COG ’58 Results Part 1: Walkover for Man of Steal

Rickey Henderson, #1 in major league history in career runs scored and stolen bases, and #2 in walks, was a runaway winner in the most recent round of voting for the Circle of Greats. Henderson becomes the 11th inductee into the Circle.  More on Rickey and the voting will miraculously appear if you click on “Read the rest of this entry”.

Measurements such as baseball-reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rate Rickey Henderson very highly. Rickey is one of only 19 everyday players in major league history to accumulate 100 or more career WAR, and one of only 19 everyday players to accumulate over 110 WAR in the Fangraphs version (yes, they are the same 19 players, except that b-ref includes Nap Lajoie while Fangraphs includes Jimmie Foxx).

But Rickey gets to that level in a marvelously unique way. Henderson’s career OPS+ was 127. Among players who played a corner outfield position more than any other position and ended with a career OPS+ under 130, here are the leaders in career WAR (b-ref version):

1. Rickey Henderson 106.8
2. Tim Raines 66.2
3. Dwight Evans 62.8
4. Goose Goslin 61.0
5. Andre Dawson 60.6

Rickey’s career slugging percentage (SLG) was .419. Among players who played a corner outfield position more than any other position and hold a career SLG of .420 or less , here are the career leaders in WAR (b-ref version):

1. Rickey Henderson 106.8
2. Ichiro Suzuki 54.6
3. Jose Cruz 51.0
4. Willie Keeler 50.7
5. Harry Hooper 49.4

Rickey’s career SLG was not at a level that one would expect of an all-time-great corner outfielder. Yet he did hit 297 career homers. Most career home runs by a player with a career SLG of .420 or less:

1. Rickey Henderson 297
2. Deron Johnson 245
3. Ron Fairly 215
4. Bob Bailey 189
5. B.J. Surhoff 188

Certainly, one reason that Rickey’s rate stats are lower than might be expected for a player of his position and achievement is that he played a very long time beyond his peak, dragging his career averages down (even though his peak was long, too). But even taking the effect of a long decline-phase into account, Henderson’s route to greatness was a unique and deeply creative combination of iron discipline at the plate, bravura mastery of the art of the stolen base, unexpected home run power, and the will to remain both productive and hungry enough to be the only non-pitcher in MLB history to play 25 seasons in the NL and/or AL. Like Babe Ruth, Rickey was both audacious and talented enough to take baseball not as he found it but to bend it in new directions.

*******************

Despite the strength of Rickey’s support this round, Wade Boggs received enough love in his first appearance on the ballot to top the 50% support level, gaining four rounds of assured eligibility. The one-two punch of Henderson and Boggs prevented anyone else from topping the 25% level, and a couple of long-standing holdovers, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio, by falling short of 10% actually had to use up one of their accumulated eligibility years this round — a rare occurrence in previous COG voting for long-time holdovers. But Smoltz and Biggio both still have years of stored eligibility remaining.

Kenny Lofton and Kevin Brown returned to the ballot as the result of redemption-round success, and both generated enough support to remain alive another round. Lofton found more support than he ever received in the five rounds he was on the ballot in his first period of eligibility, before falling off after the 1963 round. Is the greater support for Kenny a temporary result of the increased attention from his recent redemption-round victory, or does it reflect a longer-lasting reconsideration of his value? An interesting question to keep an eye on going forward.

As always, you can check out the complete voting record for this past round at Google Docs. The link is here: 1958-Pt 1 COG Vote Tally

The Circle of Greats membership thus far:
Jeff Bagwell
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Rickey Henderson
Randy Johnson
Greg Maddux
Mike Mussina
Mike Piazza
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Curt Schilling
Frank Thomas

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

15 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
mosc
mosc
11 years ago

“Is the greater support for Kenny a temporary result of the increased attention from his recent redemption-round victory, or does it reflect a longer-lasting reconsideration of his value?”

Or a growing movement to get as many people as possible over the 10% threshold every year?

mosc
mosc
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Agreed, there was definitely more to Lofton than the 10% threshold. There seems to be some notion that center fielders should be evaluated separately from other outfield positions. I don’t disagree with it by positional difficulty but many center fielders naturally age to a corner outfield position. Although I would value their defensive contributions higher during the time in center (DWAR already does this), I would not judge their careers as inferior to a player who lasted longer in center before giving way. If Lofton is only compared to “center fielders” rather than “outfielders”, he gets a much bigger bump.

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
11 years ago
Reply to  mosc

The big question with Lofton for me is about how good his defense REALLY was. Here are his defensive runs via Total Zone for the years 1992-1999: 18 18 13 8 4 18 18 12 And via Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA), here are the numbers for those same seasons: 10 0 -1 -3 8 9 -9 -1 That’s a difference of 96 runs, in just those 9 years. In other words, it’s basically 10 WAR. So was Kenny Lofton a 65-win player with a marvelous peak, or a 55-win player with a modest peak? To me, those are VERY different… Read more »

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

Doom, I respect your opinion, but to me this is absolutely no different than questioning Larry Walker’s Coors stats. And you’ve definitely taken people to task for that, so I’m within my rights to question why you’re doing something similar to Lofton. How relevant was/is DRA? WHY was/is it relevant? This is only the second time I’ve ever heard of it, and the first time is when you initially mentioned it re Lofton. Was Baseball Gauge WAR that relevant when it was relevant? Because now they’re using rWAR as their WAR, Bill James’ Win Shares, and Hardball Times’ Win Shares… Read more »

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

bstar, I agree 100% that it’s no different from questioning Larry Walker’s stats. The difference for me is that I see Walker as being far enough above the line (among the players we’re talking about, anyway) that even IF I deduct for Coors as people suggest, I’d include him anyway. I think DRA is relevant because, like TotalZone, it uses publicly available data. I read the book on how it’s calculated, which means I’m more familiar with the methodology than with TotalZone, so I can understand where it’s coming from. (As an aside, it IS still available on The Baseball… Read more »

mosc
mosc
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

I think Walker’s defensive metrics are equally weird aren’t they? Outfielder’s dWAR (and it’s base components) are voodoo science to me. I refuse to believe that Walker was 30 wins over his career better defensively than Sheffield.

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

Doom, thanks for the response. Good explanation. A couple of comments, though: 1. If Larry Walker is “so far above the line” that questioning his Coors numbers is irrelevant, why isn’t Lofton far enough over that same line? Lofton has 65 WAR, Walker 70. If you can take 10 WAR off Lofton’s total (wow), my oh my I can easily slice 15 off of the Coors Kid’s total. And then we’ve got two 55 WAR players. 2. Total honesty here—I don’t think you’d be questioning Lofton’s defensive ability if you’d seen him play in his prime. 3. I wasn’t crucifying… Read more »

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

bstar, Okay, I’ll try to tackle these quickly, so these posts don’t just keep getting longer. 🙂 1. Like I said, Lofton is far enough above the line for the HOF. What I’m saying is that for the CoG, Walker is above the line, Lofton is below it (for now), because there’s the pesky issue of Kevin Brown, Edgar Martinez, Alan Trammell, etc., who I see falling between the two. 2. You may be right about Lofton’s defensive ability. But I didn’t so I ask. Just as people ask those questions about players from all sorts of older eras. 3.… Read more »

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Dr. Doom

Well, good on Dan for doing something for unity’s sake. The lack thereof is killing WAR’s acceptance as a mainstream stat.

Bryan O'Connor
11 years ago

We’ve got a great five-man rotation in the CoG. Now if we vote for Boggs this round, one of the three 2B holdovers (or Lou Whitaker) after that, and then Larry Walker or Tony Gwynn, we’d have a hell of a team. Bonds and Rickey both seem capable of playing center, which gives us a lineup something like this. 1. Henderson, lf 2. Boggs, 3b 3. Bonds, cf 4. Thomas, dh 5. Bagwell, 1b 6. Walker, rf 7. Piazza, c 8. Ripken, ss 9. Whitaker/Sandberg/Alomar/Biggio, 2b A little RH-heavy, but I’d take my chances with this team against any other… Read more »

mosc
mosc
11 years ago
Reply to  Bryan O'Connor

Neither were able to stick in center despite excellent speed. Both had poor reactions off the bat and were never good with the leather. I’d probably put walker there over bonds/henderson

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  mosc

The greatest play I ever saw Barry Bonds make… wasn’t actually by Barry Bonds. I’ll explain: it’s 1-0 to San Francisco in PETCO Park circa 2006. It’s the late innings and the Padres have a man on first. The San Diego batter lashes a ball into left-field. Sure-fire double. The Padres are definitely going to tie the score. But what’s this? Bonds, getting a good jump, sprints to his right, lays out and makes an incredible diving catch to make the out. My complete astonishment subsides somewhat when I peer a bit closer and realise that the player in question… Read more »

Jeff Hill
Jeff Hill
11 years ago

Yeah…gonna be taking Tony Gwynn in rf, sorry. Larry Walker is awesome…at home…when home is Coors field just like every other decent player that ever played in Coors and had career years there. Honestly, Lets for arguments sake keep LW in Montreal for his entire career I don’t think his name is ever mentioned.

brp
brp
11 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Hill

I hope, for your sake, you’re trolling.