He was known by many as Mr. Padre, and rightfully so. Not only is Tony Gwynn the greatest San Diego Padre of all time, but he is also one of the top hitters in the history of baseball. If you feel compelled to browse his Baseball Reference page, you will see that Gwynn was a career .338 hitter while racking up 3,141 career hits. A sure-fire hall of famer on those stats alone, Gwynn's greatest goes far beyond the numbers on the surface.
When we are growing up in our backyard playing baseball, the first thing we hear from our elders is: "Keep your eye on the ball." Gwynn probably had his eye on nothing but the ball while on the diamond.
If you deep dive into Baseball Reference, you will see that in his entire 20-year career, Gwynn struck out only 434 times. For context, Aaron Judge has struck out a combined 463 times the last three seasons. Even more mind-blowing, Gwynn never punched out more than 40 times in a single season. For his career, Gwynn averaged 29 strikeouts every 162 games.
Tony Gwynn was the best pure hitter of his time, and the stats prove it
In fact, Gwynn only had one three-strikeout game in his entire career. On April 14, 1986, Bob Welch of the Los Angeles Dodgers struck out Gwynn each of his first three times up to bat. No pitcher or team's pitching staff ever accomplished that feat again. There have been 24 perfect games in MLB history, but only one hurler punched out Tony Gwynn three times in the same game.
Gwynn's make-contact mindset led him to accomplish some unthinkable feats. Playing mainly in the 1980s and 1990s Gwynn faced future Hall of Famers such as Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez. In 103 plate appearances against Maddux, Gwynn batted .429 with 39 hits in 91 at-bats. More impressively Gwynn never struck out against the four-time Cy Young Award winner. Think about that. Maddux racked up 3,371 strikeouts for his career which is tenth all time, and he never once figured out how to get strike three on Tony Gwynn.
In 36 plate appearances versus Pedro Martinez, Gwynn went 11-for-35, good for a .314 average. And just like Maddux, Martinez never once punched out Tony Gwynn. Martinez's career 3,154 strikeouts are not far behind Maddux on the all-time strikeout list as the two combined for 6,525 strikeouts in their careers.
Since the beginning of MLB in 1876, there have been 20,532 major league players according to Baseball Almanac. That means if you assign one of Maddux and Martinez's 6,525 combined career strikeouts to a percentage of players in baseball history, they would account for striking out 31.7% of all major leaguers to ever play the game. But not Tony Gwynn.
Since he almost never struck out, Gwynn set more incredible marks when he put the ball in play. Mr. Padre batted .300 or higher in 19 of his 20 seasons in MLB. The only year Gwynn hit below .300 was his rookie year in 1982 where he hit .289 in 54 games. For 19 consecutive seasons, Gwynn hit above .300 and hit .339 in that span. Gwynn's 19 seasons of hitting .300 or better ranks behind only Eddie Collins who had 20 and Ty Cobb who had 23. By the way, Cobb's 23 seasons of batting .300 or high all came consecutively from 1906-1928.
But what is .300 when you can consistently bat .350? According to AJ Cassavell of MLB.com, Gwynn is the only player since World War II to hit .350 or higher in five straight seasons. From 1993-1997, Gwynn hit .369 and collected 916 hits while only striking out a total of 98 times. That is an average of 183 hits and 20 strikeouts per season during that span.
Averaging 209 hits every 162 games, Gwynn was an "artisan with the bat" as it says on his Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown. In a game today where players are so focused on launch angle and home runs, Tony Gwynn stepped into the batter's box simply looking to keep his eye on the ball and make contact. He kept his eye on the ball and certainly on the prize, which for Tony Gwynn meant a plaque in Cooperstown and recognition as one of the greatest hitters of all time.
