Originally Posted August 5th, 2016
There was a time when Teixeira was one of the best, if not the best, first basemen in the game. In 2009, his best season of his career, he had a slash line of .292/.383/.565 with 39 home runs, 103 runs, and 122 RBIs. Over his 14 year career Teixeira has 1,836 hits, 1,281 RBIs, and 404 home runs with a career .269 batting average.
None of Mark Teixeira’s statistics are eye popping or numbers that make you say he is an automatic for the hall of fame. If we compare the average statistics for hitters who are already in the hall of fame we can get a better picture of where Teixeira falls. Hall of famers average batting average is .302, he falls well short of that. Average number of hits 2,402 he will fall around 500 hits short of that. Average number of home runs is 216, Teixeira is well over that. In fact he would have the 28th most home runs in the hall if he doesn’t hit another one this season. And finally the average number of RBIs and runs is 1,219 and 1,326 respectively, which Teixeira falls somewhat in line with considering he has 1,281 RBIs and 1,085 runs to date.
If you just became a baseball fan in the past five years you probably would not say that Teixeira is hall of fame worthy, but for those of us who saw him at his prime and can look at his whole body of work I think would agree that though he won’t get in on the first ballot he will be a future member of the baseball hall of fame.
