"First baseman" is unfortunately hard to define because relatively few players spend the majority of a career there. Most young guys who start at 1B are, how shall we say, not the most athletic of specimens and those guys tend not to age well. Most young athletic guys will play elsewhere. There are exceptions obviously of guys who aren't lumbering (but not necessarily fleet of foot) but play there their whole careers -- Hernandez, Olerud, Will Clark, Grace. For some reason those are generally guyw without a lot of power.

Anyway, if you look at players who, through age 30, had at least 80% of their games at 1B and 3000+ PA, Olerud is 11th in WAR. He's ahead of a few HoFers -- Cepeda (VC), Chance, Bottomley (VC?) and High Pockets Kelly. He was also ahead of Palmeiro and McGwire who would have made it. But then he was also only 3 wins ahead of Teixeira and McGriff.

If you run those same criteria but for guys 31+, Olerud comes in 22nd in WAR. Carew qualifies on this list and beat Olerud by 15 WAR -- Carew's post-30 WAR is 8 wins behind Olerud's pre-31 WAR. Drop the criterion to 50% of games at 1B -- to pick up more shifted OFs and guys who wandered off to DH and Olerud drops to 29th.

If you take entire careers, requiring 7000+ PA:

If you use 80% of games at 1B, Olerud is 9th
If you use 50% of games at 1B, he drops to 12th
If you use 33% of games at 1B, he drops to 20th

Still, he's just behind Stargell and ahead of Terry, Perez, Sisler, Cepeda and Bottomley so he's still got a case by total WAR. If you look at corner players in general then he's still a quite respectable 39th and right there with Stargell and Billy Williams and ahead of those same guys and Slaughter -- but also pretty indistinguishable from Bobby Bonds, Giambi, Helton, Abreu, J Clark, Cash, Bob Johnson, Minoso.

While it's hardly definitive, this is all much easier if you distinguish between writer selections and VC selections. The writers haven't elected too many players worse than Olerud (although they've had a fair number in recent elections). The inconsistent selections are primarily the work of various VCs, especially Frisch of course.

I'm still reading, but love his comment on Chone Figgins, if anything underlines the point that the Mariners as an organization is relatively clueless, this is one of those signings, nothing against the guy, as he's been a useful spare parts type of player, the type of guy you give a one year 5mil or two year 12mil contract to, and they decide at age 32 he's worth a 4mil 36mil contract based upon an outstanding age 31 season in which his war(6.9) was better than his three previous years combined(5.9)

I know it's just fun to pick on the Mariners, but is there really a more inept franchise in baseball in the past three years, the Royals, Pirates and even Orioles have all made positive strides(and even the Nationals, but it's nearly impossible for them to not make positive strides) I would say the only organization that has shown even half as consistency in taking step backwards is maybe the Indians and Astros.

wow, it's funny I watch or listen to every Cardinal game and for some reason I didn't realize Berkman had six homeruns(thought he had five) but I'm glad to see the power, don't really expect him to hit more than 25-35 for a season, but it does make me feel better, it seemed that after the Cardinals signed him, that everyone talked about his lack of power and kept pointing to his change of venue, the Yankees as evidence that he was washed up, (from memory, not looking it up right now) he posted a 122 ops+ last year combined between the two leagues, his Yankee tenure sucked, no doubts about it, but a 122 is still an acceptable performance and if you argue his Yankee numbers dragged him down for whatever 'comfort' reason, then there is no reason to think he wouldn't bounce back playing in an environment which he has enjoyed throughout his career (Berkman killed the Cardinals...since bbtf isn't working I'll look this up right now. vs Cardinals .313/.415/.601/1.016, at St Louis fairly healthy numbers .909 at current Busch, and 1.010 at old Busch) either way, a decent projection for Berkman is 25-35 hrs, a 120 ops+ and hopefully not completely crap defense while getting around 500 plate appearances(we fully expect him to be benched in late innings that the Cardinals are winning for a defensive substitute)
(last year his 122 was actually 114 season long, 122 as an Astros)


after his third point I had to look up Bob Fothergill, wow, that is a hell of a hitter(by hitter I mean for average not anything more complicated than that), as Pos mentioned no power or ability to walk, but man it does seem like a guy who should have been given an everyday job somewhere. I mean a career average of .325 a part timer more or less who still managed to finish top 10 in average 3 times(I'm guessing under different rules of course as only one of those years did he qualify by todays standard) at first I felt that I failed as much as the guy who didn't know who Larry Jackson was, but Fothergill was only a bench player, and I don't think it's a fault to not know a bench player from the 20's in the Al (I'm an NL type of guy, although my dad was an AL guy--he was a Browns fan)

Posnanski tangent on Olerud might be an interesting article, study for the Hall of Merit.

His next point strikeouts made me look up Sam McDowell(I recognized the name of course, just didn't know how good/bad he was) looking at the numbers and I think "young Nolan Ryan" I mean five times leading the league in walks, and 5 times leading in strikeouts..both also do well in stuff like hits per nine innings pitch(Ryan all time first place, McDowell 10th place) McDowell just didn't survive past his 30's like Ryan did.

I tried to do this on one of the computer sims once - make the baseball season reflect the football schedule. 16 games, once per week. You can have one ace start all of them. 50 homeruns would be the signature career achievement.

I don't remember if I stopped because it was too complicated or if I became embarrassed at my own dorkiness.

"First baseman" is unfortunately hard to define because relatively few players spend the majority of a career there

I've been having fun doing internal 'arguments' for players and some of the basic research I've discovered is how few career first baseman there really have been. Considering that in any given season the top five first baseman offensive output would dwarf any other position, you would think teams would find a way to keep a first baseman, but as it turns out, the position for some reason kills players careers(old man skills if you want) or that the great players from other positions move into the role (recent arguments have involved the names of Banks and Carew, but you also have guys like Thome and Thomas in the discussion, I mean there is a legitimate argument that Albert Pujols has already becomed the best first baseman in major league history and that the top five of all time is Gehrig, Foxx, Pujols, McGwire and Bagwell---considering the quality of offense routinely displayed at first base, I'm not sure that qualifies as an impressive list--nothing against any of these guys, they are all fantastically elite players--just not really the long careers that I intuitively expect)

I tried to do this on one of the computer sims once - make the baseball season reflect the football schedule. 16 games, once per week. You can have one ace start all of them. 50 homeruns would be the signature career achievement.

I don't remember if I stopped because it was too complicated or if I became embarrassed at my own dorkiness.

I love to argue(yea I know surprise) with people that claim football is the superior/more popular sport than baseball and I like to point out the Kansas City Royals record after 16 games almost every year as to the flaw with the sport (of course I'm stupid but not stupid enough to believe that is a fair comparison of the two sports, but it's usually fun to pull this out as an argument, and I've seen it done the way you are talking about using the ace for 16 games also, of course they are two completely different sports and have their own strengths and weakness's but sometimes doing stuff for fun...is surprisingly fun, even if you are too dorky)

First baseman" is unfortunately hard to define because relatively few players spend the majority of a career there. Most young guys who start at 1B are, how shall we say, not the most athletic of specimens and those guys tend not to age well. Most young athletic guys will play elsewhere. There are exceptions obviously of guys who aren't lumbering (but not necessarily fleet of foot) but play there their whole careers -- Hernandez, Olerud, Will Clark, Grace. For some reason those are generally guyw without a lot of power.

I've never thought about this before, but have we seen a subconscioius shift in baseball philosophy of moving guys to first earlier in their careers than previous generations would have, or have we just been blessed with more good career first basemen in this era? Would players such as Bagwell or Teixeira, for instance, been third basemen or moved to outfield had they come up in previous decades?

Would players such as Bagwell or Teixeira, for instance, been third basemen or moved to outfield had they come up in previous decades?

How much of it is guys lifting weights starting at age 16?

I've never thought about this before, but have we seen a subconscioius shift in baseball philosophy of moving guys to first earlier in their careers than previous generations would have, or have we just been blessed with more good career first basemen in this era? Would players such as Bagwell or Teixeira, for instance, been third basemen or moved to outfield had they come up in previous decades?

I think the argument is that they are staying healthy longer. Don't have any data to back it up right now, but it seems that first baseman last longer at the position(especially with the dh to help in some cases) I just did a pi search for first baseman with a single season over 7 war, and you have the usual elite suspects (Gehrig, Pujols, Foxx, McCovey,) a few hofers moved there (Carew, Musial)

out of 71 first baseman to make the list.
Gehrig 12 times
Pujols 7 times
Foxx 7 times
Bagwell 4 times
Mize 3 times
Helton 3 times
no other first baseman did it more than 2 times. First base just doesn't seem to allow for elite seasons over a sustained career.
that is over half of those years by 6 people.

basically it seems that you might have good players there, but not truly elite(it could of course be positional adjustments)

McDowell just didn't survive past his 30's like Ryan did.

McDowell, unfortunately, developed a severe drinking problem that derailed his career.

Bob "Fatty" Fothergill.
If you would like to read a few choice words about Fatty, pick up Leo Durocher's autobiography sometime.
I recall - it's been 30+ years since I read it - several escapades from a young (then playing 2B=man) Leo and Mr Fothergill.
I vaugely remember Ruth saving Leo from a beating from Fothergill; seems Loe the Lip was getting on him for his portly shape and Bob took umbrage at his remarks.

Sudden Sam was seen to be as dominant at Koufax or Gibson in the junior circut during the early-mid 60's.
No, he wasn't nearly as complete a player as either K or G but he did strike out a huge number of batters, much like Ryan.
Sam lead the league in SO 5 times; he also lead the league in BB 5 times.
He and Sonny Seibert were the big guns for Cleveland during those years, a nasty one two punch as I recall.
The other starting 8 players were consistently unremarkable for much of McDowell's time in Cleveland, unfortunately and they seldom contended.
Sam came home to the 'Burgh to finnish his career in the mid 70's

Yes, I left out a surging, pre-Red Sox Luis Tiant as the 3rd cog in the Cleveland pitching wheel.
Forgive my slight El Tiante as I was in the Navy for most of those years and only caught baseball via box scores in the newspaper.

Wasn't Leon Daddy Wags Wagner a team mate of Sam's during his famous knife-pulling incident with Chico Salmon?

that was Chico Ruiz and Alex Johnson

that was Chico Ruiz and Alex Johnson

Ruiz and Johnson were California Angels in that 1971 incident.

Sudden Sam was the only autograph I ever got. He was the keynote speaker at the Pennsylvania Newpaper Boy of the Year dinner in Pittsburgh. (Yours truly was the Jr. NBotY for the Norristown Times-Herald! My picture was on the front page!) Sam had to rush out early because his wife went into labor -- it had to have been Jack who was born since this convention was in the winter of '65-'66. I tailed him out of the dinner and he signed a postcard for me. The other highlight of the weekend was a tour of the Heinz pickle factory -- we were given pickle lapel pins. WOO HOO! That was the first time that I ever traveled with someone other than my parents, which was pretty cool.

but I've heard again and again that the constant gray days in Seattle can bring you down. Possible?

More than possible, I would imagine that that's Figgins's problem. I would probably shoot myself if I had to live in the PNW. I know the mountains and waters and huge trees are beautiful, but three cloudy days in a row pisses me off, let alone 80% of the year.

Ruiz and Johnson were California Angels in that 1971 incident.

and it was a gun, not a knife--other than that, the original story was spot-on

Would this be the way to go or would a group approach be better? Do you try to get 6-7 innings (or more) out of one starter each game or would you rather have 3-4 top pitchers just go all out for 2-3 innings. I feel like the latter approach would be more successful.

it had to have been Jack who was born since this convention was in the winter of '65-'66

Sam may well have a son named Jack, for all I know, but if you're implying that the pitcher Jack McDowell is Sam's son, he's not. Jack was born in California.

D'oh!

Would this be the way to go or would a group approach be better? Do you try to get 6-7 innings (or more) out of one starter each game or would you rather have 3-4 top pitchers just go all out for 2-3 innings. I feel like the latter approach would be more successful.

aren't you taking a higher chance of one or more guys not "having it" by going that way?

Chico Ruiz

Not at all relevant to the thread, but...

Ahh, Chico Ruiz, the first major league player I ever got to meet. I was staying with my uncle in Dorchester, MA when I was about eight years old and there was a big group of Hispanic men hanging out on the porch across the street, my uncle shouted over "Hey Chico! Come on over for a minute". My uncle told me that I was about to meet a real life major league player and I was just floored, I didn't care who he was, all I knew is I was about to meet a real life major leaguer. He came over, talked to me for a minute or two and then signed an index card for me, which I still have: "Chico Ruiz, Cincinnati Reds 1964-69, California Angels 1970-71". I couldn't wait to get home and look this guy up in my encyclopedia. I did, only to see that he was dead. This was 1988, he had been dead for 16 years.

Why on earth would somebody choose Chico Ruiz of all people to impersonate? In any case, he's fascinated me ever since....Oh, and I never told my uncle.

Weird childhood memory over, go back to being on topic.

I tried to do this on one of the computer sims once - make the baseball season reflect the football schedule. 16 games, once per week. You can have one ace start all of them. 50 homeruns would be the signature career achievement.

Did you also give the crappy teams weaker schedules? This I think has a big part in NFL "parity". The Chiefs and Seahawks were probably 5-6 win teams that had awful schedules, and were able to sneak into the playoffs.

Why on earth would somebody choose Chico Ruiz of all people to impersonate? In any case, he's fascinated me ever since....Oh, and I never told my uncle.

Well, what are the odds of meeting somebody who knows wghat he looked like, or is dead?

maybe it was this Chico Ruiz imitating the other one

Historical footnote for those who don't know: Chico Ruiz was a pretty lousy player, but he played a significant role in baseball lore. One night in 1964 against the Phillies, he stole home -- with Frank Robinson at the plate, no less -- for the only run in a Reds win. That was the first loss in the Phillies' infamous 10-game losing streak that cost them the pennant.

Did you also give the crappy teams weaker schedules? This I think has a big part in NFL "parity".

It does not. 14 of the 16 games are set by formula. Only 2 depend on last year's records. The formula games are 6 divisional, 4 against a pre-set division in your conference, 4 against a pre-set division in the other conference.

The 2 dependent games are against the two teams in the two remaining divisions in your conference that finished in the same place as you last year. (So all first-place finishers in a conference one year will play each other the next year. This is how Indianapolis and New England keep playing every year.)

There used to be many more games dependent on prior year records. But since 2002 and the realignment into 8 divisions, the notion of rewarding crappy teams with weaker schedules is a holdover myth. Only 2 games out of the 16 are so affected.

Now, that all said, lopsided strength of schedule still happens in the NFL because of the low degree of interconnectivity. You might have the Giants playing 8 games against the weak NFC West and AFC West, while the Vikings play 8 games against the strong NFC South and AFC East. Then the next year those might end up reversed, leading to the appearance of wild fluctuations. But this is not a result of the prior year records of any of the teams involved, it's locked-in rotation of the schedule formula.

Inevitably every year that happens to a couple teams, that just happened to go from a strong slate of opposition to a weak slate based on the rotation, like the Bears this past year. This is a multiple endpoints fallacy; it DIDN'T happen to 30 teams but we only notice the 2 where it did.

There was a minor tweak to the formula in roughly 2008, shifting the rotation to ensure that nobody ends up playing the NFC West and AFC West in the same year, so you wouldn't have one division making four west coast road trips in a year while teams in other divisions made none.

The 2 dependent games are against the two teams in the two remaining divisions in your conference that finished in the same place as you last year. (So all first-place finishers in a conference one year will play each other the next year. This is how Indianapolis and New England keep playing every year.)

And even that effect is oft-overstated, the byproduct of the speed with which teams can move up and down. The Cleveland Browns' last-place schedule got them games against Jax and KC, which won 8 more games this year than the second-place finishers from those divisions. As you note, the NFL's schedule disparity issue is a far greater issue for the wild card race (since strength of schedules can vary wildly for teams from the AFC North to the AFC South, for instance), but the former "parity scheduling" concerns are no longer valid.

[26] Thank you. I was going to respond with the same thing, but you saved me the time of writing a long post.

[25]Rest assured that as long as one of my generation of Phillies fans is alive, the name of Chico Ruiz will not be forgotten.

maybe it was this Chico Ruiz imitating the other one

Howard Cosell famously merged them into one person during a national baseball telecast -- talking about Chico Ruiz's great career comeback or something -- when the first had already been dead a number of years.

Rest assured that as long as one of my generation of Phillies fans is alive, the name of Chico Ruiz will not be forgotten.

The Year of the Blue Snow -- a wonderfully poetic coinage by, I believe, Gus Triandos.

Would players such as Bagwell or Teixeira, for instance, been third basemen or moved to outfield had they come up in previous decades?

Teixeira was a third baseman. The Rangers moved him to first because they already had Blalock.

Bagwell also played third. Which was the point.

Teixeira was a third baseman.

That's why I metioned him. I'm really asking if teams are moving players to first base quicker than they might have in the past. In the Rangers case, for instance, would a team 40 years earlier tried him a corner outfield spot first if third was blocked?

Poz mentions Olerud's place all-time among first basemen in WAR (6th) and OPS+ (10th), which is pretty remarkable considering Olerud's reputation among first basemen of this particular era isn't really much better. Couple that with the Delgado conversation the other day and it struck me how many great/near great career first basemen there have been in the past 25 years, which wasn't the case throughout most of baseball's history. And I'm wondering if it's just our good fortune or some other explanation (I think PreservedFish's post in 7 is one possible reason) behind the glut.

#34 I think two things are going on.

Teams are always going to find it more tempting to stuff an extra bat in there when they're not scoring much or allowing many runs. So in the 60s and 70s you'd find teams stuffing a first-baseman at third and hoping for the best. These days a team is more likely to feel they're scoring enough.

I can't think of a recent equivalent of Pedro Guerrero, Bobby Bonilla or Bob Horner (to name a few guys fairly obviously not third basemen who were asked to fake it)

At the same time, for most of the 60s and 70s (and into the 80s for the Giants) at least two teams (Giants and Reds) genuinely didn't seem to care about 3rd base defense.

As I'm sure some of our long standing Giant fans can confirm, Jim Ray Hart was just stunningly bad at third. The Reds usually just stuffed a first-baseman at third and carried a caddy for him.

Well, there's always the boring explanation of expansion -- we should expect more of everything these days.

The 3B to 1B shift has been pretty common for a while (Perez, Killebrew, Bob Robertson, Kingman shifted more to 1B than OF early in his career).

Some of it may just be luck. Delgado was a C who couldn't cut it. Cs generally get shifted to either 3B or 1B. You also have guys like Olerud and Grace -- not tubs of lard but still slow as death but with gap power not HR power. They throw leftie and are too slow for the OF so what are you going to do? Guys like Hernandez and Clark* had reasonable speed and probably could have played OF so it's interesting that it wasn't tried with them early in their careers. Giambi and Thome couldn't cut it at 3B and didn't have speed. Bagwell and Tex are guys who probably could have played OF.

But maybe it is a shift in philosophy because it also seems to me we are seeing less of the late-career shift to 1B. Some of that is the DH but it seems to me that, rightly or wrongly, we'd have seen at least some of Bonds, Griffey, Clank, Maggs, Abreu, Burrell, Bay, Gomes, Ethier, Giles, etc. tried out at 1B.

*OMG -- Will Clark was 5 for 22 in steals at age 23.

Guys like Hernandez and Clark* had reasonable speed and probably could have played OF

The Cards did try it with Hernandez. My recollection is that he was, in fact, too slow (plus, obviously, you were depriving yourself of an otherworldly 1B, so was it really a good tradeoff?) He certainly was too slow by the time he got to New York ;-)

The Cards did try it with Hernandez.

Did they actually do this, or just propose it? Whitey's first book talks about his big plan to move Hernandez to LF and Simmons to 1B. The way he tells it, Simmons initially agreed, then became worried about embarrassing himself at 1B and backed out, whereupon Herzog traded him and left Hernandez at first.

I checked on bb-ref. Hernandez played a grand total of 38 innings in LF and RF, in 1981 and 1982. He started something like 4 games out there. In each of those cases, Gene Tenace started at 1B, with Porter catching, so they look like ways to get Tenace's bat into a game. In several of those cases, positions got shuffled in the middle of the game, with Hernandez either leaving or finishing the game at 1B. I didn't track down the games he played OF without starting there. None of it looks like him being seriously tried as an outfielder - they were just scattered lineup shuffles.

Whitey's first book talks about his big plan to move Hernandez to LF and Simmons to 1B. The way he tells it, Simmons initially agreed, then became worried about embarrassing himself at 1B and backed out, whereupon Herzog traded him and left Hernandez at first.

My attitude is to not take any talk like that seriously, until it actually happens. Talk is cheap. Maybe Whitey really did intend that at some point; maybe he thinks he intended that, but might not have followed through had it mattered. Maybe it was all theater, aimed generally in the direction of Simmons.

When the Dodgers first acquired Strawberry, I heard talk that he would play CF. Which got a "yeah, surrre" from me - the Mets at the time weren't shy about shoving people rightward on the defensive spectrum, and they hadn't played Strawberry in CF. Shortly afterward, the Dodgers also picked up Brett Butler, making it a moot point. But it goes to the "talk is cheap" point: no reason to dwell on position shifts that never happened.

Recent "no-way-in-hell" 3Bs: Cabrera.

Recent shifts to 1B: Dunn.

(This isn't a refuting post, or anything. Just thinking of these cases.)

Fortunately for Dick Allen, Jim Ray Hart played 3B at the same time as he did. Meanwhile the Phillies cycled through decaying 1Bs Roy Sievers, Frank Thomas, Vic Power, Dick Stuart and Bill White and no-talent John Herrnstein, so I'm not sure they really gained anything. That Allen/old Dick Stuart corner IF defense was a wonder to behold.

Should have thought of Allen.

I thought of Dunn, who is a classic old-school example, but then the Sox have shifted him mainly to DH now.


The Cards did try it with Hernandez. My recollection is that he was, in fact, too slow

Somebody else dug up the details. But as to Hernandez's speed -- (1) LF speed is nothing to brag about (Hendersons, Brocks, etc. aside) (2) from ages 24-28, he was 69 for 104 in steals and 33 triples -- not awe-inspiring but we're not talking Bengie Molina here.

Then again -- I'll be damned, Grace has a lot more SBs than I thought. Olerud was a more proper 11 for 25 in his career.

basically it seems that you might have good players there, but not truly elite(it could of course be positional adjustments)

That's certainly part of it. B-R's WAR takes about 1 win per season away for positional adjustment (looking at Olerud's WAR indicates this at any rate as he has 10 seasons with at least -9 for positional adjustment).