Happy Birthday to Hall of Famer Eddie Murray. In a career that spanned 21 seasons, mostly with the Baltimore Orioles, but also with the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, Cleveland Indians, and Anaheim Angels, Murray established himself as one of the great First Basemen and Switch Hitters in baseball history.

Career Statistics/Accolades (1977-1997):

.287 BA 3,255 HITS 504 HR 1,917 RBI 1,627 RUNS .359 OBP

  • 8x All-Star
  • 3x Gold Glove Winner
  • 3x Silver Slugger
  • 1977 Rookie of the Year
  • 1983 World Series Champion

As a Hitter

As a Switch-Hitter, Murray is definitely on the Mt. Rushmore of the Switch Hitters to ever play. While he never won an MVP or led the league in offensive categories often, Murray was very durable. Of the 21 years of his career, he appeared in 150-plus games in a year in sixteen of those seasons. Murray was an all-around hitter, batting .300 or higher seven times, driving in 100 or more RBIs six times, and recording 30-plus home runs five times. Averaging 174 Hits in a season for their career, Murray also had great plate discipline having a few seasons in which he walked more than he struck out.

As a Fielder

The majority of his career was spent at First Base. Besides winning three consecutive Gold Gloves awards, Murray had a lifetime .993 Fielding Percentage. Spending a total of 2,413 Games and 21,151 Innings at First Base, Murray ranks 4th all-time in Putouts with 21,255, 2nd all-time in Double Plays with 2,033, and is the all-time leader among First Baseman in Assists with 1,865. Later in his career, Murray transitioned to being a DH, spending 573 games as a DH.

Best Years

For a long time, Murray was able to stay consistently very good to great, even as he aged. While he never won an MVP, he was close to finishing in the top times, being the runner-up in 1982-83. I would say his 1990 year was his best year, having career highs in AVG and OBP.

1980: .300 BA 186 HITS 32 HR 116 RBI 100 RUNS .354 OBP (158 Games)

1981: .294 BA 111 HITS  22 HR 78 RBI  57 RUNS .360 OBP (99 Games)

1982: .316 BA 174 HITS 32 HR 110 RBI 87 RUNS .391 OBP (151 Games)

1983: .306 BA 178 HITS 33 HR 111 RBI 115 RUNS .393 OBP (156 Games)

1984: .306 BA 180 HITS 29 HR 110 RBI 97 RUNS .410 OBP (162 Games)

1985: .297 BA 173 HITS 31 HR 124 RBI 111 RUNS .383 OBP (156 Games)

1990: .330 BA 184 HITS 26 HR 95 RBI 96 RUNS .414 OBP (155 Games)

Legacy

Eddie Murray should and is remembered as Baltimore Oriole, wearing the hat on his plaque in Cooperstown, being enshrined on his first ballot in 2003. I’ve said in a previous article that Murray is the 4th greatest Switch Hitter ever played. Also, Murray is one of seven players in the game’s history to have reached the 3,000 Hit and 500 Home Run milestones. To me, when a player reaches one of those milestones, you would automatically get my vote for the Hall of Fame if I had one, yet Murray reached both. Murray ranks 13th all-time in Hits and 9th all-time in RBIs; when you think of all the players in baseball history, that’s incredible. As well as his #33 being retired by the Orioles, in 1999, he was ranked #77 on The Sporting News list of 100 Greatest Ballplayers.

References:

  1. Eddie Murray via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Murray#
  2. Eddie Murray Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/murraed02.shtml