Andre Dawson by the Numbers

Baseball is relatively an easy game to understand. Two opposing teams get three outs per inning to try to make something happen in order to manufacture runs. After nine innings the team with the most runs wins.

Baseball statistics and how those statistics were evaluated in order to determine if a player should be in the Hall of Fame used to be that simple.

It's crazy all of these new sabermetric statistic-formulas that people have came up with that are now being used to evaluate eligible players for the Hall with. I’ve been reading articles where writers, some of whom are HOF voters, that have been using these type of statistics on why they won’t vote for Andre, “Andre’s win shares are too low,” or “his OPS+ isn’t as high as I would like.”

Win shares? OPS+? Whatever happened to just saying, “This player has X home runs, X runs batted in, X hits, X Gold Gloves, etc.”? “Man, those are great numbers, of course player X is a Hall of Famer!”

Numbers, not formulas.

I understand that win shares and OPS+ and other complicated formula statistics like that have their place in modern baseball, but let’s look at statistics and numbers that everyone can understand when determining how to vote for Hall of Fame candidates.

Here are some numbers on Andre that I believe BBWAA voters should consider:

1 – NL MVP (1987) and NL ROY (1977)
2 – NL MVP Runner-Up (1981 and 1983)
3 – Only three players have at least 400 HRs and 300 SBs, Andre being one of them.
4 – Silver Slugger Awards (1980, 1981, 1983 and 1987)
8 – Gold Gloves and All-Star Selections
118 – Sacrifice Flies (10th all-time)
143 – Intentional Base on Balls (50th all-time)
314 – Stolen Bases
438 – Home Runs (36th all-time)
503 – Doubles (48th all-time)
1,039 – Extra Base Hits (24th all-time)
1,591 – Runs Batted In (34th all-time)
2,774 – Hits (45th all-time)
4787 – Total Bases (25th all-time)

I could keep throwing more numbers at you, but let’s keep this simple.

Leave the formulas to the BCS system in determining the National College Football Championship and vote for one of the best all-around players ever to play the game into the Hall in 2010!

Source - www.baseball-refernce.com

A Closer Look at Andre's 1983 Season

In 1983 unemployment in the US rose to 12 million, highest total since 1941 (sound familiar?), the final episode of M*A*S*H aired setting a record of 125 million watchers, and The Hawk was setting records of his own for the Montreal Expos.*

I've mentioned it before in a previous post that in my opinion, Andre's 1983 season was probably his best all-around offensive season. So good that I think we should revisit that season with a closer look.

Here's the numbers The Hawk put up that year in 159 games:
32 - HRs, 113 - RBIs, 189 Hits, 104 Runs, .299 Avg., 25 SBs, 36 2Bs, 10 3Bs, 341 TBs

What stands out about these numbers and that 1983 season?

1. Was the first Expos to have at least 30 HRs, 30 2Bs, 100 RBIs, and 100 Runs in a season. Only two other players in Expos/Nationals franchise history have achieved this, Vladimir Guerrero and Ryan Zimmerman.

2. Led the league that year in hits, total bases, sacrifice flies (18), extra base hits (78) and hit by pitch (9). Finished 10th in batting average, 2nd in slugging %, 3rd in runs, 5th in doubles, 3rd in triples, 3rd in homeruns, 7th in times on bases and 6th in at-bats per homerun (19.781).**

3. Set single-season club records at that time for home runs (32, now seventh), RBI (113, now fourth), extra base hits (78, now seventh), and sacrifice flies (18, still first)***

4. Had to expand his trophy case in the off-season after winning his fourth consecutive Gold Glove and third Silver Slugger awards. Almost added an MVP trophy as well, coming in 2nd in voting.

1983 was just one of several seasons that made Andre a Hall of Fame caliber player. But, no other season I think was a better indication of the 5-tool player he was and how dominate he was in the early 80s.

* www.thepeoplehistory.com
** www.baseball-reference.com
*** www.wikipedia.org

Tale of Two MVP Seasons

In 1987 Andre Dawson won the National League MVP award for a Cubs team that finished last. That is the only time in Major League Baseball history that a player on a last place team won the coveted award.

Many baseball experts and fans since 1987 have debated if the award should be given to a player of a non-playoff contending team. The purpose of this post is to give an example of why those that voted for Andre in 1987 did so (he received 80% of the vote).*

In 1987 Andre topped the National League in homeruns (49), RBIs (137), and total bases (353), as well as fifth in hits (178) and third in extra-base hits (75).

But I think the most amazing statistic of 1987 is that Andre accounted for 32% of the runs the Cubs scored that year. The Cubs scored 720 runs, 137 in which Andre batted in and 90 of which he scored himself. Of the 720, 227 involved Andre. 32% is HUGE!**

Here is an illustration of how huge that really is. In comparison, in the 2007-08 NBA season in which Kobe Bryant won MVP he accounted for 31% of the Lakers total points that season(Points + assists). Andre accounted for one more percent of his team's run in his MVP season than Kobe.***

I doubt anyone would argue against Kobe for basketball's hall of fame; it shouldn't be any different for Andre!

*www.baseball-reference.com
**www.baseball-almanac.com
***www.lakers.com