Let’s Give Some Love To The Career of Gary Sheffield
I played first base from the time I first held a mitt until my freshman year of college. And in all those years, there was never a time when I was holding a runner on first and a left-handed batter came to the plate, that I didn’t get just a little bit nervous. Less than ninety feet separated me from a ball smashed off a bat that, because of the angle, you really couldn’t pick up immediately. It did not matter the level of competition — high school, American Legion, collegiate fall ball — it was still a scary prospect.
And that was at first base, which is most definitively not the “hot corner.” That designation is reserved for the other side of the diamond. That is where careers are made. Just ask Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt; Graig Nettles and Chipper Jones; Adrian Beltre and Nolan Arenado. There are more names you could add to this list who dug their spikes into the dirt — and sometimes on the grass — and dared sluggers to get one past them.
Considering my trepidation at first base, I have often wondered what third baseman were thinking when Dick Allen or Dave Winfield or Frank Thomas came to the plate. Today, that guy would be Giancarlo Stanton, with his severely closed stance and a career average exit velocity of nearly 94 MPH.
But when I was growing up, the guy who instilled the most fear, the guy who wiggled his bat above head in a taunt of the damage he was about to inflict, the guy who smashed 467 doubles and 509 home runs, and who won five Silver Slugger Awards, was Gary Sheffield. If someone had ever asked me to play third base when Gary Sheffield came to bat, I would don catcher’s gear; and I would play deep, like outfield grass deep. Imagine having Sheffield at the plate with the infield in? Better yet, don’t imagine that…that is the stuff of nightmares.
It’s unfortunate that Sheffield’s career ended before Statcast began measuring exit velocities, because there is no doubt he would he would be amongst the hardest hitters in the history of the game. But Sheffield was more than just a violent swinger — he was a complete hitter.
In 1992, his fourth full season in the big leagues, he won a batting title with San Diego, hitting .330. That .330 also included 34 doubles and 33 home runs, with 323 total bases for the season. That garnered him his first All-Star appearance, his first Silver Slugger, and third place in MVP voting (behind some guy named Bonds and Terry Pendleton).
Three years later, in 1995, he slashed .324/.467/.587, for a 177 OPS+.
The next year — 1996 — he was even better. He slashed .314/.465/.624, for a 1.090 OPS (which led the league), and a 189 OPS+ (which also led the league). He was again an All-Star and a Silver Slugger, but came in sixth in MVP voting. That was the last season that any black ink (leading the league in a category) appears on Sheffield’s Baseball Reference page.
But, rest assured, the next thirteen seasons of his career were nothing to sneeze at. Playing until his age-40 season, all he did over those years was slash .292/.400/.521, for a .921 OPS and a 141 OPS+. The man could flat out hit.
Unfortunately, Sheffield’s seasonal and thus career bWAR calculation was hampered by his woeful defense. He started his career as a shortstop, soon moved to third base, and then retreated to the outfield starting in his seventh full season. How about this for an ignominious stat: In each of his 22 years in the game, Sheffield never had a positive dWAR. It didn’t matter what position he was playing; his worst season was -2.9, playing third base in 1993, and his best was -0.2, playing third in 1990.
But Sheffield didn’t earn more than $168 million over the course of his career for his fielding gloves, just his batting gloves.
His career .907 OPS is 65th all-time. His 140 OPS+ informs us that over all those seasons, he was 40% better than the average major league hitter. He hit 509 home runs, and yet never struck out more than 83 times in a single campaign. In fact, he has considerably more walks (1,475) than strike outs (1,171).
Sheffield petered out on Hall of Fame voting last year, earning just 64% of the vote, 11% shy of induction in his final year on the writers’ ballot. His candidacy is a Rorschach test for baseball fans.
Bill James’ Hall of Fame Monitor gives him a score of 158, where a likely HOFer scores 100.
By James’ Hall of Fame Standards, he scores a 61, which is above the 50 for the average Hall of Fame inductee.
But Jay Jaffee’s JAWS index shows Sheffield below Hall of Fame average in career bWAR (60.5 vs. 69.7); 7-year peak bWAR (38 vs. 42.2); 5-year peak bWAR (49.3 vs. 56); and bWAR/162 (3.8 vs. 4.9).
However, when you check Baseball Reference’s Similarity Scores, of the ten players listed as the players whose careers most closely resembled Sheffield’s, only Carlos Beltrán isn’t already in the Hall.
Sheffield’s career is weighted down by his lousy defense and the fact that his name appeared in the Mitchell Report, the 2007 investigation into steroids in major league baseball. Sheffield has freely admitted that he utilized “the cream” while recovering from knee surgery, but adamantly denied that he ever used steroids. He also admits to buying vitamins from BALCO, the lab at the heart of the steroids scandal, but calls any other allegations of illegal drug use “fabricated.” Sheffield, in fact, was one of the first players to speak out publicly about steroid use in baseball, appearing on HBO’s real sports alleging that each team has six or seven players “juicing.”
Unfortunately, what’s done is done. Sheffield’s only hope for Hall of Fame admittance now rests with the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, which meets again in December of this year.
But regardless of that outcome of that vote, or any votes in the future, it is important that we, as baseball fans, fondly remember the career of Gary Sheffield.
