1. You have to put Dawson’s numbers into context. He played in the early 80s when 30 homeruns could win you the title. This was the worst hitting era in the history of the game because the ballparks in the NL were much bigger. Vs. his contemporaries, his power numbers are great.

2. Dawson played in THE worst hitters park in the league during his prime. Go look at his stats vs home and away during his prime. If you go by his away stats he actually WINS the batting title in ’81 by ten points and comes within one point of winning it again in ’83. There are some seasons where its a 100 point difference in batting average and its a dramatic difference for OBP as well. Go look at the stats. His critics point to an MVP he “didn’t deserve” in ’87… okay. Go look at his away numbers from ’81 and ’83. He got ripped off for two. If he plays in any other ballpark the man’s OBP and BA are far, far better and gets 3000 hits and 500 HRs. The guy actually got 18 sac flies in ’83, imagine if he’d been in a decent park instead. Those balls go out of the park and his OBP,BA and HR totals are much higher. You have to take this into account.

Before you slice the man up, go look at the individual
season splits when he was in Montreal.
’81: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=dawsoan01&year=1981&t=b
+94 on BA
+60 on OBP
His other numbers are much better as well. He wins the batting title with his road stats and puts up almost identical numbers to Schmidt. He also gets 28 steals, is the best defensive outfielder in the league and his team makes the playoffs. There’s no way he’s not the MVP if you use his road stats.

’83:
+50 on BA
+27 on OBP
Again, his other numbers are much better. He wins the HR title and is one point off of the batting crown. He’d have been hands down the MVP, no question about it.

Other years follow the same pattern. In ’82 it’s +22 and +11. In ’84 it’s +71 and +62.

Those are huge, dramatic differences. The only thing Dawson was guilty of was playing in a terrible ballpark.

3. Dawson wasn’t just a great hitter, he stole bases and played incredible defense as well. It got to the point where runners just wouldn’t test him anymore. How many runs did his teams save just by the ‘fear factor’ of having him in the field? Nevermind the great catches and assists he contributed, players knew that he would blow them away if they ran on him.

4. The intangibles are well documented. Class act, inspired his teammates (ask Tim Raines about this) and never, ever let up even if the game was a blowout.

Put him up against his contemporaries and his numbers are outstanding. Only guys like Murray and Schmidt have better power/rbi numbers in his generation and Hawk was stuck in the big O.

He’s a HOFer for sure.