The Mount Rushmore of the San Francisco Giants

49 Replies

Willie-MaysThe Giants have operated continuously since their NL debut as the New York Gothams in 1883. The Giant nickname was adopted two seasons later and was preserved after the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1958.

The Giants are the sixth of the original NL clubs in our Mount Rushmore series. Your task is to choose the four players who best represent this franchise. Have fun!

The adoption of the Giant nickname in 1885 coincided with the team becoming one of the NL’s dominant clubs. New York represented the NL in the “World Series” of 1888 and 1889 played against the champions of the American Association. The Giants won both of those best-of-eleven series, defeating the St. Louis Browns and Brooklyn Bridegrooms. The Giants were mostly awful over the next fourteen seasons before posting back-to-back championship seasons in 1904-05, winning their first World Series against the AL champions in the latter season. Dominant players in the franchise’s first quarter century included Roger Connor, George Davis, Mike Tiernan and Buck Ewing, with Amos Rusie, Mickey Welch, Tim Keefe and Joe McGinnity leading the moundsmen.

Following its 1905 championship season, New York remained a dominant team for the next 30+ years (1906-38), finishing lower than fourth only three times over that period. Included were eleven NL pennants, but only three World Series titles. The Giants’ three successive World Series defeats (1911-13) closely followed the same misfortune by the Tigers (1907-09), a trifecta that has not been repeated since. Four consecutive pennants in 1921-24 was a first for either league and remains the only such four-peat in NL history. The Yankees were AL champs in the first three of those years, the only time the same pennant winners have squared off in three consecutive World Series. Dominant players of this period included Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Travis Jackson, Larry Doyle, Art Fletcher, and Frankie Frisch, with Carl Hubbell and Christy Mathewson leading the pitchers.

After almost four decades as a premier club, the Giants finally suffered a down period, with only one finish above 4th from 1939 to 1949. That 1949 season was the first full campaign for new skipper LeoDurocher under whom the Giants won two pennants in 7 years. The first, in 1951, is memorable for the pennant drive in which the Giants, 10 games behind in mid-August, reeled in the front-running Dodgers, closing a 6-game lead in the final two weeks of the season, and then winning a best-of-three pennant playoff, including a final game, 9th-inning comeback from 3 runs down with the winning run famously delivered via a Bobby Thomson walk-off home run. The Giants would lose the World Series to the Yankees, a series remembered for the farewell of Yankee great Joe DiMaggio and for the debut of two rookie outfielders, the Giants’ Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle of the Yankees (a matchup that was cut short when Mantle suffered a serious injury in game 2). The Giants’ fifth World Series title followed in 1954 with a sweep of the heavily-favored Indians, a series remembered for Mays’ outstanding back-to-home-plate, over-the-shoulder catch in deep center field at the Polo Grounds.

Following their relocation to San Francisco, the Giants remained a competitive team, with only one finish lower than 3rd from 1958 to 1971. Included was the 1962 NL pennant and 1971 NL West division crown. The 1962 World Series was a tense 7-game thriller ending with a 1-0 win by the Yankees, the final out coming with the tying run at 3rd base when Willie McCovey hit a scorching line drive to second baseman Bobby Richardson (last year’s World Series marked the first time since then that the final out in game 7 came with the tying run at 3rd base). Notable players of the 1939 to 1971 period included Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Johnny Mize, with Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry and Johnny Antonelli on the hill.

The next 25 years (1972-96) saw mostly mediocre Giant teams with just two post-season appearances, losing the 1987 NLCS and being swept in the 1989 World Series. The latter series with the neighboring As was interrupted by an earthquake, resulting in an 11 day break between the second and third games. As a result, only 5 pitchers on both teams started all of the games, tied with the 1905 series (won by the Giants) for the fewest starting pitchers in a World Series.

Dusty Baker took over the manager’s chair in 1993, guiding the Giants to 1st or 2nd place finishes each year from 1997 to 2002. But, first round playoff exits in 1997 and 2000, and a World Series loss in 2002 after leading 3 games to 2 led to Baker’s departure, an exit that may have been hastened by an embarrassing incident in game 5 of that World Series when Baker’s young son wandered out of the dugout and onto the field during play (Giant first baseman J.T. Snow alertly scooped up the tyke who had followed Snow across home plate, thus averting a possible collision with a following runner). That 2002 series was notable as the first World Series between wild-card qualifiers (last year’s Royals/Giants matchup was the second) and was the only World Series for the Giants’ marquis star Barry Bonds.

The Giants won the NL West in their first season under new manager Felipe Alou, but another first-round playoff exit and sub-.500 finishes in 2005 and 2006 led to Bruce Bochy taking the helm in 2007. Under Bochy, the post-Barry Bonds Giants found their stride, taking three World Series titles in five seasons from 2010 to 2014, their first world titles since moving to San Francisco, and the only time the Giants have prevailed in 3 consecutive World Series appearances. In the 2014 series, Madison Bumgarner had three appearances of 5+ IP, including a 5-inning save in game 7, the first time since 1909 that a pitcher had three WS appearances of that length that were not all starts (the Tigers’ George Mullin started games 1, 4 and 6, and finished game 7 in 1909 but, unlike Bumgarner, Mullin was ineffective in the finale, surrendering the final 6 runs of an 8-0 loss to the Pirates).

Dominant players of the 1972 to 2007 period included Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, Jeff Kent and two Clarks, Will and Jack, with the current Giants led by Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval. Principal pitchers included Jim Barr, Gary Lavelle and John Montefusco from the pre-Bonds period, and Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner and Jason Schmidt more recently.

The top 15 Giants, by WAR are:

Rk Player WAR From To Age G PA R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Willie Mays 154.6 1951 1972 20-41 2857 12015 2011 3187 504 139 646 1859 1394 1436 .304 .385 .564 .949 *8H/39675
2 Barry Bonds 112.3 1993 2007 28-42 1976 8351 1555 1951 381 41 586 1440 1947 949 .312 .477 .666 1.143 *7/HD8
3 Mel Ott 107.8 1926 1947 17-38 2730 11348 1859 2876 488 72 511 1860 1708 896 .304 .414 .533 .947 *95H8/74
4 Willie McCovey 59.3 1959 1980 21-42 2256 8523 1113 1974 308 45 469 1388 1168 1351 .274 .377 .524 .900 *37H/9
5 Bill Terry 54.2 1923 1936 24-37 1720 7108 1120 2193 373 112 154 1078 537 449 .341 .393 .506 .899 *3H/97
6 Roger Connor 52.9 1883 1894 25-36 1120 4950 946 1388 242 131 76 786 578 276 .319 .402 .488 .890 *3/4859
7 George Davis 44.5 1893 1903 22-32 1100 4808 844 1432 229 98 53 819 403 180 .332 .393 .467 .860 *65/3479
8 Travis Jackson 44.0 1922 1936 18-32 1657 6680 833 1768 291 86 135 929 412 565 .291 .337 .433 .770 *65/H49
9 Larry Doyle 42.8 1907 1920 20-33 1622 6790 906 1751 275 117 67 725 576 349 .292 .359 .411 .770 *4/H
10 Art Fletcher 42.2 1909 1920 24-35 1321 5198 602 1311 193 65 21 584 167 313 .275 .318 .356 .674 *6/54
11 Mike Tiernan 42.2 1887 1899 20-32 1478 6732 1316 1838 257 162 106 853 748 376 .311 .392 .463 .855 *978/1
12 Bobby Bonds 38.0 1968 1974 22-28 1014 4610 765 1106 188 42 186 552 500 1016 .273 .356 .478 .834 *98/H
13 Frankie Frisch 37.8 1919 1926 21-28 1000 4448 701 1303 180 77 54 524 280 139 .321 .367 .444 .811 *45/6H
14 George Burns 36.1 1911 1921 21-31 1362 6043 877 1541 267 82 34 458 631 440 .290 .368 .391 .759 *789/5
15 Will Clark 35.5 1986 1993 22-29 1160 4878 687 1278 249 37 176 709 506 744 .299 .373 .499 .872 *3/H
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/7/2015.

And, the top 15 Giant pitchers are:

Rk Player WAR From To Age G GS CG SHO W L W-L% IP BB SO ERA FIP ERA+
1 Christy Mathewson 95.6 1900 1916 19-35 635 551 434 79 372 188 .664 4779.2 847 2504 2.12 2.26 136
2 Amos Rusie 69.7 1890 1898 19-27 427 403 372 29 234 163 .589 3531.2 1588 1835 2.89 3.67 137
3 Carl Hubbell 67.8 1928 1943 25-40 535 433 260 36 253 154 .622 3590.1 725 1677 2.98 3.55 130
4 Juan Marichal 62.5 1960 1973 22-35 458 446 244 52 238 140 .630 3443.2 690 2281 2.84 3.02 125
5 Mickey Welch 53.8 1883 1892 23-32 427 412 391 28 238 146 .620 3579.0 1077 1570 2.69 3.40 119
6 Tim Keefe 37.4 1885 1891 28-34 272 269 252 22 174 82 .680 2265.0 580 1303 2.54 2.88 129
7 Gaylord Perry 37.0 1962 1971 23-32 367 283 125 21 134 109 .551 2294.1 581 1606 2.96 2.88 119
8 Joe McGinnity 33.5 1902 1908 31-37 300 237 186 26 151 88 .632 2151.1 464 787 2.38 2.69 118
9 Matt Cain 32.4 2005 2014 20-29 281 280 15 6 95 95 .500 1811.1 611 1506 3.39 3.72 117
10 Johnny Antonelli 30.6 1954 1960 24-30 280 219 86 21 108 84 .563 1600.2 528 919 3.13 3.57 124
11 Jim Barr 28.2 1971 1983 23-35 394 220 59 20 90 96 .484 1800.1 391 650 3.41 3.49 109
12 Hal Schumacher 27.0 1931 1946 20-35 391 329 137 26 158 121 .566 2482.1 902 906 3.36 4.02 111
13 Sal Maglie 26.8 1945 1955 28-38 221 171 77 20 95 42 .693 1297.2 434 654 3.13 3.71 128
14 Hooks Wiltse 25.6 1904 1914 24-34 339 222 151 27 136 85 .615 2053.0 491 948 2.48 2.56 112
15 Jouett Meekin 24.0 1894 1899 27-32 217 208 179 5 116 74 .611 1750.0 653 518 4.01 4.36 108
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 1/7/2015.

Now, it’s your turn. Please choose 4 players, or write in your own. Polls are open until midnight Pacific time on Wed, Jan 21st. You can check on results using the link at the bottom of the ballot. If the ballot does not display on your browser, you can also vote here.

49 thoughts on “The Mount Rushmore of the San Francisco Giants”

  1. Hartvig

    Went straight timeline:

    Matthewson, Ott, Mays and Bonds the younger

    Strongly considered McGraw & Hubbell and hated to pass on Marichal & McCovey.

    I’m annoyed with myself for not thinking about Posey but I don’t know who he would replace.

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  2. Dr. Doom

    One of the toughest ones yet because of the sheer depth of talent, combined with the MANY excellent periods in team history. Therefore, like Hartvig, I went with “who produced the most for the franchise?”. Mays, Bonds, Ott, and Mathewson for me!

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  3. Doug Post author

    I’d never heard of him so had to look up Jouett Meekin, no. 15 on the pitcher WAR list.

    Almost half of his 24 WAR for New York came in his first season with the Giants, a 33-9 campaign with 141 ERA+ in 418 IP (prior to that, Meekin had an 87 ERA+ in 734 IP).

    Meekin is the only pitcher with an 11 WAR season and no other 5 WAR seasons.

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  4. John

    Couldn’t vote for Sosa with the Cubs. Couldn’t vote for Rose with the Reds. Can’t vote for Bonds. The guy was a great great player, & would’ve been a HoFer and maybe on the Giants Mt Rushmore if not for the steroids thing. He cheated. Period. Done. Outta there. Beyond that it was a tough call. Mays was a gimme. Mathewson was an amazing pitcher and a WWI hero to boot – and it killed him. The other 2 slots were a case of who do I kick off? Finally decided on Marichal. Another truly amazing pitcher. Decided to go with Connor because not a lot of 19th century players get a lot of recognition in the 21st century.

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  8. Andy

    this may be the first one where I have just voted for the top 4 WAR players. Amazing to have 3 and almost 4 100+ guys.

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  9. bluejaysstatsgeek

    I have to agree with John – as great as his numbers are, Bonds disqualified himself. Mays, Ott, Mathewson and Marichal. It hurt like heck to leave McCovey off.

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  10. BryanM

    Back after a few months with little/no internet on the ocean; delighted to rejoin the conversation at HHS — for this one it’s so tough — have to leave out so many great players — Mays, Ott, Mathewson and Marichal for me; the latter an admittedly emotional choice, He was so good in the period when I was most intensely into baseball. The game, of course has changed a lot — 7/2/63 could never come close to happening today.. Bonds was of course a greater player, but I just can’t press that button, recognizing YMMV.

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    1. Lawrence Azrin

      @11,

      Maybe _three_ Mt. Rushmores:

      –one for NY 19th century/ deadball era: Connor, Rusie, Mathewson, McGinnity
      -one for NY live-ball era (1920-1957): Frisch, Terry, Ott, Hubbell
      -one for SF: Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Barry Bonds

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  12. no statistician but

    I’m going against the grain of the commentary here—who, me?—but the thing I find surprising is not the plenitude of great Giants, but their relative paucity, given the long and storied history of the franchise. The Giants were the first team to win four pennants in a row post 1893. Who from that stretch of greatness makes the WAR list above? Frankie Frisch, who played half his career for the Cardinals. (Jackson and Terry came on as part-timers at the end, true.)

    Lots of guys with good short careers like McGinnity, Maglie, and Antonelli, lots of guys who accumulated WAR over time to make it into the 30-50 range with the team, some guys like Frisch, Bonds the elder, Clark, and Perry, who spent half or more of their careers elsewhere, but who is there to consider seriously beyond the big four, except Carl Hubbell? The Hoosier Thunderbolt was one of a kind, true, but he’s really hard to evaluate. Support for McCovey derives from emotional sources, not any rational assessment. Marichal—JAWS ranks him just ahead of Hubbell on the basis of peak, but Hubbell is substantially ahead in most other measures, including WAR and ERA+. Of the two, Hubbell had the great post-seasons and one of the greatest performances in All-Star Game history—not that it matters, since he falls so short of the big four.

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    1. Doug Post author

      I’m glad you said it because I was thinking much the same thing. 35 WAR makes the top 15 all-time, and 24 WAR for pitchers? One would think there would be more better players for a franchise that was consistently among the league leaders for 6 of the first 7 decades of the last century.

      As to who besides Frisch was a standout on those early-20s teams, here are the leaders:

      Rk Player WAR/pos From To Age BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
      1 Frankie Frisch 25.8 1921 1924 23-26 .337 .388 .471 .859 *45/6H
      2 Dave Bancroft 17.1 1921 1923 30-32 .316 .392 .421 .813 *6/4
      3 Ross Youngs 17.0 1921 1924 24-27 .337 .415 .471 .887 *9/H4
      4 High Pockets Kelly 14.9 1921 1924 25-28 .317 .363 .502 .865 *3/847H5
      Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
      Generated 1/7/2015.

       

      Rk Player WAR From To Age ERA FIP ERA+
      1 Art Nehf 7.2 1921 1924 28-31 3.71 4.09 103
      2 Hugh McQuillan 6.8 1922 1924 26-28 3.22 3.98 118
      3 Rosy Ryan 5.2 1921 1924 23-26 3.55 3.64 108
      4 Claude Jonnard 3.8 1921 1924 23-26 3.15 3.69 123
      5 Jesse Barnes 3.8 1921 1923 28-30 3.49 3.79 110
      6 Phil Douglas 3.3 1921 1922 31-32 3.56 4.15 108
      7 Virgil Barnes 3.2 1922 1924 25-27 3.26 3.82 115
      8 Fred Toney 2.7 1921 1922 32-33 3.75 4.29 101
      9 Jack Scott 2.4 1922 1923 30-31 4.02 4.07 97
      Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
      Generated 1/7/2015.

       
      Hard to fathom how a team wins four consecutive pennants without any standout pitchers!

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      1. David P

        What’s interesting about the ’21-24 NL is how bereft of talent it was.

        Only 18 position players had 10+ WAR and only 2 had 20+ WAR. By contrast, the AL had 29 with 10+ WAR and 5 with 20+ (Eddie Collins just missed being a 6th (19.9 WAR)).

        The only two sure fire HOFer in the NL during the period were Hornsby and Frisch. The AL had Ruth, Heilmann, Speaker, Cobb, Collins, and Sisler (at least for ’21-22).

        Pitching wise we see the same thing. The NL had only 10 pitchers with 10+ WAR and only one cracked 20+ WAR. Meanwhile, the AL had 16 and 5, respectively.

        Sure Fire HOFers? The NL had a well past his prime Pete Alexander. And Dazzy Vance. Meanwhile, the AL had a past his prime Walter Johnson (but better than Alexander). Plus Coveleski and Faber.

        The Giants may have been the dominant team from ’21-24 in the NL. But it was partially because the NL was a talent wasteland during that period.

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      2. no statistician but

        Doug:

        I hate to say it, but part of the team’s success ’21-’24 was how the manager handled the players that came through. Casey Stengel—he recognized Casey’s platoon possibilities and his ineptitude against LH pitching. Suddenly Casey’s hitting .368.

        Also Frank Snyder and Oil Smith probably accounted for some of the success of the pitching staff, plus being good at the plate as well as behind it. Ross Youngs—the high regard in which he was held until his fatal illness suggests that WAR may undervalue him. Several very good players, notably Irish Meusel, played a couple of those years. Your chart of pitchers says much about the team as a unit, not much unity overall, fluidity of personnel from year to year—and that points back to McGraw’s ability to put together winning combinations.

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        1. David P

          NSB – I think the “Whitey Ford rule” may also apply to the Giants’ pitching WAR. i.e. great defense and a pitcher’s park.

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      3. CursedClevelander

        Heh, I find it funny that the position players list has 4 guys, all Hall of Famers. You have Frisch, and 3 of the guys he managed to wrangle into the VC because he apparently had Svengali-like control of the other voters. Or maybe he just made awesome seven-layer dip.

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  14. no statistician but

    Another comment about McGraw:

    From 1903 to 1924, a stretch of 22 years, his teams won 10 pennants, finished second seven times, third twice—those two in hot, closely contest races with Chance’s Cubs and Wagner’s Pirates. Time has changes his image from mastermind to contentious martinet. Like Napoleon, he’s become a caricature. But Napoleon held the fate of Europe in his hands for fifteen years, and Little Napoleon held the fate of the NL in his for over twenty.

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    1. Gary Bateman

      I think that McGraw probably deserves to be on the Giants’ Mt Rushmore. In 30 years of managing the franchise, he won 10 pennants and had a winning percentage of .591. Martinet or not, that is a very impressive record.

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  15. J.R.

    Voted for Posey, only because I feel that era HAS to be represented on the MR. Mays, Ott, and Christy were easy choices, as was my decision to leave Bonds off. Would he have made the MR had he been clean? No way to tell, if you account for natural career decline. But one thing is for certain: 99% of the time he was a Giant, he was a Giant cheater.

    Also, something tells me we may be laughing at not having Mad-Bum on here in 20 years. But solely based on his career so far, no way to even consider him yet.

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    2. Voomo Zanzibar

      If it is true that Barry began the happy juice after 1998, here are his two careers:

      8100 PA / 74.2 WAA = 109.2 PaWaa
      4506 PA / 49.3 WAA = 91.4 PaWaa

      Some of his “improvement” is of course tied to the preposterous number of walks he received.

      But 91.4 PaWaa from age 34 to 42? Zoinks.
      The only player in history who did better than that for a whole career was Ruth.

      Here are the leaders:

      PaWaa – Career
      84.4 … (10622) Babe Ruth
      97.2 … (9480) Rogers Hornsby
      102.1 … (12606) Barry Bonds
      104.0 … (9788) Ted Williams
      104.5 … (2195) Mike Trout*
      113.5 … (12496) Willie Mays
      125.7 … (9907) Mickey Mantle
      127.7 … (11748) Honus Wagner
      128.5 … (13084) Ty Cobb
      134.5 … (9241) Albert Pujols*
      135.8 … (11992) Tris Speaker
      137.3 … (10062) Mike Schmidt

      Reply ↓
        1. Voomo Zanzibar

          Oooof. Yeah, sorry. I was working off of an old tally sheet. Thanks.

          I’ll re-post that in a few moments…

          Reply ↓
          1. Voomo Zanzibar

            PaWaa – Career – Minimum 2000 PA

            84.4 … (10622) Babe Ruth
            97.2 … (9480) Rogers Hornsby
            102.1 … (12606)Barry Bonds
            104.0 … (9788) Ted Williams
            104.5 … (2195) Mike Trout*
            113.5 … (12496)Willie Mays
            123.1 … (9663) Lou Gehrig
            125.7 … (9907) Mickey Mantle
            127.7 … (11748)Honus Wagner
            128.5 … (13084)Ty Cobb
            134.5 … (9241) Albert Pujols*
            135.8 … (11992)Tris Speaker
            137.3 … (10062)Mike Schmidt
            138.9 … (2084) Red Ruffing
            140.5 … (7673) Joe DiMaggio
            141.3 … (5695) Joe Jackson
            146.6 … (11344)Alex Rod*
            147.3 … (5804) Jackie Robinson
            148.3 … (6335) Chase Utley*
            150.7 … (13941)Hank Aaron

  16. CursedClevelander

    I’m not much of an anti-steroid crusader, so I went with the Top 4 by WAR: Mays, Bonds the Younger, Ott and Mathewson.

    The bottom of those WAR lists may be a bit barren, but the Top 10 for the Giants is about as good as you’ll find outside of the Yankees. Their Mt. Rushmore B-Team is incredibly impressive: Hubbell, Marichal, McCovey and Terry.

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  17. bells

    I’m a bit surprised not to see more support for McGraw (some in the comments, none in the voting). To me, he (well, he and Matty for the first 15 years) IS the Giants of the early 20th-century. Mays was they key to their success in the late NY/early SF era, and is unquestionably in a Mount Rushmore discussion immediately. And I guess Mathewson and Ott were signature players that covered McGraw’s years there… but still. If any manager can lay claim to being an icon associated with single franchise, it’s McGraw. Okay, Connie Mack too, but McGraw had a much different approach to management than Mack, and scraping the most out of your teams to constantly be a contender is much more fan-friendly in the lens of history than buying big talents and then selling them after brief success. I’d take McGraw over Bonds in a heartbeat. The current wave of success is too fresh to allow any ‘grand scheme’ thinking that seems to me necessary for such an undertaking as carving iconic faces in stone, so I can’t include anyone on there. Maybe it’s too fresh too, but Bonds seems incongruous with the concept of Mount Rushmore – not only would the size of his head not allow for anyone else up there, literally, but also metaphorically in the sense that I always felt like he was less a member of a team than a constellation of controversy and ego unto himself. Maybe people might say the same thing in 1935 in a discussion about Ty Cobb’s place on the Tigers’ Mount Rushmore, I dunno.

    Anyway, I’m going with Mays, Mathewson, Ott and McGraw.

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    1. Lawrence Azrin

      @26;

      Thanks for reminding me of McGraw; I just voted for him above, and in my #25 would replace McGinnity with him.

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  18. Alan

    Doug, I enjoyed your history of the team! One thought though: around here (in SF where I live), Dusty Baker’s departure is much more closely associated with his awarding the Game Ball to Russ Ortiz when he removed the latter in Game 6 of the 2002 Series, with the Giants ahead 5-0 for the game and 3-2 in the Series. (Ortiz carried the ball into the dugout with him). That was seen as a jinx, particularly when the Angels promptly scored 6 to win game 6, then trounced Livan early in Game 7 to take the trophy. The Darren Baker/JT Snow incident is mostly remembered, I think, as an adorable footnote. Just my two cents. Anyway, I voted for Mays, Matthewson, Ott, and Bonds.

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    1. Doug Post author

      Thanks Alan,

      I’m glad the locals remember the Darren Baker incident that way. My memory (from a distance) was that there was a lot of criticism of Baker because of the incident as in “How can he have his little kid in the dugout when he’s trying to manage a World Series game?”, and I think Bud Selig weighed in to say that rules would be established to prevent something similar happening. It was undoubtedly over-reaction, but I think it contributed to Baker’s image problem as a guy who was just a little too laid back to get the best out of his team.

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  19. Voomo Zanzibar

    Okay, I’m utterly addicted to this…

    Here are some notable players born in 1964.
    What they did through and after 1998:

    Barry Bonds
    8100 PA / 74.2 WAA = 109.2
    4506 PA / 49.3 WAA = 91.4

    Rafael Palmiero
    7590 PA / 23.9 WAA = 317.6
    4456 PA / 06.2 WAA = 718.7

    Barry Larkin
    6520 PA / 40.6 WAA = 160.6
    2537 PA / 01.6 WAA = 1585.6

    Will Clark
    7482 PA / 25.9 WAA = 288.8
    0801 PA / 02.9 WAA = 276.2

    Ellis Burks
    5900 PA / 15.5 WAA = 380.6
    2277 PA / 07.6 WAA = 299.6

    Mark Grace
    6925 PA / 15.9 WAA = 435.5
    2365 PA / 01.9 WAA = 1244.7

    Jose The Chemist
    6920 PA / 14.9 WAA = 464.4
    1209 PA / 00.3 WAA = 4030.0

    Brady Anderson
    5825 PA / 08.4 WAA = 693.5
    1912 PA / 00.7 WAA = 2731.4

    B.J. Surhoff
    6123 PA / 02.4 WAA = 2551.3
    2983 PA / 00.9 WAA = 3314.4

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  20. Joseph

    Did somebody already comment on John McGraw? In my mind, if any manager belongs on a Mt. Rushmore, it’s him. He’s the first person I think of when I think of the Giants as a franchise. When I was a kid ready baseball history books about the early days of baseball, it seemed that he was in every book–almost like a central figure of 1920’s baseball.

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  21. John Autin

    I went top 4. Hated to leave out McGraw, but since the top 4 are all inner-circle HOFers representing different eras, it seemed less unfair to screw the skipper than one of the players.

    By the way … The Jints may have a paucity of high career WAR totals beyond the Rushmores. But they’ve had quite a few players have one or two great years. Comparing the “original 16” for most position players with *any* season of 6+ WAR, since 1893:

    — Giants, 32 players
    — Yankees, 29
    — Red Sox, 29
    — Dodgers, 29
    — Cardinals, 28
    — Bravos, 28
    — Browns/Orioles, 26
    — Cleveland, 26
    — Athletics, 23
    — Tigers, 22
    — Phillies, 22
    — Cubs, 20
    — White Sox, 17
    — Pirates, 17
    — Senators/Twins, 16
    — Reds, 16

    Reply ↓
    1. Doug Post author

      Good stat, John.

      The Reds had the good sense to bunch theirs together, with 5 of 16 players, and 16 of 38 seasons, from 1969 to 1977.

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    2. PaulE

      Mike,
      mea culpa-the above numbers are from 1962-present ……must have hadthe pennant season stuck in my head
      1958-present:
      114 Mays
      112 Bonds
      62 Marichal
      59 McCovey

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      1. MikeD

        PaulE, thanks and interesting (to me) that Mays still holds the WAR record for the Giants of San Francisco. I figured Bonds might have eclipsed him, although it is darn close.

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  24. dr. remulak

    Mathewson, Ott, Mays, Posey. Ideally, begin the carving work for the first three, and confirm a few years down the road that Buster’s career arc has been sustained. Young Buster is signed through 2021, and I’m wagering on several more outstanding years, but I think this modern-era Giants club, with its 3 championships, begs a Rushmore representative. Posey is on a path toward being considered a top-10 all-time catcher.

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  25. CursedClevelander

    Interesting thought about Ott:

    I know a lot of people knock him for taking advantage of his home park when it comes to padding HR totals, so I did the quick and dirty (and obviously inaccurate) exercise of just doubling his career road totals and seeing what you end up with. His career would look like this:

    11348 PAs, .311/.408/.510, 376 HRs, 612 2Bs, 102 3Bs, 1724 RBI, 1810 R, 3032 H. Looks almost like George Brett’s career line, actually. So whatever park you stick him in, he’s going to be an inner-circle Hall of Famer.

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  26. Darien

    Wow, I have five, and that’s a tough field to narrow. Lessee… Willie Mays and Barry Bonds are no-doubters. Christy Mathewson is one of my all-time favourites, and I’ve read his book and everything, so in he goes. Ott or McCovey, though? Or do I defy the tie and go with a comedy fourth option like Barry Zito?

    I think it has to be: Bonds, Mays, Mathewson, and Ott.

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  27. donburgh

    Mathewson, Ott, Mays, and Barry Seems strange not to have any of the current Giants on, but I can’t justify displacing any of the four that I voted for.

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  28. e pluribus munu

    McGraw and Mack were much more than managers: they shaped the greatest franchises of the early 20th century in ways no later manager ever would. They essentially controlled their teams. McGraw was brought to New York after the Giants had been systematically destroyed by a psychotic owner, Andrew Freedman. Freedman bought a controlling interest in the Baltimore Orioles in order to steal several of its players, including player-manager McGraw, and then left baseball, providing McGraw unique leverage over his new boss. McGraw was the key to Freedman’s choice of stolen players (his favorites were McGinnity and Bresnahan) and, from that point on, building the Giants into a great franchise was entirely McGraw’s doing through 1932 – he even chose his successor. McGraw had virtually total control over personnel decisions. As an outstanding former player himself who was deeply involved in training his hitters, he also controlled the development of talent in a way few managers ever had (he was much more of an interventionist than Mack). Bringing up Ott a month after he turned 17 and not tinkering with his swing – taking on a castoff like Hubbell – this was all McGraw’s doing.

    So I think a Giants Rushmore without McGraw misses the point.

    Mathewson and Mays have to be on the mountain. My father, who grew up near and in the Polo Grounds, and worshiped Ott and Hubbell, would be upset at me for choosing just one, but Rushmore can only fit four altogether, and I’ll go for Ott alone.

    As for Bonds: this is Mt. Rushmore. McGraw was a nasty piece of work as a player, but he did not subvert the game as it was played, even in his Baltimore days. I rooted for Bonds when he was a Giant (although, to my father’s chagrin, I was raised a Brooklyn fan) because I admired his amazing accomplishments, but it turned out the numbers have no integrity, and that, for me, is the most pernicious distortion of baseball there can be.

    So: McGraw, Mathewson, Ott, Mays.

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    1. Doug

      Well said, epm.

      And, thanks for the history lesson. Really. Makes more understandable B-R’s recent decision to disconnect the Orioles from the Yankees on B-R’s franchise pages.

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