Atlanta Braves: Is Freddie Freeman On Pace For The Hall Of Fame?

The Atlanta Braves have an extensive history of Hall of Fame players, and there is a good chance that trend will continue.

It only makes sense for fans to want their favorite players to make it to the Hall of Fame. Freddie Freeman has rightly earned the title of “fan favorite” and has a real chance of making it into the Hall of Fame. Fortunately, Freddie is nothing if not consistent. He is on his 12th year in and has not shown many signs of regression yet.

Even if he is having a “down year” by his standards, his underlying metrics show that it is more due to bad luck than true regression. It is important to note, regression will happen. It’s just science.

Atlanta Braves connected voters are not the only ones who would vote for Freddie

Fortunately, voters seem to be coming around and actually looking at full bodies of work, and not just the stats that catch the eye. This helps Freddie’s chances, since, even though he does not have crazy eye catching stats, he has been very consistently well above average.

We have seen guys like Andruw Jones, who has the most defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR) of primary outfielders all-time, continue to garner more Hall of Fame votes every year. It is impossible to exactly why he is getting more votes without polling each voter, but one has to imagine it is due to the evolution of full body of work stats, like defensive metrics.

Of course, there is no pure formula of how players are voted into the Hall of Fame. Statistics are involved, the human element of different biases and valuing statistics or accolades differently are in play. There are players that are in the Hall of Fame that may not be voted in today, and vice versa.

With that being said, for players like Freddie Freeman, there can be an argument either way on if he is on pace for the Hall of Fame or not. There are some voters who are  in “small hall” camp, and some who just want to vote in their favorite players.

There are also arguments on if only the best players of all-time should be in, the best players of their era, best players in general versus the best at their position, etcetera. The point is there is no exact science on how voters view potential candidates and who should be in.

Because of the human element, it is virtually impossible to predict the future of fringe future Hall of Fame  candidates. Freddie Freeman is one of those guys.

What we can do is look at players who are in, and compare statistics and accolades to see if there is a chance if a player has a shot of making it in. It is important to not cherry pick players and say things like “well, if Harold Baines is in, then my favorite player is in” because there are always outliers.

Ideally what you want to do is get the largest sample size possible and go from there.

Before we do a deep dive on predicting how voters will vote, let’s look at Freddie Freeman’s statistics and see how he stacks up with other Hall of Famers.

There are many stats to consider with Atlanta Braves‘ Freddie Freeman, as well as many different measurements. The idea here is to give a bunch of different measurements that can be looked at as his career progresses.

First let’s talk about Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Baseball Reference WAR (bWAR) is going to be used here because it seems to focus a little more on offense than Fangraphs. Typically defense should be used more in a debate, but the reality is that HOF voters, although they are coming around to it, just don’t give defense enough credit yet.

As most of us know, WAR is gained in accumulation, much like HRs or Hits, not like batting average or OBP. Freddie has accumulated 38.7 WAR in his 11+ years of work (However, his first season he only had 20 games).

Freddie Freeman averages approximately 147 games per year in a full season. With 38.7 WAR in his career, he averages about 3.88 WAR per 147 games played

It is important to note that this is with a few years that he was injured for part of the time. If you want to look at just offensive WAR, since some voters unjustly disregard defense, he has an offensive WAR (oWAR) of 38.1.

Let’s look at average Hall of Famers at his position. There are 21 players who primarily played 1st base in the Hall of Fame. Their average WAR is 66.9. Their average 7 year peak is 42.7 WAR. Unfortunately, Freddie’s current 7 year peak is 31.9. But, like stated earlier, he is super consistent. Many of these Hall of Fame 1st baseman were streakier than him.

There are a few outlier inclusions in the Hall of Fame. High Pockets Kelly is somehow in the HOF with a career WAR of 24.9, and Jim Bottomly has a career WAR of 35. There are also guys in the HOF that have insane WAR totals. Lou Gehrig has a WAR of 114.1, Jimmie Foxx 93.1, and Albert Pujols will be a shoe in at 99.6 WAR once he is eligible.

There are Hall of Fame careers to look at that Freddie has a high likelihood of catching that could realistically be argued should or should not have been elected, with both arguments having merit.

·         Tony Perez with a 54 WAR

·         Orlando Cepeda (50.0)

·         Harmon Killebrew (60)

·         Hank Greenberg (55.7)

·         George Sisler (54)

·         Bill Terry (55.8)

·         Jake Beckley (61.7)

The point of showing these names is that Freddie could easily catch these players in terms of WAR. Whether these players deserve to be in the HOF or not is not up for debate here. Their careers are just being used as a measuring stick.

If we look at players of Freddie’s profile, the average player plays for around 19-20 years give or take a few years. For arguments sake, let’s say Freddie has 8 seasons after this year since that will equal 20. Then, let’s say there may be some seasons as he gets older that he will not get full seasons in.

The average 1st baseman in the Hall of Fame has a WAR of 66.9 WAR. Freddie is on pace for a career 39.39 career WAR at the end of the 2021 season. He needs 27.52 WAR to get to the 66.9 Average. That would mean if he can put out 8 more years in the MLB, he would need to average 3.43 WAR.

Like stated earlier, he is averaging 3.88 WAR per season as of right now. So, if he keeps up his consistency that he has had, he will get there if he can stay healthy. History has proven that he will regress with age. Fortunately though, historically defense regresses way faster than offense, and 1st base does not hinge on defense as much as other positions.

Arguably, a player that could be used as decent measuring stick, would be Harmon Killebrew. Even though it can be argued either way that he should be in the HOF or not statistically, you will be hard pressed to see an argument that he should not be in. He is about as average a Hall of Famer statistically as they come.

If Freddie is able to surpass him, then there is at least an argument that he should be in. If we do the same calculations as before, Freddie would only need 2.57 WAR per season for 8 Years of ball to match Killebrew’s output. For reference, Freeman has only had a 2.57 WAR or below in 2 of his full seasons in the league. The rest of his seasons ranged from 3 to 6.3.

From a WAR standpoint, Freddie is slowly making a case to be voted into the HOF. He won’t be a first ballot guy like Chipper, but he will be able to make a case if he stays healthy.