My grandfather (R.I.P) would vote for Ken Williams, despite what any of your newfangled stats might say.

The problem here is that Wallace didn't play his entire career for the Browns - in fact, much of his career came before the Browns existed. As a Brown, he amassed a little less than 40 WAR, which is about 10 less than Sisler's career total.

Ned Garver was pretty good, briefly.

I thought of Williams first as well. Come to find that he played about 500 fewer games for the Browns than Sisler did, so on career Sisler is going to win out, and Sisler was the best on peak too, at least for a few seasons. Williams was almost as good a hitter as Sisler for a while, but was an undistinguished LF, while Sisler was a very great 1B. Sisler played more career games for the Browns than any other player (1647, with Wallace second and Hal Clift third).

If one player combined Clift's 20s and Williams's 30s, he'd be a Hall of Famer. But Clift disappeared from view after turning 30, the age when Williams was just getting started in the majors.

My grandfather (R.I.P) would vote for Ken Williams, despite what any of your newfangled stats might say.

them newfangled stats LOVE Williams

he has the highest OPS+ for any Brown with > 3000 PAs

Heck. I love me some Ken Williams.
His '22 season is crushing in my all time strat league

What was Williams' story? He had a hell of a post-30 career, but didn't really do anything before that.

What was Williams' story? He had a hell of a post-30 career, but didn't really do anything before that.

Was he in the PCL or other high minors? Those teams had no reason to necessarily sell their best players to MLB if they were helping sell tickets. That's what happened with Grove.

Vern Stephens had a good start toward consideration -- too good for the poor Browns to keep him.

Was he in the PCL or other high minors? Those teams had no reason to necessarily sell their best players to MLB if they were helping sell tickets. That's what happened with Grove.

That was my first thought, but Williams was *in* the majors from 25 onward...he just didn't play much. Wondering if it's more an Edgar Martinez situation than a Grove situation.

Well, looking at it more closely--243 PAs with the Reds at 25, but only 29 at age 26, then didn't play in the majors at all at 27 and had only 2 PAs the following year before putting up a great half-season with the Browns at 29. Maybe some injuries?

Was he in the PCL or other high minors?

I'm guessing that BB-Ref's minor-league data probably has some gaps back then, but based on what they do have, it looks like Williams was just a late bloomer. They don't show anything before he was 23 and it shows him playing D-level minor-league ball at ages 23-24. He did spend some time in the PCL, but it looks like just the end of 1916 and then all of 1917 (at ages 26-27) before he made it big with the Browns, which seems like a reasonable amount of time to spend in the minors, even today. He is from Oregon, though, so maybe it was a case of being stuck on the West Coast that kept him from being discovered earlier.

Well, looking at it more closely--243 PAs with the Reds at 25, but only 29 at age 26, then didn't play in the majors at all at 27 and had only 2 PAs the following year before putting up a great half-season with the Browns at 29. Maybe some injuries?

Looking at B-Ref (BTW I'm shocked that there have only been two Ken/Kenny Williams in MLB history) it seems like his teams had pretty good OF's.

The 1918 Browns had OPS+'s of 119, 110, 96 in the OF with a 131 on the bench. The '16 Reds had 132, 103, 86 and the '15 Reds had 137, 111, 85. His OPS+ was 86 in 1915. Depending on D, he might not have been good enough to start.

I would not pick Vern Stephens over George Sisler but Stephens had a hell of a run.

1941--cuppa coffee, age 20

1942--age 21, 14-92-.294-.341-.433, 116 OPS+, 4th in MVP voting

1943--22-91-.289-.357-.482, 142, 9th in MVP voting

1944--20-109-.293-.365-.462, 128, led league in RBI, only Browns pennant ever, 3rd in MVP voting (#1 position player)

1945--24-89-.289-.352-.473, 132, led league in HR, 6th in MVP voting

1946--still just 25, 14-64-.307-.357-.460, 121

1947--15-83-.279-.359-.406, 110

1948--moves to Boston

Yeah, he faced weaker competition during the war, but why don't people say that about Lou Boudreau.

OPS+ Boudreau/Stephens--all seasons of 100 games

1940--113
1941--108
1942--118/116
1943--135/142
1944--146/128
1945--133/132
1946--118/121
1947--129/110
1948--166/112
1949--100/136
1950-----/110
1951-----/120
1954-----/104

Total 121/118

Boudreau was of course an A+ SS, Stephens a B.

MVP Voting Boudreau/Stephens (Top 10s)

1940--3rd
1941----
1942--10th/4th
1943--10th/9th
1944--6th/3rd
1945--8th/6th
1946--10th/--
1947--3rd/--
1948--1st/4th
1949----/7th

i'm looking at sisler's bref page ... it says he played 2 games each at 2b and 3b despite being a left handed thrower? i wonder what the record for non-1b infield appearances by a left handed thrower is ... hmmm.

also, he wasn't a bad as a pitcher, either.

Two things:

1. I'm not sure how well OPS+ applies to the deadball era.

2. 1918 was a war shortened year.

i wonder what the record for non-1b infield appearances by a left handed thrower is ... hmmm.

There was probably somebody who played a full season throwing left-handed back in the 19th century, but I don't know how to find such a thing. The last guy I remember doing it was Mike Squires, a glove-first first baseman for the White Sox in the late '70s / early '80s. According to BB-Ref, he played 14 games / 38 innings (including 2 starts) at 3B (mostly in 1984) and 2 games / 2 innings at C (in 1980).

This question came up on my softball team a while ago, although we were mostly thinking of who the greatest players were who happen to have been Browns at one time, not who had the best career with the team. My answers below:

The St. Louis Browns at one time or another featured on their roster Rube Waddell, Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby and Satchel Paige. Either of those last two would have a good argument for being the greatest player to wear a Browns uniform.

The best single seasons by Browns, based on Win Shares, are as follows:

1906 George Stone 38 (um, who?)
1920 George Sisler 33 (batted .407 w/257 hits, the record Ichiro broke)
1928 Heinie Manush 35 (hit .378 w/2nd place MVP finish)
1944 Vern Stephens 34 (3rd-place MVP finish in team's only pennant year)

I still have to ask--who's George Stone?

I don't know about overall records, but in the 19th century you see guys like Bill McClellan, who was a regular at SS and 2B in the 1880s and is listed as throwing left-handed. Hick Carpenter is listed as throwing left, and played over a thousand career games at 3B.

1. I'm not sure how well OPS+ applies to the deadball era.

Explain please?

George Stone is the guy who's on one of the two cigarette cards I ever owned (the other being Frank Isbell), as a kid back in the mid-'70s. Wish I'd kept those ...

It misses a bunch of stuff that was more common in tha era like reaches on error, stolen bases, sacs, etc..

I still have to ask--who's George Stone?

I've seen him on all-time Jewish all-star teams. The name Stone did not seem Jewish to me at the time, but I've since met a Rabbi Stone.

it looks like Williams was just a late bloomer.

Steroids.

The name Stone did not seem Jewish to me at the time, but I've since met a Rabbi Stone.

Steve Stone. And the name almost certainly is the Americanized version of Stein

Anyway, I asked myself the question “who was the greatest Brown?”

Eddie Gaedel, duh. Assuming that by "greatest", you mean "most awesome".

John Clapp?

It misses a bunch of stuff that was more common in tha era like reaches on error, stolen bases, sacs, etc..

Swinging back around to Sisler, he stole plenty of bases and was a very good first baseman at his peak.

I still have to ask--who's George Stone?

A guy who had one really, really good year in a short career. (Actually, he was pretty awesome in 1905 and '07 as well. For that matter, he hit .406 in the minors in 1904.) A modern analog would be... maybe Kevin Mitchell? Not really very similar in terms of skill set, but similar career shapes.

Eddie Gaedel, duh. Assuming that by "greatest", you mean "most awesome".

Hard to argue with a career OPS of 1.000.

Hard to argue with a career OPS of 1.000.

And it's OBP-heavy!

Eddie Gaedel, duh. Assuming that by "greatest", you mean "most awesome".

Hard to argue with a career OPS of 1.000.

Actually, his OPS is undefined.

And it's OBP-heavy!

Heh.

Actually, his OPS is undefined.

Wait--what? He's got a 1.000 OBP, .000 SLG. What am I missing?

And it's OBP-heavy!

i don't think anything about eddie gaedel is "heavy"

Wait--what? He's got a 1.000 OBP, .000 SLG. What am I missing?

He's got an undefined slugging. 0 divided by 0 is undefined. It can be any number.

Thus endeth the math pedantry.

And here, I was congratulating myself for being able to add 1.000 and .000! :-)

George Stone was a "meteor" superstar of the early dead ball era, by which I mean that he came up after he was fully major league ready, and then left early, so his career is short. Stone apparently didn't even get into baseball until a couple of years before he hit the majors. He had a very unusual super-crouched batting stance, even more extreme than Rod Carew's worst, but was very strong, so he hit loads of very hard grounders. In an era with lots of infield errors, this had lots of value, plus he hit the ball so hard that it often got through the infield before anyone could react. His first manager, Jimmy Collins, just could not get past the stance, and sent him down to the minors, where he tore the league apart and was promptly back in the bigs, ending up with St. Louis after some weird contract issues. He was quite famous in his time, due to the odd stance.

Physically, he was a little guy, like Billy Hamilton (well, a bit bigger than Billy, but the same basic model). Like Billy and many other players of this size (Joe Morgan is one) George ran like the wind. In 1909, he had a leg injury that took his speed, and then an arm injury which took the strength he needed to get away with his stance. The injuries robbed him of his ability to play at the major league level, and poof, he was gone with no decline phase.

In terms of Browns' players, his peak can stand up to George Sisler's, which no other Brown can do. He didn't even last long enough to have a real "prime," and probably could not have beaten out Harlond Clift on that sort of time span anyway. As for career, he's not in the race, which is between Sisler, Wallace, Urban Shocker, and Clift, depending on how much importance you put on playing just for the Browns.

One last note: Ken Williams is badly overrated by his stats, I am sorry to say to his fans. The ballpark that the Browns played in during Williams' heyday was the same Sportsman's Park that the Cardinals were in until 1966. The park was sort of a mirror image of Fenway, with a very small right field territory, so small that they had to put a big old screen in front of the right field seats to keep the homers down. But Williams played before the screen went up, so his homer numbers are badly inflated. A mere ballpark adjustment for the park as a whole doesn't do the thing justice. It was MUCH easier to get a ball out over the right field fence in Sportsman's than almost anywhere else. Williams played just as Ruth discovered the homer uppercut, and was one of the first to discover its power as a weapon, but because it took a while for the whole league to figure it out, it wasn't obvious until he was done just how many homers were going to get hit if something wasn't done about right field. That being said, 1922 is still a great season for Ken, no matter how much of an adjustment you make. - Brock Hanke

In terms of Browns' players, his peak can stand up to George Sisler's, which no other Brown can do.

My calculations for offensive value that I used for HoM purposes - this is essentially a context-adjusted RCAA from a particular book, in units of about a tenth of a win. This is the top three seasons, sorted best to worst:

Stone: 92, 54, 50
Sisler: 70, 68, 46
Williams: 54, 52, 43

Players with single seasons any better than Stone's 1906 on this scale are very, very rare and tend to have names like Cobb or Gehrig. In fact (offense only - Stone was a corner OF, not a SS), Wagner was only above that number once.

The fact that I instantly knew the answer to the question, "Who was George Stone?" can be entirely attributed to my experiences with the HoM.

The park was sort of a mirror image of Fenway, with a very small right field territory, so small that they had to put a big old screen in front of the right field seats to keep the homers down. But Williams played before the screen went up, so his homer numbers are badly inflated.

In 1932, the year he hit 58 HR, Jimmie Foxx hit 5 doubles off that screen, which wasn't there in 1927 when Ruth hit 60.

You know what's really scary about that tidbit of Foxx? Jimmy was a righty. He hit those doubles to the opposite field, in an era where nobody hit homers without pulling. They didn't call him The Beast for nothing. The screen is also the reason why Stan Musial hit so many doubles but never led the league in homers. One more note: I am old enough to have sat in the right field seats behind that screen. A ball hit to the screen did not bounce back, like the Green Monster makes them. Instead, they fell right straight down. This means that almost all of the balls that hit the screen were doubles, not singles or triples. Anyone could figure out how to "play" it and hold the batter to two bases. The only real problem with that was that it meant that your right fielder needed an arm, because he had lots of throws from literally the wall. But in general, left field required much more defense, and certainly much more range, than right field did. This why Stan Musial was a career left fielder, rather than right field. He played some right when the Cards had another outfielder who could hit but could not throw, but left field was much more demanding. Of course, with his speed, Stan really had the skills of a center fielder, at least when young, but when he came up, the Cardinal captain was Terry Moore. - Brock

Brock, just want to let you know that I appreciate all the education. From my days as a little kid looking at the long career of Musial on the back of his cards, I wondered why he played all over the place.

Edmundo -

Thanks! If you want to see this issue in a little more detail, including how Musial ended up playing so much first base, or if you want LOTS and LOTS of educational stuff in general, you should try the Hall of Merit "by Position" discussions on this here site. The HoM, having voted a bunch of players in, held a separate series of votes, by position, to rank the elected players within their positions. Go to BTF, find "Hall of Merit", click on it to find "Hall of Merit Ballot, Discussion, and Results Threads", and click on that to find "Hall of Merit by Position Discussion Threads", and finally click on that to find "Left Fielders." I have a comment on Musial, #90, and there are responses in later comments. You could, and should, try other threads, like "Right Fielders" or "Catchers" and then try the Ballot and Results Threads because we don't shut up just because we finished voting.