Puff: The Hall of Fame Case for Graig Nettles

Today is the 75th birthday for Graig Nettles, one of the greatest defensive third basemen in the history of baseball. As an 11-year old baseball fan in October 1978, watching Game 3 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, I marveled at the greatest defensive performance I had ever seen on a baseball diamond. That night in October, Nettles nearly single-handedly saved the World Series for the Bronx Bombers, who were down two Games to none to the Dodgers. At the time, I felt like I was watching a future Hall of Famer at the hot corner, along with future Hall of Famers on the mound (Ron Guidry), behind the plate (Thurman Munson) and DHing (Reggie Jackson).

As it turned out, from the ’78 Yankees, Cooperstown only would come calling for Jackson, closer Rich “Goose” Gossage and starting pitcher Catfish Hunter, who built the vast majority of his Hall of Fame resume in Oakland. Guidry was never able to match his outer-worldly ’78 campaign while Munson tragically perished the following August in a self-piloted plane crash. Neither Guidry, Munson or Nettles ever got remotely close to Cooperstown via the ballot voted upon by the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America).

All three Yankees greats are eligible for this fall’s Hall of Fame Eras Committee ballot, the Modern Baseball ballot featuring players whose primary contributions were between 1970 and 1987. Munson was on two Veterans Committee ballots in the 2000’s. Guidry was on the 2011 ballot. Nettles has never been on one of these “second chance” ballots. There is no guarantee that any of the three will be chosen; none were selected in the last two iterations (2014 and 2018).

Because this past August 2nd was the 40th anniversary of the tragedy of Munson’s death, I authored this piece on the Hall of Fame credentials of the Yankees’ great catcher. Today, I present the Cooperstown resume for Nettles, who played for 6 different teams during his 22-year Major League Baseball career, half of it in the Bronx for the Yankees.

Cooperstown Cred: Graig Nettles (3B)

• Twins (1967-69), Indians (1970-72), Yankees (1973-83), Padres (1984-86), Braves (1987), Expos (1988)
• Career: .248 BA, .329 OBP, .421 SLG, 390 HR, 1,314 RBI, 2,225 Hits
• Career: 110 OPS+, 68.0 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 5-time All-Star
• 2-time Gold Glove Award Winner
• Led A.L. in assists for 3rd baseman 4 times, double plays turned 3 times
• Won 2 World Championships with the Yankees (1977 & ’78)
• 1981 ALCS MVP (.500 BA, 1.488 OPS, 9 RBI)

(cover photo: USA Today Sports)

Graig Nettles: Early Life and Minor Leagues

Graig Nettles was born 75 years ago today, on August 20, 1944 in San Diego, CA. Graig’s father Wayne was on active duty during World War II when Graig was born. The unusual spelling of his name comes because his mother wasn’t fond of either “Greg” or “Craig.” From his biography Balls (published in 1985), Nettles notes that his father had no say in the name because he wasn’t there.

Graig was the second of three boys (his younger brother Jim Nettles was also a MLB player). He played both baseball and basketball at San Diego High School and earned a scholarship for the hardwood at San Diego State. While playing both sports for the Aztecs, it became clear that baseball was his future. Nettles was drafted in the 4th round in the first ever player draft in 1965. There were four 3rd basemen drafted before Nettles, the best being Bernie Carbo (who wound up playing in the outfield in the majors).

After just two seasons in the minor leagues, Nettles made his Major League Baseball debut in September 1967, making three pinch-hitting appearances. The now 23-year old Nettles was blocked at third base by Cesar Tovar, who was 7th in the ’67 A.L. MVP voting, so he began the 1968 season at AAA Denver in the Pacific Coast League.

While in Denver, Nettles played for Billy Martin for the first time. Martin took over the Bears in May and turned the 7-22 team around, leading the squad to a 66-50 record for the rest of the season. According to his SABR Bio, Nettles initially hated Martin but grew to respect him immensely. Martin played Nettles mostly at the hot corner but also gave him starts in right field with the belief that a major league player should be able to play more than one position.

Minnesota Twins (1967-69)

An opportunity developed for Graig Nettles in September of ’68 when perennial All-Star right fielder Tony Oliva was injured, requiring him to miss the rest of the season. Graig started 13 games in right and another 9 at the hot corner, first base and left field. 17 days after his 24th birthday, Nettles hit his first MLB home run, a solo shot off 31-game winner Denny McClain of the Detroit Tigers. Nettles swatted another 4 home runs in the next 3 games. After just 6 games as a starting player, Nettles was hitting .318 with a 1.045 slugging percentage. The rest of the season did not go as well: he hit just .185 in his final 16 games with no long balls and just one RBI.

Martin took over the reins of the Twins in 1969; it was the fiery Martin’s first MLB managerial gig. Nettles broke camp with the big club but was a backup player. The team had moved future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew to third base, blocking Graig at his best position. The left-handed hitting Nettles started the ’69 season in a platoon in left field with veteran Bob Allison.

Nettles got off to a good start offensively, hitting .313 with a .894 OPS in his first 24 games but slumped badly thereafter, hitting just .186 in his final 72 games played. Because of his poor performance, Nettles only had 261 plate appearances for the season.

Martin led the Twins to 97 wins and the American League West title. In the first ever ALCS (against the Baltimore Orioles), Nettles had just one plate appearance, a 9th inning pinch-hit single against future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer in a 11-2 blowout Game 3 loss. The O’s swept the Twins before falling to the New York Mets in the ’69 World Series.

Cleveland Indians (1970-72)

Killebrew was the A.L. MVP at 3rd base in ’69 while first baseman Rich Reese hit .322 so Nettles was considered expendable. He was traded in December to the Cleveland Indians in a six-player deal that brought Luis Tiant to Minnesota. In retrospect, the trade was a disaster for the Twins. Reese slowly regressed while Tiant’s brief tenure in the Twin Cities was plagued by injuries.

In the meantime, given a chance to play full-time at the hot corner by Indians manager Al Dark, Graig Nettles became a solid everyday player. Although he hit just .235, Nettles displayed the power he had shown in the minor leagues by swatting 26 home runs. In the meantime, he played brilliantly at third, finishing 2nd in the A.L. in assists and double plays turned (while also finishing 2nd in the modern metric of “Total Zone Runs” at 3rd base). Using WAR (Wins Above Replacement), a stat that would not be invented for decades, Nettles’ 5.2 was actually better than Killebrew’s 4.9 in 1970 thanks to his significantly superior work with the glove.

In 1971, Nettles was arguably the best third sacker in all of baseball, or at least in the A.L. He led all third basemen in assists, putouts, DP’s turned and Zone Runs while hitting an improved .261 with 28 taters and 86 RBI. His 412 assists and 54 double plays turned set a new all-time record for third basemen. With today’s metrics, Nettles’ 7.5 WAR (best for position players in the A.L.) would have put him in MVP contention. In real life, he got one down-ballot vote to finish in a tie for 28th in the balloting.

By the new lofty standards he had set for himself, Nettles regressed a bit in 1972, hitting .253 with 17 home runs while leading the league in errors. While in Cleveland, Nettles picked up the nickname “Puff”; he earned the moniker because of his habit of suddenly disappearing from postgame drinking parties, like a genie in a puff of smoke.

In November, Puff’s career with the Tribe ended in a puff; he was traded to the New York Yankees in another 6-player trade.

Graig Nettles with the New York Yankees (1973-83)

In most of baseball history, a trade to the New York Yankees means immediate October baseball for the traded player. Graig Nettles arrived in New York while the Yankees were in the longest playoff drought since the years before Babe Ruth. The 1972 Bronx Bombers (who went 79-76 in a season slightly shortened by a player strike) missed the playoffs for the eighth consecutive season and drew fewer than one million fans at the aging Yankee Stadium for the first time since World War II.

Still, Nettles, now 28 years old, formed a nice core with catcher Thurman Munson of the team that would eventually become a mini-dynasty. Nettles hit .234 with 22 HR and 81 RBI. Thanks to his superb glove-work, WAR today calls him the second best player (to Munson) on the ’73 Yanks.

The old House that Ruth built needed significant renovations so the Bronx Bombers became the Queens Bombers in 1974 and ’75, playing at Shea Stadium on the other side of the Triborough Bridge in New York.

Thanks to a sterling first half in ’75 (.287 BA, 14 HR, RBI) and the inevitable beginning decline of the 38-year old Brooks Robinson, Nettles was voted to his first All-Star squad as the A.L.’s starting third baseman. At 30, it was the first of what would eventually be 6 All-Star bids. In the middle of the season, Nettles was reunited with Billy Martin, who took over the reins of the team with 56 games to go.

1976: The Yankees Mini-Dynasty Begins

In 1976, the Yankees moved back to the Bronx in the newly renovated Yankee Stadium. Although he did not make the All-Star team, the 31-year old Graig Nettles had arguably the best year of his career. He led the A.L. with 32 home runs while driving in 93 and posting a career best 135 OPS+. Thanks to those numbers and superb defensive metrics, Nettles had a 8.0 WAR, the best of his career and again the best among all position players in the league. Again, these statistics did not exist in the ’70’s; Nettles finished 16th in the MVP vote.

Regardless of the MVP finish, Puff helped lead the Yankees back to the postseason; the team won 97 games en route to the A.L. East crown. The Bronx Bombers won a thrilling ALCS against the Kansas City Royals in 5 games with Nettles’ best effort (2 HR, 3 RBI) in a Game 4 loss. The Yankees were swept in the World Series by the vastly superior Cincinnati Reds but winning baseball was clearly back in the Bronx.

1977 & 1978: World Series Champions

Graig Nettles followed up his superb 1976 campaign with another one in 1977. He made his second All-Star squad while establishing career highs in home runs (37), RBI (107), and runs scored (99). Ironically Nettles finally won a Gold Glove Award at the hot corner even though today’s metrics rank it as just his 7th best defensive season to date. Still, the combination of offensive prowess and superior glove work resulted in a 5th place finish in the MVP vote, the highest finish of his career.

Martin’s Yankees won 100 games, their second straight division title, and their first World Championship since 1962. It was Nettles’ teammates (most notably Reggie Jackson) who did most of the heavy lifting in the ’77 postseason; Puff hit just .171 with a .404 OPS.

Nettles won another Gold Glove in 1978 while hitting .276 with 27 HR and 93 RBI, which was good enough for another All-Star berth and a 6th place finish in the MVP vote. During the tumultuous season, the Yankees were down by 14 games to the Boston Red Sox after a tough 11-inning loss to the Royals on July 17th. This was a famous game because Jackson struck out trying to bunt in the bottom of the 10th, an act of defiance that set off a chain of events that ultimately culminated with Martin being fired less than a week later.

Anyway, Bob Lemon took over the Yankees and the team won 47 of its last 67 games to tie for the division lead with Boston. Nettles did his part to fuel the team’s comeback, hitting .321 with 10 HR and 50 RBI in a 71-game stretch from July 21st to October 1st. The Yankees would of course go on to win the tie-breaker game, with Nettles securing the final out on a foul popup by Carl Yastrzemski off Goose Gossage with the tying run on 3rd base in a batter-pitcher matchup of future Hall of Famers.

With their third straight A.L. East title secured, for the third straight season the Yankees defeated the Royals in the ALCS.

October 13, 1978: World Series Game 3 (Dodgers v Yankees)

Graig Nettles didn’t hit much in the 1978 postseason but, in Game 3 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he had one of the greatest defensive games in the history of baseball. If Nettles makes the Hall of Fame someday, his glove work in Game 3 will merit a mention on his plaque.

The Yankees had lost the first two games to the Dodgers in Los Angeles but hopes were high because 25-game winner Ron Guidry was on the hill to start Game 3 in the Bronx, starting against future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. The left-hander from the Bayou State affectionately known as “Louisiana Lightning” had an all-time great season, losing only 3 games against those 25 regular season wins while posting a 1.74 ERA.

Despite his greatness throughout ’78, Gator didn’t have his best stuff in Game 3. The Dodgers hit the ball hard throughout the game and almost always hit it hard right at Graig Nettles. With the Yankees up 2-1 in the bottom of the 3rd inning with two outs and a runner on first, Reggie Smith hit a rocket to Nettles’ right; Puff made a diving stop to snare the ball and fired to first to end the inning.

In the top of the 5th, the Dodgers loaded the bases with two outs and had the clutch Steve Garvey at the plate; Garvey was a career .373 postseason hitter coming into the contest. Garvey hit a very hard grounder to third that took a tough hop that Nettles snared, backhanding the ball; he spun and threw to second base for a force out to end the inning.

The next inning, with the Yankees still clinging to a 2-1 lead, the Dodgers again loaded the bases against Guidry with two outs. This time it was Davey Lopes who hit a missile to third and again Nettles made a brilliant stab and got the final out of the inning with a force at second.

 

All told, Nettles had five assists, two putouts and one double play started in Game 3, a 5-1 victory for the Yankees. Nettles, by himself, arguably saved at least 4 runs and as many as 7 in the contest.

If you feel like watching this classic game, it’s linked here. The Reggie Smith play is at 1:00:30, the Garvey play at 1:24:00 and the Lopes play at 1:40:50. Watching portions of this game, it was notable how impressed guest TV analyst Tom Seaver (a future Hall of Famer) was at the stupendous play by Nettles.

After the game Reggie Smith commented, “It’s Dodgers 2, Nettles 1. If we hadn’t been losing, I may have applauded myself.”

“Diving, twisting and turning to corral some wicked smashes–two with the bases loaded–Nettles singlehandedly kept the Dodgers from going up three games to none… There wasn’t anybody in baseball who played the position as well… He was the kind of big-game performer teams need to progress from good to great.”

— Goose Goosage (“The Goose is Loose”, 2000)

“That was one of the greatest exhibitions of playing third base I’ve seen in all of my career.”

— Tommy Lasorda, Dodgers manager (reported in Nettles’ Yankeeography profile, YES Network)

“What amazes me is that he makes the stab, he gets up, wheels around, and then he takes his time before he throws. He always knows exactly what to do with the ball, what base to throw to. It was quite an exhibition. I say he’s as good as Brooks Robinson. He goes to his left, he goes to his right, he comes in on the ball.”

— Preston Gomez, Dodgers third base coach (reported in Nettles’ SABR Bio)

“I don’t think anyone has eve played third base better than Graig did tonight.”

— Bob Lemon, New York Yankees Manager (reported in Reggie, by Reggie Jackson and Mike Lupica)

1979-80: Tragedy and Injury 

After 9 consecutive superb seasons in which he averaged 26 home runs, 84 RBI, a 115 OPS+ and 5.8 WAR, Graig Nettles began the decline phase of his career in 1979, his age 34 season. His OPS+ was 97 (below league average for the first time in his career as a full-time player). He hit 20 home runs with 73 RBI, both low marks since joining the Yankees in 1973.

The ’79 season was a severe downer for the Yankees because of the tragic death of Munson.

“It was the first real tragedy that I had had in my life, and I didn’t accept it well. I broke down and cried like a baby. I thought we would be friends forever. When his plane crashed, so did our season. We didn’t feel much like playing the rest of the year.”

— Graig Nettles (quoted in his SABR Bio)

After Munson’s death, the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time since 1975.

In 1980, Nettles made his 5th All-Star squad and was having a fairly good year but was felled by hepatitis in late July, causing him to miss almost the entire balance of the regular season. After averaging 156 games played from 1970-79, Nettles only played in 89 contests in ’80. The Yankees re-claimed the A.L. East crown and Puff was back on the roster for the ALCS but the Royals finally got the better of the Bronx Bombers, sweeping the series in 3 games.

1981: Back in the Fall Classic

In 1981, the strike-shortened season, the Yankees returned to the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons. Because of the middle-of-the-season work stoppage, Major League Baseball created a third tier of playoffs, a “Division Series” featuring the division champions from the games before the strike and the champs after the strike. The Yanks were matched up against the Milwaukee Brewers in the Division Series, winning in 5 games despite a woeful 1 for 17 hitting performance from Graig Nettles.

In the ALCS, against Billy Martin’s Oakland A’s, Nettles got hot. He hit .500 (6 for 12) with a home run and 9 RBI, driving in 3 runs in all three games of New York’s sweep over Oakland. For this Nettles was named the ALCS MVP.

In the World Series, again against the Dodgers, Nettles broke his thumb diving for a ball in Game 2. He actually managed to return for Game 6 but the Dodgers prevailed, winning the series in 6 games. It was the Yankees last postseason appearance until 1995.

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On January 29, 1982, Nettles was named the Yankees’ team captain, the squad’s first since Munson. In his first year as captain, Puff had a mediocre year in what was his age 37 season (.232 BA, 98 OPS+, 0.8 WAR). He rebounded, however, for a respectable campaign in 1983, his final one in the Bronx (.266 BA, 20 HR, 75 RBI, 119 OPS+, 2.5 WAR).

In March of 1984, in part because of the release of his book Balls which was highly critical of Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner, Nettles was traded to the San Diego Padres.

1984-86: San Diego Padres

With the 1984 Padres, Graig Nettles joined a squad with good young talent blended with seasoned veterans. Besides himself, the ’84 Padres had Nettles’ Yankees teammate Goose Gossage as its new closer, Steve Garvey at first base and an emerging star in right field (future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn).

In his first year in the National League, the 39-year old Nettles hit just .228 but delivered 20 home runs with 65 RBI, good enough for a 108 OPS+ and 2.3 WAR. Under manager Dick Williams (another future Hall of Famer), the Friars won their first ever N.L. West title and appeared in the Fall Classic for the first time, falling to the 108-win Detroit Tigers in 5 games.

The Padres would not return to the playoffs in ’85 but not because of a lack of production by their 40-year old third baseman. Nettles made his sixth and final All-Star squad while hitting .261 with a 120 OPS+, 15 HR, 23 doubles, 61 RBI.  This was good enough for a 3.3 WAR, third best for position players on the team and second best to Tim Wallach among all N.L. third basemen.

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Nettles did decline severely in 1986, hitting just .218 with an OPS+ of 88. Puff played his final two baseball campaigns in Atlanta (1987) and Montreal (1988), hitting .196 in a part-time role for both squads. Nettles’ final game was on October 1, 1988 in Montreal. He was 44 years old.

How Graig Nettles Ranked in Career Home Runs after 1988

At the end of the 1988 season, Graig Nettles’ 390 career home runs were the 24th most in the history of baseball. Only 5 of the 23 players ahead of Nettles on the all-time tater list were not already in the Hall of Fame but 3 of them (Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, and Carl Yastrzemski) were not enshrined in Cooperstown only because they weren’t yet eligible.

Only the one-dimensional slugger Dave Kingman and another third baseman (Darrell Evans) had more home runs than Nettles as of 1988 without eventually getting a plaque in the Hall.

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After the 1993 season, Nettles was eligible for the first time for the writers ballot, voted on by members of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America). At this point in baseball history, Nettles was still 28th on the all-time home run list, having been passed by Dale Murphy and future Hall of Famers Dave Winfield, Eddie Murray and Andre Dawson.

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No Love from the BBWAA for Graig Nettles

Despite the two World Championships, two Gold Gloves and 390 taters, Nettles fared poorly on his first ballot, receiving 8.3% of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), behind 17 other players. At the time, writers were heavily focused on a player’s batting average and Nettles’ career mark of .248 clearly outweighed his defensive and home run prowess.

Even today, the lowest batting average for all enshrined Hall of Fame players is .253 for catcher Ray Schalk, a defensive-oriented catcher and a Veterans Committee pick that has widely been derided. The lowest BA for a third baseman was Brooks Robinson’s .267 but the Human Vacuum Cleaner won a whopping 16 Gold Gloves, clearly enough to justify a “defense only” vote at the hot corner.

Golden Age of Third Basemen

Graig Nettles had the misfortune of a playing career that coincided with the golden age of third basemen in all of baseball history. When Nettles debuted in 1967, there were only three third sackers enshrined in the Hall of Fame: Home Run Baker, Pie Traynor, and Jimmy Collins. Baker, named Frank but dubbed “Home Run” Baker because of his whopping 96 career taters (mostly in the dead ball era), had the most career bombs of the trio.

When Nettles retired after the 1988 season, four more third baseman had made the Hall: Robinson, Eddie Mathews, Freddie Lindstrom, and George Kell. Playing from 1952 to 1968, Mathews had set the standard for what an offensive third baseman looked like: he hit 512 home runs to go with 1,453 RBI.

In the meantime, by the time he was on the BBWAA ballot in January 1994, three of Nettles’ contemporaries (Mike Schmidt, George Brett and Wade Boggs) had also re-defined the standards for offense for a player at the hot corner. Compare Nettles’ numbers (and fielding accolades) to these three future Hall of Famers.

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*Boggs would go on to finish with 3,010 hits and a .328 career BA while collecting 2 Gold Glove Awards and earn 3 more All-Star berths.

Anyway, Nettles clearly was not in the class of these three luminaries, which explains his lack of BBWAA love.

Falling off the BBWAA Ballot

After two more years of 6.1% and 7.9% vote percentages, Graig Nettles fell off the BBWAA ballot after the 1997 vote when he received just 4.7% (below the 5% minimum threshold required to remain eligible). Even so, after the ’97 season, Nettles remained in fourth place on the all-time home run list among players who would not eventually be inducted into the Hall (behind Kingman, Evans and Murphy).

Today there are 30 players not enshrined in Cooperstown with more than Nettles’ 390 homers. That number includes 4 players who are still active, 9 retired players who have not yet attained BBWAA ballot eligibility and 8 additional players who have appeared on BBBWA ballots but are linked to PED use.

The 9 players not linked to PEDs with more than 390 home runs who have been or were rejected by the writers: Fred McGriff (493 HR), Carlos Delgado (473), Kingman (442), Andruw Jones (434), Evans (414), Andres Galarraga (399), Dale Murphy (398), Joe Carter (396) and Jim Edmonds (393). Only Jones remains eligible for the Hall via the BBWAA.

The Hall of Fame Case for and against Graig Nettles

Let’s start with the case against, some of which has already been made. I’m going to bring the debate 22 years forward, from when Nettles fell off the ballot to today, when we have new metrics that can help us evaluate a player’s performance beyond batting average, home runs and RBI.

Even in today’s sabermetric landscape, central to the “no” argument is that Nettles’ career .248 batting average would be the lowest of any player in the Hall of Fame. There are 28 third basemen who logged at least 5,000 plate appearances while playing 50% of their games at the hot corner and played the entirety of their careers between 1957 and 1998 (ten years before and ten years after Nettles debut and finish). Those criteria leave out Dick Allen and Hall of Famer Paul Molitor out of those 28 men, even though both are listed on the Jay Jaffe “JAWS” list of third basemen.

Anyway, of these 28 third sackers, Nettles’ .248 BA is tied for 2nd worst, better than only Aurelio Rodriguez, a true defense-only third baseman who won the first Gold Glove (in 1976) after Brooks Robinson’s 16 straight years of winning that award.

Of course, we know today that batting average isn’t everything, that on-base percentage and slugging percentage are actually of greater import. Dragged down by his low BA, Nettles still ranks just 17th with a .329 OBP among these 28 occupants of the hot corner. When it comes to power, only Schmidt and Darrell Evans had more than Nettles’ 390 home runs and yet Puff’s .421 SLG is only 11th best out of 28.

Nettles’ OPS+ and Home Run Total

Adding OBP and SLG while adding the context of ballpark factors, Graig Nettles’ OPS+ is just 110 (10% better than league average). What’s worse is that, among these 28 third sackers, Nettles’ 110 OPS+ is just 15th best, making him average in this group. Here’s the list:

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Finally, there’s this: Nettles’ chief calling card on “back of the baseball card” statistics is his 390 home runs. That’s a great total for a third baseman and still the 6th most all-time even to this day. However, it’s also true that Nettles derived a great benefit by calling home the second incarnation of Yankee Stadium from 1976 to 1983.

In those eight seasons, the left-handed hitting slugger swatted 106 long-balls at the Stadium compared to just 79 on the road. Thus, in those eight campaigns, Nettles had the 7th most home taters in baseball but just the 21st most on the road. For his career, Putt had 216 long balls in his home ballparks compared to 174 in road yards. Nettles’ 390 total remains impressive but loses some luster when you realize how much he benefited by Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch.

Other Factors Against

There are two other factors against Graig Nettles’ Hall of Fame candidacy. The first is that, although he was a defensive star in Game 3 of the 1978 World Series and an offensive stud in the 1981 ALCS, for most of his career Nettles was a weak postseason hitter. Overall, in 207 plate appearances, Puff hit just .228 with a .295 OBP and .346 SLG, translating to a woeful .641 OPS.

Until his ALCS MVP performance in ’81, Nettles October hitting resume was downright bad. In his first 38 games of playoff baseball (call it a quarter of a regular season), Nettles hit a meager .194 with a .565 OPS, hitting just 4 taters with 14 RBI.

The second factor is simply that Nettles won just two Gold Gloves. That’s a low number for a player with a mixed offensive Hall of Fame resume.

The Hall of Fame Case in Favor of Graig Nettles

In making the Hall of Fame case in favor of Graig Nettles, let’s start with those final two points.

Now, there’s no doubt that, from 1976 to ’78, Nettles’ Yankees teammates (Thurman Munson and Reggie Jackson in particular) did the heavy lifting offensively. Still, the rings are the thing. If one were to invent a statistic called “Rings Above Replacement,” the exercise would be to determine which players were indispensable to their team’s World Series victories. Certainly one would give Reggie a “Ring Above Replacement” for the 1977 World Series.

Nettles also would get one for his defensive work in Game 3 of the ’78 series. As we’ve seen, this was the game that turned the series around (the Yankees entered trailing two games to none). Nettles saved between 4 and 7 runs in a 5-1 win. More than any other Yankee, he was indispensable and responsible for that second World Championship.

How Good was Graig Nettles Defensively? 

“When I think of Graig Nettles, I think of one of the best who ever played third base. Maybe the best. If you watched him play day in and day out you could make a case for him as the greatest fielding third baseman ever.”

— Brooks Robinson (to Joe Schatzle, Poughkeepsie Journal, Sept. 1989)

That’s high praise from a man who won 16 Gold Gloves at the hot corner.

As we know, history shows that Nettles won just two Gold Gloves at third base. That’s fewer than (among non-Hall of Famers) Scott Rolen (8), Buddy Bell (6), Eric Chavez (6), Nolan Arenado (6), Ken Boyer (5), Doug Rader (5), Robin Ventura (6), Adrian Beltre (5), Gary Gaetti (4), Matt Williams (4), Frank Malzone (3), Tim Wallach (3), Terry Pendleton (3), Ken Caminiti (3) and Evan Longoria (3). Of course, Arenado and Longoria are still active and Beltre is a lock to be a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee but most of the players on the list never got close to Cooperstown.

So, given that Nettles was blocked early in his career by the great Robinson, did he deserve to win any hardware during the end of Robinson’s reign, losing simply due to the well-deserved reputation of the Human Vacuum Cleaner as the best defensively at the hot corner in baseball history?

We can’t definitively answer that question, of course, but we can look at the defensive metrics as they exist today. It’s important to understand that defensive metrics are evolving on a year-to-year basis and they are less reliable when applied to earlier points in history.

Still, Nettles’ Hall of Fame case today is in part a sabermetric one so let’s look at the numbers and see what they say. We’ll use “WAR Runs Above or Below Average from Fielding” from Baseball Reference, showing the Top 3 in the A.L. from 1970 to 1977 and where Nettles ranks if not in the Top 3.

Note: A. Rodriguez is Aurelio Rodriguez, not Alex Rodriguez as a time traveler.

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So, strictly by the numbers, Nettles should have won 3 Gold Gloves from 1970 to 1976. Considering that, in 1971, he set new all-time records in assists and double plays turned, he really should have won it that year. In addition, Puff was had the 2nd highest fielding percentage in ’71; at the time this was the preeminent defensive statistic.

In 1977 and ’78, Nettles was finally granted the honor of winning the Gold Gloves. Did he deserve them? And what do the numbers say about the years that follow (through 1983, his final A.L. season)?

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Interestingly, according to the numbers, Nettles actually did not have the best defensive season among all third sackers in either of his actual Gold Glove seasons. He was, however, second best in both years and the numbers for 1978 are clearly within the margin of error. Puff was 35 years old at the start of the 1980 season and he did not threaten the top of these leader boards for the rest of his career.

So, while we can’t claim that Brooks Robinson kept Nettles from winning 5-to-6 Gold Gloves, he did cost him a few. In the meantime, Buddy Bell did win 6 Gold Gloves and it’s fairly clear that he deserved them. Regardless, Nettles was, by the metrics, one of the three best defensive third basemen in the league for eight out of nine years between 1970 and ’78.

More importantly, if you take the entirety of his career (from 1967 to 1988), Nettles was the third best fielding third baseman in all of Major League Baseball, behind only Robinson and Bell. If you take a wider view (from 1957 to 1998, ten years before and after Puff’s years), he’s still fourth best, with Clete Boyer just a bit ahead.

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Graig Nettles’ Total Game (using WAR)

I’ll be blunt. If you don’t believe in WAR, you’re not going to buy Graig Nettles as a Hall of Famer. His .248 batting average is too low. His 2 Gold Gloves are too few. His 390 home runs is good but not enough. He was great in Game 3 of the ’78 World Series but the balance of his October record was mediocre.

Because it combines Nettles’ offense and defense into one number, WAR (Wins Above Replacement) makes a more compelling case. Per Baseball Reference, Nettles’ career WAR is 68.0. Among third basemen, that’s the 10th best in baseball history, 12th best if you count Paul Molitor and Edgar Martinez as third sackers.

Every third baseman with a higher WAR is in the Hall of Fame except for the not-yet-eligible Beltre and Scott Rolen. Rolen (with 8 Gold Gloves, 316 taters and a 122 OPS+) deserves to be. Rolen’s Cooperstown case is so obviously a “WAR case” that I dubbed my piece about him Scott Rolen’s Hall of Fame Case: a Matter of WAR.

Nettles also ranks 10th or 12th in Jay Jaffe’s JAWS rankings, which combines a player’s career WAR with the WAR from their best seven years. Again, the difference between 10th or 12th is based on whether you want to include Molitor and/or Edgar.

Do You Believe in WAR?

So, do you believe in WAR? For myself, I believe WAR should be used as a beacon to lead one to further study. If a player has a really high WAR, I try to figure out why. If it’s surprisingly low, it’s worth investigating.

I also look at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus, websites that calculate WAR differently. Do they tell a different story? FanGraphs (fWAR) puts Nettles’ WAR at 65.7, 14th best in baseball history (they count Molitor, Martinez, Miguel Cabrera and Harmon Killebrew as third sackers with Nettles just ahead of Edgar). The leaderboard on Baseball Prospectus (using WARP) doesn’t include those four players and ranks Nettles as the 11th best, at 64.6. The three sabermetric sites are consistent in the case of Graig Nettles.

When it comes to Nettles, I believe in WAR. His high number is based on solid (but not great) offensive production but on superb defensive numbers. I saw Nettles play third base many times. The guy was spectacular.

The Significance of Nettles’ WAR

Graig Nettles’ 68.0 WAR is better (in many cases significantly better) than 6 Hall of Fame third basemen. His 68.0 WAR would tie him with Ryne Sandberg for the 65th best among all Hall of Fame position players. His 68.0 WAR is better than the number posted by 94 Cooperstown inductees who were position players; it’s better than 140 Hall of Famers if you include pitchers.

Taking a view of how good Nettles was compared to all other players during his heyday, his is a list of the top eleven position players in terms of WAR from 1970 to 1979, Nettles’ peak years.

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That’s a top 5 of four first-ballot Hall of Famers and Graig Nettles.

Next, here’s a list of the top eleven position players in terms of WAR in the history of baseball who are not in the Hall of Fame. For the purpose of this graphic, I’m only showing players who retired in 2013 or earlier and thus have already appeared on at least one BBWAA ballot.

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On this list, Nettles is “only” 11th but think of this: Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez would all be Hall of Famers if not for their links to Performance Enhancing Drugs. Pete Rose of course is banned from baseball because of his admitted gambling. So, if you eliminate those four names, Nettles has the 7th highest WAR for position players outside of Cooperstown.

The Golden Age of Third Basemen

As I mentioned earlier, Graig Nettles played during the golden age of third basemen. He debuted on the tail end of the superb careers of Brooks Robinson, Eddie Mathews, the underrated Ron Santo and Ken Boyer and before the careers of Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and Wade Boggs. But what’s interesting about the 1970’s and ’80’s is that there were four other hot corner occupants who also had superb careers, ones that were at least worthy of some Hall of Fame consideration.

The quartet of superb third sackers I’m referencing are Darrell Evans, Sal Bando, Buddy Bell and Ron Cey.

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All five of these players have a higher career WAR than 56 existing Hall of Fame position players. I’m not suggesting that all five deserve a spot in Cooperstown. Times change and standards for third basemen are clearly higher than they were for players in the first half of the 20th century, when the hot corner was primarily a defensive position.

What I am suggesting is that there were a lot of terrific players manning the hot corner in the ’70’s and ’80’s and all five of these players accomplished things that deserve at least more than a cursory look. All except Bell won at least one World Series. Bell won those 6 Gold Gloves. The list of 3rd basemen with 2,500 hits and 6 Gold Gloves has two names: Brooks Robinson and Buddy Bell.

The list of 3rd basemen with at least 300 HR, 2,000 Hits and 1,500 Bases on Balls has three names: Schmidt, Chipper Jones and Evans.

Incidentally, while Nettles ranks highest in WAR among this group, Baseball Prospectus’ WARP and Bill James’ Win-Shares rank Evans above Nettles. Neither got a whiff of Cooperstown because they each had a .248 career batting average but both were terrific players.

The Crowded List of Candidates for the 2020 Modern Baseball Ballot

When all five of the previously referenced players came up for the BBWAA ballot, nobody had heard of WAR or OPS+ and people barely cared about on-base or slugging percentages. Today we know about these things. What made Nettles great (a lot of home runs at the hot corner and superb defense) was as true in 1994 as it is 25 years later. The difference is that what made Nettles subpar in 1994 (his .248 BA) is less relevant in 2019 because we now know that he was at least an above average overall hitter and was one of the all-time greats defensively at the hot corner, even if Robinson and Bell took all of the Gold Gloves.

The challenge for Nettles (or Evans, or any of the others) is that the Hall of Fame is vastly underrepresented among players from the 1970’s and ’80’s and today there’s an even bigger backlog of talent in this group than there is on the current BBWAA ballot. Only ten men from the 1970-87 era will make the Eras Committee’s “Modern Baseball” ballot.

Is Nettles even the best Yankee from the 1970’s and ’80’s missing from the Hall of Fame? Some would say that catcher Thurman Munson (with a 46.1 WAR, high for a catcher, and .357 career postseason BA) should have a higher priority on the ballot (Munson’s Hall of Fame case here). Don Mattingly, who had an incredible  peak from 1984-89 and got far more BBWAA support, was chosen for the 2018 Modern Baseball ballot ahead of both Nettles and Munson.

Is Nettles even the best third baseman from this era who isn’t in Cooperstown? Some would say Evans was better.

Along those lines, is Darrell Evans even the best player named Evans who is eligible for this ballot? Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans (67.1 WAR, 127 OPS+, 385 HR) was arguably the better Evans. Neither Evans has ever been considered on any Veterans Committee ballot.

Besides Mattingly, other potential returning candidates from the last Modern Baseball ballot include Ted Simmons (who fell one vote shy in 2018), Luis Tiant, Tommy John, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Steve Garvey and former union head Marvin Miller. Among the players who will be competing with the two Evans’, Munson and Nettles for their first Modern Baseball ballot are Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, and Keith Hernandez. Only ten men will be chosen.

Final Thoughts

As somebody who believes that the Hall of Fame should have proportional representation for players across eras (a “big Hall” guy), I’m in favor of both Thurman Munson and Graig Nettles making it into Cooperstown. Both players had superb careers and were team leaders on one of the great mini-dynasties of the last 50 years of Major League Baseball. The 1977 World Champion Yankees have only two Hall of Famers, Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter. However, it’s fair to say that Catfish is not in the Hall because of what he did in 1977 (9-9, 4.71 ERA, 10.38 ERA in 4.1 World Series innings).

All but three World Champions from 1903-76 had at least two Hall of Famers and most had three or more. Every team that won back-t0-back World Series titles prior to 1977 have at least three Cooperstown-enshrined players. There’s room for both Munson and Nettles in the Hall because of their crucial roles in the American League’s most dominant franchise of the late 1970’s.

I do offer this caveat: it’s unlikely that both will be nominated this fall’s ballot. As we’ve seen, they have lots of competition. If you’re a Yankees fan and had to choose one member of the late ’70’s dynasty, who would it be? Nettles? Munson? Ron Guidry? Or Willie Randolph? Guidry and Randolph both of whom also reasonable cases for Cooperstown, albeit not as strong as Nettles’ or Munson’s, in my opinion. For the record, I asked this question to my Twitter followers and (although the sample size of 129 respondents was small), Munson won handily with 60% of the tally; Nettles at 13% came in behind Guidry (15%).

Anyway, if you’re not yet exhausted yet, I invite you to watch the first six minutes of this Yankeeography profile to see what others (including defensive stalwarts Robinson, Bell and Clete Boyer) thought about Nettles’ defensive prowess and whether or not he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading. If you’re a Baseball Hall of Fame enthusiast, please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

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