Triple Crown Winners and the Hall of Fame

There have been a lot of baseball seasons.

It depends on how you count them, because some leagues are sometimes considered “major league” and sometimes not, and the seasons from the various Negro Leagues that were finally recognized as major league represent just a subset of the years Black ballplayers played in their own, excellent leagues.

That said, near as I can tell, there have been 337 different seasons that are considered major league in one place or another. That ranges from 147 seasons of baseball in the National League down to one season each in the Players League, the Union Association, and a couple of the Negro Leagues.

That’s 337 chances for a hitter or pitcher to win a Triple Crown. Hitters have managed to accomplish the trick - leading the league in batting average, home runs, and RBI in the same season - a total of 27 times. The last to do so was Miguel Cabrera in 2012, for which he was awarded the American League MVP Award. In 8% of all seasons, a hitter has won a Triple Crown.

Pitchers have been successful a bit more, pulling off the feat 42 times, or 12% of all seasons played. That means once every 8 years, a pitcher is likely going to win the Triple Crown - leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA. The last pitcher to do it, basically with no fanfare whatsoever, was Cleveland’s Shane Bieber in the Covid-shortened season of 2020. He received the Cy Young Award that season, but few mentioned his Triple Crown, likely because most of the stats from that truncated year were taken with a small-sample grain of salt.

Four men have won the batting Triple Crown more than once - Ted Williams, Josh Gibson, Rogers Hornsby (twice each - with Williams being a fraction of a batting average point away from a third), and Oscar Charleston (three times). Seven pitchers have won multiple Triple Crowns - Roger Clemens, Lefty Gomez, Lefty Grove, Christy Mathewson (twice each), and Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, and Pete Alexander (three times each).

As you can imagine, most of the players who have turned this trick have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Of the 22 hitters, 15 have been elected and one (Cabrera) will be as soon as he’s eligible. Of the 32 pitchers, 19 have been elected and two (Clayton Kershaw and Justin Velander) certainly will be. Bieber is still a youngster, so time will tell for him.

That leaves 6 hitters and 10 pitchers who have won a Triple Crown but have not, for various reasons, been elected to the Hall of Fame. Let’s look at them one at a time.

Tommy Bond (P) - 1877 National League

Bond has a good case for the Hall of Fame, based on winning 40 games in three straight seasons, and leading the league in a variety of categories - wins, ERA, shutouts, innings, strikeouts, and so on. Several of his 19th Century peers are already in the Hall, and if he’d managed to pitch an extra couple of seasons, instead of cutting his career short at just ten years, he likely would be, too.

Paul Hines (OF) - 1878 National League

Hines was a good player, a two-time batting champion who played 20 seasons and rarely missed a game. He compiled 1658 games played at a time when teams played only 60 or 80 games in a year. For his Triple Crown season, he played in just 62 games, which was actually two more than his team, the Providence Grays, played once ties and suspended games are accounted for. His league-leading home run total was just 4, so his Triple Crown is somewhat of a mirage. Still, he was a good player who had similar career totals to other 19-Century outfielders Sam Thompson and King Kelly, who did make the Hall of Fame, as well as Harry Stovey and Mike Tiernan, who didn’t.

Guy Hecker (P) - 1884 American Association

With the exception of 14 games in 1890, all of Hecker’s career was spent in the American Association. A good league, considered major league during those seasons, it still had decidedly lower quality of play than the rival National League of the same time. Hecker’s Triple Crown season of 1884 was the only year he led the league in any major pitching category. His 9-season career falls short of the minimum 10 needed for Hall of Fame eligibility, so he’s never been considered for induction.

Tip O’Neil (OF) - 1887 American Association

O’Neil faces the same problems as Hecker. He dominated the American Association in 1887, including a remarkable .435 batting average. He won another batting title the following year, and was always a solid player, but his career was over after just ten seasons and his overall numbers don’t compare well to Hines, Stovey, Tiernan and other 19th Century outfielders who were also passed over for the Hall of Fame.

Heinie Zimmerman (3B) - 1912 National League

A solid player and good run producer who lead the National League in RBI three different times, Zimmerman’s 1912 season is an outlier from the rest of his career. He never again managed double-digit home runs in a season, and his .372 batting average that year was 77 points higher than his career average. Of course, his career totals are likely suppressed by the fact that he was run out of baseball for throwing games.

Hippo Vaughn (P) - 1918 National League

James Leslie Vaughn is listed as 6’4” and 215 pounds, decidedly large for that day and age, so it’s pretty obvious where his nickname came from. He was already 30-years old in 1918, and had never led the league in anything, though he’d been a solid starting pitcher for several years, winning 20 games or more three times before finally leading the league with 22 in 1918. His overall numbers aren’t terribly impressive for that pitching-heavy time period, though one of his contemporaries who also had an outlier Triple Crown season and also had an unfortunate nickname, Rube Waddell, was eventually elected to the Hall of Fame.

Heavy Johnson (OF) - 1923 Negro National League

Oscar “Heavy” Johnson, so named because he packed a solid 200 pounds on his 5’7” frame, was an excellent ballplayer. His accomplishments have largely been overlooked among the examination of all the Negro League players whose careers had been passed by for too long, but that’s unfortunate because he was outstanding. He batted .406 in back-to-back seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs, and finished with a career batting line of .370/.428/.592, numbers so preposterously high that they are likely discounted due to the incomplete record keeping in the Negro Leagues. They shouldn’t be, because anyone who can hit .406 in a league that features such legendary Hall of Famers as Bullet Rogan, Oscar Charleston, Cristobal Torriente and Turkey Stearnes should be taken seriously. The man could flat out hit.

Slim Jones (P) - 1934 Negro National League

The same can’t be said for Stuart “Slim” Jones, who was the opposite of Heavy Johnson in more than just nickname. He played only seven recorded seasons, and his 1934 Triple Crown year looks like a typo compared to the other six. In that year, he went 20-4, with 164 strikeouts and a 1.24 ERA. In the other six seasons combined, he was 12-17, with 131 strikeouts and a 5.10 ERA. This is, by far, the greatest outlier season among any Triple Crown winner.

Bucky Walters (P) - 1939 National League

A very good comparison for Walters is Orel Hershiser. Here are there career stat lines side-by-side:

There are a few differences attributable to the time periods in which they played, but overall they are very similar. Like Hershiser, Walters didn’t get much support from Hall of Fame voters, despite having several big seasons. He led the league in wins three times, ERA twice, complete games three times, innings three times, and so on. He was also a good hitter for a pitcher, including a .325 batting average in his Triple Crown/MVP season. His career totals may be a bit short of Cooperstown standards, but he was a helluva pitcher for several years in an offense-heavy era.

Lennie Pearson (1B) - 1942 Negro National League

Pearson was a mainstay of some excellent Newark Eagles teams for over a decade, playing in a lineup that included the likes of Mules Suttles, Ray Dandridge, Willie Wells, Biz Mackey, Leon Day, and Monte Irvin. Though he eventually settled at first base, Pearson played was versatile enough to play third base and the outfield. Surrounded by future Hall of Famers, Pearson’s career doesn’t compare as well, but he still led the league in homers twice, RBI twice, and steals once. His Triple Crown came during a year when many of the league’s best players were already in the armed forces. Already nearly 30 by the time the major leagues integrated, he got a chance in Triple A at the age of 32, but was never called up by the Boston Braves.

Ted Strong (OF) - 1942 Negro American League

A good player for the Kansas City Monarchs for many years, his career accomplishments, like Pearson’s, were often overshadowed by more famous teammates, like Bullet Rogan, Willard Brown, Turkey Stearnes, Hilton Smith, and Satchel Paige. Still, he led the league in home runs in 1941 and 1942, then came back from serving in the Navy as a Seabee during World War II and led the league again in 1946. He was a five-time All-Star and an also excellent basketball player, playing for the Harlem Globetrotters for several years and eventually being their captain.

Johnny Wright (P) - 1943 Negro National League

Like Pearson and Strong the year before, Wright’s Triple Crown season is largely disregarded since it came during the war years, when much of the league’s talent was serving in the military. Though his 1943 totals weren’t quite as large an outlier as Slim Jones’ were nearly a decade earlier, they we still out of character. He never led the league in any major pitching category before his Triple Crown year, and never did again, either.

Dwight Gooden (P) - 1985 National League

With the exception of his strikeout title as a rookie in 1984, Gooden’s 1985 Triple Crown season was the only year of his career in which he led the league in any major pitching category. That’s a bit surprising, because he made a couple more All-Star games and had a couple more years in the top-10 of the Cy Young voting, but Gooden’s career peaked incredibly high and incredibly early, as just a 20-year old, and was never particularly close to that level again. He got just 17 votes for the Hall of Fame in his only year on the ballot, not enough to stay on it.

Roger Clemens (P) - 1997 and 1998 American League

The only two-time Triple Crown winner, either as a hitter or pitcher, who is not in the Hall of Fame. Given the PED allegations against him, that will likely remain the case for quite some time.

Johan Santana (P) - 2006 American League

Unlike Gooden’s single year on the Hall of Fame ballot, Johan Santana’s is probably a bit unfair. Injuries capped his career far too early, when he was just 33, but for a five year stretch, 2004 to 2008, he was probably the best pitcher in baseball. He won two Cy Young Awards in that time, and was top-5 in the voting each of the other three seasons. He won three ERA titles and three strikeout titles as well, and for a 9-year stretch (2002-10), he compiled more WAR than any pitcher in baseball besides Hall of Famer Roy Halladay. It’s a shame he didn’t receive enough support to remain on the ballot for further consideration, because he’s got a good case.

Jake Peavy (P) - 2007 National League

Peavy never had the sort of sustained peak that Santana enjoyed, though his first 6 full seasons, 2003-08, were quite good. He led the league in strikeouts twice and ERA twice, and compiled a very respectable 80-55 record on some pretty mediocre-to-bad Padres teams. Then the injuries began to pile up, and he was a league-average pitcher for his final 8 seasons, albeit on much better teams that allowed him to take home a pair of World Series rings and a duck boat, so that’s still a pretty nice career.