Position Players by WAR: Free Agency

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

The Expansion Era saw the Major Leagues spread west and go from 16 teams to 24 26 by 1977:

The pitching mound had been lowered, the designated hitter added, and baseball was looking like the modern game save for one thing: Free Agency. In the 19th century, players started getting paid more than the average worker. In order to control salaries, baseball created the Reserve Clause in 1879 which said that even if a player’s contract expired, the team that contract was with still retained rights to their services. Players were given one-year contracts, and if they refused to sign, they couldn’t sign with another team.

The Federal League was formed in 1914 to compete with the Major Leagues, but only lasted two seasons. After 1915, the Major Leagues bought out most of the owners of the Federal Leagues, giving them ownership in Major League teams, or other considerations. The owner of one of those teams, the Baltimore Terrapins, refused to be bought out and brought suit against the National League under the Sherman Anti-trust Act. That came to a head in 1922 in Federal Baseball Club vs. National League which created the MLB Anti-Trust exemption. Apparently because baseball was an amusement, it didn’t fall under the same rules for interstate commerce.

That all changed in 1975 when an arbitrator struck down the reserve clause and granted Free Agency to two pitchers: Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally. From 1976, Free Agency was born, and players were no longer bound by the Reserve Clause.

A quick synopsis: in 1969, Curt Flood fought against being traded. He gave up his career in baseball. He believed that the Reserve Clause was cause for collective bargaining, and the first collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association was reached by Marvin Miller in 1970. That started the ball rolling for Free Agency to be granted by the arbitrator in 1975.

Here are the players who came out of that era:

And the second half:

Who jumps out to you?

Player list (career WAR in parentheses):

Rickey Henderson (114.1)	Mike Schmidt (110.5)
Cal Ripken (99.7)	Wade Boggs (94.8)
George Brett (91.6)	Eddie Murray (78.8)
Rafael Palmeiro (75.5)	Paul Molitor (75.2)
Carlton Fisk (74.4)	Lou Whitaker (74.3)
Bobby Grich (74.1)	Robin Yount (74.1)
Gary Carter (72.5)	Dwight Evans (71.4)
Tim Raines (71)	Mark McGwire (70.6)
Ozzie Smith (70.3)	Barry Larkin (69.8)
Alan Trammell (69.5)	Tony Gwynn (67.9)
Willie Randolph (67.9)	Darrell Evans (67.8)
Dave Winfield (67.7)	Buddy Bell (66.6)
Ryne Sandberg (62.6)	Andre Dawson (62.3)
Keith Hernandez (61.8)	Fred McGriff (61.3)
Ron Cey (59.4)	Chet Lemon (56.9)
Jim Rice (56.1)	Jose Cruz (55.2)
Will Clark (54.4)	Brian Downing (54.1)
Jack Clark (53.9)	Fred Lynn (53.8)
Tony Phillips (51.5)	Toby Harrah (50.9)
George Foster (50.8)	Ken Singleton (50.2)
Kirby Puckett (49.4)	Julio Franco (48.6)
Lance Parrish (48)	Tony Fernandez (47.7)
Matt Williams (47.4)	Dale Murphy (47.3)
Brett Butler (46.3)	Davey Lopes (46.1)
Devon White (46)	Jose Canseco (45.9)
Don Mattingly (45.8)	Dave Parker (45.7)
Harold Baines (45.3)	Dave Concepcion (44.8)
Doug DeCinces (44.3)	Gary Gaetti (44.3)
Albert Belle (44.2)	Paul O’Neill (43.8)
Willie Wilson (43.5)	Darrell Porter (43.4)
Darryl Strawberry (43.2)	Andy Van Slyke (43.1)
Jesse Barfield (42.6)	Dusty Baker (42.6)
Steve Garvey (42.5)	Kent Hrbek (42)
Chili Davis (41.7)	Lenny Dykstra (41.4)
Jim Sundberg (41.4)	Tim Wallach (40.6)
Wally Joyner (40.4)	Jay Bell (40.3)
Kirk Gibson (39.5)	Carney Lansford (39.1)
Cecil Cooper (38.6)	Greg Luzinski (38.1)
Bill Madlock (38.1)	Pedro Guerrero (37.9)
Bob Boone (37.1)	Lonnie Smith (37)
Eric Davis (36.8)	Ken Griffey (36.8)
Bob Watson (36.6)	Don Money (36.5)
Frank White (36.2)	Dwayne Murphy (35.7)
Bobby Bonilla (35.6)	Andres Galarraga (35.4)
Ron Gant (35.3)	Don Baylor (34.9)
Gary Matthews (34.6)	Mike Hargrove (34.5)
Travis Fryman (33.7)	Hal McRae (33.6)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Position Players by WAR: Liveball Era

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

Last week we covered the position players of the Deadball Era. Our next stop is the Liveball Era. Although the names of the era make it obvious – the Deadball Era was characterized by low run scoring – the Liveball Era saw rise to the home run, Babe Ruth, and an offensive explosion that changed the way the game was played:

The Liveball Era players are ones I am much more familiar with. One fifth of the players in the Hall of Fame are from the Liveball era. There should be a good reason for that. The Hall of Fame was originally established in 1936. The first players inducted were people from the Liveball Era. A special committee of experts was created to select the best players on the 19th century for induction, but the whole process was botched. Initially, the voters averaged about 10 players per ballot, but the Hall of Fame folks only wanted to vote in five players. So they counted each vote as half a vote.

If you need 75% for induction, and each vote only counts for half, there isn’t much of a chance anyone will actually get inducted. So instead of getting five people in the Hall from the 19th century, none of them got in. As a result, the backlog of players that needed to be inducted made things slower in future elections. Instead of inducting a lot of the Liveball Era greats, the 19th century players took up space on the ballot, and diluted the voting. The Veterans’ Committee picked up the slack, resulting in 48 total players from this era being inducted to the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the Hall of Merit thinks only 33 of those players were actually worthy.

The end of the Liveball Era was the start of WWII. Over 500 MLB players fought in the war, and the talent level dropped from 1941-1945, as did scoring.

Here is the first half of the Liveball Era:

And here’s the second half:

When I updated the methodology behind the ordering, I remade the graphs. The previous versions are available here and here

If we had to do it all over again, who would we elect from this time period? If you had a ballot, who would you vote for?

Player list (career WAR in parentheses):

Babe Ruth (177.7)	Rogers Hornsby (134.9)
Lou Gehrig (125.9)	Mel Ott (116.1)
Jimmie Foxx (112.3)	Joe DiMaggio (92)
Charlie Gehringer (88.1)	Luke Appling (84.7)
Paul Waner (79.2)	Frankie Frisch (78.8)
Al Simmons (78.5)	Harry Heilmann (78.1)
Joe Cronin (75.4)	Arky Vaughan (74.3)
Goose Goslin (71.9)	Johnny Mize (71.8)
Lou Boudreau (69.8)	Hank Greenberg (68.2)
Joe Gordon (67.2)	Bob Johnson (66.4)
Bill Dickey (63.8)	George Sisler (62.8)
Bill Terry (61.1)	Stan Hack (59)
Sam Rice (58.4)	Billy Herman (56.9)
Tony Lazzeri (56.7)	Joe Medwick (56.3)
Kiki Cuyler (56.2)	Gabby Hartnett (56.1)
Mickey Cochrane (55.9)	Earl Averill (55)
Edd Roush (54.7)	Joe Sewell (54.3)
Dave Bancroft (53.8)	Joe Judge (52.9)
Buddy Myer (51.4)	Charlie Keller (50.4)
Ben Chapman (50.1)	Travis Jackson (49.6)
Heinie Manush (49.4)	Dixie Walker (48.5)
Harlond Clift (47.1)	Chuck Klein (46.5)
Earle Combs (46.3)	Babe Herman (46.2)
Augie Galan (46.1)	Dick Bartell (45.7)
Hack Wilson (45.6)	Bill Nicholson (45.5)
Ken Williams (45.5)	Dolph Camilli (45.4)
Rudy York (44.7)	Tommy Henrich (44.6)
Jack Fournier (44.4)	Wally Berger (44.3)
Ernie Lombardi (43.8)	Jeff Heath (43.8)
Jimmie Dykes (42.8)	Jim Bottomley (42.5)
Max Bishop (42.3)	Pie Traynor (42.2)
Ken Keltner (41.8)	Lonny Frey (41.2)
Cy Williams (41)	Wally Moses (40.9)
Phil Cavarretta (38.9)	Wally Pipp (38.8)
Hal Trosky (38.6)	George Grantham (38.4)
George Burns (38.1)	Ross Youngs (38)
Lu Blue (38)	Joe Kuhel (37.4)
Willie Kamm (37.4)	Roy Cullenbine (36.7)
Riggs Stephenson (36.7)	Pinky Higgins (36.5)
Frank McCormick (36.4)	Frankie Crosetti (35.8)
Chick Hafey (35.4)	Cecil Travis (34.5)
Marty Marion (34.4)	Freddie Lindstrom (34.4)
Sam West (34.3)	Marty McManus (34.2)
Rick Ferrell (34.1)	Tony Cuccinello (33.8)
Bob Meusel (33.7)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Rethinking the Standings Again

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

On Tuesday I talked about how we could Rethink the Standings in a visual way. And you guys responded with helpful reasons. For the most part, I agreed with what you said, and sought out to fix it and make it better.

I realized from your comments that I had failed to mention that I never meant to animate it; I just got carried away and animated it without explaining what I was after. Oops. My goal had been to just make it a single stationary image like this:

Also, when working on the improved version, I found two big problems with my logic: 1) I had totally forgotten about double headers, so my graph showed Detroit with a whopping 156 games last year, and 2) I was calculating Wild Card standings wrong. I had just taken the 4th best record in the league, but the real formula is the best non-division-leading record in the league. So there was plenty of room for improvement on my part.

The biggest comments from you folks were as follows:

To my eye, it would be easier to follow if the individual teams had fixed lateral positions instead of the first-place team moving to the left — the vertical position indicates that already, so it seems superfluous. Also fixing the lateral positions would reduce the model’s dependence on colour, which, of course, benefits the colour-blind and also makes it more useful in situations where it won’t print in colour (such as most newspapers).

- Darien

In short, drop the horizontal movement and reduce the use of color. Done and done.

The only thing I would add might be value-keys next to each dot indicating (what the graph already indicates) the # of games back in the division… it might be hard to see if my team is 3 or 3.5 games back since the locations are so close together (or put them down at the bottom under the team abbreviations).

I’m also a fan of the idea of leaving the teams in the same order to begin the season (alphabetical seems easiest) so that I don’t have to keep track of what column my team happens to be in on any one day. With the dots clustered by division, it should still be readily visually apparent which team leads the division.

Another “graphic” thing might be to use the team logos instead of dots… in any case, superb work.

- Adam D

So add some labels so we can do more than just guesstimate the gap between teams, fix the order alphabetically so it’s easier to find your team each day, and use the logos instead of dots. Unfortunately, logos are a no-go. Excel doesn’t handle images well at all, and it just doesn’t look good (trust me — it’s really ugly).

1. I wanted to see when teams were eliminated. The baseballrace site used a moving line, which on your version would appear at the bottom and move up the graph; that might work. Or maybe just a big X riding on top of an eliminated team’s dot.

1a. Come to think of it, showing when teams clinch would also be useful.

2. I wonder whether I could highlight my favorite team. Putting teams in the same horizontal position will help, but it would be so great if I could click a button to highlight, say, the Twins, and then they stand out in some way — a larger circle, “MIN” in bold text, something.

- ScooterPie

There were a lot more comments, but these were the biggies. Here is the revised version:

Teams that are eliminated (see Baltimore) get their name greyed out at the top, and their circle becomes a lighter shade of grey. Teams that clinch their division are in black, and teams that have clinched a playoff spot are outlined in black like Tampa Bay and New York in this shot:

And this is what the season looks like, animated:

I also got a lot of requests to share the Excel file, so here it is. I will let you figure out the method to my madness, but feel free to ask in the comments if you have any questions. And if there are still ways to improve it, please let me know.

Rethinking the Standings

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

Every morning when I was a kid, I would wake up and grab the sports pages to see how my team was doing. Millions of people across the country do the same — they wake up and reach for a paper to sift through something like this:

I always go straight for my division and my team, and see how many games behind they are. I then look longingly at the Wild Card standings to get an idea of how far behind they are. But most of the information gets completely ignored as I eat my breakfast. I’m guessing that millions of people across the country are doing the same.

Chris Spurlock over at Beyond the Box Score made a noble attempt to animate a division race here. But a few things didn’t sit well with me. First of all, it was out of context — you can see how your team is doing in comparison to the division leader, but not in relation to the rest of the league.

My suggestion was this:

But I still have the same problem. It shows how each team is doing in relation to the AL East, but how is the rest of the AL doing? Not to mention that it looks almost exactly like the graphs Studes used to update on The Hardball Times. Though that isn’t a bad thing, it also means that I didn’t add anything at all to the conversation.

So I got thinking even harder about it. What do we really want to see in the standings? We want to know how our team is doing. We want to know how far behind they are in the division. We want to know how they are doing in relation to the other teams in the league when it comes to the Wild Card Standings. Also, we probably want to see what direction they’re headed in. Some newspapers show the record over the last 10 games and/or the current streak (3L, or 4W, etc.). Studes created sparklines to do the same thing.

This is my attempt at making the divisional race better (the file is 6 megabytes, so please give it a little bit of time to load):

Each division is on the same graph, so we can compare across the entire AL in a glance. Whoever is furthest left in their division is in first. Each team also has a “trail” of 5 days to show what direction they are moving in. When a line pops up between two teams, it means that they have changed places in the standings.

Unlike my usual graphs, this was made entirely in Excel, and then was turned into a .gif file, so the image quality isn’t so great. Please be understanding. I also don’t handle ties too well, and don’t show which team is actually first in the Wild Card race.

I want your feedback. Does this graph work for you? Would looking at a chart like this every morning with your coffee be a good replacement for the traditional standings?

Position Players by WAR: Modern Era

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

I think we’re all familiar with the Modern Era, so I’m not going in to too much detail:

I drew the line wrong though. I should have started it in 1993, with the introduction of two new teams: the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins, and the huge boost in runs scored per game. Instead, I set it to 1995 because I had noted the wrong date for the two expansion franchises. They were joined by the Tampa Bay Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1998. For the most part, it doesn’t change much, but as I’ve learned doing this series, you guys catch everything, so it’s better to be up-front about it.

Here are the players that move in to the Modern Era if I change the cutoff to 1993:

• Andres Galarraga (35.4)
• Paul O’Neill (43.8)
• Mark McGwire (70.6)
• Barry Larkin (69.8)
• Rafael Palmeiro (75.5)
• Ron Gant (35.3)
• Matt Williams (47.4)
• Jay Bell (40.3)
• Albert Belle (44.2)
• Travis Fryman (33.7)

By strong request of Big Jgke I have updated the images to include these players.

Here is the first half of the Modern Era, almost all retired:

The second half finishes up with some players still starting their careers but are already in the top 500 for WAR. Just look at Pujols!

None of these players are in the Hall of Fame (yet). How many of them do you think are deserving? Who do you think has a shot, even though they may still be playing?

Player list (career WAR in parentheses):

Barry Bonds (169.7)	Alex Rodriguez (107.4)
Ken Griffey Jr. (85.6)	Chipper Jones (85.5)
Jeff Bagwell (83.9)	Albert Pujols (80.6)
Frank Thomas (79.1)	Jim Thome (73.5)
Ivan Rodriguez (73.4)	Manny Ramirez (72.2)
Larry Walker (72.2)	Scott Rolen (71.6)
Edgar Martinez (71.6)	Andruw Jones (70.5)
Derek Jeter (70.4)	Craig Biggio (70.1)
Roberto Alomar (68.2)	Mike Piazza (68.2)
Jim Edmonds (68.1)	Gary Sheffield (65.8)
Kenny Lofton (65.1)	Sammy Sosa (64.6)
John Olerud (62.4)	Jeff Kent (61.9)
Vladimir Guerrero (61.7)	Bobby Abreu (61.5)
Robin Ventura (61.3)	Todd Helton (60.6)
Luis Gonzalez (60.1)	Brian Giles (57.8)
Lance Berkman (56.2)	Jason Giambi (54.3)
Carlos Beltran (54.1)	Moises Alou (53)
Jorge Posada (51.9)	Adrian Beltre (50.8)
Ichiro Suzuki (50.7)	Mike Cameron (50.4)
Carlos Delgado (49.1)	Mark Grace (48.7)
Omar Vizquel (48.4)	Ellis Burks (48.1)
Bernie Williams (47.8)	J.D. Drew (46.9)
Chase Utley (44.3)	Miguel Tejada (44)
Nomar Garciaparra (43.2)	Steve Finley (43)
Chuck Knoblauch (42.6)	David Justice (42.4)
Jason Kendall (42.2)	Ray Lankford (42.2)
Magglio Ordonez (41.8)	Johnny Damon (41.8)
Reggie Sanders (41.4)	Juan Gonzalez (38.8)
Derrek Lee (38.3)	Ken Caminiti (38)
Edgar Renteria (37.7)	Placido Polanco (37.4)
Miguel Cabrera (37.3)	Tim Salmon (37.1)
Jimmy Rollins (36.7)	David Wright (36.6)
Mark Teixeira (36.3)	Brady Anderson (36.2)
Jeff Cirillo (36.1)	Troy Glaus (36)
B.J. Surhoff (35.8)	David Ortiz (35.6)
Shawn Green (35.1)	Javy Lopez (34.6)
Carl Crawford (34.5)	Tino Martinez (33.8)
Mo Vaughn (33.7)

I think you commenters are the best copy writers. You’ve kept me honest. Even when I make dumb mistakes.

I’d like to apologize heartily to Andre Dawson for forgetting him. As fredsbank so eloquently put it:

so I know FG hates that Dawson is in the Hall, but to blatantly omit it seems a little over the top

(An additional thanks to My echo and bunnymen and ofMontreal who said the same, but were kinder about it)

Additional apologies to Mark Belanger (caught by Joe of Chop-n-Change, and Rick Ferrell (caught by SF 55 for life).

Thank you Rich for letting me know that just because they share a name, the American Association and the American League didn’t actually have a direct connection. Thank you Sam, Dash, Richard Gadsden, fredsbank, Rafael J, hunterfan, and Rally for letting me know that I should really have made my cutoffs better, specifically in regards to Ty Cobb (as stated by Rally):

I can see using those cutoffs Cobb gets lumped into the liveball era. But you know that isn’t right – he exemplified the way to play baseball in the deadball era. His peak years were all deadball.

Thank you to ibn Bob for reminding me there was more than one strike-cancelled World Series, dorasaga for reminding me of the proper year when the Cubs last won the World Series (happy 103rd birthday!), and ofMontreal for pointing out that the Red Sox are not in the National League (bet they wish they were though).

And a super-special thanks to bcp33sox and James III for helping me improve the graphs and WAR lists at the end of each article to make the experience less painful for you people reading.

Making mistakes is the best way of improving. Thank you all for taking the time to read, and especially for those of you who take the time to comment and correct me. All the mistakes brought to my attention should (theoretically) be fixed now. Let me know if you find any more.

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Position Players by WAR: Expansion Era

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

The Expansion Era saw the Major Leagues grow from 16 teams in 1959 to 24 teams in 1975. The Washington Senators moved to Minnesota in 1960, and MLB decided to expand earlier than planned at risk of losing its anti-trust exemption. The new Washington Senators would become the Texas Rangers in 1972. They were joined by the Los Angeles Angels in the same year. 1962 saw the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets join the Majors, followed by the Kansas City Royals, Seattle Pilots (later to become the Milwaukee Brewers), San Diego Padres, and the international addition of the first Canadian Team, the Montreal Expos.

I cut off the Expansion Era at 1975, right before Free Agency took hold, but there were two new teams formed in 1977: the Seattle Mariners, and the Toronto Blue Jays.

If you looked at a map of the MLB in 1950, this is what it would look like:

The same map in 1977 after Expansion was finished would look like this:

The Expansion era also saw a couple rule changes. The pitching mound was lowered in 1968, and the Designated Hitter rule was introduced in 1973. Baseball looks more and more like the modern game. Integration sees the rise of all-time great non-white players like Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. Let’s take a look at those players:

Part II:

Who jumps out to you?

Player list (career WAR in parentheses):

Willie Mays (163.2)	Hank Aaron (150.5)
Frank Robinson (116.3)	Carl Yastrzemski (108.7)
Joe Morgan (108)	Al Kaline (101.9)
Brooks Robinson (94.6)	Pete Rose (91.4)
Roberto Clemente (91.3)	Johnny Bench (81.5)
Reggie Jackson (81.4)	Rod Carew (80.3)
Ron Santo (79.3)	Harmon Killebrew (78.4)
Willie McCovey (75.7)	Reggie Smith (71.8)
Graig Nettles (71.8)	Willie Stargell (70.9)
Joe Torre (70.8)	Billy Williams (69.7)
Dick Allen (67.9)	Tony Perez (67.8)
Norm Cash (64.8)	Luis Aparicio (63.6)
Bobby Bonds (63.3)	Willie Davis (63.3)
Ken Boyer (63.3)	Sal Bando (62.7)
Ted Simmons (61.1)	Jimmy Wynn (60.7)
Rocky Colavito (59)	Orlando Cepeda (58.3)
Rusty Staub (56.6)	Vada Pinson (56.4)
Cesar Cedeno (55.2)	Jim Fregosi (53.9)
Boog Powell (53.8)	Bert Campaneris (53.7)
Lou Brock (53.4)	Bill Freehan (52.8)
Al Oliver (50.2)	Tony Oliva (48.6)
Roy White (47.5)	Gene Tenace (47.4)
Frank Howard (46.8)	Felipe Alou (45.7)
Rico Petrocelli (45.7)	Amos Otis (45.6)
Dick McAuliffe (44.6)	Thurman Munson (44.4)
Roger Maris (44.3)	Bob Allison (43.9)
Maury Wills (43.7)	Ron Fairly (43.1)
George Scott (43)	Curt Flood (42.5)
Paul Blair (42.1)	Johnny Callison (41.6)
Dick Groat (41.6)	Don Buford (41.1)
Richie Hebner (40.9)	Mark Belanger (40.5)
Bill White (40.1)	Bill Mazeroski (39.5)
Rico Carty (39.4)	Elston Howard (39)
Bobby Murcer (38.6)	Bob Bailey (38.1)
Ken McMullen (38)	Clete Boyer (38)
Rick Monday (38)	Garry Maddox (37.3)
Chris Speier (36.1)	Davey Johnson (35.6)
Willie Horton (34.7)	Tom Haller (34.4)
Ron Hansen (34.4)	Ron Hunt (34.4)
Leo Cardenas (34.4)	Lee May (34.3)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Position Players by WAR: Post-War Era

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

I mentioned in the Liveball Era article that over 500 MLB players served in WWII. Those gaps are a lot more apparent in many of the post-war players. Not only did players miss years (like Ted Williams), but they also had partial seasons due to service in the military. With so many players going off to serve, the quality of the Major Leagues dropped, and scoring dropped as a result. While I’m jumping from the Liveball Era to the Post-War Era, please keep in mind that players on the edges were more likely to be affected by the war.

If anyone has a full list of players that served, and the years they served, I would love to add that information to the charts to make the impact more obvious.

After the war, baseball started to change again. In 1947, Jackie Robinson was the first black player since the 19th century to play in the National League. He was joined 11 weeks later by Larry Doby in the American League, and baseball started integrating. 1947 also saw the first televised World Series. Baseball’s popularity soared after the war. During the Liveball Era it had been relatively stable, but the end of the war brought far more spectators than ever:

I don’t know what caused it. There were no new teams, stadiums weren’t really holding more people than they did before, but more people were coming to see the games. It could have been post-war bliss, TV increasing baseball’s visibility, integration, or just the great players from this era like Ted Williams, Stan Musial, and Mickey Mantle.

Part of it had to do with the relocation of teams. The Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee in 1953. The St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore in 1954 and became the Baltimore Orioles. The Philadelphia Athletics became the Westernmost team in the Majors when they moved to Kansas City in 1955. In 1957 1958, the Brooklyn Dodgers were moved to the West Coast along with the New York Giants to become the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Fransisco Giants.

Editor’s note: Night games spread to 15 out of 16 teams (the Cubs being the sole exception) by 1949. I’ll bet you that had something to do with the increase.

Regardless of the reason, the Post-War Era’s increase in popularity led MLB to expand during the 60′s Expansion era, which we will cover next.

Post-War Era Part I:

Post-War Era Part II:

If we had to do it all over again, who would we elect from this time period? If you had a ballot, who would you vote for?

Player list (career WAR in parentheses):

Ted Williams (139.8)	Stan Musial (139.3)
Mickey Mantle (123.1)	Eddie Mathews (107.2)
Ernie Banks (74.1)	Duke Snider (71.7)
Yogi Berra (71.4)	Pee Wee Reese (69.7)
Richie Ashburn (67.5)	Jackie Robinson (62.7)
Bobby Doerr (60.9)	Minnie Minoso (58.1)
Enos Slaughter (57.6)	Larry Doby (56.6)
Bob Elliott (56.2)	Nellie Fox (55.3)
Vern Stephens (53.7)	Ralph Kiner (53.4)
Gil Hodges (50.4)	Red Schoendienst (47.4)
Phil Rizzuto (47.2)	Eddie Yost (45.3)
Mickey Vernon (44.5)	Gil McDougald (44.2)
Alvin Dark (44)	Sherm Lollar (43.7)
George Kell (43.4)	Roy Campanella (43.1)
Joe Adcock (42.7)	Eddie Stanky (42.6)
Andy Pafko (42)	Jim Gilliam (41.9)
Sid Gordon (41.7)	Dom DiMaggio (41.1)
Carl Furillo (39.7)	Smoky Burgess (39.6)
Gene Woodling (39.3)	Tommy Holmes (38.9)
Bobby Thomson (38.8)	Al Rosen (38.8)
Vic Wertz (38.5)	Johnny Logan (38.2)
Eddie Joost (38.1)	Jackie Jensen (37.5)
Del Ennis (37.5)	Johnny Pesky (36.8)
Earl Torgeson (35.9)	Bill Skowron (35.7)
Del Crandall (35.2)	Pete Runnels (35.1)
Jim Piersall (34.7)	Roy Sievers (34.3)
Walker Cooper (34.3)	Ted Kluszewski (34.2)
Harvey Kuenn (33.9)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Position Players by WAR: Deadball Era

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

Last week we covered the position players of the 19th century. Our next stop is the Deadball Era. In 1901, the American League was formed, making it the second major league along with the National League. That is the beginning of the two-league system we still enjoy today.

As we know, the game itself has changed over the last century. Originally, foul balls were not counted as strikes. Intrepid batters (like King Kelly) would foul off pitches until they could draw a walk. In 1894, the rules were changed to call fouled-off bunts as strikes. In 1901, all fouls became strikes in the National League, followed by 1903 for the American league. That year would also see the first World Series, held every year (except 1904, and other strike years).

But the owners were cheap back then. The balls the pitchers used were supposed to last an entire game, as they were quite expensive, and apparently some owners would hire security guards specifically to retrieve foul balls. That cheapness led to the first players’ strike in 1908, and may have contributed to the Black Sox scandal in 1919. Further, the environment that these players grew up in was advantageous to pitching.

Check below:

There were still tremendous players in that era. Of the 65 Position Players in the top 500 Wins Above Replacement, 21 are in the Hall of Fame. I’ve heard of some of them, like John McGraw (though he played half his career in the 19th century), Frank Chance (from the “Tinker to Evers to Chance” combo that marks the last time the Cubs won the World Series in 1907 1908), Nap Lajoie, Honus Wagner, and Sam Crawford. But that leaves 16 players in the Hall of Fame that I can’t recognize by name, and another 50 players or so that are among the 500 best that I have never heard of. With no further adieu, here is the graph showing the best position players of the Deadball Era:

When I changed the methodology, I updated the above graphic. The old one is here Also, a hearty thanks to bcp33bosox for suggesting outlines to give a point of reference for each shade. I’ve updated this (and the previous graph) based on his suggestion. If you have ways you think I can improve this graphic, please let me know.

If you had a Hall of Fame ballot for this period, which 21 players would you pick? Did the writers and the Veteran’s committee make the right choice? Did any of these players catch your eye as particularly good or bad choices?

Next week we will tackle the Liveball Era, the emergence of Babe Ruth, and the first Hall of Fame balloting process.

Links to player pages (career WAR in parentheses):

Ty Cobb (163.9)	Honus Wagner (149.8)
Tris Speaker (142.6)	Eddie Collins (134.2)
Nap Lajoie (108.2)	Fred Clarke (81.6)
Sam Crawford (76.5)	Sherry Magee (74.1)
Zack Wheat (70)	Bobby Wallace (68.4)
Joe Jackson (67)	Max Carey (66.6)
Frank Baker (65.8)	Jimmy Sheckard (65)
Harry Hooper (62.3)	Joe Tinker (62.2)
Tommy Leach (60.8)	Elmer Flick (59.4)
Ed Konetchy (59.2)	Johnny Evers (57.6)
Larry Doyle (56.8)	Jimmy Collins (54.6)
Heinie Groh (54.2)	Frank Chance (53.3)
Bobby Veach (52.8)	Larry Gardner (52.5)
Roy Thomas (51.8)	Fred Tenney (51.6)
George Burns (50.7)	Rabbit Maranville (50.5)
Jake Daubert (49.7)	Art Fletcher (49.6)
Fielder Jones (49.3)	Roger Peckinpaugh (48.9)
Del Pratt (48.4)	Miller Huggins (48.1)
Wally Schang (47.1)	Roger Bresnahan (46.8)
Donie Bush (46.5)	Art Devlin (45.8)
Clyde Milan (45.1)	Harry Davis (44.1)
Dan McGann (41)	Heinie Zimmerman (40.9)
Gavvy Cravath (40.2)	Cy Seymour (40.1)
Bill Bradley (39.8)	Ginger Beaumont (39.5)
John Titus (39.4)	Danny Murphy (39)
Topsy Hartsel (38.8)	Claude Ritchey (38.4)
Benny Kauff (38.4)	Mike Donlin (38)
Frank Schulte (38)	Freddy Parent (37.4)
Terry Turner (37.1)	Stuffy McInnis (36.6)
Jimmy Williams (36)	Dode Paskert (36)
Harry Steinfeldt (36)	Chick Stahl (35.4)
Kid Elberfeld (35.2)	Buck Herzog (34.4)
Ray Chapman (34.3)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders

Position Players by WAR: 19th Century

These articles were originally posted on FanGraphs a year ago. I am just posting them here for posterity.

Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about players from long ago, save the ones who are famous for one reason or another (I hope I’m not alone). If they weren’t in Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary, then I probably don’t know much much about them. Sometimes I’ll see an article like this one by Steve Treder that brings an older player to light. And sometimes, usually around this time of the year, someone will talk about Hall of Fame snubs, like in this article by Adam Darowski about the best players not in the Hall of Fame. But for the most part, I’m willfully ignorant.

Looking at all the players in baseball is a daunting task. There are a lot of them. There are a lot of eras. How do you judge people who played back in the 19th century when you are only familiar with the players of more modern eras? Even if I look at the player page for someone like Cupid Childs, what can I really figure out? He is totally removed from context; how can I judge a guy who played so long ago against his peers if I’m not familiar with them? I get lost easily in the numbers. I can look and stare at stats until the cows come home, but not get anywhere because of the lack of context.

Over the next several weeks, I want to take a look at the top 500 position players of all time by career Wins Above Replacement. I have split them in to seven different eras:

• Baseball Prehistory (1871-1900)
• Deadball Era (1900-1920)
• Liveball Era (1921-1945)
• Post-war Era (1945-1960)
• Expansion Era (1961-1976)
• Free Agent Era (1976-1995)
• Modern Era (1995-Present)

Here are the eras shown by runs scored per game:

From 1871-1900, baseball was a wild and crazy changing game. There were five different leagues: National Association (which evolved into the National League in 1876), the American Association (which evolved into the American League in 1901), the Union Association, and the Players League. The number of games in each season varied wildly by league and by team, and the whole era is just a giant mess to try to sift through. There are eleven Hall of Fame position players from that era, and the only one I’ve ever heard of is Cap Anson.

In addition to the eleven Hall of Famers, there are twenty other position players in the top 500 for Wins Above Replacement. The following chart shows all 31 players and their results by age. The darker the square, the more WAR they received that season. I intentionally left out total WAR for each player because the goal isn’t to rank these players, but to see how they matched up to each other, in the context of the great position players of their day.

I edited the images when I updated the methodology, the old image is available here.

Above is what the best position players of the 19th century looked like. If you had a Hall of Fame vote, which 10 players would you put on your ballot? In many ways, this is a lot easier than later eras. There was no World Series (started from 1903), no MVP Award (started from 1931), no All-Star Game (started from 1933), and no Gold Glove (started from 1957). All we have to go on is the record they left on the field. So let your eyes wander, come to your own conclusions, and let me know if you find anything.

Links to Player Pages (Career WAR in Parentheses):

Cap Anson (88.7)	George Davis (86.4)
Roger Connor (86.3)	Dan Brouthers (80.1)
Bill Dahlen (80)	Jesse Burkett (72.8)
Ed Delahanty (71.7)	Billy Hamilton (68.9)
Jake Beckley (59.6)	Willie Keeler (59.3)
Jack Glasscock (58.7)	Joe Kelley (57.5)
Jim O’Rourke (52.2)	Bid McPhee (51.4)
John McGraw (50.7)	Cupid Childs (48.4)
Harry Stovey (47.7)	Buck Ewing (47.5)
Hugh Duffy (46.5)	Paul Hines (45.4)
King Kelly (45)	Hughie Jennings (44.9)
Lave Cross (44.5)	Hardy Richardson (43.7)
Jimmy Ryan (43.4)	George Van Haltren (43.2)
Mike Griffin (43.2)	Mike Tiernan (42.9)
George Gore (42.8)	Deacon White (42.4)
Pete Browning (41.6)	Sam Thompson (41.2)
Ed McKean (40.2)	Charlie Bennett (39.6)
John Ward (39.1)	Kip Selbach (38.8)
Herman Long (37.6)	Fred Dunlap (37.6)
Ned Williamson (37.3)	Dummy Hoy (35.2)
Billy Nash (33.8)	Bill Joyce (33.7)

References:

• Fangraphs Career WAR Leaders