Hall of Fame Worthy? Pt. 22: Doc Cramer

Some time ago I was reading Bill James's book on Cooperstown, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?.  In one section, he included a selection of letters and correspondence from people about players they thought should be in the Hall of Fame that had not been inducted.  A lot of the names were players many would expect, but one name stuck out to me, as a Red Sox fan.  That name was Roger "Doc" Cramer.  

Doc Cramer spent 20 years in the Majors from 1929 through 1948.  He spent seven years with the Philadelphia Athletics, seven with the Detroit Tigers, five with the Red Sox and one with the Washington Senators.  During that time he racked up 2,705 hits and a career batting average of .296.  He led the league in hits once with 200 hits in 1940.  He was an All Star five times during his career, four times with the Red Sox and once with the Athletics.  He was a good defensive center fielder (though not a great one) and led the league several times in various categories, mostly due to the fact that for most of his career, he played almost every day.  

So, that all sounds pretty good right?  Well...

The biggest problem with Cramer's candidacy is that his career bWAR was 13.3.  That is shockingly low for a player that played 20 years in the Majors and generally had decent numbers.  He had a slash line of .296/.340/.375, so while his average was good, he was below-average in getting on base and well below average in power.  That is borne out by his 396 career doubles (averaging 29 a year) and 37 career home runs (averaging three a year).  To put this number into perspective, Carl Yastrzemski's 1967 season was a bWAR of 12.5.  In one season, Yaz was worth almost as much as Doc Cramer's entire career.

Cramer's JAWS scores, a good indicator of Hall of Fame candidacy, places him at 235th all-time at center field.  The only Hall of Famer lower than Cramer is Pete Hill, who played in the Negro Leagues.  That is simply not going to get it done.  And no, WAR and JAWS are not everything, but when the numbers are that low, there just is not going to be a reasonable argument.

THE VERDICT

No, Doc Cramer is not getting into the Hall of Fame.  Nor should he.  He was a good player for a long time, but he was nowhere near Hall of Fame-worthy.