Edgar Martinez former star designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners turns 49 today. Edgar Martinez was a professional hitter. He played his entire career with the Seattle Mariners. He was a late starter. He didn’t play regularly until the age of 27. I don’t think his case is that of a player who was a late bloomer but one a player his team didn’t believe in/know what to do with.

Edgar Martinez could always hit. His problem was with a glove on his hand. Also early in his major league career he tore a hamstring that never fully healed. He would play 18 seasons in the majors but would only play as a regular in the field- as a third base for three seasons. Most of the time Edgar spent as a designated hitter. Edgar could hit. His career average .312. He  had some punch hitting 309 home runs, 1261 rbi’s, he won 2 batting titles and led the league in RBI’s once. He also had a great eye, his career on base percentage was .418. He ended his career with 2247 hits. Had he started say at age 23 as a regular instead of age 27 he would have made a run at 3000 hits. Also hurting his cause for 3000 hits is that he missed big parts of two seasons with that hamstring injury. Edgar Martinez made 7 All-Star games.

Edgar Martinez is one of only 20 players in MLB history to have a career batting average over .300, a career on base percentage over .400 and a career slugging percentage over .500. In the last Hall of Fame voting Martinez received 36.5 percent of the vote. You need 75 percent to get in. Martinez should be given serious consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame but I think he is in for a long wait. Will be interesting to see how the vote goes this season. Some voters won’t vote for him because he was a DH and didn’t spend much time playing in the field.