Baseball: Past and Present

Today marks the dawn of a new era. Like many baseball bloggers, I have decided to do a link out post. Big stuff, I know. Some popular writers like Rob Neyer have the audience to do one of these posts everyday. I am going to start off at one a week and see where it goes.

Before going any further, I have a confession: I don’t read nearly enough baseball blogs. For someone who spends an inordinate amount of time every week sitting hunched over on a stool, squinting at the my laptop, researching or writing about baseball history (and it pisses my cat off), I have only a handful of blogs I actively go to and fewer that I read. This needs to change. I’m going to make a point of reading more blogs, particularly in hopes of finding great content to link to each week. I also encourage anyone who’s interested to send me their stuff. I can’t guarantee a link, but I’ll read everything I can.

All this being said, one of my goals at the outset is to help my friends, the people in my blogroll. I like to think we’re a talented bunch, and I aim to showcase as much of our content as is reasonable.

Without further adieu, here are the links for the week:

• The debut edition of the column Bill Miller and I will be writing about good players on bad teams should be up sometime today on his blog, The On Deck Circle.
• I should have an interview up on Monday with Josh Wilker who wrote a book, Cardboard Gods, that I reviewed here in May. Josh writes a blog of the same name, and he’s had some great content as of late. I particularly enjoyed a December 28 post he did on Dwight Gooden, likening the aimlessness of his 20s to the once-great pitcher’s decline. Josh’s writing is often funny, philosophical, and totally original. He absolutely influences my efforts here.
• I’ve heard it said of late, great Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray that he could have written about anything; sports just happened to get lucky. Joe Posnanski seems like Murray’s equivalent these days, even if I doubt he’d ever claim it. Anything he touches is gold. Here’s a sweet blog post, for anyone who hasn’t read it, that Joe wrote about taking his family to the newly-opened Harry Potter World. One great passage: Sadly there was no Cleveland Indians world, unless you count the bleachers at old Municipal Stadium where factory workers drank schnapps from flasks and swore liberally and rubbed your head when the Indians actually scored.
• I’m glad that economics professor and sabermetrician Cyril Morong is part of the goings-on here, leaving the occasional comment and, like Wilker, participating in a recent project I led to find the 50 best players not in the Hall of Fame. I wrote a post yesterday on 1930s and ’40s pitcher Paul Derringer, and Cyril commented that Derringer had a better-than-average strikeouts/walks ratio in his time. Coincidentally, Cyril recently wrote about a future Hall of Fame pitcher who just retired with the all-time best ratio.
• Peter Nash reports on yet another piece of phony memorabilia connected to the late Barry Halper. Was anything in his collection real?

What he did: Tomorrow marks the debut of a weekly feature Bill Miller and I will be doing for his blog, The On Deck Circle. We’re writing about good players on bad teams, with Bill featuring players from 1961 to present day and me covering people before then. Bill will write tomorrow’s piece, and I’ll have something up on his site the following Friday, with us alternating weeks, though this could double as my first column. There may be no finer example of a player done in by his team than Paul Derringer on the 1933 Cincinnati Reds.

Derringer won 223 games lifetime and played 12 more seasons in Cincinnati after his 1933 campaign. His fortunes improved as his team did, with Derringer winning 20 games four times and helping the Reds to the 1939 World Series, which they lost and the 1940 World Series, which they won. Both years, Derringer finished in the top four in National League MVP voting, and he also made six All Star teams in his career. In 1933, though, Cincinnati was 58-94 and Derringer bore the brunt, losing 25 games there after an early-season trade from St. Louis and going 7-27 overall.

Having won 18 games for the World Series-champion Cardinals in 1931, Derringer struggled for victories with a 1933 Reds team that managed just 496 runs. Derringer was otherwise decent besides his record, posting a 3.26 ERA and a not-terrible 1.26 WHIP for Cincinnati, and without checking, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the finest performance by a 27-game loser in the Modern Era. On a better team and in a better era for pitchers, Derringer could more than double his 1933 win totals.

Era he might have thrived in: In most other eras, Derringer probably could have boosted his career numbers to within striking distance of the Hall of Fame (in real life, he peaked at 6.2 percent of the vote in 1956.) Derringer would do his best pitching in the late 1960s.

Why: The 1960s were essentially opposite of the 1930s, a Golden Age for pitching instead of a dark time. It’s easy to pluck pitchers from bad teams in hitter’s eras and drastically improve their numbers by placing them on, say, the 1968 Dodgers. I doubt, though, that many hurlers could handle the 300-inning seasons expected from starters in the 1960s, when the schedule was newly expanded t0 162 games, four-man rotations were common, and relief pitchers weren’t yet regularly used. But Derringer averaged 240 innings a season, topped 280 four times, and went over 300 twice, so he might be up to the challenge.

I ran Derringer’s 1933 numbers through the stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com, seeing how he would fare on the 1968 Tigers, Cardinals, and Dodgers. While Derringer wouldn’t approach Cy Young or MVP status in 1968, since Denny McLain won 31 games for Detroit and Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA for the Cardinals, he wouldn’t be a half bad third or fourth starter. Derringer would do best with the Dodgers, with the converter predicting a 16-13 record with a 2.55 ERA and 1.098 WHIP. All this from a 7-27 season.

There’s been movement within the baseball research community to de-emphasize win-loss records for pitchers. Most notably, Felix Hernandez won the Cy Young this year with a 13-12 record since he pitched for last-place Seattle and cleaned up in non-team-dependent stats. While I still kind of think it was crazy talk for the Baseball Writers Association of America to honor Hernandez, Derringer’s conversions are striking. Maybe the writers were on to something.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Dom DiMaggio, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Nate Colbert, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays

Looking back at Bob Feller’s outstanding pitching career, one unresolved question keeps turning over in my mind.

In 1954, Feller was an integral part of the Cleveland Indians pitching staff. Anchored by Bob Lemon (23-7, 2.72) Early Wynn (23-11, 2.73), and Mike Garcia (19-8, 2.64), the Indians also had two spot starters that added depth to the rotation; Art Houtemann (13-7, 3.35) and Feller (13-3, 3.09)

Although the Indians coasted to the American League championship, their pitching failed in the World Series when the New York Giants swept them, 4-0. Feller did not throw a pitch.

Lemon started games one and four. In his 13.1 innings pitched, Lemon was rocked and ended up with a 6.75 ERA. Wynn, in game two, managed to pitch seven effective innings, allowing three earned runs, but took the loss. Garcia, the game three starter, was only marginally more effective than Lemon. Garcia allowed three earned runs in his five innings.

When manager Al Lopez called the bull pen, he logically summoned his two relief aces, the lefty righty combination of Don Mossi (6-1, 1.94) and Ray Narleski (3-3, 2.22) as well as well as Houtemann, Hal Newhouser (7-2, 2.51) and Garcia.

How it came to pass that Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and 1947 teammate of Feller, never saw the opportunity to put the seasoned veteran pitcher into a series game is a mystery, at least to me. A solid Feller post-season performance would have taken some of the sting out of his 1948 World Series disappointment.

Although the Indians beat the Boston Braves, 4-2, Feller was charged with both Indians’ losses. In the opener, Johnny Sain outdueled “Rapid Robert” in a 1-0 complete game heartbreaker.

Feller’s second start in game five was a nightmare.

His line: 6.1 IP, 7ER, 2 BB and 5 SO

For the series, Feller posted a 0-2 mark with a 5.02 ERA.

Lopez, who held the record for most games caught (1,918) until Bob Boone broke it in 1987, had a .587 winning percentage as a manager and was the only skipper from 1949-1959 to win an American League pennant besides Casey Stengel. In addition to winning with the 1954 Indians, Lopez also led the 1959 Chicago White Sox to first place.

If Lopez didn’t see a good spot for Feller during the 1954 World Series, who am I to challenge his judgment? All I’m saying is that it would have been nice.

The Baseball Writers Association of America just announced its picks for the Hall of Fame next summer, and the debate continues over who should eventually be in Cooperstown. Players suspected of being involved in the Steroid Era have turned up the heat on this debate making opinions even more intense and subjective. Many writers seem to sit on both sides of the proverbial fence, unable to commit to one side or the other. Lately, the debate seems to be centered on not which player was voted in, but which player was not. Case in point: Rafael Palmeiro, who recently received 11 percent of the vote, despite topping 500 home runs and 3,000 hits.

Baseball is perhaps the one major sport holding statistics as irrefutable benchmarks.  The magic numbers 500 and 3,000 used to equal first ballot enshrinement from the BBWAA. The writers’ voting process continues to be one of gut feeling subjectivity combined somewhat with statistical objectivity. And of course baseball writers have, over the course of covering players, developed personal relationships with them, meaning personal likes and dislikes will be part of the equation. Many writers struggle with this and are often called to task by the general public for their choices.

The Steroid Era has polarized and inflamed the debate amongst writers and fans even more. Where does one draw the line if there even is a line to be drawn? What, if anything, does this change for those who have been denied inclusion? Should baseball adopt a more firm approach to the guidelines which loosely define who is and is not eligible? Who should decide, if they must? How serious and defining should the Hall of Fame be? Is it a right or a privilege?

In a December 28 column for Fox Sports, Ken Rosenthal bemoaned these very ideas. What used to be a fun and a looked forward to perk, Hall of Fame voting, has lost its luster. Rosenthal is not the first nor will he be the last writer to struggle with the revelations of the past decade. Writers do not wish to be seen as judging a player solely on suspected steroid use or other murky issues yet all want to believe in the integrity of the game.

The cases of Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and Palmeiro point to the majority opinion as positive when considering eventual election coupled with an unofficial rationale. There is no infallible yardstick. These recent debates and actions seem to indicate that more respect is due and forthcoming a player elected in his first year of eligibility than someone who reaches somewhere during his fifteen year eligibility.

The solution seems obvious, as voting for the Hall of Fame is mostly subjective anyway with no hard and fast rule. I think there can be no doubt steroid and other performance enhancing drugs greatly inflated statistics for many years. Logic should prevail. Athletes do not naturally get better, stronger and faster as they age. Why should the obvious weigh on the BBWAA? They did nothing wrong except be trusting and naive. Do the math. Two plus two always equals four.

For supporters of Bert Blyleven being voted into the Hall of Fame, the inevitable finally happened. The Baseball Writers Association of America caved in, as it did with semi-worthy Ralph Kiner and put Blyleven in Cooperstown. Kiner made it on his fifteenth and last year of eligibility; Blyleven, in his fourteenth try.

Blyleven is a middle level pitcher compared to those already inducted, meaning he’s better than some, worse than others. I wouldn’t have voted for him.

Regular readers know that I’m a restrictionist. I believe fewer inductees make for a more exclusive Hall and contend that it should be reserved for only the best and exclude the very good. I’ve said it here before that voting in Blyleven is like allowing $500,000 net worth individuals into the Millionaire’s Club.

I offered a proposal here in July that before new players would be inducted, the older marginal ones ouoght be weeded out. Good bye Early Wynn; hello, Greg Maddux.

Understanding now that my proposal will never be implemented, I’ve gravitated to a more reasonable approach. Let’s limit the number of years a candidate can appear on the ballot. I’m greatly impressed by the idea introduced on this site by Matthew Warburg who proposes that players not appear on the ballot every year but rather over a series of alternate years with higher vote totals required for every stage.

I prefer a somewhat cleaner cut approach: one year, either in or forever out. Consider the marginal Kiner’s curious case.

In 1960, Kiner’s first year on the ballot, he got three votes and finished eighty-eighth on a ballot of 134. By his fifteenth and final try in 1975, Kiner got 75.4 percent of the vote, one more than the total necessary to qualify.

By that time, however, Kiner was a popular New York Mets’ broadcaster, a peer of the group that voted him in, the BBWAA. Television may have helped Kiner get into Cooperstown, just as numerous articles on the Internet were instrumental in getting Blyleven enshrined.

Another idea worthy of consideration is former New York Times baseball writer and BBWA member Murray Chass’ suggestion that certain strict minimum statistical standards be identified. If a player meets them, he’s in. If not, he’s out. As Chass wrote, “everyone can’t make it.” Under Chass’ system, the writers wouldn’t be burdened by the annual drag of evaluating the statistics of dozens of players of different skill levels.

I’m not in a big lather over Blyleven. I recognize that there’s no right and wrong in individual voting patterns. I’m resigned to an ever-expanding Hall.

But I truly dread the years not that far ahead when Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez and others in the steroid gang start their move toward Cooperstown.

What he did: I got a timely reminder of Harry the Hat earlier this week in Bobby Bragan’s 1992 autobiography. Bragan spoke of the players he encountered as a Phillies minor league player in 1939, writing:

And there was Harry ‘The Hat’ Walker. He was one of the greatest hitters I’ve ever seen, or that anyone’s ever seen. Harry was on loan to Pensacola from the St. Louis Cardinals, so he was really up on the rest of us. Teams would sometimes lend minor league players around to be sure all their top prospects got to play every day. Harry was a treat to watch when he was hitting. I’d say he was a lot like Rafael Palmeiro of today’s Texas Rangers, a guy who sprayed his hits from foul line to foul line. Palmeiro does have a little more power. But he and Harry could both hit a given pitch to any part of the field. That’s a tremendous advantage to a batter, and pitchers can’t ever find one pitch or location the guy can’t handle.

Walker won the National League batting championship in 1947 when he hit .363, and he batted .296 overall in his 11-year career. He played more seasons in the minors, 14 in all and posted a better batting average, .315 and over 1,200 more at bats in the bushes. It wasn’t uncommon in his era, when the minors were far deeper and sweet swinging outfielders with questionable fielding abilities, such as Walker, sometimes made long careers outside the majors. I got to wondering: What if Walker had some of the same opportunities as Rafael Palmeiro? I’m guessing Walker would have come out far better in Hall of Fame voting than the 11 percent Palmeiro just posted.

Era he might have thrived in: Because Walker had just four seasons in the majors with at least 500 plate appearances, I’ll forgo converting his  stats to the years Palmeiro played, 1986 through 2005. Instead, we’ll take Walker’s 1947 season and convert it to 1999, when Palmeiro hit .324 with 47 home runs and 148 RBI for the Rangers. At least for batting average, Walker would trounce Palmeiro.

Why: On the surface, a .363 batting average in any year seems plenty high. But baseball immediately following World War II favored pitchers. And Walker spent most of 1947 with the Phillies, a seventh place club that hit .258 and posted an OPS+ of 81, meaning they were worse offensively than their already anemic league. For Walker to bat .363 in these circumstances is kind of amazing. Since 1900, there has only been one batting champion on a team with a worse OPS+ than the ’47 Phillies: Dale Alexander who somehow hit .372 for a 1932 Red Sox club that had an OPS+ of 75 and finished 43-111.

So it’s not surprising Walker’s numbers would rise with the ’99 Rangers who hit .293 and had an OPS+ of 108. Using the conversion tool on Baseball-Reference.com, I have Walker hitting .395 with 223 hits for the ’99 Rangers. He wouldn’t offer much power, with one home run and 53 RBI, though he would have 19 triples and a .997 OPS. If he could combine this with several seasons of at least All Star-level contact hitting, he might have a shot at Cooperstown. It worked for Rod Carew; Paul Waner, too.

The key would be for Walker to make the majors sooner than he did in real life and DH at the end of his career instead of returning to the minors and starring once more. Ralph Branca noted in the Branca autobiography, “Minor league success was in no way a guarantee of ever playing in the big leagues. Many guys against their will made careers out of playing in the high minors…. The guys heading up the organizations thought having veteran players around on the Triple-A teams and lower ones was good for the young kids.” This generally doesn’t happen anymore.

And of course, Walker could never have a finger wagging performance in front of Congress, a la Palmeiro. I’m giving Walker the benefit of the doubt here.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Dom DiMaggio, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Home Run Baker, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Nate Colbert, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays

In 1956, Sport Magazine surveyed all 16 major league managers to find out who they picked as their most reliable clutch hitters.

For the most part, the answers were predictable. Casey Stengel chose Yogi Berra; Pinky Higgins, Ted Williams; Bill Rigney, Willie Mays and Fred Hutchinson, Stan Musial.

Some responses were surprising. Cincinnati Redlegs’ pilot Birdie Tebbetts picked Johnnie Temple instead of Ted Kluszewski and Frank Robinson while Bucky Harris tapped Ray Boone over Al Kaline or perennial .300 hitter Harvey Kuenn.

One pick was incomprehensible. Washington Senators’ manager Chuck Dressen selected Ernie Oravetz. Don’t feel badly if you don’t remember or never heard of Oravetz, a 145 pound, 5’4” reserve outfielder who in his two year career (1955-1956), hit no home runs and only batted in 36 runners. Adding to the oddity of Dressen’s choice, in 1955, Ortavetz hit .171 in 35 pinch hit appearances. By the end of 1956, Ortavez was out of baseball for good.

Maybe Dressen was having fun at reporter Milton Richmond’s expense. What Dressen told Richmond for the record was: “For a kid his size, he certainly did a man’s job in the clutch.”

Looking at the 1956 Senators’ roster, Dressen had several hitters that his 15 managerial peers certainly would have picked over Ortavez in critical situations: Clint Courtney, Pete Runnels (a future two-time batting champion), Roy Sievers (the 1957 American League home run and RBI leader), Jim Lemon (back-to-back 100 RBI seasons in 1959 and 1960) and the incomparable Hall of Famer slugger Harmon Killebrew who before he hung up his spikes would hit 537 four-baggers with 40 or more eight times

The sad news that Killebrew is suffering from deadly esophageal cancer has put him in the forefront of our thoughts and prayers.

In 1956, Killebrew was three years away from his break out 1959 season when he blasted 42 homers and knocked in 102. By 1960, Killebrew appeared on the cover of the Senators’ yearbook.

Here, in part, is how the Senators’ described Killebrew who still had 16 spectacular baseball years ahead of him:

Baseball’s most exciting new figure, Harmon burst into full stardom last year. He smashed 29 homers in the first three months and for a while threatened many of Babe Ruth’s home run records for a season. His tape measure clouts earned him the starting job for the American League in the All Star Game in Pittsburgh.

Harmon himself was so outstanding a high school footballer that he received a number of collegiate scholarship offers. The original Harmon Clayton Killebrew, grandfather of the star third baseman, was a legendary strongman, reputed to have been the heavy weight wrestling champion of the Illinois detachment of the Union Army during the Civil War.

During emotionally trying times when family and old friends struggle for their lives, we can often find comfort in remembering them during younger, happier days.