Chipper Jones, Golden Sombreros, and The Hall of Fame

The Golden Sombrero. This term has got to be one of my favorite baseball sayings. A golden sombrero occurs when a player strikes out 4 times in a game. According to Wikipedia, that almighty beacon of truth, the term is based off of the hat trick in hockey. Since 3 goals in hockey is a hat trick, 4 strikeouts should be commemorated with a bigger hat (of course it lacks a citation.) To me this makes no sense since 3 goals in hockey are extremely good and 4 strikeouts in baseball are extremely bad (borderline pathetic,) but I digress. This educational, or not so much, moment is brought to you by Chipper Jones.

I was on the train today on my way to another day at the office when I read something on ESPN mobile. It was buried in the game notes of the recap of Randy Johnson’s 299^th win. Chipper Jones struck out 4 times for the first time in his career, his 15 year major league career (A-Rod currently sports 4 sombreros on his hat rack.) This made me think. Chipper has been around a long time and unless you are a Braves or Mets fan (based on the urban legend he named his son Shea because he hit so well there) has mostly been lost in the shuffle. Exactly how good is Chipper? Having not struck out 4 times in a game in 14+ seasons seemed pretty impressive to me so I thought I would check it out. My question, is Chipper Jones a 1^st ballot Hall of Famer?

First off, I found out there are only 10 (TEN!!?) Major League 3B in the Hall plus 3 Negro League 3B. This made my life easier when researching no matter how surprising. The three that stand out on the list and are comparable to Jones are Mike Schmidt, George Brett, and Brooks Robinson, all of whom played the majority if not the entirety of their careers at the hot corner. Oh, yeah, and did I mention that they’re all first ballot Hall of Famers as well?

George Brett

George was the offensive 3b albeit without monster power. In 21 seasons he only hit 317 HR (average of 15 a year) but he did finish his career with 3,154 hits and an impressive career line of .305/.369/.487. What jumps out a you are his 13 consecutive All Star appearances, 3 Silver Slugger awards, and 1 MVP in 1980. He was an on base machine who while not being stellar in the field was above average, winning a Gold Glove in 1985 and finishing with a career fielding percentage of .970. In 1980, his MVP year, he hit .390/.454/.664. That is just insane. Despite having 231 fewer homeruns than Mike Schmidt, Brett has the exact same number of RBI. Crazy. Oh yeah, and his hat rack is golden sombrero free, believe it or not.

Brooks Robinson

Brooks is the glove of the group. He is quite possibly the best defensive 3B of all time. He won 16 CONSECUTIVE Gold Gloves (are you kidding?!11?) and appeared in 15 straight All Star games. At age 37 he not only won a Gold Glove and made the All Star Team, but got 9% of the MVP vote that year. His career offensive numbers are average overall but he cemented his legacy with an MVP award in 1964 at age 27 with just shy of 200 hits, 28 HR, 118 RBI and a triple slash of .317/.368/.521. In 1964 that is out of this world when combined with Gold Glove defense. Strangely enough, Robinson had 1 4 strikeout game in his career, giving him a 40 something year old sombrero hanging on his hat rack.

Mike Schmidt (equal sign beast)

This dude was a monster. He combined great defense with rock em sock em type power. For God sakes the guy won the MVP in 1981 and only played in 102 games and only had 112 hits! Not fair. In 18 seasons he amassed an underwhelming 2234 hits but that does not tell even one third of the story. From 1976-1984 Schmidt won the Gold Glove every year and hit 35 or more HR in 7 of those years while also going to 8 All Star games and winning 2 MVPs and 5 Silver Sluggers. His career OPS+ is the highest of the three sitting at 147. This type of power comes with a price though as he was a high strikeout guy throughout his career, finishing with more than double George Brett’s K total. As a result, he sports 6 golden sombreros.

Now after going through all of this and seeing how truly amazing each of the above individuals was in their own right we come to Chipper. He already has more hits than Schmidt (81), more HR than Brett and Robinson, and a chance, with 2 or 3 more good years of surpassing Brett and Schmidt’s RBI total. Were Chipper to retire today, his triple slash of .310/.408/.547 would be the most impressive of the three by far and his career OPS+ is only 2 points lower than that of Schmidt. Add into that Chipper’s 6 All Star games, MVP award, and 2 Silver Sluggers and his case seems even more solid. His consistency throughout his career despite spending good portions of some seasons on the DL is very impressive. Chipper probably won’t make it to 20+ years like Robinson and Brett without the benefit of moving to a 1B/DH split but he should, barring any David Ortizian Collapses®™© or serious injuries, at least be able to meet Schmidt’s 18 years of service and with that put an emphatic stamp on a very impressive career.

So next time there’s a braves game on TBS put it on and watch Chipper’s at bats so when he goes into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot you can tell your kids, “I watched him play.”

For now, I retreat back into my mother’s basement to hug my spreadsheets and play my Strat-O-Matic Baseball game.