Jimmy Wynn

By my system, Wynn (55.7 career WAR/43.3 peak/49.5 JAWS, 16th among centerfielders) is the best player I've found to have gone voteless during this timeframe—so good that he was the centerfielder on my All One-and-Done Team a few years ago (Kenny Lofton, who received 3.2% in his lone ballot appearance, was on the companion All-Overlooked Team). Known as "The Toy Cannon," Wynn was a 5'10" sparkplug with power, outstanding control of the strike zone and good defense, a player whom Bill James compared to early-career teammate Joe Morgan. He spent the first 11 years of his career (1963–73) playing in the Astrodome, the game's toughest pitchers' park, then another two in Dodger Stadium, which wasn't much easier. In that difficult context, his career line of .250/.366/.436 translates to a solid 129 OPS+.

Because of his low batting averages and high walk totals, Wynn went largely unheralded in his time, making just three All-Star teams, but he did reach 20 homers eight times and 30 homers three times. He also walked more than 100 times in a season six times, leading the league twice. In 1969, he had more walks (148) than hits (133) to go with 33 homers en route to a .269/.436/.507 line, a 166 OPS+ and 7.1 WAR, one of three seven-win seasons and four in his league's top 10. Alas, shoulder woes cut his career short at age 35; he finished with 291 homers and 1,665 hits along with his 1,224 walks. All of that amounted to a voteless year on the ballot in 1983.