This is a fun thing to talk about during the offseason. The Hall of Fame discourse has become much muddier over the last several years, with the Veterans Committee voting in several players who, let’s be honest, probably don’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I don’t wanna take anything away from the accomplishments of somebody like Harold Baines. Still, I don’t know of anybody who believed that that guy was a Hall of Famer until the Veterans Committee decided to throw him a bone. With Lou Whitaker, it’s different.
I know that locally, he’s seen as a deity, as he should be, but he’s also incredibly well respected outside of Detroit. This isn’t some niche thing where people fell in love with a homegrown player. Detroit fans are knowledgeable and know what the numbers look like. There are many weaker players than Lou Whitaker who are currently in the Hall of Fame. And I understand that there are instances of players falling through the cracks, and maybe during their careers, we overlook how truly great they were, but at a certain point, you’re just torturing Lou Whitaker. We’ve had plenty of time to double- and even triple-check what the numbers look like. I don’t know of many people who find him to be undeserving, and yet, year after year, he's on the outside looking in.
Whitaker has likely made peace with the bizarre situation he finds himself in regarding the Hall of Fame. This is something that’s completely out of his control. The only elements that he could control were when he played, and he played the game at an exceptionally high level. I don’t believe that it’s a case of any anti-Detroit sentiment or anything of that nature; I simply think it’s a player who, in terms of overall numbers, was a little bit ahead of his time in terms of the intangibles that we value. As incredible as it was that he and Trammell were the same double play combination for almost 2 decades, it’s hard to imagine those two sticking together in the modern age because both of them would’ve made bank the second they became available in free agency.
We'll probably see Lou Whitaker in the Hall of Fame at some point. On a long enough timeline, common sense will eventually prevail, but it is bizarre how getting anyone from that 1984 team into the Hall of Fame seems like pulling teeth. Then again, I feel like it wouldn’t be the Detroit way unless they had to grind it out.