Braves Getting Behind Dale Murphy For Major League’s Hall Of Fame
posted November 17, 2011ATLANTA — Bobby Cox, Phil Niekro, Pete Van Wieren and many of the most respected figures in Atlanta Braves history have long said they believe Dale Murphy belongs in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

With Murphy scheduled to be on the Hall of Fame ballot just two more times, Braves president John Schuerholz has intensified the efforts to campaign for one of his organization’s most beloved figures. Schuerholz has sent a letter to Hall of Fame voters and other members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America asking them to take a closer look at Murphy’s credentials.

Murphy won back-to-back National League Most Valuable Player Awards in 1982 and ’83 and was just one of six players during the 1980s to record 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in a season (’83). He won five Gold Glove Awards, four Silver Slugger Awards and earned seven All-Star selections.

Murphy’s supporters have continued to point out that he led all Major League outfielders during the 1980s in home runs (308) and RBIs (929). He ranked second among outfielders during this span in hits (1,553) and extra-base hits (596).

But Murphy’s candidacy has seemingly been hindered by his .265 lifetime batting average, which was damaged during some unproductive years late in his career. He hit .289 from 1982-87, and batted .238 from ’88 until the end of his career in ’93.

Murphy was included on 12.6 percent of the ballots cast this past year. This was .9 percent higher than he drew in 2010. Players need to receive at least five percent of the votes to remain on the ballot the following year.

This will be the 14th time that Murphy’s name has appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. If not elected after 15 years, players are removed from the ballot and their candidacy rests in the hands of voting conducted by the Veterans Committee.

Below is Schuerholz’s letter:

Dear Hall of Fame Voter:

As you prepare to vote for the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2012, please accept this letter in support of Dale Murphy.

The Atlanta Braves organization is extremely proud of Dale’s outstanding accomplishments during an extraordinary 18-year Major League career, 15 of which were spent with the Braves.

Not only on the field, but off the field as well, Dale represented himself and the city of Atlanta with the class and professionalism consistent with the ideals of Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Even today, he continues to be one of our game’s greatest ambassadors.

On the following two pages, please review Dale’s remarkable accomplishments produced over what the Braves family feels is a Hall of Fame career. On behalf of our organization and Dale individually, I thank you for your consideration.

____________

Source: MLB.com

Qualifier: players will be classified under one position even if they played at more than one.

Fred McGriff:

Five-time All-Star first baseman Fred McGriff was an outstanding midseason acquisition by the Atlanta Braves in 1993. McGriff batted over .300 with a 1.000-plus OPS over his first two years with the Braves. Then in 1995, he homered twice in the World Series to help bring Atlanta it’s latest championship. McGriff racked up 2,490 hits, 493 home runs and 4,458 total bases with a .377 on-base percentage in his 19-year career. He has been on the Hall of Fame ballot in each of the last two years, receiving about 20 percent of the vote each time.

Joe Adcock:

Former All-Star Joe Adcock joined the Braves in Milwaukee in 1953 and spent the next ten years with the team. Adcock was consistently one of the best power hitters in the National League, slugging .511 over 1,207 games as a Brave. He ranks sixth in franchise history with 239 home runs including a career-high 38 in 1956 and a four-homer game in 1954. Adcock won a World Series with the Braves in 1957 and was a big part of their 1958 pennant team. He maintained a 130 OPS+ (league average is 100) and was worth 26.6 wins above replacement (WAR) for the Braves.

Fred Tenney:

Fred Tenney spent a franchise record 1,556 games at first base when the team played in Boston. Tenney was a great player on both sides of the game and an on-and-off player/manager. From 1894 to 1911, he maintained a .300 batting average with a .376 OBP and 111 OPS+. He racked up 2,231 hits, 1,278 runs and 42.8 WAR in 17 Major League seasons and his 260 stolen bases in Boston remain one of the top five totals in Braves history.

Andres Galarraga:

Five-time All-Star Andres Galarraga was Atlanta’s power-hitting first baseman from 1998 to 2000. After an outstanding 1998 season in which he batted .305, belted 44 home runs and drove in 121 RBI, Galarraga faced the ultimate adversity as he battled lymphoma. His return to the field in 2000 yielded another 100 RBI season, his final All-Star appearance and the NL Comeback Player of the Year award. Galarraga retired from baseball in 2004 with career totals of 2,333 hits and 399 home runs.

Earl Torgeson:

Earl Torgeson was a great lefty first baseman and a complete player who was one of the best at getting on base in an era before the value of OBP was truly recognized. Spending his first six Major League seasons with the Boston Braves, Torgeson batted .265 with 478 walks against 294 strikeouts in 720 games. He ranked in the top ten in walks six times and stolen bases seven times. As a Brave, he posted a .385 OBP and 122 OPS+.

Honorable mentions: Orlando Cepeda, John Morrill, Chris Chambliss and Tommy Tucker.

Sources:

Atlanta Braves Team History & Encyclopedia, Baseball-Reference.com

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November 15, 2011 – International League (IL) Gwinnett Braves
Lawrenceville, GA – Former Gwinnett Braves right-hander Craig Kimbrel received the 2011 National
League Rookie of the Year award in an announcement made Monday by the Atlanta Braves. A dominant
closer for the G-Braves in 2010 that fulfilled the same role with Atlanta in 2011, Kimbrel secured all 32
first-place votes from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in becoming the seventh Atlanta
Braves player to win the award all-time.

Kimbrel edged teammate and fellow former G-Brave Freddie Freeman, who earned 21 second-place
votes and seven third-place votes.

Kimbrel, 23, set a Major League rookie record with 46 saves in 2011, going 4-3 with a 2.10 ERA (18 ER
in 77.0 IP) and 127 strikeouts in 79 appearances. Major League opponents hit just .178 against him in
his first full professional season. In 2010, he went 4-0 with one save and a 0.44 ERA in 21 outings for the
Braves, but did not qualify for Rookie of the Year voting.

Originally drafted by the Braves in the third round in 2008 out of Wallace State Community College (AL),
Kimbrel pitched two scoreless outings with Gwinnett in 2009 and enjoyed breakout success with the G-
Braves in 2010. He went 3-2 with 23 saves and a 1.62 ERA (10 ER in 55.2 IP) in 48 International League
outings that season. Kimbrel shared the club’s “Most Outstanding Pitcher” of 2010 award with right-
hander Stephen Marek.

Kimbrel is the first Braves player to win the award since Rafael Furcal in 2000 and the first unanimous NL
Rookie of the Year selection since Albert Pujols of St. Louis in 2001.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

By Eddie Maisonet

– Newsdesk contributor

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Nov 2, 2011 – On Wednesday All-Star catcher Brian McCann became only the third Atlanta Braves to win four or more Silver Slugger awards, joining Tom Glavine and Dale Murphy as the only members of the esteemed fraternity. McCann hit .270 with 24 home runs and 71 RBIs on the season as the Braves missed the playoffs by one game.

The Silver Slugger Award is awarded annually to the best offensive player at each position in both the American League and the National League, as determined by the coaches and managers of Major League Baseball. Here is the full list of players who won the award this year.

 

For the latest news and analysis on the Braves off-season, head over to Talking Chop, and for more information on baseball’s hot-stove season, check out our MLB news hub.

Read More: Brian McCann (C – ATL), Atlanta Braves

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Qualifier: players will be classified under one position even if they played at more than one.

Joe Torre:

Before becoming one of the most prominent managers in Major League Baseball, Joe Torre was a five-time All-Star for the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves. Torre gave the Braves one of the best hitters at his position in the 1960s. He batted .294 with a .818 OPS over 1,037 games with the Braves. Torre later won a National League MVP and went to four more All-Star Games with the St. Louis Cardinals. In his 18-year career as a whole, he racked up 2,342 hits, 252 home runs and 1,185 RBI.

Del Crandall:

Del Crandall was an eight-time All-Star backstop for the Braves from 1949 to 1963. In 1,394 games with the Braves, Crandall maintained a .257 batting average and slugged .412. Defensively, he won four Gold Gloves and tossed out 46 percent of base-stealers. Crandall was a part of the Braves’ second World Series Championship team in 1957. Like Torre, Crandall went on to manage in the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers and Seattle Mariners.

Javy Lopez:

One of the best offensive catchers in recent Major League history, three-time All-Star Javy Lopez played his first 12 seasons with Atlanta from 1992 to 2003. Lopez was a .287 hitter with a 113 OPS+ (league average is 100) over 1,156 games behind the plate in Atlanta. He went to nine playoffs and won a World Series with the Braves in 1995. Lopez capped his Braves career with a brilliant 2003 season in which he cracked 43 home runs, drove in 109 RBI and posted a 1.065 OPS.

Brian McCann(notes):

Current Braves catcher Brian McCann has been a NL All-Star in each of his six full seasons in the big leagues. McCann has hit 20 home runs and topped the .800 OPS mark five times in the last six years, pulling in four Silver Sluggers in the process. His bat has been worth 21.8 wins above replacement for a team that competes for a playoff spot year in and year out. Through 882 games in the majors, McCann boasts 878 hits and 136 home runs.

Hank Gowdy:

Longtime Boston Braves catcher Hank Gowdy was the starting backstop for the Braves’ first World Series winner in 1914. Gowdy played for the Braves for 14 years over two stints from 1911 to 1930. Behind the dish, he threw out 51% of potential base-stealers overall, twice leading the NL in the category. Gowdy was a career .270 hitter with a 104 OPS+. He reached as high as 35.9% in the Hall of Fame voting, but never made it in.

Sources:

Atlanta Braves Team History & Encyclopedia, Baseball-Reference.com

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By Christopher Gates

– Managing Editor

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Oct 26, 2011 – As we sit on the precipice of the sixth game of what has been a very good 2011 World Series, I feel it’s only appropriate that we take a look back at what might be the greatest moment in Minnesota Twins history. . .which, ironically enough, also took place in a Game Six.

The year was 1991, exactly twenty years ago tonight, when the Atlanta Braves, who went from worst-to-first from 1990 to 1991 much like the Twins did, brought a 3-2 series lead into the Metrodome in the hopes of closing out the Twins and winning their first World Series title since moving to Atlanta from Milwaukee. The Braves were coming off of three consecutive victories in Atlanta, including a 14-5 thumping of the Twins in Game Five. The Braves sent left-hander Steve Avery, who had gone 18-8 during the regular season and had been named the MVP of the National League Championship Series, to the mound. The Twins countered with right-hander Scott Erickson, who had gone 20-8 during the regular season en route to being voted runner-up for the American League Cy Young Award.

The Twins got to Avery first, as Chuck Knoblauch reached first on a one-out single in the bottom of the first inning, and Kirby Puckett brought him home with a triple to make it 1-0. After Chili Davis was retired, Shane Mack singled to bring home Puckett and give Minnesota a 2-0 lead after one inning.

It stayed that way until the top of the fifth, when National League MVP Terry Pendleton hit a two-run homer off of Erickson to make tie the score at two. The Twins pulled ahead in the bottom of the inning, when Dan Gladden walked to lead off the inning and stole second base. Gladden advanced to third on a fly ball by Knoblauch, and came home on Puckett’s sacrifice fly to make the score 3-2.

After Erickson gave up a single to Mark Lemke to start the top of the seventh inning, he was lifted for Mark Guthrie. With one out, Guthrie threw a wild pitch to allow Lemke to move to second, and a walk to Lonnie Smith and a single by Pendleton loaded the bases. Guthrie was then lifted for Carl Willis, who got Ron Gant to ground into a fielder’s choice, but Lemke came in to score and tied the game at three.

The score remained that way through nine, and into the bottom of the eleventh, when the Braves brought in one of their starters, left-hander Charlie Liebrandt, from the bullpen. With Avery, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine comprising the Braves’ post-season rotation, Liebrandt had been used out of the bullpen by Bobby Cox during the playoffs. Puckett led off the bottom of the eleventh for Minnesota.

What happened from there will forever be a part of Minnesota sports lore.

There’s a reason that Liebrandt is, to this day, known south of the Mason-Dixon line as Charlie “F’ing” Liebrandt. That 2-1 pitch to Kirby Puckett is that reason.

Jack Buck gave us one of the single greatest calls in World Series history, Kirby Puckett gave us one of the greatest memories in Minnesota sports history, and the greatest World Series in the history of baseball was pushed to a seventh game.

Exactly twenty years ago. It makes you wonder where the time has gone, doesn’t it?

Read More: 1991 world series, 1991 world series game 6, 1991 world series game six, and we’ll see you tomorrow night, Tom Glavine (P – ATL), John Smoltz (P – STL), Scott Erickson (P – NYY), Mark Guthrie (P – TAM), Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves

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