Eddie Yost, 1926-2012

Eddie Yost, the aptly-dubbed Walking Man who was the Senators’ regular third baseman from 1947-58, died last week, three days past his 86th birthday. Obituaries ran in the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Yost hung up his spikes after 1962 as the all-time leader in games played at the hot corner with 2,008, having surpassed by 145 games the old record-holder, Pie Traynor; he now ranks ninth in that regard. He was fourth with 1,614 walks drawn (now 11th). From 1949-55, he played in 829 consecutive games, at that time the fifth-longest streak in MLB history (now ninth).

A Brooklyn native who attended New York University (and eventually earned his degree), Eddie Yost broke into the major leagues in August 16, 1944, two months before turning 18. He notched the first of his 1,863 hits in that game against Eddie Lopat. But his WWII service and then the postwar return of the regulars pushed his first full year to 1947. His rookie line showed just 45 walks, a .314 OBP and no HRs. But within a few years, and throughout the ’50s, he was the archetype of the low-average, high-on-base batter. In all, he posted a .254 BA but a .394 OBP across 18 big-league seasons, 14 of those as a regular. He is one of just eight players whose OBP is at least 1.5 times his BA (min. 3,000 PAs), and had the longest career among that group. He posted eight seasons with 120+ walks; no one else but Bonds (11), Ruth (10) and Williams (8) had more than 4 such years.

Perhaps because the stolen base was in eclipse when he broke in, Yost’s managers had the sense to bat him in the leadoff spot almost exclusively, even though he didn’t fit the traditional profile; he never swiped 10 bags in a season. In his peak years of 1950-54, Yost played every game and averaged 105 Runs and 130 walks. He led the AL in free passes three times and placed second to Ted Williams the other two, while ranking from 2nd to 8th in Runs each year. In those five years, he drew 105 more walks than anyone else, and ranked 3rd in Runs. For the decade 1950-59, Yost drew 1,185 walks, almost 300 more than number two Mickey Mantle, and ranked 7th in Runs. His 151 walks in 1956 remains the season record for the Senators/Twins franchise. His lifetime .394 OBP ranked 13th out of 180 players with at least 3,000 PAs during his career (1944-62).

The over-all walk reached a historic peak in the late ’40s and early ’50s, but Yost was operating on a different plane from his Washington teammates. While Yost drew 90+ walks in eight of ten years from 1949-58, there was only one other 90-walk year by a Senator, and the club was often near the bottom in walks drawn. Likewise, his six years of 90+ runs in that span were two more than all his teammates combined. He ranked first or second in offensive Wins Above Replacement on the Senators for eight straight years, 1949-56.

In a 2010 interview, Yost reflected on a late-career change. As Michael Ferrigno wrote:

“Yost had been with the Senators for 14 years when one day, while relaxing on sun-filled vacation, he opened the newspaper to discover that he had been traded to the Detroit Tigers. ‘They don’t usually do things like that,’ Yost said now with a laugh. ‘But I always liked going to Detroit, I was a pull hitter and it was only 340 feet going down the line. It was a good baseball town and I had one of my best years there — led the league in walks, in runs scored, was a lead-off hitter and my on-base percentage was well over .400.’” (Source)

Indeed, after struggling in his last year with the Senators, Yost rebounded for the 1959 Tigers with perhaps his best campaign, posting career highs of 115 runs, 135 OPS+ and 21 HRs, and his .435 OBP was the best by a Tiger in over two decades. For the power surge, he could thank Briggs Stadium — more precisely, getting away from Griffith Stadium: In all his years in D.C., Yost compiled just 23 HRs at home, but 78 on the road.

His teammate Harvey Kuenn won the ’59 batting title at .353; the perennial “.300 hitter” was named to his 7th straight All-Star team and ranked 8th in the MVP vote. Yost, whose only All-Star nod came in 1952 (he didn’t get to play), batted 75 points below Kuenn in ’59 and got no MVP votes — but 3B Yost outstripped RF Kuenn by .435-.402 in OBP, 21-9 in HRs and 115-99 in Runs. Yost led the Tigers in oWAR even though Kuenn and Al Kaline swept the BA, SLG and OPS titles and Charlie Maxwell hit 31 HRs.

The following year, Yost passed Traynor in games at third base, and again topped the league in OBP and the Tigers in oWAR. But he turned 34 that fall and was exposed in the expansion draft. Taken by the Angels, he played out his career with two part-time seasons, batting just .215 but with a .377 OBP. Fittingly, the first-year Angels led the majors with 681 walks, the highest total in five years (with a little help from the 162-game schedule). Injury cost Yost a good chunk of the early season, but in June he matched his career best by walking in 10 straight games. After a two-game drought, he reeled off 13 straight games with a base on balls, tying teammate Albie Pearson (later that year) and Mickey Mantle (1962) for the longest walking streak from 1958-72.

Except for his cameo swan song with the surprising ’62 Angels, the best record for any team Yost played on was 78-76 by the ’52 Senators. But he got a World Series share as third-base coach for the ’69 Mets, and also helped them to their unexpected ’73 pennant. His final job in uniform was as Boston’s third-base coach from 1977-84.

  • From the “Why bother?” files: In 1956, Yost received nine intentional passes while batting leadoff. (Which tells you all you need to know about the perceived hitting ability of one Dorrel Norman Elvert Herzog, later “known as The Rat”, Washington’s number two hitter that year.)

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no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago

For 1959, his first year in Detroit, Yost is rated at 5.2 for WAR. His 3B replacement back in D.C. hit 42 HRs, but only managed a WAR of 3.9.

Unfortunately for baseball, in my opinion, the replacement was a prototype for the future of the three tedious outcomes. I’m not sure an Eddie Yost type of player would get a second look from most scouts today. Off the point, but—his replacement, Harmon Killebrew, was actually scouted by a U.S, Senator, one more reason not to trust politicians,

MikeD
MikeD
11 years ago

I would think Billy Beane, and GMs of many other teams, would welcome a guy who was a lock for a 40%+ OBP year in and year out. True, he was a 3B’man without power, and a leadoff man who didn’t steal bases, but he has a skill that should be as valued today, if not more so than when the Walking Man played, errr, walked.

Howard
Howard
11 years ago

Did the U.S. Senator advise Washington not to sign Harmon Killebrew? If so I’d agree with you. If he advised them to sign him though I’d say that’s a point in favor of politicians.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  Howard

Howard:

In his own era The Killer was one of a kind and no doubt a plus to his teams. There was no harm in Killebrew himself. If only someone had broken the mold.

Help me, someone—I need a pun on Killebrew.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
11 years ago

Thanks for writing up a great player, John. I always liked Yost, and saw him when he came to town (NY) with the Tigers. I too young to be aware of his year in ’56, but when I did learn of it a little later the idea in that era that a .230 hitter without power could somehow draw 151 walks seemed impossible. (Eddie Joost was retired by then, and I didn’t know about the amazing parallels between the AL’s two walking Eddie third sackers – I believe Joost and Yost are the same Dutch surname, too.)

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

Actually Joost was a shortstop.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
11 years ago

. . . oops. . .

Hartvig
Hartvig
11 years ago

John- If it should turn out that the level of newspaper and magazine sports journalism has sunk to a level where they’re not interested in finding the next Roger Angell or Tom Boswell I would think would have no problem find a job as an obituary writer.

Great stuff.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago

Don’t want to crap on someone who just died but Yost’s -111 fielding runs are the most (fewest?) for anyone who primarily played 3rd base. He just edges out Bill Madlock who had -110.

Brent
Brent
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

I seem to recall, that Bill James addressed Yost’s lack of fielding prowess (at lest for one season) in his Win Shares book and noted that the Senators had zero LH starting pitchers, which would certainly depress a 3Bman’s fielding stats.

Brent
Brent
11 years ago
Reply to  Brent

I think, looking at the Senators stats, that the year was 1952, and the Senators had 9 starts by a LH pitcher, and it looks like only 59 innings total pitched by LH pitchers at all. Yost’s dWAR for that year is -1.6. The next year when the Senators had 385 innings thrown by LH pitching, his dWAR jumped to 0.3.

Brent
Brent
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Well, we could probably say that his defensive numbers in the lefty deficient years are horrific and they are just subpar in the other years

bstar
bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Brent

Brent, I’m pretty certain Bill James was using his “Range Factor” model to describe Yost’s low defensive totals. This was very basic stuff and was prone to a lot of errors because it only measured putouts per game. It didn’t take into account the dominant handedness of a team’s pitching staff or getting “lucky” (sorry, Jim B) with an extra amount of opportunities. Ulitmate Zone Rating (UZR) in particular takes care of this. It sets a baseline for avg. number of plays made in a particular zone or sub-zone by that type of fielder. This average score is then compared… Read more »

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  bstar

Bstar – Just to clarify, UZR is used by Fangraphs in their WAR calculations. Baseball Teference uses TZR (Total Zone Runs) for years prior to 2003. According to the link, batting against right and left handed pitching is looked at separately.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/total_zone.shtml

(for years after 2003, BR uses Defensive Runs Saved):

http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml

bstar
bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed, I know that but I don’t currently have any access to the inner workings of DRS. I was using UZR as an example of how the metrics have changed compared to Bill James’ archaic Range Factor metric, which appears to be the one Brent was referencing @12.

I believe TZ is similar to UZR but uses more guesswork and approximations. Therefore, I felt it was appropriate to discuss the inner workings of UZR.

If you’ve got a link to anything concrete about DRS, I’d love to read it.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Gotcha. Well since we were talking about Yost it seemed like we should talk about the defensive system that BR uses to evaluate him.

Anyway, I found a couple of links on DRS but not sure they explain a whole lot. And you may have seen them already.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/fielding-bible-volume-iii-defensive-runs-saved-updated/

http://www2.baseballinfosolutions.com/innovations/defensive-runs-saved/

Sounds like if someone really wants to understand DSR, they need to buy the book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Fielding-Bible-Volume-John-Dewan/dp/0879464763

bstar
bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed, don’t you also find the BIS link woefully insufficient? We want more details. Maybe you’re right, I should just buy the book but from what I’ve heard it’s not replete with the inner workings of DRS either. And I say that because most baseball bloggers seem to intimate that they are always guessing what/how DRS is doing what they do.

UZR = a more sophisticated version of TZ. Again, that’s why I felt it was appropriate to discuss it.

kds
kds
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

I don’t think it is appropriate to call UZR a more sophisticated version of TZ. UZR and DRS get data from BIS estimating where and how hard each ball was hit. From that they judge the likely-hood the each BIP can be turned into an out. So if a particular play is judged as 70% likely to become an out the fielder gets +.3 if he succeeds on the play and -.7 if he doesn’t. These are plays above (or below) average, which are converted to runs above and below average. Add in outfield arm, infield DPs and other details… Read more »

bstar
bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

OK, thanks for the corrections. TZ does seem to have a lower range of numbers than the newer metrics.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Third base was something of an orphan position at the time Yost played. He, Al Rosen, and George Kell were the only full-timers in the AL over the decade, although their were individual years when a player like Gil McDougald defended that corner most of the time. It’s interesting that Yost’s career WAR is right in with Kell’s, the overated HOFer, and Rosen of the abbreviated career.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Oops. Forgot to mention my point: maybe defense at 3B wasn’t such a priority in that era, notwithstanding Bobby Cox’s glove rep.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Reply to #41.
Do you mean Billy Cox?

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

RC:

Billy, Bobby, b-b-begins with a B, anyway.

The people who complain about not having an edit option on this site don’t seem to understand that all errors will be corrected by someone with equal or superior knowledge, usually Richard Chester.

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Yes, Richard keeps us all honest.

KalineCountry Ron
KalineCountry Ron
11 years ago

My memories of Eddie Yost started back on May 18, 1959 as an 11 year old kid that went to this game at fenway park with my dad. http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS195905180.shtml It was a Monday and the day before, ‘My Tigers” got creamed by the redsox 10-1. I was pissed, and felt bad for myself even more, having to move from Detroit in ’57 and my friends to boston, new school etc. where mom and dad’s families were. My team was the Tigers and now I had to wait seemingly forever to go see them at the stadium/ballpark. Well, that game my… Read more »

KalineCountry Ron
KalineCountry Ron
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

John….Wow, That is quite the accomplishment for Bunning. I really enjoy reading these ‘searchable’ games or from the BR index that you and a of the few other esteemed regulars here post. A few years ago while searching for different Kaline photos on ebay I came across a post game photo of the 4 that hit the homeruns that game; Bunning, Kaline, Bolling, and Maxwell. Such a great time to be a kid mid 50’s to early 60’s and root for your team of stars. They didn’t win until a few years later, but earliest memories are of those two,… Read more »

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago

Highest Percentage of Career Times On Base That Resulted From Walks (min. 3,000 career plate appearances in NL and/or AL): 1. Max Bishop 48.1% of Times On Base from BBs 2. Eddie Lake 46.9% 3. Eddie Stanky 45.2% 4. Barry Bonds 44.9% 5. Gene Tenace 44.4% 6. Roy Cullenbine 44.1% 7. Mickey Tettleton 44.0% 8. Eddie Yost 43.8% 9. Adam Dunn 43.4% 10. Ferris Fain 43.1% Of these ten guys, Bonds had the most career PAs with over 12,000, Yost is next with over 9,000, and then Dunn with, thus far, over 7,000. None of the others on this list… Read more »

Bryan O'Connor
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Walking is both an old man’s skill and an Ed man’s skill.

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Bryan O'Connor

Yes, when you need a walk, it’s the cooler Eds that prevail.

Brent
Brent
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Max Bishop is one of my favorite players ever. And proof that some managers (in this case Connie Mack) understood the value of a walk long before sabrematricians. Bishop, despite a .232 BA and 1 SB (with 4 CS), led off for the WS winning A’s in all 129 games he played that year.

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
11 years ago
Reply to  Brent

At the start of the A’s franchise (1902-1911), Mack also used a similar player in Topsy Hartzel to lead off. He was another OK avg/mediocre power guy who walked a great deal (.266/ .379/ .356), though not to the extreme of old Camera Eye.

kds
kds
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

You missed Joost, who had about 43.2%, I also found Jack Crooks, an 1890’s player at 46.1%. Killebrew, and Thome both just missed your list at 42.2%. As for career length, Tenace and Tettleton were both catchers. I think all the Eddies lost time to WW2. Max Bishop was on the great Baltimore Orioles International League team with Lefty Grove among others and wasn’t sold to the majors until he was 24. Cullenbine was probably let go too soon because teams overvalued BA and undervalued OBA. He had 4.0brWAR in his final (age 33) season, with a .224 average 137… Read more »

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  kds

Crooks didn’t make the list because I excluded his years in the American Association — I tend not to count those, although the Play Index does. For Joost, I’m getting 42.7%, just short of the list. The denominator I used for the list is Times On Base including times reached base on an error; that may be the difference in our calcuations. Thanks so much for checking my work, though. We all make mistakes and I much prefer to be checked than for mistakes to be left un-caught.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

Odd facts about Yost. Up until the end of 1955 he hit only 7 of his 73 HRs at Griffith Stadium. Then for his final 3 years with the Senators he hit 16 of his 28 HRs at Griffith.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago

RC:

In 1956, I’m thinking, they put up an inner short fence in Griffith Stadium that drove up HR totals for the whole team—especially Roy Sievers, Jim Lemon, and eventually, if briefly, H. Killebrew, before the team fled for the warm, sunny climate of Minnesota.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

I just did a little research. In he mid-1950s the fences were shortened more than once due to reconfiguration of a bullpen and the addition of several rows of seats to the left-field bleachers. Distance reductions were in the order of 20 feet.
Griffith Stadium had a weird shape. As originally constructed the distance to the left-field foul pole, 405 feet, was shorter than the distance to left-center. The fence in straightaway center zig-zagged around several houses and a tree. Deepest center was 457 feet. Over the years numerous changes were made.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

Correction: The distance to the left-field foul pole was greater then the distance to left-center.

Bryan O'Connor
Editor
11 years ago

“In all, he posted a .254 BA but a .394 OBP across 18 big-league seasons”. Has there ever been a player for whom the use of “but”, rather than “and”, is more appropriate in this sentence? Maybe Ichiro, who’s at .322/.365, but would be .322/.351 if we ignored his 173 IBB.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Couldn’t you platoon Ozzie and Shawon Dunston at SS? No walks from either side of the plate?

bstar
bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Extremely disappointed to not see Frenchy Francoeur on the Null-Stars. Alas, his OBP/BA ratio is only 1.165. Still, he’d make a great late-inning defensive replacement in the outfield (disregarding his -14 fielding runs 2012 season).

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Roy Cullenbine holds the seasonal record for the lowest BA of any player (qualifiers for the batting title) with an OBP of more than .400. In 1947 he batted .224 with an OBP of .401.

kds
kds
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Could put the Big Donkey at DH. (.240/.370 career) (.195/.325 as a DH)

Nolan Ryan would probably lead the staff for the first team.

Guillen is available to manage the second team, I hear.

Not sure if anyone who qualified for the first team managed. If not, the commissioner could choose between John McGraw and Ted Williams.

Bryan O'Connor
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

If these teams played 162 games against each other with similar pitching staffs, the Buts would win 110 games, but seven Nulls would make the All-Star Game. Those batting averages!

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

How about:

The SF-stars

1B – Carlos Mendez .222/.217
2B – Steve Springer .235/.222
3B – Ed Olivares .143/.137
SS – Eddie Rogers .207/.200
LF – Val Snider .200/.194
CF – Trench “coat” Davis .121/.118
RF – John Glenn .258/.250 (some stats may have been accumulated while in orbit)

min 18 PAs, if multiple qualifiers at a position I went with the guy whose name was a derivative of Edward)

topper009
topper009
11 years ago
Reply to  topper009

Oops add Bill Lindsay behind the dish, .188/.176

The DH can be pitcher Brian Williams .176/.174, the only player with BA>OBP and PA>100