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Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Monday, June 26, 2006
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2023 Hall of Merit Ballot Discussion (168 - 1:46pm, Jul 13)Last:  DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: Trophy Case (71 - 6:53pm, Jul 08)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1900 Results (6 - 6:28pm, Jul 08)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1900 Ballot (11 - 4:03pm, Jul 06)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1918 Results (6 - 8:58pm, Jun 29)Last: kennaMost Meritorious Player: 1920 Ballot (25 - 8:55pm, Jun 29)Last: kennaMost Meritorious Player: 1900 Discussion (9 - 1:14am, Jun 29)Last: Harmon RipkowskiHall of Merit Book Club (6 - 12:45pm, Jun 28)Last: progrockfanMost Meritorious Player: 1899 Results (6 - 1:51pm, Jun 22)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1899 Ballot (10 - 9:54am, Jun 22)Last: TomHMost Meritorious Player: 1899 Discussion (9 - 9:04am, May 31)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1898 Results (4 - 3:22pm, May 06)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1898 Ballot (8 - 10:07am, May 05)Last: DL from MNMost Meritorious Player: 1898 Discussion (7 - 1:08am, May 02)Last: Harmon RipkowskiMost Meritorious Player: 1897 Results (2 - 4:29pm, Apr 06)Last: DL from MN
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1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: June 26, 2006 at 03:58 AM (#2076009)The Griffey clan was pretty good, too.
Fine a hitter as he was, the man could be a menace on the basepaths. I bring you this game, from May 30, 1967, St. Louis at Cincinatti. Hughes was pitching a perfect game through 7 innings and holding a 1-0 lead. Hughes probably shouldn't have come back after and hour-long rain delay in the 6th, but hey, the man was pitching a perfecto, what are you going to do? Here's the finish:
REDS 8TH: Perez tripled to center; RUIZ RAN FOR PEREZ; Johnson
struck out; Pinson doubled to left [Ruiz scored]; Edwards was
walked intentionally; Cardenas singled to left [Pinson scored,
Edwards to third, Cardenas out at second (left to second to
first)]; Maloney made an out to center; 2 R, 3 H, 0 E, 1 LOB.
Cardinals 1, Reds 2.
CARDINALS 9TH: RUIZ STAYED IN GAME (PLAYING 3B); Cepeda singled
to center; McCarver singled to right [Cepeda to third];
NOTTEBART REPLACED MALONEY (PITCHING); Gagliano hit into a
triple play (shortstop to second to first to catcher) [Cepeda
out at home, McCarver out at second]; 0 R, 2 H, 0 E, 0 LOB.
Cardinals 1, Reds 2.
Try to picture the baserunning from Cepeda needed to make that happen!
My picture is from Oct 26, 2004:
CARDINALS 3RD: Suppan singled to third; Renteria doubled to
right [Suppan to third]; Walker hit into a double play (second
to first) [Suppan out at home (first to third)]; Suppan
started down the line and then stopped; 3B coach Oquendo yelled
to go and Suppan started again but then stopped and tried to get
back to 3B; Pujols grounded out (third to first); 0 R, 2 H,
0 E, 1 LOB. Red Sox 1, Cardinals 0.
Best seasons of 1967 by Win Shares:
NL: 38 Santo 35 Clemente 34 Cepeda 34 Aaron 30 Brock 30 McCarver
AL: 42 Yaz 38 Killebrew 30 Freehan 30 Kaline 30 FRobinson
Best seasons of 1967 by WARP:
NL: 13.5 Santo 11.7 Clemente 11.5 Aaron 9.7 Cepeda 9.7 Phillips
AL: 12.4 Yaz 11.6 Killebrew 11.5 BRobinson 10.1 Blair 9.8 Kaline
Adolpho Phillips, huh? (WARP) I will say that his 1967 season would fit nicely into Bobby Bonds's career.
Orlando certainly rocketed off to a fast start before the injury. 222 HR by age 26 is still good for 8th all time. I imagine pitchers of that era would see the nickname "Baby Bull" and then shudder to think of how strong "daddy" was. :-)
I have to admit that the strategy of pinch hitting for Maxvill every time he came up late in the game with the team behind would have been more convincing with better pinch hitters. Bobby Tolan was a passable 4th outfielder, if you give him a bonus for being young and promising. (And with the ancient Maris and the fragile Flood, they needed a lot of 4th outfield.) But Alex Johnson, OPS+68? When the only thing Johnson was supposed to be able to do was hit? Sending either Spiezio or Gagliano up to bat for Maxvill wasn't much of a prize - at least Maxvill, for all his ridiculous lack of power, did draw a walk once in a while. (Well, some of those were the IBB's for being the #8 hitter - a strategy I've always detested.)
(When he said "mother," he reportedly had just used half his vocabulary.)
This may be another reason why so many Cardinals had big seasons. Not only did they outplay their RS/RA but they also scored more runs/allowed fewer runs than woudldbe expected of them with those personal stats because of lineup contruction, clutch hitting, etc.
They are credited with 91.7 WARP-1 while winning 101 games. This was an efficient, over-performing team (like the Beaneaters or the Tinker-Evers-Chance Cubs) so Win Shares will give more team credit than WARP. One would have to check adjoining years to determine if it was typical of the team (as it was of Duffy's Boston teams) or a one-shot deal.
Vs. RHP:
1. Brock LF [L]
2. Flood CF [R]
3. Maris RF [L]
4. Cepeda 1B [R]
5. McCarver C [L]
6. Shannon 3B [R]
7. Javier 2B [R]
8. Maxvill SS [R]
9. P
Vs. LHP:
1. Brock LF [L]
2. Javier 2B [R]
3. Flood CF [R]
4. Cepeda 1B [R]
5. Shannon 3B [R]
6. McCarver C [L]
7. Maris or other RF
8. Maxvill SS [R]
9. P
Maris wasn't exactly platooned, but he needed rest and that rest was more likely to happen against LHP. Brock and Cepeda were the workhorses who played the most games. What's interesting is the platoon shuffle of the order, among the same batters. My memory is less clear on what the order would have been with either Flood or Javier out of the lineup, which happened fairly often. There's an implication that Javier must have had a substantial platoon split, but in those days, no one seemed to have the platoon stats, so I still don't know.
Hmm... that's what retrosheet is for, right? Splits for Javier:
1967, vs. RHP: .255/.292/.380
1967, vs. LHP: .325/.352/.445
1968, vs. RHP: .241/.278/.316
1968, vs. LHP: .277/.303/.372
Shannon was an OF-to-3B conversion experiment. He came up as a corner outfielder, and didn't really hit enough for that. A long time ago in one of the mid-80's Abstracts, Bill James tried to survey how often such conversions "worked" and counted Shannon as one of the successes. Let's just say that defensively he reminded no one of Brooks Robinson, and he still didn't really hit like a corner outfielder. His career was truncated by kidney disease.
Cepeda's pouting over being asked to do what was best for the team prompted that noted genius Alvin Dark to play McCovey in LF and Cepeda at 1B as more or less the standard alignment from 1962-64. Argh.
Here's the THT piece; a much more extended version of this was published in Nine.
Home runs through age 22:
115 Ott
112 Mathews
106 Rodriguez
87 Griffey
86 Foxx
86 Cepeda
71 Pujols
66 Aaron
Through age 23:
153 Ott
153 Mathews
148 Rodriguez
132 Griffey
132 Cepeda
116 Foxx
114 Pujols
110 Aaron
Through age 24:
190 Mathews
189 Rodriguez
176 Ott
174 Foxx
172 Griffey
167 Cepeda
160 Pujols
140 Aaron
Home runs through age 22:
115 Ott
112 Mathews
106 Rodriguez
104 Conigliaro
98 FRobinson
91 Horner
91 TWilliams
87 Bench
87 Griffey
86 Foxx
...
76 Cepeda
...
71 Pujols
...
66 Aaron
Home runs through age 23:
153 Ott
153 Mathews
148 Rodriguez
134 FRobinson
132 Griffey
127 TWilliams
122 Cepeda
121 JGonzalez
121 Mantle
116 Foxx
116 AJones
...
114 Pujols
...
110 Aaron
Home runs through age 24:
190 Mathews
189 Rodriguez
176 Ott
174 Foxx
173 Mantle
172 Griffey
165 FRobinson
160 Pujols
157 Cepeda
154 Bench
...
140 Aaron
Cepeda also holds 8th place at ages 25 & 26 (right up until the injury).
Don't forget he also had the cool nickname thing going (Cha-Cha) AND the "We are Family" thing (the El Birdos).
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