It’s time for the baseball Hall of Fame debates to begin. From now until the results are announced, FanIQ will be taking a look at this year’s major candidates. Up next: Dave Parker.

Dave Parker broke into the bigs in 1973 in an unfortunate position: taking over right field in Pittsburgh for Roberto Clemente. The Cobra spent his first eleven years with the Pirates before moving to Cincinnati, Oakland, Milwaukee, and finally California and Toronto in his final year. This is Parker’s twelfth year on the ballot. His career stats can be found here.

Pros For Induction

Parker had a monster peak in Pittsburgh, particularly from 1975-1979. In those years, Parker won two batting titles (1977, 1978), two slugging titles (1975, 1978), and the 1978 MVP award. During his time in Pittsburgh, he made four of his seven All-Star teams. He had one other monster year, hitting .312/.365/.551 with 34 HRs and 125 RBIs with the Reds in 1985, finishing second in the MVP.

Surprisingly, Parker accumulated a lot of hits, 2712 in all, good enough for 55^th all-time. Parker finished with a career batting average of .290. Overall, Parker’s Black Ink (league leader) and Gray Ink (top 10 in league) standards are right at the level of “average Hall of Famer,” according to baseball-reference.com.

Cons Against Induction

Parker was a major figure in the 1980s cocaine scandal. He was a witness in the Pittsburgh drug trials, and would have been suspended for all of 1986 had he not agreed to donate part of his salary and perform community service. This tarnished Parker the rest of his career.

For whatever reason, whether it was injuries or the cocaine or something else, Parker was never the same player after 1979, save for his crazy 1985. Take away 1985 from the equation, and in the 80s, Parker only eclipsed 30 homers once, and 25 homers only one other time. Save for that 1985 spike, he never slugged over .500 again. As such, Parker finished with only 339 career homers.

Not only did Parker’s power go with the 80s, his skills at getting on base did as well. During his late 70s prime, Parker posted the following OBPs: .357, .349, .397, .394, .380. After that though, Parker’s best OBP was .365 (in that crazy 1985 season). Take that year out, and his high drops to a sub-optimal .330. His career OBP was .339, barely above the average for the years he played (.333).

The Verdict

I’ll admit, this is a much closer case that I expected when I started researching. In the end though, I have to say no. Parker’s prime was very good, but it was only five years plus one fluke year later in his career. After that, Parker doesn’t have a season with an OPS+ higher than 117. For Parker, it was a lot of hit accumulation, but with much less power and less on base skills. I could still be convinced otherwise, but in the end I only see six really excellent, Hall of Fame caliber years.

Will He Get In?

The conventional wisdom is that Parker’s past cocaine problems are hurting his vote totals, and the results seem to give this merit. His peak in the voting was 1998, receiving 24.5% of the vote. He’s since dropped into the low teens, dropping to 11.4% last year. Expect a similar total this year.

Now it’s your turn. Discuss Parker’s candidacy in the comments, and be sure to vote in both his individual poll and Seth’s poll encompassing the entire ballot.