SALT LAKE CITY — Dale Murphy is getting another shot at Cooperstown.
The two-time National League MVP and seven-time MLB All-Star, who resides in Alpine, is one of eight former major league stars that MLB’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee will consider this year to be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in upstate New York.
The ballot, released on Monday, features players who did not get into the Hall of Fame through the traditional method led by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Players have 15 years to receive at least 75% of an election to enter baseball immortality, but they can also be removed from consideration if they fail to receive a certain percentage any given year.
The 16-member Era Committee is composed of former major league players who are no longer eligible for Hall of Fame election, but can elect others who failed to make it in through the primary vote.
Murphy collected more than 2,100 hits, 1,200 RBIs and 1,100 runs over his 18-year career with the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies from 1976-93. He also finished just two home runs shy of 400, while compiling a 46.5 career wins above replacement, using Baseball Reference’s calculations.
He’s since become an integral figure within Big League Utah, the coalition seeking to land an MLB expansion franchise in Salt Lake City.
While Baseball Reference points out that his career resume is close to or exceeds likely candidates in many statistical categories, he never received more than 23.2% of the BBWAA vote. Injuries ultimately cut into his production toward the latter part of his career, which factored into his Hall of Fame case, MLB.com reporter Mark Bowman noted.
Monday’s announcement marks the fourth time since 2013 that Murphy has landed on a ballot from other avenues into the Hall of Fame, and the second time he’s been on the Contemporary Era ballot.
He faces some stiff competition, though, in a stacked lineup that’s led by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two baseball legends who missed the traditional method into the Hall of Fame largely because of their links to performance-enhancing drugs. Gary Sheffield, a member of the 500 home run club, was also listed on the infamous 2007 Mitchell Report and is on this year’s ballot.
Murphy spoke to KSL after the report was released, where he supported measures to rid the game of performance-enhancing drugs.
“Baseball, in general, we just, you know, turned a blind eye to it. It’s hurt the game, it’s hurt a lot of kids thinking this is what they have to do,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, Carlos Delgado, Don Mattingly and Fernando Valenzuela also landed on this year’s contemporary baseball era ballot. They combined for 14 All-Star selections within their respective careers.
Jeff Kent, a five-time All-Star and 2000 NL MVP, rounds out the list. He has some ties to Utah, as well, as three of his children attended BYU. His son, Colton, briefly played on the BYU baseball team.
Much like the BBWAA election, a candidate on the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot must receive 75% of the vote to be enshrined at Cooperstown next year. The results of the vote will be announced on Dec. 7.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.