Bo Jackson - HOF potential?

Haven’t posted lately, I guess January is a slow time for baseball news. Anyway, here’s a little something from the past….

This discussion came up at Royalscorner.com – a Royals message board located at Scout.com. What if Bo Jackson never played football? What if he’d never been injured? Would Bo have turned himself into a HOF caliber baseball player? The argument intrigued me and I decided to crunch some numbers, here’s what I came up with……

The initial discussion was “What if Bo never played in the NFL?”…well, there’s no real way to project how much better he’d have been at baseball from the very beginning if that’s all he had concentrated on. So, I decided to look at it this way: “What if Bo had retired from the NFL before he was injured?” I wondered how much better he would’ve become had he decided to hang up the one career and focus on baseball from that point on.

I went to baseball-reference.com and looked up Bo’s career stats, looking mostly at the stats from 1987-1990 (really his only full seasons, all with the Royals, all pre-injury). After analyzing the numbers, here’s what I concluded:

Jackson WAS getting much better at the plate. His OBP increased at a 15.5% rate over those four seasons - from .296 up to .342, and his average went up at about the same rate (15.7%). Both increased at an average rate of almost 4% per season....and he was going into his prime.

Bo was also figuring out how to translate his raw strength into power at the plate. This was reflected in the frequency with which he hit home runs. As you can see, his HR per AB got better each year:

1987 - 1 HR every 18 AB
1988 - 1 every 17.56 AB
1989 - 1 every 16.09 AB
1990 - 1 every 14.46 AB

Over that four year span, he hit homers more often each season, with the biggest jumps coming in his two best seasons – 1989 and 1990. His HR total in 1990 was lower than 1989, but he also had 110 less AB. Had he reached 515 AB (his total in 89), he would've likely hit 36 HR that season...not too shabby, and 4 more than he hit in 1989. Now, I don't know that it would've increased much more than that, but you have to take into consideration the construction of new ballparks, expansion (which weakens pitching), and a juiced ball...and take into consideration that he was heading into his prime seasons– he probably would’ve had at least a couple of 40 HR years.

I believe his average and on base % would've risen at a similar rate to the one I listed above for another three or four seasons (probably through 1994, age 31) and then would've leveled out for a few, then probably started declining again.

In summary - a Hall of Fame career….I don’t know. Maybe, if he could’ve really disciplined himself at the plate, the stats would've increased at an even higher rate....but I'm guessing he would've fallen a little short.

I won't lay out all the math here, but I'm projecting that he would've hit roughly 430-440 HR if he would've quit football and never been hurt, and if he'd have played full seasons (I figured his average would've been around 440 AB per year) thru the year 2000 (age 37).

Also figured he'd have stolen roughly 260 bases over his career.

So...440 HR/260 SB – I’m not so sure those are HOF numbers (especially since he falls short of the magic 500 HR mark). However, it’s harder to project how his stats would've differed if he’d focused solely on baseball and never played a down in the NFL. Had he gone that route, his first few full seasons would likely have been more productive, and his projected numbers would be higher as well…probably enough to boost his career numbers to over 500 HR/300 SB. Had he not had the wear and tear of football on his body, he may have stayed healthier as well, playing more games and logging more at bats. At that rate, he's in.

Regardless, the guy was a world-class, hall of fame athlete. Too bad his career (in both sports) was cut so short. I look forward to any comments you may have…could be fun conversation/debate.