I began this study in 2001, before Bill James even knew who I was. Actually, this is one of the things that got me hired by Bill in the first place. I had just gotten a copy of the New Historical Abstract, and I was fascinated by the Win Shares concept. I also had several of the old 1980s Abstracts, and in the ’83 edition, Bill wrote about the great rookie class of the 1982 Twins (Gaetti, Hrbek, Viola, Brunansky, Eisenreich, etc). He speculated about ways to measure the cumulative value of a given rookie class. I decided to use Win Shares to look at this question. 

In the midst of this study, I met Bill and had lunch with him. I was doing the study decade-by-decade, looking at literally every single team’s rookie class, every single year in history. Whenever I finished a decade, I sent the Excel file to Bill. I had gotten through the 1960s when he offered me a job.

Anyway, eventually I finished the study. It’s been ages now, and I’ve been meaning to publish it somewhere, but I’ve never gotten around to it. Until now…

Basically, I just summed up the career Win Shares for all the rookies on each team in baseball history. For instance, here’s the 1948 Phillies:

Those Phillies are the 8^th-best rookie class in baseball history, according to my method. I tried other methods besides just adding… At Bill’s suggestion, I tried multiplying the best player’s Win Shares by 2, the second-best by 3, the third-best by 4, and so forth. That didn’t really work, and I settled on simply adding the totals together.

I also had to decide what a “rookie” was. The “official” definition has changed over the years. Usually, I classified a player as a rookie in the season in which he passed 150 career plate appearances or 45 career innings pitched. There were exceptions… Some guys had really short careers and hardly played at all, and I just had to make an executive decision. Some players had 120 PAs the first year, 50 the next; in that case, I went with the first year. I think you get the point.

The other problem was when someone played for two teams as a rookie. Randy Johnson came up with the Expos in 1988, but he pitched only 26 innings, so 1989 is his actual rookie year. But after 29 innings in ’89, the Expos traded him to Seattle, where he threw 131 innings the rest of the way. I classified him as a Mariner, since he spent the vast majority of his actual rookie year with that team.

On the other hand, take Sammy Sosa. He came up in 1989, and got 88 PAs with the Rangers. Then the President traded him to the White Sox, where he had 115 PAs the rest of the year. The playing time was close enough that I just credited him to both teams. See, I’m not trying to determine what teams were best at producing young talent. Steve Treder’s studied that extensively at the Hardball Times, and that isn’t what I’m attempting here. I’m trying to answer a question more along the lines of, “When could fans go to the ballpark and see the best collection of rookies?” Ranger and White Sox fans had a relatively equal chance to see Sosa in ’89, so I put him on both teams.

Let’s look at some of the results… How about a top 10 countdown? That’s always fun.

10) Boston Red Sox, 1915

Babe Ruth, by himself, would be the 40^th-best rookie class ever.

9) New York Yankees, 1951

The Yankees in this period were producing young talent by the truckload. From 1947-1950, they had come up with Berra, Ford, Vic Raschi, Hank Bauer, Jerry Coleman, and Joe Collins, plus a bunch of other guys like Bobby Brown and Spec Shea. They were down a bit in ’52 and ’53, but then they came up with Moose Skowron in ’54, Elston Howard in ’55, Norm Siebern in ’56, and Lumpe, Kubek, and Richardson in ’57.

8) Philadelphia Phillies, 1948

I already ran this chart as the example up in the intro… From 1933 through 1948, the Phillies were under .500 every year, and usually way under .500. Shoot, they were under .400 almost every year. But they came up with Del Innis in 1946, Roberts and Ashburn and Simmons and Hamner in ’48, and Puddin’ Head Jones in 1949. The next year they won the pennant.

These Phillies were an all-time great rookie class, but they weren’t even the best in their own league in 1948. Which we’ll get to in due time.

7) Pittsburgh Pirates, 1986

Bonilla’s one of those multi-team rookies. Strange thing, actually. The Pirates had originally signed him back in 1981, but in December of ’85 the White Sox took him in the Rule V draft. He debuted with Chicago, and held his own for half a season – .269 with a .361 OBP in 75 games. But in July, the White Sox traded him back to Pittsburgh, and in return they got Jose DeLeon. Bonilla would, of course, go on to become a star with the Pirates, and DeLeon would have some fine years himself. But had the Pirates protected Bonilla back in December, there would have been no reason to lose a young pitcher like DeLeon to get him back seven months later.

6) Minnesota Twins, 1982

An enormous rookie class:

Puckett came along in 1984, followed by Greg Gagne in ’85 and a World Series in ’87.

5) St. Louis Cardinals, 1942

This was part of an incredible run of rookies, the fruit of Branch Rickey’s famous farm system. By year:

1938    Enos Slaughter and Max Lanier

1939    Mort Cooper

1940    Marty Marion and Johnny Hopp

1941    Walker Cooper and Howie Pollet

1942    Musial, Dickson, Kurowski, et al

1943    Harry Brecheen

1944    Ted Wilks

1945    Red Schoendienst

4) Brooklyn Dodgers, 1948

This is the group that beat out the Phillie bunch in 1948:

Preceded by Furillo in ’46 and Jackie in ’47, and followed by Newcombe in ’49.

3) Los Angeles Dodgers, 1973

I believe this is the deepest rookie class ever, with six players with 100+ Win Shares, plus Doug Rau. The Dodgers had already brought up Garvey, Buckner, and Doyle Alexander in 1971, and then added Lee Lacy in ’72. Also – and I’m going from memory here – I can’t think of any other rookie classes that included two front-line catchers like Ferguson and Yeager. The Dodgers would win the pennant the next year, 1974, and then again in 1977, ’78, and ’81.

2) Boston Red Sox, 1908

The second Deadball Era Red Sox team on the list, and until recently, this group was the top rookie class of all time. The following year, 1909, they had another great class, the 73rd-best ever:

Of course, the Red Sox won four World Series in the 1910s. In 1912, Speaker and Wood combined for 95 Win Shares, an all-time high.

We’re ready for #1… Should we have a drumroll or something?

1) Seattle Mariners, 1989

A bit of a surprise, no? That total is still going up, too, with three of those guys hanging on 19 years later. Collectively, the group’s best year probably came in 1999, after they’d all been around for a decade. That year, Griffey hit .285 with 48 homers, Edgar put up a .337/.447/.554 line, Unit had a 2.48 ERA and won the Cy Young Award, and Vizquel hit a career-high .333. But the Mariners were a sub-.500 team, 79-83. Only Griffey and Edgar were still around; Vizquel had long since been traded to Cleveland, and in 1998 Randy Johnson was shipped to the National League.

But that’s not why the 1990s Mariners were such a disappointment. They did have Griffey, Johnson, and Martinez on the same team for most of the decade, and they added Alex Rodriguez a in the mid-‘90s. They also had Jay Buhner, who joined the team as a rookie in 1988. They won division titles in 1995 and 1997, only to fall in the postseason. They finished second in ’96, but Johnson made only 8 starts. Sterling Hitchcock and his 5.35 ERA anchored that rotation; give them a healthy Unit and they have three straight division crowns and 5 postseason appearances in the 7 years from 1995-2001.

Lots of people have already weighed in about this should-have-been dynasty, and the consensus seems to be that the team lacked a quality supporting cast. But it didn’t have to be that way. In 1993-94, they traded away Vizquel, Bret Boone, Mike Hampton, Jason Varitek, and Derek Lowe. In return, the only real value they got was Dan Wilson and a year and a half of Mike Timlin. It’s not that they should have just kept all those players; Vizquel in particular would have been superfluous after the advent of A-Rod. But they should have gotten way, way more value than they did, considering the talent they traded away. A proportional return would have – should have – filled the team’s holes and provided much of the necessary supporting cast.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got at the moment. More to come, I’m sure…