Baseball Reference Blog

Mark Grace will not get into the Hall of Fame, not this year or ever. His career batting totals, even when measured objectively, fall a bit short, but he is also subjectively marked down because he was a first baseman without all that much power (having "only" 173 career HR.)

But there's a lot to like about Grace and his career. He was remarkably consistent, hitting at least .307 every year from 1989 to 1999 except for 1991 and 1994. You probably already know that he is the hits leader for the 1990s. That's kind of a dumb stat, since it favors players who had their primes starting right in 1990. Notice that guys finishing second and third (Palmeiro and Biggio) also both had their first full prime seasons in 1990. But Grace also had the 18th-most hits of all modern players in the first 12 years of their careers (regardless of when they played), trailing only George Sisler among first basemen.

Among all first baseman playing in at least 1000 games in the expansion era (post-1961) Grace has the following career ranks: 5th in batting average, 3rd in doubles, 7th in hits, 8th in triples, 10th in runs scored, 14th in runs created, 19th in RBI, and all this despite being just 45th in home runs. Also, he's 11th in walks but is only 55th in strikeouts.

Also he hit lots of pitchers well, but none better than John Smoltz. In 67 career AB against Smoltz (a pretty big sample), Grace hit 7 2B, 1 3B, 6 HR, with 11 RBI, and a .358/.456/.761 line of averages. Grace averaged 582 AB over 162 games, so projecting out a full season against Smoltz gives him 60 doubles, 8 triples, 52 HR, 95 RBI. I realize that 67 AB is just 67 AB, but they came against Smoltz and it's a little bit of impressive data.

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