Why Keith Hernandez isn’t in the Hall of Fame

Last Updated on October 11, 2023 by Dave Farquhar

Keith Hernandez is an interesting Hall of Fame case. Since he’s kept a fairly high profile since retiring, it’s prizes some people that he’s not in the Hall of Fame. I think he has a case, but there are also clear reasons why he wasn’t a slam dunk. I think he has a fair bit in common with two of his contemporaries, Don Mattingly and Dave Parker.

Keith Hernandez has a case for the Hall of Fame, but his Hall of Fame case comes down to being in the right place but not the right time, and probably not long enough.

The Keith Hernandez retrospective

why Keith Hernandez isn't in the Hall of Fame
Keith Hernandez was a good hitter, but didn’t hit as many home runs as a Hall of Fame first baseman usually does. And he didn’t play long enough to make up for the lack of power by amassing 3,000 career hits.

Keith Hernandez was a smooth fielding first baseman with a good batting average. Hall of Fame worthy, even. But he didn’t have the kind of home run power we normally associate with first basemen.

He came up with the Cardinals in the mid-1970s. By the time he was 22, he was a minor star. In 1979, he won a batting title and an MVP award, and he played a key role on the Cardinals 1982 championship team.

Then, in the summer of 1983, the Cardinals traded him to the New York Mets. Even at the time everyone thought it was a lopsided deal. Hernandez went on to play a key role for the 1986 Mets championship team.

He had the key ingredients of a Hall of Famer. He played on two championship teams, made a few All-Star teams and piled up some nice statistics. But he tapered off at the age of 34. In 1986, he seemed like he could make the Hall of Fame, but ultimately he fell short.

Traditional Hall of Fame statistics

Hernandez didn’t hit for a lot of power. Part of that was his era, and playing all those years in cavernous Busch Stadium. But his power numbers didn’t improve much in New York either, even when he was surrounded by a 1986 team that could do it all.

Without booming home run power, he needed to make up for it with batting average, and/or sheer number of hits. His career batting average of .290 falls just shy of the .300 mark that we think of as a high-average hitter with a Hall of Fame case. He had over 2,100 career hits. That’s good, but 3,000 is the threshold that punches your Hall of Fame ticket. When he retired, it was pretty clear he didn’t have a path to 900 more hits in his career.

His former teammate, Ozzie Smith, provides a bit of a precedent. Smith was a good but unspectacular hitter as well, and made it to the Hall of Fame based on what he did with his glove. Hernandez was an outstanding defensive first baseman. He caught everything in sight. He also had a good enough throwing arm to serve as the cutoff man on balls hit to right field. Normally, the second baseman takes that throw. Hernandez had an unusually good throwing arm for a first baseman.

So maybe there’s something else going on.

The drug scandal

It was something of a mystery why the Cardinals would trade a superstar to a division rival for two unremarkable pitchers, neither of whom pitched two full seasons for the team. Whitey Herzog, his manager, said in his autobiography it was because he didn’t hustle. Herzog didn’t mention drugs. But in 1985, word of his cocaine use came out, and word also got out that the Cardinals suspected he was using. Hernandez was not the only player on the team who used cocaine, but the others went to Herzog and asked for help. Hernandez did not.

The Mets team he joined was notorious for partying harder off the field than they played on the field. And in 1985, word of the cocaine problem across Major League baseball had gotten out. Dave Parker was another superstar who was implicated, along with eight other players.

Being caught up in that scandal seems to have hurt both Parker and Hernandez’s cases. Hernandez has a similar case to Ozzie Smith, but Ozzie Smith was squeaky clean.

Modern Hall of Fame statistics and Keith Hernandez

When you look at modern offensive statistics, Hernandez has a Hall of Fame case. His adjusted OPS for his career was 128. That’s better than Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, and Harold Baines. And unlike Rice and Baines, Hernandez was an elite fielder, scooping up 11 gold gloves in his career. He didn’t play a premium position like Dawson, but having him at first base saved the Mets some runs, and allowed them to skimp on defense at third base and shortstop. The Mets frequently took advantage of this too, moving Hubie Brooks or Howard Johnson from third base to shortstop and deploying Ray Knight or Dave Magadan at third to get another power bat into the lineup.

But being one of the best defensive first basemen of all time doesn’t carry the Hall of Fame weight of being one of the best of all time at another position. Just ask Steve Garvey. First base is where you plant a clumsy oaf who can mash home runs. Hernandez was a great athlete who happened to be left handed, so first base was the only place in the infield he could play. He doesn’t get much credit for being a smooth fielder who played first base solely because it’s the only infield position you can play left handed.

The era Keith Hernandez played in

Hernandez was also, to a degree, a victim of his era. He came up at a time when you could play first base, not lead the league in home runs, and still be a star. Hernandez wasn’t the only example of that type of player. Steve Garvey and Bill Buckner were similar types of players. But by the time all of them were being considered for the Hall of Fame, between 1996 and 2004, first basemen were supposed to be musclebound and hit 40 home runs per season. Derek Jeter hit a lot like Hernandez and made the Hall of Fame, but Jeter played shortstop. Out of the trio of Buckner, Garvey, and Hernandez, Hernandez was the best all around player, but none of them made the Hall of Fame.

A cynical argument is that if Keith Hernandez had used steroids instead of cocaine, he’d be in the Hall of Fame.

Longevity

But as much as anything else, what seems to have done Hernandez’ Hall of Fame case in was not playing long enough. He was playing regularly by age 22, which gave him a bit of a head start compared to some of his peers. He played his final full season in 1987, at the age of 33, and had a good year. But he never played more than 95 games in a season after that. He had 2,000 hits at the age of 33. If he’d been able to play seven full or nearly full seasons and get enough at bats to get around 150 hits each year, he’d have finished with 3,000 hits.

Instead, he ended up splitting time with Dave Magadan at first base in 1988 and 89. Magadan was younger and was one of the Mets’ hot prospects. Objectively, he wasn’t any better than Hernandez those two years but no one faulted the Mets at the time for phasing Hernandez out to get their new phenom in the lineup.

The final 1990 season

And in 1990, he signed with Cleveland, who wanted a veteran first baseman to replace Pete O’Brien, who departed to Seattle via free agency. But Hernandez couldn’t stay healthy that year, so Cleveland ended up moving Brook Jacoby across the diamond from third to first, and playing a young Carlos Baerga at third. Hernandez only played a partial season, didn’t produce much at the plate, and retired at age 36.

Losing playing time to Jacoby and Baerga sounds foolish today. But like the Dave Magadan situation in New York, it seemed like the right move at the time. They were all young players who showed promise, while Hernandez was very much a known quantity and nearing the end of his career.

The style of pitching is a bit different in the American League, and Hernandez may have had difficulty adjusting. Signing with a National League team probably would have been a better bet and would have given him a better chance to bolster his Hall of Fame credentials. But there just weren’t any good fits in the NL that year. Ironically the best place for him to go in 1990 probably was St. Louis, but Whitey Herzog wasn’t going to move the clumsy Pedro Guerrero off first base to the outfield to make room for a player he never reconciled with.

Keith Hernandez’s Hall of Fame case, in conclusion

In Keith Hernandez’s case, it seems like a combination of things kept him out of the Hall of Fame. Longevity probably being the biggest.

Baseball gets a lot harder after the age of 32. Rod Carew says he warned a lot of his peers that if they didn’t take extra batting practice, they’d be out of baseball by age 32. And he wasn’t pulling that age out of thin air. Hernandez was still productive past age 32, but his decline after age 32 was noticeable.

Given that Hernandez was considered the best first baseman of his era, played for two championship teams, and spent the bulk of his prime in New York, it surprises me that he didn’t get more Hall of Fame consideration. But much like his longtime Mets teammates Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez’ Hall of Fame case just wasn’t quite strong enough to overcome the lack of longevity and perhaps the drug stigma. Although of the three, Hernandez has the strongest case.

If you found this post informative or helpful, please share it!