Category Archives: History
Top 20 Second Basemen of All-Time
Second base is the “keystone” of the infield, an important part of a team’s defense. For many years, second basemen were mostly light-hitters, but they’ve evolved into power hitters and batting champs. The position has produced more great managers than any other, with Tony LaRussa, Sparky Anderson, Gene Mauch, Miller Huggins, Billy Martin, and several more coming from their ranks. Here are the top 20 second baseman of all-time.
20. Tony Lazzeri
Two players who just missed the top twenty: Larry Doyle and Bobby Doerr, are very difficult to rate against Lazzeri. Doyle wasn’t just one of the best second basemen in the game, he was one of the best players. Doerr was the best fielder of the three, by quite a margin. Lazzeri was a nice blend of offense: got on base a lot and could drive in runs. He also had the best post-season success of the trio. Doyle had an edge in OPS+, at 126, with Lazzeri at 120 and Doerr at 115. In the end, the ratings formula placed Lazzeri ahead of Doerr because of his higher career value and his edge in his best three seasons. Doyle falls behind Doerr because the fielding measurements (however good they are) have him far behind. All three were excellent second basemen for their own reasons, and all three deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, though Doyle has virtually no chance.
19. Billy Herman
Herman wasn’t the second baseman that Gordon was, but he had the fortune of playing 15 seasons. He was good with the glove: only Hughie Critz and later Lonny Frey were finer in the National League during the 1930s. Next to Rod Carew, Herman was probably the best bunter of the elite group of players at his position.
18. Chuck Knoblauch
Didn’t expect Knoblauch to rank this well, but he does. He was a solid, but unspectacular player, much on par with Randolph in that regard. He was certainly a winning ballplayer who seemed to always get credit for doing the “intangibles.” But maybe the intangibles are really measurable, and that’s why our formula rates him this well. His peak rated well above Doerr and Lazzeri and Herman, as did his seven-year stretch.
17. Chase Utley
It’s awkward to rate a player when he’s in his prime, but the WAR-based ranking method doesn’t really tail off that much as the player gets older. It’s sort of cumulative that way. Utley has tallied more points in our system than Herman, Lazzeri, and others, and the odds are he’ll only add to his total. His best seven-year stretch already rates in the top 10, and he will just add career value points going forward. Has a chance to be a top ten second baseman when he’s through.
16. Jeff Kent
It’s Jeff Kent who hurts the Hall of Fame chances of second basemen like Grich, Whitaker, and Randolph. Kent’s obscene power numbers make that trio look pedestrian in comparison. Fielding runs makes Kent (-4 for his career) look better than most remember him, as his range never seemed that great. It’s very difficult to overlook his impressive offensive numbers, which is why he rates ahead of the Hall of Famers he does. He appears to have played his career “clean” of steroids (but who knows?) and will almost certainly join the ranks of the greats in Cooperstown.
15. Willie Randolph
He ranks seventh in fielding runs overall at second base, and for players who began their careers after World War II, he trails only Frank White. But unlike White, Willie could do some damage with his bat and his feet, and he did it for a long time – more than 2,200 games. His career WAR is 60.5, 14th all-time. Most players put up better stats in games their team wins than in losses, but Randolph’s case is extreme. In wins (1,229 games) he batted .311 with a .407 SLG and .414 OBP. In losses (973 games) his corresponding numbers were .230/.280/.317
14. Lou Whitaker
Of those who only played second base - that is, never switched to another position to extend their career – Whitaker played the longest. He was 38 when he retired and he was still an excellent offensive player and adequate in the field. He had the best final three seasons of any second baseman, of course he was essentially a platoon player. Nevertheless, when he retired he was doing everything he was good at – drawing walks, hitting for power, and driving in runs. He was never that much interested in being a DH, and his personality didn’t fit that role (he became distracted quite easily), which is too bad, because he could have been a fine platoon player for a couple more seasons and padded his career stats a little more. But, he’d made his money and he went home to be with his wife and kids.
As a young player, Whitaker was one of the fastest players in the league, but he ran funny. As a kid he’d been pigeon-toed, and he still carried that with him a little. He had a tip-toe gate to his stride that made it seem like he wasn’t running as fast as he was. A longtime teammate of Whitaker’s told me that he never saw Sweet Lou work much on base stealing, and that he refused to get signs or send signs to teammates on the bases. Whitaker was talented but didn’t really care much about working on the details of the game. That’s the biggest difference between he and his double play partner, Alan Trammell.
Given that he ranks seventh all-time in WAR, was the leadoff man for a World Series winner which happened to be one of the best teams in baseball history, and that his contemporaries awarded him with Gold Gloves and other honors, Whitaker deserves a hell of a lot more than just one year on the HOF’s writers ballot. I have him ranked ahead of eight Hall of Fame second basemen. But the Hall seems to have something against second basemen, as evidenced by the fate of several men on this list.
13. Rod Carew
Very difficult to rate him as a second baseman, because he played about 55% of his career as a first baseman. But if we rank him at first, he doesn’t make the top twenty. At this position he ranks poorly defensively, though not as bad as some people remember him. Of course he won a ton of batting titles and racked up 200 hits ever season, which is very valuable from a middle infielder. So that counts for something. I would be comfortable with him ranking ahead of Alomar, but I think as a second baseman, Gordon was a superior player who just got robbed of prime seasons due to the war.
Carew was named after the doctor who delivered him while his mother was taking a train across Panama. The doctor’s name was Rodney Cline.
12. Roberto Alomar
He ranks 11th in WAR. Like a lot of second basemen, Alomar pooped out at about age 34. Only 58 times in baseball history has a second baseman played at least 130 games at his position in a season where he was older than 34. The vast majority of those seasons were mediocre or terrible offensively. Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins, Lou Whitaker, Joe Morgan, Jeff Kent, Charlie Gehringer, and Tom Daly are the only second basemen who have had excellent seasons with the bat in their late 30s. Alomar had a .698 OPS after the age of 34, which is pretty typical for a middle infielder.
He was a much better batter from the left side than the right. In Baltimore with Cal Ripken Jr. and in Cleveland with Omar Vizquel, Alomar formed two of the best double play combinations in baseball history, albeit briefly. His best seasons came in Toronto, but he probably should have won the MVP in 1999 while with the Orioles. That season, the top five finishers in MVP voting in the AL were Latino stars: Pudge Rodriguez, Pedro Martinez, Alomar, Manny Ramirez, and Rafael Palmeiro.
11. Joe Gordon
The greatest defensive second baseman in the history of the game, according to the most sophisticated statistical tools we have at our disposal. In addition, witnesses who saw him play were equally impressed.
It’s really quite amazing that Gordon wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame until 2009 – 58 years after his last game and 31 years after his death. He received MVP votes in eight of his 11 seasons, was an All-Star nine times, was the first second baseman to hit 20 homers in the American League, retired as the all-time homer leader at his position, and was universally acclaimed as the finest defender at second. He also missed his two prime seasons due to his service in World War II. When he was finally honored in Cooperstown in 2009, his daughter said, “He insisted against having a funeral, and as such, we consider Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame as his final resting place to be honored forever.”
10. Ryne Sandberg
Who had the more valuable career, Sandberg or Lou Whitaker? Each was an All-Star many times while winning Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers, but they never faced each other because they were in opposite leagues. Sandberg did more eye-popping things: he won an MVP Award, he hit 40 homers and led the league in that category, he stoled as many as 54 bases in a season. He also won nine straight Gold Gloves. Whitaker never had a monster season like Ryno, but he had several seasons (nine to be exact) where he posted an OPS+ of at least 120. He led his league in games played, and that’s it. He did win the Rookie of the Year Award and he collected 206 hits and batted .320 one season. But mostly, Whitaker plugged along hitting .275 or so with 165 hits, 80 walks, and 15-20 homers per season. Here are the 162 game averages for the two players:
Sandberg produced eight more extra-base hits and swiped 16 more bases. Whitaker walked 24 more times per year. hence the advantage each shared in slugging percentage and on-base percentage, respectively. When we adjust the OPS for ballpark effect, era, etc., Whitaker comes out ahead: 116 to 114. That’s an indication of how much Wrigley Field helped Sandberg’s numbers, which they certainly did. In their road games, Whitaker was the better hitter: .762 OPS to Sandberg’s .738. There are those stolen bases, though, about 200 more for Ryno than Sweet Lou. But Whitaker accumulated his stats over 700 more plate appearances, so he has that. In the end, the formula rates Sandberg ahead of Whitaker, because of his greater peak value.
9. Bobby Grich
Like Larry Doyle and Lou Whitaker, but even more so, Grich deserves to have his plaque hanging in Cooperstown. His ranking in the top ten at his position is well deserved. He’s 16th all-time in fielding runs as a second baseman, and in the 1970s he was easily the best defensive second baseman in the game. Offensively he was a lot like Jeff Kent, the two even shared the same basic approach at the plate: power at the expense of a high average. Grich had been groomed in the Oriole organization, and he embodied three of the fundamental pillars of that franchise: defense, power, and patience. Grich was amazing around the bag at second, earning four Gold Gloves. He hit a dozen or more homers in a season 12 times (drilling 30 for the Angels once), and he led the league in 1981. At the plate he drew 107, 107, 90, 86, 84, 82, and 81 free passes in his best seasons. He did the things that pioneering sabrmetrician Bill James described as the “hidden parts of the game.” As a result, Grich was overlooked even as he was compiling one of the best careers for a second baseman in the history of the game.
Bobby Doerr wasn’t elected until he was an old man, Joe Gordon was long dead when he was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame. The veterans committee should do some homework and award Bobby Grich for a great career by putting his name where it belongs: among the greatest second basemen in history. Do it while he’s alive, it’ll make for a better speech.
8. Craig Biggio
The fascinating career of Craig Biggio basically breaks down like this: four years as a catcher, 14 as a second baseman, and two as an outfielder. He was an All-Star as both a catcher and second baseman. Like clockwork for a second baseman, Biggio hit the wall at age 34, posting OPS+ scores of 93, 110, and 88 before he was asked to play center field by the Astros. He wasn’t a particularly great outfielder, but he played every day and continued to churn out doubles and score runs.
How much should post-season success or lack of, affect a player’s ranking? The answer: it depends. In Biggio’s case, he played in 40 post-season games, or 1/4 of a full season. His abysmal performance (.618 OPS) surely had something to do with Houston’s failures. When he finally broke out, hitting .400 against Atlanta in the 2004 NLDS, the Astros defeated their playoff nemesis. Overall, the Astros were 15-25 in the post-season during the Biggio/Bagwell era, losing six of nine series. When his obituary is written someday in the future, there will probably be a small mention of his misfortune in the playoffs, but it won’t impact his legacy that much. In these rankings, it didn’t factor in. Biggio is nestled right in where the numbers say he should be.
7. Frankie Frisch
Probably one of the most important individuals in the history of baseball who is virtually unknown to modern fans. In college he was one of the most famous athletes in the country, starring in four sports: basketball, track, football, and baseball. When he signed with John McGraw’s New York Giants at the age of 20 it was a huge story. He immediately made an impact, finishing third in steals as a rookie. Within a year, McGraw made Frisch his team captain, and he essentially served as a manager on the field the remainder of his career. Just about everything he did on the field was flashy and made headlines. When he was traded to the Cardinals it was for Rogers Hornsby, the greatest second baseman of all-time. Frisch received MVP votes in nine of 12 seasons from 1924-1935. He won the award in 1931 for St. Louis.
In 1933 he became player/manager of the Cardinals, whom he guided to a World Championship the following season. He was the second baseman for the National League in the first three All-Star games and he was among the highest paid players in the league for much of his career.
Frisch was at his best in the post-season. He played in eight World Series, and he batted .294 in 50 games. In the 1922 Series against the Yankees he batted .471 with eight hits in five games. The next fall he punished Yankee pitching again to the tune of .400 (10-for-25) in six games.
Following his retirement as a player at the age of 38, Frisch managed for over a decade. He never had the same success as strictly a manager, but he still had a .514 winning percentage for his career. In 1947 he was elected to the Hall of Fame. As a Hall of Famer he was hugely influential in the voting process of the veterans committee (he was the chairman). Frisch outlived most of his enemies, and as the years passed he slipped several of his former teammates into the Hall of Fame. The list of “Frisch inductees” includes Dave Bancroft, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, George Kelly, Rube Marquard, Ross Youngs, and Jim Bottomley (the year after Frisch passed on). These inductees are among the very worst in Cooperstown, and Frisch should be blamed for them, but he still deserves to be remembered as a brilliant second baseman.
6. Charlie Gehringer
He could rank a few slots higher based on his peak performance, which was damn good. Gehringer was famously called “The Mechanical Man” because he made everything look so automatic. He led his league in no fewer than eight different offensive categories during his career: batting, hits, runs scored, doubles, triples, stolen bases, plate appearances, and games played.
Gehringer was one of the few players who was “discovered” by Ty Cobb. When Cobb was player/manager of the Tigers in the early 1920s, he was given a tip about Gehringer, who grew up just west of Detroit. After seeing the young Gehringer play, Cobb insisted that the Tigers sign him to a minor league deal. Two years later he was in the Detroit lineup along with Cobb. Gehringer once told the story of how Cobb urged him to buy stock in General Motors and Coca-Cola. “But none of us had any money,” Gehringer said, “so we couldn’t follow his advice.”
5. Jackie Robinson
He’s ranked this high based on his peak value, obviously. He was clearly of major league caliber when he broke the color line in 1947, and had he been white he would have been in the big leagues much earlier and added who knows how many more hits and steals to his career totals. A lot of people don’t realize that he retired rather than accept a trade to the New York Giants. There’s no reason to believe that he couldn’t have put in a couple more seasons as a decent corner infielder or outfielder, but he had other things to do.
One man’s unscientific ranking of the fastest second basemen in history:
1. Eric Young
2. Davey Lopes
3. Jackie Robinson
4. Eddie Collins
5. Joe Morgan
6. Harold Reynolds
7. Frankie Frisch
8. Tony Womack
9. Juan Samuel
10. Delino DeShields
4. Nap Lajoie
Lajoie is bumped down below Joe Morgan even though he had a higher WAR (104.2 to 103.5), because we have discounted the players from the 1890s and early 1900s a bit. First, the leagues at that time were not as good as they would later become, hence it was much easier for the good players to dominate. Lajoie’s 1901 season is ridiculously freakish. He led the league in everything: he had 350 total bases in 131 games! His WAR of 9.4 was the second highest ever to that point, trailing only Dan Brouthers mark in 1892. But, despite the discounted rating, Lajoie is still one of the all-time legends. There have only been 67 occasions on which a player has posted an OPS+ of 190 or higher. Lajoie did it three times.
Thanks to his large hands and strong throwing arm, he was a good fielder in an era when the diamonds were like rock quarries and the gloves looked like gardening mittens. He ranks 17th in fielding runs all-time, just behind Grich.
3. Joe Morgan
The little engine that could on the Big Red Machine, Morgan catapulted that club to the next level when he arrived via trade. The trade is one of the best of all-time, when you consider that the Reds not only nabbed Morgan, they got center fielder Cesar Geronimo and starting pitcher Jack Billingham.
Among the HOF second basemen, Morgan ranks last in fielding runs, at -47 for his long career. His poor range and relatively low double play rates are the culprits there.
2. Eddie Collins
This guy was just a fantastic baseball player on so many levels. He was smooth in the field, he hit for average, stoled bases at a feverish clip, including home plate a bunch of times. He was a superb leader, and one of the greatest post-season performers in the history of the game: his teams won four of the five World Series that they were trying to win (crooked teammates cost him a fifth title with the White Sox in 1919).
At his peak (1909-1915) he finished first, second, or third in WAR every ear, leading the league in 1913 and 1914. The latter year he earned the automobile as the league’s MVP from Chalmers. He hit .333 for his career but never won a batting title, thanks to Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker. But he finished second in the batting race three times, and in the top five an amazing ten times. He was still a great base stealer in his late 30s – pilfering a league-best 48 in 1923 and leading the loop again the following season with 42.
After his career as a player, Collins continued to have influence in the game. As general manager of the Boston Red Sox from 1933 to 1947, he nurtured such players as Bobby Doerr, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, and many more. His prejudice toward African Americans is the blemish on his otherwise stellar credentials. He helped solidify the bias in the Boston organization against signing black players, and as a result, the Red Sox were the last team to integrate.
1. Rogers Hornsby
Some amazing offensive numbers from Hornsby’s career:
- For a stretch of five seasons, from 1921-1925, Hornsby batted .402 with a .690 slugging percentage.
- In 1925, when he batted .400 for the second straight season, Hornsby led the league with 39 homers and also struck out just 39 times.
- In 1924, the right-handed Hornsby hit .449 against right-handed pitching with a .723 slugging percentage.
- That same season, in the games his team won he batted .504
- In 1922, when he collected 250 hits, he never went more than a single game without at least one hit.
- From 1920-1925, a span of six seasons, he went as many as two games without a hit just 11 times, and no more than three, which he did just twice.
- “The Rajah” batted .393 for his career in the month of April and .392 in September.
- In 117 games at the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia, he hit .412 with 42 doubles, 28 homers, 118 RBI, a .715 SLG and .502 on-base percentage.
Top 20 Relief Pitchers of All-Time
Prior to the 1960s, for the most part, relievers were guys who couldn’t cut it as starting pitchers. There were a few exceptions, but that was it. The 1970s saw the first era of closers, and now 40 years later, the bullpen stopper is a critical piece of a pitching staff. We rank the 20 best relievers of all-time.
20. Tom Henke
A snapshot from the post-season 25 years ago shows how differently closers were used back then. In the 1985 ALCS, Henke got two wins in the first four games of the series, as Toronto jumped out to a 3-1 lead. He pitched poorly in Game Two but still get the win because the Jays rallied in the bottom of the 10th for two runs off Dan Quisenberry, who was in his third inning of relief. Henke pitched three innings of relief as well, though he gave up the game-tying homer in the ninth and a run in the 10th to the Royals. Henke pitched 2 1/3 innings of hitless relief in Game Four and got the win when the Jays again knicked Quiz for some runs. Henke never pitched another inning in the series however, as Toronto failed to post a lead in any of the final three games and KC rallied to win the pennant.
19. John Franco
Franco’s Adjusted ERA of 138 ranks fifth all-time among relievers with at least 1,000 innings. He trails only Mariano Rivera, Hoyt Wilhelm, Dan Quisenberry, and Trevor Hoffman. He ranks first for lefties, obviously. He could rate higher on this list: he racked up 424 saves and was pretty stingy allowing homers, too. But Franco has an image problem – he just isn’t seen as a Hall of Famer by most who saw him pitch. He wasn’t overpowering, he wasn’t flashy, and he never had a monster season by saves standards. His highest save total was 39, but he did lead the NL in the category three times. That image ma stem from a perception by fans in Cincinnati and New York who seem to think he blew more than his share of save opportunities. But is that true? Franco blew 101 saves in his career, meaning he converted 81% of his opportunities. The percentage for the three pitchers with more saves than Franco: Hoffman (89%), Rivera (89%), and Lee Smith (82%). The rest of the top ten in career saves rate this way in save percentage: Billy Wagner (86%), Dennis Eckersley (85%), Jeff Reardon (78%), Troy Percival (86%), Randy Myers (85%), and Rollie Fingers (76%). The farther back we go, the tougher it is to compare save percentages, as Fingers, Bruce Sutter, Sparky Lyle, Goose Gossage, and the rest of the 1970s era closers were being handed tougher save opportunities than the current closers face. Franco’s 82% conversion rate and his 138 ERA+ are better or comparable to his peers, and for that he considers Cooperstown attention.
18. Roberto Hernandez
Of the closers in what might be called the Post-Eckersley Era, Hernandez and Mariano Rivera were called on the most to get more than three outs. Hernandez did so 187 times, quite often under Gene Lamont. Later, in Tampa Bay and Kansas City, Hernandez was used more like Trevor Hoffman and other three out closers. Hernandez ranks in ERA+ for relievers with 1,000 innings or more, but he was overshadowed by Rivera. Regardless, he was the second-best closer in the AL in the 1990s. Late in his career when he was used as a setup man, Hernandez was quite effective, especially in 2005-2006 with the Mets and Pirates.
17. Kent Tekulve
Of the pitchers on this list, if you had to choose one to get you an out where you absolutely didn’t want to surrender a home run, Tekulve would be your man. In more than 1,400 innings pitched, Tekulve allowed just 63 homers. Batters had a hell of a time picking up the ball out of his hand as it scraped the ground.
16. John Wetteland
Wetteland saved more games during the 1990s than any other pitcher. Yes, it’s an arbitrary distinction in some ways, but it’s something. Had he not retired after his lucrative four-year contract with the Rangers expired following the 2000 season, Wetteland may have reached 500 saves. He was just 33 years old and coming off six straight seasons of 30 saves or more. A month after the 2009 season, Wetteland called 911 and when authorities arrived at his home, he told them “I need help.” Media reports described him as suicidal. Wetteland had apparently been battling depression for many years, and it possibly had something to do with his walking away from the game at such a young age when he still had gas left in the tank. An examination of the records would likely show that closers are the most likely players to suffer mental exhaustion, depression, and commit suicide.
15. Francisco Rodriguez
The pitcher most likely to climb this list and muscle his way into the top five. K-Rod has handled A-Rod smoothly: the Yankee slugger is 2-for-20 against the reliever in his career, with 10 strikeouts.
14. Mike Marshall
Marshall led the league in saves with three different teams: Montreal in 1973, Los Angeles in 1974, and Minnesota in 1979. In each of those seasons, Marshall was named Fireman of the Year by Rolaids and The Sporting News. He had one of the best screwballs of all-time and he knew how to throw it as well as anone ever has. He teaches young players the mechanics of pitching now. He’s a bit character in one of the best baseball books ever written, “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton. Do yourself a favor and read it.
13. Sparky Lyle
The first of three straight lefties on this list. Lyle looked like your prototypical reliever, with the chew and bubblegum wadded in his cheek, bushy mustache, and confident swagger. Certainly one of the biggest free agent busts of the 1970s, or else he’d rank higher on this list. He was good enough that the Yankees used Gossage as a setup man for a while when both were in the Yankee bullpen. He could absolutely confound certain left-handed batters: Carl Yastrzemski was 5-for-34 (.147) against Lyle. John Mayberry was 6-for-33 (.182) and Tony Oliva was 6-for-28 (.214) with no extra-base hits off Lyle.
12. Tug McGraw
While covering Induction Weekend for the Hall of Fame, I once asked McGraw if I could shoot his picture. He replied, “As long as you use a camera and not a gun.” Probably no other pitcher on this list enjoyed playing the game more than McGraw. Despite pitching in some high-profile spots, he’s underrated. From 1969-1972 he was as good as anyone out of the pen. The “Gotta Believe” 1973 season with the Mets wasn’t one of his best years, but seven years later he enjoyed his best campaign, and despite not pitching in a lot of save situations, he was critical to the Phillies success as they won their first World Series. Like Rickey Henderson, McGraw was an oddball – he batted right but threw left-handed.
11. Billy Wagner
The all-time leaders in strikeouts per nine innings for pitchers under six feet tall: Wagner (11.92), Pedro Martinez (10.04), Antonio Osuna (9.23), Rudy Seanez (9.13), Doug Creek (9.08), Scott Strickland (9.04), Byung-Hyun Kim (8.63), Jason Frasor (8.36), Mike Holtz (8.36), Juan Rincon (8.33). All of those pitchers debuted after 1988. A look at the best strikeout pitchers under six foot tall prior to the 1980s shows that about half were relievers and half were starting pitchers. Seems if you’re short and can throw hard, teams are less likely to trust you in their rotation today than they ever have been in baseball history.
10. Jeff Reardon
This group from #8 to #10 are the guys who will test the Hall of Fame voters affinity for closers. Reardon will likely be the odd man out of the trio. It’s not that evident that he’s doesn’t belong in the same class as Lee Smith and Trevor Hoffman. He’s the only pitcher to save as many as 40 games in a season for three different teams.
9. Lee Smith
Smith has come to personify the “modern closer” who comes in for three outs to get an easy save. The easy saved is defined as when the team is up by three runs and trots the closer in to get three outs in the ninth. The closer never faces the tying run, unless he himself puts runners on base. But that really isn’t fair to Smith. He pitched 18 seasons in the big leagues and for the first 11 of them he was handled how closers were used in the 1970s. In 1983 he pitched in 66 games in relief, in half of them he entered the game with runners on base. In 38 of them he was asked to get more than three outs. That was a typical season for him from 1981-1990. Starting in 1990, when he was pitching for Joe Torre in St. Louis, Smith was utilized like Dennis Eckersley – he entered 51 of his 67 games with the bases empty. He recorded more than three outs in just 15 of his appearances. Smith thrived in that role, leading the NL in saves in 1990 and 1991 on his way to four straight seasons of 40 saves or more. Smith wasn’t the first pitcher to be used that way, he was just among the generation of closers who were used that way after the success of guys like Eckersley. He also deserves a lot of credit for his durability. Smith pitched in 60 games or more in 12 straight seasons, and he never suffered a serious arm injury of any sort. On the bad side of the ledger, Smith was ineffective in his two chances in the post-season. In 1984 he famously lost Game Four against the Padres as the Cubs blew a 2-0 games lead. In Game Two of the 1988 ALCS, he lost when he surrendered a game-winning hit to Walt Weiss in the ninth. His post-season ERA was 8.44 in five games.
8. Trevor Hoffman
He now has more than 600 saves in his career, and though we’re in an age where nearly every team has a closer who will rack up 20-30 saves, that’s still quite impressive. From 1994 through 2009, a stretch of 16 seasons, Hoffman saved 47% of his team’s victories. He may not have been flashy and he may not have won a World Series, but he was the nbest closer in his league for a decade and a half. He’ll suffer in comparison with the closer who was the best in the AL during the same period: Mariano Rivera. Through 2010, Rivera had been asked to get more than three outs 231 times, while Hoffman had 146 (none since 2004 and only seven since 2001). But that comparison is hardly fair. Rivera is the greatest of all-time, and Hoffman was used like most other closers of his era: to get three outs or fewer. Rivera was an exception to that rule, and Hoffman doesn’t deserve to be discounted because he wasn’t Mariano Rivera.
7. Dan Quisenberry
No one faced Quisenberry more than Hall of Famer Jim Rice. Quiz ate him up to the tune of a .162 average with just one double in 37 at-bats. He was tough on lefties too: Wade Boggs was 2-for-19 off Quisenberry with just one walk. Some will say his career wasn’t long enough to earn him a plaque in Cooperstown. Quisenberry had eight seasons in which he was a closer, in five of them he led his league in saves and finished in the top five in Cy Young voting. The last two years of that stretch (1985-1986) he was only given 27 save opportunities becuase the Royals were (a) pretty bad, and (b) trying out young pitchers in the role. Think of his career as the reliever’s version of Sandy Koufax: 6-7 years of absolute brilliance and domination. Whether that’s enough for HOF consideration remains to be seen if and when Quiz gets his name on a veterans committee ballot.
6. Bruce Sutter +
The list of pitchers who made their career on one novelty pitch is short but worth looking at. There’s Sutter of course with the split-finger fastball. Then there are the practicioners of the screwball: Carl Hubbell (who probably threw it 80% of the time), Tug McGraw, Mike Marshall, Bill Lee, and Fernando Valenzuela. Pedro Martinez also had great success with the pitch, but he didn’t throw it as much because he had a lights-out fastball. Christy Mathewson threw a screwball essentially, but it was called a fadeaway pitch, and like Martinez, Mathewson possessed other lethal weapons. Mike Cuellar also utilized the screwball, but he had such a great curveball that he used the screwball mostly as a setup pitch. Rollie Fingers made a living on his slider, which broke down and away from enemy batters. Fingers used the pitch more often later in his career, when his other pitches were less effective. David Cone is probably the pitcher most associated with the slider, but the pitch had been a fairly common choice among pitchers for decades prior to Fingers and Cone using it so famously well. Reliever Elroy Face made the forkball popular back in the 1950s. The pitch is closely related to the split-finger fastball, but the ball is held deeper between the spread fingers in the delivery. Face was an excellent reliever, one of the two or three best in Pirate history. Jack Morris learned the forkball from Roger Craig, who had previously helped teach the split-finger fastball to many of his pupils. Morris mastered the forkball as his strikeout pitch, so much so that he frequently had bouts of wildness due to the effectiveness of the tumbling action that his forkball displayed. When he pitched a no-hitter in 1984, Morris’s forkball was so good that catcher Lance Parrish was kept bouncing around all game trying to reign it in. Craig later taught the pitch to Mike Scott, who used it to have a few amazing seasons for the Astros. Lefties Frank Viola and Tom Glavine relied heavily on the circle change. The palmball has been around nearly as long as the game itself, and the most notable pitchers who used it a lot were Ewell Blackwell and Jim Konstanty. The cutter, which is really just a fastball with movement (released with pressure on the forefingers, often across the seams) is the signature pitch of Mariano Rivera. It appears that most pitchers who are known for a single pitch are relievers, often closers. That makes sense – batters will only see the pitcher once, maybe just a handful of at-bats each season. Familiarity breeds success, and the less a batter faces a pitcher’s money pitch, the more advantage to the pitcher. When Sutter was at his best with the splitter, he was practically untouchable. It almost seemed unfair.
5. Rollie Fingers +
If you ever meet Rollie Fingers, you’ll marvel at just how big this guy is. At 6’4″, 190 lbs. in his prime, Fingers was imposing on the mound. For a big man, Fingers was gifted athletically. He was one of the best defenders off the mound of his or any other era. His 1981 season for the Brewers may be the best of any reliever in a single season.
4. Goose Gossage +
All I know is that when I was a kid and Goose Gossage came into the game for the Yankees, I nearly peed my pants every time. He was like the monsters in “Where the Wild Things Are” – he was scary and great all at the same time. I couldn’t help but watch him: menacing and mustachoed, his body twisting in unhuman ways as he savagely rocketed the ball toward the plate. I don’t know how the batters facing him managed to stand up straight without shaking their knees in fear. In his HOF career, Gossage had 531 relief appearances where he was asked to get more than three outs. Yes, really. The Yankees lost the 1981 World Series, but it wasn’t because of Goose. That post-season Gossage tossed 14 1/2 innings, gave up just six hits, while striking out 15. He saved six of the Yankees eight wins and posted a perfect 0.00 ERA.
3. Dennis Eckersley +
Has to be one of the two or three least likely Hall of Famers in baseball history. At the age of 31 he was traded for three minor leaguers. At that point in his career, the question about Eckersley was: could he survive his 30s with a fastball that wasn’t crackling at quite the same clip as it had when he was a young guunslinger? It wasn’t at all clearly evident that anyone would give him a slot in their rotation. Oakland didn’t, instead trying him in situations out of their bullpen. Eck’s personality was uniquely qualified for the closer’s role, maybe more so than an other pitcher in history besides Gossage. He was arrogant on the mound, cocksure and antagonistic to the opposing team. Nine innings of that had worn thin and worn him down. After 370 saves in a ten-year stretch of artful mastery, he was bound for Cooperstown. From June of 1990 to April in 1991, Eckersley twice went 18 straight games without allowing a run.
2. Hoyt Wilhelm +
Wilhelm is one of the few closers who would have been a very good starting pitcher if he’d been asked to do so. In his one season in a rotation, 1959 with the Baltimore Orioles, Wilhelm won 15 games for a sixth place team and led the American League in ERA. There’s little reason to believ thet he couldn’t have been a big-time winner like Phil Niekro had he been given that chance. But the prejudice against knuckleballers sent him into the pen, and once he established himself there, he was set for the remainder of his stellar career. He posted six seasons with an ERA under 2.00, and that’s damn good in any era. Five of those came in successive seasons with the White Sox, when he posted an ERA+ of 186 for half a decade!
1. Mariano Rivera
There are so many things in the world that humans try desperately to measure. I think we do this so we feel more comfortable understanding the world we live in. If we can measure it, we feel we know it and maybe even own it. Scientists, of course are masters at this practice. In baseball, sabrmetricians use statistical analysis to accomplish this. There is much debate over the meathods applied by that group. But while you’re thinking about that, think about this: none of that matters at all in regards to who is the best relief pitcher in baseball history. Using statistical measures to answer that question is silly. It would be like asking an orographist (that’s someone who studies mountains) to answer this question: which is the tallest mountain in the world? He or she could take time and effort to measure every peak across the globe or they could just reply, “Mt. Everest, of course.” There is no need for fancy analysis on the question of this article, the answer is simply, “Mariano Rivera, of course.”
Phillies “Big Four” could be best ever
Lebron, Wade, and Bosh? The Phillies have done one better than the Miami Heat.
With the acquisition of free agent left-hander Cliff Lee last week, the Philadelphia Phillies established a foursome of starting pitchers that rival the greatest in the history of the game. Based on their 2010 numbers, the Phillies rotation could make history next season.
Lee joins fellow southpaw Cole Hamels and right-handers Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt to give Philadelphia a vaunted quartet of hurlers, any one of whom could be an ace. Halladay is the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner and won another Cy Young in the American League. Lee won the 2008 AL Cy Young, and Oswalt has finished in the top five in voting for that award five times. He was sixth last season. Hamels, the youngest of the four (he turns 27 two days after Christmas), already has 60 wins to his credit and was the NLCS and World Series MVP in 2008 when he helped lead the Phils to the World Series title.
Last season all four pitchers posted an ERA+ of at least 130 while striking out at least 185 batters. Given their established career levels and assuming they remain healthy, in 2011 they should be able to match that performance. In the history of baseball no team has had more than two pitchers who accomplished that in the same season. In 2010, the Phillies became just the 14th team to have two pitchers match that criteria, when Halladay and Hamels did so. Oswalt also did it in 2010, but he split part of the season between Houston and the Phillies.
How rare is a season by a starter who posts an ERA+ of 130 or better and fans 185 or more? Just 78 pitchers have done it in the expansion era (since 1961). Halladay has done it four times in his career, Hamels and Oswalt twice, and Lee did it for the first time in 2010.
That sort of dominance doesn’t necessarily translate into wins – Oswalt and Hamels won 13 and 12 games respectively in 2010 – but it does ensure solid quality starts most of the time. The Phillies could get 130 starts from their “Big Four” in 2011, and if they pitch the way they are capable of, it could be an historic season.
As we’ve seen with other teams that had multiple aces in their rotation, the teammates can feed off each other. The A’s All-Star trio of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito motivated each other in the 1990s. As did the Braves staffs that featured future Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz. The Diamondbacks had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in the early 2000s, and Schilling joined Pedro Martinez in Boston. But no team has had a foursome as talented as this in years, if ever.
The 2011 Phillies may prove to be the most slump-proof team in baseball history. It’s hard to see how the team could get through one rotation of the Big Four without winning at least one game. Whomever ends up as the #5 starter (it appears it will be Joe Blanton, who won nine games for the Phillies in 2010) will have a serious case of headline envy. The Big Four have a combined total of 13 All-Star appearances, six 20-win seasons, 10 top-five Cy Young Award finishes, a World Series MVP award, two NLCS MVP awards, a no-hitter, and a perfect game.
With two ace righties and two ace lefties, the Phillies are poised to make another run at the World Series and the Big Four may etch their names into baseball history in 2011.
Feller was great pitcher, greater American
When a much different America suffered its “9/11″ moment, Bob Feller – the best pitcher in baseball – didn’t hesitate to take action. On December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Feller voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Navy. At the age of 23, already a six-year veteran of the major leagues, Feller was at the height of his fame and pitching brilliance. But his decision to enter the military wasn’t difficult.
“We needed heroes, fast,” Feller explained after the war. The unselfish Feller was one of those heroes. He died on Wednesday, December 15, 69 years after the attack that propelled the U.S. into World War II.
An All-Star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, Feller was one of the highest paid players in the game. He had a 3-C draft deferment as the sole supporter of his family, so he didn’t have to enlist. He could have sat out the war. It was never an option for the patriotic, strong-willed farm boy from Van Meter, Iowa.
“We were losing the war,” Feller said. “I never thought about returning to baseball, I just did what I had to do, what a lot of guys did.”
When Feller arrived in Chicago on December 9th to be sworn in at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, his father was dying from cancer back on the family farm in Van Meter. Like millions of other American men, Feller was processed and assigned for duty. He served initially in the Navy’s physical fitness program which was organized by former boxing champion Gene Tunney. But Feller quickly grew impatient and requested to be transferred to gunnery school. He was placed on the U.S.S. Alabama as chief of a gun crew.
During the war, Feller served first in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, as the Alabama escorted American ships threatened by German submarines. Later, he took part in eight separate invasions in the South Pacific against the Japanese. At his battle station he commanded 24 men in his gun crew. He served in the Navy for more than three-and-a-half years, missing the meat of his baseball career: all of 1942, 1943, and 1944, as well as most of 1945.
Feller received five campaign ribbons and eight battle stars for his service in the U.S. Navy in World War II. Less than two weeks after the Japanese surrendered in August of 1945, Feller was discharged. He wasted little time in getting back to baseball. Two days after traveling from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center to Cleveland, Feller was on the mound for the Indians.
He received a frenzied reception in Cleveland. So many people called the ballpark to make ticket arrangements that the switchboard broke down. Ultimately, 47,000 fans flooded into Municipal Stadium for the game on August 24th. Prior to the game, Feller was presented with a jeep and other presents from the team and fans. The governor of Ohio attended the contest, as well as Cleveland diamond legends Tris Speaker and Cy Young. Feller didn’t disappoint the huge crowd. He fanned the first batter of the game – Detroit’s Jimmy Outlaw – prompting the fans to give him a standing ovation. Showing no rust at all, Feller was in top-notch form as he struck out 12 Tiger batters en route to a complete game, four-hit victory. He struck out Outlaw to end the game and was carried off the field.
The following season, Feller was still slinging it – as he enjoyed one of the best seasons of his career. The 27-year old won 26 games, struck out a career-high 348 batters, while throwing 10 shutouts. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1962, and spent 48 years as a member of that institution. He never missed an opportunity to express his pride in having fought in the war. He pressed the Hall of Fame to change his plaque to indicate that he’d missed three full seasons due to World War II.
“I’m very proud of my war record, just like my baseball record. I would never have been able to face anybody and talk about my baseball record if I hadn’t spent time in the service.”
Nine things you didn’t know about Bob Feller
Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller died on December 15, 2010, after living an amazing life that included inspirational service in the United States Navy in World War II and a storied baseball career. Here are nine things you may not have known about this great American:
1. Feller was signed by legendary scout Cy Slapnicka for $1 and an autographed baseball. On July 22, 1935, when the youngster was just 16 years old, Slapnicka inked Feller to a minor league contract with Fargo-Moorhead of the Northern league. Feller finished his senior year at Van Meter High School and went directly to the Cleveland Indians in 1936. His signing was a point of contention and resulted in Cleveland having to pay a $7,500 fine to the owner of the Des Moines team, who had lost out on signing the young Feller.
2. Feller’s high school graduation ceremony was broadcast live on national radio. Already a famous pitcher at the age of 17, Feller graduated with his classmates in the spring of 1936 and was on the mound for the Indians weeks later. Amazingly, he fanned 15 batters in his first start, against the St. Louis Browns.
3. In the first game that Bob Feller’s mother watched her son pitch in the big leagues, on May 14, 1939, White Sox third baseman Marv Owen lined a pitch into the stands that hit her and knocked her unconscious. She recovered, but had to have stitches.
4. In 1947, Feller announced that he would pitch in the Cuban winter league in the off-season. Unfortunately, he made the announcement in August while the Indians were in the midst of a pennant race. Cleveland fans howled. Feller explained that he had to make the announcement earlier than planned because the news was going to leak in Cuba. Regardless, MLB Commissioner Happy Chandler ruled that no major leaguer could play in Cuba during the winter. Feller fired back at Chandler, citing that minor leaguers were not restricted by the ruling. ”Why should a major league player be limited to 30 days of barnstorming when a minor leaguer can play ball all winter? Chandler’s ruling places a penalty on being a major leaguer.”
5. Feller frequently pitched exhibition games against famed Negro Leagues hurler Satchel Paige. The two traveled on barnstorming tours during the off-season, entertaining fans all over the country. Feller was one of the first MLB players to include Negro Leagues players in his tours. He championed the election of Paige to the Hall of Fame.
6. In his career Feller started 22 games on just one days rest. His record in those games was 14-5 with a 3.47 ERA and 12 complete games.
7. In his 266 victories, Feller compiled a 1.85 ERA with 223 complete games and 44 shutouts.
8. In December of 1956, Feller was elected the first president of the Players Organization, a precursor to the Players’ Union.
9. Feller was a Hall of Famer longer than any other man. He was elected in his first year of eligibility in 1962, and for the remainder of his life – a span of 48 years – he returned to Cooperstown every year for induction ceremonies .
Bob Feller
Blessed with a resilient arm and an overpowering fastball that could top 100 miles per hour, Bob Feller was the most dominant pitcher of his era. Despite missing four full seasons during the peak of his career to fight in World War II, Feller accumulated 266 victories over the course of 18 big-league seasons, including three no-hitters and a record 12 one-hitters. Many people still feel that no one has ever thrown a baseball harder than the Hall of Fame right-hander.
Robert William Andrew Feller was born on November 3, 1918, in the small midwestern town of Van Meter, Iowa. Growing up an Iowa farm boy during the 1920s, much of Feller’s childhood consisted of performing household chores and playing baseball. Feller later credited milking cows, picking corn, and baling hay with strengthening his arms and giving him the capacity to throw as hard as he did.
Feller was as much of a phenom as there could be in the 1930s. He quickly gained notoriety for his pitching as a teenager with Van Meter High School. When he was 17, the youngster pitched an exhibition game against members of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936. He struck out eight batters in just three innings of work, dazzling the major leaguers with knee-high fastballs. He was advised at that time to leave high school and sign a pro contract immediately, which he did. He signed with the Cleveland Indians for $1 and an autographed baseball.
He made his major league debut with the team on July 19, 1936, more than three months shy of his 18th birthday. Without having spent a single day in the minors, the 17-year-old phenom struck out 15 St. Louis Browns in his first start in the major leagues. Feller finished the season 5-3, with a 3.34 ERA and 76 strikeouts in only 62 innings of work. The following spring, Feller returned to Van Meter to formally graduate with his class. The graduation ceremony was carried live on national radio.
After winning nine of his 19 starts as an 18-year old, Feller began to establish himself as one of the American League’s better pitchers in 1938, finishing the campaign with a record of 17-11 and a league-leading 240 strikeouts, and being named to the All-Star Team for the first of four consecutive times. Still, the 19-year-old fireballer was far from a complete pitcher, since he also topped the circuit with 208 walks. Although Feller occasionally experienced lapses in control in subsequent seasons as well, leading all league hurlers in bases on balls allowed in two of the next three seasons, the righthander learned to better control his blazing fastball.
Complementing his best pitch with a well-above-average breaking ball, Feller developed into baseball’s best pitcher in 1939, compiling an outstanding 2.85 ERA and leading all AL hurlers with a record of 24-9, 24 complete games, 297 innings pitched, and 246 strikeouts.
In 47-degree weather, Feller opened the 1940 season with a no-hitter on April 16 against the White Sox at Comiskey Park. On the final day of the season he lost 2-0 to Detroit, as the Tigers clinched the pennant. In between those two starts he was masterful: 27-11 with a 2.61 ERA, with 261 K’s in more than 320 innings. He completed 31 of his 37 starts and also had four saves. He surrendered just 13 home runs
He followed that up by compiling a 3.15 ERA in 1941, while leading the league with 25 victories, six shutouts, 343 innings pitched, and 260 strikeouts. He placed third in the league MVP balloting, behind Joe DiMaggio, who hit in 56 consecutive games for the pennant-winning Yankees at one point during the season, and Ted Williams, who batted .406 for the Boston Red Sox.
At the peak of his fame, Feller became just the second major league player to enlist in the armed forces (Hank Greenberg was the first), joining the United States Navy on December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He spent the next four years fighting the enemy overseas, serving as Gun Captain aboard the USS Alabama. Despite being decorated with five campaign ribbons and eight battle stars, Feller later rejected the notion that he was a hero, saying: “I’m no hero. Heroes don’t come back. Survivors return home. Heroes never come home. If anyone thinks I’m a hero, I’m not.”
Having survived numerous life-threatening battles with the enemy, Feller was hardly frightened by opposing hitters when he returned to the Cleveland Indians late in 1945. He went 5-3 in his nine starts, compiling a 2.50 ERA and striking out 59 batters in 72 innings of work. Showing few after-effects from his four-year layoff, Feller had arguably the greatest season of his career in 1946. In addition to compiling an outstanding 2.18 ERA and leading the league with 26 wins, Rapid Robert led all hurlers with 10 shutouts, 348 strikeouts, 36 complete games, and 371 innings pitched.
Feller had another exceptional season in 1947, finishing 20-11 to lead the league in victories for the fifth of six times, compiling a 2.68 ERA, throwing 20 complete games, and topping the circuit with five shutouts, 299 innings pitched, and 196 strikeouts. He got his first opportunity to pitch in the World Series the following year, when the Indians captured the pennant for the first time since 1920. Feller won 19 games for the league champions, completing 18 of his 38 starts and striking out 164 batters, to lead the league in strikeouts for the seventh and final time in his career.
Feller didn’t fare particularly well in the Fall Classic, losing both of his starts while compiling an ERA of just over five runs per-nine innings. However, he was a hard-luck loser in Game One, allowing only one run and two hits in a 1-0 loss to Boston Braves ace Johnny Sain. Nevertheless, Cleveland came out on top in the Series, four games to two, giving Feller the only world championship of his career.
Feller pitched effectively in 1949 and 1950, winning 15 and 16 games, respectively, before having his last big year in 1951. Having lost some of the velocity on his once-blazing fastball, Feller relied more on guile than ever before to post a league-leading 22-8 record and .733 winning percentage. Although he struck out only 111 batters, the 32-year-old righthander compiled a very respectable 3.50 earned run average and completed 16 of his 32 starts, en route to being named The Sporting News American League Pitcher of the Year.
Feller never again came close to winning 20 games in his five remaining seasons, but he posted a 13-3 record during Cleveland’s 1954 pennant-winning campaign. Pitching mostly in relief in 1956, Feller finished 0-4 before announcing his retirement at the conclusion of the season. He was 37 ears old.
Feller ended his career with a record of 266-162, an ERA of 3.25, and 2,581 strikeouts in 3,827 innings of work. He completed well over half his starts and tossed a total of 46 shutouts. He surpassed 20 victories six times, compiled an ERA under 3.00 on five separate occasions, completed more than 20 games six times, threw more than 300 innings three times, topping 275 innings pitched four other times, and struck out more than 250 batters three times. He led the league in wins six times, strikeouts seven times, innings pitched five times, shutouts four times, complete games three times, and games started on five separate occasions. Feller made eight appearances on the All-Star team and placed in the top five in the league MVP voting four times during his career.
When asked if there was ever any other pitcher who threw as hard as him, Feller revealed that those players who faced both him and Nolan Ryan at different stages in their careers told him he threw harder than the all-time strikeout king. A proud man, Feller rarely missed a chance to be honest about his abilities on a baseball field.
Some baseball historians have speculated that Feller could have won 350 games or more with well over 3,000 strikeouts had he not missed nearly four years in the military. But Feller was quick to point out that serving in World War II was far more important to him than playing baseball. He even lobbied the Hall of Fame to change his plaque to make it clear that he’d missed those seasons in the war.
Still feisty and opinionated in retirement, Feller frequently voiced his displeasure over the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. He was also outspoken on the possibility of Pete Rose being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Inducted in 1962, Feller spent 48 years as a Hall of Famer, serving as an elder statesman and enjoying great popularity on his frequent trips to Cooperstown.
In 1969, Feller was voted the greatest living right-handed pitcher by fans celebrating baseball’s 100th anniversary. He was extremely proud of the baseball museum he opened in his hometown, and he was frequently present for Cleveland old-timers games well into his 80s. He donned a uniform and threw an inning here or there almost every year of his life for some cause or event.
He died December 15, 2010, about a week after the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In Crawford, Red Sox are getting unique talent
The Boston Red Sox completed a headline-grabbing one-two punch at baseball’s winter meetings this week when they agreed to terms with free agent Carl Crawford. Earlier at the meetings, the Sox traded for first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. Neither of the new additions have celebrated their 30th birthday yet, and Boston fans can expect many years of the slugging Gonzalez driving in Crawford.
Crawford has spent his entire career with Tampa Bay, where he’s collected lots of hits, put up a high batting average, stolen tons of bases, and hit lots of triples while also showing some punch as a home run threat now and again. He’s done those things at such a pace that he belongs with a select group of players in baseball history. Indeed, the Red Sox are getting a unique talent in Crawford.
In 2010, Crawford collected 184 hits, led the league with 13 triples, swiped 47 bases, and hit 19 homers, a career best. In the history of baseball, only 16 players have reached 180 hits, 10 triples, 45 stolen bases, and 10 homers in a single season. Impressively, it was the fourth time Crawford accomplished the feat.
Here’s the list of the seasons that match that criteria:
| Player | HR | H | 3B | SB | Year | Age | Tm | Lg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tris Speaker | .383 | 10 | 222 | 12 | 52 | 1912 | 24 | BOS | AL |
| Honus Wagner | .354 | 10 | 201 | 19 | 53 | 1908 | 34 | PIT | NL |
| Willie McGee | .353 | 10 | 216 | 18 | 56 | 1985 | 26 | STL | NL |
| Chuck Knoblauch | .341 | 13 | 197 | 14 | 45 | 1996 | 27 | MIN | AL |
| Frankie Frisch | .337 | 10 | 208 | 11 | 48 | 1927 | 28 | STL | NL |
| Max Carey | .329 | 10 | 207 | 12 | 51 | 1922 | 32 | PIT | NL |
| Johnny Damon | .327 | 16 | 214 | 10 | 46 | 2000 | 26 | KCR | AL |
| Tim Raines | .320 | 11 | 184 | 13 | 70 | 1985 | 25 | MON | NL |
| Ben Chapman | .315 | 17 | 189 | 11 | 61 | 1931 | 22 | NYY | AL |
| Carl Crawford | .307 | 19 | 184 | 13 | 47 | 2010 | 28 | TBR | AL |
| Carl Crawford | .305 | 18 | 183 | 16 | 58 | 2006 | 24 | TBD | AL |
| Bobby Bonds | .302 | 26 | 200 | 10 | 48 | 1970 | 24 | SFG | NL |
| Carl Crawford | .301 | 15 | 194 | 15 | 46 | 2005 | 23 | TBD | AL |
| Jose Reyes | .300 | 19 | 194 | 17 | 64 | 2006 | 23 | NYM | NL |
| Lou Brock | .299 | 21 | 206 | 12 | 52 | 1967 | 28 | STL | NL |
| Lou Brock | .298 | 12 | 195 | 10 | 53 | 1969 | 30 | STL | NL |
| Jose Reyes | .297 | 16 | 204 | 19 | 56 | 2008 | 25 | NYM | NL |
| Carl Crawford | .296 | 11 | 185 | 19 | 59 | 2004 | 22 | TBD | AL |
| Hanley Ramirez | .292 | 17 | 185 | 11 | 51 | 2006 | 22 | FLA | NL |
| Lou Brock | .285 | 15 | 183 | 12 | 74 | 1966 | 27 | STL | NL |
| Jose Reyes | .280 | 12 | 191 | 12 | 78 | 2007 | 24 | NYM | NL |
| Jimmy Rollins | .274 | 14 | 180 | 12 | 46 | 2001 | 22 | PHI | NL |
| Juan Samuel | .272 | 15 | 191 | 19 | 72 | 1984 | 23 | PHI | NL |
Crawford eclipsed the mark of three seasons previously held by Hall of Famer Lou Brock, another left fielder. In fact, Crawford has a great deal in common with Brock. Both players were lightning fast. Both players were left handed batters who had strong wrists. Brock had great power, once hitting a home run into the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds, no small feat. It remains to be seen if Crawford will hit more home runs later in his career, but the switch to Fenway Park won’t hurt. Other left-handed batters who’ve moved to Fenway have seen their power numbers soar. The short foul pole in right field helps with homers, and the Green Monster in left field usually results in more doubles and a higher batting average.
Crawford not only has unique skills that have rarely been seen in baseball history, he’s also uniquely suited to perform well in Fenway. However, in nearly half a season’s worth of games in Fenway, Crawford has hit just .275 with four homers. That may have much more to do with him facing the tough Boston pitching staff than it does the ballpark. Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield, Jon Lester, and Josh Beckett have all stymied Crawford to varying degrees.
Like Brock, Crawford is not an ideal leadoff man because his on-base percentage is just average (.337 in his career vs. .332 league average). That’s because, like Brock, Crawford walks infrequently. One reason that goes unmentioned is that opposing pitchers don’t want to risk giving the speedy Crawford a free pass, so they are more likely to toss the ball across the plate. It’s safe to say that his low walk total has less to do with poor pitch selection than it does the strategy of opposing pitchers. In Fenway, should Crawford take advantage of the short right field seats and improve his power numbers, pitchers could avoid the strike zone more. As a result, he’d earn more walks, have more chances to steal bases, and be even more productive as an offensive weapon.
It remains to be seen where the Sox will place Crawford in their lineup, but #3 seems to be the best position if they want him to increase his power production (imagine some of those triples becoming homers, and a lot of those singles becoming doubles). If Crawford can do that, he’ll get more walks, even with Gonzalez, Ortiz, or Pedroia batting behind him. Best case scenario, the Red Sox new left fielder increases his batting average by 15 points, hits 40+ doubles (ala Wade Boggs) and increases his homers to 25 or so. If he does that, the Red Sox win, and Crawford will win – a lot of new hardware.
Jeter faces tough odds in his late 30s
After a very public contract negotiation, Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees have come to terms on a three year deal that will pay the shortstop $17 million per year. The contract contains a clause which ensures that Jeter will be the highest paid shortstop in the game during that period.
Yankee fans are universally celebratory. Yankee brass is happy to have their captain tucked away for the time being, and avoiding a drawn out contract squabble is a plus. The Yanks also avoid the stomach-turning possibility of seeing Jeter in an Angels or Red Sox uniform. Jeter admitted that he had no intention of talking to other teams. Regardless, Yankee Nation breathes a sigh of relief.
In June of 2011, Jeter’s 17th season in pinstripes, he will turn 37 years old. Being the shortstop for the Yankees seems to be what Jeter was born to do, but few players have ever played shortstop for any team at that age. In fact, over the last 50 years, which happens to encompass the entirety of baseball’s expansion era, only eight shortstops have started regularly for their teams after the age of 36. In order for the Yankees to get their money’s worth, Jeter will have to play much better than any of those shortstops did in their late 30s. Given that he had his worst season ever in 2010, that may prove difficult.
The eight shortstops to start regularly at the age of 37 or older since 1961 are:
Luis Aparicio
Maury Wills
Dave Concepcion
Larry Bowa
Alan Trammell
Ozzie Smith
Barry Larkin
Omar Vizquel
These eight shortstops combined for 19 seasons after the age of 36 where they were regulars. BY far the most successful of the group is the most recent: Omar Vizquel, who was a regular at the ages of 37, 38, 39, and 40. Twice, in 2004 at the age of 37, and again in 2007 as a 40-year old, Vizquel posted an OPS over 700. Only Ozzie Smith (in 1992 at the age of 37) and Barry Larkin (40 ears old in 2004) reached 700 in on-base percentage plus slugging. The vast majority of the shortstop seasons at age 37 and older saw the player post measly offensive numbers. In most cases, these shortstops held onto their starting jobs because they were still adequate (or in the case of Vizquel and Ozzie) or very good with the glove. Few offered any sort of offensive production. Only Larkin slugged for a mark as high as .400 in a season after the age of 36.
Only one shortstop in that group collected as man as 40 extra-base hits in a season, and the most hits in any season by a shortstop over the age of 36 is 171. Not one “senior citizen” shortstop hit higher than.295.
In 2010, Jeter won the Gold Glove Award, but few believe he’s really the best defensive shortstop in the league. He earned the award on reputation. His offensive numbers plummeted, which is to be expected when compared to the other shortstops at the age of 36 and older over the last half century. Whereas catchers begin their decline after the age of 32 (with very few exceptions), shortstops start the decline at 36. In 2010, Jeter’s slugging percentage dove to .370, 82 points below his career mark. The highest slugging percentage by a shortstop at the age of 37 was .388 by Vizquel in 2004. Jeter will have to buck the trend that has seen shortstops rapidly lose their power after the age of 36. The most homers hit after the age of 36 has been eight, by Larkin.
Underlying these numbers is an obvious bad omen for the Yankees: another reason there have been so few effective shortstops who played into their late 30s is that they don’t stay healthy. The wear and tear of the middle infield position takes a toll on their body. Concepcion, Larkin, Trammell, Bert Campaneris, Royce Clayton, and Mark Belanger are a few of the shortstops who physically just couldn’t do it at the same level anymore once they reached 36-37.
Only Aparicio, Vizquel, Wills, and Ozzie were able to stay health and play every day for multiple seasons at an advanced age for a shortstop. All of those shortstops were smaller than Jeter, who more closely resembles the physical mold of guys like Cal Ripken Jr. and Robin Yount, who switched to less demanding positions in their earlier 30s to extend their careers.
It remains to be seen if Jeter will buck the odds and be productive into his late 30s. Certainly the Yankees will reap the benefits of his 3,000th hit and the goodwill he brings to the game and their historic aura. But how much of that will offset a steep decline in his production, which history tells us is likely?
Five moves that helped land Gillick in the Hall
Normally, trading a future Hall of Fame player is the death knell for a major league general manager. But when Pat Gillick did it he laid the groundwork for historic success. In 1999, Gillick, with impressive credentials on his resume, replaced Woody Woodward as General Manager of the Seattle Mariners. The team’s superstar center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. was grumbling about the lack of support on the roster and issued a trade demand. Woodward famously told reporters, “I don’t want to be the guy remembered for trading Ken Griffey Jr. away from the Mariners.” Gillick had no such fear.
Three months into the job, Gillick pulled the trigger on a deal that sent Junior packing. It wasn’t the first time the baseball lifer had dealt superstar players, and as it had before, Gillick’s vision proved to be excellent.
On Monday, Gillick was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, receiving 13 votes from the 16-man Committee on Baseball Veterans. He will be inducted in ceremonies next July in Cooperstown, joined by any players elected by the baseball writers in January.
Gillick won three World Series titles as general manager, and in his 27 years in that role his teams reached the post-season 11 times. He enjoyed 20 winning seasons as a GM while making some of the shrewdest personnel decisions in the game during his tenure. Here’s a look at five that went a long way to landing Gillick in the Hall of Fame:
January 24, 1985: Snatching a closer for next-to-nothing
The Blue Jays were an excellent team in 1984, maybe the second best team in baseball behind the Detroit Tigers who ran away with the pennant. With a solid framework in place, Gillick needed one important position filled: closer. When Toronto lost designated hitter Cliff Johnson to free agency they were awarded a compensation pick from the team Johnson signed with: the Rangers. Gillick snapped up pitcher Tom Henke, a 6’5″ righty known for his blazing fastball and penchant for wildness. Toronto eased the bespectacled Henke into his role in 1985 and he responded with 13 saves and a 2.03 ERA. He finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting, but more importantly, the Jays were set at the backend of their bullpen for years to come. Over the next seven seasons, Henke saved 204 games while striking out more than a batter per inning. He culminated his career as a Blue Jay with a World Series title in 1992, saving 32 games. Gillick had acquired a closer that gave him eight seasons of excellence, all in compensation for an aging DH that he didn’t want anymore.
December 5, 1990: Blockbuster deal includes four All-Stars
For all their success in the 1980s (two division titles and third-best winning percentage in the league), Gillick’s Jays had still not won a pennant. The team was coming off a second-place finish in 1990, but Gillick wasn’t satisfied. On December 5, 1990, he shook up the annual winter meetings for the first of many times when he sent two of his All-Stars, shortstop Tony Fernandez and first baseman Fred McGriff, to the San Diego Padres. In return, Gillick acquired right fielder Joe Carter and second baseman Roberto Alomar. Carter was coming off his first season with the Padres but hadn’t really taken to the team and struggled a bit, batting just .232 with a career-low .391 slugging percentage. Despite that, Carter was a clutch hitter, driving in 115 runs for San Diego. Alomar was the best young second baseman in the game, a player coveted by Gillick. “When we got him we changed the makeup of our lineup,” Gillick remembered years later. “He made our team go.” To get Carter and Alomar, Gillick had the guts to part with McGriff, one of the elite power hitters in the game. Fernandez was a personal favorite of the GM, a player he’d trade to re-acquire later in his career. The trade was the pivotal step that led to the Blue Jays winning back-to-back World Series titles in 1992 and 1993. Carter drove in 100 or more runs in six of his seven seasons in Canada, delivering the home run that won the 1993 Series. Alomar was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner in each of his five seasons playing for the Jays. He left Toronto in 1996, signing a free agent contract with the Orioles, a deal that reunited him with Gillick, who had moved on to Baltimore.
February 10, 2000: Junior sent packing to Cincinnati
By the time Gillick was hired to be the GM in Seattle a month after the end of the 1999 season, the Mariners clubhouse was filled with problems. Ken Griffey Jr. was coming off two of his best seasons, but he was unhappy. The starting rotation lacked an ace, and the bullpen was thin. Though he was just 23 years old, free agency was looming for shortstop Alex Rodriguez, who was sure to demand the biggest paycheck in the game. In ’99 the team had posted a mediocre 79-83 record, mostly because their pitching was lackluster. With Griffey, A-Rod, and Edgar Martinez, the club had one of the best lineups in the game, but they hadn’t been to the post-season in two years. Gillick wasted little time in overhauling the team. In the span of a week in December he signed free agents John Olerud, Kaz Sasaki, Mark McLemore, and Stan Javier. In January he inked free agent pitcher Aaron Sele. Then, on February 10 he granted Junior Griffey his wish, shipping the disgruntled center fielder to Cincinnati. In return, the M’s got four players, but the key man in the deal for Gillick was Mike Cameron, a journeyman outfielder known mostly for striking out a lot. Gillick inserted Cameron in center where he won two Gold Gloves in his four seasons as a Mariner. More importantly, the move cleared out the salary and the headache of Griffey and it came at the perfect time in the future Hall of Famer’s career. In Cincinnati, “The Kid” became “The Old Man”, suffering numerous injuries. He was hurt so much that Cameron hit more homers and drove in more runs in the four years after the deal than Griffey did. Gillick’s other free agent acquisitions (McLemore, Javier, Olerud, Sele, and Sasaki) proved critical to the immediate success of the Mariners. After trading away the greatest player in franchise history for seemingly very little, Gillick led Seattle to two consecutive American League Championship Series. In very short order, Seattle fans were asking “Griffey Who?”
November 30, 2000: Mariners lure Ichiro across the Pacific
Folllowing the success of the 2000 season, his first as GM in Seattle, Gillick wasn’t afraid to reshape his roster some more. The opportunity came when Japanese star Ichiro Suzuki was made available to negotiate with major league clubs. Seattle bid $13 million to win the rights to deal with Ichiro. At the time the move was criticized by some in the U.S. who believed that position players like Ichiro couldn’t make the transition from Japan to Major League Baseball. Ichiro had won seven batting titles in Japan, and in an exhibition series against MLB stars in 1998 he had batted .380, impressing many who saw him. Gillick was confidant that Ichiro was especially suited to bring his talents to the majors. For a bargain price of $14.2 million, Gillick signed Ichiro for three years. In his rookie campaign, Ichiro dazzled fans with his speed, batting ability, throwing arm, and baseball instincts. His addition to the club sparked the Mariners to their best start in franchise history. The team just kept going, winning a major league-tying 116 games on their way to their second straight AL West title. They advanced to the ALCS before losing to the Yankees. Ichiro won the batting title, led the league in hits, won a Gold Glove for his play in right field, and earned both the Rookie of the Year Award and Most Valuable Player Award. In his ten seasons in Seattle, Ichiro has collected 200 hits every season, adding a second batting title. In 2004 he established a new MLB record with 262 hits.
November 7, 2007: Lidge swiped from Astros
Gillick didn’t draft very many of the key players who made up the core of the Phillies, but he did add a couple of important pieces. Lidge was the most important. Heading into the off-season, Gillick knew his club needed an experienced closer in the bullpen. Former starting pitcher Brett Myers had won the closer spot by default in 2007 but Gillick knew that for the team to advance in the post-season, the Phillies would need a true stopper. Lidge had an unsettling year in 2007, having lost his closer role early in the year before regaining it. Then he suffered an injury to his oblique muscle on his left side in mid-season. With the injury hanging over his head, the Astros felt it was time to move the 30-year old closer. Upon completing the deal, Gillick’s assistant, Ruban Amaro Jr. piped, “We’re getting one of the premier closers in the game.” Indeed they were, as Lidge made a complete recovery from the injury in 2008, saving 41 games and posting a stingy 1.92 ERA. The right-hander struck out an incredible 92 batters in less than 70 innings and saved some of his best work for the post-season. In 9 1/3 innings for Philadelphia that October, Lidge allowed just one run while saving seven games. he was perfect for the season – converting 48 saves in 48 opportunities. The final piece in the puzzle, Lidge was on the mound as the Phils won the World Series.
Santo long overdue for Hall of Fame honor
After battling his entire life against incredible odds, Ron Santo died on Thursday, December 2. An All-Star third baseman for the Chicago Cubs, Santo thrilled fans with his home run power and exuberant emotion on the diamond. In 1969, the season that the Cubs came the closest to winning a post-season birth, he was known for jumping in the air and clicking his heels after a Cub win.
Santo played his entire big league career with diabetes, even keeping the disease from the Cubs in fear that it would jeopardize his roster spot with the club. But there was never any doubt about Santo’s place in uniform. He was the greatest third baseman in franchise history. Santo hit 342 career home runs and won five Gold Gloves. Playing all but one season with the Cubs, Santo never made it to the post-season. He hit 30 homers and batted .300 four times each, despite playing much of his career in an era where pitching ruled the game. He paced the National League in walks four times. He topped NL third basemen in putouts seven times, assists seven times, and double plays four times. He was the best third baseman in the National League in the 1960s and challenged Brooks Robinson for the honor as best hot corner man in the entire game.
After his playing career, Santo suffered numerous health problems: heart attacks, bypass surgery, amputation of his legs, and a battle with cancer that ultimately claimed his life. Throughout it all, Santo remained a positive man who delighted Chicago fans with his love for the National Pastime.
In one of the the worst cases of Hall of Fame snubbing in the history of that wonderful organization, Santo failed to earn induction despite his obvious qualifications. It was puzzling to many who saw him in his prime. His detractors, whom apparently numbered enough to keep the Baseball Writers and Hall of Fame Veterans Committee from electing him, claimed his career was too short to have reached major statistical milestones, he never played on a winner, or that his career batting average was too unimpressive.
But Santo’s numbers stack up well against third basemen already enshrined in the Hall of Fame. His career OPS+, which is on-base percentage plus slugging adjusted for the era and ballparks played in, is 125. There are 11 players in the HOF categorized as third basemen, not counting Negro Leaguers. Santo’s OPS+ is better than six of them: Paul Molitor (122), Jimmy Collins (113), George Kell (111), Freddie Lindstrom (110), Pie Traynor (107), and Brooks Robinson (104). But Molitor, Collins, Kell, Lindstrom, and Traynor all hit for a .300 average for their careers, something HOF voters obviously value over power and the ability to get on base. If voters dug deeper, they would learn that adjusted for his era, Santo’s career batting average is comparable to those of Kell, Collins, and Traynor.
A statistical tool called WAR (wins above replacement) measures how many wins a player is above the baseline of big league performance. It takes into account offense, defense, and baserunning, Santo’s WAR is 66.4 for his career. Compared to HOF third basemen, that ranks only below Mike Schmidt, Eddie Mathews, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Paul Molitor, and Brooks Robinson. WAR rates Robinson at 69.1, boosting him just above Santo based on his defense. But Santo rates higher than HOFers Frank Baker, Collins, Traynor, Kell, and Lindstrom. Santo’s 342 homers rank behind only Schmidt and Mathews. Santo drove in more runs than all but four Hall of Fame thirdsackers.
Santo’s first regular season was 1961, and for the next 13 years he was one of his league’s most productive players regardless of position. During the 1960s only two players drove in more runs than Santo in the National League: Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. His Wins Above Replacement total for the decade trailed only Mays, Aaron, and Roberto Clemente.
Left fielder Billy Williams, who like Santo was in his prime during the 1960s, was his teammate on the Cubs. For the decade, Williams hit fewer homers and drove in fewer runs than Santo, and his OPS of .850 was just slightly better than Santo’s mark of .844. Yet Williams is in the Hall of Fame, Santo is not.
Yet another stat called Batting Runs, developed by famed Sabrmetrician Bill James, makes the Hall of Fame case even stronger for Santo. For the 1960s, Santo’s total of 254 batting runs (a measure of his overall offensive production) ranks 12th in all of baseball. It’s a total that’s higher than that of Williams, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie Stargell, other sluggers who are in Cooperstown and played their primes during that decade. According to James, Brooks Robinson accumulated 112 batting runs in the 60s. The question: do Santo’s extra 142 batting runs make up for the gap between his defensive play and that of Robinson? Santo may not have the dazzling defensive stats Robinson put up, but he still won five Gold Gloves for his work around the bag at third.
Looking at the overall pool of third basemen in baseball history, there have been 102 players who have played as many as 1,200 games in the majors with at least half coming at the hot corner. When you rank those 102 players by just about any statistical method, Santo is always in the top 10. In OPS+ he is seventh, trailing Schmidt, Mathews, Chipper Jones, Brett, Baker, and Boggs. In homers, RBI, walks, slugging and on-base percentage, Santo rates in the top ten. If the Hall of Fame is supposed to honor the best players, it can be presumed that one of the top ten third basemen in history (by several measures) deserves to be enshrined.
Santo doesn’t belong with the upper crust of Hall of Fame third basemen: Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, and Boggs. But he certainly compares well to the next group: Molitor, Robinson, and Baker. And when compared to the rest of the third basemen in the Hall (Collins, Kell, Lindstrom, Traynor), Santo is markedly superior. His day in Cooperstown never came while he was alive, but he deserves to be honored posthumously, and it’s long overdue.
Felix Hernandez finally gets respect as best starter in baseball
Much was made about Felix Hernandez’s 13-12 won/loss record leading up to the announcement of the 2010 A.L. Cy Young Award winner. Many felt King Felix might not get the honor since it would be the first time w recipient got the award with so few victories. But Hernandez ran away with the honor and rightfully so. This is one time that the baseball writers got it right. Hernandez has been baseball’s best starting pitcher for the last two seasons, and it hasn’t even been that close.
A starter can really only do one thing – pitch well enough to keep his team in position to win the game. I know in the National League they can swing the bat, but let’s not quibble over that. Most pitchers hit more like your Grandma Ruth than Babe Ruth. Fielding can also play a factor, as can the ability to keep runners close on base. Some pitchers really shine in those areas, but for the purpose of this discussion on the best starting pitchers, let’s stick to PITCHING.
For the last two seasons, 2009-2010, Felix Hernandez has been the best starting pitcher in the game, period. He finished second in Cy Young Award voting in 2009, when Kansas City’s Zack Grinke earned the honor on the strength of a phenomenal first three months of the season. But King Felix wasn’t far off.
A Quality Start is when a starting pitcher throws at least six innings and also allows three earned runs or less. It’s not a perfect measure of a starting pitcher, but when a hurler logs a Quality Start he’s put his team in a good spot to win. A look at the numbers reveals that Hernandez has been stellar at doing that over the last two seasons. The righty has tossed 59 quality starts in 68 overall games started. The next closest pitcher to that figure is Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals, with 50. Hernandez’s challengers as the best pitcher in the AL are far behind him in QS over the past two years. Greinke and C.C. Sabathia each have 47, while Detroit’s Justin Verlander has 44. Roy Halladay, who pitched for Toronto in 2009 and Philly last year, also has 47 QS.
The top 12 in Quality Starts for 2009-1010 are:
- Felix Hernandez 59
- Adam Wainwright 50
- Ubaldo Jimenez 49
- Tim Lincecum 48
- Cris Carpenter 47
- Roy Halladay 47
- Zack Greinke 47
- Jered Weaver 47
- C.C. Sabathia 47
- Josh Johnson 46
- Wandy Rodriguez 46
- Dan Haren 46
No one is even close to Hernandez, and it’s not simply a one year dominance. In 2010 he started 34 games and logged 30 QS. In ’09 he had 29 QS in 34 starts. Amazingly, in 2010 he had 20 Quality Starts in his last 21 starts of the season.
One has to go back a long time to find any starting pitcher who accumulated as many as 59 quality starts in a two-year stretch. In 1992-1993, Greg Maddux put up 59 QS in 71 starts, three more starts than Felix had. Not since the era of the four-man rotation has a pitcher made more than Felix’s 59 quality starts in consecutive seasons, and it took a Hall of Famer to do it. In 1974-1975, Catfish Hunter made 60 quality starts for Oakland, but it took him 80 starts to do so, a 75% ratio. The last two years, Hernandez’s quality start percentage is 86.7%.
It wasn’t Hernandez’s fault that his Seattle teammates couldn’t scratch across more runs for him in 2010, in fact the 13 wins are quite impressive considering how abysmal the M’s were. Nothing should diminish Hernandez’s amazing performance over the last two seasons, and since he’ll only be 25 years old in 2011, much more is to come from baseball’s best starting pitcher.
Evaluating the Hall of Fame’s Expansion Era Ballot
Next week the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the results of a veterans committee election that considers 12 candidates from the Expansion Era. It’s the first election in the new Hall of Fame balloting process that has the voting separated into three ballots based on era: Expansion (1973-present), Golden (1947-1972), and Pre-Integration (1871-1946). Every year one of the ballots will be addressed. A small group (16) will vote in seclusion during the winter meetings. Any candidate receiving 12 votes will be elected.
The new process is an interesting idea, and no doubt it’s been constructed because the Hall of Fame wants to see people (living people, preferably) elected to the Hall of Fame. For the most part, previous incarnations of the veterans committee have resulted in very few inductees. Following Bill Mazeroski’s controversial selection in 2001, the veterans committee failed to elect anyone for six years. From 2008-2010, after the Hall tinkered with the committee process for the umpteenth time, the committee elected eight people. However, only one was a player and only half of them were living. Obviously, something had to be done to spice things up a bit.
The HOF wants the veterans committee to elect worthy candidates who are appealing to the masses. It helps a lot if they’re also breathing. That way, fans will trek to Cooperstown to see them get their plaques. Suffice to say, Barney Dreyfuss didn’t attract a crowd when he was elected in 2008.
Of the 12 former players, managers, and executives on the Expansion Era ballot, 10 are alive. Let’s look at each of them and rate their chances for Hall of Fame election.
Vida Blue
A southpaw with a heavy fastball and a knee-buckling curve, Blue accomplished a lot in his career: he was the ace (or one of the aces) of three World Series championship teams, he struck out 300 batters in a season, he pitched a no-hitter when he was 21 years old, he won an MVP and Cy Young Award, and he won 20 games three times. But those feats all occurred before he turned 27 years old. After the age of 26, Blue was basically a .500 pitcher (99-94 with a 3.72 ERA). His 209-161 career mark is pedestrian by HOF standards. Like Dwight Gooden in the 1980s, Blue seemed like a Hall of Fame talent when he was a young fireballer, but he took a detour on the way to Cooperstown. The lefty really doesn’t have chance to be elected.
Dave Concepcion
He was a nine-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove winner in an era when shortstops were expected to field every ball in their region and maybe hit .275 with 10 homers if they could muster it. Some will say Concepcion didn’t hit enough even for a shortstop, and they may be right, but Ozzie Smith got in with pretty miserable offensive numbers, ditto Rabbit Maranville. The question of his candidacy comes down to whether or not his defense was great enough to offset his offensive deficiencies. According to a stat called Defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR), which is widely accepted to be the best measurement of defensive play, Concepcion gets a mark of 1.1, or about one game above replacement level for his entire career. Ozzie’s dWAR was 21.6, and several contemporaries of Concepcion had a better number. Luis Aparicio, a light-hitting Venezuelan shortstop like Concepcion, had a dWAR of 11.5 and his offense was boosted quite a bit by his ability to steal bases. To his credit, Concepcion hit about .350 in five NL Playoff Series, and he won an All-Star Game MVP, but his overall resume just doesn’t scream Cooperstown. His career OPS+ was 88, or 12% below an average offensive player. His highest OPS+ in any season was 116. Ozzie’s career OPS+ was a meager 87, but he stoled 250 more bases than Davey. Concepcion was a decent shortstop for a long time on a very good team. That’s his legacy, but it doesn’t mean he’s a HOFer. Having said that, he’ll probably get a few votes from this committee, which includes former teammates Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. But Concepcion should fall shy because when the voters look at those offensive numbers they have to admit his shortcomings. If he somehow manages to get elected he’ll be the worst shortstop in the Hall of Fame, by quite a big margin, and supporters of Maury Wills and Alan Trammell will have a lot to scream about.
Steve Garvey
The rise of Sabermetric theory may have done more to hurt Steve Garvey’s HOF chances than any other player of his generation. A generation of fans and writers now view Garvey’s career numbers as empty .300 seasons with modest RBI numbers. In some sense they are correct, given his opportunities in the middle of the lineups he played on, Garvey didn’t drive in that many runs. Had Garvey been able to squeeze out three seasons at the end of his career with 150 or so hits per, he’d have erased any debate about his candidacy by reaching 3,000 hits. But he fell off a steep cliff at the end and stopped at 2,599 hits. He has some gaudy credentials though: MVP votes in eight straight seasons, 10 All-Star nods, a long consecutive games played streak, and a .338 average with 11 homers in five post-seasons. His negatives include dismal defense and a poor (to say the least) reputation off the field. He garnered 40% support or more from the baseball writers three times, and I’d bet that will help his chances with this smaller committee. Garvey will be a strong candidate, and if he’s elected, he won’t be the worst first baseman in Cooperstown. See Jim Bottomley for that distinction.
Pat Gillick
It can be difficult to determine which executives belong in the Hall of Fame. Gillick was at the center of the success that Toronto enjoed when they established themselves as one of the best franchises in the game in the mid-1980s anfd into the 1990s. It’s easy to forget how bad the Blue Jays were in the beginning. Gillick was there for that, too. But back then expansion teams didn’t have the same advantages that later expansion teams did. The Jays and Mariners were the ugly step-sisters to the rest of the American League. Gillick took his lumps for five years, but by then he had stocked his farm system with loads of talent, most of it from Latin America. After those first five seasons with the Blue Jays when he was building from scratch, Gillick’s teams posted 20 winning seasons in 22 years, with at least 89 victories 15 times! Pretty damn good. Having said that, I don’t think this committee will reward Gillick with election. Most of the executives in Cooperstown worked for the Yankees or Dodgers for a long time, and though Gillick earned a paycheck from the Yanks as a scout for a couple of years, that’s not enough.
Ron Guidry
Late start, short career, left-handed. Those factors demand comparison to Sandy Koufax, which seriously hurts the case for Ron Guidry as a Hall of Famer. The skinny southpaw was a winner: 154-67 (.697) during his peak nine-year stretch. Guidry’s best season was better than any of Koufax’s best seasons. In 1978, Guidry posted a 208 ERA+, but he never approached that number again, and unlike Koufax, Guidry did not retire from an injury, he retired after losing his effectiveness. He was 4-0 in the 1977 and 1978 post-seasons, but his resume isn’t quite long enough. At his peak, he was as good as probably 15-20 pitchers in the Hall of Fame, but his cumulative numbers aren’t great enough.
Tommy John
The opposite of Guidry, John was good or very good long enough to win 288 games. But he was rarely ever considered the best pitcher on his team nor was he seriously ever mentioned as a dominant starter. The lefty relied on precision, guile, and stamina to forge a lengthy career while pitching for several winning teams. He really had three careers: (1) quality pitcher with the White Sox, (2) excellent starter for the Dodgers who suffered an infamous arm injury and won lots of games for great teams, and (3) bionic-armed veteran who caught on with the Angels and Yanks and chewed up innings while pitching okay when he was healthy. For the last eight years of his career he was 74-80 with a 4.13 ERA! He really has George Steinbrenner to thank for reaching 288 wins. George gave John a roster spot for four seasons at the very end, otherwise John would have about 260 wins and probably wouldn’t be on this ballot. The baseball writers never gave John more than 31% of the vote. He won’t get in via the veterans committee either. If he does, Cooperstown would have to usher in Jamie Moyer, Frank Tanana, and Jim Kaat, each of whom was better than John.
Billy Martin
To a lot of us who grew up watching baseball in the 1970s and early 1980s, it may seem odd to think of Billy Martin as a Hall of Fame manager. That’s because most of what we heard of Martin involved bar fights, obscenities, and hirings/firings. Martin was volatile, to say the least, but he did possess a burning desire to win. He injected that will to win into every clubhouse he managed, even though it eventually proved cancerous and led to his being fired. When he first rode into a new town, he turned things around almost immediately. In his first managerial season with Minnesota in 1969, he guided a team that had finished seventh the previous year to 97 wins and a division title. In Detroit he goaded an aging team of veterans to a division title. In New York he won two pennants and a World Series title before George fired him (the first time) and asked him back (the first time). In Oakland, Billy schooled a small group of talented young players into a division winner in 1981. Only in Texas did he fail to finish in first place, but even there he improved the Rangers by 27 wins in his first season, a phenomenal turnaround. He was exiled from Texas after he pissed off the front office with the force of his personality and the disturbing flaws in his personal behavior. That was ultimately the story everywhere he went. Martin deserves a lot of credit for his ability to rally a team around his diamond philosophies (stealing bases and complete games). But his two pennants in 16 seasons aren’t enough to get him into Cooperstown.
Marvin Miller
Without this man the history of baseball would be quite different. Free agency, long-term contracts, arbitration – all of these off-the-field developments were a direct result of Miller’s influence. Miller’s impact is at least as important as the contributions of other pioneers in the Hall of Fame. Miller’s visionary leadership of the Players’ Union shaped the game we watch today. For that, he should be honored in Cooperstown, and he’ll probably get that honor this year. He’s one of the strongest candidates on the ballot.
Al Oliver
Oliver is a member of what might be called the “Hall of the Nearly Great Enough.” These players, which include contemporaries Rusty Staub, Bill Buckner, Dave Parker, Vada Pinson, and Stave Garvey, and later stars like Harold Baines and Gary Sheffield, were very good for a long time, but failed to reach important milestones that traditionally signify automatic HOF election. Oliver is one of the best of this group. He won a batting title. He was an outstanding defensive player for much of his career, both in the outfield and later at first base. He was a strong baserunner in his prime, and he could hit. Man, could he hit. One former player who faced Oliver in the National League said that Oliver hit the ball harder more consistently than any other batter in the game. Oliver had the reputation for leading the league in “hard outs” nearly every year. Like others in his group, Oliver had more than 2,700 hits and then he tailed off, unable to reach the 3,000-hit plateau. Mid-career he seemed a good bet to make it. He certainly wouldn’t be the worst outfielder inducted into the HOF, but given that he didn’t do ONE THING really well he doesn’t stand out like a home run slugger or basestealer would. For that reason, Oliver won’t make it. He was really good, though, and he deserves to be remembered.
Ted Simmons
Ted Simmons scored more runs than all but four Hall of Fame catchers. He drove in more runs than every HOF catcher except Yogi Berra, and he collected more hits than any other catcher in the Hall of Fame (2,472). And it’s not like he accumulated a bunch of those numbers at another position: Simmons played essentially two seasons as a DH and a season and a half as a first basemen. Not that different than Johnny Bench, his contemporary in the National League during his prime. The problem is that Simmons suffers in comparison to Bench, which isn’t fair. That would be like keeping Roberto Clemente out of the Hall because he wasn’t Hank Aaron. Both were great players to different degrees. Simmons was a great catcher in his prime which lasted a LONG time. From 1971-1980 his OPS+ was 131, which is better than any peak stretch of similar length by a HOF catcher other than Bench, Cochrane, and Dickey. Simmons wasn’t as bad a defensive catcher as his reputation, and he compares favorably to Gary Carter who has already earned election. Simmons deserves induction and probably will make it if the committee really does their homework. But don’t count on that.
Rusty Staub
If there was a Hall of Fame for gentlemen, Staub would be in it. Similarly, if it was the Hall of Popularity, “Le Grand Orange” would have gone in on the first ballot. He was loved everywhere he played, and for good reason: he could hit. He’s still the only player to collect as many as 500 hits for four different franchises (Houston, Montreal, Mets, Detroit). He was one of the better pinch-hitters in the history of the game and he made a living at driving in runs from third base with less than two outs. Staub’s candidacy is hurt by two important factors: (1) he played for teams that rarely if ever got to the post-season, and (2) he never had a monster season in the triple crown categories. Staub just hit year after year after year. Here are his OPS+ marks for his 10-year peak from 1967-1976: 153, 132, 166, 139, 147, 137, 118, 112, 131, 137. His OPS+ for that decade was 131, ranking in the top ten in baseball. He ended up in the 2,700-hit zone like Oliver and thus he stands outside the HOF on that test. His career OPS+ of 124 is better than that of Tony Perez, who played on teams where he had far more RBI opportunities and who won multiple World Series rings. It’s also higher than that of Pete Rose. Staub was really good. He won’t get elected, but he deserves to be on this ballot.
George Steinbrenner
Few owners gained as much attention as Stienbrenner, which is funny because when he bought the Yankees for the bargain price of $8.8 million in 1973 he was quoted as saying that he intended to be a “hands-off owner.” George was anything but hands-off in his 37 years as owner of the Yankees. In his first 22 years he changed managers 20 times! Steinbrenner employed 11 general managers over the years, and frequently undermined their authority by dealing with player contract negotiations personally. But the personal touch paid off, as “The Boss” won seven World Series titles and 11 pennants. His aggressive signing of free agents helped push salaries up while also encouraging other team owners to put more resources into their franchises. The result was good for baseball. If there were a Mt. Rushmore of baseball owners, Steinbrenner’s face would be one of the four faces on it, along with Branch Rickey, Walter O’Malley, and Bill Veeck. He should receive enough votes to earn election.
