This is part VIII of my series on the greatest players of the last 50 years, which I have dubbed the "Dan Marks Era", as it aligns with the 50 years that I have been following baseball. The general idea is to have a little fun and reminisce, and perhaps find out a thing or two that maybe you didn't know before about some of these players.
Here are the prior entries in the series:
The Greatest Left Fielders of the Last 50 Years
Did anyone just miss getting included due to the timeline cutoff?
There are two worth noting - Frank Howard and Billy Williams.
Howard was one of the great power hitters and most intimidating hitters when I started following baseball in 1970. At that time, players like Howard, Williams, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, and Hank Aaron were all still among the top home run hitters, but they were all getting pretty close to the end of their careers by then. Howard was 5th in the AL MVP voting in 1970, and Williams was 2nd in the NL in 1970 (and 2nd again in 1972). Howard's career midpoint was 1965.5, and Williams' was 1967.5. I decided to leave them both out of this review.
Any active players outside of the top 25 worth noting?
I have 3 active players in my top 25, and we'll cover them later. Several active players are in the 26-50 range, and any of them could still move up - Alex Gordon, Brett Gardner, Michael Brantley, and Starling Marte #34, 35, 42 and 44, respectively. Yoenis Cespedes, who I guess is still active too, is at #45.
Two of the brightest young stars in the game today are Juan Soto and Ronald Acuna, but it's way too early to try and rank them. Acuna has more total games in LF so far, but his near-term future seems to be more in center field. Both Soto and Acuna seem headed for stellar careers, but you never know, so I'll have to pass on them for now.
Any surprise omissions?
Gary Matthews and Garret Anderson are a couple of players who I thought might crack the top 25, but they finished at #28 and #32, respectively.
Other Administrative Notes
I didn't know what to do with Pedro Guerrero. He was listed in my data pull as a left fielder, but he really only played a couple of hundred games there. His highest number of games at any position was first base, but he didn't even reach 600 games there. He basically didn't have a regular position. His position was "hitter". He would have made the top 25 in LF, but I ended up leaving him out.
Also, similar to first basemen (which is the only position to the left of left fielders on the "defensive spectrum") , I'm going to avoid calling out dWAR rankings in the best/worst category recaps for each left fielder, mostly because a lot of the top players rank pretty poorly by pure dWAR, and it's kind of uninteresting to call out. It's much more interesting to cite how they rank in the other categories.
I ended up with 173 players in the left fielder data set.
#25-Dusty Baker
Best category: Games (16th)
Worst category: WAR/162 (43rd)
Going down memory lane....the very first article I ever wrote for Bill James Online was about players who combined success both as a player and success as a manager. I came up with something called a "Manager-Player Number" (MPN) which is similar to the concept of a Power-Speed number in that it combines 2 different metrics into one, and an individual has to do well on both in order to rank high overall.
I combined a player's rWAR with something called a "Manager Score" from Baseball Gauge (which awarded points based on a manager's record, including postseason success) to come up with the blended Manager-Player Number metric. The top MPN's are listed below (note that this was done almost 5 years ago, so there might need to be some updates or adjustments, but I think the top 15 would still be pretty much the same folks). Note that you didn't have to be a "player-manager", which would imply doing both at the same time, although several of the top individuals did do exactly that.
*=Hall of Famers
|
Rank
|
Name
|
Manager Score
|
Player rWAR
|
Manager-Player Number (MPN)
|
|
1
|
*Cap Anson
|
74.7
|
93.9
|
83.2
|
|
2
|
*Joe Torre
|
142.4
|
57.6
|
82.0
|
|
3
|
*Fred Clarke
|
77.9
|
67.8
|
72.5
|
|
4
|
*John McGraw
|
149.6
|
45.6
|
69.9
|
|
5
|
*Clark Griffith
|
45.7
|
61.8
|
52.6
|
|
6
|
*Frank Chance
|
59.6
|
45.6
|
51.7
|
|
7
|
*Joe Cronin
|
42.2
|
66.4
|
51.6
|
|
8
|
*Frankie Frisch
|
39.1
|
70.4
|
50.3
|
|
9
|
*Miller Huggins
|
84.4
|
35.4
|
49.9
|
|
10
|
*Bill Terry
|
42.3
|
54.2
|
47.5
|
|
11
|
Dusty Baker
|
65.8
|
36.9
|
47.3
|
|
12
|
*Lou Boudreau
|
36.2
|
63.0
|
46.0
|
|
13
|
*Tris Speaker
|
27.7
|
133.7
|
45.9
|
|
14
|
*Hughie Jennings
|
45.9
|
42.3
|
44.0
|
Of that list, Dusty is the only one not in the Hall, and I think he has a tough road to try and get there. Most of the other individuals are not in the Hall because they were good at both jobs - mostly they were voted in primarily because of excellence as either a player or a manager (and that includes Joe Torre, who was a very good player but probably not quite Hall of Fame good). Dusty is a "baseball lifer", and he was pretty good in both roles (a 2-time All Star as a player, a 3-time Manager of the Year winner), but I don't think he'll make it in unless he can win a title or 2 as a manager.
Baker is 70 years old now, and is the new manager of the Astros, and I think it was actually a pretty good hire coming on the heels of the scandal, because I do think Baker is pretty well respected within the game. Talented though the Astros may be, there will be so much negative focus on the team once they start playing, and though I'm sure it will be challenging, I think Baker will probably deal with it about as well as could be hoped for.
#24-Lonnie Smith
Best category: WAA (16th)
Worst category: All Star Games (51st)
"Skates" was a fun player, probably remembered more for his misfortunes and adventures on defense and on the base paths (case in point, game 7 of the 1991 World Series), but he was a quality ball player, especially on offense. He ended up with only about one-third of his games hitting out of the leadoff slot (he frequently was used in the #2 and #3 slots) but he was outstanding when hitting leadoff, batting .305 with a near-.380 OBP in that role. Smith led the NL in runs one year (1982 with the Cardinals with 120) and in OBP another year (1989 with the Braves with a .415 mark)
One of the more notable things that I think a lot of people miss when remembering Smith's career was that he was a key contributor to a lot of successful teams. Smith owns 3 different World Series championship rings with 3 different franchises - 1980 with the Phillies, 1982 with the Cardinals, and 1985 with the Royals - and he went to 2 more World Series with the Braves ('91 and '92). As mentioned before, he's probably more famous for his lapses than his successes, but he was a big part of some very good teams.
Random wondering.....I wonder how many people remember that Smith was once an MVP runner-up? Smith finished 2nd (and it was a pretty strong 2nd) to Dale Murphy in 1982.
#23-Ron Gant
Best category: MVP Points (22nd)
Worst category: Win Shares/162 (50th)
We're only three deep into the countdown, and Gant is the third consecutive player in the rankings with significant ties to the Braves. Baker played 8 seasons with Atlanta (4 as a starting center fielder and/or right fielder) and Smith played 5 seasons with the Braves, although Gant is probably the only one of the 3 who is primarily associated with that franchise.
Gant was one of the most exciting young stars of the early 1990's, a 2-time member of the 30-30 HR/SB club, before missing the entire 1994 season due to a broken leg suffered in an ATV accident. He had a strong comeback season after signing as a free agent with the Reds in 1995, but soon after that he started to decline.
Gant is one of only 23 players who exceeded 300 home runs and 200 steals in his career. So is the next guy on the list.....
#22-Alfonso Soriano
Best category: All Star Games (7th)
Worst category: WAA (65th)
As mentioned in the Gant profile, Soriano had an impressive power-speed combination with 412 career home runs and 289 career stolen bases. He's ranked as a left fielder, but also played over 700 games at second base, most of which were played during his years with the Yankees and the Rangers.
Soriano doesn't rank higher mostly because his performance in categories like WAR and WAA aren't very good, but he does do better in Win Shares, and his 7 All Star teams ranks him pretty high in that area. A good player, but his career .319 OBP holds him back.
Soriano was a star, and I thought he had a chance to be a superstar after his impressive 2002 season, when he hit .300 and led the AL in runs, hits, and stolen bases, finishing 3rd in the MVP voting that year behind Miguel Tejada and Alex Rodriguez. Soriano was 26 and playing for the marquee franchise in baseball. Within a couple of year, though, he was traded to the Rangers in exchange for Rodriguez, and although he had some notable seasons, he just wasn't quite the same after that.
#21-Justin Upton
Best category: All Star Games (18th)
Worst category: Games (38th)
Upton is the first of 3 active players in my top 25, and Melvin's brother is only 32 years old, so he could still move up some. Upton's best season to date is probably his 2011 campaign - 31 HR, 88 RBI, .289/.369/.529, a 141 OPS+, and 4th in the NL MVP voting. He was only 23 at the time, and he's been a quality player since then, but I think based on his performance that year, a lot of people would have expected him to keep growing and improving. Again, he's been very good, but seemed to plateau after that performance. After that promising start to his career with the Diamondbacks, he'd been bouncing around among several franchises (Braves, Padres, Tigers, Angels).
Justin's career HR/SB totals are basically the reverse of his brother's - Justin has 298/147 HR's and steals so far, and Melvin (formerly B.J.) had 164/300 before playing his last game in 2016.
The Upton brothers would be 2 of the better players on the all-time "U" surname team. Justin would play LF, Melvin would be the center fielder. The best player would be Chase Utley, and would be supported by the likes of Juan Uribe, Dan Uggla, Del Unser, and Willie Upshaw. The pitching staff would include George Uhle with a decent bullpen of Ugueth Urbina, Koji Uehara, and Cecil Upshaw.
#20-Carl Crawford
Best category: WAR7 (17th)
Worst category: Win Shares/162 (47th)
Whenever I think of Crawford, he tends to remind me of Lou Brock. How's this for a comparison.....seasonal notation (averages per 162 games) through age 28 for both players?
|
Name
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
CS
|
BB
|
SO
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
OPS+
|
|
Crawford
|
708
|
100
|
194
|
28
|
14
|
14
|
78
|
54
|
12
|
38
|
101
|
.296
|
.337
|
.444
|
107
|
|
Brock
|
697
|
104
|
185
|
30
|
11
|
15
|
58
|
49
|
18
|
37
|
127
|
.286
|
.329
|
.436
|
110
|
Pretty close, and if either has an advantage, I'd say it's Crawford, who was not only stealing a little more, but also quite a bit more successfully (82% vs. 73% for Brock). But they're pretty similar across the board.
The kicker, of course, is that Brock was just getting started, and continued playing well throughout the rest of his 20's and most of his 30's, whereas Crawford didn't have much left after that. But, through age 28, there was a lot of similarity in their games.
I would put Crawford as the second best player in Tampa Bay's history, behind Evan Longoria and slightly ahead of Ben Zobrist.
#19-Roy White
Best category: WAR7 (10th)
Worst category: MVP Points (48th)
As a Bill James reader, when you hear the name "Roy White", how many nanoseconds does it take for you to think of "Jim Rice"? Probably about as long as it took the boys from "City Slickers" after hearing "third baseman for Pittsburgh in 1960" to blurt out "Don Hoak". To me, White and Rice have been inexorably linked ever since Bill had White listed above Rice in his left fielder rankings in his New Historical Abstract about 20 years ago, which included a pretty comprehensive comparison of the two.
I don't have White above Rice in my rankings (mostly because I do give weight to things like MVP results and All Star Games, both of which tilt the scales to Rice) , but I do have White in the top 20. He remains one of the prime examples of an underrated player, despite the fact that he played for one of the sport's glamour franchises, because, despite playing for the Yankees, he played most of his career during one of the few prolonged down periods in franchise history. From 1949 to 1964, the Yankees represented the American League in every World Series except for two (1954, 1959). White had the rather unfortunate timing of debuting in 1965, and the Yankees didn't make it back to the postseason until 1976, when White's career was starting to wind down (although they did make 3 straight World Series at that point with White as the primary left fielder on the first two of those three).
White has a lot of the same attributes as another underrated player coming up in a few slots, Jose Cruz Sr. He had good but not great power, he was able to steal some bases, he was a good fielder (though not quite Gold Glove level), hit for a good but not elite average, was able to get on base, and generally played in an environment and context not real favorable to posting huge offensive numbers. A quick comparison of their career numbers in seasonal (per 162 game) notation:
|
Player
|
PA
|
R
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
CS
|
BB
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
OPS+
|
|
Cruz
|
615
|
71
|
27
|
6
|
11
|
74
|
22
|
9
|
62
|
.284
|
.354
|
.420
|
120
|
|
White
|
666
|
83
|
26
|
4
|
14
|
65
|
20
|
10
|
80
|
.271
|
.360
|
.404
|
121
|
Cruz averaged about 3.8 rWAR per 162 games and White was around 4.0, which is virtually no difference, especially since Cruz had the longer career, and that tends to have a downward effect on such an average. They also were only named to 2 All Star teams each. Cruz hit for a little higher average but White drew a few more walks, which evened things out, but they're pretty close. Cruz ended up with about 20% more plate appearances than White and is a little higher on this list because of his longer career, but they were similar types of players.
#18-Matt Holliday
Best category: All Star Games (7th)
Worst category: MVP Points (26)
I think one of the real challenges for anyone who likes to try to analyze baseball players is how you approach evaluating hitters who play for the Rockies. I think the gut reaction, in so many cases, is to dismiss any hitter who displays any sort of success for the Rockies as being unfairly advantaged by playing half of his games at Coors Field, and it can be tough to properly assess performance. It was hard for Hall of Fame voters to properly evaluate Larry Walker - were his stats real, or artificially inflated? He eventually gained enough support to be elected in this past year, but it was a climb. Todd Helton is on the current Hall of Fame ballot. Is he Hall of Fame worthy, or just another lucky recipient of the Coors Field advantage? Nolan Arenado has been a great player in his career to date, but you hear the questions surrounding him as well. And Coors Field made stars out of players like Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla, who, in my opinion, were pretty ordinary players who owed almost all of their success to calling Colorado home.
That's why I like to see players like Holliday. Holliday played well for Colorado from the start, and by his 4th year (2007) he was leading the league in hits, doubles, RBI, and batting average, ending up 2nd in the MVP voting in a close race to Jimmy Rollins. In that 2007 season, he hit .375 at home with 25 of his 36 RBI and 82 of his 137 RBI occurring at Coors. It was easy to write him off as just another product of Coors. And when he was traded to Oakland, I remember thinking to myself, "Well, that's it for him then".
Except that....it wasn't. Oh sure, he got some advantage by playing at Coors (as just about anyone would), but Holliday continued playing at an All Star level over his 8 years in St. Louis. His stats weren't quite as eye-catching with the Cardinals as they were with Colorado, but they were still very good. He serves as a reminder to avoid knee-jerk reactions when someone produces eye-catching numbers while playing for the Rockies, because that player just might be a legitimately good player.
#17-Christian Yelich
Best category: WAR/162 and Win Shares/162 (3rd in each)
Worst category: Games (117th)
How many better players are there in the game today? Trout? Betts, maybe? I would put Yelich as definitely one of the top 5 players in the game today. Currently listed among the left fielders, but could end up more as a right fielder before his career is in the books.
Yelich will likely slide down in the per-162 game category rankings over the course of his career, but he will gain in the others. 17th is kind of a compromise slot for him right now, as he just completed his age 27 season. He could be top 10 by the time he's done, or he could plateau. Ya never know.
Yelich was the NL MVP in 2018, and if anything, he played even better in 2019, although his season ended about 3 weeks early due to injury. He already has an MVP, an MVP runner-up, and 2 batting titles in hand. In addition, he's a tremendous base stealer, going 30 for 32 last year and stealing at an 84% success rate in his career to date. In his 7 years so far, he's never hit lower than .282 or had an OBP less than .362 in any season. After coming within 2 home runs and 1 RBI of taking home a traditional triple crown in 2018, in 2019 he won the "slash line" triple crown, leading the NL in batting average, OBP, and slugging percentage.
How many times has a player won the "slash line" triple crown? It's happened fairly often, 21 times in each league since 1901, which means it has happened about once every 6 years on average in each league, although it's getting more rare in recent decades. Rogers Hornsby did it 7 times, Ted Williams did it 5 times, Honus Wagner 4 times, and Ty Cobb 3 times. Since 1970, it has only happened 5 times in the NL and 4 times in the AL, so now it's only happening about once every 10-12 years on average. The players who have accomplished it since 1970, in addition to Yelich, are Fred Lynn (1979), George Brett (1980), Larry Walker (1999), Todd Helton (2000), Barry Bonds (2002, 2004), Joe Mauer (2009), and Miguel Cabrera (2013).
#16-Luis Gonzalez
Best category: Games (6th)
Worst category: Win Shares/162 (37th)
Gonzalez is part of a rich tradition of baseball players and managers born in Tampa, Florida, a list that includes Gary Sheffield, Dwight Gooden, Fred McGriff, Steve Garvey, Tino Martinez, Al Lopez, Lou Piniella, Denard Span, Dave Magadan, Carl Everett, Jody Reed, Matthew Joyce, Mike Heath, Derek Bell, Gene Nelson, Matt Mantei, and Floyd Youmans, not to mention current Mets star Pete Alonso. It makes for a pretty good start on a "town team", although they're a little heavy on first basemen and pretty short on starting pitching after Gooden. Must be something in the water....
Gonzalez had an unusual career arc. Prior to his Arizona years, Gonzalez was pretty much a 10-15 HR, 70 RBI, .270-type hitter. In his first 5 seasons in Arizona, starting with his age 31 seasons, he morphed into a .314 hitter averaging about 35 homers and 115 RBI a year, including his monster 2001 season with 57 HR and 142 RBI.
Gonzalez's post-30 career performance has raised a lot of eyebrows and a lot of people, fairly or not, suspected steroids. I imagine there are 3 main things that feed into the suspicion that surrounds Gonzalez:
1) His established level of play (nearly a decade) prior to Arizona
2) The spike in home runs in 2001.
3) The era he played in
As in so many cases, I don't know what to think. For many, they look at his unusual spike and conclude he must have done something. For many others, they believe him when he denies the rumors, and conclude he ended up in the right spot and found himself late in his career. I really don't know, so I didn't adjust him at all. This is where he ranks.
I have Gonzalez as the second best position player in Diamondbacks history, behind only first baseman Paul Goldschmidt.
#15-Ryan Braun
Best category: WAR7 and Win Shares/162 (8th)
Worst category: Games (34th)
There were whispers about Gonzalez, but there's no doubt about Braun, who admitted to using steroids, and was suspended for the last couple of months of the 2013 season. Braun returned for 2014 and has been a quality player, though certainly not as good as he was prior to the suspension.
The question in the context of a ranking then, is, how much, if any, was Braun helped, and how much should it affect his ranking, if at all? In cases like this, my answer generally is....I don't have the foggiest idea. Braun was a high draft choice (5th player selected in 2005) after a very good college stint at Miami. I think he was a very talented hitter.
In fact, Braun's stats don't really look very unusual at all to me at all - his early years were good, but I wouldn't call them crazy good. He hit like you would expect a talented, high draft pick might hit. And, after he returned from his suspension, his numbers were definitely not as good, but they weren't all that bad either, and probably not out of line for a good player entering his 30's. He was an All Star in 2015, and had a 30-homer year in 2016. He was definitely guilty of a banned substance, but I'm also not sure that you can summarily dismiss his early career performance as artificial. I essentially have him where he ranked by the formula, but subjectively adjusted a couple of other players upward.
#14-Moises Alou
Best category: All Star Games (11th)
Worst category: WAR/162 (31st)
When I think of Alou, 3 things come to mind:
1) Alou is a member of one of the most prominent baseball families in history. You have the Boones, Bells, Hairstons, and Colemans (and maybe some others that I'm not thinking of) each with 3 generations. You have your father-son duos (many examples, with the Bonds and Griffeys being the most prominent), and you have your brother combinations like the Waners, the DiMaggios, the Boyers, the Niekros, the Perrys, and the 5 Delahanty brothers. The Alous count 6 members if you allow cousins - Matty, Felipe, and Jesus are brothers, Moises is Felipe's son, and then there are 2 cousins as part of the family - Mel Rojas, who had a pretty good run as a reliever (mostly for Montreal) and Jose Sosa, who had a brief stint as a reliever with the Astros in the '70's. And please, no smart aleck remarks about the other less famous Alou brother, "Boog" Alou...
2) Although he had a fine career, Alou's career was undermined by injuries. He missed 2 full seasons (1991 and 1999) due to major injuries and parts of several others due to lesser ones. When healthy, though, he was a good one, and posted several impressive batting averages throughout his career, and not just barely over .300 either - he exceeded .330 four times in seasons in which he exceeded 300 at bats, including a .355 mark in 2000. He had good power, twice coming close to 40 home runs (he had a 39 and a 38). He was a key part of the 1997 Florida Marlins World Champions.
3) Alou played a key role in the controversial Bartman incident in the 2003 NLCS. Alou was in left field and crossed paths with Bartman while trying to catch a foul fly, and Alou had a strong reaction to what he perceived as fan interference. This incident has been analyzed to death, and my take on it is that Bartman didn't do anything wrong, and Alou's frustration and subsequent reaction, while understandable to some degree, played a part in how everything unfolded from there. I'm sure I'd be frustrated too, but I think if Alou doesn't react as strongly as he did, then I don't think that the resulting ugliness would have unfolded the way it did either.
#13-Jose Cruz
Best category: WAR (8th)
Worst category: All Star Games (32)
Speaking of notable baseball families, the Cruz family is well represented with 4 members, although the bulk of the value has been generated by the 2 Jose's, Sr. & Jr., while Jose Sr.'s two brothers, Hector and Tommy, didn't contribute much. As you may recall, Hector was the Cruz brother who everyone was truly excited about, especially coming off a 1975 season where he was the Minor League Player of the Year in the Cardinals system, but his career turned out to be a big disappointment.
Right about that same time, Jose Sr. was purchased by the Astros from the Cardinals, and he embarked on a strong 13-year run with Houston. The best/worst category recap for Cruz pretty much tells it all - he's one of the top left fielders in my dataset in terms of WAR, but was only recognized as an All Star twice.
Cruz's career home/road split, given that he spent most of years calling the Astrodome home, is not as huge as you might think, except in a couple of key categories:
|
Split
|
G
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
BB
|
SO
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
Home
|
1,166
|
4,316
|
497
|
1,094
|
189
|
61
|
59
|
528
|
163
|
479
|
488
|
.289
|
.366
|
.418
|
|
Away
|
1,187
|
4,615
|
539
|
1,157
|
202
|
33
|
106
|
549
|
154
|
419
|
543
|
.280
|
.344
|
.422
|
It's actually pretty even, except that he hit twice as many home runs on the road as he did at home, and conversely hit about twice as many triples at home vs. on the road. On balance, though, it's not too dramatic.
The story of Cruz is consistent, steady, durable play over more than a decade. He wasn't spectacular - but he was very good.
#12-Albert Belle
Best category: Win Shares/162 (6th)
Worst category: Games (45th)
A short career, but a good one. Judging just on ability to hit the ball, Belle would have to rank as one of the best I've ever seen, and was one of the best RBI men I've witnessed.
Only 11 players have averaged more than .8 RBI per games played:
|
Rank
|
Player
|
RBI
|
G
|
RBI/G
|
|
1
|
Sam Thompson
|
1,308
|
1,410
|
.928
|
|
2
|
Lou Gehrig
|
1,995
|
2,164
|
.922
|
|
3
|
Hank Greenberg
|
1,274
|
1,394
|
.914
|
|
4
|
Joe DiMaggio
|
1,537
|
1,736
|
.885
|
|
5
|
Babe Ruth
|
2,214
|
2,503
|
.885
|
|
6
|
Juan Gonzalez
|
1,404
|
1,689
|
.831
|
|
7
|
Jimmie Foxx
|
1,922
|
2,317
|
.830
|
|
8
|
Al Simmons
|
1,828
|
2,215
|
.825
|
|
9
|
Cap Anson
|
2,075
|
2,524
|
.822
|
|
10
|
Albert Belle
|
1,239
|
1,539
|
.805
|
|
11
|
Ted Williams
|
1,839
|
2,292
|
.802
|
Belle likely would have slid below that threshold had he continued playing. Belle was basically good for 100 or more RBI each year that he played regularly, coming up short only in his first full season (1991) when he drove in 95 in only 123 games. He finished his career with 9 consecutive 100 RBI seasons before retiring after his age 33 season due to his hip condition. I'm sure general consensus was that he wasn't missed. It's hard to tell the story of Belle without the numerous incidents of, how shall we say, jerky behavior. That was certainly part of the equation with Belle. But he sure could hit.
#11-Lou Brock
Best category: Games (5th)
Worst category: WAR/162 (47th)
Brock was right on the cusp of not being included in this review, as his midpoint was exactly 1970. His World Series glory was all in the 1960's as he played on 3 Cardinals World Series teams, including 2 that won the title. He had basically lost the double-digit homer type of power that he once had. But he was still an iconic player, a .300-hitting leadoff hitter who was dynamic on the base paths. 5 of his 6 All Star appearances occurred in the '70's. He was a star and a legend in my formative years as a baseball fan, and a fun one to watch.
Brock was one of the all time great World Series performers.
All Time World Series Stolen Base Leaders:
|
Player
|
Series
|
G
|
SB
|
CS
|
|
Lou Brock
|
3
|
21
|
14
|
2
|
|
Eddie Collins
|
6
|
34
|
14
|
3
|
|
Frank Chance
|
4
|
20
|
10
|
1
|
|
Davey Lopes
|
4
|
23
|
10
|
2
|
|
Phil Rizzuto
|
9
|
52
|
10
|
3
|
All Time World Series Batting Average Leaders (minimum 60 PA's):
|
Player
|
Series
|
G
|
PA
|
BA
|
|
Paul Molitor
|
2
|
13
|
61
|
.418
|
|
Pepper Martin
|
3
|
15
|
60
|
.418
|
|
Lou Brock
|
3
|
21
|
92
|
.391
|
|
Marquis Grissom
|
3
|
19
|
84
|
.390
|
|
Thurman Munson
|
3
|
16
|
72
|
.373
|
|
Hank Aaron
|
2
|
14
|
60
|
.364
|
|
Home Run Baker
|
6
|
25
|
97
|
.363
|
|
Roberto Clemente
|
2
|
14
|
60
|
.362
|
|
Lou Gehrig
|
7
|
34
|
150
|
.361
|
|
Reggie Jackson
|
5
|
27
|
116
|
.357
|
#10-George Foster
Best category: MVP Points (6th)
Worst category: WAR/162 (26th)
There are two things they teach baby Reds fans in the crib as a way of indoctrinating them into the family:
1) The Joe Morgan trade was critical to the success of the Big Red Machine.
2) It still may not have happened if Pete Rose hadn't been moved to third base so that George Foster could replace John Vuckovich in the everyday lineup.
Foster was the final piece of the "Great Eight" ensemble. Oh, he had been part of the team for 4 years after being acquired from the Giants for Frank Duffy, but he had been on the periphery. When Rose moved to third base and Foster was installed as the everyday left fielder, the puzzle was complete.
From 1975 until his final season with the Reds in 1981, Foster was among the elite sluggers in the game. He wasn't the best overall player in baseball over that time frame - that would probably have to be either Mike Schmidt or George Brett - but as a power hitter, Foster was right up there with anyone. A few, basic category leader boards:
Most Home Runs, 1975-1981
|
Rank
|
Player
|
HR
|
|
1
|
Mike Schmidt
|
259
|
|
2
|
George Foster
|
221
|
|
3
|
Dave Kingman
|
215
|
|
4
|
Jim Rice
|
212
|
|
5
|
Reggie Jackson
|
207
|
|
6
|
Greg Luzinski
|
187
|
|
7
|
Ron Cey
|
170
|
|
8
|
Graig Nettles
|
168
|
|
9
|
John Mayberry
|
160
|
|
10
|
Don Baylor
|
157
|
Most RBI, 1975-1981
|
Rank
|
Player
|
RBI
|
|
1
|
George Foster
|
749
|
|
2
|
Jim Rice
|
718
|
|
3
|
Mike Schmidt
|
707
|
|
4
|
Steve Garvey
|
683
|
|
5
|
Reggie Jackson
|
656
|
|
6
|
Greg Luzinski
|
645
|
|
7
|
Dave Parker
|
617
|
|
8
|
Dave Winfield
|
607
|
|
9
|
Ted Simmons
|
596
|
|
10
|
Tony Perez
|
586
|
Highest Slugging Percentage, 1975-1981
|
Rank
|
Player
|
SLG
|
|
1
|
Mike Schmidt
|
.551
|
|
2
|
George Foster
|
.543
|
|
3
|
Jim Rice
|
.536
|
|
4
|
Bob Horner
|
.525
|
|
5
|
Reggie Jackson
|
.520
|
|
6
|
Dave Parker
|
.517
|
|
7
|
Willie Stargell
|
.516
|
|
8
|
George Brett
|
.515
|
|
9
|
Dave Kingman
|
.514
|
|
10
|
Reggie Smith
|
.512
|
Highest OPS+, 1975-1981, Minimum 2000 Plate Appearances
|
Rank
|
Player
|
OPS+
|
PA
|
|
1
|
Mike Schmidt
|
154
|
4,423
|
|
2
|
George Foster
|
149
|
4,099
|
|
3
|
Ken Singleton
|
149
|
4,399
|
|
4
|
Reggie Jackson
|
147
|
3,934
|
|
5
|
George Brett
|
146
|
4,182
|
|
6
|
Rod Carew
|
145
|
4,175
|
|
7
|
Reggie Smith
|
145
|
2,790
|
|
8
|
Oscar Gamble
|
144
|
2,479
|
|
9
|
Greg Luzinski
|
140
|
4,014
|
|
10
|
Dave Parker
|
140
|
4,034
|
Foster's 1977 season was one of the great individual Reds seasons I have witnessed. I talked in the center field review about Eric Davis' great season 10 years later, but Foster's 1977 was special as well. It was the first time I had witnessed a 50+ homer season by anyone, and Foster was so locked in that season and it felt like every game I watched, he would absolutely hammer something. Obviously, not literally....but that's the way it felt.
The last player prior to Foster to hit 50 home runs was Willie Mays in 1965, and Foster's would be the last until Cecil Fielder reached it in 1990. From the moment that Babe Ruth first crashed the 50 homer barrier in 1920, the longest drought between 50 homer seasons had been a 9-year span from 1938 (Hank Greenberg) to 1947 Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner).
50-homer seasons are still pretty commonplace now, as we rarely go more than 2 or 3 years without one. But Foster's was the only time over 24 seasons between Mays and Fielder where anyone had reached that level. It's not that it wasn't threatened - Frank Robinson hit 49 in 1965 and Harmon Killebrew hit 49 in 1969, and in between Foster and Fielder, we saw Mark McGwire and Andre Dawson each reach 49 in 1987. But, we love our round numbers, and 49 is not 50. Foster's season will always have a special place in my memory.
#9-Lance Berkman
Best category: Win Shares / 162 (5th)
Worst category: Games (28th)
Berkman came up a little short of a "magical" slash line threshold - the .300/.400/.500 club. He managed 2 of the 3, but came up shy on batting average at .293. If you drop the batting average requirement to .290 and also require a 140 OPS+, Berkman is one of 26 players to achieve membership in that particular version of everyone's favorite "We can make a club" game. Players in the 1970-present era who have membership in that club (minimum 5,000 PA's) are:
|
Player
|
PA
|
OPS+
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
Barry Bonds
|
12,606
|
182
|
.298
|
.444
|
.607
|
|
Chipper Jones
|
10,614
|
141
|
.303
|
.401
|
.529
|
|
Frank Thomas
|
10,075
|
156
|
.301
|
.419
|
.555
|
|
Manny Ramirez
|
9,774
|
154
|
.312
|
.411
|
.585
|
|
Jeff Bagwell
|
9,431
|
149
|
.297
|
.408
|
.540
|
|
Edgar Martinez
|
8,674
|
147
|
.312
|
.418
|
.515
|
|
Larry Walker
|
8,030
|
141
|
.313
|
.400
|
.565
|
|
Lance Berkman
|
7,814
|
144
|
.293
|
.406
|
.537
|
|
Joey Votto
|
7,372
|
150
|
.307
|
.421
|
.519
|
|
Mike Trout
|
5,273
|
176
|
.305
|
.419
|
.581
|
Votto and Trout are still active, of course. I know you have to be careful with these types of "groups", because the cutoffs are a little arbitrary (especially since I went with .290 vs. 300 to allow Berkman to be included), and several players could just miss inclusion on the low end, and there's no upper limit, so a lot of the players may be much better than the person being highlighted. But, even if you lower the threshold to something a little more generous on the low end, say .290/.390/.490/135, it's the same group as above, plus new members Gary Sheffield, Miguel Cabrera, Brian Giles, and Paul Goldschmidt, although Goldschmidt is still active and will probably slide below the batting average and OBP thresholds by the time his career is done (he's already down to .292/.391). In any case, it's still a pretty select group, and even if you back up the timeline cutoff to 1950, the only additional names you'd bring in (who would still meet the 5,000 PA requirement) are Stan Musial and Mickey Mantle. It's a club that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron don't even make because they're short on the OBP cutoff.
Note that I am not making an argument for Berkman for the Hall of Fame based on membership in this group, because it's not as simple as that. He's not the same level of player that the others on the initial list are. I think he's a notch or two below. Of all of the players mentioned so far, he's more similar overall to someone like a Brian Giles than he is to most of the others in terms of overall value. But he did have an impressive combination in several key, basic batting categories.
Berkman was a pretty good postseason performer as well, and his postseason line looks awfully similar to his regular season numbers. His postseason slash line is .317/.417/.532, and his HR's and RBI would prorate to about 28/127 over 162 games.
How about if we repeat that same exercise as above, but for postseason results only, and this time adhering to the .300/.400/.500 threshold (minimum 100 postseason PA's, and dropping the OPS+ category as it's not really available for postseason comparisons). That gives us this list, also known as "Gene Woodling's and Justin Turner's moment to shine".
|
Player
|
G
|
PA
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
Albert Pujols
|
77
|
334
|
.323
|
.431
|
.599
|
|
Carlos Beltran
|
65
|
256
|
.307
|
.412
|
.609
|
|
Justin Turner
|
54
|
236
|
.310
|
.411
|
.520
|
|
Lance Berkman
|
52
|
223
|
.317
|
.417
|
.532
|
|
Babe Ruth
|
40
|
167
|
.326
|
.467
|
.744
|
|
Lou Gehrig
|
34
|
150
|
.361
|
.477
|
.731
|
|
Lenny Dykstra
|
32
|
136
|
.321
|
.433
|
.661
|
|
Paul Molitor
|
29
|
132
|
.368
|
.435
|
.615
|
|
Will Clark
|
31
|
132
|
.333
|
.409
|
.547
|
|
Gene Woodling
|
26
|
104
|
.318
|
.442
|
.529
|
|
Hank Greenberg
|
23
|
101
|
.318
|
.420
|
.624
|
Now that I've violated the "we can make a club" premise twice in one profile, I think it's time for me to move on......
#8-Jim Rice
Best category: MVP Points (2nd)
Worst category: WAR/162 (23rd)
I would say Rice is a fairly polarizing figure. There are many who think he's overrated, but it's almost like the reverse of the old Joe Rudi joke, where they used to say that Rudi was so consistently labeled as underrated that he was ultimately overrated. I wonder if it's gotten to the point with Rice that he's so often thought of as overrated that perhaps he isn't a little underrated.
In retrospect, Rice took a really long time to be elected to the Hall of Fame, finally making it in on his 15th attempt. It's not just that it took him so long in and of itself, because I think he's a less than obvious candidate, but it's that it took him so long in spite of the fact that, by his 6th year, he had more than 50% of the vote. Usually, once you've tipped the scales to more than half, it's just a matter of time. But it took Rice roughly another decade to make it in.
As you can see from his category rankings, Rice, although he may not have had a great relationship with the writers, certainly did well in MVP award balloting. In addition to his 1978 win, he also had two 3rd place finishes, two 4th place finishes, and a 5th. I do think his 1978 win was deserved, although you could certainly make a case for Ron Guidry's spectacular 25-3, 1.74 effort that same year. Rice did lead all position players in rWAR that year (not just AL, but NL too), and he was 5th in the AL the following season. He had several very good seasons.
Rice certainly benefits from the inclusion of such things as MVP points and All Star Games in this type of ranking. If I didn't include those 2 considerations in this approach and went purely by the other categories, Rice would be #15. But, they are part of it, and that gives him a boost.
#7-Willie Stargell
Best category: MVP Points(4th)
Worst category: WAR/162 (15th)
As you can see, Stargell did very well in MVP voting, and that doesn't even factor in that he had 2 additional post-season MVP's in the 1979 NLCS and the 1979 World Series. In fact, I think Stargell is still the only player to sweep all of the regular season and postseason MVP awards in a given year.
In addition to his 1979 regular season MVP (which he shared with Keith Hernandez), Stargell also had two 2nd place finishes, a 3rd place, a 7th, a 9th, a 10th, and four other down-ballot finishes. Similar to Andre Dawson, the year that Stargell actually won his MVP was not, at least according to WAR, one of his better statistical seasons. By rWAR, 1979 was merely Stargell's 11th best season.
Of course, Stargell didn't win (share) the 1979 MVP based on numbers. He did hit 32 home runs (5th in the league) and he did so in only 126 games played, but Stargell won primarily based on the narrative. Stargell was the veteran leader on the "We Are Family" Pirates, a team with the best record in the league, who went on to win the World Series title that year. He was a calming influence. He was an emotional leader. He had some big hits. He was a feel-good story.
I know I've written this before, but I'm fascinated with that MVP vote. It's really hard to imagine, if that season happened now, that Stargell would get anything more than a fleeting consideration from the voters. For starters, his rWAR was only 2.5. Now, I'll be the first to admit that we don't want to consider something like WAR to be the be-all/end-all metric to settle all arguments. However, it's tough for an MVP candidate to be taken seriously in today's environment without at least a reasonably good WAR figure as a starting point. Not all voters look at it, but I suspect a large enough portion of the voters do at least factor it in that it would be very difficult for a candidate to win without at least a competitive WAR figure.
Do you know where Stargell ranked in 1979 in rWAR in the National League? 70th. And the fact of the matter is that Stargell's WAR from that year was no better than 9th on his own team. That's right - 8 other Pirates had a higher figure. Now do I think Stargell was the 9th best or 9th most important player on his own team? No, I don't. But someone with that low of a WAR figure in today's structure would have a very time overcoming that, regardless of how many stars he handed out to his team mates.
Some other interesting notes about the 1979 NL MVP voting - Stargell had 10 first place votes, but 7 other players received at least one first place vote. Ray Knight of the Reds received a couple as he replaced the departed Pete Rose. Joe Niekro received a first-place vote. Gary Carter and Bill Madlock, who finished 17th and 18th in the voting, each received a first place vote.
I figured that the 8 players with first place votes might have been a record, but it's not. I'm not sure what the record is, but just 2 years prior, the 1977 AL MVP voting saw 11(!) different players with at least one MVP vote. More recently, in 2003, 10 different players received first place votes in the AL MVP balloting.
In addition, while Stargell received 10 first place votes, there were also 4 voters who left him completely off the ballot, where as Hernandez was named on all 24 ballots. If Stargell had received even just a single 10th place vote from any of those 4 voters, he would have been the sole winner of the award.
In any case, I think that looking back, it was a weird MVP award all the way around. Now, I don't mean to downplay the importance of leadership. Leadership is a very real thing. Just because it's difficult to objectively measure doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Leaders, whether they're on the playing field or in government or in the office, are very important and can make a huge impact.
However, the Pirates were a terrific, deep, talented team in 1979. Bill Madlock came over from the Giants during the year and played very well for the Pirates. Phil Garner split time between 3B and 2B and was very valuable. TIm Foli and Omar Moreno, neither of whom was a great player, had the best seasons of their careers in 1979. Bill Robinson and John Milner were a very effective right/left combination in left field. The pitching staff was very solid with Bert Blyleven, John Candelaria, and Bruce Kison heading up the rotation. Kent Tekulve, Grant Jackson, and Enrique Romo were tremendous out the pen, and Jim Bibby had an outstanding season as a swing man. It was a deep, outstanding squad. However, I'm of the opinion that the best, most important, and most valuable player on the Pirates that year was Dave Parker, and I don't think it's particularly close.
Now, there's no question that Stargell deserved the 2 postseason MVP awards. He was amazing in both of those series (as was Garner). And awards can't (and shouldn't be) undone. But the 1979 regular season award, in retrospect, always feels very odd to me.
#6-Tim Raines
Best category: WAR, WAR7, Win Shares 7, WAA (5th in each)
Worst category: MVP Points (20th)
Rickey Henderson is clearly the consensus as the best leadoff hitter in history. I think if there's a consensus #2, it would be Tim Raines, although I'm sure old-timers would opt for Sliding Billy Hamilton of pre-1900 fame (as opposed to Billy Hamilton version 2.0 of more recent vintage, who was a huge disappointment as a leadoff man). The interesting contrast is that, where as Henderson led off in about 94% of his games, Raines was only around 56%, as he hit out of the #2 and #3 slot quite a bit as well.
As you probably know, it took Tim Raines a while to get elected into the Hall of Fame, starting at around 24% support in his first year and gradually working his way up, making it in on his 10th and final turn on the writers' ballot in 2017.
According to my manual digging, here are the players (since 1970) who appeared on the most BBWAA ballots before getting elected by the writers:
*Includes "run-off" ballots
|
Player
|
Times on Ballot
|
|
Jim Rice
|
15
|
|
Ralph Kiner
|
15*
|
|
Bert Blyleven
|
14
|
|
Bob Lemon
|
14*
|
|
Bruce Sutter
|
13
|
|
Tim Raines
|
10
|
|
Larry Walker
|
10
|
|
Edgar Martinez
|
10
|
|
Don Drysdale
|
10
|
|
Andre Dawson
|
9
|
|
Rich Gossage
|
9
|
|
Tony Perez
|
9
|
|
Hoyt Wilhelm
|
8
|
I'm glad Raines is in, as I think he's a worthy Hall of Famer, but I do tend to get a little perturbed by people who actually get upset that sometimes it takes a while for a candidate to work through the process and be elected. You hear moans about how "his numbers haven't changed since he retired - why is he a Hall of Famer now but wasn't before?", and other such nonsense. Well, there is no exact definition or criteria that makes someone a Hall of Famer. It's only through a consensus of opinion, and even at that it needs to be at the 75% agreement level, which is a fairly demanding level of agreement. I think it's a feature rather than a bug that there is an opportunity for a candidate's case to be reviewed, even over a number of years, before deciding whether or not to induct someone. None of the players listed above is an "obvious" candidate. They're only Hall of Famers if enough voters think they are.
#5-Manny Ramirez
Best category: All Star Games, WAR/162, WAA, Win Shares/162 (4th in each)
Worst category: Games (11th)
Ranking Ramirez as a left fielder vs. a right fielder is basically a coin flip - he played about 100 more games in left field than he did in right.
I'm sure a lot of people would take issue with this ranking, especially given Manny's status as a known user of banned substances, having tested positive twice in 2009 and 2011. I struggle with it too, but I am still of the opinion that Ramirez is one of the greatest hitters that I have ever seen.
Ramirez has been a key figure in some of the greatest offenses we've seen over the last 30 years. Below is a table of the AL teams with the highest runs per game averages since 1990. Ramirez was on 7 of the top 14 (5 Cleveland, 2 Boston):
American League Teams - Most runs scored per game - 1990 to Present
|
Rank
|
Year
|
Team
|
Runs/Game
|
Wins
|
Losses
|
|
1
|
1999
|
CLE
|
6.23
|
97
|
65
|
|
2
|
1996
|
SEA
|
6.17
|
85
|
76
|
|
3
|
2000
|
CHW
|
6.04
|
95
|
67
|
|
4
|
1994
|
CLE
|
6.01
|
66
|
47
|
|
5
|
2007
|
NYY
|
5.98
|
94
|
68
|
|
6
|
1998
|
NYY
|
5.96
|
114
|
48
|
|
7
|
2003
|
BOS
|
5.93
|
95
|
67
|
|
8
|
1994
|
NYY
|
5.93
|
70
|
43
|
|
9
|
1996
|
CLE
|
5.91
|
99
|
62
|
|
10
|
2000
|
OAK
|
5.88
|
91
|
70
|
|
11
|
2004
|
BOS
|
5.86
|
98
|
64
|
|
12
|
2000
|
CLE
|
5.86
|
90
|
72
|
|
13
|
1999
|
TEX
|
5.83
|
95
|
67
|
|
14
|
1995
|
CLE
|
5.83
|
100
|
44
|
|
15
|
2019
|
NYY
|
5.82
|
103
|
59
|
Was some of that the era? Sure. But Manny was still a common denominator on several of the top scoring teams.
Here's a pretty select group of 10 hitters - 150 OPS+ with at least .300/.400/.550 BA/OBP/Slugging (sorted by OPS+):
|
Player
|
PA
|
HR
|
OPS+
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
Babe Ruth
|
10,626
|
714
|
206
|
.342
|
.474
|
.690
|
|
Ted Williams
|
9,792
|
521
|
190
|
.344
|
.482
|
.634
|
|
Lou Gehrig
|
9,665
|
493
|
179
|
.340
|
.447
|
.632
|
|
Mike Trout
|
5,273
|
285
|
176
|
.305
|
.419
|
.581
|
|
Rogers Hornsby
|
9,481
|
301
|
175
|
.358
|
.434
|
.577
|
|
Jimmie Foxx
|
9,677
|
534
|
163
|
.325
|
.428
|
.609
|
|
Stan Musial
|
12,721
|
475
|
159
|
.331
|
.417
|
.559
|
|
Hank Greenberg
|
6,098
|
331
|
158
|
.313
|
.412
|
.605
|
|
Frank Thomas
|
10,075
|
521
|
156
|
.301
|
.419
|
.555
|
|
Manny Ramirez
|
9,774
|
555
|
154
|
.312
|
.411
|
.585
|
If you were to relax the threshold to .500 slugging, that would pull in Mel Ott, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Joe Jackson, Dan Brouthers, Ed Delahanty, and Joey Votto. Again, similar to the Lance Berkman profile, this doesn't imply that Manny was the equal of most of those above him, because he's not, but rather to convey that there aren't that many to reach those thresholds.
Manny was very flawed, of course, even setting aside the poor judgments. He was a terrible defensive player, and he wasn't much on the base paths. But he sure could hit.
#4-Carl Yastrzemski
Best category: All Star Games (1st)
Worst category: Win Shares/162 (13th)
Yaz was also 2nd in games and 3rd in WAR, WAR7, and WAA.
Yaz was actually on the borderline of whether or not I would include him in this review. His career mid-point was 1972, which was pretty close to my 1970 cutoff. In addition, most of his better seasons were in the 1960's, before I started following baseball, including his legendary triple-crown season of 1967. Nevertheless, I did get to witness him for more than a decade, and I decided to include him.
How many players who were primarily left fielders were known for outstanding glove work? Since Gold Gloves do not issue separate awards for each of the 3 outfield positions, they have traditionally been dominated by center fielders and, to a lesser degree, right fielders. Below is a summary of the # of players who have won 4 or more Gold Gloves, grouped by the primary position at which they played:
|
Position
|
Players With 4 or More Gold Gloves
|
|
CF
|
26
|
|
RF
|
9
|
|
LF
|
3
|
The center fielders in that group include the likes of Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter, Paul Blair, Jim Edmonds, Garry Maddox, and Curt Flood, among others. In right field, you have Roberto Clemente, Ichiro Suzuki, Al Kaline, Dwight Evans, and Larry Walker, among others. Andre Dawson won 8 (4 in center, 4 in right). The only 3 left fielders with 4 or more Gold Gloves are Barry Bonds (8), Alex Gordon (7, so far), and Yastrzemski (7). Dave Winfield also won 7, but 5 of his were when he was playing primarily right field. Subjectively, I would go with Yaz as the best defensive left fielder of all time.
Have you ever looked at the all-time single-season leaders in rWAR? Among position players, there have only been 5 players who exceeded 12.0 in a single season. Yaz's legendary 1967 season is one of those 5:
|
Rank
|
Player
|
WAR
|
Year
|
G
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
1
|
Babe Ruth
|
14.1
|
1923
|
152
|
699
|
151
|
205
|
45
|
13
|
41
|
130
|
.393
|
.545
|
.764
|
|
2
|
Babe Ruth
|
12.8
|
1921
|
152
|
693
|
177
|
204
|
44
|
16
|
59
|
168
|
.378
|
.512
|
.846
|
|
3
|
Carl Yastrzemski
|
12.5
|
1967
|
161
|
680
|
112
|
189
|
31
|
4
|
44
|
121
|
.326
|
.418
|
.622
|
|
4
|
Babe Ruth
|
12.5
|
1927
|
151
|
691
|
158
|
192
|
29
|
8
|
60
|
165
|
.356
|
.486
|
.772
|
|
5
|
Rogers Hornsby
|
12.2
|
1924
|
143
|
642
|
121
|
227
|
43
|
14
|
25
|
94
|
.424
|
.507
|
.696
|
Yaz's stats don't look quite as impressive of the others on a superficial level, but most of that is due to the context. The runs per game in the American League in Ruth's 3 seasons of 1923, 1921, and 1927 were 4.78, 5.11, and 4.92, respectively. In the National League in 1924, the figure was 4.54. In 1967, the American League saw an average of only 3.70 runs per team per game, the 3rd lowest since the Dead Ball Era, about 25% lower than Ruth's environments, and about 19% less than Hornsby's.
There's a fun little gadget on baseball-reference.com that takes a player's stats and adjusts them to different eras and context. If you took Yaz's 1967 stats and adjusted them to the American League in 1923 (neutral park), you'd get this line:
|
Year
|
G
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
BB
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
1967
|
153
|
676
|
126
|
201
|
33
|
4
|
47
|
137
|
10
|
96
|
.351
|
.445
|
.670
|
You may have noticed that the tool adjusts games played down to 1953 since it takes the player in the way-back machine to 1923 and its 1954 game context. If you take the adjusted figures and prorate those numbers back to Yaz's 161 games played in 1967, it would produce this line:
|
Year
|
G
|
PA
|
R
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
RBI
|
SB
|
BB
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
|
1967
|
161
|
711
|
133
|
212
|
35
|
4
|
49
|
144
|
11
|
101
|
.351
|
.445
|
.670
|
Some of Yaz's overall WAR total includes a pretty good defensive performance that year. In any case, rWAR does recognize Yaz's legendary 1967 performance as one of the top overall position player performances of all time.
#3-Pete Rose
Best category: Games (1st)
Worst category: WAR/162 (25th)
Rose was also very highly ranked in Win Shares (2nd), All Star Games (2nd), Win Shares 7 (3rd), MVP Points (3rd), WAR (4th) and WAR7 (4th). It's a pretty close battle between Rose and Yaz for the #3 overall ranking, and I only put Rose above Yaz because this is my personal ranking based on what I witnessed, and I think Rose's career from 1970 on was a little better and a little more significant than Yaz's. It is only on that basis that I slid Rose ahead of Yaz. Had I witnessed a little more of Yaz's better years, I'd probably switch them.
Rose, as you probably know, is a bit of a challenge to rank at any one position. He played more games at first base than anywhere else, but most of that occurred over his final 8 seasons, when he wasn't the same quality of player that he had been before. His games played at 3B, 2B, LF, and RF are 634, 628, 673, and 590, respectively, and it's hard to get a much more even distribution than that. I had to pick one, and 3 of his 5 best rWAR seasons (including his MVP year) were as a left fielder, so I went with that. As a side note regarding positions, when Rose put in some time here in Dayton as an amateur player after exhausting his high school eligibility and before he turned pro, his primary positions, in addition to second base, were actually catcher and shortstop. If only the guy could pitch....
So much has been written about Rose, there's probably not much I can add. I can't ever envision him getting into the Hall during his lifetime. I think that ship has sailed. He was a great player, an iconic figure for the Reds, but very flawed. He ran hard, but not fast, wasn't much of a base stealer (57% success rate), he couldn't throw, and he didn't hit many home runs, especially once he got into his 30's. But he battled for every edge he could. He was about as consistent as you could hope for. I remember when he hit "only" .284 in 1974 after 9 straight seasons of .300+, it seemed to my teenage self that my world had been turned upside down. How could that have happened? Of course, he responded with 5 more .300 seasons in a row after that blip.
Cal Ripken and Lou Gehrig have the two most famous consecutive game streaks in history, but Rose displayed an amazing kind of endurance as well. People mocked his insistence on putting himself in the lineup once he took over as player-manager, but that was literally just the last 2 and a quarter years of his career. Even if you eliminate the games where he put himself in the lineup, he's still the all-time games played leader. He never missed any significant time due to injury, and at least through his age 41 season (his final one as an All Star) he averaged 155 games a season. Woody Allen once was quoted as saying that 80% of success in life is just showing up. And if you thought it was impossible to work both Pete Rose and Woody Allen into the same excerpt, well....I guess you were wrong. Not that either one would necessarily want to be connected to the other......
People will remember Rose all kinds of different ways. Many fans loved him and many team mates spoke glowingly of how he helped them (especially the younger players), while at the same time many despised him, even long before he became a pariah. Flawed in so many ways, on and off the field, he was the player I most tried to emulate as a youngster, although, I'm happy to say, I didn't try to emulate his personal attributes. It wasn't hard to emulate him as a player....you just had to hustle, run hard, back up everybody else, dive for everything, be willing to get your uniform dirty, and scrap for every inch.
In the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver", which featured a memorable performance by Edward James Olmos as real-life Los Angeles high school teacher Jaime Escalante, who willed a group of working-class, under-achieving Latino students to excel at Calculus against all odds, I was introduced to a term called "ganas", which is a Spanish word that roughly translates to "motivation sufficient to act", but more generally is used to refer to a "desire to succeed". That's what Rose excelled at most on a baseball field, in my opinion. He displayed an amazing amount of "ganas". I'm not sure what the equivalent term would be that describes displaying a similar degree of self-destructiveness, but he surely had that as well.
#2-Rickey Henderson
Best category: WAR, WAR/162, WAR7, Win Shares/162, Win Shares 7, WAA(2nd in each)
Worst category: MVP Points and All Star Games (5th in each)
Clearly the consensus best leadoff man in history. As is the case with most positions, I struggle when we get to the top of each list in trying to relay something new about the player that perhaps you don't know. What can I tell you about Henderson? Not much.
How about this one? A simple ratio, highest runs scored per game played. Here are the only players since 1970 to have ratios of better than 0.7 runs per game:
|
Player
|
G
|
R
|
R/G
|
|
Barry Bonds
|
2,986
|
2,227
|
0.746
|
|
Rickey Henderson
|
3,081
|
2,295
|
0.745
|
|
Kenny Lofton
|
2,103
|
1,528
|
0.727
|
|
Alex Rodriguez
|
2,784
|
2,021
|
0.726
|
|
Jeff Bagwell
|
2,150
|
1,517
|
0.706
|
|
Derek Jeter
|
2,747
|
1,923
|
0.700
|
OK, that one's kind of lame and uninteresting. You probably could have guessed that.
How about this one? What's the connection between Henderson and Bobo Newsom? They both had a rather fascinating pattern of returning to the same team (or in Newsom's case, teams).
Henderson had 4 separate stints with the Oakland A's over the course of his career. He was drafted by the A's, traded away to the Yankees, traded back to Oakland, (with Eric Plunk going the opposite direction in both trades), then signed as a free agent with the A's, then traded away to the Blue Jays to pick up a quick championship ring, then returned to the A's as a free agent, then after trying a couple of the other California teams for variety (Padres and Angels), signed again as a free agent with the A's again. And then he played for 5 more franchises (another California team, the Dodgers, not to mention another stint with the Padres) even after that. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted just walking through that.
Anyway, Newsom's career had a lot of those same elements, particularly involving the Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns, who seemed to be playing a game of "it's your turn to take him". Newsom had 3 different tours of duty with the Browns and 5 with the Senators, not to mention multiple stops with the Athletics and the Dodgers. In all, Newsom played with 9 different franchises (the same as Henderson).
Slightly off topic, since this is under Henderson's profile, but a certain part of me would love it if Newsom were to ever make the Hall of Fame. OK, maybe not Cooperstown....but he certainly needs to make some kind of "Hall of Something" for the fascinating career that he had. To paraphrase an old saying, it takes a pretty good pitcher to lead the league in losses, and Bobo did so 4 times (he also won 20 games three seasons in a row). I don't know whose "Transactions" section on baseball-reference.com is more interesting, Newsom's or Henderson's. I suggest you look over both of them sometime just for fun. But be sure you're in a comfortable chair when you do so.
#1-Barry Bonds
Best category: Pretty much all of 'em. He's first in everything except All Star Games and Games .
Worst category: Games (4th)
Love him or hate him, I don't see any other player who can reasonably be listed #1 at this position.
Again, what can I tell you about Bonds that you don't already know? Well, how about something I didn't know?
I didn't know that Bonds and Bo Jackson, two of the most amazing athletes of the past half century (each in his own way), along with Barry Larkin, one of the greatest shortstops ever, all have something in common. They were all selected in the 2nd round of the 1982 amateur draft out of high school, but none of the 3 signed. Bonds was selected with the 11th pick of the 2nd round by the Giants, and then Jackson and Larkin went back to back with the 22nd and 23rd selections of the 2nd round by the Yankees and the Reds, respectively.
They all went on to great success at college - Bonds at Arizona State, Jackson at Auburn (both baseball and football), and Larkin at Michigan, and then were all redrafted in 1985 - Larkin going 1st round/4th pick to the Reds, Bonds going 1st round/6th pick to the Pirates, and Jackson lasting until the 20th round when the Angels selected him (at that point, I believe the consensus was that Jackson's future was much more likely to be on the gridiron than the diamond). Bonds and Larkin signed, but Jackson didn't. Jackson was then selected for a third time in the draft in 1986, this time going to the Royals in the 4th round.
Top 25 Left Fielders of the Past 50 Years - Ranking/Points
|
Rank
|
Name
|
From
|
To
|
Points
|
|
1
|
Barry Bonds
|
1986
|
2007
|
95.1
|
|
2
|
Rickey Henderson
|
1979
|
2003
|
64.8
|
|
3
|
Pete Rose
|
1963
|
1986
|
57.9
|
|
4
|
Carl Yastrzemski
|
1961
|
1983
|
57.2
|
|
5
|
Manny Ramirez
|
1993
|
2011
|
47.7
|
|
6
|
Tim Raines
|
1979
|
2002
|
47.1
|
|
7
|
Willie Stargell
|
1962
|
1982
|
43.3
|
|
8
|
Jim Rice
|
1974
|
1989
|
43.2
|
|
9
|
Lance Berkman
|
1999
|
2013
|
43.1
|
|
10
|
George Foster
|
1969
|
1986
|
40.9
|
|
11
|
Lou Brock
|
1961
|
1979
|
40.9
|
|
12
|
Albert Belle
|
1989
|
2000
|
40.9
|
|
13
|
Jose Cruz
|
1970
|
1988
|
40.8
|
|
14
|
Moises Alou
|
1990
|
2008
|
40.8
|
|
15
|
Ryan Braun
|
2007
|
2019
|
40.8
|
|
16
|
Luis Gonzalez
|
1990
|
2008
|
40.6
|
|
17
|
Christian Yelich
|
2013
|
2019
|
37.2
|
|
18
|
Matt Holliday
|
2004
|
2018
|
37.0
|
|
19
|
Roy White
|
1965
|
1979
|
36.8
|
|
20
|
Carl Crawford
|
2002
|
2016
|
34.8
|
|
21
|
Justin Upton
|
2007
|
2019
|
32.7
|
|
22
|
Alfonso Soriano
|
1999
|
2014
|
32.5
|
|
23
|
Ron Gant
|
1987
|
2003
|
32.2
|
|
24
|
Lonnie Smith
|
1978
|
1994
|
32.1
|
|
25
|
Dusty Baker
|
1968
|
1986
|
31.9
|
Distribution of the top 25 by decade (using career mid-point):
|
Decade
|
Total
|
|
1970s
|
8
|
|
1980s
|
2
|
|
1990s
|
7
|
|
2000s
|
4
|
|
2010s
|
4
|
|
Grand Total
|
25
|
One of the issues with a simple summary table like the one above is that it uses the career mid-point of a player, but that can be misleading. The only 2 "1980s" left fielders according to this are Lonnie Smith and Jim Rice, but the 2 best left fielders of that decade were actually Rickey Henderson and Tim Raines. However, Henderson and Raines both had career mid-points in the early 1990's, and so they are classified in that decade, even though their best years were in the decade before. If they hadn't played quite so long, they would have been classified as 80's rather than 90's, and that would even those two decades out some. But, no summary table like this is perfect.
In the first article (which also had the catcher rankings), a reader requested #26-50 as well (without commentary), so I've been including those as well, with the caveat that these are unadjusted rankings at this point, strictly based on how everyone outside of the top 25 did based on the raw methodology. So, no subjective adjustments on my part. Also note that any active players are very volatile and fluid in how they fare in the various categories, and the ones who are not at the ends of their careers will likely change considerably in the years ahead.
|
Rank
|
Name
|
From
|
To
|
Points
|
|
26
|
Kevin Mitchell
|
1984
|
1998
|
31.1
|
|
27
|
Greg Vaughn
|
1989
|
2003
|
30.8
|
|
28
|
Gary Matthews
|
1972
|
1987
|
30.5
|
|
29
|
Kevin McReynolds
|
1983
|
1994
|
30.0
|
|
30
|
Joe Rudi
|
1967
|
1982
|
29.9
|
|
31
|
Rico Carty
|
1963
|
1979
|
29.7
|
|
32
|
Garret Anderson
|
1994
|
2010
|
29.5
|
|
33
|
Carlos Lee
|
1999
|
2012
|
29.5
|
|
34
|
Alex Gordon
|
2007
|
2019
|
29.4
|
|
35
|
Brett Gardner
|
2008
|
2019
|
29.1
|
|
36
|
Mike Greenwell
|
1985
|
1996
|
28.5
|
|
37
|
George Bell
|
1981
|
1993
|
28.1
|
|
38
|
B. J. Surhoff
|
1987
|
2005
|
27.8
|
|
39
|
Jason Bay
|
2003
|
2013
|
27.8
|
|
40
|
Greg Luzinski
|
1970
|
1984
|
27.7
|
|
41
|
Larry Hisle
|
1968
|
1982
|
27.4
|
|
42
|
Michael Brantley
|
2009
|
2019
|
27.3
|
|
43
|
Ben Oglivie
|
1971
|
1986
|
27.3
|
|
44
|
Starling Marte
|
2012
|
2019
|
27.2
|
|
45
|
Yoenis Cespedes
|
2012
|
2018
|
27.1
|
|
46
|
Cliff Floyd
|
1993
|
2009
|
26.8
|
|
47
|
Willie Horton
|
1963
|
1980
|
26.2
|
|
48
|
Geoff Jenkins
|
1998
|
2008
|
26.0
|
|
49
|
Shannon Stewart
|
1995
|
2008
|
25.8
|
|
50
|
Bernard Gilkey
|
1990
|
2001
|
25.7
|
Next up, a few days down the road (hopefully) : right fielders
Thanks for reading.
Dan