins (or eWins) are not necessarily the best measure of player value. Outfielders (which Dale Murphy was throughout the 1980s) tend to earn more player decisions (both wins and losses) than infielders or pitchers. Murphy also was exceptionally durable through his prime. For the decade of the 1980s, for example, Murphy missed a total of only 21 games.

The next table, then, compares his performance against replacement level. The top 10 players in eWins over replacement level (eWORL) for the 1980s.

		Top 10 Players, eWORL (1980 - 1989)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Rickey Henderson	213.7	165.3	41.8	60.0
2	Mike Schmidt	191.0	142.7	42.9	58.9
3	Robin Yount	201.7	170.0	35.4	53.5
4	Dale Murphy	221.1	179.7	31.9	51.0
5	Cal Ripken	180.2	158.1	32.6	48.6
6	Alan Trammell	181.8	161.4	32.0	48.5
7	Dwight Evans	198.7	164.5	26.9	44.5
8	Wade Boggs	154.9	123.2	30.5	43.8
9	Lou Whitaker	180.1	161.1	25.6	41.9
10	George Brett	160.6	130.3	27.0	41.2

Everybody in the above table is either already in the Hall of Fame or is on this year's Modern Era Committee ballot.

While Dale Murphy's prime fits neatly within the decade of the 1980s, in fact, his last good season was probably 1987. The next table, then, removes the last two seasons of the 1980s, and presents the top 10 players in eWins over replacement level (eWORL) from 1980 - 1987.

		Top 10 Players, eWORL (1980 - 1987)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA	eWORL
1	Mike Schmidt	172.5	125.1	42.5	56.7
2	Rickey Henderson	169.3	130.5	33.4	47.8
3	Dale Murphy	180.2	141.1	32.0	47.3
4	Robin Yount	155.4	132.2	27.6	41.6
5	Alan Trammell	147.0	131.0	25.6	39.0
6	Gary Carter	134.0	110.3	26.8	38.4
7	Cal Ripken	136.9	119.8	25.1	37.2
8	Dwight Evans	160.7	131.9	22.8	36.8
9	George Brett	127.5	103.3	23.0	34.1
10	Andre Dawson	168.2	140.9	18.9	33.7

The numbers in the last table were, admittedly, cherry-picked to put Dale Murphy in the best possible light. That said, being one of the top three players in major-league baseball over an eight-year time period is extremely impressive.

2020 Modern Era Hall of Fame Ballot

Article last updated: November 4, 2019

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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