Cooperstown Alert: Here Come the Hitters

We’ve all heard it before: “You can’t walk your way off the island.”

Many Dominicans have used this adage to explain their hitting approach — an aggressive style with an expansive strike zone and and interesting mix of pitch selection.

That philosophy has worked wonders for those who have employed a swing-happy way up the ranks of professional baseball in the States. The best ones refined their approach and are now All-Stars, batting champs and home run kings.

Since the late 1950s, we’ve been witnessing a compelling range of successful Dominican hitters. In just one family, the pioneering Aloú brothers, you had Felipe, the oldest sibling, who compiled three .300 seasons along with 2,101 career hits and a lifetime .286 average. The next brother, Mateo (Matty), was the first Dominican to win a batting title when he hit .342 to lead the National League in 1966. Mateo hit .300 eight times and finished with a lifetime .307 average. The youngest, Jesús, hit .300 twice and won two World Series with the Oakland A’s.

The wave of Dominican hitters that followed included Rico Carty and Cesar Cedeño, All-Stars whose careers were derailed by off-field issues and injuries. Carty nonetheless amassed eight .300 seasons and a lifetime .299 average. Cedeño’s combination of speed and power were a rare mix that produced three seasons of 20 home runs and 50 stolen bases and a .285 lifetime average.

Then the big boppers arrived. The ability to change a game with a swing of the bat propelled George Bell and Miguel Tejeda to AL MVP awards in 1987 and 2002, respectively. Pedro Guerrero terrorized the National League for 15 seasons, finishing with a career batting average of .300.

The hits, and hitters, kept coming: Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramírez, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols. That’s 2,319 home runs.

But this country of ballplayers, ballplayers who arrived ready to swing and swing hard, had yet to produce a position player worthy of the Hall of Fame. The only representatives of the Dominican Republic in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum until this year have been two right-handed aces — Juan Marichal, who was inducted in 1983; and Pedro Martínez, enshrined in 2015.

That all changed today with the election of Vladimir Guerrero, a bad-ball hitter extraordinaire whose swinging ways belied a disciplined approach to hitting that struck fear in the hearts and minds of opposing pitchers and managers.

Perfecting the philosophy

Fans are familiar with the sight of Guerrero’s fellow countryman Adrián Beltré launching home runs from his knees. But before Beltré — the first Dominican-born player to 3,000 hits — there was “Vlad,” stroking extra-base line drives to every part of the field, even off pitches that bounced 3 feet in front of home plate.

But a wide swing zone didn’t mean, as is often the case, that he was a strikeout king. Guerrero never once whiffed 100 times in a season. His high of 95 strikeouts occurred in 1998 — his first full season. And while he never totaled more than 84 walks in a season, Vlad led the league in intentional walks five times and retired with 250, fifth all-time behind Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Hank Aaron and Willie McCovey.

That stat, never fully appreciated nor appropriately quantified by sabermetrics, is a sign of ultimate respect. With Vlad, managers gave up trying to figure out how to get him out and simply gave him an intentional free pass.

What Vlad did was swing with purpose. He perfected the hitting philosophy embedded in the saying “you can’t walk your way off the island.” Guerrero retired as a .318 hitter, notching 13 seasons over .300.

Never once did he hit below .290 in a full season — and that .290 was in his last season. His lifetime average is the highest among Dominican major leaguers.

Vlad is the first of the great Dominican hitters to gain election. But don’t expect him to be the last; Vlad has flipped the script.

So, here come the hitters. Who knows when the next Dominican pitcher might get elected?

That new wave was clearly on the mind of Marichal when he was asked last summer at All-Star festivities about sharing with Martínez the distinction of being the only Dominicans in the Hall of Fame.

“I think in the future, we’re going to have a different position player, because the next is going to be Vladimir Guerrero, then Albert Pujols, Adrian Beltré, and so many… David Ortiz, the Big Papi,” Marichal said.

That’s right, here come the hitters.

Featured Image: Steve Schaefer / AFP / Getty Images