Baseball: Past and Present

For anyone who missed it, I posted something this morning imagining Jackie Robinson on the “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati Reds of the 1970s. In putting together my piece on Wednesday, I contacted Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski, who I interviewed in September and who wrote a 2009 book on those Reds. Posnanski got back to me this morning with a long, thoughtful email (I assume he was busy yesterday evening with Game 1 of the World Series.)

In its entirety, Posnanski’s email is as follows:

Graham,

Well, it goes without saying by me that Jackie Robinson had the most remarkable individual career in baseball history. No other player — not Ruth, not Williams, not even Larry Doby — faced and overcame like Jackie Robinson.

But, it seems to me you are right — people forget just how good a player Jackie Robinson really was. I’m in the midst of doing a competing list of the “32 most complete players in baseball history” — that is the 32 players who could do EVERYTHING well — and, not to give anything away, Jackie Robinson is one of the few to make both lists.

But one question that has always fascinated me is this one: How much of Jackie Robinson’s greatness came BECAUSE of the conditions he faced. That is to say, Robinson was one of those rare players who thrived on his circumstances, who played with a fury, who almost seemed to need a cause. It’s famously known that baseball was his third best sport in college; it seems unlikely to me that with the Olympics out there and with the NFL in full force that Robinson even would have chosen baseball in 1964 the way Morgan did.

And if he had chosen baseball, I wonder if he would have or even could have been as driven a player. This is an impossible question to answer, but a fascinating question to consider. Robinson was absolutely a player with similar talents to the great Joe Morgan. He hit for average better than Morgan, he walked, he hit for power, he was a legendary base runner (maybe the best of all time) and he was terrific defensively wherever the Dodgers put him.

But don’t underestimate Morgan. He played in a harder hitters era and he played in less of a hitters ballpark. And in his six-year prime with the Reds (1972-77) he hit .301/.429/.495 with a 159 OPS+ — higher over that whole period than Robinson ever managed for a single season. His six year WAR was an almost unbelievable 57.2, which is pretty close to what Robinson did over 10 seasons.

I do think Robinson, had he started in baseball younger, had he played in an era where he did not have to carry that great burden and all that, would have had a chance in some ways to be an even greater player. But in other ways, he would have been a different player too. It’s fun to think about. But as great as people think Joe Morgan was, it seems to me he was probably even better than they think.

Editor’s note: To read Joe Posnanski’s take on this piece, go here.

What he did: Robinson is an all-time hero for breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947, though I’ve noticed something talking to people about him. I’ve heard it suggested Robinson wouldn’t have made the Hall of Fame without being baseball’s first black player in 83 years. Certainly, he was enshrined with minimal service time, 10 seasons, and dozens of non-inducted players have more hits than Robinson with 1,518. But to say Robinson wasn’t Hall of Fame-caliber seems misguided, if not racist.

First off, I think Robinson did enough as a player to justify enshrinement, from hitting .311 lifetime to compiling 63.2 WAR to having six consecutive seasons with an OPS above .900. Just imagine what Robinson could have done with a full career. If he’d played at any other point since 1947, Robinson’s statistical case for the Hall of Fame would be ironclad. In the right circumstances, he might even still be a first ballot selection.

Era he might have thrived in: With the “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati Reds in the 1970s

Why: I look at Joe Morgan, a first ballot Hall of Fame selection in 1990 and the Reds second baseman during their heyday, and I see what Robinson might have accomplished had segregation not kept him from baseball until age 28. Only Robinson would offer greater power and a competitive streak to rival Pete Rose.

Let’s assume Robinson still attends UCLA out of high school, signs with the Reds following graduation in say, 1964, spends the obligatory year or two in the minors, and arrives in the majors around 1966 at 24 (since this is fantasy, I’m not having Robinson toil his first few years in Houston as Morgan did.) This would give Robinson maybe 17 seasons in the show. I’m guessing he easily surpasses Morgan’s 2,517 hits, maybe even gets close to 3,000; and since Robinson compiled 63.2 WAR in 10 seasons, I think he could also best Morgan’s 103.5 WAR with a full career.

In real life, Robinson quit at 37, though I’m assuming he’d play longer in my scenario. First, near the end of his career when the Big Red Machine would be dismantling, Robinson could join the American League to DH, perhaps with the California Angels near where he grew up in Pasadena. The designated hitter position would be a perfect final job for a player whose all-or-nothing style of play would have taxed him in any era. The advent of free agency in the 1970s would also give Robinson greater incentive to play longer.

In any event, Robinson would play his prime years for a team to rival his own. What the Brooklyn Dodgers were to the late 1940s and 1950s, the Cincinnati Reds were to the 1970s: A star-studded club usually in contention. Robinson would have fit in with greats like Rose, Johnny Bench, George Foster, and Tony Perez, perhaps a better supporting cast than Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, and Roy Campanella. It’d be a treat to see Rose and Robinson as teammates. If Rose doesn’t break Ray Fosse’s collarbone in the 1970 All Star game, Robinson would. Perhaps they could form a tag team.

The Reds would benefit too, since Robinson’s career slugging percentage of .474 trounces Morgan’s .427. Robinson also averaged nearly 20 more RBI per 162 games. I don’t know how Morgan and Robinson stack up defensively, though it’s worth noting that Morgan has negative defensive WAR for his career.

Some might say the Reds would miss Morgan on the base paths. Morgan stole three times as many bases lifetime as Robinson, but Robinson did his stealing years before it became popular. Consider that in 1949, Robinson’s career-high 37 steals represented 10.2 percent of all stolen bases in the National League, while Morgan’s career-high 67 in 1975 were just 5.7 percent of the NL total. I’m guessing that with the Big Red Machine, Robinson would have some 50-70 steal seasons.

Perhaps all this would be enough to delay the exodus that commenced in Cincinnati not long after the Reds won the 1976 World Series. In a perfect world, Robinson even keeps Morgan out of the ESPN commentator booth.

Any player/Any era looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Here’s the latest guest post from Joe Guzzardi which looks at one of the more controversial MVP votes in baseball history: 1960, when Dick Groat strangely triumphed over Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays, among others. Joe has another player in mind who could have won.

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One of the lingering debates among Pittsburgh Pirates historians is whether the 1960 Most Valuable Player award should have been given to shortstop, team captain and National League batting title winner Dick Groat.

During the Pirates’ championship year, Groat played a crucial role. Whether it was to make the spectacular fielding play, hit and run, hit to opposite field, put up a sacrifice fly or lay down a bunt, Groat did whatever needed to be done to win a ball game.

Yet, understandably, eyebrows raised when the MVP balloting placed Groat first with 262 votes and Roberto Clemente a distant eighth with 62 votes.

Their statistics compared side by side don’t justify the voting disparity.

Player	BA	HR	OBP	SLG
Groat	.325	2	.371	.394
Clemente	.314	16	.357	.458

When reporters questioned Clemente about the voting results, he correctly implied that he was a victim of racism directed at him by the all-white media. But Clemente later added that the one player the Pirates could not have won without was third baseman Don Hoak, a U.S. Marine and former professional boxer affectionately known as “Tiger” who finished second in the MVP race.

By baseball standards, Hoak was a journeyman. Over his eleven year career, he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Red and the Philadelphia Phillies. But during Hoak’s four years with the Pirates (1959-1962), he played the toughest, most hard-nosed baseball in the National League.

Hitting in the number seven hole for most of the 1960 season, Hoak played in every game and hit .282. Groat and Clemente played in 138 and 144 games, respectively.

Hoak’s career was relatively brief but fascinating. After suffering seven consecutive knockouts, Hoak traded his boxing gloves for a fielder’s mitt and hoped a plane to Cuba to play winter ball for Cienfuegos during the 1951-1952 season. One of his first mound opponents was Fidel Castro, a promising left-handed pitcher and then a University of Havana law school student. In a 1964 Sport Magazine article titled “The Day I Batted Against Castro,” Hoak confirmed that the dictator-in waiting had promise– ”with a little work on his control.”

By 1954, in Brooklyn, Hoak shared third base with Jackie Robinson and Billy Cox. During the classic seventh 1955 World Series game when the Dodgers finally beat the New York Yankees, Hoak—not Robinson or Cox— anchored the hot corner. That was the only World Series game Robinson ever sat out.

To Hoak’s disappointment, during the off season the Dodgers traded him to the Chicago Cubs. Hoak’s dismal 1956 performance (.215, 5 HR, 37 RBI) and a horrendous May 2 game against the visiting New York Giants which saw Hoak strike out six times against six different pitchers led to his 1957 trade to Cincinnati.

Productive if not spectacular (.279; 35 HRs; 139 RBIs) during his two seasons as a Redleg, Hoak nevertheless was traded along with Harvey Haddix and Smokey Burgess and became one of the key players on the 1960 champions. During his four years as a Corsair, Hoak hit .284 with 41 home runs and 253 RBIs.

Considered by many of his teammates as the Pirates’ inspirational leader, Hoak had the habit of calling for the new ball thrown out by the umpire after an opposing batter’s home run. Hoak would walk to within 20 feet of the mound to fire the ball at his pitcher to demonstrate his disgust

Hoak’s post-Pirates day were less successful and ultimately tragic.  By 1963 when the Pirates traded Hoak to the Philadelphia Phillies, he was 35. After two lean years with the Phillies (.228; 6 HR and 24 RBIs), Hoak broadcast the Pirates’ games and managed two Bucs’ minor league franchises to first-place finishes. Although Hoak had his eye on the Pirates’ managerial spot that opened up in 1969 when the Pirates didn’t ask interim manager Alex Grammas back, the Bucs rehired Danny Murtaugh. In an unrelated incident, the day Hoak learned he had been passed over, he collapsed from a heart attack chasing a thief who had stolen his brother-in-law’s vehicle.

At the time of his death, Hoak was married to singing star Jill Corey. To this day, their daughter Claire maintains that Hoak’s cause of death was his broken heart when he didn’t get the Pirates’ pilot job.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Billy and Francis Raimondi with daughter June, courtesy of Mark Macrae

Billy Raimondi didn’t have World Series rings, millions of dollars in career earnings, or a single day of Major League Baseball service. What Raimondi had, when he died on October 18 in Alameda, California at 97, was family: A wife of 72 years, a sister, three children, eight grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. Raimondi’s love of his family defined him, and it may be one reason he ranks among the best catchers in Pacific Coast League history and has a spot in its Hall of Fame.

Raimondi had been in declining health for some years. His son William E. Raimondi of Alameda said in a phone interview on Sunday that his father was admitted to the hospital on August 25 with internal bleeding, was released two days later, and was admitted the following week with a respiratory problem. He was sent home on hospice care and spent his final seven weeks bedridden. “His mind stayed strong but his body just couldn’t last,” Raimondi said.

Asked what he’d remember about his father, Raimondi said, “The most important thing is probably the devotion he had to his family and to his mother and brothers. He had a very close family, and I think one of the reasons he was very happy to never play in the big leagues was that he was able to play in Oakland where his family was.”

Born William Louis Raimondi on December 1, 1912 in San Francisco, Raimondi grew up in Oakland and attended McClymonds High. When Raimondi was 17, his father was struck and killed by a motorist, making him a breadwinner for the family. He signed with the Oakland Oaks of the PCL in 1931 and played 21 seasons in the league, all at catcher. Lifetime in the minors, he hit .276 with 1,937 hits, and the book Gold on the Diamond said Raimondi was an All Star 16 times and played more seasons in the PCL than any other field player in league history.

Retired MLB scout Ronnie King saw Raimondi play in the 1930s when he was the visitors bat boy for the Sacramento Solons. King told me, “When he caught, he never dropped the ball, he threw people out, and he called a good game.” Bob Usher played with Raimondi on the Los Angeles Angels in 1952 and 1953 and called him a “great teammate and [an] inspirational ballplayer. He kept the clubhouse going pretty well and was a friend to everybody, and all the teammates loved him.”

At different points, Raimondi played with three of his brothers, Al, Walt, and Ernie (who died in action in World War II.) PCL historian and memorabilia collector Mark Macrae met Raimondi in the 1970s at get-togethers for the Oakland Old-Timers Association. In a phone interview on Sunday, Macrae said, “I think Dick Dobbins put it best in his book when he compared the Raimondi family to the DiMaggio family, and how he did that was he said, what the DiMaggios were to San Francisco baseball, the Raimondis were to Oakland baseball.”

A natural question is why Raimondi never played in the majors. About six months ago, I interviewed Raimondi at his home in Alameda, with his wife Francis and their daughter June, for a book I’m researching on his former PCL teammate, Joe Marty. I learned that Raimondi had a couple of chances to go to the big leagues, including with the New York Yankees in 1936, though he never left the PCL. King told me that many players in those days opted for the PCL where the season was longer and the pay often better. And prior to 1958, the majors did not exist west of St. Louis which would have kept Raimondi away from his family longer.

Raimondi’s son offered another possible reason his dad never made the jump.

“He had some doubt because he wore glasses, and in the big leagues they have more night games, and they have the higher stands where even the day games would have those shadows which made it difficult,” William E. Raimondi said. “But I’m pretty confident he would have (been able to play in the majors) because many of the people he played with made it to the big leagues, and many of them have told me that my dad could have played.”

The Oakland Tribune stated that services for Raimondi will be held on October 30, at 11 a.m. at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Alameda.

I’m pleased to present a guest post from Doug Bird, who has offered to write a regular Sunday post here.

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TBS hasn’t forgotten that the game is the star and not the announcer, Fox still hasn’t replaced the man with the golden voice with someone who actually cares about and pays attention to the game on the field, happening right before his eyes,   the replay afficiados are still screaming to be heard on virtually every play and the games on Fox are passing the midnight hour, no weekend day games in sight.

The coverage on TBS, as in past years, has been markedly better than that of Fox for several reasons.  The focus, despite the over-talk of Ron Darling, is on the game itself. Now, Darling has a pretty good broadcasting voice as far as that goes  and seems to know what he is talking about but seems to be of the opinion that no one listening has watched a baseball game before. The third man in the booth, John Smoltz, began his career in the over-explanation mode, but quickly realized that the odd insightful comment was much more valuable and in tune with the flow of the game and has become one of the few interesting ex-players to listen to during the game.

I do wish that TBS had used Atlanta Braves broadcaster, Joe Simpson, on its telecasts, a man who’s broadcasts are always insightful and interesting. But that is a small criticism. TBS does not run incessant commercials between pitches, nor do they fill the screen with bars and bars of information.  Unless you are one of those who own a gigantic television screen, it makes it difficult to actually see the events unfolding on the field at any given time. Most of us, and certainly the regular fan, are able to keep track of the number of outs, the score, the pitch count and how many runners are on base. For those who have just tuned in for whatever reason, a quick and non distraction to the ongoing game, would certainly suffice. TBS seems to realize that the game is for the fan, not for their corporate sponsors.

The opposite, sadly, has been true of Fox baseball coverage for many years now and four hour plus games have become the norm instead of the exception. I tuned in the other night an hour after the start time and the game was still in the second inning. Surely there must have been a long rain delay or a score of 10-10.  No, the score was 2-2 and there been no rain delay. As I continued to watch the game, there were commercials, and many commercials, between pitches.  These were not of the full thirty-minute variety, (fortunately), but a quick ten-second or so verbiage by Buck, with the company logo filling up half the screen.  There were also instances of missed first pitches because the commercial break had run too long.

Buck often finds it difficult to concentrate on the game, talking about anything else or engaging in what I’m certain he considers to be, witty dialogue with partner Tim McCarver.  Tim attempts to steer the conversation back to the on filed action but generally with little avail. I often feel McCarver would like to leave the booth and sit in the dugout or stands where he could hear relevant baseball conversation. Who could blame him? Fox often advertises other show during the game, either network shows or the upcoming Sunday NFL match. It seems to be a chore for the Fox network to even broadcast baseball games. With the Giants now in the World Series, the games will feature two teams which Fox rarely, if ever, have shown on their Saturday broadcasts.  How they must be crying in their collective soup now that neither their beloved Red Sox or Yankees will be on the biggest stage of all.

There should be day games on weekends.  No, a 4 p.m. start is not a day game– 1 p.m. is. Again, Fox is to blame although surely major league baseball shouldn’t pander to the Fox executives despite having greedily signed  on the dotted line.  Late October and early November weather is cold, especially at night.  Cold is not the optimum condition in which to play baseball.  It also gives no leeway in case of inclement weather, (see 2008 World Series).  The Little Leaguers of America, always given lip service by major league baseball executives, are not likely to be awake past 11 p.m., forcing them to miss the latter part of the games.

Baseball playoffs, on weekends, should be played in the warmth of the afternoon sun, not the cold frost of the evening. There should be no commercials between pitches. Announcers should discuss the ongoing events on the field, not everything but those happenings. The game should be first, foremost and last. I could do without everything else. Sadly, Fox will be covering the World Series again this season and with the conclusion of the American League playoffs, no more TBS.

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Email Doug Bird at d.bird@rogers.com

Last Saturday, shortly after I got home from watching Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, I logged into Twitter and saw a Tweet from Rob Neyer, saying he would be on ESPN Radio shortly, taking questions. After a few tries, I got through, and I asked Neyer his thoughts on if there could be a Rangers-Giants World Series. He said he thought there was a good chance, and while it made me smile, I remained skeptical. I’ve been skeptical all season, and I suspect I may be a skeptic at heart. Thankfully, I now officially know nothing: The Giants triumphed 3-2 over the Phillies this evening and will face the Rangers in the Series.

It’s an improbable match-up to cap improbable seasons for both teams. I read Rangers team president Nolan Ryan saying at the start of the year that he thought his squad was good for 92 wins, and that sounded like crazy talk. Granted, Sports Illustrated predicting great things for the Mariners on the basis of obscure defensive metrics sounded– and proved– crazier still (even if I went along with it at the time) but I would not have picked Texas to so much as win the AL West. None of the teams appeared good enough really, and the fact that one is now playing for the championship defies logic, conventional wisdom, and definitely sabermetrics.

The Giants were another story. While I told people from the outset of this season that the Giants looked like a 90-win club, I figured they wouldn’t do much beyond win the NL West. They just didn’t seem to have the offensive star power. In fact, when San Francisco dipped to around .500 at the beginning of July, I feared this was only the latest in a long line of laughably inept predictions, like when I said the Niners would win the NFC West in 2004 and watched them go 2-14, or when I thought Barack Obama should be Hillary Clinton’s VP in 2008. Heck, even after San Francisco triumphed over the Padres on the last day of the season to win the division, I wrote a post here that ran along the lines of, Well, that was nice but nothing much will happen for the Giants in the postseason.

It never felt so good to be wrong.

I’m pleased to present the latest guest post from Joe Guzzardi on a brilliant pitcher likely forgotten by all but baseball historians. As Joe writes, Deacon Phillippe is most known for his outstanding work in the 1903 World Series, though he’s also a distant relative of actor Ryan Phillippe (who named his son Deacon for him) and he won 20 games six times. In 2005, Tom Verducci included the Deadball Era hurler in SI.com’s list of the 10 best players not in the Hall of Fame.

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Here’s a World Series quiz for readers. What starting pitcher who excelled in post season play said: “It’s a cold day when I get three balls on a man.”

If you have been listening to baseball analysts these past few days, you might think it was the stingy Cliff Lee, all but crowned as the greatest October pitcher of all time. Others mentioned by the talking heads, although somewhat dismissively, include Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Mariano Rivera and Whitey Ford.

The correct response is not Lee, however, but the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Deacon Phillippe (pronounced Phil-uh-pee) who in 1903 against the Boston Americans pitched five complete World Series games, two on back-to-back days, and won three of them. In what was then a nine game World Series format, Phillippe out dueled Boston’s Cy Young in the opener while striking out 10 and walking none.

Here’s Phillippe’s aggregate five game line for the 1903 World Series, won by Boston 5-3:

IP- 44; H-38; R-19; ER-16; BB-3; SO-23

Three walks in 44 innings averages less than one per game, lower than Phillippe’s career average of 1.2 walks per start and, moreover, lower than Lee’s 2.2 per nine inning career mark.

Although Phillippe’s Herculean performance did not lead the Pirates to a world championship that year, Pittsburgh fans showed their appreciation by presenting him with a diamond horseshoe stickpin and owner Barney Dreyfuss rewarded him ten shares of stock in the club.

The secret of Phillippe’s pitching success was, according to an interview he gave to The Sporting News, “keeping batters guessing. I study the batsman in every way: his position in the box, his general attitude, the way he holds the bat, and any other individual characteristics he may have.” Lee, more than a century later, learned Phillippe’s lesson well.

Phillippe’s five complete game decisions are a World Series record that will stand forever unless the fall classic reverts to the best of nine. If that happens, we’ll be watching baseball and eating turkey on the same day.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

I’m pleased to present a guest post from Gerry Garte, who sent me the following piece on Thursday. I encourage anyone who’s interested in writing for this site to do likewise.

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Shattering bats are causing injuries and havoc on the baseball diamond.

Some bats being produced today are splintering and separating long-ways. From time to time, the flying wood has become a threat to players on the infield.

The most difficult of these injuries came on September 19 at Sun Life Stadium in South Florida.

Cubs Tyler Colvin was running third to home, watching the flight of a ball hit by Cubs Welington Castillo. As Colvin watched, a large piece of splintered wood hit him in the upper chest. The wood bounced off, but it had punctured his chest. Colvin was recovering the last two weeks of the season.

A few days after Colvin was hurt, ace pitcher Cliff Lee of Texas was struck behind his ear by a piece of shattered bat from Oakland’s Jack Cust. Light bleeding, but Lee was able to continue.

How close do we need to get to a critical injury or fatality?

Major League Baseball is well aware of the situation, and seems to be moving in a positive direction. Timeliness is the concern. With safety as a priority, new standards for bats should be in place well before next season. In the event that something isn’t done to correct splintering bats before next season, I have concocted a Plan B: Hit By Batter (HBB).

When a batter loses grip of his bat or the bat breaks and then hits a defensive player, on that defensive player’s next at bat (or his position in the batting order), he will be awarded first base. This is Hit By Batter (HBB). This award of first base, like Hit By Pitch (HBP), will not be an official at bat. However, it will be different in one regard, the batter will have an option:

• Being awarded first base with no at bat
• Accepting an official at-bat

If he accepts the HBB, he reports to the home plate umpire and is directed to first. Players on base would advance one base if forced, as if the batter had been walked. If a batter wishes to accept a plate appearance and risk an out– and this would depend on game situation– he will inform the umpire and immediately step in the batter’s box.

With the implementation of HBB, a team would be less likely to support the use of a bat made of material more likely to shatter/break.

If a lost/broken bat incident is somehow determined to be intentional by Major League Baseball, a suspension would be strongly considered.

On the other hand, if the defensive player makes no move to avoid a tumbling bat, the defensive player’s next at bat (or his place in the batting order) could be ruled an out in advance by the umpiring crew.

Only baseball could consider such an unlikely event as reason to establish a new rule.

But a new rule, Plan A, is needed.

A thorough, updated investigation by Major League Baseball to determine the exact types of bats causing the most problem has been warranted for several years. We’re discussing player safety.

In two-year-old data, it was noted that maple bats were used by more than half of the players in MLB.

As baseball has added rules requiring batting helmets, an updated safety standard on the wood in bats is overdue.

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Email Gerry Garte at garte@comcast.net

What he did: If ever there was a player hurt by his era, it’s Jimmy Wynn. The power-hitting center fielder played from 1963 to 1977, spending much of his prime in an age dominated by pitchers, in perhaps the least-friendly park for hitters since the Deadball Era, the expansive Houston Astrodome. Wynn finished with a .250 lifetime batting average and 291 home runs and did not receive any Hall of Fame votes the only year his name appeared on the ballot, 1983. In an era better suited for hitters, Wynn might have been a Hall of Famer.

Era he might have thrived in: Playing at pretty much any other point in baseball history since the Deadball Era, Wynn would have added another 30-50 batting average points and 50-100 home runs lifetime. Assuming we suspend disbelief about the color of Wynn’s skin keeping him from the majors prior to 1947, he could have done some of his best work in the American League in the 1930s.

Why: Baseball-Reference.com has a tool to convert a player’s lifetime numbers, so I took the 15 seasons of Wynn’s career and looked at how he might have done on a few different clubs. A reader suggested the Houston Astros in the late 1990s, when they had a hitters team and ballpark. I thought of the New York Giants in the 1920s and ’30s when I figured Wynn might have been the Giants’ answer to Joe DiMaggio (he wouldn’t, as I found.) I then realized Wynn may have soared higher on the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s, when hitters ruled baseball.

Here’s a chart with Wynn’s lifetime stats for each team, with numbers calculated on a one-one basis. For the Giants, I converted 1963 to 1923, 1964 to 1924 and so on. It took awhile, since I had to do it myself, but I think it offers a fairly accurate look.

	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	SO	BA
Actual numbers	6653	1105	1665	285	39	291	964	225	1224	1427	.250
Giants 1923-1937	6628	1282	1873	325	42	329	1120	256	1384	1359	.283
Tigers 1927-1941	6773	1460	2018	347	45	362	1270	272	1488	1359	.298
Astros 1993-2007	6825	1321	1919	330	42	339	1152	258	1429	1398	.281

Basically, on all three teams, Wynn saw a jump, and with the Tigers in the 1930s, he may have had enough for Cooperstown. I didn’t run conversions for the Indians, Red Sox, or A’s in the 1930s, all places Wynn may have put up even better numbers, though I like him in Detroit for two reasons. First, he would have had a bandbox of a park, Tigers Stadium. He also would have been a part of Detroit’s World Series-contending clubs led by Hank Greenberg. With Wynn’s ability to get on base 40-50 percent of his plate appearances and his superior WAR to Detroit center fielder, Jo-Jo White, the Tigers may benefited too.

Here’s a breakdown of how Wynn’s career would have converted, season for season:

YEAR	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	BB	BA
1927 (’63)	252	41	72	12	6	5	35	5	35	.286
1928 (’64)	215	23	53	8	0	6	22	6	26	.247
1929 (’65)	575	116	189	36	8	27	93	53	102	.329
1930 (’66)	422	86	126	25	1	21	86	15	48	.299
1931 (’67)	604	140	180	35	3	45	147	19	89	.298
1932 (’68)	565	131	190	30	7	34	104	14	117	.336
1933 (’69)	507	139	163	21	1	41	107	28	182	.321
1934 (’70)	549	93	171	35	2	29	100	26	116	.311
1935 (’71)	396	46	90	18	0	8	54	11	61	.227
1936 (’72)	589	172	197	39	4	39	132	22	137	.334
1937 (’73)	477	111	121	16	5	23	67	16	104	.254
1938 (’74)	550	143	179	21	5	39	148	23	133	.325
1939 (’75)	425	107	130	21	0	23	78	9	140	.306
1940 (’76)	454	92	116	24	1	21	81	20	159	.256
1941 (’77)	193	20	41	6	2	1	16	5	39	.212
TOTAL	6773	1460	2018	347	45	362	1270	272	1488	.298

As I’ve written before, there are some things I suspect the stat converter can’t account for, like the confidence one would get playing for a winner rather than a loser. Success begets more success, and I’m guessing Wynn wouldn’t experience the surreptitious drop in numbers in 1935, which would surely get him dropped from the Tigers on their march to the World Series title that year. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Wynn finished with 400 home runs and a .300 lifetime batting average.

Even at 362 home runs, though, Wynn would have been fifth in baseball history upon his retirement in 1941, trailing only Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Mel Ott. Those men are all baseball legends. In another era, Wynn might have been one too.

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, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Dom DiMaggio, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Home Run Baker, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Nate Colbert, Pete Rose, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb