Alan Trammell and Jack Morris have made it into the Hall of Fame.
After years of waiting, a pair of teammates on the 1984, World Series Champion Detroit Tigers that started the season 35-5 are getting their moment in the sun, as Alan Trammel and Jack Morris have been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Modern Baseball Committee. To gain induction into Cooperstown, Trammel and Morris, who spent thirteen seasons together as teammates, each needed to receive votes on 75% (12) or more of the sixteen voter ballots. Morris received the most votes of any player on the ballot with fourteen, while Trammel was not far behind with thirteen votes. The next closest player was catcher and eight-time All-Star Ted Simmons, who received eleven votes, one short of what he needed for induction. The rest of the ballot, which was made up of players who played the majority of their career from 1970-1987, included, Simmons, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Luis Tiant, and former MLBPA executive Marvin Miller.
The committee, who were voting on players whose careers were spent mostly from 1970-1987, included eight Hall of Fame inductees in George Brett, Rod Carew, Bobby Cox, Dennis Eckersley, John Schuerholz, Don Sutton, Dave Winfield and Robin Yount, and was rounded out by Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, former Blue Jays president Paul Beeston, Reds president Bob Castellini, Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt, Royals chairman David Glass, veteran BBWAA members Bob Elliott and Jayson Stark and historian Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sport Bureau. The Modern Baseball Committee is one of four Eras Committees of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and vote twice every five years for players who have been retired for at least fifteen years and have fallen off of the Hall of Fame ballot, as well as managers, umpires, and executives who have been retired for at least five years.
Trammel, 59, played all twenty years of his big league career at shortstop for the Tigers, retiring as a 6x All-Star, 4x Gold Glove Award Winner, and 3x Silver Slugger. While Trammel’s Hall of Fame vote topped out at 40.9% in his final year of eligibility in 2016, he was widely thought to be the player most likely to be enshrined by the Modern Baseball Committee thanks to his stellar Hall of Fame resume.
- 4 WAR, 62nd amongst position players, 93rd all-time, 11th amongst shortstops, ahead of Hall of Famers Barry Larkin, Lou Boudreau, Joe Cronin, Pee Wee Reese, Luis Aparicio, and Derek Jeter
- 7 WAR 7, 8th amongst shortstops, above the average of the 21 Hall of Fame shortstops of 42.8 WAR 7
- 5 JAWS, 11th amongst shortstops, above the average of the 21 Hall of Fame shortstops of 54.8 JAWS
- 0 Defensive WAR, 35th all-time, and 62.4 Offensive WAR, 83rd all-time
Additionally, Trammel finished his career a .285/.352/.415 hitter in 2293 games, with 1231 runs scored, 2365 hits, 412 2B, 185 HR, 1993 RBI, 236 SB, and 850 BB with only 874 strikeouts. Trammel is best known for the 1984 World Series, where won MVP against the Padres after hitting .450/.500/.800 with 2 HR and 6 RBI in five games, with 9 hits in 20 at-bats. Trammel’s best season came in 1987, when he finished second in the AL MVP vote after compiling 8.3 WAR by hitting .353/.402/.551, with 28 HR, 105 RBI, 109 runs, 205 hits, and 21 SB.
While Trammel was a Hall of Famer based on sabermetrics and traditional counting stats, Morris, 62, had long been one of the most debated players when it came to their Hall of Fame candidacy. A career 254-186 win pitcher, Morris had the most wins of any pitcher in the 1980s, with 162 wins from 1980-1989. A 5x All-Star and 3x 20 game winner, Morris’s 3,824.0 innings pitched rank 50th all-time, and his 2,478 strikeouts rank 34th. A big game pitcher, Morris threw 175 career complete games, reaching double digits in ten out of eleven seasons from 1981-1991, including 20 in 1983. Additionally, Morris finished in the top ten in the AL in wins twelve out of fourteen seasons from 1979-1992, leading the league twice.
Where Morris’ Hall of Fame case gets complicated is when sabermetrics are factored in, as his 3.90 ERA is now the highest of any pitcher in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Additionally, Morris’s career WAR of 44.1 ranks 61st out of 71 Hall of Fame pitchers, with three of those pitchers spending the majority of their career as relief pitchers. Amongst starting pitchers in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Morris ranks 164th in JAWS at 38.4, with his 32.8 7-year peak WAR of 32.8 well below the Hall of Fame starter average of 50.3, and his career WAR well below the average Hall of Fame starter amount of 73.9 WAR. For these reasons amongst others, Morris’s Hall of Fame percentage fell from 67.7% in 2013 to 61.5% in 2014, his final year of eligibility.
Nonetheless, despite the flaws in his case, if you were to ask any 80s baseball fans what pitcher they would want on the mound in a winner-takes-all game, many of them would say Morris. A 4x World Series Champion with the Tigers, Twins, and Blue Jays, Morris was at his best in the World Series, going 2-0 against the Padres in 1984 with a 2.00 ERA in 18 innings pitched. In 1991, Morris was named World Series MVP after going 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA in three starts. His signature moment came in Game 7, when he outdueled fellow Hall of Famer John Smoltz and threw a ten inning, 126 pitch complete game shutout to help the Twins win 1-0 for their second World Series title in four years.
On the field, the Detroit Tigers are expected to go through a lengthy rebuilding process this season, which could make it tough for Tiger fans to hang in there. However, for one weekend this summer, Tigers nation can rejoice and book their fights to Cooperstown as they watch two of their franchise’s all-time legends take their rightful places in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
- TAGS
- Alan Trammel
- Detroit Tigers
- Hall-of-Fame
- Jack Morris
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