(This article was written sometime in 2004.  It is a complicated and sometimes confusing article, not particularly well written or carefully edited.   I believe, however, that it deals with a meaningful set of issues. )

 

            In The Baseball Research Journal, #32 (SABR) there is an article by a man named Tom Hanrahan, who uses the Win Shares system to try to identify. . .well, let me quote the question as he poses it:

 

            What ballplayer, at the peak of his career, could you most solidly say, “I wouldn’t trade him for anybody?”

 

            His method of studying this is to figure the Established Value at each age for all of the top candidates for this distinction—the six highest Established Values at age 26, for example, are 1.  Babe Ruth, 2. Mickey Mantle, 3. Rogers Hornsby, 4. Ty Cobb, 5. Joe DiMaggio, and 6. Alex Rodriguez.  

 

            I thought the article was very good and very interesting, but also that it opens the door to a broader discussion, which could be made the subject of a book-length dissertation.   There are a series of related concepts here, which are:

 

            1)  Established Value.   The level of major league performance that the player has clearly established his ability to sustain. 

            2)   Future Value.   The player’s remaining major league performance, looking forward from a given moment.

            3)  Trade Value.   The present perception of future value.   

            4)  Career Value.  The combination of future and past value.

 

            Hanrahan’s article is entitled “Highest Future Value”.  But what he is talking about, in my terminology, is not Future Value, but Trade Value.   Future Value for every player peaks at birth, and goes only downward.  The player with the highest Future Value is simply the best player, at the beginning of his career. What Hanrahan is asking is “What player, at the peak of his career, had the highest Trade Value of all time?”  

 

            His answer to that question is “probably Ty Cobb, 1909”.  I’ll give my answer in a moment, but what I really wanted to say was:  look at all of the fascinating questions which arise from the inter-action of these three values.    Suppose that you figure the Trade Value for every player in major league history at every point in his career, and you compare these figures to the player’s actual future values.   Who are the players who fall the furthest short of meeting their trade value?   (TV – CV).   That list would be, would it not, a list of the greatest under-achievers in baseball history? 

 

            You can use that list to form a list of the players who should have gone on to Hall of Fame careers, but didn’t.   Suppose that you do the opposite, and list the players whose career value is greater than their maximum trade value?   Then you have a list of the greatest over-achievers in baseball history, the players who were much better than their early careers suggested that they would be. 

 

            Some players’ Trade Value peaks at age 22; other players’ peak at 27, 30, or even later.    Who are the players who peak early?   Why did they not follow through on their promise?  Who are the players who peak late?  Why did they not get started earlier?  

 

            These are not simply lists; they are also a way of posing serious sabermetric questions.   Are there characteristics of players who peak very early and then don’t follow through?   Are their characteristics of players whose trade value peaks late? 

 

            How accurate are our perceptions of Future Value?   If you take the list of players who have the highest trade value at age 25, do they actually achieve what we expect of them?  How common is it for a player whose trade value is high to just wash out?  How common is the opposite?  How much do we really know about the future values of the players we are watching?   How reliable are the judgments that we make every day about the future performance of today’s stars?

 

            Hanrahan, I think, has struck a very rich vein here, and I’d like to open it up a little further.  

 

Method Notes

 

            Some of what I am doing here is the same as what Hanrahan did in the Journal 32, and much of it is similar but not quite the same.    Hanrahan figured the Established Value for each player by the formula:

 

            .4 times the Player’s Win Shares in the most recent season,

            plus .3 times his Win Shares in the previous season,

            plus .2 times his Win Shares in the season previous to that,

            plus .1 times his Win Shares in the season previous to that.

 

            This is one of the formulas that I have used at times to measure established value, and there are others.   One problem with this formula, however, is that the four-year look creates a long-term abscess when a player has missing seasons.   Take Willie Mays.   Mays earned 19 Win Shares as a twenty-year-old rookie in 1951, then earned 5 quick ones before reporting for military service in 1952, but missed all of the 1953 season.   In 1954, he first season back, he earned 40 Win Shares (and the National League MVP Award), and in 1955 he earned 40 more.   Using the four-year formula, Mays’ Established Value is negatively impacted by his missing 1952-53 seasons until 1957, when he finally has four years of consecutive major league service time to fill out his resume.

 

            This is very problematic, since it means that Mays’ Established Value, after his MVP season in 1954, is only 18.9, and even a year later, after another 40-point season, it rises only to 28.5.   Hanrahan’s solution to this problem is to fill in the missing seasons with minimum credits—at least 6 Win Shares for each player at age 18, at least 10 at age 19, 10 at age 21, and 14 at age 21 or later.   This changes Mays’ Established Value to 24.9 at age 23 (after the 1954 season), and to 32.2 after the 1955 season.

 

            This is not the solution that I would have chosen to the problem.    There are different formulas for Established Value (there are different formulas for anything which is real.   This is one of the ways you can tell whether you are measuring something real, or just farting around with numbers.  If you’re measuring something real, you can define it by different formulas and get essentially the same result.   If the definition of the category depends on the use of a particular formula, you’re just farting around with statistics.) 

 

            Anyway, there are multiple formulas for Established Value, and it seems to me that the one Hanrahan has chosen is not optimal for what he is trying to do.    Another formula for Established Value is:

 

            3 times the Player’s Win Shares in the most recent season,

            plus 2 times his Win Shares in the previous season,

            plus his Win Shares in the season previous to that,

            divided by six.  

 

            This formula—the three-year look at Established Value—is really more appropriate for what we’re doing here than the four-year look.   The four-year look sometimes discriminates against a young player.   What we are most interested in here—what we are almost entirely interested in here—is young players.   The three-year look works better for a young player (although the four-year look is more appropriate for a veteran player.) 

 

            Also, the practice of filling in “place-keeping values” for missing seasons, while it is useful if all you are doing is looking for the highest Trade Values, plays hell with the data when you turn to all of the other questions that we have raised here. . .Who are the greatest under-achievers of all time?, How much do we really know about the future values of present players?, etc.  

 

            My first published formula for Established Value, published about 1978, was:

            One-half the player’s value in the most recent season,

            plus one-half his established value after the previous season,

            but not less than .75 times his value in the most recent season.  

 

            This formula does a better job of covering the missing seasons than does Hanrahan’s “substitute values” system, and does so without raising all of the problems created by the use of non-real data.   Mays’ Established Value by Hanrahan’s method was 24.9 after the 1954 season, 32.2 after 1955; by this system it is 30.0 after 1954, 35.0 after 1955.   That’s more fair, and it is more accurate.

 

            For this study, I figured each player’s Established Value all three ways:

 

            a)  The four-year look,

            b)  The three-year look, and

            c)  The first published version.

 

            I then used whichever value was highest, the maximum of the three, as the player’s Established Value.   The three systems are very much the same, and they get about the same answer most of the time.   The only time they get a significantly different answer is when there is a missing season.

           

            Hanrahan did not attempt to move from the Established Value to a systematic estimate of the Trade Value.   His view of this problem was that “extensive research would have to be done on MLB player success and the aging process.  Rather than attempting to create one grand number that attempts to definitively answer the question, I would encourage the reader to eyeball the figures in Table 2 with me.” 

 

            Well, one could do “extensive research. . .on the aging process”, but that’s a little bit outside the parameters of the present project.  I have a simple way of dealing with this problem, which, again, dates back to the 1970s, and exists in several variations.   For purposes of the present research, I converted the Established Value into Trade Value by simply multiplying the Established Value by a “career expectation” which is:

 

            (42 – Age) / 2

 

            When a player is 20 years old, his Trade Value is 11.0 times his Established Value.   When he is 25, his Trade Value is 8.5 times his Established Value.   When he is 30, his Trade Value is 6.0 times his Established Value.   When he is 35, his Trade Value is 3.5 times his Established Value.  When he is 40, his Trade Value is 1.0 times his Established Value.    I mean, I have done “extensive research on the aging process” for baseball players, God knows, but this doesn’t really seem like an appropriate place to use it.    We’re just acknowledging the difference between a 22-year-old star and a 27-year-old star; we’re not trying to calibrate it precisely.  It seems to me preferable to eyeballing the charts, albeit not much. . .it’s just a computer’s way of eyeballing the charts. 

 

            Hanrahan did not try to deal with pitchers in the study, since the aging progression of pitchers is much less predictable.   I agree with this decision, and I have done the same.            

 

First Results

 

            Our first results here are just the results that would be parallel to Hanrahan’s.  Hanrahan listed the players with the Highest Established Values at ages 20 through 26, and I’ll do the same, only 20 through 30, and whereas he listed six at each age I will list ten, since electrons are cheap:

 

Age 20			Age 21			Age 22
Player	EV20		Player	EV21		Player	EV22
Cobb, Ty	30.8		Cobb, Ty	34.3		Cobb, Ty	40.8
Rodriguez, Alex	25.5		Hornsby, Rogers	29.5		Williams, Ted	36.3
Mantle, Mickey	24.0		Jackson, Joe	29.3		*Ruth, Babe	34.2
Williams, Ted	24.0		Mathews, Eddie	29.3		Magee, Sherry	34.0
Ott, Mel	23.3		*Ruth, Babe	27.8		Jackson, Joe	33.1
Kaline, Al	23.3		Ott, Mel	27.7		Vaughan, Arky	32.8
Hornsby, Rogers	21.0		Williams, Ted	27.0		Mathews, Eddie	32.7
Magee, Sherry	21.0		Magee, Sherry	26.7		Collins, Eddie	32.3
Pinson, Vada	20.3		Mantle, Mickey	25.8		Mantle, Mickey	32.0
Robinson, Frank	19.5		Speaker, Tris	25.5		Foxx, Jimmie	32.0
						Allen, Dick	30.8
Age 23			Age 24			Age 25
Player	EV23		Player	EV24		Player	EV25
Cobb, Ty	43.2		Cobb, Ty	45.8		Mantle, Mickey	48.7
Williams, Ted	42.0		Mantle, Mickey	44.2		Ruth, Babe	46.5
Ruth, Babe	38.2		Ruth, Babe	40.8		Cobb, Ty	43.5
Vaughan, Arky	37.2		Speaker, Tris	40.8		Gehrig, Lou	40.7
Mantle, Mickey	36.8		Collins, Eddie	37.7		Speaker, Tris	39.5
Jackson, Joe	36.8		Vaughan, Arky	36.5		Clark, Will	38.5
Musial, Stan	36.7		Allen, Dick	35.3		Foxx, Jimmie	37.8
Pujols, Albert	36.0		Mays, Willie	35.0		Hornsby, Rogers	37.5
Collins, Eddie	35.7		Gehrig, Lou	34.5		Medwick, Joe	37.5
Mathews, Eddie	34.5		Foxx, Jimmie	34.5		Collins, Eddie	37.0
Age 26			Age 27			Age 28
Player	EV26		Player	EV27		Player	EV28
Ruth, Babe	50.7		Ruth, Babe	42.0		Ruth, Babe	48.5
Mantle, Mickey	44.8		Collins, Eddie	40.5		Bonds, Barry	43.3
Hornsby, Rogers	43.5		Speaker, Tris	40.2		Collins, Eddie	40.8
Speaker, Tris	43.0		Bonds, Barry	39.0		Speaker, Tris	40.6
Cobb, Ty	38.3		Mantle, Mickey	38.8		Williams, Ted	40.4
Collins, Eddie	38.0		Musial, Stan	38.7		Cobb, Ty	40.2
Gehrig, Lou	37.3		Gehrig, Lou	38.2		Musial, Stan	39.5
DiMaggio, Joe	36.8		Baker, Home Run	37.8		Mantle, Mickey	37.4
Foxx, Jimmie	36.3		Mays, Willie	36.9		Hornsby, Rogers	37.3
Rodriguez, Alex	35.7		Williams, Ted	36.8		Snider, Duke	37.2
Robinson, Frank	35.7

 

Age 29			Age 30
Player	EV29		Player	EV30
Ruth, Babe	46.8		Cobb, Ty	44.3
Mantle, Mickey	42.7		Williams, Ted	41.4
Williams, Ted	42.3		Wagner, Honus	39.2
Cobb, Ty	40.3		Mantle, Mickey	38.5
Speaker, Tris	38.8		Morgan, Joe	38.3
Aaron, Hank	38.0		Musial, Stan	38.0
Morgan, Joe	37.8		Gehrig, Lou	36.9
Gehrig, Lou	37.5		Giambi, Jason	36.2
Musial, Stan	37.0		Bonds, Barry	36.0
Collins, Eddie	36.9		Aaron, Hank	35.8

 

             My list and Hanrahan’s list are pretty much the same, with some limitations:

 

            1)  I have significantly higher values for players at ages 20 and 21 than he does.

            2)  My method is for some reason less kind to Mel Ott than his, 

            3)  My method is for some reason more kind to Joe Jackson than his.

 

            He may not have checked out Joe Jackson and Tris Speaker, not sure, or he may have had different listed birth dates for them, or it may be something else.   Anyway, his list at age 22 is Cobb, Williams, Ruth, Sherry Magee, Arky Vaughan, and Mantle, whereas mine is Cobb, Williams, Ruth, Sherry Magee, Joe Jackson, Arky Vaughan, then Mantle, and his list at age 23 is Cobb, Williams, Ruth, Mantle, Vaughn, Musial, whereas mine is Cobb, Williams, Ruth, Mantle, Vaughn, Joe Jackson and Musial.   We have the same players listed first at each age, and we have the same players listed second at each age except that he has Mel Ott second at age 20, whereas I have A-Rod.  

 

            I marked Ruth with an asterisk, since a significant portion of Ruth’s value as a young player was his value as a pitcher, and pitchers are otherwise excluded from the study.  

 

            Anyway, Hanrahan believed, just eyeballing the charts, that “the real battle (for the position of most valuable young player ever) is between the young Ty Cobb, ages 22 through 24, and the more established Babe Ruth.”  Establishing a simple-minded method, I get almost the same answer, but not quite.   I figured the Trade Value for every player in history after each season, and then used the maximum number for each player to represent that player’s position.   My list of the fifteen most-desirable young players in baseball history is as follows:

 

	At the           End               Of		Trade
Player	Year		Value		Age
Mantle, Mickey	1957		414		25
Cobb, Ty	1911		413		24
Ruth, Babe	1921		405		26
Williams, Ted	1942		399		23
Speaker, Tris	1912		367		24
Vaughan, Arky	1935		353		23
Jackson, Joe	1913		350		23
Musial, Stan	1944		348		23
Hornsby, Rogers	1922		348		26
Gehrig, Lou	1928		346		25
Pujols, Albert	2003		342		23
Magee, Sherry	1907		340		22
Collins, Eddie	1911		339		24
Mathews, Eddie	1955		328		23
Clark, Will	1989		327		25

 

            At an age between Cobb’s peak and Ruth’s, Mickey Mantle climbed to the top of the list.   It is the conclusion of my method that Mantle’s moment is the high point of the chase—that Mickey Mantle after the 1957 season, having won consecutive MVP Awards at ages 24 and 25, had the highest Trade Value of all time.  Also, whereas Hanrahan’s subjective opinion was that Cobb’s Trade Value peaked in 1909, my system believes that his Trade Value peaked in 1911, when he hit a career-high .420. 

 

            This conclusion is far from being logically overpowering; it is merely an opinion, written in numbers, and a quavering opinion at that.   Hanrahan also introduces the issue of ages being rounded off.    We treat all players who were 23 years old on June 30 of a certain year as if they were the same age, 23, all of that year.  Hanrahan introduces this issue, illogically it seems to me, in regard to Ty Cobb, saying that “Ty was really an `old’ 21; he turned 22 shortly after the season ended.”  Well, Cobb’s birthday was December 18, which is only days from the midpoint of the “birth year” schedule.   Cobb was not an “old 21”; he was average for the group. 

 

            However, while Cobb was not an “old 21”, Mickey Mantle was certainly an “old 25” in 1957; his birthday was in October.   We multiply the Established Value of a 25-year-old by 8.5, a 26-year-old by 8.0—but why do we leap from one to the other?  Just habit, tradition, and the fact that the data bases are organized by players ages’ in years, rather than something more specific.     It would be more logical to multiply Cobb, 1911, by something like 8.98, rather than 9.00, and Mantle, 1957, by something like 8.40, rather than 8.50.  

 

            This adjustment, tiny though it is, would be enough to lift Cobb back into first place.  It would make the scores for the top three players Cobb, 412, Mantle, 409, Ruth, 408, rather than Mantle, 414, Cobb, 413, Ruth, 405. 

 

            But it would be a little bit silly to make such an adjustment, since making the adjustment would imply that we were “fine tuning” a precise measurement, when any moron can see that our system is not that precise to begin with.  It’s kind of like putting cross hairs on a fly swatter.  These are approximations, that’s all.   They’re good approximations, but they’re not sufficiently accurate that the difference between 405 and 414 is meaningful.   Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle. . .any one of these is as good an answer to the question as the other.   We have gotten all we’re going to get out of this question.  

 

The Broader Issues

 

            1.  Who are the top under-achievers of all time?

 

            The number one disappointment in baseball history, by our system, was:  Billy Grabarkewitz.

 

            Billy Grabarkewitz was the Dodger third baseman in 1970.   A 24-year-old rookie (in modern terms, although not eligible for the rookie award at that time), he had a terrific season, hitting .289 with 17 homers, 95 walks, 89 RBI, a .399 on-base percentage and 19 stolen bases.    He did this in a time in which runs were scarcer than they are now, and in a park built for pitchers.  

 

            The next spring, according to an early-seventies Sporting News, Buzzie Bavasi ordered the Dodgers into full-speed drills ahead of schedule, before they were ready.  Grabarkewitz hurt his arm, and his career was basically ended. 

 

            Grabarkewitz’ trade value, after the 1970 season, was 196; his career value, including the 1970 season, was 43, which puts him at -153.  He ranks, by our system, as the number one disappointment of all time.

 

            These are the top fifty disappointments of all time; commentary will follow:

 

Rank		Player	Disappointment
1		Grabarkewitz, Billy	-153
2		Zwilling, Dutch	-146
3		Ross, Chet	-136
4		Klein, Lou	-134
5		Cooper, Claude	-132
6		Reiser, Pete	-130
7		Shafer, Tillie	-124
8		Lumley, Harry	-123
9		Nealon, Jim	-122
10		Page, Mitchell	-121
11		Fleming, Les	-116
12		Kenworthy, Duke	-116
13		Viox, Jim	-112
14		Bouchee, Ed	-111
15		Murphy, Eddie	-111
16		Cooney, Jimmy	-111
17		Saier, Vic	-109
18		Tolan, Bobby	-107
19		Crespi, Creepy	-105
20		Thornton, Walter	-104
21		Moynahan, Mike	-103
22		Young, Gerald	-103
23		Worthington, Craig	-103
24		Esmond, Jimmy	-103
25		Osborn, Fred	-102
26		Stirnweiss, Snuffy	-102
27		Tatis, Fernando	-101
28		Bannon, Jimmy	-101
29		Listach, Pat	-101
30		Collins, Hub	-101
31		Schilling, Chuck	-99
32		Hauser, Joe	-99
33		Treadway, George	-98
34		McHenry, Austin	-98
35		Duncan, Vern	-98
36		O'Brien, Darby	-98
37		O'Brien, Tom	-98
38		Roberts, Dave	-98
39		Olmo, Luis	-97
40		Marr, Lefty	-97
41		Hollocher, Charlie	-97
42		Phillips, Adolfo	-97
43		Blefary, Curt	-97
44		Bostock, Lyman	-96
45		Rath, Morrie	-96
46		Wakefield, Dick	-95
47		Connolly, Joe	-94
48		Wright, George	-94
49		Barnes, Red	-94
50		Barclay, George	-93

 

             Dutch Zwilling was a Federal League player who doesn’t really deserve the ranking. . .his two big seasons were in a glorified minor league.   Chet Ross in 1940 had a season very much like Grabarkewitz’, but was injured the next spring and never got his career re-started. ..don’t know the details of the injury.   Lou Klein went off to World War II after his good rookie season, and then, I believe, signed with the Mexican League and was banned from baseball. Claude Cooper was another Federal League guy.   Pete Reiser, of course, is among the most often-told stories in baseball history.   Tillie Shafer was a regular player for the New York Giants in 1913 and a very good one, but hated playing major league baseball, and retired suddenly that winter, claiming that playing for the Giants had aged him ten years in two, and that his hair was turning gray overnight.   He went into business in Los Angeles. The Giants’ owner traveled from New York to Los Angeles, trying to talk Shafer into playing one more year; this was regarded as an extraordinary thing at that time, but Shafer refused to come back.

 

 

            Harry Lumley was an exciting young player who got fat very quickly;  Nealon, I think, died of tuberculosis.  Anyway he died young, and tuberculosis was at epidemic levels.  Mitchell Page was a mystery to us all—how he could be so good that one year and half of the next, how he could lose it so totally two years later?  Les Fleming lost his career to World War II.   Duke Kenworthy was another Federal League guy.   Jim Viox had a terrific year with the Pirates in 1913, but just stopped hitting and lost his job in 1916.   Ed Bouchee had some colorful misadventures with the law.

 

            Eddie Murphy, like Jim Viox, looked good in the established leagues during the Federal League years, but was squeezed for playing time when the Federal League broke up, and sort of lost his way.  Jimmy Cooney also stopped hitting during a time when the major leagues were contracting (1892).   Vic Saier broke his leg in 1917, and wasn’t able to get re-started.  Bobby Tolan was another injury—same time as Grabarkewitz—and then had some emotional problems or something obstructing his way back.   Certainly we were all puzzled by his inability to get re-started.   Creepy Crespi was another wartime player.  

 

            Walter Thornton, who I had never noticed before, looks like a really interesting story.   In 1898 he was both a good starting pitcher (13-10) and a good hitter (lifetime average of .312), but then he never played again.  Mike Moynahan was an 1880s guy. . .don’t know anything about him.   Gerald Young I remember but never understood.   Craig Worthington was a Rookie of the Year candidate, and may not have been fat and lazy after that but he sure looked that way to me.   Jimmy Esmond was just a Federal League guy.    Fred Osborn was a defensive player whose bat pulled him down the drain. Snuffy Stirnweiss was a war-time player.   Fernando Tatis. . .I’ve heard a lot of rumors about that, but I don’t know anything. 

 

            Jimmy Bannon hit .336 and .350 in 1893-’94, stopped hitting; I don’t know anything more.  Pat Listach had injuries.   Hub Collins died suddenly in mid-1892.   On July 21, 1891, Collins was very seriously injured—blood spurting everywhere—as a result of an on-field collision with teammate Oyster Burns.   It was a life-threatening event, and ruined his 1891 season, but he recovered, then came down with typhoid fever the next spring, was dead a few weeks later.  Chuck Schilling, like Pat Listach and 500 others, had those middle-infielder injuries, and went backward as a hitter, rather than forward.   Unser Choe Hauser had a slump, suffered from the 1920s prejudice against home-run hitters who struck out, and got trapped in the minor leagues, where he became legendary. . .I met him when he was like 94 or something.   George Treadway was hooted from the league when it was alleged that he was part Negro.  Austin McHenry died of. . .was it a brain tumor?  Something like that.   Vern Duncan was a Federal League guy.

 

            A New York Times article about Darby O’Brien (1893) says that he was “in Colorado recovering from lung trouble,” which sounds like TB (tuberculosis).  He didn’t recover.  Tom O’Brien, probably no relation, played well for the Giants in 1899, the Pirates in 1900, died that winter. . .I’m guessing that may be TB as well, but I don’t know.  He died in Phoenix; at that time a lot of people would go out to Colorado and Arizona, hoping the dry mountain air would help their lungs recover.   Apparently it even worked occasionally. 

 

            Dave Roberts was a wild swinger who had a fluke year when he kept connecting with the baseball. . .I don’t think he was ever really that good.   Luis Olmo was a wartime star.   Lefty Marr lost his playing time after the Player’s League folded in 1890.   Charlie Hollocher was a hypochondriac who kept quitting baseball in mid-season.   Adolfo Phillips was an emotional player who looked like a real comer in 1966 and ’67, but got on Leo Durocher’s bad side, got traded to Montreal or someplace and never really got going again.    Curt Blefary I think had back trouble. . .some kind of injuries, anyway, which reduced his speed from “little” to “none”.    Lyman Bostock was murdered.  Morrie Rath was a little, scrawny guy who bunted all the time.  He was a very effective player, but people focused on his weaknesses, rather than his strengths—just like Joe Hauser, only on the opposite end of the spectrum. 

 

            Dick Wakefield was a wartime guy, a college kid who had 200 hits in ’43, and was hitting .355 with power in mid-season, 1944, before reporting for service.   In the spring of ’46 he had the effrontery to make a highly publicized bet with Ted Williams that he would out-hit Williams.    He lost the bet by about a hundred points, but he did have the decency to pay off, as I recall.    Joe Connolly, again, was very good during the years of the Federal League, but was squeezed out of a job when the Federal League collapsed.  

 

            George Wright was a Mitchell Page-type story, played wonderfully for the Rangers in ’83, never could follow through.    Red Barnes had Lonnie Smith’s Disease.   George Barclay hit .300 as a rookie in 1902, never hit again, and died in 1909. ..that, again, might have been tuberculosis, I don’t know. 

 

            I love this stuff.    There are two kinds of baseball fans:  those who think that the game revolves around Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, and those who think that what the game is really about is Adolfo Phillips and Charlie Hollocher and Fernando Tatis.   I’m in Group B.

 

            2.  Who are the greatest OVER-achievers of all time?

 

            The greatest over-achiever of all time was Honus Wagner.   This is a case in which just reversing the formula, looking at the other end of the same list, doesn’t really work.   On one end of the column you have Billy Grabarkewitz, Chet Ross and Dutch Zwilling, and on the other end you have:

 

            1.  Honus Wagner

            2.  Babe Ruth

            3.  Hank Aaron

            4.  Willie Mays

            5.  Pete Rose

 

            This is true as far as it goes. . .Babe Ruth had fantastically high expectations (Trade Value of 405), but still exceeded them by a huge margin.  

 

            This is true as far as it goes, but it is not really what we mean by “over-achiever”.    I figured the greatest over-achievers of all time by dividing the Career Value by the Maximum Trade Value.   Eliminating guys like Cap Anson and Joe Start, who are on the list at least in part because of nuances of 19^th century scheduling, this is my list of the greatest over-achievers of all time.   I actually think it’s a very good list. . .I will buy the claim that almost all of these guys should be labeled as over-achievers, and I love having a list that puts Tom Lampkin next to Roberto Clemente and Bill Terry.

  

				Maximum	Achievement
				Trade	Divided by
Rank	Player		Career	Value	Expectation
1	Wagner, Honus		655	256	2.56
2	Phillips, Tony		268	106	2.53
3	Miller, Doggie		135	54	2.50
4	Rice, Sam		327	135	2.42
5	Rose, Pete		547	232	2.36
6	Smith, Ozzie		325	143	2.28
7	Appling, Luke		378	166	2.28
8	Lacy, Lee		138	62	2.23
9	Cross, Lave		278	125	2.22
10	Clemente, Roberto		377	171	2.21
11	Terry, Bill		278	127	2.19
12	Lampkin, Tom		49	23	2.18
13	Dwyer, Jim		83	38	2.17
14	Evans, Dwight		347	162	2.14
15	Stargell, Willie		370	173	2.13
16	Downing, Brian		298	140	2.13
17	Martinez, Edgar		297	140	2.13
18	Molitor, Paul		414	195	2.12
19	Cruz, Jose		313	148	2.11
20	McLemore, Mark		156	74	2.11
21	Aaron, Hank		643	307	2.09
22	Walker, Dixie		278	133	2.09
23	Sauer, Hank		174	83	2.09
24	Shoch, George		71	34	2.09
25	Daubert, Jake		263	126	2.09
26	Morgan, Joe		512	246	2.08
27	Williams, Cy		235	113	2.08
28	O'Neill, Paul		259	125	2.07
29	Paciorek, Tom		105	51	2.06
30	Boone, Bob		210	102	2.06
31	Butler, Brett		295	144	2.06
32	McCovey, Willie		408	200	2.04
33	Cramer, Doc		219	107	2.04
34	Mays, Willie		642	315	2.04
35	White, Frank		211	104	2.03
36	Johnson, Bob		287	142	2.03
37	McPhee, Bid		305	151	2.02
38	Bonds, Barry		611	303	2.01
39	Jones, Fielder		290	145	2.00
40	Whitt, Ernie		126	63	1.99
41	Lollar, Sherm		209	106	1.98
42	Velarde, Randy		126	64	1.98
43	Nixon, Otis		127	65	1.97
44	Prince, Tom		31	16	1.97
45	Henderson, Rickey		535	272	1.96
46	Hartnett, Gabby		325	166	1.96
47	Vizquel, Omar		192	99	1.95
48	Lajoie, Nap		496	255	1.94
49	Surhoff, B.J.		217	113	1.93
50	Olson, Ivy		125	65	1.93

 

            What this really is, of course, is a list of guys who had their best years or some of their best years late in their careers.   But I also believe that it works as a list of over-acheivers.    Omar Vizquel, Tony Phillips, B. J. Surhoff. . .who would argue with you if you called any one of these guys an over-achiever?  Barry Bonds, Ernie Whitt, Brett Butler. . .absolutely I believe that these guys fit the definition of “over achiever” to a T.    Hank Sauer, Dwight Evans, Frank White.  Brian Downing, of course.   Pete Rose, Jose Cruz and Ozzie Smith. . .there’s no question that those guys are over-achievers, is there?

 

            We have done it!   We have found a way to define and measure “over-achiever”.  Isn’t that neat?

 

            3.  Who should have had a Hall of Fame career, but didn’t?

 

            The list of the highest Trade Values of all time begins with Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, who not only should have been the greatest players of all time, but actually were.   However, the list is not made up entirely of Babe Ruths and Ted Williamses; you’ve also got your Johnny Callisons and your Jose Cansecos on there.   This is the list of the 100 highest trade values of all time:

 

			Peak
			Trade
Rank	Player		Value		At Age
1	Mantle, Mickey		414		25
2	Cobb, Ty		413		24
3	Ruth, Babe		405		26
4	Williams, Ted		399		23
5	Speaker, Tris		367		24
6	Vaughan, Arky		353		23
7	Jackson, Joe		350		23
8	Musial, Stan		348		23
9	Hornsby, Rogers		348		26
10	Gehrig, Lou		346		25
11	Pujols, Albert		342		23
12	Magee, Sherry		340		22
13	Collins, Eddie		339		24
14	Mathews, Eddie		328		23
15	Clark, Will		327		25
16	Ripken Jr., Cal		323		23
17	Foxx, Jimmie		322		25
18	Medwick, Joe		319		25
19	Allen, Dick		318		24
20	Mays, Willie		315		24
21	Aaron, Hank		307		23
22	DiMaggio, Joe		306		23
23	Bonds, Barry		303		28
24	Bench, Johnny		303		22
25	Ott, Mel		296		25
26	Jackson, Reggie		292		23
27	Rodriguez, Alex		290		25
28	Cedeno, Cesar		288		22
29	Waner, Paul		286		25
30	Robinson, Frank		285		26
31	Cronin, Joe		285		24
32	Raines, Tim		285		25
33	Baker, Home Run		284		27
34	Murcer, Bobby		281		26
35	Canseco, Jose		278		23
36	Thomas, Frank		278		25
37	Keller, Charlie		277		26
38	Youngs, Ross		277		23
39	Mattingly, Don		276		25
40	Pinson, Vada		275		22
41	Santo, Ron		275		25
42	Sheckard, Jimmy		273		24
43	Henderson, Rickey		272		23
44	Jones, Andruw		272		23
45	Bonds, Bobby		271		25
46	Snider, Duke		270		27
47	Goslin, Goose		269		25
48	Kiner, Ralph		268		26
49	Brett, George		267		24
50	Greenberg, Hank		267		24
51	Schmidt, Mike		267		26
52	Griffey Jr., Ken		266		21
53	Kauff, Benny		266		25
54	Kelley, Joe		266		24
55	Stephens, Vern		264		23
56	Lindstrom, Freddy		260		22
57	Alomar, Roberto		259		25
58	Yastrzemski, Carl		259		28
59	Kaline, Al		259		21
60	Guerrero, Vladimir		258		24
61	Hamilton, Billy		258		25
62	Sandberg, Ryne		257		24
63	Cepeda, Orlando		257		23
64	Davis, Tommy		257		23
65	Wagner, Honus		256		27
66	Lajoie, Nap		255		26
67	Reiser, Pete		255		22
68	Childs, Cupid		254		24
69	Tiernan, Mike		253		23
70	Mize, Johnny		252		25
71	Callison, Johnny		252		25
72	Jeter, Derek		252		25
73	Cash, Norm		252		26
74	Flick, Elmer		252		24
75	Rice, Jim		251		25
76	Oliva, Tony		251		25
77	Alfonzo, Edgardo		251		26
78	Crawford, Sam		250		25
79	Waner, Lloyd		250		23
80	Parker, Dave		250		27
81	Wynn, Jimmy		250		27
82	Olerud, John		250		24
83	Maris, Roger		249		26
84	Garciaparra, Nomar		249		25
85	Simmons, Al		249		24
86	Grich, Bobby		248		25
87	Yount, Robin		246		27
88	Frisch, Frankie		246		24
89	Morgan, Joe		246		29
90	Rolen, Scott		246		23
91	McGraw, John		245		26
92	Piazza, Mike		245		28
93	Dunlap, Fred		242		25
94	Sierra, Ruben		242		23
95	Doyle, Larry		242		24
96	Freehan, Bill		241		26
97	Stirnweiss, Snuffy		241		26
98	Murray, Eddie		241		23
99	Dahlen, Bill		240		22
100t	McInnis, Stuffy		240		22
100t	Williams, Jimmy		240		22

 

             Forgive me for patting myself on the back, repeatedly, but once again. . .I think this is just an absolutely fascinating list.   

 

           There are six types of players on this list:

            1.  Hall of Famers,

            2.  Active Players

            3.  Guys who had Hall of Fame Careers, but just don’t happen to have been selected by the Hall of Fame,

            4.  Guys who had good careers and who met, but never exceeded, their expectations

            5.  Guys who could have been Hall of Famers, but burned out or missed somehow, and

            6.  Flukes.  

 

            Of the 101 players on the list, 48 are in the Hall of Fame now, and 17 are still active players.  Two are just flukes (Stirnweiss and Benny Kauff.   Stirnweiss had a couple of MVP-type seasons during World War II, Kauff the same in the Federal League, but neither really belongs here.)

 

            But that leaves 35 players on this list, and you know who they are?   These guys are the Hall of Fame argument!  These are the guys we talk about all the time, the guys we argue about all the time, the guys we write about all the time.   If you’re on a call-in show talking about the Hall of Fame and you get calls, these are the guys the callers will want to talk about.  

 

            I said before that these could be sorted into three groups, which are:

 

            3.  Guys who had Hall of Fame Careers, but just don’t happen to have been selected by the Hall of Fame,

            4.  Guys who had very good careers and who met, but never exceeded, their expectations, and

            5.  Guys who could have been Hall of Famers, but burned out or missed somehow.

 

            Actually, the second group. . .that’s a fairly non-controversial group.    By my count there are nine of these guys, almost all of whom are clustered near the bottom of the list.   Those are Bobby Murcer, Cupid Childs, Mike Tiernan, Fred Dunlap, Larry Doyle, Bill Freehan, Norm Cash, Stuffy McInnis and Jimmy Williams.     Bill Freehan had a peak Trade Value of 241, which places him on the list but just barely, and he earned 267 Win Shares, which means that he met expectations but no more than that, so he’s a non-controversial player.  

 

            But that still leaves 26 players—and those 26 players define the Hall of Fame argument as well as any list of 26 players you could name.   I sorted them into two groups:   “Had Hall of Fame careers but just don’t happen to have been selected yet,” and “Burned out or missed somehow.”   Here’s how I would sort them:

 

            1.  Had Hall of Fame Careers, but just don’t happen to have been selected yet:

 

            Bobby Bonds

            Will Clark

            Bill Dahlen

            Bobby Grich

            Sherry Magee

            Don Mattingly

            Dave Parker

            Vada Pinson

            Tim Raines

            Cal Ripken

            Ryne Sandberg

            Ron Santo

            Jimmy Sheckard

            Jimmy Wynn

 

            I’m not advocating these guys for the Hall of Fame, except Santo and maybe Tim Raines.  I’m just saying that if you look at the Hall of Fame and you look at these guys, these guys are just as good.  

 

            And these are the guys that I would describe as “Guys who had Hall of Fame ability, but burned out or missed somehow”:

 

            Dick Allen

            Johnny Callison

            Jose Canseco

            Cesar Cedeno

            Tommy Davis

            Joe Jackson

            Charlie Keller

            Roger Maris

            Tony Oliva

            Pete Reiser

            Jim Rice

            Vern Stephens

           

            But you can get yourself killed arguing about which player belongs in which class.  Craig Wright, who is otherwise a very sane and sensible fellow and a good friend, is. . ..otherwise disposed, and energetic about it, on the subject of Dick Allen.   I have friends who are terribly offended that I will not denounce the Hall of Fame candidacy of Don Mattingly.   There are people I know to whom I dare not mention Roger Maris, or Jim Rice, or Tony Oliva, or Joe Jackson, or Dave Parker, people who are just rabid about the subject.   These are the players about whom the Hot Stove League blazes, frankly, a little too damned hot. 

 

            4.  At what age does Trade Value usually peak?

 

            Twenty-five to twenty-seven.    In our study there were 3,891 players.   This is a breakdown of the ages at which players reached their peak Trade Value:

 

  20  21   22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   31   32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39

  19  50  123  245  397  543  580  590  458  373  220 147  70  40  17  16    0    2    0    1

 

            5.  Who are the players whose Trade Value peaked at an unusual age?

 

            Let’s start with the 19 players whose Trade Value peaked at age 20.  Two of them are guys who are 21 now; they’ll drop off the list next year (Miguel Cabrera and Jose Reyes).    Six of them are nineteenth-century players: John Cassidy, Buttercup Dickerson, Con Daily, Milt Scott, Gus Alberts and Jerry Harrington. 

 

            The eleven 20^th century players whose Trade Value peaked at age 20 were Jim Nealon (1905), Joe Ward (1905), Doc Hoblitzell (1909), Jimmy Smith (1915), Mickey O’Neil (1920), Sibby Sisti (1941), Bob Didier (1969), Jack Heideman (1970), Claudell Washington (1975), Kevin Bell (1976) and Clint Hurdle (1978).  Claudell Washington was the best player among the group.  (There would be other players whose Trade Value peaked at age 20, but they would be players whose careers were extremely short.   I cut off the study at 10 Career Win Shares.) 

 

            Among the 50 players whose trade value peaked at age 21 are Al Kaline, Ken Griffey Jr., Buddy Bell, Hal Trosky, Butch Wynegar, Alfredo Griffin, Ed Kranepool, Rick Manning, Greg Gross and Tony Conigliaro.  Also included are a couple of active players who will most likely move off the list when they have better seasons. 

 

            On the other end of the spectrum, the player whose Trade Value peaked at age 39 was Bob Thurman, a Negro League player who was two years older than Jackie Robinson, but who didn’t get to play in the majors until 1955, which was Jackie’s last season.  Thurman—who was a pitcher in the Negro Leagues—was primarily a pinch hitter in the major leagues.  He hit 7 homers in 152 at bats in 1955, then had a very effective season in ’56, hitting .295 with 8 homers in 139 at bats.   That pushed his Established Value to 3.75, which pushed his Trade Value to 5.6—a career high. 

 

            The two players whose Trade Value peaked at age 37 were Jon Sneed (1890) and Al Nixon (1923).  

 

            6.  Are there characteristics of players who peak  very early?   Are their characteristics of players whose Trade Value peaks late? 

 

            There probably are, although I haven’t done enough research to be sure.  

 

            The players whose Trade Value peaks early, in the 23-24 range are the guys that you might call the “complete hitters”—Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Willie Mays.   The guys who don’t strike all a lot, and many of whom can also play a little D. Eddie Murray, Joe DiMaggio, Cal Ripken, Arky Vaughan, Gary Sheffield, Orlando Cepeda and Joe Jackson all had their peak Trade Value at age 23.   George Brett, Al Simmons, Tony Gwynn, Ryne Sandberg and Eddie Collins had their peak Trade Value at age 24. 

 

            Trade Value is based on what you have accomplished in the major leagues.  If you strike out a lot, or even some, if you don’t play good defense, you don’t tend to get a major league opportunity at an early age.   If you don’t get an opportunity by age 21, your Trade Value can’t peak by age 23. 

 

            The players whose Trade Value peaks at 25-27 tend to be more power-oriented.   They strike out more, they walk more, they hit more homers.   Mickey Mantle, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott and Lou Gehrig’s Trade Value peaked at age 25.  Also Harmon Killebrew, Frank Thomas and Johnny Mize.   Babe Ruth’s Trade Value peaked at age 26—of course he is an odd case—but also Rogers Hornsby, Frank Robinson, Yogi Berra, Willie Stargell, Gary Carter, Reggie Smith, Norm Cash and Fred McGriff.

 

            Generally, for the biggest of stars, Trade Value has peaked by age 26.   There are certainly many Hall of Famers whose Trade Value peaks later, but they’re not quite the Babe Ruths and Lou Gehrigs and Ted Williamses and Ty Cobbs.  Dave Winfield’s Trade Value peaked at age 27, also Duke Snider, Billy Williams, Darrell Evans, Dave Parker, Home Run Baker and Steve Garvey. 

 

            Of course, these are generalizations.   Ted Williams’ Trade Value peaked at age 23 although he was more the type of hitter whose value peaked at age 25-26—but at ages 25 and 26, Williams was off flying bombers.    Eddie Matthews’ Trade Value peaked early, although he was a strikeout/walk/homer type hitter AND he was not a great defensive player.   Boog Powell’s Trade Value peaked early (age 22), and Reggie Jackson’s peaked at age 23.   Tim Raines, Paul Waner and Roberto Alomar, who were more the “complete player” model, did not reach their peak Trade Value until age 25, while Honus Wagner and Charlie Gehringer, complete players certainly, did not attain their peak Trade Value until age 27.  

 

            They were of a different type, though; they were players who kept getting better and kept getting better.   Clemente was like that; his Trade Value peaked at 26.

 

            Can one really generalize about the players who peak at a certain age?  I’m not sure.   The players whose Trade Value peaked at age 29 (very late) include Joe Morgan, Cap Anson, Edgar Martinez, Minnie Minoso, Earl Averill, Ken Boyer and Maury Wills.   Can one generalize about those guys? 

 

            This is perhaps the most serious of questions, for those of us who work in somebody’s front office.   Name a young player. . .Eric Chavez or Carlos Beltran.   Has his Trade Value peaked, or is it still going up?   It’s a very serious question.  

 

            I suspect that, if we studied it well enough, we could predict at what age a player’s Trade Value will peak fairly accurately based on

 

            1)  The age at which he gets the opportunity to play in the major leagues,

            2)  The extent to which his value is based on speed and defense, and

            3)  The extent to which his value is based on power and walks, as opposed to hitting the ball on the nose.

 

            But I don’t know.  I have studied the ages at which players’ value peaks many times in many ways, but I have never really studied the ages at which trade value peaks.   I probably should study that in a systematic way before I say any more about it.

 

            Well, as I said at the beginning, this is book-length research if you’ve got the time to make a book out of it.    The interaction of Established Value, Trade Value, Future Value and Career Value. . .it is fascinating and important stuff.   Even studying it just a little bit, as we have here, has produced some clear conclusions, some speculative conclusions, and some fun lists.   Discovering a way to define “over-achiever” statistically. . .that’s the highlight of my week.   I thank Mr. Hanrahan for broaching the subject.