Edgar Martínez

Edgar Martínez was the best pure hitter on a generation of Seattle teams and the greatest designated hitter the game has produced, so good at the one thing he did that baseball named the award for it after him. He batted .312 with a .418 on-base percentage, won two batting titles, and reached base with a patience and a swing that pitchers could not solve. He hit the most important ball in Mariners history, the double that saved the franchise, and he waited a long time for Cooperstown to honor a man who never played the field. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2019, in his final year on the ballot.

The Long Road From Dorado

Martínez was born on January 2, 1963, in New York City, and after his parents divorced he went to live with his grandparents in Dorado, Puerto Rico, choosing to stay with them even when his parents reconciled and asked him home. "I felt my grandparents needed me," he said. He worked night shifts at a pharmaceutical factory and played ball when he could, and the Seattle Mariners signed him as an undrafted free agent in 1982 for a few thousand dollars. He hit at every level of the minor leagues and still could not get a job, buried on the depth chart, and he did not become a full-time major leaguer until he was 27.

The Hitter Behind the Eye Trouble

What makes the hitting more remarkable is what he overcame to do it. Martínez had strabismus, a congenital condition that left his eyes misaligned, a cruel affliction for a man whose living depended on tracking a 95-mile-an-hour fastball. He managed it with a daily regimen of eye exercises, fusing images on a wall chart and batting away tennis balls to train the muscles, and he turned a disadvantage into one of the best batting eyes in the game. He drew walks, worked counts, and squared the ball up as well as anyone of his era, the discipline a product of work as much as gift.

Two Batting Titles

Once Seattle finally gave him the job, Martínez hit immediately and kept hitting. He won the American League batting title in 1992 at .343, the highest average by a right-handed batting champion in the league since Harvey Kuenn in 1959, and the first batting crown any Mariner had ever won. He took a second in 1995 at .356, leading a league full of bigger names, and he settled in as the steadiest bat in the order. He finished his career at .312 with a .418 on-base percentage, numbers that place him among the finest hitters of his generation regardless of where he stood on the field.

The Double

The defining moment came in October 1995, with the Mariners and the whole franchise on the line. In the deciding Game 5 of the division series against the Yankees, Seattle trailed in the bottom of the 11th inning when Martínez came up with two runners on and lined a double off Jack McDowell into the left-field corner. Joey Cora scored from third, and Ken Griffey Jr. came all the way around from first, sliding home with the run that won the series. Lou Piniella called it the hit that saved baseball in Seattle, and the moment built the new ballpark and kept the team in the city. Martínez had hit .571 in that series, with two home runs and 10 runs batted in.

The Best of a Great Team

Martínez was the constant on Seattle teams that were often thrilling and never quite champions. He hit in the middle of a lineup that included Griffey, Randy Johnson, and a young Alex Rodríguez, and he anchored the 2001 Mariners who won 116 games, tying the most in major league history. Injuries to his legs had pushed him to designated hitter years earlier, and he made the position his own, a full-time hitter who treated each at-bat as a craft. He made seven All-Star teams, won five Silver Sluggers, and took the Roberto Clemente Award in 2004 for his work off the field.

Naming the Award

By the time he retired after 2004, Martínez had become the standard for his position, and the game made it official. Baseball renamed the Outstanding Designated Hitter Award the Edgar Martínez Award that year, an honor he had won five times himself, attaching his name to the role he had perfected. He had spent 18 seasons with one team, never wore another uniform, and turned a job that purists dismissed into a Hall of Fame career. The argument over whether a designated hitter belonged in Cooperstown would be settled on his name.

The Final Ballot

Cooperstown made him wait nearly the full 10 years. Martínez debuted at 36 percent in 2010, stalled as voters wrestled with a candidate who had not played defense, then climbed as the case for his bat became impossible to deny. He reached 85.4 percent in 2019, his 10th and final year of eligibility, and got in just before his time ran out. He went in wearing a Mariners cap, his number 11 already retired in Seattle, the greatest designated hitter ever and the man who proved the position could carry a player to the Hall.