Another rant for Tram

I heard Jayson Stark say today that Barry Larkin was a sure Hall of Famer in his eyes. If that’s the case, what about Alan Trammell? Oh, poor Tram.

Larkin played 19 seasons (2,180 games) and posted a .295 lifetime BA with 198 HR and 960 RBI. He had 1,329 runs and 379 SB. He won the MVP Award in 1995 when he batted .319-15-66 with 98 R and 51 SB. He finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting 2 times and Top 20 three other times. Larkin had a career OPS of .815 and 5.92 runs created/27 outs. He won 3 Gold Gloves.

Trammell played 20 seasons (2,293 games) and posted a .285 lifetime BA with 185 HR and 1,003 RBI. He had 1,231 runs and 236 SB. He was second in the MVP voting in 1987 when he was robbed by George Bell. Trammell batted .343-28-105 with 109 R and 21 SB. He finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting 3 times and the Top 20 three other times. He won a World Series MVP in 1984. Tram had a career OPS of .767 and 5.19 RC/27. He won 4 Gold Gloves.

Cal Ripken, without going into all the numbers, had a career .787 OPS and 5.38 RC/27. He won 2 MVPs and was in the Top 10 one other time and Top 20 four other times. He won 2 Gold Gloves.

Trammell has never received more than 17.7% of the Hall of Fame vote in 5 tries. I wonder how much different it would be if Tram won that MVP Award in 1987. He got 12 first-place votes while Bell got 16 and lost by 21 points. Bell had a .957 OPS that season, .004 better than Tram. And Tram’s Tigers won the AL East over Bell’s Blue Jays. And, for the record, Bell’s .960 fielding percentage in the OF that year (11 errors) was well below the league’s .980 average.

I guess Tram is also hurt by Ripken’s presence in the AL at the same time, but their career OPS and RC/27 numbers are probably much closer than many people would think. According to baseball-reference.com, the most similar batter to Tram is Larkin.