Lou Whitaker

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Lou Whitaker

2020 Modern Era Hall of Fame Ballot: Lou Whitaker

The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2020 Modern Era ballot. One player on the ballot is former Detroit Tigers second baseman, Lou Whitaker.

Five highlights of Lou Whitaker's career:

Lou Whitaker singled and stole second base in his first major-league plate appearance on September 9, 1977. He doubled in his second major-league plate appearance, driving in Alan Trammell, who was also making his major-league debut. Overall, Whitaker went 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored in his debut.

Whitaker won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 1978, beating out two Hall of Famers (among others): Paul Molitor and Alan Trammell finished second and tied for fourth, respectively.

Whitaker was named to five All-Star teams in his major-league career. He won three Gold Gloves and four Silver Sluggers. He did all of these in a five-year period from 1983 through 1987.

Lou Whitaker became the third second baseman in major-league history (following Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan) to have at least 1,000 runs, 1,000 RBI, 2,000 hits, and 200 home runs in his career.

The best game in Lou Whitaker's career, as measured by net pWins, was May 8, 1992, against the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners jumped out to a 6-0 lead by the end of the third inning. Whitaker had two hits in the game. His first was an RBI single in the eighth inning which cut the Mariners lead to 6-2. In the top of the ninth inning, Whitaker came to bat with the Tigers trailing 6-4 with runners on first and third and two out. Whitaker hit a 3-run home run to give the Tigers a 7-6 lead which ended up being the final score.

The first two tables below present Lou Whitaker'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
1977	DET	20	11	0.7	1.0	-0.1	-0.2
1978	DET	21	139	17.4	15.0	4.7	3.2
1979	DET	22	127	16.6	13.0	5.6	4.2
1980	DET	23	145	15.5	15.0	2.7	1.2
1981	DET	24	109	12.9	10.4	4.1	3.0
1982	DET	25	152	19.9	17.0	5.3	3.6
1983	DET	26	161	23.4	18.7	7.5	5.5
1984	DET	27	143	19.3	15.3	6.3	4.7
1985	DET	28	152	21.1	18.8	4.7	2.8
1986	DET	29	144	19.5	16.0	5.9	4.2
1987	DET	30	149	20.2	17.4	5.2	3.5
1988	DET	31	115	13.5	11.9	3.3	2.0
1989	DET	32	148	18.4	17.2	3.4	1.7
1990	DET	33	132	15.3	14.8	2.4	1.0
1991	DET	34	138	18.7	14.2	6.4	4.8
1992	DET	35	130	16.5	15.3	3.1	1.6
1993	DET	36	117	15.0	13.3	3.5	2.1
1994	DET	37	92	11.1	10.2	2.3	1.3
1995	DET	38	83	8.9	8.1	2.0	1.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,387	303.8	262.6	78.5	51.2
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			13	1.5	1.5	0.2	0.1
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,400	305.3	264.0	78.7	51.3

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1977	DET	20	11	0.7	1.0	-0.1	-0.2
1978	DET	21	139	16.5	16.0	2.8	1.3
1979	DET	22	127	15.8	13.9	4.1	2.7
1980	DET	23	145	14.6	15.8	1.0	-0.5
1981	DET	24	109	12.4	11.0	3.0	1.9
1982	DET	25	152	19.5	17.3	4.7	2.9
1983	DET	26	161	23.2	18.8	7.2	5.2
1984	DET	27	143	18.2	16.5	4.1	2.5
1985	DET	28	152	21.1	18.8	4.8	2.9
1986	DET	29	144	18.7	16.8	4.3	2.7
1987	DET	30	149	19.3	18.3	3.5	1.8
1988	DET	31	115	13.5	11.8	3.4	2.1
1989	DET	32	148	19.6	16.0	5.9	4.2
1990	DET	33	132	15.6	14.5	3.0	1.6
1991	DET	34	138	18.4	14.5	5.9	4.3
1992	DET	35	130	16.9	14.9	4.1	2.5
1993	DET	36	117	15.4	12.9	4.4	3.0
1994	DET	37	92	11.1	10.2	2.3	1.2
1995	DET	38	83	9.0	8.0	2.2	1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,387	299.5	266.8	70.6	43.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			13	1.6	1.4	0.4	0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,400	301.1	268.2	71.0	43.5

I first did the "five highlights" thing in my second book, Baseball Player Won-Lost Records: 150 Players, 50 Years, which looked at 150 players over the 50-year period from 1961 - 2010. Whitaker ranked #40 in that book. One thing I noticed as I was going through the 150 players was that there was a strong correlation between how easy it was to put together "five highlights" for a player and how well the player did in Hall-of-Fame voting.

For example, appearing on the Hall-of-Fame ballot with Whitaker is Steve Garvey. Garvey did not make my earlier top 150 (although two of his long-time infield teammates did, Ron Cey and Davey Lopes). So, I had to come up with his five highlights this week. And it was incredibly easy to do so. Garvey was a 10-time All-Star; he won four Gold Gloves. He won a regular-season MVP award, two NLCS MVP awards, and two All-Star Game MVP awards. He set (and still holds) the National League record for consecutive games played. He had 200 hits six times in seven years; he drove in 100 runs five times. I had an abundance of "highlights" to choose from.

In contrast, Lou Whitaker's five "highlights" don't seem nearly as impressive. He made half as many All-Star teams as Garvey. Whitaker received MVP votes the same number of times as Garvey won an MVP award - once: Whitaker finished 8th in AL MVP voting in 1983 when he batted a career high .320 and had over 200 hits for the only time in his career (206). I'm left talking about a random game late in Whitaker's career between two teams who lost 87 and 98 games.

Garvey lasted 15 years on the BBWAA ballot, peaking at over 40% of the vote. This is only the second time that Lou Whitaker's name has ever appeared on a Hall-of-Fame ballot.

But just because Steve Garvey was more well-regarded during his playing career than Lou Whitaker was during his doesn't mean that Garvey was actually the better player. He was not.

Lou Whitaker had more subtle skills. Baseball-Reference shows a 162-game average for a player's career totals. Whitaker averaged only 161 hits per 162 games, but he also drew 81 walks - and had more walks than strikeouts. His power numbers weren't eye-popping (his career-high in home runs was 28; he hit 20 home runs in a season four times) but he averaged 28 doubles, 4 triples, and 17 home runs per 162 games. He wasn't a huge base-stealer, but they still added up to 10 stolen bases per 162 games. He drove in 73 runs per 162 games and scored 94. And he did all of this while playing second base and playing it extremely well.

Ultimately, Lou Whitaker's Hall-of-Fame case is pretty straightforward.

The top 10 players in eWins over positional average (eWOPA), earned as a second baseman, across all seasons for which I have calculated Player won-lost records (1916 - 2019).

		Top 10 Career Second Basemen (ranked by eWins over Positional Average)
		eWins	eLosses	eWOPA
1	Joe L. Morgan	357.9	294.7	70.1
2	Rogers Hornsby	246.3	181.3	65.6
3	Charlie Gehringer	308.0	264.7	46.5
4	Lou Whitaker	290.6	261.6	38.7
5	Bobby Grich	220.7	191.8	36.6
6	Ryne Sandberg	270.5	237.7	35.2
7	Chase Utley	226.2	196.1	30.6
8	Joe Gordon	205.7	177.9	30.5
9	Bobby Doerr	253.3	226.8	30.1
10	Roberto Alomar	305.0	282.9	29.3

The top 50 players in pWins over replacement level (pWORL) since MLB integration (i.e., since 1947).

		Top 50 Players, pWORL (since 1947)
	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Barry Bonds	466.8	310.6	136.5	174.4
2	Willie Mays	465.3	329.8	116.5	156.6
3	Hank Aaron	496.7	369.1	98.5	142.5
4	Mickey Mantle	354.1	227.5	112.2	141.9
5	Roger Clemens	316.9	228.6	94.6	131.3
6	Joe L. Morgan	371.9	293.9	84.9	117.6
7	Greg Maddux	327.2	271.7	77.9	115.0
8	Alex Rodriguez	373.8	298.7	81.2	114.9
9	Warren Spahn	342.7	287.4	72.8	111.3
10	Frank Robinson	398.0	302.5	70.9	106.8
11	Albert Pujols	359.9	267.3	71.8	104.3
12	Randy 'Big Unit' Johnson	279.8	221.0	69.8	102.9
13	Rickey Henderson	428.4	350.3	62.5	100.5
14	Mike Schmidt	338.5	257.6	71.0	99.7
15	Eddie Mathews	320.7	240.9	70.5	99.1
16	Chipper Jones	336.2	257.6	69.6	98.6
17	Tom Seaver	306.9	258.2	65.1	98.6
18	Derek Jeter	367.7	323.1	61.2	94.8
19	Al Kaline	380.5	299.2	58.6	93.2
20	Reggie Jackson	370.0	295.8	58.4	92.6
21	Manny Ramirez	320.0	247.6	60.2	88.9
22	Jim Palmer	241.5	186.1	61.9	88.7
23	Yogi Berra	245.5	182.0	65.7	88.0
24	Stan Musial	324.9	247.7	57.9	87.5
25	Bob Gibson	262.4	218.4	58.7	87.4
26	Steve Carlton	335.6	305.9	49.2	86.9
27	Carl Yastrzemski	430.9	360.2	45.5	85.7
28	Pedro J. Martinez	192.4	137.8	62.6	84.7
29	Cal Ripken	382.3	351.6	49.2	84.5
30	Duke Snider	270.3	198.7	59.8	84.2
31	Ted Williams	242.8	168.1	62.0	83.2
32	Juan Marichal	230.8	188.0	56.7	81.7
33	David Ortiz	250.9	189.0	52.4	81.4
34	Nolan Ryan	354.6	329.6	38.1	81.0
35	Mike Mussina	223.1	174.0	52.7	80.1
36	Willie McCovey	296.7	220.6	53.2	79.1
37	Mariano Rivera	125.9	61.1	61.4	79.0
38	Jim Thome	273.9	209.5	52.2	78.7
39	Tom Glavine	277.8	249.8	45.8	78.6
40	Lou Whitaker	303.8	262.6	51.2	78.5
41	John Smoltz	238.8	201.8	49.6	78.3
42	Whitey Ford	209.4	164.7	54.9	78.0
43	Barry Larkin	291.5	249.5	51.6	77.9
44	Fergie Jenkins	285.0	252.3	44.4	77.4
45	Frank E. Thomas	254.1	190.3	50.8	76.9
46	Gaylord Perry	315.6	290.2	38.2	76.1
47	Harmon Killebrew	301.1	235.0	48.5	75.7
48	Don Sutton	318.6	297.3	38.4	75.6
49	Dave Winfield	397.3	339.8	38.7	75.5
50	Dwight Evans	330.1	271.9	45.6	75.3

One of the top 5 second basemen of the last 100 years. One of the top 50 players of the last 70 years. That's a Hall-of-Famer.

2020 Modern Era Hall of Fame Ballot

Article last updated: November 14, 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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