Philadelphia Phillies: A case for Bobby Abreu to the Hall of Fame

This year, when the Philadelphia Phillies great Bobby Abreu appears on the National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, he should immediately be voted in. Here’s why.

Bobby Abreu played in 18 MLB seasons between 1996 and 2014. In that time, he played on six different big league teams. Mostly, however, he played with the Philadelphia Phillies where he spent his first 10.5 years before being traded to the New York Yankees.

Throughout his career, Abreu’s talents were mostly underrated. Having been thought of as a power-hitting outfield, Abreu never slugged more than 31 home runs in a single season. In fact, he only hit 30 home runs or more in a season 2x. For his career, he only hit 288 home runs, a far cry from the elite power-hitting outfielders of the time.

What Abreu specialized in was hitting doubles, hitting for average, and getting on-base. Three prominent features of an elite MLB hitter. For his career, Abreu slashed .291 / .395 / .475; his career 574 2B places him top 20 all-time.

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At first glance, you might not consider Abreu to be Hall of Fame-worthy. However, when you take a deep dive into his stats and compare them to some other first-ballot players, you’re initial opinion might change.

For example, @MLBRandomStats on twitter pointed out how in…

• 2425 games Abreu was on base 3979x; 921 for extra-base hits; had 400 stolen bases
• 2440 games Tony Gwynn was on base 3955x; had 763 XBH; had 319 stolen bases

What’s more, Abreu also had more HR (288 vs. 135), scored more runs (1453 vs. 1363), and had more RBI (1363 vs. 1138) than Mr. Gwynn. In terms of wOBA and wRC+, both players were virtually identical.

• Abreu: .378 wOBA & 129 wRC+
• Gwynn: .380 wOBA & 132 wRC+

When Tony Gwynn appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot back in 2007, he received 97.6% of the votes, thereby making it to Cooperstown on the first ballot. While I understand that the vote share will likely not be as high for Bobby Abreu, I fully expect to see him donning the Philadelphia Phillies cap at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020.