Don Mattingly for The Hall of Fame

Mattingly was one of those players that everyone loved. If you were a baseball fan during the years 1984-1995 you knew who Don Mattingly was. Mattingly has been eligible for The Hall of Fame for 10 years now but has not received enough votes to be inducted.

The average batting for a player in The Hall of Fame is 211 home runs, 2399 hits, and 1213 RBI's. Barry Larkin was inducted in the 2012 class and has very similar numbers to Don Mattingly. Larkin has 198 home runs, 2340 hits, and 960 RBI's. Larkin played 19 seasons and had 12 all star appearances, 3 gold gloves, 10 silver sluggers, and 1 MVP award. While Don Mattingly has 14 MLB seasons, 222 home runs, 2153 hits, and 1099 RBI's. Mattingly has 12 all star appearances, 9 gold glove awards, 8 silver sluggers, and 1 MVP award in that period.

Barry Larkin and Don Mattingly played in the same era, but Larkin played 5 more seasons and they still have similar stats. Mattingly was one of the dominant players in his period but isn't recognized because he never won a World Series. Larkin was part of the 1990 World Series win with the Reds, but that was his only one. What if there was no strike in 1994 and The Yankees would have went on to win the World Series? Would Mattingly have to wait so long, he would be in the same position as Barry Larkin. The Yankees were having a great season in 1994 with a 70-43 record before the strike and Mattingly was one of the leaders on the team with a .397 on base percentage.

Mattingly's WAR over his career is 39.8 which means he directly was responsible for almost 40 wins over his career. Over a 14 year career that translates to a WAR of  2.85 a year. Just for the record Mattingly played 5 games in the post season and had 10 hits, 1 home run, 6 RBI's, a .440 on base percentage and a .708 slugging percentage. The Yankees would lose that series to The Mariners, but Mattingly showed what he can do in the post season. Vote for Donnie Baseball!