I think the case for him to make it in rests on his peak value. That would cover the years from 1984 to 1986 or 1987. How well did he hit in those years?
First, 1986 was the year he had his highest OPS+, 161. That is not especially high. He did lead the league. But I searched Stathead (of Baseball Reference), calling up all the guys who had 400+ PAs since 1900 in the AL/NL. Mattingly's season ranks 558th. That does not seem high enough for a guy who had a relatively short career (he's not to blame that he had injuries). It might be as high as tied for 546th. I can't tell if he is tied with many other guys who had 161. My guess is not since those guys are not alphabetically sorted.
Click here to see those search results.
One year is not enough for peak value. From 1984 his OPS+ stats were 156-156-161. Over the 3 year period it was 158. Where does that rank?
I called up all the 3 year periods since 1900 when a guy had 1,200+ PAs and at least a 157 OPS+ (I used 157 instead of 158 in case there are some kind of rounding issues). To do this, I searched every three year age group starting with 18-20, 19-21, etc, all the way up to 40-42.
Mattingly's 158 OPS+ from 1984-86 ranks 414th (I removed 17 results ahead of him that only covered 2 years-some guys can get 1,200 PAs in just 2 years and I wanted this to be truly for 3 years). Again, this seems pretty low.
There were also 111 guys who had at least one 3 year period when their OPS+ was 157 or higher. So Mattingly's peak is not unusual. There were some guys who had multiple 3 year periods, some of which overlapped.
From 1987-89 his OPS+ stats were 146-128-133 (and 136 for the entire period). So his numbers were declining quickly. Then his OPS+ for the rest of his career (1990-95) was just 105, with a high of 120.
Here are some players whose best 3 year OPS+ is higher than Mattingly's
Bobby Murcer 160
Brian Giles 161
Frank Howard 173
Jim Edmonds 163
Pedro Guerrero 165
Will Clark 163
None of them are even being considered for the Hall.
Maybe his strongest stat was total bases. Here are his best years:
1984) 324
1985) 370
1986) 388
1987) 318
Since 1984 and 1987 are so close, I decided to look at a 4 year period here instead of 3. His 388 in 1986 is tied for 52nd highest ever and his 370 in 1985 is tied for 106th. Good ranks. But I don't think they are high enough given that his overall career numbers are not great. And 2 years is not enough for a peak.
He had 1,400 TBs in those 4 years. That ranks 80th all-time (again, I searched by all 3 year age groups starting at age 18). Pretty good, but I don't think that is enough for the Hall.
One thing in his favor is that only 30 guys ever had at least one 3 year period with 1,400+ TBs. So that puts him in fairly select company. But this is biased towards Mattingly since the cutoff of 1,400 just barely lets him in. I also used a 1,350 TB cutoff and in that case there are 47 guys who ever had at least one 3 year period with that threshold. So that would make Mattingly's peak less impressive. And we have to remember he played a 162 game schedule while before 1961 the schedule was 154 at the most.
One final thing. He did rank high in SLG in the AL from 1984-1986: 2nd-2nd-1st. But OBP was much less impressive. His only years in the league leaders during his career were 1984 (10th) and 1986 (5th).
Update Dec. 12:
I looked at Mattingly's SLG relative to the league average for the years 1984-1986. I used the Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia.
The first search covered the years 1946-1999 (the post War 20th century). It was for guys with 400+ PAs. Here are his ranks with Year-RelSLG-SLG-League SLG:
275 Don Mattingly 1986 140 .573 .408
295 Don Mattingly 1985 140 .567 .406
467 Don Mattingly 1984 135 .537 .398
His .573 SLG in 1986 was 40% higher than the league average (hence the 140). None of these ranks are high enough to me to make him Hall worthy (and it is only a 54 year period).
Now the league average in the AL gets bumped up due to the DH. So I also searched the years 1973-2012 (my Complete Baseball Encyclopedia only goes up to 2012). Here are his ranks for that:
88 Don Mattingly 1986 140 .573 .408
99 Don Mattingly 1985 140 .567 .406
169 Don Mattingly 1984 135 .537 .398
Again, not that impressive considering it is just 40 years and one league. Here are some guys whose best year is better than Mattingly's and rank higher than 88th:
10 Fred Lynn 1979 156 .637 .408
12 Josh Hamilton 2010 155 .633 .408
13 Juan Gonzalez 1993 155 .632 .408
14 Mike Napoli 2011 154 .631 .409
24 Jose Bautista 2010 151 .617 .408
27 Travis Hafner 2006 150 .659 .438
28 Danny Tartabull 1991 150 .593 .395
30 Carlos Delgado 2000 149 .664 .444
31 Fred Lynn 1975 149 .566 .379
32 Jose Bautista 2011 149 .608 .409
38 John Olerud 1993 147 .599 .408
44 Juan Gonzalez 1998 146 .630 .432
45 Bobby Grich 1981 146 .543 .373
50 Oscar Gamble 1977 145 .588 .405
53 Juan Gonzalez 1996 145 .643 .445
55 John Mayberry 1975 144 .547 .379
58 Chris Hoiles 1993 143 .585 .408
62 Paul Konerko 2010 143 .584 .408
63 Brady Anderson 1996 143 .637 .445
66 George Bell 1987 142 .605 .426
67 Rob Deer 1992 142 .547 .385
70 Jermaine Dye 2006 142 .622 .438
74 Ruben Sierra 1989 141 .543 .384
75 Nelson Cruz 2010 141 .576 .408
82 Ben Oglivie 1980 141 .563 .399
There are 25 players here (and some appear more than once, Lynn, Gonzalez and Bautista). I don't think any of them are being considered for the Hall. The guys I left out are all in the Hall, will probably make it or are associated with PEDs.
