Edgar Martinez: Wade Boggs with power

One last Baseball Hall of Fame note as we start to look toward next year, with a nod to ESPN's Rob Neyer and Seattle Times columnist Larry Stone, who both are taking a look at the 2010 candidacy of designated hitter Edgar Martinez.

Warning: This is a little self-indulgent -- I was eight years old and going to games at the Kingdome when Martinez won his first batting title; I was nine years old when Martinez blew out his knee right before the next season and all but ended his career as a position player. When I went to All-Star FanFest in 1996, I did a broadcast of Martinez's two-run double to beat the Yankees in the 1995 American League Division Series. Edgar will always have a special place in my heart.

But it was one point raised in the comments section of Neyer's blog that made this relevant in a Boston sports blog:
Edgar Martinez is Wade Boggs with power. Boggs: .328/.415/.443; Edgar: .312/.418/.515. Neither one could run much and although Boggs did play 3B, nobody confused him with Brooks Robinson. What Boggs had that Edgar doesn't is a management that had the brains to bring him up so that he could get 3,000 hits (and, BTW, he never would have made that without a lot of DHing late in his career). I still remember Bill James flatly predicting that Edgar would hit .300 with a .400 OBA if only Seattle would let him play. Boggs hit for a higher average; Edgar had almost three times as many HRs. Boggs got in on the first try. Edgar may take longer but I think he has a good case.

Boggs, clearly, has better counting numbers -- 3,010 career hits, for example. That's thanks in part to the 18 seasons he played; he started at age 24 and retired at 41. Martinez, on the other hand, didn't play more than 100 career games until he was 27 and missed two full seasons with knee injuries in 1993 and 1994.

But both players played 10 seasons in what you could call the prime of their careers -- Boggs from 1982-1991 and Martinez from 1990-1992 and 1995-2001. Boggs hit .259 in 1992 before finding rejuvenation with the Yankees; Martinez hit .277 in 2002 and played two more seasons before he retired. Let's use those bookends, then:

* Boggs (1982-1991)
Percentages: .345 batting average, .435 on-base, .471 slugging
Counting: 1,965 hits, 400 doubles, 78 home runs, 1,005 runs, 637 RBI

* Martinez (1990-92, 1995-2001)
Percentages: .326 batting average, .433 on-base, .545 slugging
Counting: 1,691 hits, 382 doubles, 229 home runs, 967 runs, 947 RBI

Yes, Wade Boggs played third base and Martinez did not -- at least, after he shredded his hamstring just before the start of the 1993 season. And maybe it's cherry-picking to leave out the seasons from 1993-1996 in which Boggs hit .300 four more times (and OBP'ed .400 twice).

But both were seen as among the top pure hitters of their times. And while Boggs hit for a higher average, Martinez matched him in terms of ability to get on base -- with the added bonus of his ability to hit the ball over the fence 25 times a year rather than eight times a year.

Boggs, of course, had those 3,000 hits -- and he hit .300 four times even after he left the Red Sox, including .342 in 366 at-bats with the Yankees in 1996. He probably was a Hall of Famer after he hit .332, his 10th straight .300-plus season, at age 33, but his 1,045 hits after that point sealed the deal.

Martinez, on the other hand, had a short shelf life, thanks in part to the unwillingness of the Mariners to recall him from Calgary for good until he was 27. But his career OPS (on-base plus slugging) of .933 ranks him 34th all-time -- just behind Willie Mays, Joe Jackson and Hack Wilson and just ahead of Hank Aaron. (Boggs, for what it's worth, ranks 133rd with a .858 OPS.)

No, Martinez didn't hit 400 home runs or get 3,000 hits -- the counting numbers we care so much about. No, Martinez didn't hit .300 as many times (10) as Boggs (14). But both had an on-base percentage of .400 the same number of times -- 11. And while Boggs had an OPS above 1.000 just once in his career, Martinez did so five times.

Wade Boggs with power, indeed.

You can make all kinds of arguments for keeping Martinez out of the Hall of Fame. But it's tough to argue that he wasn't one of the best hitters in baseball for a decade -- and that might be enough to get him into Cooperstown.