Ken Boyer: Underappreciated Star, Hall of Fame Candidate

On December 8th, former St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer will be considered for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum by the Classic Baseball Era Committee. Boyer is one of eight candidates on a ballot that evaluates players and others whose primary impact on the game was between 1871 and 1980.

Although Boyer has a strong case for the Hall of Fame, he’s never had a “close call” in which he was nearly elected to the Hall. In 15 tries on the Baseball Writers Association of America Ballot (BBWAA), he maxed out at 25.5% in an election that requires at least 75% support for a plaque in Cooperstown. He’s also been on four “second chance ballots” (via the Veterans Committee or the Eras Committee) without ever passing the 25% threshold. Given that the 2025 Classic Baseball ballot has several candidates who have gotten much more prior Hall of Fame voting support, it’s unlikely that Boyer will have a breakthrough this year.

The Hall’s rules are formidable: the ballot has eight candidates and a voting committee of 16 members. Each committee member is limited to a maximum of three votes. Thus, a player needs to get 12 out of 16 votes (75%) to get into Cooperstown, making the math very difficult when there are more than three worthy candidates. The other candidates on this ballot are Dick Allen, Dave Parker, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Luis Tiant, and Negro Leaguers John Donaldson and Vic Harris.

The last time Boyer was on an Era Committee ballot (the 2022 Golden Days ballot), he received anywhere from zero to three votes on a ballot that required 12 votes for election to Cooperstown. Four players that year were elected on that ballot (Minnie Minoso, Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, and Tony Oliva), while Allen fell one vote shy with 11 votes.

Cooperstown Cred: Ken Boyer (3B)

• Cardinals (1955-65), Mets (1966-67), White Sox (1967-68), Dodgers (1968-69)
• Career: .287 BA, .349 OBP, .462 SLG, 282 HR, 1,141 RBI, 2,143 Hits
• Career: 116 OPS+, 62.8 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 7 seasons as an All-Star
• 5-time Gold Glove Award Winner
• 1964 N.L. MVP (.295 BA, 24 HR, 119 RBI, 130 OPS+)
• Member of the ’64 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals

This is an update of an article originally written in November 2021.

Ken Boyer: Before the Majors

Kenton Lloyd Boyer was born on May 20th, 1931, in Liberty, Missouri. Kenton was the third oldest son in a family of 14 born to Vern and Mabel Boyer. For most of Ken’s childhood, the family lived in the southwest corner of Missouri, settling in a town called Alba when he was 10 years old. Alba is 15 miles north of Joplin and 65 miles west of Springfield. It’s a short drive to Arkansas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Ken was one of seven sons in the Boyer family; all seven played minor league baseball. His older brother Cloyd Boyer pitched for five seasons in Major League Baseball. His younger brother Clete Boyer had a 16-year career as a stalwart defensive third sacker who won two World Series Championships with the New York Yankees. Alba was such a small town that about 5% of the population had grown up in the Boyer home.

Ken played four years of basketball and baseball for Alba High School and also played football in his senior year. Older brother Cloyd compared Ken to Larry Bird as a basketball player. Ken was the most popular kid in school who dated the principal’s daughter.

In 1949, Ken was signed out of high school by the St. Louis Cardinals; Cloyd was already in the Cardinals organization and was pitching for the Rochester Red Wings in the International League (AAA). Ken was initially tried as a pitcher, and he went 5-1 with a 3.42 ERA in ’49 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania (class D). In Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (class D) in 1950, Boyer continued to be used as a pitcher but displayed so much promise as a hitter and fielder that he was moved permanently to third base.

In his first full season as a position player (playing for Omaha in Class A in 1951), Boyer hit .306 with a .455 slugging percentage. After the ’51 campaign, the 20-year-old Ken Boyer was drafted into the Army and spent two years serving overseas in Germany and Africa, where he continued to play baseball. Boyer returned to the U.S. in 1954 and spent that season playing in the Texas League (AA) for the Houston Buffaloes. Now 23 years old, Boyer was easily the team’s best player; he hit .319 (.378 OBP, .506 SLG) with 21 HR and 116 RBI.

The 1954 St. Louis Cardinals had an All-Star third baseman in Ray Jablonski, who hit .296 and drove in 104 runs, but the team’s management had so much confidence that Boyer could replace him that they traded Jablonski in the offseason to the Cincinnati Redlegs.

1955-63: Steady Kenny

A starter at third base all season long, Boyer had a decent rookie campaign with the Cardinals in 1955, hitting .264 with 18 HR and 62 RBI but blossomed into a star in 1956 when he hit .306 with 26 HR and 98 RBI. Boyer also showed terrific defensive form, leading the National League in assists and double plays turned. With superb defensive metrics and an OPS+ of 124, today’s advanced statistical tools credit Boyer with a 6.4 WAR in ’56. Boyer’s excellence was noticed even by his traditional numbers: he made his first All-Star squad (as the league’s starting third baseman) and finished 28th in the N.L. MVP balloting.

The 1957 Cardinals didn’t have a good center fielder, but they did have another third baseman (Eddie Kasko), so Boyer volunteered to move to center. Kenny didn’t miss a beat in the outfield, leading all center fielders in the N.L. in fielding percentage while finishing 3rd in range factor. Boyer regressed a bit at the plate, hitting .265 (94 OPS+) with 19 HR and 62 RBI. With future Hall of Fame first baseman Stan Musial leading the way (Stan the Man hit .351 with a 172 OPS+), the Redbirds were in contention for the N.L. pennant until the final month of the season, finishing with 87 wins, eight behind the Milwaukee Brewers, who featured sluggers Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews.

The Redbirds acquired a new center fielder in the off-season (Curt Flood), so Boyer was moved back to the hot corner for the 1958 campaign. Back at what was now his natural position, Boyer thrived, leading the N.L. in putouts and double plays turned while finishing 2nd in assists. He won the first of his five Gold Gloves and finished 13th in the MVP vote, thanks to a .307 BA (120 OPS+), 23 HR, and 90 RBI.

Steady Kenny was an All-Star again in 1959 (twice, since MLB had two Mid-Summer classics from 1959-62). He hit .309 (130 OPS+) with 28 HR and 94 RBI. He won his 2nd Gold Glove and finished 10th in the MVP vote. Today, Baseball-Reference credits Boyer with a 7.4 WAR in ’59, the 5th best in the N.L. behind Ernie Banks, Aaron, Mathews, and Willie Mays among position players. During the ’59 campaign, Boyer had a 29-game hitting streak, four short of the team record set by Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby.

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In 1960, in his age 29 season, Boyer had the best offensive campaign of his career: he hit .304 (144 OPS+) while setting career highs with 32 HR and 97 RBI. Boyer won his third straight Gold Glove and was a two-time All-Star again. He was again 5th in the N.L. in WAR for position players (6.9), behind the same four future Hall of Famers (Mays, Aaron, Banks, Mathews). The writers, blissfully oblivious to WAR, still found Boyer worthy of a 6th place MVP finish.

Boyer continued to deliver consistent production in the 1961 campaign, a season that featured the emergence of a 25-year-old fireballer named Bob Gibson. Boyer had a career-best batting average of .329 (136 OPS+) while maintaining his steady power game (24 HR, 95 RBI). Baseball-Reference credits the Redbirds’ third sacker with an 8.0 WAR, 3rd best in the league, behind Aaron and Mays. For the third straight season, Boyer finished in the top 10 of the N.L. MVP voting, finishing 7th. He was again a two-time All-Star and won his 4th consecutive Gold Glove.

Boyer’s batting average (and OPS+) dipped a bit in 1962 and 1963, but he maintained his consistent offensive production.

• 1962: .291 BA (115 OPS+), 24 HR, 98 RBI, 5.6 WAR
• 1963: .285 BA (124 OPS+), 24 HR, 111 RBI, 5.2 WAR

In 1962, Boyer was again selected to the All-Star Game twice but did not win the Gold Glove, losing to San Francisco’s Jim Davenport. He was chosen to the solo Mid-Summer Classic in ’63 and did win his 5th and final Gold Glove Award. Although Kenny failed to finish in the top 10 of the MVP vote in either season, he did finish 18th in ’62 and 13th in ’63.

The ’63 Redbirds won 93 games, putting them in 2nd place in the National League, behind the 99-win Los Angeles Dodgers.

1964: MVP Campaign

The pinnacle of Ken Boyer’s career came in 1964 when he was the National League’s Most Valuable Player, and his team finally won the pennant while going on to win the World Series.

Throughout his career to date, Boyer had been exceptionally durable, playing between 147 and 153 of the team’s 154 games from 1955-61, 160 games in ’62, and 159 games in ’63. In 1964, the 5-time Gold Glover played in all 162 of his team’s regular-season games. Offensively, Boyer slashed .295/.365/.489 (130 OPS+), while hitting 24 HR with 119 RBI, the most in all of Major League Baseball and, likely, the principal reason he was named the league’s MVP. In what was the final Hall of Fame-caliber season of his career, Boyer’s WAR was 6.1.

Thanks in part to a mid-season acquisition by the Cardinals of fleet-footed Lou Brock (the future Hall of Famer), the Redbirds again won 93 games. In this season, that was good enough to eke out a one-game margin for the N.L. pennant ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds.

After a walk-off loss in San Francisco on August 23rd, Johnny Keane’s Cardinals had a 65-58 record and were in 4th place in the N.L., 11 games behind the Phillies, leading the way with a 76-47 mark. Gene Mauch’s Phillies featured a future Hall of Fame starting pitcher (Jim Bunning), an MVP candidate (right fielder Johnny Callison), and a dynamic rookie third baseman (Dick Allen, who is also on this December’s Golden Days Hall of Fame ballot).

The pennant was Philadelphia’s to lose, but the Phillies had one of the most famous collapses of all time while St. Louis went on a run. The Redbirds went 28-11 in their final 39 games while the Phils lost 23 of their last 39 contests, including a 10-game losing streak in late September. While Philadelphia was slumping, St. Louis was surging, winning eight games in a row from September 24-30. The Redbirds clinched the pennant with a victory over the expansion New York Mets in the season’s final game.

The 1964 World Series

In the World Series, the Cardinals faced the New York Yankees, who featured Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris (another Golden Days Hall of Fame candidate), Whitey Ford, and Ken’s younger brother Clete. The younger Boyer brother wasn’t nearly the hitter that Kenny was, but he was one of the best defensive third sackers in the American League.

The only reason that Clete didn’t win multiple Gold Gloves was because of some guy on the Baltimore Orioles named Brooks Robinson. Clete, who was playing in his fifth straight Fall Classic with the Yankees, later admitted that he was privately thrilled for his older brother because it was Ken’s first taste of postseason baseball.

Ken slumped in the first three games of the World Series; he hit .091 with just one RBI (on a Game 1 sacrifice fly). St. Louis won the first game of the series but lost Games 2 and 3.

Game 4 of the Fall Classic (at Yankee Stadium) was somewhat of a must-win giving the difficulty for teams to come back from a 3-games-to-1 deficit. At the time, this had happened only twice in Major League Baseball history: the 1925 Pirates and 1958 Yankees, with Clete Boyer, were the only teams to accomplish the feat previously.

Things looked bleak for the Redbirds early in Game 4. The Yankees scored three runs in the first inning. In the meantime, Yankees’ starter Al Downing started with five scoreless frames. Then, in the top of the 6th, after two singles and an error, the bases were loaded as Ken strode to the plate. Boyer swatted a changeup by Downing deep to left field just five or six feet to the right of the foul pole for a grand slam, giving St. Louis a 4-3 lead.

Boyer’s blast was just the 9th grand slam in the history of the Fall Classic, and the lead would hold; the Redbirds won 4-3.

Game 5 (at Yankee Stadium) featured a pitching matchup between Bob Gibson and Yankees’ rookie Mel Stottlemyre. St. Louis scored two runs off Stottlemyre in the 5th and carried a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the 9th inning, with Gibson looking to close it out. However, an error by shortstop Dick Groat contributed to two unearned runs when journeyman Tom Tresh hit a two-out, two-run blast to tie the game and send it to extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, Bill White drew a leadoff walk against Yankees’ reliever Pete Mikkelsen. Boyer then bunted to Mikkelsen’s left, reaching base with a single. After Groat grounded out, catcher Tim McCarver hit a three-run home run to right field. Gibson closed out the 10th to seal the Redbirds’ 5-2 victory.

The Yankees won Game 6 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis by an 8-3 score, setting up a winner-take-all Game 7. Gibson and Stottlemyre matched up again, both pitching on two days of rest. In the bottom of the 4th, with no runs yet on the board for either team, Ken led off with a single to center field. The Redbirds went on to score three runs to take a 3-0 lead. St. Louis tacked on three more runs in the 5th, with Boyer contributing a double and his second run scored.

After Mantle touched up Gibson for a three-run tater in the top of the 6th, Boyer added to the Cardinals’ lead with a solo home run off New York reliever Steve Hamilton.

In the top of the 9th, Clete and Phil Linz hit solo homers off Gibson, but Gibby hung on for a 7-5 win, delivering the Redbirds their first World Series title since 1946. (Incidentally, the Boyers are the only brothers to homer in the same game in World Series history).

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1965-69: Ken Boyer’s Final Five Seasons

Ken Boyer’s career started going downhill in the season after reaching its zenith. With back problems beginning to flare in his age 34 season, Boyer’s productivity waned in ’65. His offensive numbers sagged (.260 BA, 13 HR, 75 RBI), and he missed the All-Star Game for the first time since 1958. Boyer’s modern metrics (91 OPS+, 1.8 WAR) faded along with his traditional stats. Nevertheless, Boyer still managed to play in 144 games, a career-low but still a high number.

In the offseason, the Cardinals traded their long-time star to the New York Mets for third baseman Charley Smith and pitcher Al Jackson. For the Redbirds, Smith turned out to be a downgrade, although they did cash in after the ’66 campaign by trading him to the Yankees for Roger Maris.

The Mets were terrible in the early years of the franchise. They had lost at least 109 games in each of the first four seasons of their existence. Although Boyer, now in his age 35 season, was no longer in his All-Star form, he was (by virtue of his 2.6 WAR) arguably the second-best player on the team, one that won a franchise-high 66 games. Boyer, in 136 games, hit .266 (101 OPS+) with 14 HR and 61 RBI.

Boyer spent half of the 1967 campaign with the Mets before being dealt on July 22nd to the contending Chicago White Sox for minor leaguer Bill Southworth, cousin of the Hall of Fame manager Billy Southworth. In Chicago, Boyer was reunited with manager Eddie Stanky, the skipper of the 1955 Cardinals when Boyer was a rookie.

The White Sox were in first place for much of the summer but ultimately lost their final five games to finish three games behind the pennant-winning Boston Red Sox. Between his time in New York and Chicago, Boyer hit just .249 with 7 HR and 34 RBI (in 113 games).

Both Boyer and the White Sox got off to terrible starts in 1968. The veteran third sacker, starting just 5 of the team’s first 14 games, slashed a woeful .125/.160/.125 (with no RBI) while the team went 2-12. Boyer was given his release on May 2nd.

Ten days before his 37th birthday, Boyer was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers to be a backup corner infielder and pinch-hitter. Boyer, backing up Wes Parker at first base and Bob Bailey at third, appeared in 83 games for the Dodgers (29 of them as a pinch-hitter). In this part-time role, Boyer had respectable offensive numbers (.271 BA, 123 OPS+, 6 HR, 41 RBI). For the Dodgers, this was the 2nd season in the PK (post-Koufax) era; Walter Alston’s squad won just 76 games.

Boyer spent the entire 1969 campaign with the Dodgers but appeared in only 36 games (all but four as a pinch-hitter). He hit .206 with no home runs and 4 RBI in 36 plate appearances. He retired at the end of the season.

During his two seasons with the Dodgers, Boyer’s teammates included two future Hall of Fame pitchers (Don Drysdale and Don Sutton) and Maury Wills.

Ken Boyer’s Post-Playing Career

Ken Boyer, highly respected as a team leader throughout his playing days (he was called “Captain” in his latter years in St. Louis), was a natural to become a manager in his post-playing days. In 1970, he managed the Arkansas Travelers, the Cardinals’ AA affiliate.

Boyer returned to St. Louis in 1971 as the team’s batting coach. With the Redbirds, his pupils included his former teammate Lou Brock, future Hall of Famer Ted Simmons, and Joe Torre, the league MVP and future Hall of Famer as a manager.

After another season as the batting coach, Boyer returned to managing in 1973 in the Gulf Coast League. He was then promoted to manage the Cardinals’ AAA affiliate (the Tulsa Oilers) in 1974. Boyer spent three seasons in Tulsa before moving to the Baltimore organization to manage in Rochester for the 1977 campaign. (Boyer had been passed over for the Cardinals managerial job in ’77).

Boyer started the 1978 campaign in Rochester before finally getting the gig in St. Louis; he was hired to replace Vern Rapp in late April. Except for Simmons, first baseman Keith Hernandez, and center fielder George Hendrick, the ’78 Cardinals were an inferior offensive team. Overall, the Redbirds hit .249 with a .303 OBP. The team finished with a 69-93 record (62-81 with Boyer at the helm).

The 1979 Cardinals improved to a 86-76 record, thanks mainly to Hernandez’s co-MVP campaign. However, the 1980 edition of the Redbirds got off to a slow start, going 18-33 in their first 51 games. Boyer was fired in between games of a doubleheader on June 8th in Montreal. He was replaced by Whitey Herzog, who would later make it to the Hall of Fame.

The players blamed themselves for Boyer’s firing but also management for not giving him a quality team to manage:

“I think what we need here is to get us some players instead of giving us an expansion team, to put it mildly. I felt very bad for Boyer. He was put in a situation where we lost a lot of players (to injury) and didn’t have the guys to fill their shoes.”

— Ken Reitz, Cardinals third baseman (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 9th, 1980)

“The worst team I’ve been on since I’ve been in the major leagues. The worst. We are bad. The manager is only as good as his horses and we don’t have the horses. I’m going to miss Ken Boyer. Period.”

— Keith Hernandez, Cardinals first baseman (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 9th, 1980)

Sadly, this was Ken Boyer’s last managerial gig. He was supposed to manage the Cardinals AAA affiliate in Louisville in 1982 but had to pass on the opportunity because he had contracted lung cancer. He passed away on September 7th, 1982, at the age of 51.

Ken Boyer and the Hall of Fame Ballot

Eight years before he passed away, Ken Boyer was on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. On that ballot (for the Hall’s Class of 1975), he received nine votes (out of a maximum of 362). That paltry 2.5% total put him behind 28 other players, 14 of whom would eventually be inducted into Cooperstown.

Back in the 1970s, the Hall of Fame didn’t yet have its longstanding 5% rule, in which a player would be dropped off future BBWAA ballots if they failed to get at least 5% of the vote. And, so, Boyer stuck around on the ballot for an additional four years but still never hit the 5% mark. As a result, he was left off the 1980 ballot.

In December 1984, however, Boyer and others were given a second chance. The Hall of Fame commissioned a six-man committee of veteran baseball writers who reinstated Boyer and ten other candidates who had previously been expunged from the ballot (Dick Allen was also among those ten). Boyer fared far better on this second chance with the BBWAA, although his 17.2% was still just the 15th-highest total and far below the 75% needed for a Cooperstown plaque. Boyer appeared on the BBWAA ballot an additional nine times; the highest vote percentage he ever received was in 1988 when he got 25.5% support.

Boyer first appeared on the Veterans Committee ballot in 2003. At the time, the Hall had decided to open the voting to all living Hall of Famers. If getting a new inductee was the goal, the plan did not work. Of the 81 votes cast, Gil Hodges got the most (with 50); 50 out of 82 is good (62%) but not good enough when 75% is required. On this ballot, Boyer received just 11 votes. It was much of the same in 2007 when Boyer got 9 out of 84 votes.

Boyer has been on three additional Eras Committee ballots in the last 13 years. However, on all three ballots (2012, 2015, and 2022, he received so few votes that the total support he received was not reported publicly.

Why Ken Boyer has Received No Hall of Fame Support

To understand why Ken Boyer has never gotten close to the Hall of Fame is to realize that he’s been hampered by positional bias and the fact that much of what makes him a strong candidate today is rooted in sabermetric statistics that did not exist when he was on the BBWAA ballot and was likely not considered much (if at all) when he’s been on the Veterans or Eras Committee ballots.

Boyer had the bad luck of retiring from baseball one year after Eddie Mathews, who hit with the kind of authority never previously seen among third basemen. When you look at the pair of third sackers side-by-side, it’s clear who reigned supreme.

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It’s obvious. Mathews’ statistics are dramatically superior. And, yet, the BBWAA voters were notoriously tough graders at the time and stingy with Cap’n Eddie when he first appeared on the ballot, conferring just 32.3% of the vote on the 1974 ballot. It took Mathews five tries to finally make it into Cooperstown in 1978. On the last four times that Mathews was on the ballot, Boyer was on it with him, looking vastly inferior by comparison.

During the late 1970s, the writers were also witnessing new levels of third base offense from the likes of Mike Schmidt and George Brett. But those two first-ballot Hall of Famers weren’t contemporaries with Boyer. Additionally, as a five-time Gold Glover, Boyer’s strong defensive resume paled compared to one of his peers from the other league, Baltimore’s Brooks Robinson, who won 16 Gold Gloves.

It seems as if Boyer was dismissed as a Hall of Fame candidate because he wasn’t in Mathews’ league offensively or Robinson’s defensively. But who could measure up to those standards? As it turned out, Schmidt measured up to Mathews with the stick, while nobody could match Robinson with the glove.

Ken Boyer’s Statistical Ranks for 3B (through 1969)

What hurt Boyer as a Cooperstown candidate was that he was, for a third baseman, really good at both hitting and fielding but didn’t blow you away with either. Take a look at how Boyer ranked in various statistical categories at the end of his career. (In this instance, I included Boyer’s WAR to plant the seed about his combined value of hitting and defense).

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As you can see, at the time of his retirement, Boyer had the second-most home runs for a third baseman in all of baseball history, but he was light years behind Mathews (who clubbed 512 taters). Moreover, although Boyer’s .287 batting average is quite excellent for a player from 1965-69, it was clearly held against him that he hit under .300. So why do I surmise that being a .287 hitter was a drag on Boyer’s Hall of Fame candidacy?

Two reasons: the first is that Mathews’ .271 BA was clearly held against him. How else do you explain a third baseman with 512 home runs needing five ballots to make it into the Hall? The second reason can be discovered by a side-by-side comparison with another third baseman (George Kell), who was on the ballot for the 11th time in 1975 and received 31.% of the vote, while Boyer got just 2.5%.

Ken Boyer vs. George Kell

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Kell was a good player, a 10-time All-Star. But in what universe could any serious baseball analyst conclude that he had a better career than Ken Boyer, forgetting for a moment that nobody had ever heard of OPS+ or WAR in 1975? People certainly had heard of home runs and RBI, and Boyer dwarfed Kell in both. People knew that Boyer had an MVP trophy and was a World Series hero. Kell didn’t have either. Kell’s only advantage is that he had a career .306 average, and that magic number meant a lot.

Kell, a popular broadcaster with the Detroit Tigers, was elected into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1983, just over six months after Boyer passed away.

The Hall of Fame Case for Ken Boyer

I planted the seeds in the previous segment. At the time of his retirement after the 1969 season, Ken Boyer had tied for the 2nd highest WAR (as ranked by Baseball-Reference) for all third basemen in the game’s history. In addition, he had the second-most home runs for any third sacker in baseball history.

Boyer also has a peak performance case. During the best nine years of his career (in which he appeared in 11 All-Star Games and won 5 Gold Gloves), Boyer’s WAR is the 6th best in all of baseball, behind legends Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Mathews, and Frank Robinson. Take a look at the WAR leaders from 1956-64:

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For the record, the pitching WAR leader during these years was Don Drysdale (46.6).

Anyway, two things make this graphic compelling. The first is that it’s a nine-year period of time. That’s a significant number of years, one that makes a case worthy of a peak performance Hall of Fame case. And, by the way, if you extend it to ten years through 1965 (with 10 being a magic number of sorts), Boyer still has the 6th highest WAR.

The second compelling thing about the graphic above is the massive chasm between the player in 8th place for WAR (Ernie Banks) and the player in 9th place (Rocky Colavito). We all should look at WAR with a small dose of skepticism because the formulas involve subjective choices by their creators and that there are multiple versions of the metric (there’s only one version of BA, HR, RBI, etc.).

However, you can throw the margin of error out the window when you have a gap of over 10 WAR between the 8th and 9th place players on a leaderboard. Ken Boyer was, at worst, the 8th best player in baseball for a nine or ten-year period of time. That’s a compelling case for Cooperstown.

And, finally, durability counts, too, and it counts a lot in my book. Only Mays and Aaron played in more than the 1,520 games Boyer played in from 1956-64.

Remember this: Boyer’s strength in his WAR is based on his combination of hitting and fielding. We can see his hitting excellence easily on his Baseball-Reference page, again, looking at his peak years (1956-64):

• Hit over .300 five times
• Hit over 20 HR eight times
• Drove in over 90 runs eight times
• Scored over 90 runs six times

Even today, after the super-charged PED era, Boyer is one of only seven third basemen in baseball history to hit over 20 HR and drive in 90 or more runs in eight separate campaigns.

Ken Boyer’s Fielding

Also, Boyer won those five Gold Gloves, backed up by current metrics and fielding statistics available at the time. These numbers encompass Boyer’s entire career and are his seasonal ranks among National League third sackers.

• Led all N.L. third basemen in double plays turned five times (had the second most in three other seasons)
• Ten times in the top 3 of assists for third basemen (led the league twice)
• Six times in the top 3 of putouts for third basemen
• Five times in the top 3 of fielding percentage for third basemen

Also, on the defensive side of the ledger, there’s this. Boyer is still 20th all-time in assists for a third baseman. At the time of his retirement, his 3,652 assists were the 5th most in baseball history. Even now, his 355 double plays turned are the 14th most for a player at the hot corner. As of 1969? Only Robinson and Mathews had more.

Poking Holes in Ken Boyer’s Hall of Fame Case

Having shared all of these positive factors, the fact that Ken Boyer has never gotten remotely close to the Hall of Fame is a clear indicator that his Cooperstown case is anything but a slam dunk.

The first demerit is this: among third basemen, Boyer’s career totals were surpassed by many third basemen, not just the obvious ones named Robinson, Schmidt, and Brett. Thus, Boyer’s first problem as a Cooperstown candidate is that, even though he had an excellent career and stacks up well with other third sackers in the first 100 years of baseball history, he was only the 3rd best third baseman in the National League among his contemporaries and the 4th best overall.

Ken Boyer vs. Ron Santo

We’ve shown demonstrably that Boyer wasn’t remotely in Mathews’ league, but he also falls short of the standard set by Ron Santo, who played for 15 years in Chicago, 14 with the Cubs and one with the White Sox. Santo was a 9-time All-Star who matched Boyer with 5 Gold Gloves and, across the board, put up superior statistics:

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Now, let me throw out two caveats. First, being slightly inferior to Ron Santo is not a bad thing. Santo was excellent. The second is that Santo’s hitting numbers are significantly influenced by playing half of his games at Wrigley Field.

Ron Santo’s home-road splits:

• Home — .296 BA, 216 HR, 743 RBI
• Road — .257 BA, 126 HR, 588 RBI

Now, it’s not uncommon for a player to have superior numbers at home. Boyer’s are better as well (.298 at home, .277 on the road), but Santo’s splits are enormous.

The second caveat is that it took forever for Santo to make the Hall of Fame. He topped out at 43.1% on the BBWAA ballot in 1998 and had to wait 14 years before the Veterans Committee called his name. Sadly, Santo passed away a year before he was elected to the Hall.

My point is this: if you’re a cut below a player who needed 33 years to make it to Cooperstown, that doesn’t bode well for your candidacy.

Comparison to other 1970s Third Basemen

As previously noted, Boyer suffered by not just being compared unfavorably to his contemporary Mathews but also to the stars of the 1970s and 1980s (notably Schmidt and Brett). But, to be fair, it’s not just those inner-circle Hall of Famers that diminish Boyer’s case. There are other third basemen from the 1970s who had careers that stack up favorably to Boyer’s:

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The other names on this list (Graig Nettles, Buddy Bell, Sal Bando, and Darrell Evans) all got about as close to the Hall of Fame as Boyer, which is to say, not remotely close at all. Nevertheless, all four players have compelling cases. Nettles and Bando won multiple World Series titles, while Evans also won a championship in 1984. Bell won 6 Gold Gloves. Evans and Nettles have the 5th and 6th most home runs among all third basemen in MLB history.

Conclusion

The comparison of Ken Boyer to Nettles, Bell, Santo, and Evans is an interesting academic exercise but, ultimately, irrelevant. None of those players are on the Classic Baseball Hall of Fame ballot with December with Boyer. Also, their careers began towards the end of or after Boyer’s career had ended; they are not contemporaries.

Boyer’s top contemporaries at the hot corner were Mathews, Santo, and Robinson. By a quirk of fate, the third base position was relatively weak (compared to other positions) in the first 100 years of recorded baseball history. As a result, he’s tied with Frank “Home Run” Baker for the third-highest WAR for third basemen from 1871-1970, behind Mathews and Robinson. (Santo’s career WAR surpassed Boyer’s in 1971; I’m sure Ron was very proud).

Since most of us would agree that Santo had a slightly superior record overall to Boyer, that would still make Boyer one of the top five third sackers in the first 100 years of baseball history. That’s a quite compelling elevator pitch for Cooperstown.

Even today, Boyer’s 62.8 WAR is the 12th-best among players who spent 50% or more of their games at the hot corner. (Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system lists him as the 14th best, putting Paul Molitor and Edgar Martinez on the list even though they were primarily designated hitters).

For whatever worth you wish to ascribe to it, Boyer’s WAR is the second highest among the player candidates on the 2025 Classic Baseball ballot (behind Luis Tiant, and barely ahead of Tommy John).

Boyer also has those 7 All-Star seasons, 5 Gold Gloves, MVP, and a World Series ring, which makes him a compelling candidate on this ballot. To me, he is one of the three best candidates on the ballot (the committee members are limited to three votes). The others, in my opinion, are Tiant and Dick Allen.

I will throw out the caveat that there are also two Negro League candidates (John Donaldson and Vic Harris) who are difficult to compare directly to the players of the 1960s and 1970s. If I ruled the world, I wouldn’t force the voters to try to compare the players from different leagues and wholly different generations.

So, having said that I consider Boyer one of the three best candidates, I’m not sure that I would vote for him if I were actually on the committee. I would try to “read the room” to see who was likely close to 12 votes.

In my view, any of the eight candidates being considered on December 8th would be fine additions to the Hall of Fame. To me, Boyer definitely belongs, but I doubt this will be his year.

Thanks for reading.

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