I recently responded to a question in “Hey, Bill” about Duke Snider:

 

Duke Snider -- overrated? Baseball-reference.com lists Ellis Burks as Snider's closest comp, which seems distinctly underwhelming. The overall list is a bit more impressive.

 

--Martin

 

Well. . .I believe that they are using formulas that I invented to make those comparisons, so perhaps I'm free to criticize the results.   Snider and Burks may have similar hitting stats, but Ellis was doing that (or some of that) in an environment of around 12 runs per game for the two teams.   That's very different from having those stats in a historically normal context--the difference between being 6-2 and 200 and 5-2 and 200.    

 

            A day or two later I was back on “Hey, Bill”, and I had about six questions or comments on Duke Snider:

 

 

Snider shows up in a lot of players' comparable players lists, and is a staple of the "If he's in, then..." argument.  If you're a Dale Murphy booster (as I am) then you can point to Snider, second on Murphy's list, and say, "If Duke's in the Hall, then Murph should be too!"  You've already pretty much demolished this argument... though I do think that if the standards for Snider's induction held in Murphy's time, he'd be in.  When Jim Edmonds comes up in a few years, his advocates will make a similar case.

 

--Mac

 

Duke Snider, in 1956, led the league in homers, OBA, SLG and OPS. He was 2nd in runs scored and 4th in rbi. His team won the pennant, in an 8 team race. He finished 10th in the MVP voting. Doesn't that seem weird? He was 2nd in the voting in 1955.

 

--Ventboys

 

 

            OK, let’s take on Duke Snider directly.   On the one hand, we’ll compare Snider to Ellis Burks, Dale Murphy and Jim Edmonds.   At the same time, let’s compare him to some other Hall of Fame center fielders—and not Willie and Mickey; some normal humans.   Larry Doby, Richie Ashburn and Earle Combs, how about?

            Duke Snider broke into baseball as a teenager during World War II.   His high school baseball coach in Compton, California, wrote letters to several major league executives, including the Dodgers, urging them to check out Snider.  The Dodgers did, and liked Snider, but couldn’t sign him until he turned 17.   By that time the Reds and Cardinals were also trying to sign him, but he stuck with the Dodgers.   He played a couple of games with Montreal at the start of the 1944 season, then went to Newport News in the Piedmont League, where he had a fine season, hitting .294 with 34 doubles and 9 homers.  

            He turned 18 in late September, 1944, and reported to the military pre-induction center in Watts.   “They checked us just enough to make sure we were warm and upright,” Snider explained in his autobiography, “and a guy handed me some papers I didn’t want to know about and screamed “NAVY!” in my face at the top of his lungs.  . . I wondered why they took me if they thought I was deaf.” 

            Snider was in the Navy for 19 months, and never actually saw combat, although he had some scary moments.    He played with Ft. Worth in the Texas League the second half of 1946.   Ft. Worth was in the Texas League—a very good minor league, and Snider was still only 19 years old.   He played OK, hitting .250 in 68 games, got Branch Rickey’s attention with a massive home run over the clock in center field, and started the 1947 season on the major league roster.

            Again, I’m guessing on some of this; if I was publishing this in a book I would have to take the time to research it more carefully.   But at that time the majors opened the season with a 28-man roster, and cut down to 25 on April 30.   They stopped doing that I think in the early 1970s.   As a baseball professional, I understand the reasons not to do that, but as a fan, I kind of liked it.   It gave you a chance to see the organization’s young players, and it gave the young players a chance to compete for playing time under “real” conditions.   As a professional, I understand the logic of saying “the place to do that is spring training,”, but as a fan, I enjoyed watching the early-season job battles.  

            The Dodgers at that time probably had 75 or 100 major league players in their minor league system, some of them old guys who had done their time in the majors, but many of whom would be the major league coaches and managers of the 1970s.   They had two Triple-A teams. . ..two teams that were at the level we would now call Triple-A. . .those two being St. Paul (American Association) and Montreal (International League), but the Ft. Worth team was really just a half-step below that.   Within a period of two or three years their farm system produced Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Snider, Gil Hodges, Carl Furillo, and others—one of the greatest “flowerings” of a farm system in baseball history.  

            Anyway, Snider in 1947 was not quite ready for prime time.   He hit no home runs, and his strikeout/walk ratio was 24-3.   He had a .339 ball-in-play average, however, and played pretty well in the field, so he wasn’t a total loss.   The only other one of the players we are tracking who made the majors at age 20 was Dale Murphy, who had a similar performance for the Atlanta Braves in 1976:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	WPct
1947	Snider	20	40	83	0	5	.241	.301	.276	.577	2	3	.311
1976	Murphy	20	19	65	0	9	.262	.354	.333	.687	2	2	.482

 

            Murphy was first-round draft pick in 1974.   The draft was instituted, in part, to keep teams like the Dodgers, Cardinals and Yankees from signing and hoarding all the best prospects.    Murphy shot to the majors, in all candor, because he was a first-round draft pick.    Well, two reasons. . .1) he was a first round draft pick, and 2) the Braves were terrible, and they needed help.  

            Murphy played OK, but it was just a look-see, and both Murphy and Snider were back in the minors to start their age-21 seasons.   Richie Ashburn, however, was not.   Ashburn—six months younger than Snider, listed in the Encyclopedias as the same age—had also been spotted as a major talent at a very young age, and had been improperly signed by two other organizations before signing with the Phillies.   He signed first with the Indians, but that contract was thrown out by the Commissioner because Ashburn was not of legal age when he signed the contract.  He then signed with the Cubs, but his contract with the Cubs called for him to get a portion of the purchase price if his minor league contract was purchased by the major league team.  That was prohibited by the rules of the game—unwisely, in my view—so that one was thrown out, too, and Ashburn then signed with the Phillies. 

            Ashburn went to Utica, hit .312 in the Eastern League in 1945, spent a year in the Army, and then hit .362 at Utica in 1947.    In early 1947 the major league Phillies traded for Harry Walker, Harry the Hat, and Walker won the National League batting title.   Having hit just .237 in 1946 and hitting just .200 at the time of the trade, Walker hit .371 in 130 games for the Phillies, with 16 triples, a .443 on base percentage and .500 slugging.   Ashburn and Walker were extraordinarily similar players—both left-handed hitting center fielders who hit for a high average, walked a good deal and ran extremely well.   Both bunted a lot and chopped down on the ball to take advantage of their speed, so neither had any power.   This could have been a terrible situation for Ashburn.  Had Walker continued to play at that level, Ashburn could have been locked in the minors for years.  

            In the spring of 1948, however, Harry Walker decided to hold out and demand a big raise.   This created an opening for Ashburn, and he charged into the opening like a boogie-woogie choo-choo train.    Sorry; occasionally I listen to country music.   Ashburn ripped the center field job away from Walker, and never gave it back:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1948	Ashburn	21	117	463	2	40	.333	.400	.410	.810	19	5	.781
1948	Snider	21	53	160	5	21	.244	.450	.297	.747	4	5	.468
1977	Murphy	21	18	76	2	14	.316	.526	.316	.842	1	2	.354

 

            You may wonder how Dale Murphy could have a .316 batting average in 1977, an .842 OPS, and yet a .354 Winning Percentage.   Therein hangs a tale.  

            Dale Murphy, at the time he signed, was a catcher—for that matter, so was Richie Ashburn.   However, the Phillies in the late 40s took a look at Richie Ashburn as a catcher, decided that was a waste of his speed, and put him in center field.   It was equally obvious that God had never intended for Dale Murphy to be a catcher, but the Braves persisted for years in the mule-headed belief that they could make him one anyway.  

            It creates a quandary:  is it fair to evaluate Dale Murphy by the failures of his organization?    Murphy really wasn’t ready to play in the majors at age 22—most people aren’t—and his lack of a defensive position was a millstone.   This will give him negative won-lost records for several years here, but. . .is that fair to Murph?   Or is that penalizing him because he was drafted by a bad team?

            It is what it is; I’ll leave that to your discretion.  Richie Ashburn has taken an early lead in our competition.   While Snider’s average barely improved in 1948, his strikeout/walk ratio improved to 27-12, and he began to hit for a little bit of power, hitting 5 homers and also 6 triples in 53 games.   Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ incumbent center fielder, Pete Reiser, was running into walls and being carried off the field on a stretcher with near-comic regularity, leaving the position available to players who were able to stay on the field.   In 1949 the 22-year-old Snider came into his own:

 

   

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	WPct.
1949	Snider	22	146	552	23	92	.292	.493	.361	.854	20	9	.682
1949	Ashburn	22	154	662	1	37	.284	.349	.343	.692	20	16	.551
1987	Burks	22	133	558	20	59	.272	.441	.324	.765	15	15	.501
1978	Murphy	22	151	530	23	79	.226	.394	.284	.679	10	22	.313

 

            Murphy played first base in 1978, filling in occasionally behind the plate.   Unfortunately, he played well behind the plate in 1978—the only time in his career that he did—and this merely extended the Murphy-as-catcher fiasco into 1980.   Meanwhile, Ellis Burks had reached the Red Sox.

            Burks as a young player was quite similar to Duke.   Both players were very graceful—tall, but fast and graceful.   Both players played the whole game.  They hit for pretty good averages, hit for some power, walked some, and played excellent defense in center field.   Burks was a year behind Snider in his development, but he was on the same path.   At the age of 23 Edmonds and Doby also reached the majors:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	WPct.
1950	Snider	23	152	620	31	107	.321	.553	.379	.932	23	9	.723
1950	Ashburn	23	151	594	2	41	.303	.402	.372	.774	21	11	.653
1988	Burks	23	144	540	18	92	.294	.481	.367	.848	19	10	.650
1979	Murphy	23	104	384	21	57	.276	.469	.340	.809	10	12	.453
1993	Edmonds	23	18	61	0	4	.246	.344	.270	.614	1	2	.336
1947	Doby	23	29	32	0	2	.156	.188	.182	.369	0	2	.000

 

            Murphy in 1979 put his game together as a hitter, but early in the year he was still trying to catch, which was not going well.   To put it kindly.   Playing 27 games at catcher, he came very near to leading the league in Passed Balls, with 11.   He allowed 32 stolen bases in 38 attempts and was charged with five errors.  

            One of Whitey Herzog’s books tells a story which relates to the development of Jim Edmonds, and also explains a lot about the California Angels late in the life of Gene Autry.    Autry hired Herzog to be the General Manager.   Unfortunately, he forgot to tell anybody.   Literally.    He had a press conference in which he announced that he had hired Herzog, but he didn’t fire the previous General Manager, and he didn’t tell anybody that he had intended Herzog to be the General Manager, so the previous General Manager didn’t leave.    It was very awkward, and you probably think I am making this up, but I’m not.   Herzog settled in as a special assignment scout or something, and went out to see the Angels minor leaguers play.

            The perception of the Angels’ front office at that time was that their minor league system was barren.   They didn’t think they had anybody down there who could play.   Herzog went out on a two-week scouting trip, and he was amazed.   He saw, among others, Jim Edmonds, Tim Salmon, Garrett Anderson, J. T. Snow, Chad Curtis and Damion Easley.   He went back to the front office, met with the team’s other executives, and said—paraphrasing—“Look, you guys’ job here is really easy.  Just don’t mess it up.  Don’t trade these kids, and don’t sign some free agent to block the road in front of them.   Just let them play.”   Then he hung around for a couple of years, and quietly departed. 

            Doby, of course, had another challenge.  He was the American League’s Jackie Robinson.   You need to see video of him to get it.   He was a very big guy, by the standards of the time, and he was explosive.  He makes everybody else on the field look small and slow.   Signed as a middle infielder, he struggled through 1947 as a not-very-good middle infielder, and then moved to the outfield in 1948:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1951	Ashburn	24	154	643	4	63	.344	.426	.393	.819	26	8	.771
1980	Murphy	24	156	569	33	89	.281	.510	.349	.858	23	9	.718
1948	Doby	24	121	439	14	66	.301	.490	.384	.873	19	6	.757
1951	Snider	24	150	606	29	101	.277	.483	.344	.828	20	14	.591
1989	Burks	24	97	399	12	61	.303	.471	.365	.836	14	7	.671
1994	Edmonds	24	94	289	5	37	.273	.377	.343	.720	7	8	.440

 

            At age 24 Murphy moved to the outfield, and had his first big year with the bat.   Larry Doby was a highly effective near-regular on a World Championship team.   By age 24, then, Ashburn, Snider, Murphy, Burks and Doby were all major league stars, .300 hitters or power hitters with OPS in the mid-800s.

            Ellis Burks, however, was beginning to have the first of the chronic knee problems that would dog him for the next five years.    Earle Combs was still in the minors, but barely; he hit .380 at Louisville, with 241 hits including 46 doubles and 14 triples.   That was 1923.   In 1923 minor league teams were independent operations.   Players moved through the system by being sold up the ladder to higher leagues.   When a player dominated at the highest minor league levels, like Combs or Jack Bentley or Lefty Grove or Paul Waner, the minor league operator would sell him to the highest bidder at the major league level.   Combs’ monster season in 1923 made him one of the prizes of the 1923-24 off season.   He was purchased by the Yankees, and our crew was then complete:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1949	Doby	25	147	547	24	85	.280	.468	.389	.857	23	9	.711
1952	Snider	25	144	534	21	92	.303	.494	.368	.863	21	9	.703
1995	Edmonds	25	141	558	33	107	.290	.536	.352	.888	19	10	.662
1952	Ashburn	25	154	613	1	42	.282	.357	.362	.720	21	15	.588
1990	Burks	25	152	588	21	89	.296	.486	.349	.835	19	14	.583
1981	Murphy	25	104	369	13	50	.247	.390	.325	.716	11	11	.513
1924	Combs	25	24	35	0	2	.400	.543	.462	1.004	1	0	.907

 

            Combs was a bit player early in the 1924 season and then broke his ankle sliding into home plate on June 15, 1924, ending his season.  At age 25 none of these players had reached his peak.   Through age 25 these were their career won-lost records:

Richie Ashburn	108 – 56
Duke Snider	90 – 49
Ellis Burks	67 – 46
Dale Murphy	57 – 58
Larry Doby	41 – 17
Jim Edmonds	27 – 21
Earle Combs	1 – 0

 

            Ashburn was in first place among these players at age 25, but Ashburn’s career high in walks, through 1953, was 75.    He took 125 walks in 1954, generally took around 100 a year after that, and his best won-lost records would be after that change occurred.   The other players had not yet developed the power that they would display as mature sluggers.  Although Ashburn had been mentioned in the MVP voting as far back as 1948 (age 21), and Snider had cracked the top 10 in MVP voting, none of the players had yet won an MVP Award or made a serious run at so doing. 

            At age 26, however, all of the players except Burks essentially entered their prime:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1953	Snider	26	153	590	42	126	.336	.627	.419	1.046	28	2	.927
1950	Doby	26	142	503	25	102	.326	.545	.442	.986	25	2	.929
1982	Murphy	26	162	598	36	109	.281	.507	.378	.885	23	10	.697
1953	Ashburn	26	156	622	2	57	.330	.408	.394	.802	23	10	.693
1925	Combs	26	150	593	3	61	.342	.462	.411	.873	21	11	.651
1996	Edmonds	26	114	431	27	66	.304	.571	.375	.946	15	6	.722
1991	Burks	26	130	474	14	56	.251	.422	.314	.736	12	18	.405

 

            The Atlanta Braves opened the 1982 season red hot and held on to win the National League West.   Dale Murphy was rewarded with an MVP trophy.   There was really no dominant player in the NL in 1982.   Mike Schmidt was probably the best player in the league, but he had won the MVP Award in ’80 and ’81 and was down a little in ’82, driving in only 87 runs.   It illustrates the quandaries of MVP voting.   The Braves won 89 games; the Phillies won 89 games—but the Braves won their division.  Does that make Murphy more valuable than Schmidt?   Schmidt hit .280 with 35 homers; Murphy hit .281 with 36 homers.   Murphy batted 176 times with runners in scoring position and drove in 109 runs; Schmidt batted 128 times with runners in scoring position and drove in 87 runs.   Does that make Murphy more valuable than Schmidt?  Murphy was having by far his best season so far; Schmidt had had better seasons before—but does that make Murphy more valuable than Schmidt?

            Maybe not, but that’s the nature of MVP voting; right or wrong, these are the things that shape the MVP vote.   Snider had a monster year in ’53, and obviously could have won the MVP Award, as well, but one of his teammates was the league’s best defensive catcher and drove in 142 runs.   Snider finished third in the vote, re-loaded and took another run at it in 1954:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1954	Snider	27	149	584	40	130	.341	.647	.423	1.071	28	2	.937
1951	Doby	27	134	447	20	69	.295	.512	.428	.941	24	1	.958
1983	Murphy	27	162	589	36	121	.302	.540	.393	.933	26	6	.803
1954	Ashburn	27	153	559	1	41	.313	.376	.441	.817	24	7	.789
1997	Edmonds	27	133	502	26	80	.291	.500	.368	.868	16	9	.636
1926	Combs	27	145	606	8	55	.299	.429	.352	.781	19	17	.525
1992	Burks	27	66	235	8	30	.255	.417	.327	.744	7	7	.487

 

            Not giving away the end of the story, but Snider and Doby are now clearly the best of this group of players.   They have ranked 1 and 2 in terms of marginal value—WARP—for the last three seasons, and they will continue to be near the top for the next two.   In their prime, they are the class of the group. 

            But Murphy won his second straight MVP Award, and Ashburn had his breakthrough year in walks.   His on-base percentage leaped to .441, putting that element of his game in the same range as Doby and Snider.    Burks is at the depths of his struggles.   Let’s update the standings:

 

Year	Player	Age		Wins	Losses	Marginal Value
1954	Ashburn	27		156	73	87.1
1954	Snider	27		145	53	85.8
1951	Doby	27		90	20	57.1
1983	Murphy	27		107	74	52.5
1992	Burks	27		86	70	39.1
1997	Edmonds	27		58	35	30.0
1926	Combs	27		41	28	20.4

 

            I’m figuring marginal value versus a .300 replacement level.  Doby’s won-lost record is now 90-20; think about that one for a minute.   He got a little bit of a late start, because of the color line, but he was a really good player.  He wasn’t better than Snider, and he was playing in more of a pitcher’s park, but he was on the same level of effectiveness as Duke Snider, and an extremely similar player—a left-handed hitting center fielder with power and excellent on base percentages.

            Snider in 1954 hit .341 with 40 homers, 130 RBI; Willie Mays hit .345 with 41 homers, but only 110 RBI.   Mays won the MVP Award—and probably deserved it.  I’m trying to avoid running Win Shares and Loss Shares for the top-level stars until we do the grunt work to create context for the numbers, but Snider was performing at what we might colloquially call an MVP level.  Willie Mays was better.  The Dodgers, however, finished second after winning the pennant in ’52 and ’53, and this dropped Snider down to fourth in the MVP voting, behind two Giants and Ted Kluszewski. 

            At age 28 the star of the group was Earle Combs:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1927	Combs	28	152	648	6	64	.356	.511	.414	.925	30	6	.827
1952	Doby	28	140	519	32	104	.276	.541	.383	.924	27	2	.947
1955	Snider	28	148	538	42	136	.309	.628	.418	1.046	26	3	.908
1955	Ashburn	28	140	533	3	42	.338	.448	.449	.897	25	3	.898
1984	Murphy	28	162	607	36	100	.290	.547	.372	.919	25	9	.740
1998	Edmonds	28	154	599	25	91	.307	.506	.368	.874	20	10	.665
1993	Burks	28	146	499	17	74	.275	.441	.352	.793	17	11	.601

 

            Combs was probably the third-best player in baseball in 1927, behind two of his teammates—or possibly fourth, behind Lazzeri as well.   He was still pretty good.   Snider, driving in a career-high 136 runs, came within a whisker of winning the NL MVP Award, which went again to Campanella.  Snider and Campanella drew eight first-place votes each; Campanella won on points, 226-221.   Doby did not make the top ten in MVP voting, in my opinion primarily because the voters:

            a)  Paid no attention to park effects, and

            b)  Had probably never heard of On Base Percentage.  

            Doby’s team, the Indians, finished second at 93-61, but the Park Run Index was 76.   Not understanding park effects, the MVP voters placed three Indians’ pitchers in the top ten in MVP voting, but ignored Doby, who was the actual MVP of the team.

            We come, then, to the 1956 season, which was the subject of the reader’s query at the beginning of our piece:

 

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1956	Snider	29	151	542	43	101	.292	.598	.399	.997	26	4	.865
1953	Doby	29	149	513	29	102	.263	.487	.385	.873	24	7	.772
1928	Combs	29	149	626	7	56	.310	.463	.387	.850	25	12	.682
1985	Murphy	29	162	616	37	111	.300	.539	.388	.927	23	9	.710
1956	Ashburn	29	154	628	3	50	.303	.384	.384	.768	22	10	.686
1994	Burks	29	42	149	13	24	.322	.678	.388	1.066	5	2	.711
1999	Edmonds	29	55	204	5	23	.250	.426	.339	.766	5	6	.487

           

            Dale Murphy is continuing to play at the same level that won him the MVP Award in ’82 and ’83.   Ventboys comment was “Duke Snider, in 1956, led the league in homers, OBA, SLG and OPS. He was 2nd in runs scored and 4th in RBI.  His team won the pennant, in an 8 team race. He finished 10th in the MVP voting. Doesn't that seem weird?”

            Well, no, not exactly.   In context, it makes perfect sense and is an expected voting result.   The voters of that time voted based on three statistics--Home Runs, RBI, and Batting Average.  They also voted based on a lot of non-statistical information, but the statistics that counted were those three.   On Base Percentage essentially did not exist, and would not become an official stat until decades later.   OPS did not exist.   Snider’s batting average and RBI were down; therefore he dropped sharply in the MVP voting.  

            But since we’re here, let’s take a careful look at the 1956 MVP contest.  It was a three-team pennant race:  The Dodgers won it at 93-61, but Milwaukee was one game back at 92-62, and Cincinnati only two back at 91-63.     Nine of the top ten in the MVP voting came from those three teams: 

           

1.  Don Newcombe, Brooklyn	27-7	3.06 ERA
2.  Sal Maglie, Brooklyn	13-5	2.87 ERA
3.  Hank Aaron, Milwaukee	26 HR	92 RBI   .328
4.  Warren Spahn, Milwaukee	20-11	2.78 ERA
5.  Jim Gilliam, Brooklyn	6 HR	43 RBI   .300
6.   Roy McMillan, Cincinnati	3 HR	62 RBI   .263
7.   Frank Robinson, Cincinnati	38 HR	83 RBI   .290
8.   Pee Wee Reese, Brooklyn	9 HR	46 RBI   .257
9.   Stan Musial, St. Louis	27 HR	109 RBI  .310
10.  Duke Snider, Brooklyn	43 HR	101 RBI  .292

 

            I figured Win Shares and Loss Shares for those ten players plus Willie Mays and Stan Lopata, and let’s throw Richie Ashburn into the pot, too, since we have the data.  This is how they would rate for that season by Win Shares and Loss Shares:

 

	BAT	FIELD	PITCH	TOTAL	VALUE
1.  Duke Snider	21-2	5-2		26-4	17.1
2.  Hank Aaron	21-4	6-3		26-7	16.3
3.  Willie Mays	21-4	4-3		25-6	15.6
4.  Don Newcombe	5-1		21-8	26-9	15.2
5.  Jim Gilliam	18-6	6-1		24-8	14.8
6.  Warren Spahn	3-1		21-8	24-10	14.2
7.  Frank Robinson	19-5	3-5		22-10	12.8
8.  Richie Ashburn	19-6	3-4		22-10	12.6
9.  Stan Musial	20-4	0-4		20-8	11.9
10.  Roy McMillan	10-11	9+1		19-10	10.2
11.  Stan Lopata	17-6	2-5		19-11	9.9
12.  Sal Maglie	1-3		16-6	17-8	9.4
13.  Pee Wee Reese	10-16	5-3		15-18	5.1

 

            Snider could have and perhaps should have won the 1956 MVP Award.   Willie Mays could have and perhaps should have been prominent in the voting, despite having an off year by his own standards.   Richie Ashburn, who received one point in the voting, could have and perhaps should have done much better.

            We know many, many things now that the on-scene voters did not know.   We know now that Willie Mays was dead last among National League regulars in the percentage of at bats with Runners in Scoring position; the voters at the time did not know that.   We know now that run scoring is essentially a function of on base percentage and to a lesser extent of slugging percentage; the voters at the time did not know this.  

At the same time, we should remember this:  that the people on scene, watching the games and reporting on them, knew many, many things about the season and about these players that we cannot know and cannot truly evaluate.   They took into consideration a thousand facts that have disappeared beneath the dust of history.  They got a lot of things right, too.   Comments:

1.  Duke Snider’s RBI count dropped by 30 in 1956 in part because he hit just .254 with runner’s in scoring position—a fact NOT taken into account in the calculations above.    Snider had hit .354 and .338 with runners in scoring position the previous two seasons.   Although the on-scene voters would not have known this specifically, my point is that the inference that they drew from the RBI count was not entirely false.

2.  Despite the lack of an on-base percentage, the voters appear to have done a very good job of recognizing the contributions of Junior Gilliam, whose ability to get on base was his central skill.

3.   Lew Burdette in 1956 went 19-10 with a 2.70 ERA; his teammate Warren Spahn went 20-11 with a 2.78 ERA—yet Spahn got 126 points in MVP voting, while Burdette got only 8.   This seems difficult to explain—particularly since Spahn pitched only once against the Dodgers, lasted only one and a third innings in that game, and was charged with the defeat. 

The Dodgers had a right-handed hitting lineup (Snider was the only significant lefty) and Spahn, who had a poor record against them years earlier, almost never pitched against them; they shuffled the rotation to avoid having Spahn pitch against the Dodgers.   Burdette wasn’t great against them, either—he was 1-2 with a 4.64 ERA in five starts—but Burdette was 5-0 with a 2.03 ERA against the Reds.   Thus, Burdette and Spahn had almost the same record overall, but Burdette pitched better than Spahn against both the Reds and the Dodgers.  

How, then, do we explain the voting?   Spahn won 20 games, Burdette 19; it sounds silly now but it was a big deal then.   Spahn was 10-3 over the last two months of the season; Burdette was 7-5.   This does seem to have influenced the voting.  Ultimately, I can’t explain it. 

4.  Roy McMillan was a light-hitting glove wizard who was the glue that held the Reds together.   He was a below-average hitter even in 1956, but the voters thought he was one of the best players in the league anyway because of his defense.

Our system agrees with the voters to an extent; our system says that he WAS a remarkable defensive player, and that, adding together offense and defense, this does put him on an equal footing with the league’s better players.   We rate him tenth; the voters put him sixth, but

a)  this is a small difference, and

b)  we really have little or no evidence that the weight we give to his defense is exactly the right one.

If a voter from that time were to argue that we have under-rated McMillan’s defense and thus under-rated his overall value, in my view we could not prove that the voter was wrong.   We do the best we can to put the correct weight on defensive accomplishments, but we still lack, in my view, a compelling logic by which to pin the player’s defensive value firmly in place.

5.  Stan Lopata, Phillies catcher, hit 32 homers, scored 96 runs, drove in 95 runs and drew 75 walks; I thus thought he might have an MVP argument.  The MVP voters’ view of him was that his defense was so bad that he wasn’t an MVP candidate despite the numbers—and our system agrees.    We have him with a defensive won-lost contribution of 2 and 5—unusually bad for a starting catcher.   Lopata’s fielding percentage at catcher was poor (.982) and his stolen base data is very poor, as he threw out only 10 of 39 would-be base stealers.   More remarkably, Lopata had only 24 assists on the season.   Ed Bailey, catching about the same number of innings, had 52, and Hobie Landrith had 55.  

In our era catcher’s assists are mostly runners caught stealing, but in 1956 I believe that most catcher’s assists resulted from bunt attempts.    Lopata lacked the quickness and agility of the league’s better catchers.

6.  Sal Maglie’s second-place finish in the MVP voting is, of course, the most difficult thing to justify or explain in the voting.  

Maglie began the 1956 season with the Cleveland Indians, apparently washed up and pitching little, as the Indians had a deep and talented staff.   On May 15 he was sold to the Dodgers, who needed pitching and were desperate enough to turn to their longtime arch-nemesis, Maglie, who in his years as a Giant had represented evil incarnate to Dodger fans.    Maglie was just 2-3 as of July 23, and the Dodgers were six full games behind.   Maglie then went 11-2 down the stretch, and the Dodgers pulled it out. 

It is reasonable and rational to argue that “crunch time” games should carry more weight in a value analysis than games that are played at less critical moments.   One can argue either side of that, but this is not a bad argument in principle.   It does seem, however, that the weight given to this argument by the 1955 MVP voters is unreasonable.   The sportswriters bought into the dramatic story of the aging, hated veteran spearheading a thrilling pennant race.    It’s really hard for us to say, 53 years later, that their perception of the race was entirely wrong.

7.   Pee Wee Reese finishing ahead of Stan Musial and Duke Snider in the MVP voting is similarly difficult to justify.

For much of his career, I would predict that our analysis would be on Pee Wee Reese’s side of the valuation debate.  I would suspect he would do better for much of his career in our analysis than he did in the MVP voting.  Reese was, of course, the captain of the Dodgers.   Reese was an established veteran by the time that Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo and Roy Campanella joined the team.   It was Reese who put his arm around Jackie Robinson and insisted that the team accept him.   This was not merely an act of leadership; it was an act of heroism, leadership on a historic scale.   It is not inappropriate to consider these factors when weighing and measuring the contributions to victory.

The question is, do you consider those contributions to victory inside the MVP analysis, or outside of it?   Tt is my opinion that the effort to identify the best player in the league is complicated and difficult enough if you keep it to the level of what is done on the field, and simply becomes impossible if you drag in what is done off the field.  

And one can’t avoid the feeling that the sportswriters were recognizing in 1956 a Pee Wee Reese from many years earlier. Reese was 37 years old in 1956, really too slow to be a major league shortstop.  He lost his job in ’57, slipped to part-time status.   The argument that Reese in 1956 “deserves” to be recognized as one of the league’s best players is noble—but probably wrong.  

           

            OK, Duke Snider turned 30 years old in September, 1956, which means he was 30 in 1957.   Let’s carry on with the comparison of Snider to the other center fielders.  As 30-year-olds, the best of the group was Larry Doby:

 

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1954	Doby	30	153	577	32	126	.272	.484	.364	.847	26	7	.792
2000	Edmonds	30	152	525	42	108	.295	.583	.411	.994	24	3	.886
1957	Ashburn	30	156	626	0	33	.297	.364	.390	.754	23	11	.671
1929	Combs	30	142	586	3	65	.345	.468	.414	.881	21	11	.661
1957	Snider	30	139	508	40	92	.274	.587	.368	.955	19	9	.679
1986	Murphy	30	160	614	29	83	.265	.477	.347	.824	19	15	.563
1995	Burks	30	103	278	14	49	.266	.496	.359	.856	7	8	.455

 

            The Indians won 111 games in 1954.  Doby led the league in RBI and finished a close second in MVP voting, behind Yogi Berra; essentially, four Indians split the vote and allowed Berra, the only Yankee having a good year, to slip between them and grab the award.    Jim Edmonds joined the Cardinals in 2000, and had his first really big season; that was the era of crazy batting numbers, but he finished fourth in the MVP voting.   Snider began to have back problems, and Ellis Burks was still struggling with injuries which, at the time, seemed nearly to have pushed him out of the league.   This is how the players stack up through age 30:

 

Year	Player	Age		Wins	Losses	Marginal Value
1957	Snider	30		217	69	131.3
1957	Ashburn	30		225	97	128.6
1954	Doby	30		168	36	106.6
1986	Murphy	30		174	108	89.7
1929	Combs	30		117	57	64.8
2000	Edmonds	30		108	54	59.1
1995	Burks	30		115	92	53.1

 

            Duke Snider went home in the winter of 1957-58.  The Dodgers moved to LA.  Duke was from LA.   It wasn’t the happiest homecoming.  His back bothered him all year, and the LA Coliseum was no Ebbets Field.    Snider slipped to last in the group at age 31:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1958	Ashburn	31	152	615	2	33	.350	.441	.440	.881	26	5	.831
1987	Murphy	31	159	566	44	105	.295	.580	.417	.997	23	7	.771
2001	Edmonds	31	150	500	30	110	.304	.564	.410	.974	22	4	.840
1930	Combs	31	137	532	7	82	.344	.523	.424	.947	21	7	.745
1955	Doby	31	131	491	26	75	.291	.505	.369	.874	19	7	.723
1996	Burks	31	156	613	40	128	.344	.639	.408	1.047	19	11	.639
1958	Snider	31	106	327	15	58	.312	.505	.371	.875	10	7	.590

 

            Dale Murphy’s 44 homers in 1987 were the most ever hit by any of these players; Edmonds, Burks and Snider all got to 40 homers, but none of them got to Henry Aaron’s number.  Richie Ashburn, meanwhile—the same age as Snider—was continuing to roll.   Ashburn led the National League in hits (215), walks (97), batting average (.350), and on-base percentage (.440).   He missed by one of leading the league in stolen bases, with 30; Willie Mays had 31.   It was his greatest season, and it pushed him back ahead of Snider in the career contest:

 

Year	Player	Age		Wins	Losses	Marginal Value
1958	Ashburn	31		251	102	145.1
1958	Snider	31		227	76	136.3
1955	Doby	31		187	43	117.9
1987	Murphy	31		198	115	104.1
1930	Combs	31		138	64	77.5
2001	Edmonds	31		130	59	73.4
1996	Burks	31		135	103	63.4

 

            Meanwhile, Ellis Burks’ knees (and back, and feet) let him alone for the first time in years, and Burks posted numbers that, on the surface of them, look for all the world like Duke Snider at his peak:   40 homers, 128 RBI, .344 average.  

            But Burks was playing in Colorado, where everybody put up numbers.   Burks hit .390 in Colorado, with 79 RBI.  On the road he hit .291 with 49 RBI—not that there is anything wrong with those numbers; his OPS on the road was .902.   And yes, Ebbets Field was a hitter’s park, too, but Duke Snider’s OPS in 1954 was 1.005 at home, 1.135 on the road.   In context, Burks’ value did not approach Snider’s, even though the numbers look the same.   Snider’s won-lost contribution, in 1954, was 28-2.   Burks’ in 1995 was 19-11.  

            Snider rallied some in 1959, while Ashburn slowed and Dale Murphy’s career went into the toilet:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2002	Edmonds	32	144	476	28	83	.311	.561	.420	.981	24	1	.962
1956	Doby	32	140	504	24	102	.268	.466	.392	.858	19	9	.681
1931	Combs	32	138	563	5	58	.318	.446	.394	.840	18	11	.619
1959	Snider	32	126	370	23	88	.308	.535	.400	.935	15	4	.768
1997	Burks	32	119	424	32	82	.290	.571	.363	.934	12	11	.524
1959	Ashburn	32	153	564	1	20	.266	.307	.360	.667	14	19	.428
1988	Murphy	32	156	592	24	77	.226	.421	.313	.734	14	21	.409

 

            Ashburn was traded to the Cubs.  Murphy continued to struggle.   Burks slipped back into injury hell.   Snider joined him:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
1932	Combs	33	144	591	9	65	.321	.455	.405	.860	21	10	.691
2003	Edmonds	33	137	447	39	89	.275	.617	.385	1.002	19	4	.814
1960	Ashburn	33	151	547	0	40	.291	.338	.415	.753	18	10	.645
1957	Doby	33	119	416	14	79	.288	.464	.373	.837	16	7	.699
1960	Snider	33	101	235	14	36	.243	.519	.366	.885	8	5	.623
1998	Burks	33	42	147	5	22	.306	.463	.387	.850	7	2	.724
1989	Murphy	33	154	574	20	84	.228	.361	.306	.667	13	21	.384
1998	Burks	33	100	357	16	54	.286	.510	.355	.865	8	11	.415

 

            Snider, even hitting .243, was still a winning player.   His secondary average was .477.    He was still running neck and neck with Ashburn as the best of the group in career value:

 

Year	Player	Age		Wins	Losses	Marginal Value
1959	Ashburn	32		265	121	149.3
1959	Snider	32		242	80	145.3
1956	Doby	32		206	52	128.7
1988	Murphy	32		212	135	107.9
2002	Edmonds	32		154	60	90.1
1931	Combs	32		157	76	86.9
1997	Burks	32		147	114	68.5

 

 

            We’re not going to mention steroids here; I said what I had to say about steroids, and I’m not repeating it.   I am CERTAINLY not accusing anyone of using steroids.   But by the age of 33 everybody in this group was a shadow of his former self—except the steroid era guys:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2004	Edmonds	34	153	498	42	111	.301	.643	.418	1.061	27	+1	1.026
1999	Burks	34	120	390	31	96	.282	.569	.394	.964	16	4	.803
1933	Combs	34	122	419	5	60	.298	.463	.370	.833	14	9	.591
1961	Snider	34	85	233	16	56	.296	.562	.375	.937	9	3	.728
1958	Doby	34	89	247	13	45	.283	.490	.348	.838	9	5	.638
1990	Murphy	34	57	214	7	28	.266	.416	.328	.744	6	6	.481
1961	Ashburn	34	109	307	0	19	.257	.306	.373	.679	7	10	.402
1990	Murphy	34	97	349	17	55	.232	.418	.312	.731	8	13	.385

 

            Edmonds’ fantastic 2004 season is the only “over the top” season by any of these players—the only season in which the player’s contributions to victory are too large to be expressed reasonably within the area of responsibility assigned to him.   Other players are over the top on offense or over the top on defense.   Edmonds, 2004, is the only player in this group of elite players who is over the top in the combination. 

            The two Murphys there are Dale Murphy in Atlanta and Dale Murphy in Philadelphia; he was traded in early August.  If you put him back together he is 14-19.   He probably should have been a part-time player.   Doby, Snider and Combs were part-time players by then, and they were still good players.   Murphy was playing every day but he stunk.   This continued at age 35:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2000	Burks	35	122	393	24	96	.344	.606	.419	1.025	19	1	.947
2005	Edmonds	35	142	467	29	89	.263	.533	.385	.918	20	6	.764
1962	Ashburn	35	135	389	7	28	.306	.393	.424	.817	12	8	.612
1934	Combs	35	63	251	2	25	.319	.434	.412	.847	10	4	.716
1991	Murphy	35	153	544	18	81	.252	.415	.309	.724	15	16	.478
1962	Snider	35	80	158	5	30	.278	.481	.418	.899	7	2	.786
1959	Doby	35	39	113	0	13	.230	.301	.290	.591	2	4	.390

 

            Ashburn had a good year with the bat, but he was playing for the Mets, and he couldn’t see the humor in it.   Embarrassed to be a part of one of the worst teams ever and foreseeing the situation getting only worse, Ashburn took his 2,574 hits retired; had he stayed in the game he might well have been able to 3,000.   Doby was released.   The others soldiered on:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2001	Burks	36	124	439	28	74	.280	.542	.369	.911	14	8	.619
2006	Edmonds	36	110	350	19	70	.257	.471	.350	.821	11	8	.571
1963	Snider	36	129	354	14	45	.243	.401	.345	.746	11	9	.551
1935	Combs	36	89	298	3	35	.282	.362	.359	.722	9	8	.530
1992	Murphy	36	18	62	2	7	.161	.274	.175	.449	0	4	.003

 

            And on:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2002	Burks	37	138	518	32	91	.301	.541	.362	.903	15	9	.629
2007	Edmonds	37	117	365	12	53	.252	.403	.325	.728	10	11	.472
1964	Snider	37	91	167	4	17	.210	.323	.302	.625	4	6	.385
1993	Murphy	37	26	42	0	7	.143	.167	.224	.391	0	3	.000

 

            Combs ran into a wall and fractured his skull.  Murphy and Snider retired.   Burks and Edmonds carried on:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2008	Edmonds	38	85	250	19	49	.256	.568	.369	.937	10	2	.839
2003	Burks	38	55	198	6	28	.263	.419	.360	.779	5	4	.542
2008	Edmonds	38	26	90	1	6	.178	.233	.265	.498	2	4	.277

 

            The two Edmonds there are Edmonds with Padres, where he was not good, and Edmonds with the Cubs, where he was extremely good.   Burks played a little in 2004:

 

Year	Player	Age	G	AB	HR	RBI	AVG	SLG	OBA	OPS	WS	LS	W Pct
2004	Burks	39	11	33	1	1	.182	.273	.270	.543	0	2	.148

 

            But we won the World Series anyway.   In the final analysis, the contest between Snider and Ashburn is too close to call:

 

Player	WS	LS	W Pct	Marginal Value
Richie Ashburn	302	149	.670	166.9
Duke Snider	280	105	.727	164.6
Jim Edmonds	253	94	.728	148.4
Larry Doby	234	68	.775	143.2
Dale Murphy	253	198	.561	117.7
Ellis Burks	230	156	.597	114.5
Earle Combs	210	106	.664	115.3

 

            Which breaks down into offense and defense as follows:

 

	Batting			Fielding						Total
Player	Won	Lost	Pct			Won	Lost	Pct			Won	Lost	W Pct
Duke Snider	231	67	.775			50	38	.564			280	105	.727
Dale Murphy	206	135	.605			47	63	.425			253	198	.561
Jim Edmonds	206	70	.746			46	24	.656			253	94	.728
Ellis Burks	200	107	.651			30	49	.384			230	156	.597
Larry Doby	183	41	.818			51	27	.650			234	68	.775
Richie Ashburn	238	101	.702			65	48	.575			302	149	.670
Earle Combs	170	62	.734			40	45	.474			210	106	.664

 

            Twenty years ago, when we were working with much more primitive defensive metrics, Richie Ashburn would show up as a fantastic defensive player, saving his team oodles of runs a year—which was a puzzle, because nobody thought while he was active that he was a fantastic defensive player, saving his team oodles of runs a year.   With the systems we have now that’s completely gone; he’s a good center fielder, but he’s not some sort of defensive freak.   Burks ranks last among these players, defensively, because of his bad knees and because he wound up DHing in more than 300 games, while Murphy’s defense is weighed down not only by his end-of-career injuries, but also by his start-of-career defensive floundering.  

            On the bottom line, all of the Hall of Famers wind up at least minimally qualified for the Hall of Fame—meaning 300 Win Shares, or 100 more Wins than Losses.   Snider, Ashburn and Doby clear the +100 standard with ease; Earle Combs clears it by the skin of his toenails.  

            Among the non-Hall of Famers, the only one who appears to have a Hall of Fame case is Jim Edmonds.