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Sunday, July 10, 2005

Luke Appling

Eligible in 1956.

John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 10, 2005 at 06:56 PM | 21 comment(s)
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1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 10, 2005 at 08:14 PM (#1462737)

I don't care if the fence was pulled in and Warren Spahn grooved one, it's still cool that a man in his mid-seventies was able to hit a homer during an all-star game.

Oh yeah, he was great.

2. _Jed Posted: July 11, 2005 at 02:40 PM (#1464075)

Some of Appling's stats, in the context of his league:

Rank of 8  Pos. *OPS+  F% as pct.  RFg as pct.
<U>Year  Age  Pos. *OPS+  at Pos.    Leader      of LgF%     of LgRFg   </U>
1932   25   SS    86      5       Cronin        98.7        116.4
1933   26   SS   121      2       Cronin        99.7        111.7
1934   27   SS   101      2       Cronin        99.4        104.7
1935   28   SS   112      1       Appling      100.1        112.4
1936   29   SS   138      1       Appling      100.1        110.5
1937   30   SS   113      2       Cronin        98.8        105.3
1938   31   SS    86      5       Cronin       100.0        104.6
1939   32   SS   103      2       Cronin       100.1        108.3
1940   33   SS   123      1       Appling      100.4        109.3
1941   34   SS   110      3       Travis       100.0        108.5
1942   35   SS    94      5       Pesky         99.9        101.9
1943   36   SS   142      1       Appling      100.4        104.7
1946   39   SS   117      3       Pesky         99.7        109.2
1947   40   SS   125      2       Boudreau      98.4        102.8 
1948   41   3B   111      4       Keltner       98.4        117.1
            SS   111      3       Boudreau      98.0        110.5
1949   42   SS   124      3       Stephens     100.1        104.2

3. Dag Nabbit Posted: July 11, 2005 at 03:57 PM (#1464327)

About that homer John mentioned in post #1. . . . He said he got more letters & mail for that than anything else in his life. He put it all in a big box, and slowly worked through it. He'd do a little one day, get tired, and come at it again the next day. But there were so many letters it took forver. As he finally started getting to the bottom of the pile, he noticed some of the newer letters were people saying: "Hey, I wrote you 2 months ago? How come you never responded you ####### piece of ####?" He answered those letters, too. Some people really have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

4. Howie Menckel Posted: July 11, 2005 at 04:25 PM (#1464401)

lol, Chris J!

Man, I loved that homer, too. But I didn't write to tell him so.

5. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 11, 2005 at 04:28 PM (#1464405)

As he finally started getting to the bottom of the pile, he noticed some of the newer letters were people saying: "Hey, I wrote you 2 months ago? How come you never responded you #### piece of ####?" He answered those letters, too. Some people really have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

Don't you just love people like that?

6. sunnyday2 Posted: July 11, 2005 at 04:33 PM (#1464418)

John, I don't care how much they pulled in the fence. I think it's cool that Ed Williamson hit the ball over the fence 27 times in one season (when teammates Anson, Gore and Kelly didn't do it 20 times among them).

Re. Appling's homer, I didn't write him either (and now it's too late), but I thought about it and the sumbitch didn't even write me back.

7. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 11, 2005 at 04:46 PM (#1464458)

John, I don't care how much they pulled in the fence. I think it's cool that Ed Williamson hit the ball over the fence 27 times in one season (when teammates Anson, Gore and Kelly didn't do it 20 times among them).

I assume this is a veiled (or not so veiled) "attack" on some of the other voters here, since I never was involved in the Williamson/1884/Homer Runs brouhaha from way back in the election process.

At any rate, I don't see the connection between the two.

Re. Appling's homer, I didn't write him either (and now it's too late), but I thought about it and the sumbitch didn't even write me back.

:-)

8. sunnyday2 Posted: July 11, 2005 at 05:36 PM (#1464562)

John, I don't remember who said what but it wasn't an "attack." I just thought your comment about "pulled in the fence" reminded me of Big Ed's big year and I thought I'd get in a plug.

Too bad we don't get Appling and Wells together. I see them as similar. Appling is the early fave for PHoM in 1956 but I don't have Wells yet. What do people think?

9. Mark Shirk (jsch) Posted: July 11, 2005 at 05:51 PM (#1464601)

I have Appling slightly above Wells based on his one excellent season. Even if that seaon was a fluke, he still gets credit for it. May Wells have had a season like it that was smoothed out in the MLE process? Possible, but I dont' like to give away 35-40 WS seasons like candy. Otherwise I have them as very similar players who are both deserving. Wells isn't in my PHOM, but is first in line for the backlog, he and Appling may be the choices for 1956.

10. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 11, 2005 at 05:54 PM (#1464610)

John, I don't remember who said what but it wasn't an "attack." I just thought your comment about "pulled in the fence" reminded me of Big Ed's big year and I thought I'd get in a plug.

Marc, in retrospect, I should have used the word "dig" instead of "attack," since that was what I was leading to (that's why I put that word in quotations to soften its impact, BTW). I wasn't implying an belligerence on your part in any way.

Too bad we don't get Appling and Wells together. I see them as similar. Appling is the early fave for PHoM in 1956 but I don't have Wells yet. What do people think?

They seem like extremely similar players. I had the same thought myself.

11. Chris Cobb Posted: July 11, 2005 at 09:23 PM (#1465194)

I have Appling slightly over Wells, but the difference between them is well within the margin of error for the MLE projections . . .

In my system, Appling is an easy pick for #1 this year.

12. yest Posted: July 12, 2005 at 12:41 PM (#1466332)

I don't care if the fence was pulled in and Warren Spahn grooved one, it's still cool that a man in his mid-seventies was able to hit a homer during an all-star game.

wish they still had those

13. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 12, 2005 at 01:30 PM (#1466460)

wish they still had those

I agree, yest.

14. jimd Posted: July 12, 2005 at 05:09 PM (#1467087)

(when teammates Anson, Gore and Kelly didn't do it 20 times among them)

First team with four 20-HR guys: Ned 27, Fred 25, Abner 22, Cap 21.

15. jingoist Posted: July 12, 2005 at 06:20 PM (#1467303)

That was the only old-timers all star game I ever attended and as luck would have it I got to witness his HR.
I don't remember the year; it seems about 25 years ago.
The other vivid memory of that game I have was the speed Sandy Koufax still had on his fastball;
he was throwing heat.

16. sunnyday2 Posted: July 12, 2005 at 06:43 PM (#1467388)

That's why they didn't let Appling bat against him!

17. yest Posted: August 07, 2005 at 01:15 PM (#1528356)

Just wondering what do you think he would do if he played today fouling off 10 to 15 pitches with the modern emphases on the pitch count.

18. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: August 21, 2008 at 04:58 PM (#2912022)

Luke Appling, in my WARP, standard deviation and war-adjusted. An important note: DRA is MUCH more bullish on Appling's fielding than either BP FRAA or Fielding Win Shares are. These numbers put him at just 4 fielding wins above average for his career; DRA has him at a whopping fifteen fielding wins above average. Now, it's worth noting that the standard deviation of DRA for SS in the 1930's is very high--scores reach as high as +51, and there are a number of +30 years--so I think +150 is probably rather overstated. But the basic conclusion is that Appling was an elite fielder, not merely a good one, and I could see bumping him up 5-10 wins to reflect that. Without further ado:

Year SFrac BWAA    BRWAA FWAA Replc WARP
1931  0.49 -1.1      0.2 -0.8  -1.4 -0.3
1932  0.79 -0.5      0.0 -0.1  -2.2  1.6
1933  1.02  2.5     -0.2  0.6  -2.8  5.7
1934  0.77  0.8      0.1 -1.1  -2.2  2.0
1935  0.98  2.4      0.1  1.0  -2.8  6.3
1936  0.90  4.2      0.0 -0.2  -2.6  6.6
1937  0.99  2.1      0.0  0.5  -2.9  5.6
1938  0.51  0.0     -0.1  0.3  -1.5  1.6
1939  0.94  1.7      0.0  0.6  -2.9  5.2
1940  0.96  2.9     -0.1  1.4  -3.0  7.3
1941  1.01  2.1      0.1  0.4  -3.2  5.8
1942  0.94  0.4      0.3  0.5  -3.0  4.2
1943  1.04  4.1      0.5  1.0  -3.1  8.8
1944  0.94  2.6      0.2  0.4  -2.8  6.0
1945  0.94  3.1      0.2  0.3  -2.8  6.5
1946  1.00  2.3      0.1  1.0  -2.9  6.3
1947  0.87  2.5      0.0 -0.6  -2.5  4.4
1948  0.89  1.7      0.1 -0.2  -1.3  2.9
1949  0.93  2.7     -0.3 -1.0  -2.7  4.0
1950  0.21 -0.8      0.1 -0.2  -0.6 -0.3
TOTL 17.12 35.8      1.3  3.8 -49.2 90.3
TXBR 16.42 37.7      1.0  4.8 -47.2 90.9
AVRG  1.00  2.1      0.1  0.2  -2.9  5.3

3-year peak: 22.7
7-year prime: 47.9
Career: 90.9
Salary: $266,611,505, just below Bench and Matthews, and above Larkin and Yount. Very close to an inner-circle player, and if you give him DRA-level credit for his defense, he's there. Extremely underrated.

19. DL from MN Posted: August 22, 2008 at 10:06 AM (#2912573)

Wow, I was one of his best friends and you still managed to point out that I wasn't giving enough war credit. He jumps up to 5th on my SS list ahead of Dahlen/Davis and behind Ripken/Vaughan.

20. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: August 22, 2008 at 11:24 AM (#2912673)

He has the monster 1943 (which, it turns out, was actually not such a soft league), was probably the best player in the 1940 AL as well, and then just had an incredibly long, productive career--he played at a high All-Star level every year between '35 and '47. Strange, I always remembered him for hitting .388 before this project, but it turns out that was only his third-best season, and virtually indistinguishable from 3-4 others.

21. Paul Wendt Posted: August 24, 2008 at 03:49 PM (#2914752)

In the first Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (1985, 1988), Bill James ranked Luke Appling
- shortstop #2 by career, #10 by peak;
- 20th century major league player #27 by career, between Alexander and Bench.

The shortstop blurb is a short one (the blurbs commonly focus on choosing number one).
>>
The selection of the greatest one ever is easier at this position than at any other; after that it is desperate work. I will no doubt be criticized for overrating the good-hitting shortstops and underrating the glove men, but then I have enjoyed that criticism for many years concerning theh rankings in annual Baseball Abstracts, and I don't see why I should give it up now.
<<

Seven good-hitting shortstops led his parallel rankings

peak: Wagner, Banks, Vaughan, Boudreau, Cronin, Yount
career: Wagner, Appling, Banks, Cronin

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Luke Appling

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