Cash and Cepeda
I had a tweet a couple of weeks ago which noted that Norm Cash and Orlando Cepeda both played the same years in the major leagues, 1958 to 1974, and the same position, first base. Cepeda hit 379 career homers; Cash hit 377. Cepeda played 2,124 games, Cash played 2,089, although Cepeda had almost 20% more career at bats. Cash leads in OPS (.862 to .849), OPS+ (139 to 133), Win Shares (315 to 310), Baseball Reference WAR (52.0 to 50.2) and Fangraphs WAR (54.6 to 50.3). Nonetheless, when both men hit the Hall of Fame ballot in 1980, Cepeda got 12.5% of the vote, stayed on the ballot, increased his share to 73.5% in 1994, and was selected to the Hall of Fame by the Veteran’s Committee in 1999. Cash got 1.6% of the vote, dropped off the ballot, and is not thought of by almost anyone as Hall of Fame material.
I was not writing this as a Hall of Fame argument for Norm Cash. I don’t actually think of Cash as a Hall of Famer, either. My point was to notice the odd similarity between the two men. If you pick another player of the same stature, you would almost never find another player who played the same position in the exact same years and was such a good match for the player across an array of measures. I look for matches and similarities between players all the time; you just don’t find them that good. That the (slightly) lesser player got into the Hall of Fame is. . .ehn. Those things happen. Wasn’t really my point.
Perhaps I stated it poorly, but in any case people assumed that I was making a "Norm Cash should be in the Hall of Fame" argument, and the Twitter discussion that followed focused on why Cepeda was in and Cash was not.
There are two reasons for it, really; there are not five or six or seven or eight. There are two. People will point out, and correctly, that:
1) Cash acknowledged using a corked bat,
2) Cash died young, which cuts off a certain line of support for him as a Hall of Fame candidate,
3) Cash’s brilliant 1961 season tends to make the rest of his career look bad by comparison, and
4) Cash had a self-effacing personality, a comic personality, which sometimes caused people not to take him seriously as a star player.
That’s all true, and if you add it all together it isn’t 1% of the explanation for why Cepeda was a bigger star than Cash was. Cash, consistent with his personality, said that "I owed my success to expansion pitching, a short right-field fence, and hollow bats." By saying that, Cash is giving away his claim to greatness, but it seems fantastic that anyone would take those explanations seriously:
a) Expansion pitching. Cash and Cepeda played the same years, 1958 to 1974. If expansion pitching explains the success of one of them, doesn’t it also explain the success of the other? The entire American League was facing expansion pitching in 1961. Norm Cash is the only one who won the batting title.
b) A short right-field fence. OPS+, Win Shares and WAR are all park-adjusted. Ballparks do not win baseball games; players do.
c) Hollow bats. Give me a break. Shit, half the players in baseball were corking their bats in that era. You think the Yankees weren’t corking their bats? You think the Giants weren’t corking their bats?
Cash’s reputation did not "benefit" from these things; rather, his reputation suffered from the belief that he had benefitted from these things.
Cash in 1961 had 41 homers, 124 walks and 85 strikeouts. In 1962 he had 39 homers, 104 walks and 82 strikeouts. It wasn’t that he was corking the bats one year and not the next; it wasn’t that he was facing expansion pitching one year and not the next. It was just luck; that is all it was. He had an in-play average of .370 one year, .215 the next. It was an extraordinary thing, but it happened. It’s not why Cepeda made the Hall of Fame and Cash didn’t.
Cepeda made the Hall of Fame and Cash didn’t for two reasons, which are really one reason expressed in different ways:
1) In the pre-sabermetric era, players were evaluated essentially by how many star-type accomplishments they had, and
2) In the pre-sabermetric era, the media and the fans (and the players, and the front offices) exaggerated the value of some areas of accomplishment, and diminished the value of others.
Star-type accomplishments (in a season) were:
· Hitting .300
· Driving in 100 runs
· Scoring 100 runs,
· Hitting 30 home runs,
· Hitting 40 home runs,
· Getting 200 hits,
· Stealing 50 bases,
· Leading the league in batting,
· Leading the league in homers,
· Leading the league in RBI,
· Playing in the All-Star game,
· Winning an MVP Award,
· Playing in the World Series,
· Winning the Rookie of the Year Award, and
· Winning a Gold Glove.
And perhaps a few other things that aren’t relevant to the current discussion. Cash had 14 star-type accomplishments in his career:
· He won a batting title,
· He played in three All Star games,
· He played in two World Series,
· He drove in 100 runs once,
· He scored 100 runs once,
· He hit .300 once,
· He hit 40 homers once, and
· He hit 30 homers four times.
Cepeda had 38 star-type accomplishments:
· He won the Rookie of the Year Award,
· He won a Most Valuable Player Award,
· He played in three World Series,
· He played in seven All Star games,
· He led the league in homers once,
· He led the league in RBI twice,
· He hit .300 nine times,
· He drove in 100 runs five times,
· He scored 100 runs three times,
· He hit 40 homers once, and
· He hit 30 homers five times.
That’s why he is in the Hall of Fame; it’s not personality, it’s not the 1961 season, it’s not the premature death. It’s 38 star-type accomplishments for Cepeda, 14 for Cash.
Related to that but distinguishable from it, people in the pre-sabermetric era over-valued certain accomplishments, like hitting .300 and driving in 100 runs, and under-valued others, like taking Ball Four. Cash had 455 more walks than Cepeda, which people in 1980 paid no attention to whatsoever, while Cepeda had 261 more RBI. Cepeda did the things that were over-valued in the pre-sabermetric era.
The point that Cepeda had star-type accomplishments and Cash did not brings up the question of why that happened. It happened in part because the Tigers decided early in Cash’s career that he should sit down about half the time or a little more against left-handed pitching. Taking 70-80 walks a year and also sitting down sometimes against lefties, Cash had 450 to 499 at bats in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967 and 1969, and 400 to 449 at bats in 1968 and 1972, whereas Cepeda never had a season of 400 to 499 at bats. Had Cash had another 50, 75 at bats a season, even if he had hit relatively poorly in those at bats, he would obviously have reached many more magic numbers, thus recording significantly more star-type accomplishments. In 1966, when Cash was not platooned at all, he hit .295 with 13 homers in 193 at bats against left-handed pitchers. In 1968 he hit .297 with 4 homers in 74 at bats against lefties, although he was platooned that year.
Just to finish a couple of thoughts. . .
Cepeda’s teams had a .553 career winning percentage when he was in the lineup; Cash’s teams had a career .547 winning percentage when he was in the lineup.
Career RBI per at bat: .172 for Cepeda, .165 for Cash.
Cepeda pinch hit 89 times in his career, hitting .215 with a .574 OPS in those games. Cash pinch hit 204 times in his career, also hitting .215 but with a .758 OPS.
Cash played 16 post-season games, hitting .311 with an .817 OPS. Cepeda played 22 post-season games, hitting .207 with a .610 OPS.