Detroit Tigers: Four Biggest Hall of Fame Snubs
Bill Freehan (Hall Score: 94)
While better catchers (Ivan Rodriguez, Mickey Cochrane) have donned the English D, Bill Freehan is the best of all the tenured Detroit Tigers catchers. Amassing five Gold Gloves and eleven All-Star appearances, Freehan was a prominent figure in Detroit for fifteen years.
The catcher ended his career with a.262 batting average, alongside 200 home runs and a 112 OPS+.Though you certainly would never confuse those numbers with Hank Greenberg’s,they are more than acceptable for a catcher. A solid player on both offense and defense, Freehan played a pivotal role in helping the 1968 Detroit Tigers make the World Series.
Unfortunately, his World Series performance left much to be desired, but that should not take away from the decade and a half of greatness he put into the league.
All that aside, Freehan is certainly a fringe Hall of Fame candidate, and even I’m not entirely sold on his induction. While he arguably has the most impressive hardware of all four candidates, he has the lowest WAR (44.7) and Hall Score (94).
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However, objectively lesser players have received the honor of being enshrined in Cooperstown. So as long as that is the case, Freehan deserves to be considered for induction.