Today is Dave Parker's 73rd birthday. Should he be in The Hall of Fame?

Right now he is tied for 348th place in WAR among position players at Baseball Reference (with Dave Concepcion and Albert Belle, two other guys that sometimes get named as possible Hall of Famers). 

 

By my count there are 176 position players from the American League, National League, Federal League, American Association, Players League, Union Association and National Association in The Hall.

 

He did have pretty good peak value. Here are his top 10 finishes:

1975) 5th (6.3)

1977) 3rd (7.4)

1978) 1st (7.0)

1979) 4th (6.7)

Here is everyone who had 25+ WAR among position players in the NL from 1975-79:

Mike Schmidt  38.7
Dave Parker  31.1
Joe Morgan  30.8
George Foster  29.1
Ron Cey  26.7
Johnny Bench  26.3
Dave Winfield  25.9

Seven players and four of them are in The Hall.

Bill James had him with 327 Win Shares in his original win shares book. That ranked him 118th (tied with Sam Rice). I counted 24 pitchers ahead of him. So that would mean that he was in the top 100 for position players through 2001. Seems good enough to be in The Hall.

Through 2001, Parker was tied for 275th in career WAR for position player at Baseball Reference. So a big discrepancy with Win Shares. 

 

One difference is that BB Ref has him with -14.8 in defensive WAR (it was -9.5 through 1987 after which he DHed alot and I think that has an automatic negative adjustment for defensive WAR). Bill James gave him a C+ for defense, so it seems like Win Shares rates him better there.

Through 2001, James had Parker as the 14th best RFer ever. Seems close, at least, to being a Hall of Famer.

Fangraphs has him at 320th in WAR for position players with 41.1.