For almost two full decades, the Boston Red Sox had one of the most steady and durable presences in their franchise's history patrolling the corner outfield. Dwight Evans, who spent 19 of his 20 big league seasons as a member of the Red Sox, was solid as a rock all throughout his career in Boston.
In his career, "Dewey" recorded 2,446 hits, 483 doubles, 385 home runs and 1,384 RBI thanks to a sense of patience and pitch recognition at the plate that was rivaled by so few. He finished his tenure in the big leagues with a .272 average, .840 OPS and 127 OPS+ that puts his career numbers at 27% better than league average.
Evans is one of the increasingly rare talents in the game that had just as much prowess on defense as he did on offense. He appeared in just three All-Star Games and won just two Silver Sluggers, but he took home eight Gold Gloves in right field. All he ever did was reach base, manufacture runs and play a mean corner outfield.
All this in mind, it is more than a little bit confusing as to why he didn't receive a longer look when he was up for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Evans fell off the ballot the first time around when he fell short of the minimum percentage of votes in his third year of eligibility. Then in 2019, he was a part of the Modern Baseball Era ballot but he fell just four votes short of election from the 16-member voting panel.
Evans was a shoo-in to make the Red Sox Hall of Fame, but the argument can absolutely be made that he should have received more love in the Baseball Hall of Fame as a whole, too. A player of his durability and consistency doesn't come around often.
Dwight Evans deserved more Hall of Fame consideration
To start, it's a shame to say, but Evans likely would've made it into the Hall when he was first eligible if he recorded 54 more hits to reach 2,500 and hit 15 more home runs to reach 400. For a long stretch, career milestones like these basically resulted in an automatic election. He clearly did not receive any additional votes for being "close but not quite."
It's also borderline unfair to have put him on a ballot like the one he landed on after his playing days were over. So frequently, we see players who deserve a long look get put on ballots with five or more surefire Hall of Famers, resulting in the players in the first category getting overshadowed.
That's exactly what happened to Evans, as he shared a ballot with Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Carlton Fisk and Robin Yount in his third and final year of eligibility. A player of Evans' stature gets overlooked when put alongside the aforementioned quartet. He even fell victim to this on his own team, as he spent so many years sharing the field with Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Fisk and Carl Yastrzemski.
There's also the fact that most of Evans' late-career power came at a time where 30 or more home runs every year was much less exciting than it had been in the decade prior. By the time he started tapping into the majority of his power, he was overshadowed on the leaderboards by players who were hitting between 40 and 50 balls a year out of the park.
There are only 50 players in MLB history to have at least 67.2 bWAR and a career .840 OPS as Evans did. Of that group, only seven of them are not in the Hall of Fame, with four of them are being kept out due to their ties with steroid use. Three more — Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Mookie Betts - are either active or not eligible to make the Hall yet. That stat alone is telling, as it makes Evans' career look a whole lot more impressive.
Evans had a long career of above-average play on both sides of the ball. He was a true on-base machine who hit the ball in the gap, he hit it over the fence and he drew a ton of walks while not striking out at alarming rates. This, paired with his silky-smooth defense in the outfield meant he was one of the more well-rounded players you'd come across. The fact that he was kept out of the Hall on two separate occasions is one that's not justifiable, so don't be surprised to see him make his way to Cooperstown once he's eligible for another "old timers ballot" down the line.