Kenny Lofton was a big star in the mid 1990s. He made five consecutive All Star teams and played a key role in Cleveland’s late ’90s resurgence. In between stents with Cleveland, he also helped Atlanta to a division title. So why isn’t Kenny Lofton in the Hall of Fame?
Kenny Lofton’s specialty
Kenny Lofton specialized in speed. His ability to steal bases was what made him an All Star. Players who specialize in speed tend to age rather well and have long careers. Most players start to see a decline around the age of 32. Speed specialists usually have enough athleticism to remain useful players even after that decline sets in.
Lofton is an excellent example of this. He was no longer a superstar after the age of 32, but between the ages of 32 and 40, he was nearly always an average or slightly above average player, only dropping below average one time.
The crucial second half Hall of Fame case
For the last half of his career, he was exactly the type of player a contending team wanted. He wasn’t a superstar anymore, but he was still good enough to play regularly. And if you had three good outfielders, he was a useful player off the bench. He could go in for defense to protect a lead in a close game, or he could help you try to get a lead late in the game coming off the bench to pinch run. And he was still capable enough with the bat to pinch hit in the late innings to try to get something started.
So he was the type of player that a team that expected to contend would sign as a free agent to help fill out their roster. Or a contending team might trade for him in July or August to help with their pennant drive.
And that is the problem with his Hall of Fame case. He was an elite player for exactly half his career. During the second half he was useful. But no longer a superstar, and he wasn’t always a starter.
That recipe frequently gets pitchers and power hitters to the Hall of Fame. But that formula resulted in Lofton coming up short. His career batting average fell short of .300, he didn’t collect 3000 hits, and he didn’t hit for enough power to make up for that with advanced statistics.
1994
It certainly doesn’t help that his best season was 1994, a season that was shortened by a player’s strike. He led the league in hits that year, so it was his best chance at a batting title and a 200-hit season. Instead, he led the league in hits and stolen bases but only got into 112 games, artificially reducing his best season’s impact on his career totals.
Longevity
Usually, when a speed demon does make the Hall of Fame, they hit for a bit more power than Lofton did, and frequently they had longer careers. That’s the case for Rickey Henderson, Lou Brock, and Tim Raines. Lofton played until he was 40, but he only had a 16 year career because he didn’t reach the majors until he was 25.
Theoretically, if he had reached the majors a couple of years younger, his story could have been a bit different. But he was drafted at 21 and didn’t play a full season at 22. At 23, he emerged as a prospect. At 24, he played well at AAA and received a late season call to the majors. Rushing him to the majors at 23 would have been ill advised.
Had he reached the majors at 23 or 24, played a full season at 24 in the majors and collected more than 100 hits, been able to play a full season in 1994, spent 2004 somewhere other than New York where he could have been a full time player instead of a backup, and played a couple more seasons, he might have had a chance at 3,000 hits. But that’s an awful lot of what ifs.
Lofton’s Hall of Fame case by advanced statistics
His advanced statistics are a mixed bag. From a wins above replacement perspective, he’s about 5 percent below average for a Hall of Fame center fielder, both for his career and for his 7 year peak. So he’s close. But his OPS+, which normalizes his player value against his peers across eras, suggests he was only 7 percent above average for his career. Being 20 percent above average is the norm for a borderline Hall of Famer.
And that brings us back to the speed game. Advanced statistics don’t know what to do with speed, so it’s an underrated aspect of the game. Perhaps the most underrated aspect. Does Bill Buckner make his infamous 1986 error if it’s the lumbering Gary Carter coming down the line instead of the speedy Mookie Wilson? Probably not.
You can’t quantify that. But you can quantify the value of reaching base via a walk or hitting a single and stealing second. When I factor Lofton’s stolen bases into his career OPS, I get .810. Raising his career OPS from the official .794 to .810 also raises his adjusted OPS or OPS+ from 107 to more like 122. That puts him in range for a borderline Hall of Famer. It’s Jim Rice territory.
Granted, you have to adjust the whole league for it to be fair, but Lofton’s combined ability to get on base and steal bases isn’t common. So it’s likely he would still look like a 20-percent-above-average player.
So Kenny Lofton isn’t a straightforward Hall of Fame case. But I think he belongs. He absolutely deserved more consideration than he received. Other one-ballot-and-gone players from the same year include Julio Franco, Steve Finley, Rondell White, Reggie Sanders, Ryan Klesko, Jeff Conine, Royce Clayton, and Jeff Cirillo. All of them had very nice careers. But Kenny Lofton was better than all of them.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.