skyking162

I’ve previously established that Lou Whitaker is no Joe Morgan (who in turn is no Willie Mays). But how does Sweet Lou stack up against the rest of the best second basemen of the past fifty years? I ran the numbers on eight other players who are either already in the Hall of Fame, rate highly in career OPS+, or rate highly in career fielding runs. Those players are Rod Carew, Bill Mazeroski, Willie Randolph, Roberto Alomar, Ryne Sandberg, Jeff Kent, Bobby Grich, and Craig Biggio. (I’m shocked at how few modern second basemen are in the Hall.)

I may be blowing the surprise, but here’s the graph of all ten players’ careers, each with their seasonal wins above replacement sorted from best to worst. (Here’s a full screen version.)

The first thing I noticed is that Bill Mazeroski does not belong in the Hall of Fame based on career value, and it’s not even close. Sure, his fielding is reputed to be among the best ever, but his bat was so bad that he only had one season where he contributed significantly more than an average player. Yes, fielding is underrated, but it’s difficult to make a case for enshrinement with a career .299 OBP and .367 SLG. Maz deserves his own display for his Game 7 walk-off homerun in the 1960 World Series. But a plaque? No way.

Maz	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1956	277	-1.2	0.0	0.0	-0.3
1957	568	-0.4	0.3	0.0	1.7
1958	607	-0.4	2.1	0.0	3.6
1959	537	-2.5	-0.6	0.0	-1.4
1960	591	-0.5	-0.1	0.0	1.2
1961	595	-1.8	0.0	0.0	0.0
1962	617	-0.6	0.0	0.0	1.3
1963	576	-1.6	1.9	0.0	2.1
1964	644	-0.9	1.2	0.0	2.3
1965	527	-1.4	1.6	0.0	1.9
1966	660	-0.9	0.1	0.0	1.3
1967	679	-1.6	0.7	0.0	1.2
1968	556	-0.8	1.3	0.0	2.2
1969	256	-0.8	-0.6	0.0	-0.6
1970	404	-1.8	0.9	0.0	0.4
1971	213	-0.8	0.1	0.0	0.0
1972	72	-0.6	-0.5	0.0	-0.9

Rod Carew and Ryne Sandberg posted the two best seasons behind Joe Morgan’s 9+ win year. For Carew it was 1977, when he put up a .388/.449/.570 line thanks to 38 doubles, 16 triples, 14 homeruns, 239 total hits and 69 walks. For Sandberg, it was 1992, thanks to a typical .304/.371/.510 line and a career-best 21 runs above average in the field.

Looking at the rest of their careers, Carew was much more consistent and held on much longer after his peak. His career .393 OBP in .327 OBP leagues is amazing and provided most of his offensive value given that he hit only 92 career homeruns. Carew put up 67 career wins above replacement and had eight All-Star caliber years. On the other hand, Sandberg had only six seasons where he was even above average, totaling 52 career wins above replacement. By his seventh-best season, he no longer can be compared even to Willie Randolph.

Carew	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1967	561	0.9	0.0	0.0	2.6
1968	492	-0.4	-0.3	0.0	0.8
1969	504	2.2	0.6	0.0	4.4
1970	204	1.3	0.0	0.0	1.9
1971	632	0.4	-1.4	0.0	0.9
1972	591	1.4	0.5	0.0	3.8
1973	657	3.6	0.0	0.0	5.6
1974	690	4.4	-1.2	0.0	5.3
1975	617	4.4	0.5	-0.1	6.7
1976	687	4.0	1.3	-1.1	6.3
1977	694	6.6	0.4	-1.1	8.1
1978	651	3.3	-0.1	-1.0	4.2
1979	493	1.8	-0.3	-0.8	2.2
1980	612	2.6	-0.1	-0.9	3.4
1981	421	1.1	1.0	-0.6	2.7
1982	612	1.8	2.2	-0.9	5.0
1983	536	2.1	-0.7	-0.8	2.2
1984	378	0.2	0.1	-0.6	0.9
1985	518	0.2	-0.9	-0.8	0.1

RyneS	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1981	6	-0.1	0.0	0.0	-0.1
1982	687	-1.0	0.6	0.0	1.7
1983	699	-1.7	1.3	0.0	1.7
1984	700	3.2	1.8	0.0	7.1
1985	673	2.6	-0.2	0.0	4.4
1986	682	-0.3	0.2	0.0	2.0
1987	587	0.9	-1.3	0.0	1.4
1988	679	0.4	-0.5	0.0	2.0
1989	672	2.7	-0.8	0.0	3.9
1990	675	3.2	0.4	0.0	5.6
1991	684	3.4	1.5	0.0	7.0
1992	687	3.8	2.6	0.0	8.5
1993	503	0.6	0.1	0.0	2.3
1994	247	-0.6	0.7	0.0	0.9
1996	621	-0.5	0.6	0.0	2.0
1997	480	-1.2	1.0	0.0	1.3

Speaking of Willie Randolph, he’s probably the second-worst player to make the graph, but considering his name never pops up in Hall of Fame discussions, I might have to consider him underrated. Willie was basically a league-average hitter, with one very good season in 1980 with 119 walks and a .294/.427/.407 line. His strength was in the field where he tallied 52 career runs saved, including a season at +19 and two at +11. He’s probably not Hall of Fame material, but are there any second basemen better than him over the past fifty years other than the eight on the graph? That’s worth celebrating.

Willie	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1975	70	-0.7	0.1	0.0	-0.4
1976	500	0.4	2.4	0.0	4.3
1977	624	0.3	1.0	0.0	3.2
1978	596	1.3	1.3	0.0	4.5
1979	682	0.6	1.2	0.0	3.9
1980	642	3.1	0.0	0.0	5.1
1981	422	-0.3	0.0	0.0	1.0
1982	643	0.4	-1.5	0.0	0.9
1983	477	0.3	0.5	0.0	2.2
1984	664	1.0	-0.6	0.0	2.5
1985	597	0.9	0.7	0.0	3.4
1986	601	0.9	-0.3	0.0	2.4
1987	543	1.8	0.5	0.0	4.0
1988	474	-1.0	0.7	0.0	1.2
1989	633	0.4	-0.5	0.0	1.9
1990	446	-0.5	0.6	0.0	1.5
1991	512	2.0	0.1	0.0	3.7
1992	336	-0.1	-0.2	0.0	0.7

The best player left to talk about is Bobby Grich, who, to be honest, I hadn’t heard of until three weeks ago. Grich played for the Orioles and Angels, and made up for his mediocre career batting average (.266) with some power (591 XBHs in only 6890 career at-bats) and a lot of walks (1087). His career 125 OPS+ ranks eighth all time for second basemen with at least 3000 career plate appearances, ahead of everyone on this list except Joe Morgan. He could play defense, too, with 79 career runs prevented. While Grich didn’t have the longest career and missed parts of many seasons, he was an excellent player when in the lineup.

Grich	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1970	104	-0.7	0.5	0.0	0.1
1971	35	0.1	0.4	0.0	0.6
1972	528	1.9	1.2	0.2	5.0
1973	700	1.7	3.0	0.0	6.8
1974	707	3.3	0.6	0.0	6.1
1975	655	2.8	1.9	0.0	6.7
1976	615	3.0	0.0	0.0	4.9
1977	225	0.5	0.2	0.2	1.6
1978	591	0.3	1.0	0.0	3.1
1979	609	3.1	0.0	0.0	5.0
1980	596	1.7	0.7	0.0	4.2
1981	404	2.9	0.6	0.0	4.8
1982	605	2.0	0.0	0.0	3.9
1983	477	2.7	-0.5	0.0	3.7
1984	432	1.3	-1.2	-0.2	1.3
1985	571	0.2	0.8	-0.2	2.6
1986	366	0.5	0.3	-0.1	1.9

We’re now down to Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio, and Jeff Kent, three players with extremely similar careers. Biggio’s turquoise line lies mostly above the other two, although he has more below-average seasons. As a player we’ve all watched, there’s not much I can add, other than emphasize that his bat made up for a pretty poor glove (-53 career runs after moving out from behind the plate.) Bill James once called Biggio the best player of the 1990s and those ten years definitely were his peak, averaging 4.7 wins above replacement.

Biggio	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1988	131	-0.5		0.2	0.1
1989	509	0.9		0.9	3.4
1990	621	-0.4		1.0	2.5
1991	609	1.1	-0.2	1.4	4.1
1992	721	2.1	-1.3	0.0	3.0
1993	706	2.7	1.0	0.0	5.9
1994	511	2.7	-0.6	0.0	3.7
1995	673	3.7	-0.7	0.0	5.0
1996	723	2.2	-0.7	0.0	3.7
1997	744	4.3	0.9	0.0	7.5
1998	738	3.8	0.6	0.0	6.7
1999	749	1.6	0.7	0.0	4.6
2000	466	-0.2	-0.2	0.0	1.0
2001	717	1.1	-2.2	0.0	1.1
2002	655	-1.1	-0.3	0.0	0.6
2003	717	-0.2	-0.7	0.6	1.8
2004	700	0.3	-0.8	-0.1	1.5
2005	651	0.2	-0.6	0.0	1.6
2006	607	-1.3	0.5	0.0	1.1
2007	555	-2.2	-0.9	0.0	-1.4

Alomar’s best season trumps Kent’s, but Kent has the advantage from years three to five. Past that, there’s no difference. They were equally talented offensively, with Kent’s strength coming from his power and Alomar making up that gap with a small on-base advantage and the ability to steal bases at a high rate. They were also equally poor in the field.

Alomar	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1988	611	0.3	0.4	0.0	2.5
1989	702	0.7	-0.5	0.0	2.4
1990	646	-0.2	1.3	0.0	3.1
1991	719	1.2	0.6	0.0	4.0
1992	671	2.6	-0.2	0.0	4.4
1993	683	3.5	-1.6	0.0	4.0
1994	455	1.0	-1.4	0.0	1.0
1995	577	0.6	-0.5	0.0	1.9
1996	699	3.3	0.4	0.0	5.8
1997	469	2.0	-0.4	0.0	3.0
1998	657	0.1	0.9	0.0	3.1
1999	694	3.5	1.3	0.0	7.0
2000	697	1.3	0.1	0.0	3.5
2001	677	4.2	-1.1	0.0	5.1
2002	655	-1.0	-0.5	0.0	0.5
2003	598	-1.3	-2.1	0.0	-1.6
2004	190	-0.5	-1.2	-0.1	-1.2

Kent	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1992	343	0.2	-0.6	0.0	0.6
1993	544	0.1	-1.5	0.0	0.3
1994	452	0.6	0.9	0.0	2.9
1995	514	0.5	0.5	0.0	2.6
1996	477	0.1	-0.6	-0.1	0.8
1997	651	0.4	0.4	0.0	2.8
1998	594	3.1	0.3	0.0	5.2
1999	585	1.9	0.0	0.0	3.7
2000	695	5.4	-1.8	-0.1	5.7
2001	696	2.9	0.7	-0.2	5.6
2002	682	3.9	-0.4	0.0	5.6
2003	552	1.3	-0.7	0.0	2.3
2004	606	1.6	0.2	0.0	3.7
2005	637	2.7	0.2	0.0	4.9
2006	473	1.3	-0.9	0.0	1.8
2007	562	1.6	-0.3	0.0	3.0

How about one more table, comparing the number of seasons each second basemen produced above certain thresholds: 8 wins (serious MVP candidate), 6 wins (superstar), 4 wins (all-star), and 2 wins (league average). The list is sorted by career wins above replacement.

Player		WAR	8+	6+	4+	2+	<2
Morgan		84.0	3	2	5	7	5
Carew		67.2	1	2	5	6	5
Whitaker	66.0	0	2	4	10	3
Grich		62.2	0	3	6	3	5
Biggio		57.7	0	3	3	5	9
Sandberg	51.9	1	2	3	4	6
Kent		51.5	0	0	5	7	4
Alomar		48.5	0	1	5	7	5
Randolph	46.0	0	0	5	7	6
Mazeroski	15.7	0	0	0	5	12

Here’s how I would rank all ten players. I don’t think players should be voted into the Hall of Fame judged solely against their positional peers, but Cooperstown does seem large enough to include 6-8 second basemen from the past 50 years. That would make fans of everyone above Willie Randolph extremely happy. What do you think? Did I forget to include anyone important?

Morgan
Carew/Grich
Biggio/Whitaker/Sandberg
Alomar/Kent
Randolph
Mazeroski

Popularity: 11% [?]

After showing that Joe Morgan’s career dwarfs those of Alan Trammel, Lou Whitaker, and Ozzie Smith — all great players in their own right — I wanted to find a player who could put Joe Morgan to shame. I wanted to see what the career would like like for a player who could make a claim to being the greatest of all time.

One limitation is that the fielding data I’m using only goes back to 1956. Therefore I’m ignoring the likes of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Ted Williams. (There’s also the issue of league-quality the farther back you go.) After running through the careers of Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds (pre-2000), Rickey Henderson, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, and a bunch of other guys, Willie Mays came out on top. Take a look at his career graphically, then I’ll point out some of the absurd numbers.

(Each player’s seasonal Wins Above Replacement are sorted in decreasing order from best to worst.)

You just can’t compare those maroon X’s to the other shapes and colors. Joe Morgan had a much better career than Trammel and Whitaker, but looks silly next to Willie Mays. Mays had four seasons better than Morgan’s best, and eleven seasons better than Morgan’s second-best. Mays had fourteen seasons better than Trammel’s best effort and fifteen better than Whitaker’s best. Mays’ career total of 146 wins above replacement is almost two times what Morgan tallied and three times what Trammel contributed. Mays played the same number of seasons as Morgan, two more than Trammel, and three more than Whitaker.

Where does all the value come from? Everywhere:

Year	PAs	Bat	Field	Pos	WAR
1951	524	1.3		0.4	3.3
1952	144	0.0		0.1	0.6
1954	640	5.8		0.5	8.3
1955	670	5.8		0.5	8.4
1956	650	3.7	0.9	0.5	7.1
1957	668	5.9	-0.2	0.5	8.2
1958	685	5.5	1.2	0.5	9.3
1959	648	4.4	0.5	0.5	7.3
1960	669	4.8	0.8	0.5	8.2
1961	659	4.8	1.0	0.5	8.3
1962	706	5.5	2.2	0.5	10.5
1963	671	6.0	1.4	0.5	10.0
1964	665	5.7	1.5	0.5	9.7
1965	638	6.4	1.4	0.5	10.2
1966	629	3.8	1.9	0.5	8.1
1967	544	1.6	0.5	0.4	4.2
1968	573	3.9	0.1	0.4	6.3
1969	459	1.4	0.0	0.4	3.2
1970	566	2.8	-0.3	0.4	4.6
1971	537	4.1	0.9	0.4	7.1
1972	309	1.4	-0.1	0.2	2.5
1973	239	-0.5	0.5	0.2	0.9

Willie Mays was a monster with the bat, with two seasons at least than six wins better than average, six more better than five wins above average, and four more better than four wins above average. His career batting line was .302/.384/.557 in leagues that averaged .264/.330/.401. His peak seasons were more like .330/.410/.650. He also hit 660 career homeruns in case you’d forgotten.

Mays played his entire career in center field, making his hitting accomplishments that much more valuable to his teams. And his terrific range in center field is not only legendary, but supported by the numbers. He had six seasons at least ten runs better than average, and that’s without considering the equivalent of three full seasons before we have data. If Mays had been a first baseman with an average glove, his seasons would have been between two and two and a half wins less valuable, on average.

This analysis doesn’t even include Mays’ throwing arm or baserunning skills other than stolen bases. I have no reason to believe he wasn’t a monster in those categories as well. You just don’t find baseball players better than Willie Mays. He’s the standard you use when you want to make someone else’s career look trivial.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve dissected the careers of two pairs of famously joined middle infielders — first Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker, then Ozzie Smith and Mark Belanger. Everyone except Belanger provided surprisingly similar career value, right at the point where most people make the cut-off for Hall of Fame election. As a comparison, and as a way to honor Fire Joe Morgan’s recent Scooby-Doo moment, here’s what the career of an all-time great, sure-fire Hall of Fame second baseman looks like.

The stathead cliche about Joe Morgan is that he himself doesn’t understand what made him a terrific player. His career batting average of .271 is pedestrian, he only hit 268 career homers with a seasonal high of 27, and he posted a 100 RBI season only once in 22 years.

But if you look at the new age stats, made famous in Billy Beane’s book Moneyball (available at your local library), the greatness comes to light:

• eight seasons with 100 walks and eight more with at least 80
• led the league in OBP four times and was second three times
• 689 stolen bases at an 81% success rate
• a career 132 OPS+
• a glove that was above-average through his peak years

Morgan’s best five consecutive seasons were from 1972 through 1976, when he posted at least 4.5 batting wins above average each season, topping off at 6.3 in his second consecutive MVP season in 1976. He finished in the top ten of MVP voting each of the first three seasons of that stretch as well. His typical AVG/OBP/SLG batting line was something like .300/.430/.500, good for a 165 OPS+, and he averaged +6 runs in the field per season.

Hell, here’s every season Morgan spent in the majors. (I’m giving Morgan no positional adjustment, like with second basemen in today’s game, but there might be an argument for giving pre-1980 second basemen a bonus. I just haven’t seen enough discussion of the topic.)

Year	PAs	Bat	Field	WAR
1963	30	0	-0.1	0.0
1964	43	-0.3	0.0	-0.2
1965	708	2.9	0.0	5.1
1966	528	2.5	-0.4	3.7
1967	580	2.4	-0.5	3.7
1968	27	0.2	-0.3	0.0
1969	657	1.2	-1.1	2.1
1970	658	1.5	-1.2	2.4
1971	689	1.6	1.4	5.1
1972	680	4.5	0.9	7.5
1973	698	4.8	1.1	8.0
1974	641	4.8	0.5	7.3
1975	639	5.8	1.5	9.3
1976	599	6.3	-0.2	7.9
1977	645	3.3	-1.2	4.1
1978	533	0.7	-1.2	1.1
1979	538	1	-0.7	2.0
1980	562	1.5	0.8	4.0
1981	378	1	-0.2	1.9
1982	554	2.7	0.3	4.7
1983	504	1.4	0.0	3.0
1984	438	0.6	-0.6	1.4

Outside of Morgan’s best five seasons, his career looks similar to Whitaker’s, Trammell’s, and Ozzie’s, a testament of the longevity of all four players. But those five seasons all dwarfed anything put up by the other three. In fact, Morgan’s 1976 was more valuable than ARod’s 2007. Morgan totalled 84 career wins above replacement, well ahead of Whitaker’s 66, Ozzie’s 59, or Trammell’s 55. For a low-average, no-power middle infielder, he sure knew how to play baseball.



By the way, did you know that Joe’s middle name is Leonard?

Popularity: 13% [?]

In lieu of reading a 49-page pdf, might I offer the following graph of Roger Clemens’ career performance. The blue points are Clemen’s seasonal runs above replacement totals, adjusted to a league-average 4.50 ERA environment. I used 5.75 as replacement-level ERA for his years in the AL and 5.25 for his NL seasons because of the talent difference. One reason to use runs above replacement instead of simply ERA is that it’s harder to maintain a low ERA over more innings.

The red points represent a smoothing of the original data, weighting the current season 40%, the neighboring seasons 20% each, and the seasons two years away at 10% each. The black curve is the best fit second-degree polynomial.

The black curve of best fit shows a reasonable career path, peaking at age 30. Clemens posted many excellent ERAs in his late thirties and early forties, but his lower innings pitched totals made those seasons less valuable. Clemens only had one truly excellent season out of nine after his back-to-back Cy Young seasons with Toronto. And his second Cy Young season is remarkably similar to his last season with Boston. Yes, his ERA was lower, but the league ERA much lower as well. Sure, there haven’t been many pitchers to be so successful for so long, but there have been some and there haven’t been many pitchers to be so successful for their first ten years in the majors, either.

My point isn’t to defend Clemens — maybe he used PEDs and they had zero effect, or maybe they slowed his descent from star to has-been — but his career path isn’t crazy considering how great he came out of the gate. And this post saves you from reading the whole Clemens Report, which says exactly the same thing.

Popularity: 7% [?]

In an earlier look at some historical fielding stats, I posted the following information about Ozzie Smith and Mark Belanger, the two best fielding shortstops of the past fifty years, and concluded that both players provided similar fielding value to their teams throughout their careers. Belanger did it with a higher peak and Ozzie did it with a longer peak. Of course, you could consider their entire careers one long mountain range of fielding peaks.

                     Ozzie Smith           Mark Belanger
Best Single Season   +24 (1980, 88-90)     +34 (1975)
Best Three Seasons   +72  (24, 24, 24)     +88 (34, 27, 27)
Best Consec Five     +20.4 (1988 - 1992)   +26.2 (1974 - 1978)
Best Dozen Seasons   +19.1 (low: +13)      +20.1 (low: +8)
Career Total         +268 (#1)             +254  (#2)

There’s an easier way to make the same point, however. I simply sorted each of their fielding totals from best to worst and plotted their corresponding seasons.

Combined, these two players had ten seasons saving at least 25 runs above average, nineteen seasons saving at least 15 runs above average, and only once in 36 seasons was one of them worse than average. Adding to Belanger’s impressive totals is the fact that he played in 500 fewer games than Ozzie.

While Belanger and Ozzie had very similar careers with the glove, only one of them is in the Hall of Fame. Looking at their performances with the bat, it’s no wonder why. Ozzie’s career line is .262/.337/.328 (AVG/OBP/SLG) which translates to an 87 OPS+. Belanger has a career line of .228/.300/.280, good for a 68 OPS+. The fact that two players with such awful slugging percentages could play for almost 20 years is amazing, but Belanger is a huge step behind Ozzie with the bat. Baseball-Reference’s batting wins stat shows this comparison on a yearly basis, sorted from best to worst:

Combining offense with defense should give the complete picture of these two players’ career value:

Other than their top seasons coming out equal, Ozzie outpaces Belanger by a win and a half per season through their top nine seasons. Beyond that, Belanger was a replacement level player while Ozzie maintained a steady decline.

Finally, let’s see how these two fielding gods compare with Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker, two other players who share a common bond and who I recently wrote about.

What’s surprising is that Ozzie really isn’t any better than the Tiger’s double play duo. Ozzie’s seasons all fall between Trammell’s and Whitaker’s, except for his best two, which are lower than both the other guys’. Yet Ozzie’s the one in the Hall of Fame. There must be more to making the Hall than simply accumulating a lot of career value — a statement that is perhaps more obvious than it should be. Evidently fact that Ozzie could be considered the best fielder ever counts for more than just on-field value. I won’t pass judgment on that, but I think it’s important to realize Ozzie Smith provided similar value to Trammell and Whitaker. All four players, including Belanger, deserve celebration.

Popularity: 10% [?]