The Hall of Fame’s Most Under-Appreciated Players: Part 6

In my last post in this series, I named Kid Nichols as the ace of my all-time under-appreciated Hall of Fame pitching staff.  There are, of course, several options from which to choose for the #2 man in my rotation.  I decided to go with the Detroit Tigers’ own Hal Newhouser.

Before we go any further with this, let’s take a look at two lines of stats.  For both pitchers, we are comparing their six best consecutive seasons:

Pitcher A:  129-47, WAR – 44.4, ERA+ 160

Pitcher B:  136-56, WAR – 43.8, ERA+ 158

Also,

Pitcher A led his league in wins three times, in complete games twice, in shutouts 3 times, and in ERA+ twice.

Pitcher B led his league in wins four times, in complete games twice, in shutouts once, and in ERA+ twice.

As measured by WAR, Pitcher A was the best pitcher in his league twice, Pitcher B three times.

Pitcher A had a career WAR of 50.3, Pitcher B had a career WAR of 55.8.

They were each named to about a half-dozen All Star teams.

Both pitchers stood 6’2″, and threw left-handed.

Pitcher A made his debut at age 19.  Pitcher B, at 18.  Both came up as home-town boys.

Pitcher A made his Major League debut in 1955, just seven weeks after Pitcher B threw his final pitch.

One pitcher is dead; the other is still alive.

Pitcher A was born Sanford Braun, but you know him as Sandy Koufax.

Pitcher B was born, and remained, Hal Newhouser.

Sandy Koufax is everyone’s idea of a Hall of Famer.  Hal Newhouser was rejected by the BBWAA, topping out at just 43% of the vote in his final year on the ballot in 1975.  It wasn’t until the Veteran’s Committee inducted him 17 years later in 1992 that Hal Newhouser finally received recognition in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Koufax was a first ballot Hall of Famer, receiving 87% of the vote in 1972.

Yet, if you go back and take a look at their numbers, especially in their six best consecutive seasons, the difference between the two is not all that great.  Sure, Koufax was more of a strikeout guy, leading the league in K’s / 9 innings six times, but Newhouser led his league in that same stat four times.

One must also keep in mind that Koufax pitched in a better pitcher’s era, in a better pitcher’s park, than did Newhouser.

Sandy Koufax won three Cy Young awards, and finished 3rd in another season.  He was also voted league MVP in 1963.

Hal Newhouser won consecutive A.L. MVP awards in 1944-45, and he finished in second place in the voting in 1946.  The Cy Young award didn’t come into existence until 1956, otherwise it is reasonable to assume that Newhouser would certainly have deserved three of those awards as well.

I think the key here as to why Koufax overshadows Newhouser is primarily due to the issue of timing.  Newhouser’s best years occurred more or less in the middle of his career, which is normal for most players.

Koufax had a slow start to his career, then caught fire in the early ’60′s and never looked back.  In a sense, at least as far as the mythology and stature of SANDY KOUFAX is concerned, walking away from a highly successful career while still at the top of one’s game was a stroke of genius.  Yes, I know that he only retired due to excruciating pain in his left elbow.

But if he had continued to pitch for a few more years, it’s likely that the pain and the simple wear and tear on his arm would have resulted in a steady decline in production, mirroring what most other pitchers go through in their careers.  If that had been the case, I believe it would have diminished Koufax in the eyes of HOF voters, and he might have had a more difficult time being inducted into The Hall, despite his six amazing seasons.

Another reason, though, why I believe the mythology (and I don’t mean to imply that I think Koufax was overrated) of Koufax is far superior to the more prosaic legacy of Hal Newhouser was due to the era in which they each toiled in the Majors.

Hal Newhouser’s best seasons occurred during and just after World War II.  This was an era when bigger things than baseball were occurring in the world, when a generation of Americans labored for their daily bread, and their very lives, in factories at home in America, and on battlefields  from Salerno to Saipan.  There just wasn’t much time to romanticize a series of sporting events.

Nor was that particular generation of men and women prone to push heroes up onto pedestals.  They were generally too busy burying heroes silently.

By 1960, however, a new generation of young people, not yet at war, and just then beginning to imprint their profligate, psychological profile on an indulgent society, was in the midst of defining their own heroes.

Sandy Koufax emerged at exactly the right time.  His career clicked just as a young John Kennedy inspired this generation to embrace the present as well as the future.  Koufax turned 25 in ’61, and led the N.L. in strikeouts for the first time.  He would continue to dominate the decade through ’66, before it was clear that the Vietnam War was going nowhere, and before the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy.

Hal Newhouser, by way of contrast, became dominant in the year of the D-Day Invasion, and continued his run of success on the eve of the largely forgotten Korean War.

Newhouser’s career record of 207-150 might not impress people in the same way that, for example, Don Sutton’s 324-256 record might.  Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea, picked up naturally by others, that a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher should have 300 wins.

Certainly, if a pitcher wins 300 games, he is probably going to be worthy of Hall induction based on other career stats as well.  Yet, in their respective primes, who would you rather have pitching the big game for you?  Who would you prefer to have as your staff ace?  The pitcher who enjoyed lots of 17-11 seasons with respectable peripheral numbers, or would you have the guy that, in his best years, could knock off 25-30 wins while dominating the league in several other stats as well?

As for me, I’ll take Hal Newhouser, one of the most under-appreciated HOF pitchers of all time.

Related articles

• The Hall of Fame’s Most Under-Appreciated Players: Part 5 (ondeckcircle.wordpress.com)

Baseball’s Surprising Stats: Pedro Martinez

This is Part 7 of the series, “Baseball’s Surprising Stats.”  If you’ve missed any or all of the first six,  you’ll find them under “Recent Posts” over to the right.

Recently, I read that Pedro Martinez lost only 100 games in his entire career in over 400 starts.

English: Pedro Martínez (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Losing just 100 games out of 409 career starts (against 219 wins) is a pretty remarkable statistic.

It led me to ask the following question:  What was the greatest number of games Pedro lost in any one season?

Indirectly, this also led me to wonder, if wins are an overrated statistic that don’t often reveal the true value of a pitcher, then how about losses?

In other words, are the number of losses a pitcher suffers in a particular season fairly representative of his overall performance?

Lists are often my favorite visual aid, so of course you know what’s coming.  Here’s a list of 26 pitchers, (do we always have to work with multiples of five?) and the highest number of losses they suffered in a season, from fewest to most.

Every pitcher on this list made at least 300 career starts, the vast majority making over 400. The number in parentheses indicates the number of seasons the pitcher lost that many games.  A number in bold print indicates they led the league in losses that season.

1)  Pedro Martinez – 10  (2)

2)   Ron Guidry – 12 (and it wasn’t until he turned 35 that he lost that many.)

3)  Lefty Grove – 13  (2)

4)  Sandy Koufax – 13  (2)

5)  John Smoltz – 13

6)  Roger Clemens – 14

7)  David Cone – 14  (2)

8)  Randy Johnson – 14  (2)

9)  Curt Schilling – 14

10) Tom Seaver – 14  (2)

11) Bob Feller – 15  (2)

12) Dwight Gooden – 15

13) Greg Maddux – 15

14) Mike Mussina – 15

15) “Pete” Alexander – 17

16) Bert Blyleven – 17  (4)  (Led league in losses in one of those four 17-loss seasons.)

17) Tom Glavine – 17

18) Catfish Hunter – 17

19) Christy Mathewson – 17

20) Ferguson Jenkins – 18

21) Jack Morris – 18

22) Nolan Ryan – 18

23) Don Sutton – 18

24) Steve Carlton – 20

25) Luis Tiant – 20

26) Walter Johnson – 25

Boy, that Walter Johnson was a lousy pitcher, wasn’t he?

Actually, the year Johnson lost 25 games he was just a 21-year old kid still learning his craft.  Although his ERA that year was a sparkling 2.22, his ERA+ was just a mediocre 111, meaning that lots of pitchers had very low ERA’s that year.  Easy to see why this was the Dead Ball era, right?

So, do the number of losses a pitcher suffers in their “worst” season tell us much in the way of useful information?  Is it possible for a pitcher to have an excellent year (as measured by other reliable stats) yet come away with a relatively high number of losses?

Well, we just saw that Walter Johnson was not yet a great pitcher when he lost those 25 games.  Similarly, Tom Glavine was just a 22-year old with an ERA+ of just 80 when he lost his career high 17 games.  In other words, it would not be inaccurate to say that he truly did “earn” those losses.

Although Nolan Ryan was already 29-years old when he lost 18 games in 1976, his ERA+ that year was only 99, and he was still walking far too many batters.  In other words, those 18 losses can’t simply be written off as a lack of run support, or an unlucky “good” pitcher on a bad team.  Ryan pretty much deserved to lose 18 of his 39 starts that year.

Don Sutton, like Bert Blyleven, is in the Hall of Fame due to a long career of notable, yet unspectacular, consistency.  They are baseball’s equivalent of the 35-year career insurance salesmen who never miss a day of work, but of whom the best that can be said is that they never knowingly, intentionally, sold a questionable policy.  They each stuck around long enough to earn their gold watch, enjoy their retirement party, and retire to Miami Beach to play golf, bare white legs set against the over-manicured greens draining into dying swampland.

So what of their 17 and 18 loss seasons?  In 23 seasons, Don Sutton never led his league in ERA+, and in ERA just once.  In 1969, his fourth season in the Majors, he posted an ERA+ of 96 in 296 innings.  Durable?  Sure.  But it is clear that those 18 losses were generally representative of his pitching performance that particular year.

Bert Blyleven’s four 17-loss seasons, three of which occurred consecutively from 1972-74, were more of a mixed bag.  In two of those seasons, (1973-74) Blyleven posted ERA+’s of 156 (which led the league) and 142, respectively.  In 1972, his ERA+ was a decent 119, and in his final 17-loss campaign, 1988, his 17 losses led the league in a year in which his ERA+ was only 75.

When Luis Tiant and Steve Carlton each led their respective leagues with 20 losses (Tiant in ’69; Carlton in ’73), neither pitcher was better than league-average that year.  Tiant’s ERA+ was just 101, and Carlton’s was only 97.

Long-time Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martínez returns to Fenway Park in 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Generally speaking then, what is clear from this admittedly abbreviated list of pitchers is that great pitchers don’t tend to lose very many games, unless they are having an off-year, or unless they are still refining their craft.

Now, that may sound like the least surprising bit of information you’ve ever received.  But what it means is that, although a pitcher can have a great year and not win very many games (see the list of recent Cy Young winners), it is not at all common for a pitcher to have a great year and still end up with a lot of losses.  

Notice that only four of the 26 pitchers on this list ever led their league in losses, despite the large number of combined seasons represented here.

Therefore, although it is true that you should generally ignore a pitcher’s win totals when evaluating his actual value in any one season, the converse is not so true.

A pitcher’s loss totals are generally representative of what you would expect, given other statistical measures of performance.

By that measure, then, one can argue that Pedro Martinez was one of the top ten, if not among the top five, starting pitchers of all-time.

Baseball’s Surprising Stats: Babe Ruth

I’m launching a new series today called, “Baseball’s Surprising Stats.”  The object of this series is to revisit players most of us already know something about, then to uncover one fact or statistic about that player that isn’t widely known.

I got the idea for this series when it occurred to me that although I knew that Babe Ruth was an excellent pitcher for the Boston Red Sox before he became the slugging star outfielder of the New York Yankees, I had no idea how many game Ruth won in his career as a pitcher.

Once I did the research, I was intrigued by what I found.

That leads us to Part 1 of this series.  I hope you find it useful and enjoyable.

Babe Ruth threw his first pitch in a Red Sox uniform at age 19 in 1914, just as the First World War was getting under way across the pond in Europe.

American baseball player Babe Ruth, publicity photo, 1918, Boston Red Sox (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ruth pitched for the Red Sox from 1914 through 1919, starting 143 games over those six seasons.  Twice he won over 20 games for the Sox, including a career high 24 wins in 1917.  That same season, he led the A.L. with 35 complete games, and posted a 2.01 ERA.

The previous season, Ruth had led the A.L. with 40 starts, a 1.75 ERA  in 323 innings, and nine shutouts.  He won 23 games that season.

In 1916, also compiled a WAR of 8.3, second best in the league among pitchers.

By 1918, though, Ruth was spending substantially more time in the outfield, and, therefore, less time on the pitcher’s mound.  He declined to 13 wins in 1918, then just 9 more wins in 1919, his final year in Boston.

Babe Ruth pitching with Boston Red Sox, Cominsky Park, 1914 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Meanwhile, Ruth led the A.L. in home runs in 1918 when he swatted eleven.  The following year, his last with the Red Sox, he set a new home run record with 29.

In January, 1920, Ruth was purchased from the Red Sox by the Yankees for the unheard of sum of $100,000.

I was unaware that Ruth started four games for the Yankees in his career, winning each of them, and adding another win as a relief pitcher in 1921.

I should also note that while pitching for Boston, he made three starts across two World Series, winning all three starts while posting an incredible 0.87 ERA.

The most stunning stat I found was that in 1916, in 40 starts and 323 innings pitched, Ruth did not give up a single home run all season!  Now, I know this was the dead ball era, but that is still one unbelievable statistic.

My initial question regarding Babe Ruth was, how many games did he win as a pitcher?  The answer is, he won 94 games in his career while losing just 46.  His career win-loss percentage was .671, the 12th best in Major League history, higher than Christy Mathewson, Roger Clemens, and Sandy Koufax.

Clearly, Ruth was a great pitcher before he was a great position player, and that’s why he’s often considered the greatest player who ever lived.

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Phil Humber’s Perfect Game: How Perfectly Rare

Phil Humber of the Chicago White Sox has just tossed the 21st perfect game in Major League history, defeating the Seattle Mariners this afternoon, 4-0.

Philip Humber (Photo credit: Keith Allison)

To put this extremely rare event into perspective, more people have orbited the moon than have thrown a complete perfect game, and no pitcher has ever thrown two of them.

Among the pitchers who never threw a perfect game are Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Lefty Grove, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Carl Hubbell, Bob Feller, Robin Roberts, Steve Carlton, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, Dwight Gooden, Greg Maddux, and Pedro Martinez.

Twenty perfect games have been pitched during the regular season.  Two perfect games were pitched in the 19th century, 14 were tossed in the entire 20th century, and now five have already been hurled in the 21st century.

Six pitchers who pitched a perfect game are currently in the Hall of Fame:  Montgomery Ward, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax and Catfish Hunter.  At least two more pitchers — Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay — will eventually be enshrined as well.

Mark Buehrle takes a sign during his 2009 perfect game. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eight of the 21 perfect pitchers were left-handed:  Lee Richmond, Tom Browning, Randy Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Dallas Braden, David Wells, Mark Buehrle, and Kenny Rogers.

The most common score of a perfect game has been 1-0.  This has happened six times.  The greatest amount of run support pitchers have received while tossing perfect games has been six runs.  David Cone won 6-0 in 1999 while pitching for the Yankees, and Jim Bunning received six runs of support in 1964 while pitching against the Mets.

May has been the most common month for perfect games (7), while none have ever been pitched in the month of August.

Thirteen perfect games have been thrown by A.L. pitchers, while only eight N.L. pitchers have ever pitched one.

Here is a complete list of pitchers who have tossed a perfect game prior to Humber’s masterpiece today, as well as the date on which it was thrown, and the score of the game:

Roy Halladay
Philadelphia Phillies at Florida Marlins, 1-0
May 29, 2010

Dallas Braden
Oakland A’s vs. Tampa Bay Rays, 4-0
May 9, 2010

Mark Buehrle
Chicago White Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays, 5-0
July 23, 2009

Randy Johnson
Arizona Diamondbacks at Atlanta Braves, 2-0
May 18, 2004

David Cone
New York Yankees vs. Montreal Expos, 6-0
July 18, 1999

David Wells
New York Yankees vs. Minnesota Twins, 4-0
May 17, 1998

Kenny Rogers
Texas Rangers vs. California Angels, 4-0
July 28, 1994

Dennis Martinez
Montreal Expos at Los Angeles Dodgers, 2-0
July 28, 1991

Tom Browning
Cincinnati Reds vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, 1-0
Sept. 16, 1988

Mike Witt
California Angels at Texas Rangers, 1-0
Sept. 30, 1984

Len Barker
Cleveland Indians vs. Toronto Blue Jays, 3-0
May 15, 1981

Catfish Hunter
Oakland A’s vs. Minnesota Twins, 4-0
May 8, 1968

Sandy Koufax
Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs, 1-0
Sept. 9, 1965

Jim Bunning
Philadelphia Phillies at New York Mets, 6-0
June 21, 1964

Don Larsen
New York Yankees vs. Brooklyn Dodgers, 2-0
Oct. 8, 1956
(World Series)

Charles Robertson
Chicago at Detroit (AL), 2-0
April 30, 1922

Addie Joss
Cleveland vs. Chicago (AL), 1-0
Oct. 2, 1908

Cy Young
Boston vs. Philadelphia (AL), 3-0
May 5, 1904

Prior to Modern Era

John Montgomery Ward
Providence vs. Buffalo (NL), 5-0
June 17, 1880

Lee Richmond
Worcester vs. Cleveland (NL), 1-0
June 12, 1880

They say nobody’s perfect, but 21 pitchers can say they have been perfect for a day.  And that’s something no one can ever take away from them.

Happy Endings: The Art of Going Out On Top

Andy Pettitte (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once it was announced that Andy Pettitte was going to come out of retirement to pitch yet another season for the Yankees, the first thing I thought was, why bother?  What does he have left to prove?  He has 240 regular season wins to his credit, plus another 19 playoff game wins.  Pettitte will turn 40-years old in June.  Why take the risk of potentially embarrassing himself in front of his fans?

Meanwhile, Chipper Jones is heading the other way, recently announcing that 2o12 will be his final season in the Majors.  When he was healthy enough to play, Chipper (who turns 40 in April) put up some decent numbers last season.  Again, though, one has to wonder why it is even necessary to attempt one more season.  Like Pettitte, Jones has had a long and distinguished career, so why risk going out with a sub-par performance?

This led me to consider how few players in baseball history have retired at or near the top of their game.  After examining the final seasons of many of baseball’s best players, the answer is damn few.

If Pettitte had decided to stay retired, his final performance in 2010, an 11-3 record in 21 starts with a 3.28 ERA (and an ERA+ of 132), would actually qualify as one of the finest final season performances by any pitcher in baseball history.

Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Similarly, if Chipper Jones had retired after last season when he swatted 33 doubles to go along with his 18 homers, 70 RBI and OPS+ of 123, he could have held his head high.

This is not to say that Chipper or Pettitte will perform terribly in 2012, but baseball’s long history of final performances is one long, ugly indictment of playing one season too many.

Having said that, here are eight random final season performances that were actually quite impressive.  In some cases, the player was forced into retirement due to physical reasons.  In other cases, the player had become so controversial that no team would sign him, regardless of his ability to remain productive.

Albert Belle (Photo credit: Keith Fujimoto)

1)  Albert (Joey) Belle – You remember him best, perhaps, as the infamous sociopath who tried to run over some kids with his car on Halloween night.  You might also remember that Belle was one hell of a hitter during his career.  As far as I can tell, Belle is the only player in history to drive in at least 95 runs in every one of his full seasons in the Majors, including 103 in 2000, his final season.

In 2000, Belle cranked 37 doubles to go with 23 homers and a .281 batting average for the Orioles.  His OPS was .817.  While not one of his greatest years, it was far superior to the average final season of most Major League sluggers.  He retired at the age of 33.

Photograph shows Eddie (Edward Stewart) Plank, pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing slightly right. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2)  Eddie Plank – “Gettysburg”  Eddie Plank, unlike the vast majority of highly successful pitchers, Plank did just fine in his last season in the Majors.  Although his record in his final season in 1917 (pitching for the St. Louis Browns) was just  5-6, he posted a sparkling 1.79 ERA in 131 innings.  His ERA+ was an outstanding 147.  Clearly, this 41-year old future HOF’er had something left in the tank.  But he wisely decided to call it quits after that final season.

3)  Reggie Smith –  One of the most underrated players in baseball history, and one of the top 50 players not in the Hall of Fame, Smith enjoyed his final hurrah in 1982 at the age of 37 while playing for the San Francisco Giants.  Entering ’82, Smith was just four homers shy of 300 for his career.  He ended up slugging 18 while playing his home games in Candlestick Park, a notoriously difficult park for hitters.

Smith’s triple slash line in ’82:  .284 / .364 / .470, with an OPS+ of 134, were remarkably similar to his overall career numbers:  .287 / .366 / .489, OPS+ of 137.  In other words, Smith was about as productive in his final season as he had been in any previous average year.  That’s not at all a bad way to go out.

4)  Tony Gwynn- Even in his final season at age 41, was anyone really surprised that Gwynn batted .324?  Granted, he played in just 71 games in 2001, but his OPS+ during those plate appearance, 127, was pretty close to his career OPS+ of 132.  Gwynn was essentially the same professional hitter at age 41 as he had been much earlier in his career.

Jackie Robinson swinging a bat in Dodgers uniform, 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

5)  Jackie Robinson –  Given the relentless abuse heaped upon him day after day, year after year, it’s a wonder he played as long as he did.

Robinson was already 28-years old when he debuted in the Majors in 1947.  He played a solid decade before retiring after the 1956 season at the age of 37.  During this decade, he was a career .311 hitter who scored at least 99 runs in each of his first seven seasons.  His career OPS+ was an excellent 131.

In his final season, despite playing in just 117 games, Robinson drew 60 walks while striking out just 32 times, posting a .382 on-base percentage.  He posted an outstanding dWAR of 1.9, and a respectable overall WAR of 4.6, third best on the 1st place Dodgers.  He also finished 16th in MVP voting, not a bad way to end a legendary career.

Will Clark preparing to bat during seventh inning of 12 August 1992 game between San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Game boxscore (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

6)  Will Clark – Will “The Thrill” Clark was one of my favorite players of the late 1980′s into the early ’90′s.  He played with intensity, had a beautiful left-handed line-drive swing, and was nimble around first base.  His career OPS+ of 137 is the same as the aforementioned Reggie Smith, and is better than those of Hall of Famers Bill Terry, George Brett, Al Kaline, and Paul Waner.

His final season in the year 2000 did nothing to blemish his fine career.  In splitting his season between Baltimore and St. Louis, Clark posted a fine triple slash line of .318 / .419 / .546 and an OPS+ of 144 in 507 plate appearances.  His overall WAR was a respectable 4.1.  Retiring at the age of 36, Clark certainly went out at the top of his game.

7)  Mike Mussina –  That rarest of rare pitchers, Mussina decided to retire after winning 20 games for the first time in his career (at age 39) while pitching for the New York Yankees in 2008.  As far as I know, no health issues would have prevented him from returning for yet another season at the age of 40.  Clearly, he decided he’d had enough.

Those 20 victories pushed his career total to 270, and probable induction into the Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher and Hall of Famer in a 1961 issue of Baseball Digest. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

8)  Sandy Koufax – Koufax and Mussina are the only two pitchers since 1920 who retired after posting 20-win seasons.  Mussina did it out of choice.  Koufax was forced into retirement due to chronic pain in his elbow.

It’s interesting to speculate how much longer Koufax would have pitched had he not suffered from this lingering pain.  Would he have eventually bounced around like Steve Carlton in his final years, trying to recapture lost glory?  And if he had tried to pitch while declining in effectiveness year after year, would his legendary reputation have become diminished over time?

Regardless, Koufax’s final season in 1966 at age 30, pitching for the L.A. Dodgers, was the single finest final performance in baseball history.  En route to his third Cy Young award over four seasons, Koufax posted a 27-9 record, a 1.73 ERA (which led the league for the fifth straight year), 27 complete games in 41 starts (both of which led the league), 317 strikeouts, and a ridiculous ERA+ of 190.  His WAR was 10.8, matching his career high set in 1963.

I think Neil Young had it correct when he said it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

Regarding Chipper Jones and Andy Pettitte, it remains to be seen if their final seasons will match those listed above, or if their respective final seasons were one year too many.

Related articles

• Chipper Jones and 8 Other Superstars You Won’t See Play Again After 2012 (bleacherreport.com)
• Andy Pettitte unretires (randombaseballstuff.com)

The Baseball Hall of Fame: A Qualitative Analysis – Final Thoughts

By my count, there are just over 200 former Major League baseball players in the Hall of Fame.  This does not count players who were eventually elected to The Hall not for what they did on the field, but for what they later did as coaches, managers, or even team owners.

Image via Wikipedia

I also did not count former Negro League players like Satchel Paige who, though he did spend some time in The Majors, is actually in The Hall primarily for his vast accomplishments as a Negro League pitcher.

After having written well over 15,000 words on this subject, I have come to several conclusions.

First, there is broad consensus on the top 40-50 players of all-time.  I don’t mean that you and I would come up with exactly the same list of players on such a list, just that if you polled a room-full of those of us who spend an inordinate amount of time on this stuff, our lists would not vary greatly.

So far, so good.

There are 23 players who have a career WAR over 100.  These are the shoo-ins.  There are another ten players who accumulated WAR between 90-99 in their respective careers (interestingly, this is one of the smallest cohort groups in the HOF.)

Among the players in the 90+ range include Christy Mathewson, Jimmie Foxx, and Al Kaline, so I think it’s probably safe to assume that expanding the Hall to at least the top 33 players would be acceptable to a reasonable person.

Yet, if we limit Hall membership to this elite group of 33 players to ensure that only the “best of the best” are included, we have slammed the door shut on Cal Ripkin, Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Roberto Clemente, George Brett, Nolan Ryan, and a dozen other players who generated 80-89.9 WAR in their careers.  And I know you’re not up for that, are you?

Now that I have strong-armed you into accepting the top 50 players, (as measured by WAR), into The Hall, I’m sure you feel like you can rest on your laurels here.  Just keep these 50 plaques in The Plaque Room in the HOF, and eliminate all the others.  Then you’ll have a TRUE Hall of Fame where only the best of the best are honored.

But we still have a couple of problems here (three actually.)  The first thing you might be forgetting is that baseball is constantly generating new players, some of whom are pretty damned good.  Albert Pujols, for example, is already approaching 90 WAR.  What happens when he is elected into The Hall?  To keep Hall membership exclusive by limiting it to just the 50 top players, whom do you then kick out of The Hall?  Wade Boggs?  Steve Carlton?  Good luck on that.

And Pujols won’t be the last player to top 80 career WAR in his career.

You also have another problem.  You still don’t have a catcher in the HOF.

WAR is tough on catchers (see Adam Darowski’s Hall of wWAR for more on this topic,) in large part because they just don’t play as often as other position players, and because the nature of the position takes a bigger toll on the human body, which tends to wear out faster than someone playing, say, first base.

Also, though this may be of lesser concern to you, there also aren’t any relief pitchers over 80.0 WAR in The Hall.

We can go on and on like this, adding now all players between 70-79 WAR (including Bench, Carew, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Mize, Robin Yount, etc,) and even dropping into the 60′s WAR (including Ernie Banks, Duke Snider, Tony Gwynn, Carlton Fisk, and some guy named Jackie Robinson, to name a few.)

Pick a random WAR cohort to eliminate, and I’ll tell you why you have a problem.  No players in the 40-49 range should be allowed, you state firmly, because now you’re shoving in guys with less than half the career WAR as the top couple of dozen players in The Hall.

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I’ve got two words for you:  Sandy Koufax.  Or, if you prefer, Dizzy Dean.  How about Rube Waddell?  He only led his league in strikeouts six straight season.  Sure there are players in the 40+ WAR cohort who don’t belong in The Hall, but where’s the cutoff, exactly?

Meanwhile, in the 20+ and 30+ career WAR groups of HOF players, you have some of the best relief pitchers of all time, including Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, and Rollie Fingers.  What should we do about them?

If we ignore WAR for these players, plus the players like Koufax and Dean who burned brightly for just a few short years, and players like Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Ryne Sandberg and Willie Stargell (each in the 50+ WAR cohort) whose reputations somehow don’t mesh with what we’d expect their WAR’s to be, we are left with a bit of a mess of a situation.

Sure, in general, the lower the WAR, the worse the player is, but there are enough exceptions to make us consider, perhaps, what this all means.

What exactly is it we’re trying to accomplish here?  When we say that we want only the best players in The Hall, do we mean that we simply want the players, regardless of our emotional connection to them, and despite what their historic legacy might be, who meet the standards of a mathematical formula (however well put together), or are we looking for something more here?

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Catfish Hunter has one of the lowest career WAR of any starting pitcher in the HOF.  I concede, unconditionally, that he was an overrated pitcher who, if we wasn’t fortunate enough to have pitched for excellent A’s, then the Yankees teams in the ’70′s, he would have been more or less just another pitcher.

But I’m glad Catfish is in The Hall.  The fan in me just doesn’t give a rat’s ass what his WAR is (and I don’t consider myself a “traditionalist,” whatever the hell that means, when it comes to stats, either.)  I greatly respect modern statistical analysis, and I’m glad that I have a nice peg to hang my biases on when it suits me (WAR says Jack Morris doesn’t belong in The Hall, so screw him.)

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None of this changes the fact, however, that there really are players in The Hall who don’t belong there.  We could probably even agree on several of them.  I would take out Lloyd Waner, Tommy McCarthy, Freddie Lindstrom, Herb Pennock, and Dave Bancroft before breakfast tomorrow morning.  But they’re there, and I guess they’re not going anywhere.

Meanwhile, short of taking the vote away from the BBWAA and from the Veteran’s Committee (which has largely stopped electing former players just about all together anyway), what is to be done about Hall voting now and on into the future?  How do we eliminate mistakes, and get back to the Golden Age of the Hall of Fame?

Here’s the good news.  If it is exclusivity you seek, we are already swiftly sauntering down that street.  Here’s the evidence.

In each decade since the 1970′s, inductions of former MLB players into The Hall has declined for four straight decades.  The number of players inducted into the HOF in each of the past four decades is as follows:

1970′s – 36  (one of the worst decades in terms of quality of players inducted in history.)

1980′s – 29

1990′s – 24

2000′s (including 2011 inductees) – 22

And this is without yet knowing how the steroids controversy will affect several (otherwise obvious) potential HOF’ers like Bonds, Clemens, etc.  Almost certainly, in the very near future, there will be a huge backlog of historically significant players not in The Hall that will rival the untapped talent available to the first HOF election committees back in the 1930′s.  Whether this is a good thing or a tragic situation depends on your point of view.

But one thing’s for sure.  No one will be able to argue that too many mediocre players are being elected into The Hall.

Although no group of humans, and no statistical formulas, will probably ever solve the puzzle of how to create a “perfect” Hall of Fame, I believe that if you are looking for a time when there was something resembling a Golden Age for the HOF, you can stop looking.

We may already be there.

Baseball’s Statistical Oddities

Every once in a while, as I’m doing some research for this blog, I’ll come across a baseball statistic that catches me off guard.

I’m not suggesting that no one else has ever noticed any of these odd items before, but if they are new to me, they might just be new to you, too.

To begin with, which particular pitchers in baseball history do you think were the toughest to hit against (Hits / 9 Innings)?

Did you say Walter Johnson?  Well, O.K., he is 33rd on the all-time list having given up 7.47 hits per nine innings in his career.  Randy Johnson?  You’re getting warmer.  He is 22nd on the list.

Remember, we are not talking about WHIP here.  Just hits per nine.

Yes, of course, it was Nolan Ryan.  He was the Number #1 toughest pitcher to hit, having given up just 6.55 hits per nine.  Not a surprise.  But keep reading.

Sandy Koufax comes in at Number #2, posting a 6.79 hits per nine ratio.  Again, no surprise there.

Number #3 Toughest Pitcher to Hit, Ever?  Well, here’s the surprise:

Sid Fernandez.  Yes, that Sid Fernandez.  El Sid.  The Mets’ secret weapon in the bullpen against the Red Sox in the ’86 World Series.

Sid Fernandez posted an incredible 6.85 hits per nine innings in his career in 1866 innings.  He pitched in parts of 15 different seasons and made exactly 300 starts in his career.

So how many wins did El Sid record out of those 300 starts?  Just 114 wins, against 96 losses.  In other words, Fernandez ended up with a no-decision in 30% of his career starts, a rather high percentage.

So why didn’t he win more games?  Apparently, El Sid just couldn’t get much past the sixth inning.  In fact, he completed only 25 games in his entire career!  Thus, his bullpen mates ended up swooping down for the win, or they blew the game and took the loss.

Sid Fernandez’s idea of a workout routine was a 6,000 calorie breakfast, followed by long periods of rest and idleness.

Fernandez only reached double-figures in wins in five seasons; his best win totals were 16 (in 1986), 14 (twice) and 12 (twice).  That’s it.

Sid Fernandez was, then, one the greatest six- inning pitchers ever.  But even though one-inning specialists now routinely make it into Cooperstown, (they’re called “Closers”), El Sid will never get in without first paying for a ticket.

Now that’s a strange career.

Almost as strange was the career of a former teammate of Sid Fernandez:

David Cone.

At first glance you might not expect David Cone to have had a weird career, but let me throw some numbers at you.  I’ll do it in the form of a Table so you can more clearly see what I noticed.

The first number represents a season with exactly that number of wins; the second number directly to the right of it represents how many seasons Cone reached that number of wins.  So let’s take a look:

20  -  2  (Cone had 2 twenty win seasons)

19  -  0

18  -  0

17  -  0

16  -  1

15  -  0

14  -  3

13  -  1

12  -  2

11  -  1

10  -  0

Cone finished with nearly 200 wins in his career in over 400 starts.  His career win-lost percentage was a very nice .606.

But where did all those 194 career wins come from?  How does a pitcher have two 20 win seasons, but NO 15, 17, 18, or 19 win seasons, and still have an excellent career?

Cone is the antithesis of Bert Blyleven.  Blyleven won nearly 300 games (287) in his career, but his entire career was made up of exactly the kinds of seasons Cone NEVER even had once in his entire career (except for the one lonely 16 win season.)  For example, Blyleven produced five 17-win seasons.

There are two types of Hall-of-Famers, and two kinds of HOF voters.  One group prefers the bright shining stars that flame out fast, (but oh, what beauty when they shined.)

The other group prefers slow-and-steady-wins-the race.  Cone is not in The Hall; Blyleven is.  But they are on polar opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the kinds of careers a pitcher who could be considered for The Hall might have.

Now, how about a hitter.

The worst thing a hitter can do is make lots and lots of outs, meaning a low on-base percentage, right?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Exhibit A, former infielder Alfredo Griffin.  Griffin played his first full season in the Majors in 1979, winning the A.L. Rookie of the Year award playing for the Blue Jays.  He retired in 1993.

Alfredo Griffin was, without doubt, one of the worst hitters in the history of baseball.

Now, I know, there have been lots of really bad offensive players throughout baseball history.  But this, as they say, you have to see.

Griffin’s highest single-season on-base percentage in his career was .333 in his rookie campaign of 1979 when he drew a career high 40 walks in 689 plate appearances.  He never walked as many as forty times in a season again.

But the season that truly boggles my mind was 1984 when in 441 plate appearances, Griffin drew exactly FOUR walks all year.

How is that even possible?

His batting average that season was .241; his on-base percentage was .248.  For his entire career, Griffin posted an OBP of .285 in over 7,000 plate appearances.

Folks, we are talking about a guy that played all 162 games in four different seasons, not some part-time late-inning defensive replacement.

He wasn’t even all that good defensively, although he managed to win a Gold Glove award.  But even fifteen Gold Gloves couldn’t justify those awful non-hitting skills of his.

You want to hear the best part?  In 1984, the year he drew just four walks, the year he posted an OBP south of .300, that was the only year he made an All-Star team in his career.

To at least partially make up for his terrible on-base skills, did he hit lots of homers?  No, just 24 in his entire career.

Did he score lots of runs?  Nope, he reached 80 runs scored only once, his rookie season.

Did he steal lots of bases?  Well, here’s the thing.  He did steal 192 bases in his career, but he was also caught stealing 134 times, a poor “success” rate of .588.  In fact, in a two year period, 1980-81, he successfully stole a paltry 26 bases in 61 attempts!

In November of 1988, the Dodgers, enamored by Griffin’s .199 batting average and .965 fielding percentage from the ’88 season, signed Griffin as a free-agent for one million dollars.

Am I missing something here?  Griffin retired after the ’93 season with a career WAR of -2.4.

The weirdest thing about Alfredo Griffin isn’t the numbers themselves, it’s that he was able to find steady work in the Majors for 18 seasons.

O.K.  Let’s follow Griffin up with a player who actually could hit.

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Carlton Fisk was one of the best overall catchers in baseball history.  Although he suffered numerous injuries early in his career, he nevertheless ended up playing in 2,499 games, amassing 9,853 plate appearances.

Most of his career numbers are pretty standard (meaning very good) for a player of his caliber, especially for a catcher.

But one odd season late in his career when he played for the White Sox stands out.

In 1984, when Fisk was already 36 years old, he slugged a reasonable 21 home runs.  Now, normally when a player hits over 20 homers and plays more or less every day, their RBI total lands somewhere in the 65-85 range, give or take a few.

Yet somehow, despite hitting 21 homers, Fisk managed to drive in only 43 runs in nearly 400 plate appearances.  That means the vast majority of his RBI that year came directly as a result of those 21 homers.

I’m guessing that his RBI total that year has to be one of the lowest ever recorded, perhaps the lowest, for a player who hit at least 20 homers in one season.

I am not casting any aspersions on Fisk’s talent or on his career, but that is one fluky statistic.

Finally, there is the strange case of Storm Davis.

Davis was an extremely young man of 20 when he threw his first pitch for the Orioles in 1982.  By the age of 22, Davis had already pitched 525 innings in the Majors; there were no Joba Rules in those days.

By 1989, Davis was a member of a formidable Oakland A’s rotation.  In that year, his age-27 season, Davis enjoyed his career-year.  Despite tossing just 169 innings, Davis posted a record of 19-7.

It was the worst 19 win season in major league history.

Here are the ugly peripheral numbers behind that inflated win total:

ERA:  4.36, WHIP:  1.506,  Strike-Outs:  91,  Walks:  68,  K’s / 9 innings:  4.8,  Hits / 9 innings:  10.

In short, if Davis had pitched that year for virtually any other baseball team, he would have ended up with a sub-.500 win-lost record.

Of course, the Kansas City Royals, unable to see past Davis’ gaudy win total, signed Davis in the off-season to be the ace of their staff for over a million dollars (still big money in those days.)

The Royals were rewarded with a 7-10 season in 1990.

Davis’ career was strange because he was actually a pretty good pitcher who pitched terribly one season, still won 19 games, and was rewarded with a large contract as a free agent as a result.

Talk about pure, dumb luck.

There are, of course, many other players who experienced odd seasons, unaccountable success, or statistical anomalies in their careers.  Feel free to share others you can think of with me.

The Baseball Hall of Fame: A Qualitative Analysis, Part 4

If the decade of the 1970′s is known primarily as the decade of uninhibited excess, that also applies to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame during that decade.  An astonishing 36 former Major League ball players were inducted during the ’70′s, 22 of them by the Veteran’s Committee alone.

As we have seen here, here, and here, through 1969, approximately 30% or more of the players elected to the Hall of Fame were either borderline candidates, or were outright mistakes.  This percentage would become worse by 1980.

Now let’s take a look at what the ’70′s had to offer.

1970:  BBWAA – Lou Boudreau  V.C. Earle Combs, Jesse Haines

Primarily a member of the Cleveland Indians, Boudreau was arguably the best shortstop in the A.L. during the 1940′s.  He led the A.L. in fielding percentage every single season from 1940-49.  He also led the league in overall WAR by a position player in both 1943 (6.7) and 1948 (10.5), winning the A.L. MVP award in ’48.  A career OPS+ of 120 is very solid for a shortstop, and his career WAR of 56.0 is Hall-worthy.

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Earle Combs was the starting center fielder for the ’27 Yankees.  He had a great year in ’27 posting a triple slash line of .356 / .414 / .511, with an OPS+ of 141.  He also led the league in hits (231) and triples (23) while scoring 137 runs.

But Combs got a late start in the Majors, not becoming a full-time starter until he was 26-years old.  He enjoyed nine productive seasons with the Yankees, but a career WAR of 44.7 (despite a career .325 batting average) is sub-par for a HOF candidate.

Combs was a very good player, but not quite Hall of Fame good.

At first glance, Jesse Haines appears to have been the Rick Reuschel of his era (the ’20′s and ’30′s.)  They each won a little over 200 games, tossed over 3,000 innings during 19 seasons,, and posted ERA+’s a little better than Replacement Level.

But Reuschel had a much higher WAR than Haines (66.3 to 33.8.)  If Reuschel doesn’t belong in The Hall (although a case can be made that he does), then Haines certainly does not, either.

1971:  V.C.  Dave Bancroft, Jake Beckley, Chick Hafey, Harry Hooper, Joe Kelley, Rube Marquard

Apparently, the Veteran’s Committee had fond memories of Dave, Jake, Chick, Harry, Joe and Rube.  But are all six of them really solid choices for the Hall of Fame?

Bancroft could field well, but as an overall player, he appears to have been a hybrid of Gary Templeton and Phil Rizzuto.  Led the league in times caught stealing (27) in his rookie year.  Career WAR:  46.4.  Not a positive addition to The Hall of Fame.

Beckley had a career WAR of 61.5.  He was never really a great player, but was consistent over a lot of years.  He led his league in triples once, and nothing else over a 20-year career.  He never finished higher than 5th place in WAR in any season.  Reasonably decent addition to The Hall, but not a true immortal.

Chick Hafeywas a rich man’s Mike Greenwell.  Hafey could hit pretty well, but didn’t remain productive for very long.  Won a batting title.  Average defensive outfielder.  Just 1,466 career hits.  Career WAR:  29.5.  Not a useful addition to The Hall.

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Harry Hooper played alongside Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis in the great Red Sox outfield of the early 1900′s.  Of the three, however, only Speaker deserves to be in The Hall.  Hooper’s career triple slash line stands at .281 / .368 / .387.

Career OPS+ 114.  Career WAR: 52.5.  An excellent defensive outfielder with a career Def. WAR of 8.4.  At best, however, a borderline HOF’er.

Joe Kelley is certainly one of the most anonymous players in the Hall of Fame.  Enjoyed a few fine seasons in the 1890′s playing for Brooklyn.  His 194 career triples are 9th best of all-time.  Career OPS+ is a very decent 133.  Career WAR:  55.5.  About as borderline HOF as they come.

In 1912, pitching for the Giants, Rube Marquard was a great pitcher.  He led the Giants, and the N.L., with 26 wins.  The previous year he had led the league with 237 strikeouts.  But by age 27, he was a shadow of his former self.  He hung around the majors to win 201 games, but his career WAR: 28.5, reveals how little he actually accomplished over the rest of his career.  Marquard does not belong in The Hall.

1972:  BBWAA – Yogi Berra, Sandy Koufax, Early Wynn  V.C.  Lefty Gomez, Ross Youngs

Yogi Berra won ten World Series rings.  Career WAR:  61.9 (fifth best among catchers.)  358 career home runs.  Three MVP awards.  Strangely, Berra never led the league in any offensive category even once in his career.  That seems pretty unlikely for such a good hitter who played nearly 20-years, if you think about it.

Few players in baseball history have attained the untarnished legendary status of Sandy Koufax.  During a six-year period, 1961-66, he was among the very best pitchers who ever lived, winning three Cy Young awards in his last four seasons.  He struck out over 300 batters three times, tossing four no-hitters in his career.  Koufax compiled an astounding 47.6 WAR during those half-dozen years, an average of 7.9 WAR per year.

He accomplished all of this with style, dignity and professionalism seldom equaled in baseball history.

In 23 years in the Majors, Early Wynn enjoyed about five very good seasons and several other decent ones.  He topped 20 wins five times, led the league in strikeouts twice, and  finished his career with an even 300 wins (against 244 losses.)  Career WAR: 52.0.  Career OPS+ 1o7.  Even with 300 wins, Wynn is a borderline HOF’er.

The Veteran’s Committee must have confused Lefty Gomez with Lefty Grove.  But Gomez, despite pitching for the great Yankee teams of the 1930′s, won just 189 games in his career.  He led the league in wins twice, ERA twice, and ERA+ twice.  Basically, he had two great years and a few other good ones. Career WAR:  43.0.  Does not actually belong in The Hall.

Ross Youngs:  One of the most random of all Hall of Fame choices.  Young played just ten seasons in the Majors, from 1917-26 for the Giants.  He was a legitimate hitter, posting a career batting average of .322 and a career OPS+ of 130.  But he compiled just 1,491 hits in his career, and scored only 812 runs. His career just wasn’t long enough nor impressive enough to merit Hall induction.  Poor choice.

1973:  BBWAA – Roberto Clemente, Warren Spahn  V.C.  George Kelly, Mickey Welch

Roberto Clemente:  Warrior on the field, apostle of peace off the field.  Lived and died a hero to millions.  Even the Hall isn’t big enough to encompass his legacy.

Warren Spahn:  Who is the greatest left-handed pitcher in baseball history?  Spahn has a legitimate case.  His 363 career victories are the most since the end of WWII, and the sixth most in history.  He reached 20-wins in a season a ridiculous 13 times, leading the league in wins eight times.  His career WAR: 93.4, is 11th best among pitchers in MLB history, and is second only to Lefty Grove among left-handers.  An obvious choice for The Hall.

George “High Pockets” Kelly is yet another early 20th century Irishmen in The Hall.  The V.C. was also going through a Giants fetish at this time, thus a player with 819 runs scored, an OPS+ of 109, and a career WAR of 24.3 is in The Hall.  But he did have a cool nickname.

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Mickey Welch:  My favorite stat for Welch is that he won 44 games in 1885, and did NOT lead the league in that category.  His 574 innings pitched in 1880 (age 20) also did not lead the league.  He won 307 games against 210 losses.  Career ERA+ 114.  Career WAR: 56.5.  Ah, hell. Put him in.  They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

1974:  BBWAA – Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle  V.C.  Jim Bottomley, Sam Thompson

It’s beautiful symmetry when two long-time teammates go into The Hall together.  Mantle and Ford are not only two of the greatest Yankees of all-time, they are both among the greatest players who ever lived.  Mantle is in the top ten.  Ford is a top 40 pitcher.  Both are certainly qualified for The Hall.

Jim Bottomley was a slugger for the Cardinals in the 1920′s and early ’30′s.  He won the N.L. MVP award in 1928.  He drove in a lot of runs, pounded his fair share of extra base hits, and finished with a career OPS+ of 124.  A crummy defensive player, Bottomley finished with a career WAR of 32.4.  I don’t quite see a HOF caliber player here.

Sam Thompson was a 19th century player who led his league in one category or another 21 times.  An OPS+ of 146 is very impressive.  Not a high career WAR, but they played somewhat fewer games per season back then.  He’s a legit HOF’er.

1975:  BBWAA – Ralph Kiner  V.C.  Earl Averill, Billy Herman

I seem to remember Bill James casting aspersions on Kiner’s selection to The Hall.  Kiner played only ten seasons in The Majors with the Pirates in the 1940′s and ’50′s, but led the league in home runs in each of his first seven consecutive seasons.  He also drew a lot of walks, scored a lot of runs, and drove in a lot of runs through age 30.

But after that, his career went downhill fast.  Although his career OPS+ is a very impressive 149, his WAR is just 45.9.  Sort of a cross between Jim Rice and Rocky Colavito.  Sprinkle in just a touch of Dave Kingman.  Bake at 375 degrees on a hot Pittsburgh summer day, and voila, you have yet another borderline HOF’er.  Bon appetit!

For some reason, Earl Averill got a very late start in The Majors, not breaking in until he was already 27-years old.  Played centerfield reasonably well for the Indians in the ’30′s piling up some pretty nice offensive numbers for a decade.  But his late start and rapid descent after age 36 results in a relatively low career WAR of 45.  If Averill’s in, there is no excuse to fuss and fight over Jim Edmonds’ candidacy a few years from now.

A well-respected player, Billy Herman was a ten-time N.L. All-Star selection.  During his 15-year career with the Cubs and Dodgers, he had three 200-hit seasons, topped 2,300 hits, and led his league once each in hits, doubles and triples.  Not much power.  Good fielder.  Career OPS+ 112.  WAR: 55.6.

If we arbitrarily establish that every position player with a career WAR of 55.0 or higher automatically gets into The Hall, then we have 141 position players (Jack Clark representing the last man in.)  But we lose three great catchers:  Bill Dickey, Mickey Cochrane and Buck Ewing.  If we drop the standard down to 50.0, we gain those three, plus we add Ted Simmons and Gabby Hartnett (as well as Cesar Cedeno, Ron Cey and Fred McGriff.)  Not that the Hall of Fame should exactly mirror the Hall of WAR, but the question is, how exclusive do you want The Hall to be?

1976:  BBWAA – Bob Lemon, Robin Roberts  V.C.  Roger Connor, Freddie Lindstrom

Bob Lemon – The bastard child of Allie Reynolds and Hal Newhouser.  Three-time winner of the Sporting News Pitcher of the Year award.  Seven-time All Star.  Seven time 20-game winner.  Led league in complete games five times.  207-128 record.  3.28 ERA.  Career ERA+ 119 is the same as Ron Guidry and Warren Spahn.  WAR: 42.4.  Took about a dozen years for the BBWAA to finally decide this one.  If you prefer the more modern stats, he’s probably not your man.  But he’s not a poor choice, either.

Robin Roberts is a solid member of the Hall of Fame.  For six consecutive seasons, 1950-55, he won at least 20 games, adding 19 wins in 1956.  During that stretch, this Phillies ace led the N.L. in wins four times, complete games and innings pitched five times, and strikeouts twice.  Won 286 games against 245 losses.  He also led all N.L. pitchers in WAR four times.  Career WAR of 80.9 is outstanding.

Roger Connor was one of the finest corner infielders of the last two decades of the 19th century.  Career OPS+ 153 is outstanding.  WAR: 87.2.  Kudos to the V.C. for getting this one right.

Freddie Lindstrom:  Yet another Giant who played in the mid-to-late 1920′s and early ’30′s.  Led N.L. in hits once.  Had a pair of 231 hit seasons.  Reached 100 games played in just eight seasons.  Career WAR:  29.2.  There is really no objective reason why he should be in The Hall of Fame.

1977:  BBWAA – Ernie Banks  V.C.  Amos Rusie, Joe Sewell

Ernie “Let’s Play Two” Banks, except these days you have to spring for a day-night doubleheader.  Ah, nothing is sacred anymore.  ”Mr. Cub” began his career with Chicago at age 22 in 1953, and retired with Chicago at age 40 in 1971.  Won back-to-back MVP awards in 1958-59.  Ranks 21st on the home run list with 512.  Easy choice for The Hall.

Amos Rusie pitched for just ten seasons between 1889 and 1901.  Won a lot of games.  Lost a lot of games.  Pitched a ton of complete games, as was the fashion back then.  Seems to have been one of the better pitchers of his era.  ERA+129.  WAR:  60.6.  And, of course, he played for the Giants.  The “ayes” have it.

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Joe Sewell was a pretty good shortstop who played primarily for Cleveland in the 1920′s.  Had one of the worst years in history attempting to steal bases.  In 1927, he attempted to steal a base 19 times, and was thrown out 16 times.  Ouch.  Career OPS+ 108.  A good player, but not really good enough for The Hall.

1978:  BBWAA – Eddie Mathews  V.C.  Addie Joss

Who was the greatest third baseman in history before Mike Schmidt came along?  It must have been Eddie Mathews.  A true immortal.

I’ve been intrigued by Addie Joss for a long time.  As far as I know, he is the only player in The Hall for whom they waived the Ten Year Rule, as Joss was struck down with a fatal disease (meningitis) after just nine years in the Majors.

His career numbers are unbelievable.  In five of his nine seasons, his ERA was under 2.00.  His career ERA of 1.89 is the second best in history, accumulated in over 2,327 innings pitched.  His career WHIP, .0968 is the best in Major League history.  His ERA+ of 142 is sixth best in history among starting pitchers who pitched at least 1,500 innings.  The Veteran’s Committee was right to waive the Ten Year Rule for Joss.

1979:  BBWAA – Willie Mays  V.C.  Hack Wilson

Willie Mays:  Among the top five, maybe the top three, players who ever put on a baseball uniform.  I always wondered why when Ted Williams was still alive, he, not Mays (nor Aaron for that matter) was always introduced as the Greatest Living Player.  Williams was the greatest natural hitter, but Mays was the better all around player.

Hack Wilson was a barrel-chested masher who still holds (and probably always will) the record for most RBI in a season (191 in 1930.)  Led N.L. in home runs four times.  Had six seasons with over 100 RBI.  But do you know what?  He still finished his career with fewer total RBI than Jeff Conine.  Also hit 56 home runs in 1930, but finished his career with only 244 homers, one less than Mickey Tettleton.   Played centerfield, but not very well.  Career WAR: 39.1.  Not a HOF’er.

Our overall tally, then, for this decade is 16 definite HOF’ers, 8 marginal choices and, unfortunately, 12 poor choices.  In effect, Hall voters may have missed the mark on up to 56% of their choices, an astoundingly high total.  The 1970′s, then, severely undermined the argument that only the best of the best are worthy of Hall induction.

If there ever was a Golden Age of Hall induction, clearly, we appear to be moving further away from it.

Perhaps the situation improved during the 1980′s.  We’ll check out that decade next time.

Related articles

• Hall of Fame Classic moved up to Saturday before Father’s Day (cbssports.com)
• Cleaning Up The Hall: Rizzuto vs. Trammell (ondeckcircle.wordpress.com)

Cleaning Up the Hall of Fame: Herb Pennock vs. Ron Guidry

In this, the fourth installment of this series, I propose replacing one Yankee (of questionable merit) in the Hall of Fame with another, better choice.  If it seems to you that this series is a bit top-heavy with Yankees up to this point, it’s probably because there are so many of them in The Hall in the first place.

Image by Willie Zhang via Flickr

Perhaps more surprisingly, there are other Yankees who are not in The Hall, but who have a better case for being enshrined there than several players, Yankee and non-Yankee alike, who currently enjoy a spot in the Hall of Fame Plaque Room.

When most people think of the 1927 Yankees, they think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and perhaps outfielders Earle Combs and Bob Meusel.  Pitcher Waite Hoyt might also come to mind among serious baseball fans.

Herb Pennock?  Well, perhaps there are a few hardcore fans around who could toss that name at you, too.

Pennock was a good pitcher on a very good team, perhaps the best team in history.  Actually, Pennock (The Knight of Kennett Square), a Pennsylvania boy, first came up with the Philadelphia A’s in 1912.  By 1915 he had joined the Red Sox and enjoyed some success there until 1923, when the Sox sent him to the Yankees.  (Pennock did not play a major role in either of the Red Sox World Championship teams in 1915-16.)

Pennock, just hitting his stride now at age 29, was immediately successful pitching for New York’s American League team.  In his first season, he won 19 games and led the A.L. in winning percentage at .760.  In his next five seasons, he won 21, 16, 23, 19 and 17 games for the mighty Yankees.

Over the course of those half-dozen years, the best years of his career, Pennock led the league in winning percentage once, shutouts once, innings pitched once, and WHIP twice.  He also walked the fewest batters per nine innings three times.

Only once during those years did Pennock reach 100 strikeouts in a season.  He also never actually led the league in wins, either.  He did, however, finish 3rd in A.L. MVP voting in 1926 and 4th in 1924, so his contributions to those great Yankee teams did not go unnoticed.

Pennock pitched until age 40 when he retired after a short, one-year stint back in Boston.  He had pitched for the Yankees for eleven years, winning a total of 162 games while losing just 90.  Overall in his career, Pennock posted a record of 241-162, meaning he lost as many games in his entire two-decade career as he’d won pitching about half as long with the Yanks.

Although Pennock’s career win-loss record is very good, and he was an important part of the Yankees rotation during those years, Pennock was a questionable choice for election into the Hall of Fame in 1948.  His career WAR of 36.9 is the same as no-one’s-idea-of-a-Hall of Famer, Burt Hooton.

Pennock’s career ERA of 3.60 is pretty decent for the high scoring era in which he pitched the majority of his career, but his career ERA+ of 106 gives us a pretty good indication that he was, in reality just a bit better, all things considered, than the average pitcher in his day.

There’s nothing wrong with being a good player on a great team.  That, and a lot of durability are one of the quickest and surest paths into the Hall of Fame.

But then there’s true greatness which, even if it burns brightly for just a short time, blinds us with its brilliance.

Such was the career of Ron (Louisiana Lightning) Guidry.  Like Pennock, Guidry enjoyed his glory days with the Yankees.  Also like Pennock, Guidry was a lefty.  Unlike Pennock, though, and to quote Bruce Springsteen, “He could throw that speed-ball by you, make you look like a fool, boy.”

Guidry got a bit of a late start in Major League baseball, not landing a regular gig until he was already 26-years old in 1977.  But he was an immediate success, posting a 16-7 record with a 2.82 ERA, and an ERA+ of 140.  In the World Series, Guidry defeated the Dodgers in Game 4, pitching a complete game, 4-2 victory.

In 1978, however, Ron Guidry produced one of the greatest seasons by any pitcher in baseball history.

Guidry started 35 games, won 25 of them, lost only three times, and posted a ridiculous ERA of 1.74.  His ERA+ was an off-the-charts 208.  He also led the league in WHIP 0.946 and in shut-outs with nine.  He threw 16 complete games and struck out 248 batters in 273 innings pitched.  Guidry won the A.L. Cy Young award and finished second in MVP voting.

In the World Series, Guidry again pitched a complete game victory, this time over Dodger ace Don Sutton, 5-1.

The following season, Guidry led the A.L. in ERA (2.78), topped 200 strikeouts again, and posted an 18-8 record while finishing third in the Cy Young award voting.

Guidry would continue to have several productive seasons with New York, finishing in the top ten in Cy Young voting in 1981, 1983, and 1985.  In his ten full seasons as a starting pitcher, Guidry would finish in at least the top seven in Cy Young voting six times.

Also recognized as one of the best fielding pitchers of his era, Guidry won five Gold Glove awards.  He also pitched in four All-Star games.

Guidry ended his career in 1988 at the age of 37.

Although many argue that his lack of durability has hurt his chances a great deal as far as earning entry into the Hall of Fame is concerned, it might be useful to consider that Guidry topped at least 190 innings in a season nine times, and over 200 seven times.  Hall of Famers Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax, by contrast, each topped 200 innings in a season just five times during their respective careers.

Koufax and Guidry each topped 2,300 innings pitched, while Dean hurled just over 1,900.  Guidry and Dean each led their league in wins twice, while Koufax led his league in wins three times.  Koufax’ career win-loss percentage was .655, Guidry’s was .651, Dean’s .644.

Dean and Koufax both top Guidry in career ERA+ at 131 each, while Guidry scores a still very nice 119.   Guidry accumulated 170 wins to Koufax’ 165 and Dean’s 150.  Koufax tops the three in career WAR (54.5) to Guidry (44.4) and Dean (39.6).

The point here isn’t that Guidry was as good as Koufax, because he wasn’t.  When compared to Dizzy Dean, Guidry holds up very well.  The primary point here, though, is that we are not comparing Guidry to Pennock, because Guidry is quite obviously better than Pennock.

All of which is another way of saying that, regarding Pennock and Guidry,  The Hall clearly has the wrong Yankee lefty enshrined at Cooperstown.

Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Ken Singleton, or Roger Maris?

Image via Wikipedia

As I’m just now returning to my old digs here at WordPress, I thought I would make this post relatively short, just to get back in the swing of things.

This is the time of year when the Veteran’s Committee takes yet another look at long-retired baseball players to decide if they merit selection to the Hall of Fame.  This time around, the committee is comprised of 16 members, and 12 of them must vote in the affirmative for a candidate to become elected to The Hall.

Inevitably, one issue that always comes up is longevity versus short-term greatness.   Some voters, and baseball fans in general, seem to prefer players who have had long and durable careers, and who compile mountains of counting stats as a result of their longevity.

Still other fans and pundits are partial to the players who burned bright for a few short years, but burned out quickly, as their preferred choice of Hall of Fame resume.  Thus, Don Sutton vs. Sandy Koufax.  Both are in The Hall, each of them representing one pole on opposite ends of the HOF spectrum.

I’ve recently compiled a list of the top 50 players who are not in the Hall of Fame, which I will share at a later date.  While compiling my list, I found myself stuck on which player to choose as the 50th and final player, Ken Singleton or Roger Maris.

Ken Singleton was an under-appreciated player who toiled for 15 years in the 1970′s and early ’80′s, playing for the Mets, the Orioles and the Expos.  His career OPS+ of 132 really jumped out at me.  Over the course of his career,  adjusting for his home ballparks and the era in which he played, he was 37% better than a league-average replacement level player.  That struck me as pretty impressive.  In fact, his career OPS+ is the same as Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn, Joe Morgan and Al Simmons.  Also, Singleton’s career offensive WAR of 46.6 is exactly the same as Kirby Puckett’s.

As for Roger Maris, well, you know pretty much all you need to know about him.  He has become synonymous with the average working stiff who gets screwed in the end.  A two-time MVP, Maris enjoyed three very fine seasons before retiring from baseball after his age 32 season.  He was a four-time All-Star, he won a Gold Glove, and he still holds the American League record for most home runs in a season.  But other than two excellent and a couple of other very good seasons, there is not much else to recommend him as a legitimate candidate for The Hall.

I wouldn’t argue that either Singleton or Maris belongs in The Hall, but if you had to pick one, which one would you choose, and why?  Do you prefer measured consistency over a long period of time, or, well, do you choose Roger Maris?

Image via Wikipedia

I go back and forth myself about this argument.  I’d like to hear your opinion.

Thanks for reading, and welcome back to the On Deck Circle.  It’s good to be home.

Bill

Related articles

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• Get used to the “Roger Maris for the Hall of Fame” arguments (hardballtalk.nbcsports.com)
• You: Roger Maris’ Career Was Ruined by Dick Young’s Non-Existent Asterisk (bleacherreport.com)