The cases for and against Jason Kendall for the Hall of Fame
Catcher Jason Kendall might have a better Hall of Fame resume than you'd think.
By
Matt Snyder
•
4 min read
With the Winter Meetings now firmly in the rearview mirror and the BBWAA Hall of Fame vote announcement less than a month away, it's time to start focusing on individual Hall candidates. On Saturday we did a quick once-over of the obvious one-and-done first-timers on the ballot and now we'll take a look at a possible one-and-done candidate who could get some votes.
I speak of former catcher Jason Kendall.
The bare essentials
In parts of 15 seasons -- most with the Pirates but parts of three with the A's, two with the Brewers, one with the Royals and one with the Cubs -- Kendall was a three-time All-Star, finishing third in NL Rookie of the Year voting in 1996. He hit .288/.366/.378 with 2,195 hits, which included 394 doubles, 35 triples and 75 home runs. Kendall drove home 744 runs while scoring 1,030 times. He stole 189 bases and was hit by a pitch 254 times.
The case for induction
Among catchers, Kendall ranks pretty well in baseball history, actually. Probably better than most casual fans previously knew.
Kendall ranks ninth in runs scored, ahead of Hall of Famers Gary Carter and Bill Dickey. He is actually fourth in hits among catchers, trailing only Ivan Rodriguez, Ted Simmons and Carlton Fisk. Kendall racked up 45 more hits than the great Yogi Berra, for example. The next three on the list? Mike Piazza, Gary Carter and Johnny Bench.
Kendall is also fifth in career doubles among catchers, sitting behind only Rodriguez, Simmons, Fisk and Gabby Hartnett. His 189 steals rank sixth all-time among catchers.
How about the rate stats? Well, the average is good for 33rd all-time and the on-base percentage is 37th among catchers who qualified for the Hall of Fame vote (10 or more seasons in the bigs).
Was there a significant peak? There was. In Kendall's first five seasons, he hit .314/.402/.456, good for a 121 OPS+. That's a big number for a catcher.
More impressive, especially given the juxtaposition against his era, is that Kendall walked 721 times against 686 strikeouts. He never struck out more than 79 times in a season and averaged only 53 strikeouts per every 162 games.
Finally, using Jay Jaffe's JAWS method, which is a formula involving total WAR and each player's seven-year peak, Kendall ranks 18th all-time among catchers. He's in front of Hall of Famers like Roger Bresnahan, Ray Schalk and Rick Ferrell. He's also ahead of Yadier Molina.
The case against induction
Of course, Kendall's also behind Jorge Posada, Gene Tenace, Joe Mauer and Ted Simmons in JAWS. His career WAR (41.5) and JAWS (35.9) fall below the totals of the average Hall of Fame catcher. So even if he ranks above a few in the Hall or likely headed that way, he's below average in comparison to the baseline set in Cooperstown.
And we must note how difficult it is to judge catchers based upon WAR because of the defensive component. There's just no good way to judge pitch framing and we have no capability to put any kind of number on how a catcher works with pitchers (prepare to hear a lot more about this once Molina retires and gets closer to his Hall of Fame candidacy). Thus, many will look elsewhere.
When it comes to Kendall, the biggest case against him is the smell test. I don't care for it, and there are many legitimate reasons he's not a Hall of Famer, but many are going to say on feel alone that "Jason Kendall, Hall of Famer" just sounds way off. He wasn't ever close to being the best catcher in the league, standing noticeably behind Ivan Rodriguez and Mike Piazza early in his career and then Mauer, Molina and several others late. When you hear the name Jason Kendall, you just don't think Hall of Famer, they'll say.
Kendall having spent most of his career on terrible Pirates teams through a large chunk of their 20-plus straight losing seasons can't help him in the public eye. This also probably led to him being pretty underrated while he was playing and harmed him in the aforementioned smell test.
As well, while Kendall has good average and on-base skills, his lack of home run power left him with a career 95 OPS+. That is 5 percent below average during his career at getting on base and hitting for power, good for 177th among catchers who played long enough to qualify for the Hall of Fame, trailing guys like A.J. Ellis and Michael McKenry. He played in a huge era for home runs and only managed 75 in his career, with a seasonal high of 14. A below average player in this regard without a huge stash of counting stats (like 3,000 hits, for example) isn't a Hall of Famer in the minds of the masses.
So the question is, are Kendall's showings in hits, runs, doubles and steals enough to overcome the slugging lag and his lack of name recognition?
The hunch is well more than 90 percent of baseball fans would say no, Kendall's not a Hall of Famer. It's gonna be tough for him to get five percent of the BBWAA vote, too, meaning it's likely this is his only year on the ballot.
Monday: The cases for and against Ken Griffey Jr.
