(But One of them Horribly Overrated)

            Dick McAuliffe and Bobby Richardson shared a position (second base), a league (American), a time period (1960s) and part of a name, Richard.   Richard comes from an Old German word, ricard, meaning Brave or Powerful, although nowadays the term "dick" has other meanings and other connotations. 

            Before I get into this, I see now that there is an obvious solution to the Steve Garvey problem that I discussed yesterday.   The process outlined before to figure the player’s Hall of Fame Equivalency score (under certain conditions) was to multiply his highest vote percentage in the BBWAA voting by 150, and add that to 150.   This created problems, which I discussed in yesterday’s article and won’t repeat here.  But the obvious solution is, I need to multiply it not by 150, but by 200.   If we multiply it by 200, then a player who gets to 74% in the BBWAA vote would score at 298 in the Hall of Fame equivalency score, and would step naturally over the 300 line if he gets to 75%.  This eliminates the "Dead Zone" discussed yesterday, and thus eliminates one-half of the problem, and reduces the other half of it.   Regarding Garvey, this adjustment changes his Overrated/Underrated Score from 190-37 to 190-32 (.856).   Regarding Cey, it does not change his score. 

            OK, Richard McAuliffe and Bobby Dickson.   McAuliffe earned 241 Win Shares in his career, and 37.6 WAR.  Richardson had 120 Win Shares in his career, and 8.1 WAR.  Despite this, Richardson played in eight All Star Games, whereas McAuliffe played in only 3, and Richardson did better both in MVP voting, while he was active, and in Hall of Fame voting, after he retired.  It thus is apparent that the two men were not being judged on an even scale:

            McAuliffe has an Overrated/Underrated score of 7-93, for a Perception Deficit Score of .070, while Richardson has an Over/Under of 115-21, for a Perception Deficit Score of .846.  

            Actually, Richardson’s score would be worse than it is except for a couple of obscure codicils in the rules for this.  For one thing, Richardson was named to the All Star team in 1957 when he had only four—FOUR—Win Shares and 0.2 WAR.  This would count as a 16-point overrated entry, except that he didn’t actually play in the game, and I only count the overrated points if the player actually PLAYS in the All Star game, rather than simply being named to the team.

            Something that I never realized until about two months ago is that Casey Stengel in the second half of the 1950s would load up the All Star team with a bunch of obviously undeserving Yankees.  I remember Lasorda doing that when he had the chance, which was one of the reasons that they took that responsibility away from the managers, but Stengel was terrible about it.  He would add to the All Star team three or four players every year who were not even regulars, hardly even semi-regulars, from his team, guys like Richardson, Billy Martin, Norm Siebern,  Elston Howard,  Moose Skowron.  Skowron and Howard were very good players, but they weren’t actually regulars with the Yankees at that time; they each made several All Star teams before they broke into the Yankee lineup.   Elston Howard in 1957 hit .253 with 8 homers, 44 RBI as a backup outfielder, but made the All Star team.  In 1959 he played in 107 games and hit .245 with 6 homers, 45 RBI, but made the All Star team. 

            So anyway, the fact that he didn’t actually play in the game saved Richardson 16 overrated points for 1957.  Also, Richardson played in 36 World Series games, against an expectation of 6.  He would be +30 there, except that I limited that category so that no player would be more than +20.   These quibbles saved Richardson 26 points, without which he would score at 141-21, or .870. 

            In 1968 Dick McAuliffe led the league in Runs Scored (95) and was among the league leaders in Walks (82), and Triples (10), and also became the first American League player ever to go through the season, as a regular, without grounding into a double play.   He had 28 Win Shares, a near-MVP number; 36 players in history have won the Most Valuable Player Award with 28 Win Shares or fewer—28, not counting 2020; I guess it would be 30 now.   But McAuliffe, with 28 Win Shares, did not make the All Star team.  The two second basemen on the team were Rod Carew, with 13 Win Shares, and Davey Johnson, with 16.  This was before Carew had ever hit .300; he hit .273 that year, with 1 homer and 42 RBI.  McAuliffe had almost as many Win Shares as the two All-Star second basemen combined. 

            And Dick McAuliffe’s 7-93 score would actually be 4-93, except for a little quirk there, too.  In 1965 McAuliffe played in the All Star game although he had only 17 Win Shares.  McAuliffe was having his ordinary season, on target for 22-25 Win Shares, until he broke his hand on August 20, and missed the rest of the season.  He thus had fewer Win Shares (17) than an All-Star should have (20), and is charged with 3 overrated points for that.

            But I think it has to be that way, and the reason why is:  Joaquin Andujar and JR Richard.  Andujar and JR were teammates with the Astros from 1976 to 1980, five seasons.   Andujar was a very mediocre pitcher at that time, with won- lost records of 9-10, 11-8, 5-7, 12-12 and 3-8, and ERAs of 3.60, 3.69, 3.42, 3.43 and 3.91.  In those years he never struck out more than 77 batters in a season (!), and he walked more than he struck out in three of the five seasons. 

            JR Richard, on the other hand, was one of the best pitchers in baseball, if not the best, going 20-15, 18-12, 18-11, 18-13 and 10-4 in 1980, his 1980 season—and his career—ending in 1980 less than a week after the All Star game, when he had a stroke on the mound.  He struck out over 200 batters in 1976 and 1977, and over 300 in 1978 and 1979, leading the league both seasons.  He had ERAs of 2.75, 2.97, 3.11, 2.71 and 1.90, also leading the league in ERA in 1979. 

            In spite of the massive difference between them, Andujar made the All Star team in 1977 and 1979, while JR never made an All Star team until just before his stroke in July, 1980.   The reason is, Andujar had a couple of hot starts, while Richard was always a slow starter.  Through July 4, 1977, Andujar was 9-4 with a 3.21 ERA; through July 4, 1979, he was 10-4 with a 2.63 ERA.   Richard in his career was 26-32 in May and June, but 46-20 in August and September.   People overreacted to early-season success, and put Andujar on the All-Star team—twice—when he was obviously NOT the best pitcher on the staff. 

            My point is, I don’t think we want to throw that out the window when evaluating the question of who was overrated and who was underrated.  We use a broad-based system to evaluate who is overrated or under; it can withstand a little garbage in the system.  It is better than throwing away information that is instructive in a case like Andujar and Richard. 

            Those who are skeptical of this approach could/will point out that (a) Richardson’s teams won many more ballgames than McAuliffe’s teams, and (b) Richardson was a Gold Glove second baseman, five years, while McAuliffe was not.  In my view, Richardson’s teams won because of Mantle and Maris and Ford and the catchers, and won more despite Richardson than because of him, and Richardson’s Gold Gloves, for all I know, may have been a result of his having been overrated.  I don’t believe any of that, but I wanted to say anyway that we should leave an opening in our minds for the possibility that that may be true. 

            Thanks for reading.  Happy New Year.