We just finished up our discussion on the 1960 NL MVP, so you’d figure that we’re going to zip ahead a few years, maybe switch leagues. But here’s the thing – the next really interesting election is in the same league, just two years later. Which brings me to our next election: the 1962 National League.
The NL in 1962 had its first ten-team, 162-game season. Everyone knows that this was the year of the Mets‘ miserable 40-120 season. But what else do you know about 1962?
This feature is authored by Dr. Doom. Thanks Doc for your research in putting this series together.
Well, the pennant winners were the Giants, who became the fifth NL pennant winner in five years (then the longest-such streak of unique pennant winners on the senior circuit in the live-ball era; other stretches of 5+ years are: 1914-1919, 1960-1964, 1986-1991, 1997-2002, and 1998-2005; I didn’t check the AL, so someone else can do that, if they feel so inclined). 1962 was one of the odd ducks that featured two 100-game winners in the same pennant chase, as the Dodgers also won 101 games. The Giants lost first place on July 8th, being defeated by the Dodgers, and didn’t crawl back into first until the final day of the season, when they topped the expansion Colt .45s to earn a tie with the Dodgers. A best-of-three series for the pennant commenced. The Giants took the first at home, and the Dodgers took the second in their home park. The rubber match was also scheduled for Dodger stadium, where the road Giants took it 6-4, the winning pitcher being former Yankee hero Don Larsen.
Anyway, the MVP was the man who is credited with revitalizing the stolen base – Maury Wills, the Dodger SS who stole 104 bases and nearly hit .300, batting .299/.347/.373 while playing in all 165 Dodger games. Wills scored 130 runs while belting 6 HR and knocking in 48 as the Dodgers debuted in their new home, the cavernous Dodger Stadium (a true pitchers’ park where the Dodgers allowed 289 runs for the season, compared to 408 on the road!).
Much like our previous discussion of the NL in 1960, this MVP vote was utterly dominated by one team – but it wasn’t the pennant winner, this time. The Dodgers also boasted the third- and fifth-place finishers in the race. Tommy Davis, the Dodger LF, scored nearly as many runs as Wills (120), but spoke more softly and carried a much, MUCH bigger stick. He led the league in hits (230), average (.346), and RBI (a remarkable 153 – the most in MLB from 1950-1997, and the most in the NL from 1931-1997!). Davis also added 27 each of doubles and homers to go along with his .374 OBP and .535 SLG. Another (somewhat hilarious) note of Davis’ season is that he finished 2nd in the NL in SB – with 32! I’m guessing that the margin of 72 SB between the leader and second place is the largest in history. Also showing up in the MVP voting was the Dodger ace and Cy Young winner Don Drysdale. Drysdale led the league in innings with 314.1 and strikeouts with 232. His 2.83 ERA was fourth (but only .03 out of second), and his WHIP of 1.113 was third. And most important of all to the voters of the time was Drysdale’s sparkling 25-9 record, those 25 wins being tops on the senior circuit.
Jack Sanford of San Francisco (24-7, 3.43 ERA, 1.225 WHIP, 147 Ks in 265.1 IP) and Bob Purkey of Cincinnati (23-5, 2.81 ERA, 1.124 WHIP, 141 Ks in 288.1 IP) put up remarkably similar lines to Drysdale, put didn’t appeal as much to the voters, who were (rightly or wrongly) more seduced by his Dodger Stadium-influenced numbers. But each of them had a teammate who showed up near the top of the vote.
Sanford’s teammate was – who else – Willie Mays. Mays led the NL in HR with 49 and was second in RBI (141, a career high), second in doubles (36), second in runs scored (130), and managed a league-leading 382 TB. His .304/.384/.615 line screams “Willie Mays!” – and let’s not forget that Mays was still considered the best center-fielder in baseball, winning the Gold Glove for his work (and, at age 31, he still had five Gold Gloves ahead of him, so don’t think that his skills were totally diminished yet).
Purkey’s teammate of note was the previous season’s MVP, Frank Robinson. Unfortunately for opposing pitchers, Robinson was even better in ’62 than he’d been the year before, improving in literally every statistical category except for SB, CS, SF, and IBB (though he still led the majors in the last of those categories). Robinson’s .342 average was second and his 39 HR were third, but he paced the league in runs (134), 2B (51), OBP (.421), and SLG (.624) (and, obviously, OPS). He finished a measly 2 TB behind Mays for the league lead. Although Robinson was better than he’d been as MVP, his Reds were worse. They’d outplayed their Pythagorean record by a remarkable 10 games in 1961, winning 93 and the pennant. In ’62, Pythagoras says they were to actually win 93 – and again, they were lucky, winning 98. But as the star on a third-place team, the bloom was off the Frank Robinson rose for the voters in 1962.
The final serious candidate for the MVP in 1962 was – who else? – Hank Aaron. Aaron banged out 45 homers, scored 127 runs, knocked in 128, and slashed .323/.390/.618. And while all those marks were near the top of the league (all in the top 5), he didn’t lead the league in anything.
So that brings us to it: who is the 1962 NL MVP? Is it a Dodger, a Red, a Giant, or the lone Brave? Or do you have another player who should be in the race?
DIRECTIONS: Please list 5-10 players on your MVP ballot (ballots with fewer than 5 candidates will be thrown out). Ballots will be scored as per BBWAA scoring (14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1). Strategic voting is discouraged, though unenforceable, so please just don’t do it, as the goal here is to (somewhat) mimic the BBWAA process. We will discuss for the first 3 days, and then have 4 days during which discussion can continue, but when ballots may be submitted.
Mays
Robinson
Aaron
Wills
Davis
Bob Purkey
Drysdale
Ken Boyer
Felipe Alou
Johnny Callison
That Willie Mays didn’t win the MVP in 1962 was a joke. There was no one player who could do more than Mays both with the bat and with the glove. He was a situational base stealer and not someone like Rickey Henderson who stole bases just to see how many he could steal regardless of the score or the inning. Willie Mays should have been the MVP.
The rubber match was also scheduled for Dodger stadium, where the road Giants took it 6-4, the winning pitcher being former Yankee hero Don Larsen.
That game is a good illustration of how much the game has changed since then. The Dodgers took a 2 run lead into the 9th inning of that rubber game and stuck with reliever Ed Roebuck to start the inning, despite Roebuck having already thrown three innings that day after pitching 5 times in the 6 previous days, including 4.2 IP (and 59 pitches) in the series’ first two games. Anyway, that workload finally caught up to Roebuck who gave up a leadoff single, then got one out before walking the bases loaded. Up next was Willie Mays who hit a laser back through the box that Roebuck was only able to knock down. It all unraveled from there as starter Stan Williams came on in an unfamiliar role and allowed a sac fly before walking two more. Finally, Alston went to his closer Ron Perranoski, but the damage was done.
How would that inning have played out today? Some of the differences:
– Of course, Roebuck doesn’t start the inning but, even if he did, he’s gone after the leadoff single.
– A tired pitcher who’s just walked two to load the bases does NOT stay in the game to face Willie Mays with the game (and pennant) on the line.
– Bizarrely (to me), managers still try to turn their starters into relievers come playoff time, and wonder why that doesn’t work, so maybe Williams comes into the game today, but probably to start the inning, not in this situation, still with the lead and the bases loaded, and the closer cooling his heels in the bullpen.
– Perranoski had appeared in the first two games of the series and thrown 39 pitches, so maybe that’s why Alston (and a current manager) might delay in going to him. But, if not Perranoski, the rested Larry Sherry (who had 11 saves) was available, having pitched only 0.1 IP in the series opener. But, Sherry was ineffective in that appearance, so he stayed in the pen, notwithstanding that he had allowed no runs in 6 of his 7 prior appearances. A manager today wouldn’t have hesitated to go to a reliable, veteran pitcher just because he’d had an uncharacteristic bad outing in his last appearance.
Great research, Doug! I didn’t look up the game log (I write too long of posts, as it is), but that’s great info, and an excellent point about reliever usage.
I’m not surprised at all about how “managers still try to turn their starters into relievers come playoff time,” because I can think of a couple of really, really high-profile cases in which it worked, each in a Game 7 of the World Series: Randy Johnson in 2001 and Madison Bumgarner in 2014. Of course, in that case, they then have the entire offseason to recover, which is a little different than the managers who have pitchers try to switch roles earlier in the postseason. You can allow Game 7 of the World Series to be kind of a “kitchen sink” game.
The other high profile case of a starter being turned into a reliever in the playoffs was Pedro in the ’99 ALDS between Cleveland and the Red Sox. After three innings, the Indians led the final and deciding game 8-7. The Red Sox tied it up in the top of the 4th and then brought Pedro in to pitch in the bottom of the 4th. He proceeded to pitch 6 innings of no-hit ball (3 walks) and the Red Sox went on to win the game and the series 12-8.
(Pedro also pitched in relief in mind-boggling circumstances in the 2004 ALCS comeback against the Yankees. He was brought in to pitch the 7th inning even though the Red Sox were ahead 8-1 and he had thrown 111pitches two days earlier. That one I don’t get at all!!!).
Less successful was Steve Rogers, on two days rest, getting the call in the 9th inning of the final game of the 1981 NLCS. More recently, Houston tried using Dallas Keuchel on two days rest to keep it close in game 5 of last year’s ALDS against the Royals; it didn’t work.
Gutsiest appearance might have been Orel Hershiser, on zero days rest, getting the final out of game 4 of the 1988 NLCS on a frigid day at Shea; he followed that appearance with three straight CG wins, including two shutouts and the clinching games of the NLCS and WS.
Randy Johnson’s three relief innings on one day of rest clinched the 1995 ALDS for Seattle, who got the better of Jack McDowell, relieving on two days rest for the Yankees. Johnson again got the clinching win, on no days rest, in the 2001 WS.
But, other than the Hershiser game when the Dodgers had mostly depleted their bullpen, in the rest of these games the manager went with this unorthodox ploy even with many bullpen options available. I just don’t get why you abandon the approach that got you to the post-season to roll the dice on bringing in a tired starter with little or no experience coming out of the bullpen.
Another unsuccessful one (though not really the pitcher’s fault) was Charles Nagy in the deciding game of the ’97 WS. Everyone remembers Jose Mesa’s blown save but that just tied the game up and sent it into extra innings.
When he was brought into the game, Nagy only had two professional relief appearances (one in the minors in ’89 and one in his rookie season of 1990). Nagy got the last out of the 10th and then came back to pitch the 11th. With one out and a runner on first, Tony Fernandez committed an error putting runners on a corners. An intentional walk, and a forceout at home, brought Edgar Renteria to the plate to face Nagy. And I think we all know how that turned out…
Mussina, 2003, Game 7 vs Boston
The Mussina relief appearance was a severely underrated part of that game. Boston was on the verge of blowing the game open when he came in and shut Boston down setting the stage for Grady Little’s brain fart, Mo’s 3 scoreless innings and Aaron Boone.
BTW, that Pedro appearance was extra remarkable for two reasons.
1) He did it against the ’99 Indians, a team that scored 1,009 runs, the 5th highest total of all time and the most since the 1950 Red Sox.
2) He left game one of the series with a back injury. He was still nursing the injury and wasn’t supposed to be able to pitch (the Red Sox skipped his turn and started Saberhagen in game 5).
For Pedro to come in and throw 6 no-hit innings under those circumstance is mind boggling (and as an Indians’ fan, it still pisses me off!!!).
Charlie Leibrandt, 1991, Game 6 vs. Minnesota. Leibrandt certainly wasn’t a tired starter, as he had six days rest after pitching Game 1. However, this was his only relief appearance that season when pitched the bottom of the 11th, and it only lasted one batter.
The 14th inning, such as Mark Buerhle pitched in 2005, would also be a kitchen sink.
The Sox used El Duque in long relief in the ALDS that year, as they went with a 4-man rotation in the playoffs. Neal Cotts led them in relief innings in the ALCS but still had less than 1 IP.
The 1977 ALCS between the Yankees and the Royals was tied at 2 games apiece. In the deciding game 5 the Royals had a 3-2 lead going into the top of the 9th. Dennis Leonard, a starting pitcher who had pitched a CG 2 days earlier, was called in to relieve. He gave up a single and a walk and was then removed. The next reliever Larry Gura was also a starting pitcher who pitched 2 innings the day prior. He pitched to one batter and gave up a game-tying single. Reliever Mark Littell then pitched and the Yankees scored 2 more runs. Sparky Lyle pitched the bottom of the 9th and saved the game for the Yankees.
In game 7 of the 1952 WS Eddie Lopat of the Yankees started, pitched 3 scoreless innings and was replaced by Allie Reynolds in the 4th inning with the bases loaded and nobody out. Reynolds let one inherited runner score, pitched 2 more innings and gave up one run. Vic Raschi replaced Reynolds for the start of the 7th inning. Raschi pitched to 4 batters yielding 2 walks and a single to load the bases. Then Bob Kuzava, a relief pitcher, replaced Raschi, and got the next 2 batters on pop-ups. He completed the game allowing only 1 baserunner who reached on error and saved the game for a 4-2 Yankee win.
Game 2 of the series was also notable, as the longest ever 9 inning game to that time, at 4 hours 18 minutes. That mark stood until 1996 but has now been surpassed 18 times, with 8 of the 18 involving the Yankees and half of those against the Red Sox.
Doug, I am grateful to you for this detailed review of the top of the ninth inning of the third game of the 1962 NL playoff. You have given me the opportunity to relive the worst half hour of my life, in the middle of which, just as Stan Williams started to walk away the Dodger season, my father, the lone Giants fan in a household of Brooklyn-in-exile loyalists, arrived home from work to tell me he had just scored two WS tickets for us to Game 3 at the Stadium.
Believe it or not, even a kid in that era before advanced stats knew that Roebuck needed to be pulled earlier, and that Williams was not the pitcher to bring in in that situation. Alston’s moves may have been the worst piece of managing of the century – Durocher later claimed to have been screaming at him to stop.
Thank you for this trip down memory cliff.
So, your dad enjoyed game 3. But you – not so much.
After making the post-season in his first two seasons, Roebuck sure had some tough luck doing it again.
– Was left off the team in 1959, and didn’t even get a Sept call-up
– Should have been the unsung hero of this pennant series in ’62, holding the Giants at bay for three innings in the clincher and pitching 7.2 scoreless for the series. Instead he gets tagged with the loss.
– Dodgers are headed to the WS in ’63, but Roebuck gets traded at the deadline to the lowly Senators for … Marv Breeding, a backup infielder who gives the Dodgers .167/.211/.167 in all of 40 PA, and never plays in the majors again
– Is the Phillies setup man in ’64 with 60 appearances, 77 IP and a stellar 2.21 ERA, only to see their pennant hopes dashed by more dubious managing, this time by Gene Mauch
Largest margin between the AL leader and runner-up in SB in a season is 76 in 1982. Rickey Henderson had 130 to Damaso Garcia’s 54.
The Wills-Davis margin of 72 SB in 1962 is the second largest.
Good catch on Henderson’s 1982, Richard! I didn’t look any of Henderson’s seasons up, knowing how rare SB were in the 1960s and how prevalent in the ’80s. But it really reminds you that Rickey was kind of on a different planet, doesn’t it?
I would point out, though, that Wills didn’t just lead the NL by 72 – he led all of MLB by 72. In Henderson’s season, he led MLB by “only” 52, as Tim Raines stole 78 on the senior circuit.
Also, the Dodgers led the NL in SB by 112. That is almost certainly not the record margin – the ’85 Cardinals (first team I checked), for example, led by 132 SB. However, no one stole HALF of what the Dodgers stole, as they managed 198 to St. Louis’ 86. That may or may not be unique, but it does strike me as unusual.
Also, this means that “Babe Ruth hit more HR than any AL team in 1920″ thing is true of Wills here – he out-stole every other team in the NL! And, for an idea of how go-go the Dodgers were in comparison, if you discount every single one of his steals, the Dodgers would STILL have led the league.
The largest NL seasonal margin in SB between the league leading team and the runner-up is the 132 by the 1985 Cards as mentioned above. And the 1962 Dodgers’ margin of 112 is the second highest. In 1949 also, no other team had at least half of as many SB as the league leader. The Dodgers had 118 SB to the runner-up Cubs with 54.
Whoa! It was not Tommy Davis who stole 32 bases in 1962, but his teammate Willie Davis.
Willie Mays was simply incredible in ’62. He dominated in high leverage situations, batting .438 with a 1.365 OPS in 112 PA. (Amazingly, fellow Giant Jim Davenport hit .529 with a 1.303 OPS, albeit in only 84 PA.) Unsurprisingly, Mays led the NL with a 7.7 WPA. Considering that Mays also had 2.1 dWAR, his was one of only three known seasons with 7+ WPA and 2+ dWAR. The other two are Jackie Robinson in 1951 and Mays again in 1966. It was also just one of 11 seasons ever with 8+ oWAR and 2+ dWAR, the others being Honus Wagner (1905, ’06, ’09), Lou Boudreau (1948), Robinson (1951), Mays (1954), Rico Petrocelli (1969), Cal Ripken (1991), Alex Rodriguez (2000), and Mike Trout (2012). Few have ever been so valuable on both sides of the ball as Mays was that season.
7+ WPA is rare – only 88 such seasons since 1931, or basically one per year. 1962 had three of them (no other season has more than 4 such players; the seasons with four are: 1957, 1961, 1967, 1969, and 2011). Mickey Mantle in the AL (7.99) and Hank Aaron in the NL (7.03) joined Mays’ 7.72, the second-highest mark of his career.
Another point that I somehow missed: Maury Wills in 1962 established the (still untied and unbroken) record for games played in a season: 165. He played in every Dodger contest, including the 3-game playoff. Three players appeared in 163+ games in the NL’s first 162-game season – Wills, Tommy Davis, and the Giants’ Jose Pagan. In spite of this being quite common in the 1960s (someone or other played in 163+ every year from 1961-1969 other than 1963 and 1966), it has become less common. In the 21st century, only two players have managed the feat: Hideki Matsui as a rookie in 2003 (the Yankees played a rainout in Baltimore on 9/18) and Justin Morneau in 2008, when the Twins were tied with the White Sox after 162, and they lost a 1-0 game #163.
The games record in the 154 game era is 162 games by Jimmy Barrett of 1904 Tigers, who played 10 tied games that season.
Tommy Davis scored or drove in 29.2% of the Dodger runs that season (no double credit for home runs). His 503 total for Runs, Hits and RBI is the largest this side of 1937. Todd Helton is the only player since Davis to crack 500, with a 501 mark in 2000.
5 different AL champions in 5 pre-expansion seasons happened only once, in 1944-48 with the Browns, Tigers, Red Sox, Yankees and Indians.
The longest post-expansion runs with different league champions are 8 seasons in both leagues:
– AL, 1981 to 1988 with the Yankees, Brewers, Orioles, Tigers, Royals, Red Sox, Twins and Athletics
– NL, 1998 to 2005 with the Padres, Braves, Mets, D-Backs, Giants, Marlins, Cardinals and Astros
In the 8 seasons from 1979 to 1986, your NL East champions were the Pirates, Phillies, Expos, Cardinals, Phillies, Cubs, Cardinals, and Mets. That’s everybody.
Maury’s OBP was .347
Most runs scored, OBP under .350:
139 … Jimmy Rollins (88 XBH, 41 SB)
130 … Maury Wills
128 … Alfonso Soriano (92 XBH, 41 SB)
127 … Frankie Crosetti (Dickey, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Selkirk)
127 … Jimmy Rollins
126 … Tommy Leach (Honus)
126 … Donie Bush (Ty)
126 … Al Dark
126 … Tommy Harper
126 … Zoilo Versalles
122 … Nomar
__________________________
99 OPS+
Most runs with an ops+ under 100:
143 … Red Rolfe (Dickey, DiMaggio, Gehrig, Selkirk)
131 … Woody English
130 … Maury Wills
128 … Roger Peckinpaugh (Meusel, Ruth)
127 … Crosetti (same year as Rolfe, 1937)
126 … Donie Bush
124 … Johnny Pesky
121 … Vince Coleman
___________________________
Tommy Leach had 126 runs and 153 hits.
That’s 1.21 hits per run.
There are 27 guys who have scored more runs than Leach with:
H less than 1.25x R.
But, with an OBP also under .340:
126 .. Leach
73 …. Ruppert Jones
72 …. Dick Harley
68 …. Jake Wood
65 …. Ruben Rivera
62 …. Jose Valentin
61 …. Hap Myers
60 …. Erv Dusak
54 …. Dave Kingman
53 …. Jack Smith
48 …. Mark McGwire
He had Honus. Beyond that, not clear how he accomplished this:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/PIT/1909.shtml
One thing helping those Pirates was having seven players, including Leach, with 30 extra-base hits. That was the most on any team in the dead ball era. They also had seven players with 14 or more stolen bases, in the top 20% of dead ball era teams for most such players.
….and, don’t discount the high percentage of unearned runs in an era when guys were still using oven mitts to play the field?
Wills, Crosetti, and Bush were the three players on your first two lists, Voomo.
Of the three, Bush is probably the most interesting to me. Crosetti was a leadoff guy who got plunked a lot (led the league seven times, including five in a row). Wills is a more modern player, so people tend to know more about him.
But explaining Bush’s appearance on the list is more interesting. He led the league in walks a lot – 1909-1012, and again in 1914. His biggest walk year was actually 1915, when he got 118 free passes, but Eddie Collins had 119 in his first year in Chicago.
In 1911, Bush was the leadoff hitter (presumably; there’s no play-by-play for the era, but he had 692 PAs in 150 G) for a team that had three guys with .400+ OBPs batting behind him. Basically, Jim Delahanty (.411), Sam Crawford (.438), and Ty Cobb (.467) didn’t make outs. With them batting behind you, if you get on base at all, you’re probably going to score. Add in the fact that Bush got himself into scoring position 63 times (18 doubles, 5 triples, and 40 SB), and you’ve got a recipe for a lot of runs scored… even if you’re not that good of a hitter.
As far as I can tell, Bush remained a top-of-the-order hitter throughout his tenure in Detroit, until late-1921 when he was traded to the Senators. This is in spite of never posting a .300 average. Other than a cup-of-coffee in 1908 (wherein he hit .294), his best average was .281. He just barely hit .250 in his years with the Tigers. It seems oddly progressive for a manager in the 1910s to have used a player like Bush as a leadoff hitter – but on the other hand, if it works, why mess with it? And it was obviously working, as Bush scored 90+ every year from 1909-1915, and the team had a .548 winning percentage over that span (average 84-70), including two truly wretched years.
I wrote, in the same vein, about Donie Bush in this piece from 2013.
http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/01/donie-bush-and-making-the-most-of-your-ops/
FWIW:
Robinson
Mays
T. Davis
Aaron
Wills
Drysdale
Purkey
F. Alou
Howard
Pinson
I don’t think Robinson should get punished for his team not winning the pennant after a WS appearance and an MVP the prior year – unlike Mo Vaughn in the mid-90’s, who also had a better year off an M V P award-winning season. I believe John Valentin was the Red Sox MVP back then…. No question Robinson was the Reds’ M V P
A few other names for your consideration.
Johnny Callison put up very solid offensive numbers and provided outstanding defense in right. His season was pretty similar to the one he would have 2 years later when he finished 2nd in the MVP race (altho not as good as the one in between when only managed a 15th place finish)
Turk Ferrell had arguably the best 20-game losing season in MLB history. ERA of 3.02 vs a league average of 3.94, ERA+ of 124 in 29 starts plus 14 relief appearances, second in the league in WHIP, SO/BB ratio of 3.69.
Another guy who had a better season than his numbers might indicate at first glance is Ernie Broglio, who figured into our discussion of the 1960 MVP voting.
In relief, Roy Face had arguably his best season, in spite of an unimpressive W-L record.
None of these guys actually deserves the MVP of course but since we’re voting for 10 guys they ought to at least be part of the discussion.
Hartvig,
You might be correct about Turk Farrell. Per BR PI, the only guys with a better ERA+ than him are either dead-ball era or Nate Andrews (?) during WWII:
Across, that’s ERA+ L Year
1 Ed Walsh 189 20 1910
2 Jim Scott 154 21 1913
3 Nap Rucker 151 21 1912
4 Walter Johnson 147 20 1916
5 Joe McGinnity 139 20 1903
6 Nate Andrews 131 20 1943
7 Nick Cullop 130 20 1914
8 Harry Howell 129 22 1905
9 Vic Willis 128 20 1902
I should probably have excluded dead ball era guys from my statement since they could lose 20 and in some cases still win more than they lost because they were pitching so many innings.
Same goes for a while in the 1970’s when guys like Wilbur Wood, Gaylord Perry & Phil Niekro were throwing 350+ innings in a year and getting close to 40 decisions in a season.
But Turk still has a pretty good case for being the “best” in the modern era with that dubious distinction. And in a fair and just world he should have been in contention for the Cy Young that year/
Farrell’s season ranks 5th in WAR and second in ERA+ among 20 loss campaigns in the live ball era. But, it ranks first with 2.9 WAR per 100 IP, edging Phil Niekro’s 2.7 in 1977. Everyone else is below 2.3.
Generated 9/30/2016.
Those 1973 ChiSox are the last team with a pair of 20 game losers. But, that team was not hopeless – the 41 losses for Wood and Bahnsen accounted for almost half of (only) 85 losses to the White Sox that year.
The ’33 and ’34 Browns show up here; the last team to have a 20 game loser in consecutive seasons was the 1965-66 Cubs with Larry Jackson and Dick Ellsworth. The last team with more than two consecutive seasons was the 1962-65 Mets for which Roger Craig was the last pitcher to lose 20 in consecutive seasons (1962-63). Irv Young is the last to lose 20 in three straight years (1905-07). Bobo Newsom and Chick Fraser share the distinction of losing 20 for three different teams, with Fraser doing so in three straight years (1904-06), plus a fourth team before 1901 (with Louisville in 1896).
For this vote, I’ll go with averaging baseball-reference WAR and fangraphs WAR. I will probably refine this approach going forward. Happily, this time this method produces, as the top candidate, a guy with 10.5 WAR (both from b-ref and fangraphs) for a team that won the pennant in a playoff. Hilarious to think where SF would have been without Willie Mays.
My vote:
1.Willie Mays
2. Frank Robinson
3. Hank Aaron
4. Don Drysdale
5. Turk Farrell
6. Bob Gibson
7. Tommy Davis
8. Bob Purkey
9. Johnny Callison
10. Eddie Mathews
Wills is tied with Mathews for the 10th spot on my list, but Wills got enough credit winning the real MVP, so I’ll go with Mathews. Honorable mentions to Willie Davis and Bob Friend. Jack Sanford won 24 games but did not lead his own team in ERA (behind Juan Marichal), FIP (behind Billy O’Dell) or WPA (behind O’Dell, Marichal and Billy Pierce).
Great project, by the way. I was mulling over something similar myself — MVPs for the various World Series, especially for years before official voting on that took place. Maybe something for the future.
Don’t be a stranger, birtelcom.
Love to have you contribute an occasional piece, as you’re able.
Working on one now.
Best news of the day. Looking forward to it.
1. Mays
2. Robison
3. T. Davis
4. Aaron
5. Callison
6. Purkey
7. E. Matthews
8. Gibson
9. W. Davis
10. Wills
My ballot.
1. Mays
2. Robinson
3. Aaron
4. Drysdale
5. T. Davis
6. Alou
7. Wills
8. W. Davis
9. Purkey
10. Callison
Looking over the voting & the league it is nothing short of remarkable how much talent there was in right field in the NL in 1962.
You’ve got Aaron (who actually played a few more games in center than in right), Robinson, Clemente, Callison, Frank Howard, Felipe Alou and George Altman who put up some pretty decent numbers for the Cubbies. In Houston Roman Mejias had a pretty solid season at the plate even if he couldn’t get to a lot of the balls hit his way in the field. Even the hapless Mets had Richie Ashburn in right for almost half of his games.
Only the Cardinals were noticeably weak in right field pretty much all of the time.
Vote:
1. Tommy Davis
2. Willie Mays
3. Frank Robinson
4. Hank Aaron
5. Maury Wills
6. Ken Boyer
7. Willie Davis
8. Johnny Callison
9. Don Drysdale
10. Felipe Alou
Tommy Davis with RISP:
.376 / .410 / .540 / .950
Vs the Giants:
.452 / .473 / .869 / 1.342
1) Willie Mays
2) Hank Aaron
3) Frank Robinson
4) Johnny Callison
5) Tommy Davis
6) Bob Purkey
7) Felipe Alou
8) Bob Gibson
9) Jim Davenport
10) Maury Wills
The 1962 World Series was one of the strangest on record, viewed in retrospect. After the first game, Mays and Maris and Elston Howard joined Mantle and the majority of the rest of the position players in a miasma of offensive frustration. Mantle, trying to contribute in spite of his lack of hitting, stole two bases and got picked off once, a rare occurrence. The tying run in game five came on a passed ball. Don Larsen and Billie Pierce pitched well for the NL team. Chuck Hiller—who?—was the batting leader for the Giants, slugging a grand slam to break a tie in game four. The Series came a few feet away from being a Giant victory when McCovey’s towering drive passed on the wrong side of the foul pole before his bullet line-out was snared by Bobby Richardson.
The Cuban Missile Crisis started just as the Series was finishing, and I suppose that put the weirdness of the games out of everybody’s minds.
It was Willie Davis that was second in stolen bases with 32. Tommy stole 18.
Less explanation this time:
1) Frank Robinson. Over
2) Willie Mays.
Why? Because Frank was much more valuable to the Reds than Willie was to the Giants. The Giants line-up was loaded from top to bottom with McCovey in reserve.
3) Tommy Davis, edging
4) Maury Wills.
5) Hank Aaron.
6) Felipe Alou.
7) Johnny Callison.
8) Ken Boyer.
9) Stan Musial. I’m biased, yeah, but he was terrific that year at age 41, batting .330 with authority and power.
10. Orlando Cepeda.
As noted before, I don’t think starting pitchers belong in the MVP balloting. They have their own award.
My ballot:
1. Willie Mays
2. Frank Robinson
3. Hank Aaron
4. Tommy Davis
5. Maury Wills
6. Johnny Callison
7. Willie Davis
8. Don Drysdale
9. Bob Purkey
10. Ernie Banks
1. Willie Mays
2. Frank Robinson
3. Tommy Davis
4. Hank Aaron
5. Maury Wills
6. Felipe Alou
7. Turk Farrell
8. Johnny Callison
9. Eddie Mathews
10. Jim Davenport
I almost voted for Robinson as MVP, after Paul E and No Statistician But, but couldn’t do it. Two great seasons, but I had to go with hitting+defense. I can see how Wills won, with 165 games played and all those SBs… I’m never sure how WAR captures their value. I know it’s part of baserunning, and that CS detracts from the value of SBs, but it’s not like Wills was caught much in 1962 (104:13).
WAR says that it was the greatest baserunning season of all time.
WAR Runs Baserunning, since 1901:
18.6 … Maury Wills ’62
17.7 … Rickey ’85
17.7 … Willie Wilson ’79
17.3 … Rickey ’88
17.1 … Vince Coleman ’86
16.5 … Willie Wilson ’80
13.6 … Vince Coleman ’87
13.4 … Kenny Lofton ’93
13.3 … David Eckstein ’01 !
13.1 … Bobby Bonds ’72
12.9 … Raines ’83
12.4 … Davey Lopes ’75
12.3 … Willy Tavares ’08
12.2 … Eric Davis ’86
12.2 … Ron LeFlore ’79
12.0 … Larkin ’95
12.0 … Rickey ’83
12.0 … Max Carey ’22
_____________________________
Eckstein stole 29/4.
Did he advance on an absurd number of passed balls and wild pitches?
No explanation for his number.
WAR Runs Baserunning also takes into account how many bases the runner advanced on a hit or other balls put into play. A detailed explanation is presented in BR. On the BR home page click on more, then About and then WAR-Position Players and scroll down.
Voting for this round will close Wednesday, October 5th at midnight.
By the way, I’m going to count the vote at post 1. For next round (and the subsequent ones), I’m going to change the rules so that you can vote anytime during the week in question, but your vote is locked-in once it’s made, so no vote changes. That makes late voting perhaps wiser, and should still encourage discussion, which is what I really enjoy, anyway – although the results are interesting, too! 🙂
Here’s my vote:
1) Mays
2) Robinson
3) Aaron
4) Tommy Davis
5) Drysdale
6) Purkey
Mays
T Davis
Robinson
Wills
Aaron
Purkey
Callison
Musial
Koufax (over Drysdale; if he’d have been there in August, Dodgers probably would have won)
Cepeda
#1 Mays- because he’s Willie Mays, that’s why
#2 Aaron- over Robinson because he moved over to center for half the season
#3 Robinson
#4 Maury Wills – Bill James called him “A better ballplayer than a human being” I believe but in 1962 he was the best middle infielder by a pretty large margin- which makes him really valuable.
#5 Tommy Davis- Yeah, I know RBI’s are overrated but holy buckets.
#6 Turk Farrell- Not normally a fan of starting pitchers for MVP unless they really stand out but he relieved a fair bit and it had to be tough to go out there every 4th day and give it your best- and then still lose most of the time.
#7 Eddie Mathews- there were a number of good third basemen in the league but I think that Mathews was still the best
#8 Roy Face- you could make a case for Don McMahon and Jim Brosnan wrote a pretty good book but my money’s on Elroy
#9 Tom Haller- Crandall, Dalrymple, Burgess, Roseboro and a couple others were all about as good but the Giants won so…
#10 Stan Musial- because he’s 41 years old and still The Man
A couple comments before my vote:
1) Before our 1960 and 1962 NL MVP exercises, I have had cause to look into Ernie Broglio’s career. While ’60 and ’62 were his best two seasons, on balance his career is surprisingly strong (107 ERA+ in 1300 IP), certainly not the punchline he’s often made out to be as the other end of the famous Lou Brock trade.
2) Perhaps I’ve posted this comment here before (apologies if I have), but the 1960 MVP Dick Groat and the 1962 MVP Maury Wills have remarkably similar career numbers.
Groat: 8179 PA; .330 OBP, 2138 Hits, 89 OPS+, 36.7 WAR
Wills: 8306 PA, .330 OBP, 2134 Hits, 88 OPS+, 39.6 WAR
My vote:
Willie Mays
Henry Aaron
Frank Robinson
Johnny Callison
Felipe Alou
Eddie Mathews
Turk Farrell
Maury Wills
Bob Purkey
Willie Davis
And just outside my top ten: Tommy Davis, Ernie Broglio, Jim Davenport, Ken Boyer, Roy Face
I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a good explanation of why Broglio’s career went south after the trade. Was there an injury? Was he a fly ball pitcher ill suited for Wrigley? Something else? If I ever knew I have forgotten.
And a quick Google search answers my own question. From a book called Major League Careers Cut Short:
“In 1961 he had taken 20 cortisone shots in his shoulder.”
During his time in St Louis, Broglio had an ERA of 3.31 in night games and 3.56 in day games. Looking only at 1959-62 and that part of 1964 before the trade, it was 3.19 at night and 4.13 in the day.
He finished his career 3.48 in day games and 4.02 at night.
(Splits from Retrosheet)
I just realized that saying “midnight Wednesday” might not have been clear, so I’ll still take ballots today, if anyone’s interested in supplying one today!
I did think “midnight Wednesday” meant midnight tonight!
here’s my vote:
1. Willie Mays
2. Frank Robinson
3. Maury Wills
4. Tommie Davis
5. Henry Aaron
6. Bob Purkey
7. Willie Davis
8. Don Drysdale
9. Turk Farrell
10. Stan Musial
Hey everyone! Here are your results. As always, points are listed, first place votes in parentheses. These are your top 10 in the 15 recorded ballots:
Willie Mays – 195 (12)
Frank Robinson – 140 (2)
Hank Aaron – 113
Tommy Davis – 104 (1)
Maury Wills – 69
Johnny Callison – 43
Bob Purkey – 43
Don Drysdale – 37
Felipe Alou – 31
Turk Farrell – 21
Yet again, Willie Mays is the winner. HHS winners credit Mays with 2 MVPs, which is the same number he won in real life. So if you substitute our voting for the BBWAA’s, Mays would have a lot more hardware – somehow, I’m more than okay with that.
Mays, Robinson, and Aaron were named on all 15 ballots. Mays was in everyone’s top-2. Robinson was in everyone’s top-3. Aaron was in everyone’s top-5. Tommy Davis had the lone 1st-place vote that didn’t go to Mays or Robinson, yet he was left completely off of one of the other ballots, so slotted in at 4th.
The ballot closest to our actual results was probably mine, although I was the only one to include Ernie Banks. Yanks23242’s and Richard Chester’s ballots were pretty good proxies, too, although Richard didn’t use all ten spots.
The remaining players finished as such (if two players had the same score, I used the number of ballots on which they were named as the tie-breaker):
11. Willie Davis (18)
12. Eddie Mathews (16)
13. Ken Boyer and Bob Gibson (11)
15. Stan Musial (7)
16. Jim Davenport (3)
17. Roy Face (3)
18. Orlando Cepeda (2)
19. Frank Howard, Sandy Koufax, and Mickey Haller (2)
22. Vada Pinson and Ernie Banks (1)
Our next post stays in the 60s (we’ll be here a little while, so I hope you don’t mind), but we’re switching leagues – so Willie Mays’s reign of terror WILL come to an end next time! Doug will post when he’s ready, and we’ll have about a week to vote again. I just realized that I forgot to send it to him – I’ve had it done for a LONG time – so I just sent it to him. So it might be a little while. In the meantime, enjoy the delightful playoff baseball we’ve been getting! But when the next post rolls around, I look forward to reading all your ballots and discussion!
Five right fielders getting MVP votes (altho Aaron played more games in center than he did in right that season) plus Clemente, Richie Ashburn & George Altman all made the All-Star team that year. Clemente also got MVP votes in the BBWAA MVP voting.
Robinson
Aaron
Mays
Wills
Purely
Sanford
Boyer