44.  First Base, and the MVP Award

              From 1947 to 1966 not a single first baseman won the MVP Award.  It’s a pretty good-sized anomaly.   Throughout most of its history, first basemen have done extremely well in MVP voting; I would guess that more first basemen have probably won the MVP Award than players at any other position, although I don’t know that for certain.   In the 1920s, when the leagues gave official awards, several went to first basemen—George Burns in 1926, Lou Gehrig in 1927, Jim Bottomley in 1928.  In 1930 the BBWAA voted unofficially, although the votes have somehow been left out of all of the reference sources; they voted their award to Bill Terry.  First basemen won four more MVPs awards in the 1930s (three by Jimmie Foxx) and three more between 1940 and 1946.

              From 1947 to 1966 there was not a single first baseman/MVP, and then the numbers went back to normal—two MVP/first basemen in the late 1960s, and five or six in the 1970s, depending on how you count the 1979 National League vote.   Historically about 20% of MVPs have been first basemen, I think just over 20%, except that there are none at all from 1947 to 1966. 

              Also, from 1920 to 1957 there at least one first baseman who drove in 100 runs every season, then in 1958 and 1960 there were none.   From 1920 to 1947 there were 115 first basemen who drove in 100 runs, or more than four per season.   From 1948 to 1966 there were 50, or 2.50 per season; from 1967 to 2000 there were 168, or almost five per season, more than five per season if you leave out the strike-shortened 1981 season. 

              Five (5) first baseman rank at 30.00, a superstar level, during the 1920s; actually Lou Gehrig four times and Jimmie Foxx once.   21 rank at 30.00 in the 1930s, 5 in the 1940s, 6 in the 1960s, 7 in the 1970s, 7 in the 1980s, 17 in the 1990s, 13 in the first decade of this century, and 6 since 2010.   But only one first baseman ranked at 30.00 or higher in the 1950s—Stan Musial in 1950.  

45.  The Panamanian

              Let me try to explain Rod Carew to those of you who are too young to remember him.   There have just been four or five great hitters in my lifetime who made a living not by hitting the ball hard, but by guiding the ball around the field.   Tony Gwynn did that, and Ichiro, and Jeter in a slightly different way.   There are other people who are sort of in the same discussion—Juan Pierre, Ozzie Smith, Pete Rose, Wade Boggs—but not really; really just those three or four guys, and each of them was a little bit different than the others.

              The one word description for Carew would be "gentle".   He was/is a very gentle man, but of more concern, he was a gentle hitter.  He wasn’t trying to force anything.  He was a small man with strong hands, using a long bat with a thin handle and a heavy barrel, but not to generate bat speed; he was using it as a wand.   His stock in trade was to wait for a pitch low and outside and just gently lay the fat part of the bat right on the ball, guiding it over the shortstop’s head into shallow left field.   Of his 3,053 career hits, probably 1500 went to shallow left field. 

              About most of these guys—about Ichiro and Boggs and Pete Rose—people who knew them would say sagely "You know he’s really very strong".   They would say that about Carew, too, but not as much.   Of course he was stronger than a non-athlete, stronger in the forearms and shoulders than most pitchers, very strong hands and wrists   He could occasionally turn on a pitch and drive it, but that was not his game.

              I know that some of you are going to say "isn’t that exactly what Jeter did, only from the other side of the plate", but no, it isn’t.  Jeter swung late, let the pitch get deep and then slapped at it too late to pull it, but Jeter did that a lot with inside pitches; Jeter not only hit more inside pitches to the opposite field for hits than anyone else I ever saw, he may have done that more than everyone else I ever saw.   A Jeter hit to right field typically headed toward the second baseman, sailed over his head and then spun toward the right field line. . . I think a golfer would say that he sliced it.  Carew didn’t do that; Carew hit little pop ups that just didn’t hang in the air long enough for anyone to catch them.  Bloops.  They had the trajectory of a free throw, really as if the batter had stood at home plate and simply thrown the ball over the shortstop’s head.  Jeter’s hits, you couldn’t throw the ball that way if you tried, with that spin.  

              Carew was a truly a great bunter, ranking with Vizquel and Kenny Lofton as the best I have seen.  He would drop down bunts, forcing the third baseman to stay shortened up, making it easier to flip the ball over his head.  If the ball was near the line it would roll into the left field corner for a double.  He liked to do that so much that the dominant pitching pattern was to crowd him inside, which enabled him to sit on an inside pitch and line it down the right field line.

              This is far from the traditional image of a first baseman.  Most of the top rated first basemen through baseball history are either players who failed at another position and were moved to first, or aging sluggers who were moved to first to keep their bats in the lineup.   Carew was like that, but then he wasn’t. 

              Carew came up as a second baseman.  He wasn’t a terrible second baseman, but he wasn’t really good, either.  His arm was just fair, he was prone to nagging injuries at second, and he was really not quick on the double play.   Gene Mauch took over the Twins in 1975, and decided to shift Carew to first base. 

              In terms of images, it doesn’t work—but Carew created runs.   He didn’t create runs the way that Willie Stargell created runs or the way that Dick Allen or Steve Garvey created runs, but he created just as many.    He won an MVP Award as a first baseman, hitting .388 and driving in 100 runs in 1977.   No first baseman of his type had ranked #1 at the position since George Sisler or Stuffy McInnis more than a half-century earlier.   But Carew was a good defensive player at that position, and a major contributor to the success of the offense.  

46.  Leadership and Defense

              In 1979 the National League the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award was shared by two first basemen who tied in the vote, the only time that has happened.  Willie Stargell’s share of the award has always been a little bit problematic.   He was given the award essentially because of leadership and clutch performance, and the "clutch performance" element of that is not well documented.   It appears that what happened was that a few big hits were written about by significant writers, and the idea that Stargell had carried the team with big hits took over the discussion.  You can think whatever you want about the leadership element as a part of the MVP vote, and also I suppose we could use better research into the clutch performance angle with regard to Pops-1979. 

              The 32 homers that Stargell hit in 1979 was the most he had hit in six years.  His multi-year batting performance was solid but not truly impressive, and Stargell does not make our list of the 10 best first baseman post-1979. 

              Probably the Most Valuable Player in the NL in 1979 was either Mike Schmidt or Dave Winfield, but Hernandez’ half of the vote is easier to trace to tangible performance.  I pointed out that in Norm Cash’s very different 1961 and 1962 seasons, his three true outcomes are almost identical, and the difference is in the outcomes of his balls in play.  The same is true of Keith Hernandez in 1978 and 1979.  In 1978 Hernandez hit just .255 with a .741 OPS, a very disappointing season for the 24-year-old first baseman who had played well in 1977.   In 1979 he hit .344 with 48 doubles and 105 RBI, and won half of an MVP award.   However, his three true outcomes data is actually a little BETTER in his bad season in 1978 than in his MVP season in 1979.   The "improvement" in his performance came entirely from the element of performance which is most susceptible to random variation, which is the outcomes of balls in play.   Hernandez in 1978 hit just .257 on balls in play, whereas in 1979 he hit a remarkable .382 on balls in play.   While we should not dismiss this improvement as pure luck, we would note that if it were a consequence of pure skill, Hernandez might have been able to sustain similar performance in future years. 

47.  The Greatest First Basemen Through 1980

              I began the discussion of first basemen by pointing this out, and here we are again:  the issue of the greatest first basemen is enormously complicated by the issue of who we should consider to be a first baseman.   The easy way to do it would be by career games played, but this creates the Ernie Banks problem.    Ernie Banks in his career:

              a)  Played more games at first base than at shortstop,

              b)  Earned 64 YOPDI points in his career, but

              c)  Earned no YOPDI points AT ALL as a first baseman. 

              All of his points are as a shortstop, so it seems obviously silly to list him as a first baseman.  

              OK then, so we will list each player at the position at which he earns the most YOPDI points.  But this causes problems, too. . .specifically:

              1)  Stan Musial,

              2)  Dick Allen, and

              3)  George Grantham. 

              And others.   Almost all first basemen who have long careers spend part of that career at some other position. .  .Willie McCovey did, and Killebrew, Cepeda, Jimmie Foxx.   Hank Greenberg won an MVP Award playing left field.   It’s just the nature of the position.  

              I think of Stan Musial as a left fielder.   I remember him; he was 40 years old when I remember him, playing left field at age 40.   I think of him as an outfielder.   He did, however, play more games at first base than in left field, more games at first base than at any other position unless you consider "outfield" to be one position rather than three.  

              Musial also earned more YOPDI points as a first baseman than at any other position—70 as a first baseman, 50 as a right fielder, 24 as a left fielder, and 10 as a center fielder; one year he started 98 games in center field, and thus ranks as the best center fielder in baseball.   I don’t seem to have any choice other than to list him as a first baseman, and he thus ranks as the #1 first baseman of all time in terms of position dominance, although not all of his position dominance is at that position.

              Dick Allen is a similar problem at a lower level; Dick Allen played more games in his career at first base (807) than at third base (652), although I think of him mostly as a third baseman.   Allen earned 43 YOPDI points at first base, 40 at third base, and 4 in left field, so I guess he’s a first baseman.

              Doing the earlier roundup of first basemen, through 1940, I missed George Grantham, because I had him marked as a career second baseman.   Grantham, a native Kansan and thus a player of some interest to me, came to the majors as a second baseman and played more games at second base (827) than at first (502).   Grantham, however, was not a good defensive second baseman; in fact, he was pretty terrible.   He was known as "Boots" Grantham because he booted the ball so often, and although he was an outstanding left-handed line drive hitter, he had trouble staying in the lineup because he really could not play second base. 

              There are three of these guys, actually—Grantham, Riggs Stephenson and Lew Fonseca; they are all kind of the same story, which is more complicated than just the three players.   In the Dead Ball Era (we could date the Dead Ball era as 1903 to 1919) second base was more of a hitter’s position than third base was.   In the Dead Ball Era the idea was to get a runner on first base, then he would steal second or you would bunt him to second; you would move runners with steals, bunts, and the hit and run.   When the lively ball era arrived and players began hitting 30, 40, 50 home runs, the idea of an offense shifted to get a runner on base, get two runners on base, and let the big guys drive them around the bases.   Stolen base totals and sac bunt totals plummeted. 

              A change which was incidental to that change in offensive philosophy was that there were many more double play opportunities, since there were more runners on first base just waiting for something to happen.   That made the double play much more important than it had been.   From 1911 to 1919 the most double plays turned by any second baseman in a season was 82, by Del Pratt in 1915 and again in 1918.   In the 1920s that total would not have ranked in top 50.   Double plays did not increase in the 1920s as much as home runs did, but similar; there was a huge increase in the number of double plays.   By the late 1920s the top second basemen were turning 120 double plays. 

              That made the double play much more important, which made second base defense much more important.   The defensive spectrum shifted, really for the only time since 1890; defense at second became more important than defense at third.  George Grantham, Riggs Stephenson and Lew Fonseca were guys who got caught on the wrong side of that.   They were really good hitters who came up as second basemen, but who could not meet the defensive expectations of a second baseman once those expectations increased suddenly.   They were pushed out of the position by weaker hitters who were better fielders, and this damaged their careers.  

              So anyway, I had Grantham listed as a second baseman, but he actually earned more YOPDI points as a first baseman than he did as a second baseman, so he’s going to make the list below.   I think anyone would agree that he was, in fact, more valuable as a first baseman.  These are the best first basemen of 1900 to 1980 in terms of position dominance, acknowledging again that this includes a considerable amount of position dominance at positions other than first base.   Asterisks indicate players in mid-career in 1980; blue highlighting indicates a Hall of Famer:

              As there is at catcher (and other positions) there is a strong general agreement between the Position Dominance Index (YOPDI) and Hall of Fame selection.   But whereas the Hall of Fame standard for a catcher is something like 80 YOPDI points—eight years of dominating the position or comparable—at first base it is more like 50 points.   This is another manifestation of a problem that we have dealt with many times.   First basemen have a lot bigger hitting numbers than catchers do, or, stated another way, there are many more first basemen with big hitting numbers than there are catchers, and big hitting numbers are what get you into the Hall of Fame.   It’s not that the standards don’t adjust; the standards do adjust.   Johnny Bench would not be in the Hall of Fame, with the hitting numbers he has, if he were an outfielder.   But the adjustments are not quite as big as the differences in performance.   One could say that the adjustments made for catchers are not as big as they "ought" to be, but that’s a judgment; I’m not trying to make judgments, I’m trying to state facts.  The fact is that there are many more first basemen with big hitting numbers than catchers with big hitting numbers; consequently, the Hall of Fame requires less dominance of the position at first base than at catcher. 

              And these are the greatest first basemen of 1900 to 1980 in terms of peak value:

              1)  Dick Allen actually had several seasons in the 1960s in which his established value was higher than what is listed here as his peak value, but he was playing other positions then; this is his peak value as a first baseman. 

              2)  I know people will be surprised at Musial ranking ahead of Gehrig in peak value, because Gehrig’s numbers are so big, but remember, Musial won the National League MVP Award in 1943, 1946 and 1948 and didn’t play in 1945, so he was in the middle of a run of seasons in which he won the MVP Award three times in five years.   The hitting numbers in the National League at that time were low.  The National League ERA in 1946 was 3.41, whereas the American League ERA in Gehrig’s peak seasons was over 4.00, sometimes well over 4.00.  Thus, one run generated by Musial has more win-impact than one run generated by Gehrig.

              Also, I would point out to you that the Cardinals in the first ten years of Musial’s career were exactly as successful as the Yankees of the Gehrig-Ruth era.   The Yankees in the ten years that they had Gehrig and Ruth both in the lineup won 4 pennants, 3 World Series, and 931 regular-season games.    The Cardinals in the first ten years that Musial was in the lineup for them won 4 pennants, 3 World Series, and 931 regular-season games. 

              3)  In terms of peak value, the Hall of Fame standard at first base is higher than it is at catcher.   At catcher, it’s about 27; at first base, about 30. 

              4)  Two Hall of Fame first baseman, Jake Beckley and George Kelly, do not make the top 50 first basemen of 1900 to 1980 in terms of peak value. 

48.  Bob Watson

              Could Bob Watson be described as an overlooked great?

              "Great" is too strong a word, and I am not arguing that Bob Watson ought to be a Hall of Famer, but in doing the analysis above I was very surprised to see that Watson ranks higher on the Position Dominance Index than four Hall of Fame first basemen (Bottomley, Jake Beckley, Bill Terry and George Kelly), and that he ranks ahead of other more-memorable first basemen such as Ted Kluszewski, Boog Powell, Mickey Vernon, Hal Trosky and Bill White, and also ranks ahead of most of the same players in Peak Value.  He was never the #1 player in baseball at his position, but he was second three times and third or fourth four other years. 

              The only time I have used Bob Watson’s name in a Hall of Fame discussion was as a comp for George Kelly.   The most similar hitter ever to George Kelly, in terms of raw numbers, is Bob Watson.   Kelly had a career batting average of .297, Watson .295.   Kelly had 148 career homers, Watson 184.  Kelly had just over 1,000 career RBI (1020), Watson just under 1,000 (989).   Watson had a career OPS just over .800 (.811), Kelly just under (.794).  Watson had 1,826 career hits, Kelly 1,778.   About the same numbers, Watson’s are a tiny bit better.

              The difference, of course, is that Kelly compiled these numbers in the 1920s, when the league batting averages were in the .280s and .290s and the league ERAs were over 4.00, whereas Watson put up the same numbers in the 1970s, when the National League batting averages were in the .250s and the ERAs were in the mid-threes.  

              I have used this comparison many times to explain why George Kelly is not a legitimate Hall of Famer, because. . .well, people who remember Bob Watson know that he was a good but not great player, and if you explain that George Kelly has the same numbers but in a much different context, they get it.  I actually once used this explanation in the presence of Bob Watson; I was uncomfortable doing it, but he didn’t seem to take offense.  I was doing a radio interview with Larry Dierker, down in Houston, and Dierker asked me who was in the Hall of Fame who shouldn’t be there, so I mentioned Kelly because he’s near the top of the list.   Dierker asked why, and my usual explanation for that is. . . about this time, Bob Watson happened to walk into the room.   It came out right; it came out sounding like I was saying "Bob Watson is about the same as a Hall of Famer". 

              Anyway, perhaps there are two edges to this sword:  that it illustrates not merely that Kelly doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, but also that Bob Watson has been historically overlooked.   He was a regular .300 hitter with 16 to 22 homers a year. . .not Hall of Fame numbers, I grant you, but the thing is that Watson was doing this:

              a) In a pitcher’s era, relatively speaking, and

              b)  In the toughest park in baseball for a hitter. 

              In his career, Watson hit .288 at home, .302 on the road.   He hit 67 homers at home, 117 on the road, so his parks cost him about 50 home runs and a career .300 average.   He drove in 440 runs at home, 549 on the road.   I would suspect that it is one of the worst home/road splits of all time. 

              Well. . .not trying to make Bob Watson into Jimmie Foxx.  He is not the usual underrated player, the Bobby Grich model hidden star who plays great defense and has a secondary average of .370; he’s not that kind of guy.   This is my final word on him:  Bob Watson has been so much underrated that he even gets overlooked when people are talking about players who are underrated. 

49. The Murray-Cooper Era

              OK, it’s the Eddie Murray era, but Cecil Cooper deserves a little love, too: