An extensive analysis of Alan Trammell’s HOF worthiness

Alan Trammell played all 20 of his major league baseball seasons with the Detroit Tigers (1977-1996). In his time, he was a 6 time All-Star and a World Series MVP for the 1984 Detroit Tigers. Let’s look further into his stats to see if he is Hall of Fame worthy like Red great Barry Larkin.

According to baseball-reference, Alan Trammell ranks 101st in career WAR. This is a quality rank in itself, but we need to see how he ranks in comparison to his short stop counterparts. In fact, Trammell’s career WAR of 66.9 ranks him 11^th all-time among all SS to ever play the game. Barry Larkin is ranked 10^th at 68.9. Here is how the SS ahead of him stand in terms of the Hall of Fame:

1.) Honus Wagner HOF

2.) Alex Rodriguez – active

3.) George Davis – HOF

4.) Cal Ripken – HOF

5.)Robin Yount – HOF

6.) Bill Dahlen – No

7.)Arky Vaughan – HOF

8.) Derek Jeter – active

9.) Luke Appling – HOF

10.) Barry Larkin – HOF 2012

Surprisingly, here is a list of SS who rank next after Trammell in career WAR:

12.) Pee Wee Reese – HOF

13.) Bobby Wallace – HOF

14.) Ozzie Smith – HOF

15.) Ernie Banks – HOF

16.) Joe Cronin – HOF

So out of the top 16 SS in MLB history based on career WAR, 11 out of 16 are in the Hall of Fame, 2 are active, 1 will probably make it this year, one is not in, and one is Alan Trammell at number 11. Based on this, I’d say Alan Trammell is a Hall of Famer.

The next step is to look at him in comparison to what is actually in the Hall of Fame at SS. I like to use slash stats for this. Trammell’s line is .285/.352/.415. His batting average ties him at 10^th with Robin Yount among Hall of Fame SS (Larkin is tied for 7^th). His career OBP of .352 has him ranked 11^th among all Hall of Fame SS (Larkin is 8^th). His slugging of .415 ranks him tied for eighth (Larkin 6^th), and his OPS of .767 ranks him tied for 12^th out of 22 (Larkin 5^th) if he was a Hall of Famer himself (There are 21 SS in the Hall of Fame). In comparison to SS from his era in the Hall, he is ahead of Ripken in AVG and OBP, but .020 behind him in OPS. He is ahead of Robin Yount on OBP and tied with him in AVG, and only .005 behind him in OPS. He is ahead of Ozzie Smith in all 4 categories. Trammell also had a career dWAR of 7.5. Ripken’s was 17.6, Yount was -5.3, and Smith’s was 21.6. If you compare them head to head, you can make the argument that Trammell was a better SS overall for his career than Smith was, and Ozzie Smith was a first ballot hall of famer.

Here is a year by year WAR of Trammell in comparison to the other Hall of Fame SS of his time (Yount was playing CF by the end of the 1980s):

Year	Yount	Ripken	Smith	Trammell
1981	5.2	-0.7	0.3	3.1
1982	11.5	4.5	4	4.1
1983	7.5	8.3	3	5.7
1984	6.2	9.2	4.4	6.6
1985	1.7	6.1	5.7	2.2
1986	2.7	6.6	5.3	5.9
1987	3.6	3.1	7.1	8.4
1988	5.5	4.7	5.5	6
1989	5.7	6	6.3	3.1
1990	2.9	7	2.8	6.8
1991	1.2	11	4.7	3
1992	2.3	2.9	4.3	0.9
1993	2.6	3.4	2.5	4.4
	58.6	72.1	55.9	60.2

Trammell also had a great postseason career, and if Ozzie Smith is in the Hall of Fame, I don’t see why Trammell can’t be either.

In conclusion, Alan Trammell should be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame based on the fact that a lesser SS from the same era is already in (This scenario should not always grant automatic election, but as shown above, Trammell’s stats stack up well no matter how you look at them). Ozzie Smith is indeed the greatest defensive SS of all-time, and maybe Hall of Fame voters felt this was enough at the time to elect a 3^rd SS from the 1980s into the Hall in 2002. Hopefully soon they elect a 4^th, because it seems apparent that Alan Trammell is at least the 3^rd best SS from his era, and at the same time a better all around SS from that same era than another player already enshrined in Cooperstown.