Best Player to Never Make an All-Star Team

In a post talking about the players who hit the most home runs in their career without ever being selected to an All-Star team - well, that and how Eric Karros might want to stop whining about never going to the Midsummer Classic - Rob Neyer added this:

Let's not shed too many tears for Eric Karros. The best part of his game was his power, and for a player of his era he didn't have all that much power. You may, on the other hand, fell just a little bit sorry for Tim Salmon. Karros's career OPS+ was 107; Salmon's was 128, and he twice finished seventh in MVP balloting. I don't know if he's the best player who was never an All-Star, but he's gotta be close.

"I don't know if he's the best player who was never an All-Star, but he's gotta be close." It's almost a throwaway line, but it's a question just begging to be answered: who is the best player to never be an All-Star? I've seen the question before in relation the the MVP award (where Wade Boggs and Mike Piazza usually make the top of the list), but never with the All-Star Game. And, considering the large number of All-Stars every year, the list has to be much smaller (though a little less glamorous).

As I've done a few times before, I decided to use Win Shares, which is the best all-around stat that I have available, to find the answer. I had to restrict the list to players who retired after 1940. Since the All Star Game didn't begin until 1933, it seems unfair to count someone like Rogers Hornsby, who retired in 1937 and never really got a chance to play in an All-Star Game during his prime. I struggled a little trying to decide what the best cut-off date was, but, with 7 All-Star Games having been played by 1940, it seemed fair. Plus, the 1940 cut-off date doesn't skew the numbers much in anyway, so it should work well.

Top 15 Players Who Were Never an All-Star, by Win Shares

1. Tony Phillips, '82-'99 (268 WS)
2. Joe Kuhel, '30-'47 (243 WS)
3. Tim Salmon, '92-'06 (233 WS)
4. Babe Herman, '26-'45 (232 WS)
5. Charley Root, '23-'41 (223 WS)
6. Freddie Fitzsimmons, '25-'43 (222 WS)
7. Todd Zeile, '89-'04 (221 WS)
8. Richie Hebner, '68-'85 (219 WS)
9. Kirk Gibson, '79-'95 (218 WS)
10. Jose Cardenal, '63-'80 (212 WS)
11. Garry Maddox, '72-'86 (203 WS)
12. Kevin McReynolds, '83-'94 (202 WS)
13. Hal Trosky, '33-'46 (195 WS)
14. Bill Doran, '82-'93 (193 WS)
15. Bill Bruton, '53-'64 (190 WS)

Rob was pretty close to right when he said that Tim Salmon may be the best player to never have made an All-Star team, but he wasn't right on. Somehow, though, it's infielder extraordinaire Tony Phillips, from the late-'80s A's and early-'90s Tigers, to make it atop the list. From there, we find former Washington Senator and Chicago White Sox Joe Kuhel, who spent the bulk of his career in the All-Star era, but could never quite cut it. Salmon comes third, followed by a couple of 1930s-era players in Babe Herman and Charley Root.

I have to admit, I'm much more surprised at seeing Tony Phillips at the top of the list than I am at seeing Salmon at number three. Maybe it's because I was a little older when Salmon was playing than when Phillips was, I don't know. I actually had trouble remembering who Phillips was at first until I saw a couple of his baseball cards from 1988 and '89. He had a strong career though, with a 118 OPS+ or better five separate times and a career 109 OPS+ playing mostly at second base.

One last thing: when I initially looked at this list, I thought for sure that looking at the Black Ink and Gray Ink numbers for these non-All Stars would give us a good list of the best players never to make an All Star team, but it doesn't seem to work that way. Using the weighted Gray Ink Test I discussed here, we actually find two things: the best non-All Stars on the list are disproportionally from the 1930s and 1940s, when there were much fewer teams (a standard problem with Black and Gray Ink Tests), and the players listed above who didn't play in the 1940s actually score kind of poorly on the weighted Gray Ink Test. Which might make sense, if you think about it: if those players were routinely in the top 10 in major offensive categories, then they'd likely have been an All-Star at some point. Here are the top 10 non-All Star players, by weighted Gray Ink score, followed by the Gray Ink scores of the 15 players listed above.

Top 10 Players Who Were Never an All-Star, by Weighted Gray Ink Score

1. Charley Root, '23-'41 (100.9 pts, 223 WS)
2. Babe Herman, '26-'45 (66 pts, 232 WS)
3. Dennis Leonard, '74-'86 (62.5 pts, 133 WS)
4. Hal Trosky, '33-'46 (60.2 pts, 195 WS)
5. Freddie Fitzsimmons, '25-'43 (59.1 pts, 222 WS)
6. Bump Hadley, '26-'41 (57.6 pts, 175 WS)
7. Guy Bush, '23-'45 (56.8 pts, 167 WS)
8. Cesar Tovar, '65-'76 (48.1 pts, 178 WS)
9. Juan Pierre, 2000-?? (45.2 pts, 131 WS)
10. Ellis Kinder, '46-'57 (39.6 pts, 145 WS)

I might be tempted to say Charley Root or Babe Herman are the best non-All Stars ever, but I don't think I can bring myself to say that since a) they didn't have an All Star game for a good portion of their career and b) the Gray Ink tests are always skewed towards their era. It's hard to know exactly how to account for all of that. Among the others, Dennis Leonard was a workhorse for the Kansas City Royals during the '70s, but it's still pretty surprising to see someone like him so close to the top. Current Los Angeles Dodger Juan Pierre also finds himself pretty high on the list. Looking at his BR page, the black ink jumps out in the games played, at-bats, hits, and stolen base categories.

Weighted Grey Ink Scores of Top Non-All Stars (by Win Shares)

1. Tony Phillips - 268 WS, 29.2 pts
2. Joe Kuhel - 243 WS, 32.2 pts
3. Tim Salmon - 233 WS, 23.6 pts
4. Babe Herman - 232 WS, 66 pts
5. Charley Root - 223 WS, 100.9 pts
6. Freddie Fitzsimmons - 222 WS, 59.1 pts
7. Todd Zeile - 221 WS, 7.5 pts
8. Richie Hebner - 219 WS, 1.5 pts
9. Kirk Gibson - 218 WS, 15.3 pts
10. Jose Cardenal - 212 WS, 17.7 pts
11. Garry Maddox - 203 WS, 14.6 pts
12. Kevin McReynolds - 202 WS, 14.3 pts
13. Hal Trosky - 195 WS, 60.2 pts
14. Bill Doran - 193 WS, 9.5 pts
15. Bill Bruton - 190 WS, 28.5 pts

Pitchers in the Outfield

For those of you watching the Cubs-Cardinals game on ESPN last night - and I was definitely *not* one of you; I don't exactly need to hear Joe Morgan and Jon Miller talk about the Cubs or the rivalry with the Cards - you saw a pretty interesting maneuver by Chicago's Lou Piniella:

The second game featured some unusual maneuvering by Cubs manager Lou Piniella in the ninth inning. With no outs and the bases loaded, Piniella moved left-handed reliever Sean Marshall to left for one batter and moved him back to the mound to face left-handed hitter Skip Schumaker.

"We did what we had to do to try to keep the game in check and it worked," said Piniella.

Must've been fun to watch, aside from the hemming-and-hawing that I'm sure Joe, Jon, and Steve went into.

As fascinating as this was last night, though, it wasn't the first time this has happened. And it definitely wasn't the longest parade of position switches for pitchers. Actually, I wrote about this same thing only two months ago. The best story is a 1986 game between the Mets and Reds, when Jesse Orosco and Roger McDowell shuttled between the outfield and the mound (and between the two outfield corners) for a couple of innings. There's also a couple of good stories about Fernando Valenzuela playing in both the outfield and at first base in separate games. Check it out: Forget About Non-Pitchers Pitching, How About Pitchers Playing the Field?.

Young Pitching Crops

A few weeks ago, I blogged about attending a game here in Milwaukee between the 34-year old Chris Carpenter and the 23-year old Yovani Gallardo. It was an absolutely fantastic pitching matchup with both pitchers taking a no-hitter into the late innings, and I felt lucky to be there. Well, yesterday, I went to another Brewers game that promised an excellent pitching matchup: Gallardo vs the Dodgers' 21-year old stud, Clayton Kershaw. Sadly, the game ended up being nothing at all like it promised (Kershaw did have a one-hitter into the 7th inning, but Gallardo couldn't figure it out, giving up five runs in five innings), and the 44,000 of us at Miller Park went home disappointed.

It did get me thinking, though, about the incredible crop of young pitchers across the majors today. A few names off the top of my head: Gallardo, Kershaw, Zack Grienke, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, Chad Billingsley, John Danks, Jon Lester, and Edinson Volquez. All of these pitchers are 25 years old or younger and many of them have a legitimate argument for being the best pitcher in baseball. Granted, we all know that "there is no such thing as a pitching prospect (TINSTAAPP)," but this list does boast a lot of proven talent, especially considering the collective age of the group. And it isn't even exhaustive!

So, are we currently seeing the best collection of young pitchers ever? Well, it's much too early to say that conclusively since we have no idea how they all will pan out. However, if we change the question to "is this the largest collection of young pitchers making a significant contribution to their team," then it becomes quantifiable. It may be a little wordy and it may not get exactly at the heart of what we're talking about here, but I think it's a pretty fair compromise.

Using Win Shares and players' seasonal ages, I took a look at every season since the mound was lowered to find the number of pitchers who accumulated 15 Win Shares or more in one season while age 25 or younger. The top years are below:

1973 - 16 young pitchers: Bert Blyleven (age: 22, WS: 29), Wayne Twitchell (25, 21), Rick Reuschel (24, 20), Doc Medich (24, 18), Ken Brett (24, 17), Ron Bryant (25, 17), Jon Matlack (23, 16), Burt Hooten (23, 16), Don Gullett (22, 15), Vida Blue (23, 15), Bill Bonham (24, 15), Doug Bird (23, 15), Terry Forster (21, 15), Jerry Reuss (24, 15), Steve Rogers (23, 15), Ray Corbin (24, 15)

1969 - 15 young pitchers: Tom Seaver (age: 24, WS: 32), Denny McLain (25, 29), Bill Singer (25, 26), Larry Dierker (22, 25), Steve Carlton (24, 24), Andy Messersmith (23, 22), Ken Tatum (25, 20), Jim Palmer (23, 180, Blue Moon Odom (24, 18), Ken Holtzman (23, 17), Dick Bosman (25, 17), Wally Bunker (24, 16), Dave Boswell (24, 16), Rick Wise (23, 15), Wayne Granger (25, 15)

2008 - 14 young pitchers: Tim Lincecum (age: 23, WS: 27), Jon Lester (23, 19), Ervin Santana (24, 19), Cole Hamels (23, 18), John Danks (22, 17), Edinson Volquez (23, 17), Zack Greinke (23, 17), Rich Harden (25, 17), James Shields (25, 16), Chad Billingsley (22, 16) Ricky Nolasco (24, 16), Joakim Soria (23, 15), Felix Hernandez (21, 15), Gavin Floyd (24, 15)

1985 - 14 young pitchers: Dwight Gooden (age: 20, WS: 33), Bret Saberhagen (21, 24), Fernando Valenzuela (24, 21), Mike Moore (25, 19), Jimmy Key (24, 19), Tom Browning (25, 18), Ron Darling (24, 17), Oil Can Boyd (25, 17), Mike Witt (24, 16), Frank Viola (25, 16), Danny Jackson (23, 16), John Franco (24, 16), Danny Cox (25, 16), Andy Hawkins (25, 15)

1992 - 12 young pitchers: Mike Mussina (age: 23, WS: 24), Charles Nagy (25, 20), Kevin Appier (24, 20), John Smoltz (25, 18), Jim Abbott (24, 18), Curt Schilling (25, 17), Juan Guzman (25, 17), Mel Rojas (25, 16), Dave Fleming (22, 16), Andy Benes (24, 16), Rod Beck (23, 16), Jaime Navarro (25, 15)

There were also 13 pitchers on the list for each of 1971 and 1975, but many of those were overlaps with 1969 or 1973. I didn't include them in the interest of space.

Overall, these lists tend to be pretty strong. The down-list names weaken significantly in each group, but the top of the list is almost uniformly remarkable. The weakest name at the top is, unsurprisingly, Dwight Gooden. But his case is so unique, being a young superstar in New York during the peak of the narcotics era, that you can't really judge it against the rest of the list. Also, with Blyleven, Seaver, and Mussina atop the other groups, it's hard to complain about the results.

Because we're using end-season Win Shares to rank the pitchers, the 2009 season cannot be judged. We can see, though, that last season makes a respectable showing, and that's without the two pitchers who started this whole exploration, Yovani Gallardo (who was injured all year) and Clayton Kershaw (who was only 20 and still learning the ropes). Other than adding those two, this year's list would likely look a lot like last year's. Harden and Shields wouldn't qualify because of their age and Soria's injury might make it too hard for him to earn enough Win Shares, but most of the others would probably stay. It might have a chance at competing for that top spot on the list.

We'll have to wait for history to make its judgment before we can know for sure just how great this current crop really is. Of the years that are old enough for history to have already made its judgment, I think I'd have to say the 1969 crop is the best, despite being smaller than the '73 crop. Seaver, Carlton, and Palmer beat out Blyleven, Reuschel, and Reuss any day of the week. Who knows if that's what we're seeing this year as Greinke and Lincecum fight it out for the crown of best pitcher in baseball, but, regardless, it sure is exciting to watch. I can't wait for the second half.

McLain, Mantle, and Grooving One In

Manny's back in the news this week, and with him, a whole mess of sanctimony about how he is an example of all that is bad with baseball and how he should not have been allowed to play in the minor leagues during his suspension, let alone return to the majors. I have to admit, the endless discussion about the Manny issue (and the meta-discussion about the discussion of the Manny issue) can be rather tiring. Still, it reminded me of a story that I meant to bring up a little while ago, so I thought I'd tell it now. I'm not breaking any ground here by telling this story - it's been told for 40 years now - but I think it's one that might need to be revisited since it deals with the unwritten rules of baseball and the competitive spirit that we're told is such an important part of the sport.

On September 19, 1968, Mickey Mantle started at first base in the Yankees 155th game of the year. He was sitting on 534 career home runs, tied for third all time with Jimmie Foxx. With only a week left in the season (and in his career), Mantle was itching to get that next home run so he could move into sole possession of third place behind only Ruth and Mays. His last home run was nearly a month earlier, on August 22, and the pressure was starting to get to him.

That day, Mantle and the Yankees were facing Tigers' ace Denny McLain, who, in his last start, had become the first pitcher since 1934 to win 30 games. In his first three at-bats, Mantle singled and walked twice, but, by the time he came up again in the 8th inning, the Yankees were losing 6-1. This is how Time magazine described the next at-bat a week later:

Who says pitchers are heartless? Not Yankee Slugger Mickey Mantle. It was the top of the eighth one day last week, and Detroit Tiger Ace Denny McLain was coasting to his 31st victory on a five-run lead. Up stepped Mantle for perhaps his last time at bat in Tiger Stadium. Mickey took a called strike, fouled off two more pitches, and then signaled with his bat for Denny to put the ball belt-high, where he likes it. Denny served it up, and Mick lined the ball into the upper deck for his 535th home run. As he rounded the bases, he moved past Jimmy Foxx into third place in the alltime homer derby, behind Babe Ruth (714) and Willie Mays (585). "Be sure to tell Denny thanks," said Mantle afterward. "Thanks for what?" asked McLain when he got the message. Then he grinned broadly and added: "I make mistakes all the time."

A better description might be found in this UPI report from the next day:

Mickey Mantle got his pitch en route to another career milestone - 535 home runs - but Denny McLain, who served up the pitch, got the victory, his 31st, and gained a new fan.

"McLain has made a fan of me for life," exclaimed Mantle affter the game which New York lost to Detroit 6-2. The home run moved the powerful switch hitter into sole possession of third place on the all-time homer list. It came on his last time at bat, in the eighth inning Thursday.

As Mickey stepped up to for his last trip to the plate at Tiger Stadium this year and possibly forever, the crowd of 9,063 gave him a standing ovation.

Mantle took two pitches inside, then motioned to the Tiger hurler to get the ball out a little more. The Yankee great got the pitch he wanted and lined his home run into the second deck in right field.
...
As Mantle rounded third base he looked at McLain, nodded twice and shouted "thanks."

In this day and age, with Sportscenter and PTI and endless talk radio shows, this type of shenangians would be fodder for weeks. The sanctimony about the integrity of the game and the hallowness of records would be almost endless. But this only happened 40 years ago. The acceptance of such a thing couldn't be that different than it is today, right?

From Arthur Daley's "Sports of the Times" column in the New York Times the next week:

Despite weak denials to the contrary, everyone assumes that Denny McLain, a hero-worshipper at heart, fed a nice, fat pitch to his boyhood idol, Mickey Mantle, late in a game at Detroit last Thursday. The Mick gratefully hit it into the seats for the home run that lifted him past Jimmy Foxx to third place behind Babe Ruth and Willie Mays in the career list. Therupon McLain put aside all generous impulses and stopped the Yankees for his 31st victory of the year.
...
It was a romantic gesture that McLain made but the propriety of the move always can be questioned, even though he did get away with it. However, Mantle still had to connect for distance, fat pitch or not. This is not as easy as it sounds. A homer contest was held at the Stadium the other day and every pitch was fat. Yet Mantle propelled only two of 10 fair balls into the stands, while Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox contrived to hammer in only one. Three of 20 present rather low percentages.

Daley continues on, bringing up stories about Hall of Famers Dizzy Dean and Al Kaline:

McLain is not the first pitcher ever to groove one for a batter and he certainly will not be the last because ballplayers sometimes give in to sentiment on occasions when the risk is minimal. Even Dizzy Dean had moments when he'd ease up.
...
If McLain grooved one for Mantle - as he undoubtedly did - one teammate was able to understand and approve. He was Al Kaline, finally in the World Series after 16 seasons of big league ball. But his mind had to go back to his first year with the Tigers, a scared kid of 18 straight from a Baltimore high school. Kaline hit one home run in his maiden year.

The Helpful Pitcher

Dave Hoskins was pitching for the Indians that day. Like everyone else in the league, he took an instant like to this clean-cut boy with the stamp of future greatness already on him. Cleveland had a safe lead as Hoskins squared off on the mound against Kaline in the batter's box. The pitcher smiled reassuringly.

"Here, kid," he said as he prepared to serve up the ball. "Go ahead and hit it."

The pitch was fat. Kaline blasted in into the stands for the first of about 300-odd home runs. But he still had to hit it just as Mantle did.

He wraps up his defense of the play:

What saved the Mantle-McLain business from awkward embarrassment is that it would have been perfectly dreadful if the gift homer had lifted Mickey past Foxx and if he never hit another before retiring. But the Mick hit No. 536 a few days later and that took the curse off the operation.

It's analogous to Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. The Yankee Clipper came up with some fluke hits but not one was vital to the streak. Every game that had a debatable hit also contained an unquestionable smasher, often a home run.

From the standpoint of propriety, McLain acted unwisely but it was such a human touch that he can readily be forgiven for his beau geste.

So, because Mantle hit another, more legitimate home run the next day, then we shouldn't care that McLain gift-wrapped #535 for the Mick? Or is it because Mantle still had to have the strength, timing, and hand-eye coordination to put the bat on the ball and push it into the seats? Either way, it's pretty clear that Mantle & McLain were forgiven, at least by the Times. And this isn't from some hack writer. Daley won a Pulitzer for his "Sports of the Times" column in 1956, only twelve years earlier.

Being forty years removed from the event, it's hard to say for sure if this was the prevailing sentiment at the time. As more newspapers get archived online, this might change, but right now I'm only able to find so much. Maybe we're looking at the 1968 equivalent of a Bill Plaschke or Jay Mariotti column, but I somehow doubt it. A featured column by a Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter is hardly the place for one to excuse away the deeds of a superstar in the face of public opinion.

I guess the question we have to ask ourselves is whether these kinds of shenanigans - or, if you prefer, this kind of cheating - is something to get upset about and, if it is, how far should we go to punish/correct it? Or, if it isn't worth getting upset about, then where do we draw the line for what's "acceptable" and what's "outrageous"?

People are going to assume that I'm making some sort of statement about steroids with this piece - and, I admit, that does contribute to my motivation - but I'm not actually making a judgment. I just think that people need to fully explore this whole realm of "rule-bending" before they decide on where they settle in the debate. Hopefully, revisiting this story might help people down that path.

Lone All-Star Representatives

The All-Star rosters were announced this past weekend. There are already plenty of people discussing the various merits of the selections, so I thought I'd point out something a little different. We all know that one of the restrictions of the All-Star Game rosters is that, no matter what, there must be at least one representative from each of MLB's thirty ballclubs. This year, ten of the sixty-four named All-Stars are solo representatives, ranging from the no-question-about-it nature of Kansas City's Zack Greinke to the more-questionable Andrew Bailey of Oakland.

Some may call these "obligatory" All-Stars, but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. They do tend to come from poorly performing teams, though. It may not be the best sign, then, for a team and its fanbase to send only one representative to the All-Star Game many years in a row. If that's happening year after year, then there's probably not a whole lot to root for in those towns.

What teams, then, have had the longest string of only one All-Star Game representative? I decided to take a look at just that. The results may not be the most shocking, but I think there still might be some surprises in there. (It's also rather interesting to see that the Yankees have only had 4 years with only one All-Star selection in the 65 years history of the All-Star Game while the Mets have had twenty.)

Teams w/Only One All-Star Game Rep., Most Consecutive Years
1. Kansas City Royals, 10 years (1990 - 1999)
1. Milwaukee Brewers, 10 years (1989 - 1998)
1. Minnesota Twins, 10 years (1978 - 1987)
1. Seattle Mariners, 10 years (1977 - 1986)
5. Detroit Tigers, 9 years (1995 - 2003)
5. San Diego Padres, 9 years (1969 - 1977)
5. Montreal Expos, 9 years (1969 - 1977)
8. Tampa Bay Rays, 8 years (2000 - 2007)
9. Texas Rangers, 7 years (1982 - 1988)
9. Toronto Blue Jays, 7 years (1977 - 1983)
9. Pittsburgh Pirates, 7 years (1949 - 1955)

There are a bunch of expansion and near-expansion teams on the list, which does make sense. But that's not really a valid excuse for those 1980s Twins teams or the 1990s Royals or Tigers teams.

This doesn't tell the full story, though. There are a number of examples of teams having two or more multi-year streaks broken up by only one year of having more than one All-Star. For example, between 1947 and 1956, the St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles had only one All-Star in 9 of the 10 years. Expanding the leaderboard to include those instances, the list looks like this:

Teams w/Only One All-Star, Longest Span of Time
1. Kansas City Royals, 17 of 19 years (1990 - 2008)
2. Milwaukee Brewers, 14 of 16 years (1986 - 2001)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates, 13 of 15 years (1994 - 2008)
4. Seattle Mariners, 13 of 15 years (1977 - 1991)
5. Chicago White Sox, 13 of 14 years (1976 - 1989)
6. Detroit Tigers, 10 of 11 years (1995 - 2005)
7. Washington Senators, 10 of 11 years (1961 - 1972) *includes 2 All-Star Games each in 1961 and 1962
8. Baltimore Orioles/St. Louis Browns, 9 of 10 years (1949 - 1956)
9. Philadelphia Phillies, 9 of 10 years (1935 - 1944)
10. Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals, 9 of 12 years (1997 - 2008)

However you slice it, this streak that the Royals are on (which extends to 18 of 20 this year with the sole selection of Zack Greinke) is not great for them or their fans. I'm pretty surprised to see the Pirates down at number three on the list, considering their record run of losing seasons. They have had some decent All-Star selections in that time, though, with Brian Giles, Jason Kendall, and Jason Bay.

In the end, this list may not tell us a whole lot that we don't already know - yes, the Brewers, Royals, and Pirates of the last twenty years have had some tough years - but it's still good to have. After all, how else would we remember the weak string of years from those early 1980s Twins or Mariners? For the sake of the fans around the country, though, I hope that the streaks that are currently ongoing in Kansas City and Pittsburgh end soon. It's just good for baseball when the stars are spread around the map.

The Most Average Player of Any Given Season

In one of Kurt Vonnegut's books (I believe it was Player Piano), a visiting dignitary is taken on a tour of the United States. He wants to meet the most average man in America, so the government runs through their massive databases and finds him, using statistics like age, birthplace, job, salary, family size, number of marriages/affairs, and a whole slew of other numbers. He turns out to be a strange guy, and his life doesn't quite end up how you'd expect. The idea of being able to quantify the most average man in America always intrigued me, though, in a "that's a little creepy" kind of way. With all of the data that we have at our fingertips for baseball players, it seemed only logical to extend the concept to ballplayers.

Using the seasonal statistics found in the Lahman Database, I decided to look for the average offensive line put up by all regular players in any given season. By that, I mean, if you were to take every full-time player in a season and find the average number of at-bats, doubles, home runs, strikeouts, walks, etc. that that group put up, what would that statistical line look like? Furthermore, once you have the average statistical line for that season, is it possible to find the one player from that season who is closest to the average across all stats - to find, in effect, the Most Average Player for that season?

The Process
The process wasn't all that difficult. First, I had to decide what players would qualify to count for the average statistics of the season. After all, we wouldn't want those players with only 12 plate appearances on the year to drag down the average. It seemed reasonable, then, to use the same rules as for qualifying for a batting title; that is, the average stats line includes only those players who had 3.1 plate appearances for each number of games in the season. To make things a little easier, I only included the full 162-game seasons (so anything before 1961 and the three strike-shortened years are excluded).

Once the averages were calculated, I had to figure out the best way to find the most average player. I decided to assign each player points for how close each of their stats were to average and then sum the points for a total score. The player with the lowest score in a given season would be the Most Average Player.

An example: in 2008, the average player played in 146.88 games, with 547.97 at-bats, 153.77 hits, 31.9 doubles, and 19.95 home runs (among other stats). Torii Hunter, in 2008, played in 146 games, giving him 0 points in that stat, with 551 at-bats (0 pts), 153 hits (0 pts), 37 doubles (4 pts), and 21 home runs (2 pts). Mike Cameron, on the other hand, played in 120 games (4 pts), with 444 AB (4 pts), 108 hits (7 pts), 25 doubles (5 pts), and 25 home runs (7 pts). Clearly, Torii Hunter put up the much more average season of the two, at least when looking at those stats, and that is reflected in his total score being lower than Cameron's.

The Results
Having done this process for all players in all seasons since 1961, I can now tell you who the most average players were in each season. The list is actually fairly interesting, on the whole. There are plenty of names on the list that you'd expect to see - Mark Ellis, Sid Bream, Doug Decinces - but there are a lot that you wouldn't expect. Among them, you'll find plenty of future (or past) All-Stars, some ROYs, MVPs, and even a couple of Hall of Famers. There are even a couple of players who were All-Stars in the same year that they were the most average player in baseball.

You can see the full list of the Most Average Player in Baseball by Season here.

Here are a couple of notable names on the list:

1973 - Gary Matthews (Score: 38 points), also won Rookie of the Year that year
1976 - Dave Winfield (42 points)
1977, 1980 - Doug Decinces (48 points & 50 points)
1982, 1985 - Willie Upshaw (45 points & 36 points)
1990 - Alan Trammell (49 points), also an All-Star that year
1992 - Barry Larkin (33 points)
1993, 1997 - Luis Gonzalez (41 points & 42 points)
1999 - Miguel Tejada (35 points)
2003 - Ivan Rodriguez (26 points)

You'll notice that most of the "big names" on this list (Winfield, Trammell, etc.) have higher point totals than some of the others. So, although they are the most average player of their respective seasons, they are much less average than some of the other names. This isn't true for Ivan Rodriguez's 2003 season, though. His score of 26 points is actually the second lowest of any of the other Most Average Players.

A quick look at his stats shows why:

Ivan Rodriguez, 2003

TYPE	SCORE**	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	IBB	HBP	SH	SF	GIDP
Season Avg.		146.16	539.76	81.75	151.7	30.95	3.35	19.63	77.7	9.83	3.92	55.72	88.72	5.17	6.25	2.66	4.64	12.49
Player Stats	26	144	511	90	152	36	3	16	85	10	6	55	92	6	6	1	5	18
Player Points*	26	0	2	3	0	4	0	4	2	0	3	0	1	0	0	2	0	5

In Pudge's '03 campaign, the only stat that he was even remotely off of the average was GIDP, where he had 18 GIDPs to the league average 12.49. His home runs and doubles are both slightly off, though not by much. It's hard to argue that he was not anything but league average, offensively, that year.

But, as hard as it may be to believe, there is still one player who had an even more average season than Pudge's 2003. In 1984, All-Star catcher Tony Pena put up the most average season of all-time. Take a look at the stats:

Tony Pena, 1984

TYPE	SCORE**	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	IBB	HBP	SH	SF	GIDP
Season Avg.		148.04	548.09	75.74	152.9	25.43	4.37	15.05	71.4	13.78	6.18	52.1	78.54	5.71	2.81	2.82	4.87	11.94
Player Stats	22	147	546	77	156	27	2	15	78	12	8	36	79	5	4	4	2	14
Player Points*	22	0	0	0	1	2	3	0	2	0	2	7	0	1	0	0	3	1

The glaring number in Pena's season is his walks total, where his 36 walks adds 7 points to his score compared to the league average of 52. His other stats are so nearly perfectly average, though, that they more than make up for it.

It should be noted that this is a pure offensive comparison that makes no allowances for positional differences. That should probably be considered, then, when you notice that the two most average seasons in history belong to catchers. Is a purely average offensive output from a superb defensive catcher, like Pena or Rodriguez, something to praise? That's beyond the scope of my little study here, but it probably should be considered. The same question can also be asked of first and second year players, since it is rare that a rookie puts up well-above average numbers.

Like I said, though, that's not what I set out to find. I was just looking for the most average player in any given season, and I think we've found that. I still find it interesting to see so many notable names on the list. I guess that's what makes baseball so interesting, eh?

"The Last Pennant Before Armageddon"

Sorry for the slow week everyone but, with the short holiday week at work and with going to the ballgame Tuesday night, there just didn't prove to be a lot of time to blog. I'll try to make up for it next week. In the meantime, I didn't want to let the week go by without at least one more post wishing everyone a happy holiday weekend and all.

So, Happy 4th, everyone! I hope you all have good plans for the weekend and enjoy it safely.

As a weekend parting gift, I thought I'd point out one of my favorite baseball stories. Found in W.P. Kinsella's The Thrill of the Grass, a collection of short stories, "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon" is a great little story following the manager of the Chicago Cubs sometime during the Cold War 1980s as he leads his team of superstars towards the World Series crown. As the club gets closer and closer to the championship, manager Al Tiller becomes more and more convinced, through visions from God, that the world will end if the Cubs win the pennant. And, with temperatures rising between the US and Russia, his visions just may be true.

Like I said, it's a fun read and puts a pretty literal spin on the old "Hell will freeze over before the Cubs win the World Series" joke. I'm far from a Cubs fan, though, so I can't say for sure if the subject matter would bother me enough to keep from enjoying it. It certainly isn't mean-spirited, though, and that could make all the difference.

Besides the concept, the most interesting part of the story is how the Cubs go about becoming the best team in baseball. In the story, the Cubs are owned by an eccentric billionaire who paid cash for the team after making his money from the discovery of "a unique worm deep in an Alabama swamp, a worm that drew fish to it the way the back of one's neck draws mosquitoes." Immediately after buying the team, he threatened to change the name of the team to the Chicago Worms and, when that was disallowed, he instead threatened to move them back home to Alabama. Finally, he decided to just buy up all the best players in baseball, regardless of their position, and make them play together:

"Chester A. Rowdy didn't move the team to Alabama. Instead, he bought free agents like they were jelly beans. 'Hell, it's only worms,' Chester A. said when he shelled out six million for the first one. Trouble was that all Chester A. knew about was worms. It soon became evident that he needed a good manager. Instead, he get Al Tiller. The first year Tiller managed the Cubs, Chester A. Rowdy bought three third basemen for a few millions dollars each.

When Al Tiller heard about it, he called Chester A. on the telephone. 'What am I supposed to do with three third basemen?' he said. 'Even if they're the best in the majors, I can only play them one at a time.'

'Well, hell,' said Chester A., 'I shouldn't have to tell you this, you're supposed to be a baseball manager, but it ain't no more than forty-five feet from third base to shortstop, and but another forty-five feet to second base; tell them fells to adjust. For the amount I'm payin' them they better not argue about what position they get to play. Tell them that for a million dollars a year they got to adjust.'
...
When Chester A. purchased the three third basemen for him, Al Tiller lined them up at the center field wall and had them race to home plate. He made them race three times. Then he made a shortstop out of the fastest one, a second basemen out of the man who cam second, while the slowest got to stay at third. He then arranged to trade the regular second baseman and shortstop in return for a good lefthanded starter and a relief pitcher named Bullet Boyd who could throw aspirins and was good for two innings ever night of the season."

I suppose that idea - that a team could just buy the pennant by buying up all the best available players - was really common thinking back in the early days of free agency when this story was written, but I suspect that that opinion has changed in the last 15 years or so. There have been too many teams with high payrolls and high-priced free agents fail to make it through the postseason for us to believe otherwise. Still, though, it's hard not have at least a little inkling that, under the right circumstances and with the right pocketbook, a team would be able to completely revamp itself from a cellar-dweller to the World Series champion. Or am I the only one with that nagging fear?

In any case, "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon" is a lot of fun to read, and I recommend you do so if you can. I've read a few other Kinsella books - Shoeless Joe, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy - and they have their moments, but his short fiction is really where it's at. The Thrill of the Grass has a few clunkers in it, but, along with a couple of other stories like "The Night Manny Mota Tied the Record" and "How I Got My Nickname", "The Last Pennant Before Armageddon" more than makes up for it.

Pitching Debuts

For the fourth time this season yesterday, the Brewers faced an opposing pitcher making his major league debut. And, for the fourth time this season yesterday, the Brewers lost a game in which they were facing a pitcher making his major league debut.

Called up only a couple of days ago, Ryan Sadowski pitched a strong, six-inning, four-hit game in his debut, leaving the game only after being hit in the leg by a Ryan Braun drive up the middle. The Giants went on to win the game 7-0 and Sadowski's pitching line earned him a game score of 63. It was a solid performance, and one that Sadowski should be very proud of. It should be interesting to see how his career progresses from here after that start.

Now, Sadowski's performance isn't likely to be anything that I'll be telling my kids about in 20 years, but he got me wondering: what does a solid first game mean, career-wise? What was the best ever major-league debut, and who pitched it? Do all Hall of Famers come out strong, or are there some clunkers in there too? We tend to make a big deal about big debuts, so I thought it might be nice to look a little deeper into it.

Using the Play Index over at Baseball-Reference - still one of the best tools on the internet - I was able to learn that the best ever start in a major league debut belonged to Hall of Famer Juan Marichal. On July 10, 1960, Marichal, the strikeout leader in the Pacific Coast League, was called up from Tacoma to join the big club. He made his debut a little over a week later, on July 19. From the game story the next day:

"The 5-10 right-hander who was the strikeout king of the Pacific Coast League until he was recalled from Tacoma with an 11-5 record, had a perfect game for 6 1-3 innings Tuesday night for San Francisco. An error by Eddie Bressoud let the Phils' Tony Taylor reach base.

Marichal lost his no-hit bid when pinch hitter Clay Carlymple singled with two out in the eighth. The newcomer struck out 12, only three short of the record that the Dodgers' Karl Spooner set in his first start in 1954.

No other National League pitcher in modern days, since 1900, has thrown a one-hitter in his first start. Charles Jones of Cincinnati pitched a no-hitter in his major league debut in 1884. Two American Leaguers have broken in with one-hitters, Addie Joss of Cleveland and Mike Fornieles of Washington."

Marichal's line on the night looked like this: 9 IP, 1 hit, 1 walk, 12 strikeouts, and no runs, for a game score of 96. As a pitcher, you just can't ask for more than that in your debut. The fact that it was a Hall of Famer who was able to do it in his debut seems almost accidental. The next best debut belongs to the Karl Spooner mentioned above, who struck out 15 but walked 3 and gave up 3 hits in his first start for a game score of 93. Milwaukee's Steve Woodard had the third best debut of all time in 1997 with a game score of 91, while Pedro Astacio's debut game score of 87 was the 6th best ever.

To find the next certain Hall of Famer on the list, you have to drop all the way down to John Smoltz, whose debut earned a game score of 71 (tied for 90th best debut ever). There are a few other names between Smoltz and Marichal, including Luis Tiant, JR Richard, and Josh Beckett, but none of them are Hall of Famers and, outside of Tiant's game score of 86, none of them had substantially better games than Smoltz.

On the flip side, there are countless pitchers with terrible debuts. Pitchers whose names will forever be forgotten. But there are also plenty of Hall of Famers in that camp. Using the Play Index again, this time to get low game scores in major league debuts, there's one name that jumps out in particular: the recently (though, unofficially) retired Tom Glavine.

On August 17, 1987, Glavine made his first start as a Brave, but could not get out of the 4th inning. By the time they pulled him, Glavine had given up 10 hits, 5 walks, and 6 runs while striking out only 1 for a middling game score of 13. From the game story the next day:

"Tom Glavine, the 21-year-old Braves starter, was making his major-league debut. The rookie from Boston was a high school hockey star and was drafted in the fourth round in 1984 by the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL.

Monday night, Glavine must have felt like he was killing a perpetual two-man power play. Baseballs were whizzing past him to the outfield like slap shots from the point.

Before the first inning was over, the Astros had put five runners on base and scored twice. By the time, Glavine was knocked out in the fourth inning, he had faced 35 batters. Fifteen had reached - 10 on hits and five on walks - and the Astros had built a 6-0 lead for [Mike] Scott."

Of course, that one game was not the best example of what Tom Glavine could do. He would, after all, go on to make 681 more starts and win 305 of them. There were no doubt a few more clunkers in those 20+ years of starts, but they were the exception. In the end, Glavine's Hall of Fame talent would shine through.

That's just how it is when looking at any given day. Baseball is such a fickle sport that, depending on the weather or the travel or the makeup of the lineup or one of a dozen other possible factors, a player can go from brilliant to terrible in just one start. We do a disservice, then, to the players when we put so much emphasis on this one start or that one start. A strong debut could easily show the player to be the next Juan Marichal, but it could also mean they're the next Pedro Astacio. Conversely, the weak debut could show signs of them being either the next Jeff Mutis or Tom Glavine. The only way to know for sure is to let them play a few more games (or even a whole career) and see what happens. Debuts may be nice to get excited about, but they just don't mean enough in the long run. Instead, we need to focus on the player as a whole and determine what they bring most to the table.

Still, it's hard not to get excited when someone dazzles in their first start, even if we already know that it doesn't necessarily mean anything. The 13,000 people who were at Marichal's debut in 1960 probably still talk about it to this very day. There were over 42,000 people at Sadowski's big league debut yesterday and, while it's unlikely that we witnessed the birth of a star, history shows us that you never really know.