— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
Shortstops
Here are the SS’s. Pebbly Jack Glasscock is by far the best candidate here. George Wright may have a case on peak value once we have some NA data. Ed McKean has a case he may get in before the next generation’s big guns start hitting the ballot.
224 - 28, 26, 26 - 106 - Tom Burns - 11.0 sea. - 153 batting - 71 fielding.
3B 48%, SS 44%, 2B 7%, LF 1%.
notes: 1880-1892. 5-year peak age 23-27. Played entire career for Chicago in the NL.
172 - 43, 34, 26 - 149 - Frank Fennelly - 6.5 sea. - 124 batting - 48 fielding.
SS 97%, 2B 1%, 3B 1%.
notes: 1884-90. 5-year peak age 24-28. Played entire career in AA.
360 - 37, 33, 31 - 143 - Jack Glasscock - 15.0 sea. - 232 batting - 128 fielding.
SS 92%, 2B 7%, 3B 1%.
notes: 1879-95. 5-year peak age 22-26. Played entire career in NL, except part of 1884 (38 of 110 G) in UA.
161 - 33, 28, 27 - 131 - Bill Gleason - 6.9 sea. - 122 batting - 39 fielding.
SS 100%.
notes: 1882-89. 5-year peak age 23-27. Played entire career in AA.
265 - 31, 30, 25 - 118 - Ed McKean - 12.0 sea. - 211 batting - 54 fielding.
SS 94%, LF 3%, 2B 2%, 1B 1%.
notes: 1887-1899. 5-year peak age 23-27. Played entire career in NL, except 1887-88 in AA, 18 and 30 WS (first two years of 5-year peak).
58 - 38, 9, 9 - 58 - Mike Moynahan - 1.8 sea. - 47 batting - 11 fielding.
SS 73%, LF 21%, 2B 3%, 3B 1%, RF 1%.
notes: 1880-81, 1883-84. Entire career from age 24-28. The big year (1881) was in the NL, 1880 also in NL, 1883 in AA.
123 - 30, 25, 21 - 95 - John Peters - 8.6 sea. - 78 batting - 45 fielding.
SS 88%, 2B 11%.
notes: 1874-1884. 5-year peak age 26-30. Played 1.9 seasons in NA, rest of career in NL, except 1882-84 in AA (21, 1, 0 WS respectively).
207 - 26, 26, 23 - 113 - Jack Rowe - 9.4 sea. - 163 batting - 44 fielding.
SS 54%, C 33%, LF 6%, RF 4%, 3B 2%, CF 1%.
notes: 1879-1890. 5-year peak from age 26-30. Played entire career in NL, except 1890 (PL), 9 WS.
30 - 21, 7, 2 - 30 - Phil Tomney - 1.8 sea. - 14 batting - 16 fielding.
SS 100%.
notes: 1888-90. Entire career from age 24-26. Played entire career in AA.
212 - 28, 28, 23 - 118 - Sam Wise - 9.8 sea. - 161 batting - 51 fielding.
SS 51%, 2B 35%, 1B 5%, 3B 5%, RF 3%, LF 1%.
notes: 1881-91, 1893. 5-year peak age 25-29. Played entire career in NL, except 1890 (PL), 17 WS and 1891 (AA), 14 WS.
117 - 39, 30, 22 - 112 - George Wright - 8.9 sea. - 73 batting - 44 fielding.
SS 89%, 2B 11%.
notes: 1871-82. 5-year peak age 28-32. Played 4.3 seasons in NA, rest of career in NL. Best years were in the NA, numbers above do not reflect this, so he cannot be accurately evaluated by WS at this point.
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My gggrandfather enlisted with the Wisconsin volunteers and spent four years in the Union Army. This was at the age of 41-45. But he didn't play baseball.
Pearce just by the by was 24 when the shelling of Fort Sumter took place, Joe Start 17, Harry Wright 35 and George Wright 23.
Newhouser can work, too, but unlike Pearce, he didn't take a hardcore nosedive when the war was over. He was still perhaps the best pitcher in the game for a couple years afterwards. No one was mistaking Pearce for the greatest in the mid/late 60s.
As for his being the best in the late 50s...well...fine. I don't see why he's any more deserving of induction that, say, Creighton or whoever else was great from that time, too, though. I find the post-war period to be when baseball started to grow enough to be meaningful. Others may vary. Anyway, the election's done, and no one else from the 60s will probably ever receive another vote, so we should find more relavent Ferrell/Medwick/Ruffing arguments to brawl about. :)
WARP sees Wallace as a significant star of the deadball era, due to his glove (6 seasons over 10 WARP, 6 more over 8). Win Shares sees him as an excellent glove, but does not give that enough weight to make him a consistent star (3 appearances in the top-32, plus 8 just-misses).
I was hoping someone else could tell me if I understand these BP numbers correctly regarding Wallace. From today's BP I found the following:
BRAR for career: 412
FRAR for career: 927
PRAR for career: 68
I assume this means that Wallace's career value breaks down: 29.2% batting / 65.8% fielding / 4.8% pitching. Not including the 3 years of pitching the totals are: 31.6% batting and 68. 2% fielding. In the Win Shares book the break down is: 58% batting / 33% fielding / 9% pitching. That is a serious difference of opinion on how to value a player's onfield contributions. Especially a good player with a long career. This is not Bill Bergen. That figure does not make sense to me.
Of the top 100 players in career win shares, only Bill Dahlen has a higher percentage of value in defense, 36.5%. Of the 172 players with over 300 win shares, the following people have a higher percentage of defensive value:
Rabbit Maranville 47%
Ozzie Smith 42.7%
Nellie Fox 36.7%
Gary Carter: 36.6%
Dahlen 36.5%
PeeWee Reese 35.3%
Gabby Hartnett 33.7%.
I checked 3 of the players on BP:
Ozzie - 32.5% bat / 67.5% field.
Maz - 19% bat / 81% field. (WS 48 / 52)
Rabbit - 18% bat / 82% field.
I don't think fielding is that valuable, I don't care how good you are.
I'll admit win shares may underestimate the value of fielding, but it does not underestimate it by 30% of a player's career value. Defense is just not that important. YMMV, IMHO.
Drop me an email and I'll send it to you. It's fairly user friendly too, and I think we've worked all the bugs out (but if you find any, please let me know!).
Didn't Creighton pitch for like 2 years? Wasn't he dead by the time he was 21?
Pearce has a tad more career value . . .
I'd guess the right answer is probably somwhere in the middle.
But still, as of 1870 Pearce clearly had the greatest career value of anybody. Arguably by 1876 that was still true as Joe Start had some down years in there. As a peak voter, I would probably argue for George Wright as the greatest career by 1876 but Pearce's career was almost twice as long.
The only way to say that Pearce's career was not dominating in terms of its total value over time is to say that he didn't play baseball, which is what some people are still saying.
How does this look for a guy Like Derek Jeter or Vern Stephens?
You're talking apples and oranges, Michael. Pearce had already ten seasons of dominance under his belt by the end of the Civil War. Besides, as Marc pointed out, how many ballplayers were involved in the fighting, anyway.
"I don't see why he's any more deserving of induction that, say, Creighton or whoever else was great from that time, too, though"
Didn't Creighton pitch for like 2 years? Wasn't he dead by the time he was 21?
Pearce has a tad more career value . . .
You think, Joe? :-) Obviously, the Pearce-Creighton comparison is a poor one.
Does anyone in the group think that's a credible percentage for a monster-hitting left fielder?
Here's a list of some of the major post-1930 LF candidates and the percentage of their value (BRAR + FRAR) that their bpro card ascribes to fielding.
NAME %VALUE IN FRAR
-----------------------------
Augie Galan 34%
Roy White 33%
George Foster 33%
Luis Gonzalez 29%
Joe Medwick 29%
Billy Williams 28%
Bob Johnson 27%
Jim Rice 26%
Yaz 26%
Minnie Minoso 25%
Tim Raines 24%
Gary Matthews 23%
Rickey Henderson 21%
Stan Musial 21%
Lou Brock 20%
Kevin Mitchell 20%
Albert Belle 18%
Brian Giles 18%
Willie Stargell 15%
Ted Williams 14%
Don Baylor 13%
Ralph Kiner 12%
Frank Howard 11%
Greg Luzinski 3%</pre>
I don't think these values are reasonable. Don Baylor, a longtime DH, netting 13% of his value from fielding? Not likely. I think it's more likely that these percentages are roughly double what they ought to be, probably because of the oft-mentioned too-low replacement value.
Which then raises the question: how bad are the fielding distortions at other positions? And do the distortions at this position create an amplifying or dampening effect on other positions?
OK, THAT i'm not buying.
If your argument is that none of the lower classes were playing baseball, so the war didn't affect it, then it only adds to my inclination to say early 60s and before baseball was played by so few that that era should not be seriously considered as the meat of an inducted player's argument. Note: I have no issue with adding career bulk to guys, such as Start, who were superstars in the late 60s when the game was clearly growing, both in geography and class. But inducting a player due largely to his supposed peak that ended while baseball was only being played, basically, by a few upper class guys in NYC is the equivalent of inducting whoever dominated the first peach basket games in Springfield, MA to the basketball HOM.
I mean, I get the pennant is a pennant argument and all, but this really takes it too far, and I stand by my comment from long ago that if Pearce is in, then there has to be someone else other than Start from the early 60s who is at least in the consideration set, if you truly believe a pennant is a pennant.
(Oh...for the record, the Creighton comment wasn't a dig at you, Marc; had no idea you'd voted for him, and sorry if it came off that way. He was just the first name that came to mind.)
If Creighton had lasted till say 26 instead of 21 (still dying before 1871) and remained dominant, I would have supported his election with great enthusiasm -- he's just the kind of guy who should be in.
Exactly. Hal Newshouser was still a diamond, despite the crappier competition of 1944-45.
Thank God I don't have to debate this every week anymore. :-D
I mean, I get the pennant is a pennant argument and all, but this really takes it too far, and I stand by my comment from long ago that if Pearce is in, then there has to be someone else other than Start from the early 60s who is at least in the consideration set, if you truly believe a pennant is a pennant.
Who do you have in mind? Creighton didn't play long enough for me; H. Wright was good, but not really great; Bob Ferguson maybe (he looks like a close, but no cigar, guy); Al Reach (another Ferguson)?
The other thing is that Pearce had a combination of great praise and stats, while the others less so.
I did support Start, Spalding, Pike, and Barnes (less so) who had significant seasons pre-1871, so I certainly am not just picking out Pearce and ignoring everybody else from the amateur era. Start and Pike wouldn't have made my ballot without it, while Spalding and Barnes would have been lower down on my ballot if I had ignored it.
:-) Yeah, I was trying to be a bit diplomatic before as I didn't want to restart and old debate that didn't really matter anymore. I did vote for Pearce, but there were others at the time who shared Michael and Andrew's views who were fairly vocal at the time.
As for other candidates:
-- HWright was on ballots for a while, but the data showed that he spent a lot of time playing cricket instead of baseball. His pre-Cincy baseball record is not well documented and by the time the Red Stocking juggernaut was fully assembled he was one of the weaker batters on the team.
-- Reach was great from 67-69 and 71, but was just so-so before and fizzled out after that. Plus he played 2B which was more of a hitter position back then. Maybe half to two thirds of Barnes? (thinking out loud here)
-- Ferguson was more of a career guy with a couple of good seasons (one of which was in the NL).
-- Charlie Smith was an impressive 3B for the Atlantics before Ferguson (from 58-65) who took a year off after the war and wasn't the same afterwards. I could see him getting a few votes in the 1890s ballots if we knew about him, but I can't see him really competing with guys like McGraw or Rosen for votes these days.
-- McBride is an interesting case. He was a pitcher who could hit for a few years 65-68,70 who continued to pitch decently in the NA (his bat left him though). I could see him below Tommy Bond on a pitching depth chart, but only one person is left voting for Bond.
-- Asa Brainard was a decent pitcher in the 60s but was quite poor by the time of the NA.
-- Davy Force strung together 3-4 decent seasons for Washington Olympic from 67-70 which might pad his NA/NL numbers.
Lots of Atlantics and Athletics up there. There were other teams, but I couldn't find other players who strung several consecutive good seasons together. The documented games are fewer and the data less informative (just runs and outs) in the early 60s and before.
I had him very close at one time, but too many others have moved in front of him. He's in my top-fifty (barely), FWIW.
Beyond Pearce and Start, of the players who peaked before 1871 I think Reach is the next best and he was never in my top 25. So again, elect 2, then move on. But don't elect nobody because of a small pool.
Correct again, Marc. While I think there were fewer great players of that time, I don't think there was a total absence of them, either.
SS's and DFTs
Intersting article. Clearly, his opinion of the "gloves" (Wallace, Maranville, Bancroft) is higher relative to the "bats" than our elections have shown. He does box himself into an odd corner by considering only value accumulated while playing SS - this shows up in his unusually low rating for George Davis. The issue for Davis isn't whether he was a great SS but whether he was a great baseball player (who happened to play more SS than anything else.) The HoM consensus puts him an eyelash ahead of Dahlen. (I voted Dahlen first, myself, but was in the minority.)
Oh c'mon...Moore's a terrible example. He would only apply if he'd ripped the baseball like Babe Ruth in his Wreckers days, and then merely Lundy-good after leaving the service for more organized ball. And we all know he wouldn't be receiving a single vote. I also haven't noticed a landslide of support for Arlett either.
And the often-brought up Newhouser example does not work either. If he had been merely "good" from 1946-1949, as Pearce was at his comparable time, he would not be in the HOM.
(Oh, and in looking back, I always wondered why Davy Force never got a vote. My imaginary ballots always had him on them in the very early days.)
1) How many players went to war between 1861-65? If you don't know (I don't), then you shouldn't be using this to beat up Pearce with until the facts are presented.
2) He was acknowledged before the war as the greatest shortstop ever. We're talking about five seasons of play there.
3) Pearce was ten-year veteran who didn't use a glove that whole time as of 1865. How is that remotely Newshouser who was 24 in 1945 and was never mentioned as one of the best prior to 1944? I wasn't comparing Pearce to Prince Hal as a player anyway, only to the fact that a player can still be great with lousy competition.
4) As I have pointed out, shortstops didn't last long during the 19th Century. That's a fact.
5) Pearce may have dominated his position somewhat due to the fact that he "invented" it, so he may not have been as great twenty years later. But we can say the same thing about Babe Ruth, who most certainly would not have dominated the 1950's as he did the 1920's. Those wins that both of them created were real and can't be thrown out into the garbage, however.
I don't know either, but there are two possibilities here...
- A bunch of players went, so competition was watered down to nothing
- Very few players went
If the latter is the case because, as Marc says earlier, baseball was not being played by the working classes that ended up fighting in wars, then that essentially means the player pool was so small that IMO it is ludicrous to consider this HOM-level competition. It's the equivalent of the Springfield YMCA peach basket games. I mean...we're talking the upper class male population of NYC. How many people were playing baseball at this point on any level if this is true? 500 tops?
3) Pearce was ten-year veteran who didn't use a glove that whole time as of 1865. How is that remotely Newshouser who was 24 in 1945 and was never mentioned as one of the best prior to 1944? I wasn't comparing Pearce to Prince Hal as a player anyway, only to the fact that a player can still be great with lousy competition.
I'm not the one who keeps bringing up Newhouser. My only point is that without Hal's performance against certified A+ competition, he would not be in the HOM. By the time Pearce was playing against real competition, when the game expanded outside NYC, he was merely good at best. Yes, this may have coincided with age, almost certainly did to at least some degree. But it's an awfully big coincidence to drop from "best player in the game" to "third best player on his own team" basically overnight as soon as the game starts to expand, even with age taken into account.
Those wins that both of them created were real and can't be thrown out into the garbage, however.
Well, we're back to the old fight again, I guess, which is why this discussion is always pointless. I just don't see wins before 1866 or so as particularly meaningful. They are Dobie Moore's Wreckers days; they count in so far as to not punish players for having short careers, but you don't get inducted based on them, because no one was playing baseball at this time to any significant numbers. To me, this is "a pennant is a pennant" taken to absurd degrees, though a huge portion of the electorate disagrees with me, so I live.
I'm pretty sure that there was an article in Total Baseball 7 that mentioned Dick McBride being in the army during the Civil War. I believe the article mentioned that he was given special permission to go back and pitch a championship game. The game was held up one day to give him time to get there, if I remember correctly.
I wonder whether this is in Total Baseball 8. John Thorn was working on an article covering the greatest players by decade and McBride was one of his five(?) selections from the 1870s.
"gentlemen" is a myth. Many very early ballplayers were white collar workers whom no one today would call lower class and few would call working class. But USAmerican discourse on "class" is notoriously shallow. The Atlantic and Eckford and Henry Eckford clubs, at least, were working class clubs with rowdy supporters (but not lower class meaning low income or unskilled or unemployed), and the Atlantics were shunned by the Excelsiors after the breakdown of their series in August 1860.
Not.
But all such lines in the sand, even 1866, are abitrary.
I was hoping that would be the case. :-(
To me, this is "a pennant is a pennant" taken to absurd degrees, though a huge portion of the electorate disagrees with me,
Thankfully. :-)
Earlier in this thread (post 86), I posted summary counts for the top-32 players in the league from 1896-1910, broken down by position groups (pitchers, hitting positions, glove positions). The final results are summarized above, more details are available in post 86.
Cumulative:
WiSh: Arm 181, Bat 201, Glove 099 (% 38, 42, 20)
WARP: Arm 100, Bat 163, Glove 177 (% 23, 37, 40)
One would expect roughly equal numbers for each group. WARP is light on pitchers, Win Shares is short on glove position players.
I have a major problem with the Win Shares 2:1 ratio between OF stars and IF stars. This indicates one of two things: either the managers of the time were overvaluing glovework and really should have gotten better hitters onto their infields so that there would have been more infield stars, or Win Shares is undervaluing glovework and should increase the number of FWS it hands out so there would be more infield stars during this era.
I think you can guess which alternative I think is more likely to be correct.
My email is my name at gmail.com, just send me a direct one and I can reply to that . . .
1B still belongs with the OF during this period; while it's true that the OF outhit 1B, it's also true that 1B outhit the other IF positions, and that gap is larger that between 1b and the OF. On average, they hit like Dimaggio/Mantle era CF, but without the stars.
It's 24 for the 12 team league and 32 for the 16 team MLB. This sample represents 17-20% of the regulars, depending on how many pitchers you think are really regulars, so it's the top 2-3 at each position, if everything evens out.
It COULD be that 40/30 might be reasonable, but one would then expect that most of the worst regulars would also be from the "bat" group. That is, the "gloves" would be more clustered around average (have less variance), and this might happen because Win Shares gave them all similar grades on fielding, refusing to differentiate them. My impression is that this is not actually the case (worst regulars being "bats" that is).
Basically, there needs to be a reason why one position averages out to be more or less valuable than another over a "long enough" stretch of time. Pitchers: because they are so valuable defensively, they don't have to even make contact at the plate to be stars. Catchers: so debilitating that the best athletes are tracked to other positions to maximize career value to the organization, reducing the number of stars. Shortstop: tends to collect the very best athlete/hitters, those that could play any position (the "absence-of-offense" theory for estimating defensive value at a position may undervalue SS because of this factor).
Just my thoughts on a Friday evening. (Gone off on some tangents here.)
Should have said "much longer"
It would be good to look at top players by rate, with, say, an 80 game minimum threshold. Pitchers couldn't be readily compared to position players this way, but it would be useful to see if how much, if at all, infielders are ahead or behind by rate in WARP and in WS.
I redid the OF/IF counts, removing 1B from the OF'ers and C from the IF'ers. There were 23 1B all-star appearances in Win Shares, and only 3(!) C appearances. Instead of being 201-99 in favor of the "bats", it's now 178-96 in favor of the OF'ers. Still statistically significant (at almost 5 standard deviations).
Now, did the OF'ers play a lot more games than the IF'ers?
I picked the center year of each 5-year span (1898, 1903, 1908) and examined the league leaders in BP's AdjGm's (something that I had readily available, sorted, etc.; it's BP's adjustment of GP to factor out partial fielding games at a position, which there isn't a lot of during this era anyway).
Year Tp-24 -GP - Tp-48 -GP - Tp-72 -GP (OF-IF)
1898 09-13 147 - 19-22 135 - 28-28 117
Year Tp-32 -GP - Tp-64 -GP - Tp-96 -GP
1903 17-11 136 - 28-24 125 - 40-40 106 (140G schedule)
1908 13-13 149 - 23-27 132 - 38-37 115
--------------------------------------------
Total 39-37 -GP - 70-73 -GP - 106-105
(Top-72/top-96 gets down close to where replacment level will kick in; it covers 75% of the "everyday regulars".)
I see no evidence here of a significant playing time bias favoring OF'ers over IF'ers. If others have alternative methodologies that aren't too time-consuming, I'll take a look with them too.
I feel like the electorate is pretty divided on bats vs. gloves--you're either largely dismissive of positional value as a whole (which would apply to most WS voters) or you have a ballot stacked with left-spectrum position players (people who use my system, many BP voters, and just defense-oriented voters in general). Given how divided the backlog is, if the glove-friendly voters could manage to agree among themselves which of the shortstops are the most deserving, we could probably get one or two into the HoM, whereas if we continue to split our top glove votes among a variety of candidates, those spots will be taken by right-spectrum position players or pitchers whom we all agree are less Meritorious. This isn't a call for strategic voting or collusion--rather, it's a request for discussion within the glove-friendly contingent of the electorate to see if we can reach a semi-consensus ranking of players within the category.
If you have a shortstop on your ballot, could you please take the time to post saying why you think he is superior to the other backloggers at his position? I personally see Concepción, Pesky, Rizzuto, Campaneris, and Bancroft as all deserving and fairly closely bunched together in value--too close for my system to conclusively distinguish between them--so I'm wide open to arguments as to their relative Merit. I'm not so sympathetic to Maranville and Stephens.
Still it would be interesting to hear where you think Lundy fits.
Anyway my SS (and all) are mostly WS based and it takes a "big year" or two to show that the player in question was GREAT, sometime, somewhere, and therefore to get on my radar.
9. Pesky +7 WS per year vs. position median
14. Rizzuto +5 against an awesome cohort
19. Stephens +8 with no WWII discount on this particular measure
25. Lundy--actually very similar to Concepcion
28. Concepcion +5 against a truly woeful cohort
41. Bancroft
HM. Maranville and Aparicio--largely a bow toward contemporary opinions
Not yet PHoM
(12a. Trammell +10 but, like Concepcion, against one of the weakest position cohorts at any position at any time in ML history)
(32a. Sewell--if we hadn't over-represented his generation by as much as 50 percent--or IOW if he had played in an integrated league--I don't think he would have made it. The difference between he and Lundy is hardly worth mentioning though they derive their value quite differently. I have to acknowledge however that Sewell bears an uncomfortable similarity to Pesky, except [in my own defense] Pesky has that WS peak edge of 34-29. Pesky was great, Sewell was near-great on their best days.)
At one time my consideration set was 150 players. I narrowed it to about 50 about 8-9 years ago. SS who were in that larger set but no longer included Wills, Fregosi, Campaneris, Tinker, H. Long. Is Tony Fernandez eligible yet? If yes, he would at least be in this group if not a little higher up.
While I use WS as my primary tool, I give defense a good boost abd I thnk the results bear that out. Thus my relatively low regard for Trammell, a B- trailing even Vern Stephens.
Please recheck your numbers on Concepción; I'm telling you he's +10 not +5. I laid out my methodology in post #41 on his thread. And I would think you would love Fregosi--an offense-first SS who blew away everyone else at his position for 8 straight years. You should definitely include him in your consideration set.
I agree with the main premise. Lots o' glove candidates, too close to converge on one. Probably why Guiliani can win the GOP nomination if 5 other social conservatives fend each other off.
My response is this: ONE middle infield candidate distinguishes himself. Good bat and good glove. Good enough that he was thought of during his career as a superstar. Long career. And, to boot, he has very little competition at his position on our ballots, even though his position, second base, is UNDERrepresented in the HoM.
We've elected LOTS of Negro League stars from the 20s/30s. But precious few before 1910.
Why only 5 votes for Bill Monroe last ballot? Any of you who came on after we got past 1910 or so, have you looked at his thread closely? Yes, it's a bit fuzzy getting a good handle on guys from his league in his era. But given the known warts of our backlog, it's easy to vote for him. MLEs & anecdotes point IMHO toward Monroe's electability.
I can't assess him without seasonal MLE's...
I suspect this is a constitutional breach. You must assess him with or sans the MLEs.
It turns out, however, that our walk rate data was probably a bit on the low side, so his OPS+ is probably going to end up somewhere around 98-100. Add to that fact the negro league carrer OPS numbers are dragged down by additional playing time below major league replacement level and he might well have had an OPS+ slightly on the north side of 100.
Six months ago, I would have said "so what?" But--as we get to the bottom of our lists and as people like Dan push us to better take into account fielding and competition considerations--a bunch of SS's with similar offensive profiles are moving up our backlog. Since the subjective reports have Lundy as an all-time great defender, I think he is definitely right in the mix with (and very similar to) Bancroft, Rizutto, and Concepcion.
The usual glossary. All numbers are adjusted for standard deviation. SFrac is the percentage of the season played (compared to a player with league average PA/G in 162 games). BTWAA is batting wins above average, BRWA is baserunning wins above average, FWAA is fielding wins above average, Replc is wins above average a replacement player at the same position would have accumulated in the same playing time, and WARP is the first three minus the fourth (wins above replacement). Note that Rep is 0.6 wins lower in the AL than in the NL to account for the DH post 1973. All seasons are straight line adjusted to 162 games. Your mileage on war credit and deductions may vary. aTTL (where included) is career totals excluding sub-replacement seasons. Sorry for the goofy formatting, but the PRE tag doesn't seem to be able to handle consecutive whitespaces anymore.
David Concepción
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1970 00.43 -0.90 +0.2 -0.3 -1.60 +0.6
1971 00.51 -2.70 +0.1 -0.4 -2.00 -0.9
1972 00.64 -2.20 +0.4 +0.4 -2.40 +0.9
1973 00.52 +0.90 +0.4 +0.7 -2.00 +3.9
1974 00.95 +0.70 +0.6 +1.6 -3.60 +6.5
1975 00.81 -0.80 +0.4 +1.9 -3.00 +4.6
1976 00.94 +1.00 -0.1 +2.0 -3.40 +6.3
1977 00.91 -1.00 +0.4 +2.2 -3.30 +4.9
1978 00.93 +1.50 +0.0 +0.9 -3.30 +5.7
1979 00.97 +1.30 +0.3 +1.6 -3.50 +6.6
1980 00.98 -1.60 +0.2 +0.7 -3.50 +2.8
1981 01.04 +1.90 -0.3 +1.4 -3.80 +6.8
1982 00.92 +0.10 -0.5 +1.6 -3.30 +4.5
1983 00.87 -2.90 +0.0 +0.4 -3.20 +0.8
1984 00.88 -1.20 -0.3 -0.8 -3.20 +0.9
1985 00.91 -1.80 -0.6 -0.6 -3.30 +0.4
1986 00.50 -1.00 +0.3 +0.0 -1.90 +1.2
1987 00.45 +0.20 -0.2 +0.0 -0.80 +0.8
1988 00.32 -1.60 +0.0 +0.1 -0.60 -1.0
TOTL 14.48 -10.1 +1.3 13.4 -51.7 56.3
aTTL 13.65 -05.8 +1.2 13.7 -49.1 58.2
3-year peak: 19.9
7-year prime: 41.4
Career: 58.2
Dagoberto Campaneris
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1964 00.42 -0.30 +0.2 -0.4 -1.40 +0.9
1965 00.94 +1.10 +0.3 -1.3 -3.00 +3.1
1966 00.91 +0.20 +0.9 -0.6 -3.20 +3.7
1967 00.97 -0.30 +0.7 -0.8 -3.50 +3.1
1968 01.06 +2.50 +0.6 +0.7 -3.90 +7.6
1969 00.86 -1.30 +1.1 +0.1 -3.30 +3.2
1970 00.95 +1.90 +0.6 +0.9 -3.70 +7.0
1971 00.91 -1.20 +0.6 +0.3 -3.50 +3.3
1972 01.05 -1.00 +1.1 +1.7 -3.90 +5.6
1973 00.97 -1.30 +0.4 +1.7 -4.20 +5.0
1974 00.85 +1.00 +0.4 +0.7 -3.70 +5.8
1975 00.84 -0.30 +0.2 -0.2 -3.60 +3.3
1976 00.91 +0.00 +0.5 +0.4 -3.80 +4.7
1977 00.89 -1.10 +0.0 +1.6 -3.70 +4.2
1978 00.44 -2.20 +0.3 -0.2 -1.80 -0.3
1979 00.40 -1.50 -0.1 +0.4 -1.70 +0.5
1980 00.33 -0.60 +0.0 -0.4 -1.40 +0.3
1981 00.20 +0.00 +0.0 -0.6 -0.40 -0.2
1983 00.22 +0.10 -0.4 -0.2 -0.60 +0.1
TOTL 14.12 -04.3 +7.4 +3.8 -54.3 60.9
aTTL 13.48 -02.1 +7.1 +4.6 -52.1 61.4
3-year peak: 20.4
7-year prime: 39.9
Career: 61.4
Phil Rizzuto
(Note: During his crappy 1946, Rizzuto was recovering from a bout of malaria he contracted in the South Pacific.)
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1941 00.81 +0.10 +0.2 +1.9 -2.60 +4.8
1942 00.93 +0.80 +0.4 +2.3 -2.90 +6.5
WARx 00.87 +0.28 +0.2 +1.7 -2.60 +4.8
WARx 00.87 +0.28 +0.2 +1.7 -2.60 +4.8
WARx 00.87 +0.28 +0.2 +1.7 -2.60 +4.8
1946 00.79 -1.30 +0.1 +0.3 -2.30 +1.4
1947 00.94 +0.80 +0.1 +2.2 -2.70 +5.9
1948 00.80 -0.60 +0.0 +0.2 -2.30 +1.9
1949 01.04 -0.50 +0.3 +1.1 -3.00 +3.9
1950 01.07 +3.30 +0.1 +2.0 -3.20 +8.5
1951 00.91 +0.10 +0.4 +1.3 -2.70 +4.5
1952 00.99 +0.40 +0.3 +1.2 -3.00 +5.0
1953 00.75 +1.10 +0.1 +0.3 -2.20 +3.6
1954 00.54 -1.90 +0.0 +0.1 -1.70 -0.1
1955 00.26 +0.10 +0.2 -0.4 -0.80 +0.6
1956 00.09 -0.30 +0.1 +0.0 -0.30 +0.0
TOTL 12.53 +02.9 +2.8 17.5 -37.6 60.8
aTTL 11.99 +04.8 +2.8 17.4 -35.9 60.9
3-year peak: 20.9
7-year prime: 40.2
Career: 60.9
Johnny Pesky
(Note: Pesky's 1941 in the minor leagues MLE's to about 6.5 WARP.)
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1942 01.03 +2.50 +0.2 +1.8 -3.20 +7.7
WARx 01.05 +2.10 +0.1 +0.9 -3.20 +6.2
WARx 01.05 +2.10 +0.1 +0.9 -3.20 +6.2
WARx 01.05 +2.10 +0.1 +0.9 -3.20 +6.2
1946 01.06 +3.30 +0.1 +1.8 -3.10 +8.2
1947 01.09 +2.20 +0.1 -0.5 -3.20 +5.0
1948 01.01 +0.90 -0.1 +0.7 -1.40 +2.9
1949 01.07 +1.30 +0.1 +0.7 -1.10 +3.2
1951 00.86 +1.60 +0.1 -0.1 -2.60 +4.1
1952 00.46 +0.00 -0.2 -0.9 -1.40 +0.3
1953 00.52 +0.40 -0.2 -0.6 -1.20 +0.8
1954 00.29 -0.60 +0.0 -0.2 -0.60 -0.1
TOTL 11.44 +19.4 +0.5 +7.1 -28.9 55.5
aTTL 11.15 +20.0 +0.5 +7.3 -28.3 55.6
3-year peak: 22.1
7-year prime: 44.3
Career: 55.6
Dave Bancroft
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1915 01.04 +1.30 -0.8 +0.3 -3.20 +4.0
1916 00.90 -0.90 -0.1 +2.3 -2.70 +3.9
1917 00.84 -0.10 +0.0 +1.5 -2.50 +4.0
1918 01.09 +0.20 +0.0 +0.8 -3.20 +4.2
1919 00.66 +0.40 +0.0 -0.2 -1.90 +2.0
1920 01.04 +1.40 -0.1 +2.0 -3.00 +6.2
1921 01.07 +2.60 +0.3 +1.0 -3.10 +7.0
1922 01.13 +2.00 +0.1 +0.6 -3.30 +6.0
1923 00.78 +1.40 +0.0 +0.6 -2.30 +4.3
1924 00.56 +0.00 +0.0 -0.3 -1.70 +1.5
1925 00.84 +2.30 +0.1 +1.6 -2.50 +6.5
1926 00.82 +2.30 +0.0 -0.1 -2.40 +4.6
1927 00.66 -0.80 +0.0 +0.2 -2.00 +1.3
1928 00.89 -1.90 +0.0 +0.3 -2.70 +1.1
1929 00.59 -01.3 +0.0 -0.3 -1.80 +0.2
TOTL 12.91 +08.9 -0.5 10.3 -38.3 56.8
3-year peak: 19.7
7-year prime: 38.8
Career: 56.8
Jim Fregosi
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1962 00.28 +0.20 +0.0 +0.0 -0.90 +1.2
1963 00.94 +1.60 +0.0 -0.5 -2.90 +4.0
1964 00.86 +4.20 +0.2 +0.1 -2.80 +7.3
1965 01.00 +2.30 +0.2 +0.1 -3.20 +5.8
1966 01.03 +1.70 +0.2 +1.0 -3.60 +6.4
1967 00.97 +2.60 +0.1 -0.6 -3.50 +5.6
1968 01.04 +1.20 +0.2 -0.9 -3.80 +4.3
1969 01.00 +2.20 +0.3 +0.0 -3.90 +6.3
1970 01.00 +3.30 +0.0 +0.3 -3.80 +7.5
1971 00.59 +0.20 +0.0 -0.7 -2.30 +1.8
1972 00.59 -0.20 -0.1 -0.1 -0.80 +0.4
1973 00.46 +0.10 -0.1 -0.8 -0.90 +0.1
1974 00.37 +0.30 +0.0 +0.1 -0.20 +0.6
1975 00.32 +0.30 -0.1 -0.1 -0.20 +0.3
1976 00.23 +0.00 +0.1 -0.1 -0.20 +0.2
1977 00.15 +0.50 +0.1 -0.1 -0.00 +0.6
TOTL 10.83 +20.5 +1.1 -2.3 -33.0 52.4
3-year peak: 21.2
7-year prime: 43.2
Career: 52.4
Walter James Vincent Maranville
Year SFrac BTWAA BRWA FWAA Replc WARP1912 00.15 -0.60 +0.0 -0.1 -0.40 -0.3
1913 01.02 -0.80 +0.1 +0.7 -2.90 +2.8
1914 01.02 -0.50 +0.1 +3.1 -2.90 +5.7
1915 00.90 +0.10 +0.1 +1.7 -2.70 +4.7
1916 01.06 +0.00 +0.3 +1.9 -3.10 +5.4
1917 00.97 +1.30 +0.3 +1.1 -2.90 +5.5
WARx 00.97 +0.40 +0.2 +1.1 -2.80 +4.6
1919 00.93 +1.30 +0.0 +0.7 -2.70 +4.7
1920 00.82 +0.00 +0.1 +0.0 -2.40 +2.4
1921 01.05 -0.30 +0.4 +1.9 -3.00 +5.0
1922 01.13 -0.30 +0.3 +1.6 -3.30 +4.8
1923 00.96 -1.50 +0.0 +1.4 -2.80 +2.7
1924 00.99 -1.00 +0.0 +1.0 -1.90 +2.0
1925 00.46 -1.60 +0.0 -0.3 -