RBI Man: Does Joe Carter have a Real Case for the Hall of Fame?

In the game of baseball, there is nothing more exciting than a walk-off hit. At one moment, the outcome of the contest is in the balance. A moment later, it’s over. In baseball history, few players have participated in a walk-off home run more dramatic than Joe Carter.

It was Game 6 of the 1993 World Series. The Toronto Blue Jays were up 3 games to 2 but were trailing the Philadelphia Phillies in the bottom of the 9th inning. With runners on 1st and 2nd, Mitch Williams threw a 2-2 fastball to Carter, who deposited it over the left field wall for a 3-run home run, one that walked it off for victory and delivered the city of Toronto its second straight World Series Championship.

As Jays radio announcer Tom Cheek famously said, “Touch ’em all, Joe, you’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life.”

Five years after Carter won the World Series, he played his last game, finishing his 16-year MLB career with 396 home runs and 1,445 RBI. In 2004, he was eligible for the Hall of Fame on the writers’ ballot but received just 19 votes, a 3.8% share that was shy of the 5% minimum required to remain on future ballots.

Joe Carter is Eligible for the Hall of Fame Again

Now in 2018, Joe Carter has a second chance at Cooperstown, on the “Today’s Game” ballot, the current version of the Hall’s long-standing Veterans Committee. A panel of 16 media members, executives and Hall of Famers will examine the Cooperstown resumes for 10 candidates. The other nine men on the ballot are players Will Clark, Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Orel Hershiser and Lee Smith, managers Lou Piniella, Davey Johnson and Charlie Manuel and the late George Steinbrenner, the longtime owner of the New York Yankees.

I will admit, I was a bit puzzled when I saw Carter’s name on the Today’s Game ballot. He had a very good career but modern sabermetrics are unkind to say the least.

Despite the skepticism many of us may have who are analytically inclined, Carter’s candidacy deserves to be taken seriously. He and the other nine candidates were chosen by a Historical Overview Committee filled by 11 veterans of the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America).

The chief argument that one could make for Joe Carter for the Hall of Fame is that he was a consistent RBI man. From 1984-1998, his fifteen full-time seasons, Carter’s 1,444 RBI were the most in baseball, 125 more than anybody else. The guy drove in runs, a fairly important thing if you’re trying to win baseball games.

In this piece I’m going to first briefly recap and celebrate Carter’s career and then present a case for his Cooperstown candidacy, followed by the case against. I think you’ll enjoy this. It was fun for me to research.

Cooperstown Cred: Joe Carter

• Career: .259 BA, .306 OBP, 396 HR, 1,445 RBI, 231 SB
• Career: 105 OPS+, 19.6 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 10 seasons with at least 20 HR and at least 100 RBI
• 5-time All-Star
• 2-time Silver Slugger
• Member of 1992 and 1993 World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays

(cover photo: Associated Press/Mark Duncan)

Career Highlights

Joseph Chris Carter was born on March 7, 1960 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Carter was one of eleven children born to Joseph and Athelene Carter.

In 1981, while at Wichita State, he was honored as the Sporting News college player of the year. A RBI man long before he played in the major leagues, Carter set a then collegiate record with 120 runs driven in.

Carter was selected by the Chicago Cubs as the second pick overall in the 1981 player draft, behind the Seattle Mariners’ Mike Moore. Considered a five-tool player at the time, Carter had power, speed and a strong arm (he was a quarterback in high school). At AAA Iowa in 1983, he hit 22 home runs while stealing 40 bases. He was called up briefly to the Cubs in late July and then again in September, logging a total of just 51 plate appearances.

In 1984, Carter was blocked at the Major League level by multiple veteran outfielders but showed he had nothing left to prove. In just 61 games at Iowa, he drove in 67 runs while batting .310 with a OPS of .951.

The ’84 Cubs were contenders and, to add pitching depth for the stretch run, dealt Carter on June 13th to the Cleveland Indians in a 7-player trade that brought eventual Cy Young Award winner Rick Sutcliffe to Chicago. This would be the first of three times that Carter would be involved in mega-trades involving players of great significance.

Cleveland Indians (1984-1989)

In Cleveland, on a 2nd division team, Joe Carter was given an instant opportunity to start. In 66 games in 1984, he hit 13 home runs, which was 2nd most on the team (to Andre Thornton’s 33).

It took him a couple of years, however, to come close to fulfilling his potential. In 1986, at the age of 26, Carter had a breakout season and established his rep as a big-time RBI bat. He hit .302 with 29 home runs, 29 stolen bases, 121 RBI, 200 hits and 108 runs scored. Today’s metrics accord Carter’s ’86 campaign with a 130 OPS+ and a 5.8 WAR.

If Carter had been able to replicate his ’86 campaign during the rest of his career, he might be in the Hall of Fame already. As it turned out, ’86 featured career highs that he would never match in hits, runs, BA, OBP, OPS+ and WAR. His RBI (which matched his future career high) earned him the respect around the league and on his team as a run producer.

“The man’s an RBI machine… He’s unbelievable. Every time you looked up, it seemed he was knockin’ someone in. He cranks out RBI like no one I’ve ever seen, game after game. Like a machine.”

— Brett Butler (teammate from 1984-87), from Sport Magazine, reported in his SABR Bio

Cover Boys

Anyway, the ’86 Indians won 84 games, showing enough promise that Sports Illustrated infamously put Carter and Cory Snyder on the cover of the baseball season preview issue for 1987. The team was a horrible disappointment, losing 101 games. With the basic power numbers (32 HR, 106 RBI), Carter looked like he did OK but the rest of his numbers were down.

Still, because he stole 31 bases to go with his 30 home runs, he accomplished something (30 HR/30 SB) that had heretofore been rare in Major League Baseball.

Coming into the 1987 season, only 6 players had managed to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a single season. In ’87, Carter was one of four players to accomplish the feat, the others being Eric Davis and New York Mets teammates Darryl Strawberry and Howard Johnson.

In his first three seasons, Carter played left field, right field (in ’86) and first base (’87). With Butler leaving as a free agent after the ’87 campaign, he was moved to center field, a position that (years later) severely depressed his WAR calculations. By modern metrics, Carter was ill-suited to roam center field but that’s where he played in ’88 and ’89.

Carter’s last year in Cleveland was 1989. He played all 162 games, hit 35 home runs with 105 RBI but hit just .243 with a woeful .292 on-base%. Always a free swinger, Carter struck out 112 times while drawing only 39 walks.

San Diego Padres (1991)

With free agency looming at the end of the 1991 season, the Indians decided to trade Joe Carter. In the second of three big trades he would be involved with, Carter was dealt to the San Diego Padres in a four-player deal that sent Sandy Alomar Jr. and Carlos Baerga to Cleveland. Carter agreed to a three-year contract with the Pads as a condition of the deal.

Carter, in his one year in San Diego, did what he usually did. He hit a decent number of home runs (24) and drove in a lot of runs (115, which was 3rd in the league). However, he hit just .232 with a .290 OBP, translating to a far-below-average 85 OPS+.

Carter remained in center field for the Padres and posted brutal defensive numbers. Baseball Reference tags him with -29 runs below average, the third worst defensive year for a center fielder ever. For this plus his low OBP, Carter had a -1.7 WAR.

At the time, however, those metrics didn’t exist and Carter was still a prized commodity. In the winter meetings, he was dealt again, in the biggest blockbuster of the three trades. Carter and second baseman Roberto Alomar were swapped to the Toronto Blue Jays for first baseman Fred McGriff and shortstop Tony Fernandez.

Toronto Blue Jays (1991-1997)

In Toronto, Joe Carter had the opportunity to play on a team with many other stars and it suited him. From 1991-93, he averaged 33 HR & 116 RBI with an improved .264 BA and .317 OBP. Playing mostly right field, he was no longer a defensive liability.

The Jays won the A.L. East in each of Carter’s first three seasons, advancing to (and winning) the World Series in 1992 and 1993. Carter, of course, was the walk-off hero at the end of the ’93 series.

In 1994, Carter drove in 103 runs despite the Jays’ season being shortened to 115 games by the players’ strike. The right-handed hitting slugger was an All-Star for the A.L. in his first four seasons in Toronto and he finished in the top 12 of the MVP voting all four seasons as well.

Carter’s production dipped in his final three campaigns in Toronto. From 1995-97, he averaged a still-respectable 25 HR with 95 RBI but his average for those seasons was just .246, with a .297 OBP and 87 OPS+.

Final Year (1998)

Joe Carter, a free agent after the 1997 season, signed with the Baltimore Orioles. He remained unproductive, however, and was traded in the middle of the season to the San Francisco Giants. After being involved in three big trades in the first half of his career, this one for a minor leaguer.

Modern metrics, again, are not kind to Carter. For the last four years of his career, he’s credited with a -2.4 WAR.

1998 was Carter’s last season in Major League Baseball.

The RBI Man

Before getting to the case for Joe Carter for the Hall of Fame, let me digress briefly to discuss the term “RBI man.” The first World Series I ever watched was in 1975. Throughout the summer I was learning about the game by collecting baseball cards and watching the NBC Game of the Week.

During the ’75 World Series, one of the players I learned about was Tony Perez of the Cincinnati Reds. The announcer referred to to the Big Dog as a consistent RBI man, citing a statistic that I’ve never forgotten, that he had driven in at least 90 runs for nine consecutive seasons (he’d make it 11 straight in ’76 and ’77).

I also was super impressed by one Perez’ teammates, second baseman Joe Morgan, who would win the N.L. MVP in ’75 and ’76. How could a young impressionable lad not be impressed by Little Joe?

19 years later, in 1994, I was a 27-year old adult working at ESPN as an associate producer for Wednesday Night Baseball. For five weeks during the summer, I also double-dipped by working on Sunday Night Baseball. My job was to produce all of the graphics for the telecasts.

Anyway, as you probably know, Morgan was the lead analyst on Sunday Night Baseball for ESPN for 21 years. I’ll repeat a story that I shared when authoring a tribute to Morgan’s brilliant career.

If you listened to Morgan’s commentary over the years, you know that he is a big believer in the “RBI man.” We were in Toronto for a Blue Jays game and I vividly recall that Morgan wanted to highlight the RBI that Joe Carter had with runners in scoring position as evidence for the reason that he was the Blue Jays top “RBI man.”

While I was building the graphics for the telecast, producer Phil Orlins told me that Morgan wanted me to include RBI in all graphics regarding a player’s average with runners in scoring position. I protested, saying that the average fan would draw the wrong conclusion if they saw, for instance, that Carter had 92 RBI in 187 at bats with RISP in 1993. “Everyone looks good in the RBI department when runners are on 2nd or 3rd base. It’s a meaningless stat,” I argued. Orlins agreed with me but said simply, “Joe Morgan’s in the Hall of Fame and we’re not.”

How Much should RBI count in a Hall of Fame Case?

The reason that those of us who study sabermetrics don’t believe in the “RBI man” is because RBI are a product of opportunity. The statistic, absent the context of the quality of a player’s teammates and his place in the batting order, can be misleading as an indicator of that player’s value.

However, I absolutely believe that a player’s RBI deserve to be considered when evaluating his Hall of Fame candidacy just as a pitcher’s wins should be considered. If a player has a ton of career RBI, it means that their manager(s) wanted that bat to drive in those runs.

Context must always be applied and other aspects of each player’s career scrutinized, but I’m going to give Joe Carter credit for being a RBI Man. It’s part of his record, it’s what he did, just as his on-base percentage is part of the record of what he didn’t do.

So, without further ado…

The Hall of Fame Case for Joe Carter

Eleven BBWAA veterans (the Historical Overview Committee) put Joe Carter on the Hall of Fame ballot. One of the 11 members of that committee was Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun. I don’t know what the inner workings of that committee are but one would assume that Elliott was Carter’s champion but that he would also have needed an ally or allies to get Carter’s name on the ballot.

And so, I hereby present the case. Pretend for a minute you don’t know about (or care about) OPS+ or WAR. We’re going to go old-school baby. This is a Hall of Fame argument Joe Morgan would love.

Most RBI from 1985-1998

First of all, as we’ve noted, Joe Carter had the most RBI in Major League Baseball from 1984-1998, his 15 years as a regular or semi-regular player.

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So, Carter isn’t just ahead, he’s ahead by a lot. Carter was also 4th in home runs (behind 3 players linked to steroids) and 5th in doubles for those 15 years. It helped that Carter was durable. He played in all but 65 of his teams’ games from ’85 to ’97. Durability counts too.

Now, to be fair, whenever you choose the exact years of a player’s career, you’re giving him an advantage of over another player who may have done more before or after the specified period of time. Still, Carter dominates that list.

Most RBI in 10-year Periods of Time

The next graphic is really impressive. It shows how many times a player managed to lead the majors in RBI for a ten-year period of time.

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From 1984 (Carter’s rookie season in Cleveland) through 1993 (his third year in Toronto), Joe Carter led the majors in RBI. He also led all of MLB in RBI from ’85-’94 and so on, up to and including ’88 to ’97, which was his second to last campaign in the bigs.

The 20 HR/100 RBI Club

Next, Carter was a consistent run producer during his career. This is a list of the players with the most seasons in which they hit 20 or more home runs and drove in 100 or more runners.

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This is a pretty amazing group of names, don’t you think. It’s all Hall of Famers, future Hall of Famers or players who would be in the Hall of Fame if not for the use of PEDs.

The Power/Speed Career Club

Next, remember that Carter was not just a power hitter but also a stolen base threat for the first half of his career. In his career, he stole 231 bases while only being caught 56 times, which yielded a solid 78% success rate.

In all of baseball history, there are just 12 players who have logged at least 350 home runs, 400 doubles, 200 stolen bases, and 1,200 RBI in their careers:

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With the exception of Carter, Gary Sheffield and Carlos Beltran, every other name on this list is in the Hall of Fame already. Beltran, who retired after the 2017 season, is widely expected to make the Hall once he’s eligible.

Sheffield is currently on the BBWAA ballot and nowhere near the Hall. However, Sheff has a link to the Mitchell Report on Steroids and BALCO, severely curtailing the Hall of Fame support he receives in an otherwise worthy career.

Joe Carter’s Situational Hitting

Finally, let’s attempt to put some context on Joe Carter’s career 1,445 RBI. Was it merely the product of opportunity? After all, 85% of his career plate appearances were when he was hitting either 3rd or 4th in the lineup. Obviously, those are the prime lineup locations for a RBI man.

The next chart takes a look at Carter’s career splits in different base-runner situations. Yes Joe Morgan, I’ll show the RBI gained from each situation.

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It’s pretty clear that Carter did in fact hit a little better in situations where he was more likely to drive in a run.

The Hall of Fame Case Against Joe Carter

What makes this exercise interesting and instructive is how compelling that “RBI Man” case is for Joe Carter. The argument is compelling but deliberately lacking in necessary context. Thus, having made the case for Joe Carter for the Hall of Fame, I now must now rebut that case.

I will go through each of the “plus” arguments point by point to determine their relevance.

Most RBI from 1984-1998

First, let’s just show again the list of the players with the most RBI from 1984-98.

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Being the 15-year RBI leader (and by a significant margin) is a legitimate accomplishment for Joe Carter. It is a big deal but a little context is useful. Just as Carter did, Cal Ripken Jr. played all 15 of those seasons (and in every game). We can safely say that Carter was a better run-producer than Ripken. The latter, of course, played a key defensive position (shortstop) at an superb level and had The Streak.

Next on the list is Eddie Murray (224 behind). Murray didn’t play in 1998 and had 740 fewer PA for these 15 years than Carter. There’s no chance Murray would have driven in an extra 224 runs in just 740 PA.

Jose Canseco, 5th on the list with 1,214 RBI (230 less) got his RBI in 2,182 plate appearances. So, on a ratio basis, Jose was vastly superior but, again, staying in the lineup is valuable.

No matter how you slice it or dice it, Carter averaged 107 RBI per 162 games played during his career. His RBI total is legitimate.

There are two issues, though, that hurt the “RBI” case for Carter. One is that, since he didn’t have a full season as a starting player until he was 25 years old, his career total (1,445) is only 64th best all-time. That’s not so enthralling.

The other issue (and this is the big one), is that out of the 110 players who logged 5,000 or more plate appearances from 1984-1998, Carter’s .260 batting average was just 94th best. His on-base% (.307) was just 105th best out of 110. Even as a power/RBI bat, Carter’s .466 slugging percentage for those years rates just 35th.

Carter was first in RBI but he also made a ton of outs.

The 20 Home Run, 100 RBI Club

15 players in history had 10 or more seasons with 20+ HR and 100+ RBI. As we’ve seen, the 15 are Pujols, A-Rod, Ruth, Cabrera, Manny, Bonds, Foxx, Gehrig, Big Hurt, Aaron, Big Papi, Vladdy, Palmeiro, Mays and Joe Carter.

That’s an impressive list, isn’t it? Unfortunately, if you make a new list and add a couple of additional categories, it doesn’t look quite as good.

This is a tally of the players with the most seasons with 20 or more HR, 100 or more RBI but with a batting average less than .275 and a slugging percentage less than .500.

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That’s stunning, that Carter makes this list more than twice as much as any other player in MLB history.

Here’s another group. This is the list of players with the most seasons with 20+ HR, 100+ RBI, more than 90 strikeouts and fewer than 50 walks.

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Only 94 players have ever had even one season like this. Only 13 players have done it 3 times or more. And, for the record, the only Hall of Famer who did it even 3 times was Orlando Cepeda. On the list of 14 players who had 2 such seasons, there are four who are enshrined in Cooperstown: Jim Rice, Tony Perez, Willie Stargell, and Roberto Clemente.

The last list (using modern metrics) doesn’t require a graphic. There have been 12 different seasons in MLB history that a player hit 20 HR and drove in 100 runs while posting a OPS+ of less than a league-average 100 with a sub-zero WAR. Joe Carter owns three of those 12 seasons. Nobody else has more than one.

The point to all this is that, while Carter had ten seasons of 20+ home runs and 100+ RBI, many of those seasons were unimpressive in other aspects of the game.

What About the Splits?

As we saw earlier, Joe Carter upped his game in situations with runners in scoring position and other RBI situations. Still, it’s all relative to his overall performance.

Here’s how Carter’s OPS compared to the OPS of all MLB players from 1983-1998 in all situations and also the various base-runner splits.

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What does this mean? It means that Carter’s OPS was 12% higher in situations with runners on 1st and 2nd, 13% higher with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 10% better when the bases were loaded. This is good but hardly extraordinary. Carter’s baseline (the top row) shows him at being 6% better (0.43) than the average hitter in all situations.

By the way, for those of you who are nitpickers and also regularly look at a player’s OPS+ (which marks 100 as average and adjusts for ballpark and generational impact), you might have noticed that Carter’s OPS is shown as 6% above league average. In the meantime, his OPS+ (as shown on Baseball Reference) is 105, which is just 5% above average. The reason for the discrepancy is that OPS+ adjusts for ballpark effects. In Carter’s overall career, his home ballparks were slightly more favorable than the league average. Hence the 6%/5% discrepancy.

From 1983-1998 (the 16 years of Carter’s entire career), he had the most RBI with runners in scoring position (1,035, one more than Ripken).

However, of the 85 players with at least 1,500 plate appearances in this situation, Carter’s .805 OPS is just 61st best.

The Power-Speed Club

Now, let’s get back to the graphic that showed Carter as one of only 12 players in MLB history with 350 HR, 400 doubles, 200 steals and 1,400 RBI. We’ll show the numbers again but this time adding some sabermetric context, showing each player’s slash line (BA/OBP/SLG) and WAR.

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As we can see, Carter is last on this list in every category except for SB. With WAR, he isn’t even a third of the way to anybody else.

I created both the “20 HR/100 RBI per season Club” and the “Power-Speed Club” deliberately to make this point. Bill James calls this the “We Can Make a Group Argument.”

It is possible to form a similar group for any Hall of Fame candidate. There are literally millions of ways to slice up a group of players… You can always form a group of players, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame except one man. 

The “in the group” argument is, at times, a valid argument; that’s why it fools people. The “in the group” argument may be valid if the player under discussion is in the middle of the group, if he is truly as good a player as the other members of the group.

— Bill James, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? (1995)

James’ last point is that if, for instance, Carter was middle of the pack in the “rate” stats, then he would belong in that group. But he is at the bottom of all of them. Carter meets the minimum standards of all the four categories I created. That’s why it looked so good.

If, instead of career standards of 350 HR, 400 2B, 1,400 RBI and 200 SB, we lowered it to 250 HR, 300 2B, 1,200 RBI and 150 SB, now there are 31 members of the group instead of 12. It’s still a nice list of names but now it adds 14 more non-Hall of Famers, including Jose Canseco,  Torii Hunter, Ellis Burks, and Don Baylor.

What about the five 10-year Stretches Carter led all of MLB in RBI

So you don’t have to scroll back up, I’m going to share this graphic again. It’s an impressive list of the most times a player led the majors in RBI for a 10-year period of time.

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This is a “we can make a group” that’s a little tougher to puncture. It’s impressive. There have been many 10-year periods of time in which a non-Hall of Fame caliber player led the league in RBI, but none other than Carter did it for 5 or more cycles in a row.

Also, three of the non-enshrined to lead the league in RBI fora 10-year stretch (Vern Stephens, Bob Elliott and Rudy York) did it during World War II, when Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio were serving in the military.

Anyway, from 1984-1993, Carter drove in 993 runs, 20 more than Geroge Bell, who was second for that 10-year stretch. From 1985-’94 and ’86-’95, Kirby Puckett was the runner-up to Carter. From ’87-’96, it was Ruben Sierra.

From ’88-’97, Carter bested Barry Bonds by a 67 RBI margin.

Here is the flaw in Carter’s five 10-year stretches in which he led the league in RBI. During three of those five runs, he also led the league in outs made. The same does not hold true for the others on the list.

Carter drove in a lot of runs for three reasons: he had a lot of opportunities (hitting 3rd or 4th most of his career), he was a good hitter, and he didn’t walk very much while striking out a lot. While other hitters of his era were drawing walks in certain RBI situations, Carter was making outs.

The Big Picture, why the BBWAA Voted “No” for Joe Carter

Joe Carter got less than 5% of the BBWAA vote in his one and only turn on the ballot in 2004. That, by itself, is not a deal-breaker. There are a great many solid Hall of Fame candidates who have been squeezed over the years by the rule that writers can only vote for 10 candidates on the ballot.

The reason Carter got just 3.8% of that BBWAA vote, however, if I may be so bold, is this. The Hall of Fame does not have any outfielders with fewer than 400 home runs, fewer than 1,500 RBI and a batting average below .275. None.

With all lack of humility, my guess is that if I could get into a time machine back to 2004 and allow the entire BBWAA had membership to read my “case for Joe Carter” arguments without the “case against,” I might have pushed him well over the 5% threshold and kept him on the ballot for awhile as the “RBI Man” candidate.

However, it doesn’t matter. For an outfield candidate, especially a corner outfielder, 396 HR, 1,445 RBI and a lifetime .259 BA just isn’t sexy. It doesn’t matter how many of those RBI were condensed into a 15-year period.

As a candidate of any position, Carter’s career WAR is lower than all but one Hall of Famer ever inducted (19th century player Tommy McCarthy). Even if you’re WAR skeptic, 19.6 is so far below the bar that it can’t be ignored.

It’s too bad. As a lover of the history of the game, I’d be delighted if Carter could join Bill Mazeroski (the only other player to end the Fall Classic with a home run) in the Hall of Fame. But the case isn’t there.

I hope you enjoyed the intellectual exercise of the pro-and-con case for Carter. He’s not a Hall of Famer but the guy had a great career and one of the signature moments in the history of the sport. If you had to live a baseball player’s life without making it into Cooperstown, there aren’t many that would be better to live than Joe Carter’s.

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