Legendary lineups

That (1927) was my last season. I knew it would be. So I just sat back on the bench and watched the Waners go to it. Boy, that’s the way for an old guy to pass the time of day. Watching two beautiful ballplayers like Paul and Lloyd starting out on what you just know are going to be real great careers.
Heinie Groh, The Glory of Their Times

Fandom has several aspects. We can bask in seasonal glory—batting titles, Cy Youngs, winning 11 games in October—but I think we also want to watch players who’re making a mark on the game, creating a legacy. Unlikely heroes are fun, but we really want to see as much as possible of the guys our grandkids are going to ask us about. I wondered: Which team had the greatest concentration of legends? What’s the most significant lineup of all time?

The method

One big caveat to start with: My unit of measurement here is plate appearances, as opposed to WAR or another value-based stat. The calculations were much easier, and I also think it’s actually the best way to quantify what I’m looking for; “impact on the game” feels at least as much a function of service time as value delivered. That said, as soon as I figure out how to get WAR integrated into my databases, I’ll probably run the numbers a second time.

For every team since 1871, I figured the lifetime plate appearances of the players on the roster and turned that into a weighted average, something like so:

Name           PA for the '89 Isotopes  Lifetime PA   Former * latter
A. Aaronson                      400       8,000       3,200,000
Hans Moleman                     200       6,000       1,200,000
Zukowski                         100       4,000         400,000
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Team Totals                      700                   4,800,000 

I then divided the index by the current year plate appearances (4,800,000 divided by 700) to derive a “Significance Score” for the team (in this case, 6,857).

I used this approach, instead of simply calculating lifetime plate appearances, to give some weight to playing time in the current year. The weighted average means that, for example, Cal Ripken and his 12,883 lifetime PA have virtually no effect on the total of the 1981 Orioles, because he only had a cup of coffee that year.

Now, Stargell Stars for anyone who thought this metric might need some normalization. Here’s a graph of every team and its Significance totals:

image

To paraphrase a purple dinosaur, Sally the scatterplot has two humps. There’s a general upward trend, presumably due to improved health and conditioning causing longer careers, but also a pronounced dip surrounding World War II, when the typical team was playing guys who couldn’t find the batter’s box with both hands and a flashlight.

I decided the best idea was to divide the sample into two halves, 1871-1945 and 1946-2010, and give leader boards for each. When I looked at these lists, I realized that a bunch of teams had “repeats” a slot or two below, which makes sense, given that rosters generally don’t turn over too quickly. It also means that Top 10 lists for the two historical eras comprise only six and four distinct teams respectively. Without further kerfuffle:

1871-1945

9. 1916 Tigers
87-67, third in AL
Hall-of-Famers: Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Harry Heilmann
Cobb finished second to Tris Speaker in the batting race this year; if not for 1916 and the venomously disputed 1910 results, he’d have won every single batting title from 1907 to 1919.

6. 1889 White Stockings (Cubs)
67-65, third in NL
Hall-of-Famers: Cap Anson, Hugh Duffy
This team essentially played ball for a year and a half straight, due to Albert Spalding’s “globe-spanning goodwill tour,” and its 1889 record may indicate that the players’ tongues were hanging a bit.

5. 1940 Red Sox (1938 No. 8)
82-72, fourth in AL
Hall-of-Famers: Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams
A fairly unremarkable year for this bunch. However, Foxx’s last home run of the season was his 500th, a number which only Babe Ruth had reached previously.

3. 1933 Senators (1929 No. 4)
99-53, lost World Series
Hall-of-Famers: Joe Cronin, Goose Goslin, Heinie Manush, Sam Rice
This was the 26-year-old Cronin’s rookie year as manager, and just as “boy wonder” Bucky Harris had done in 1924, he piloted Washington to a World Series against the Giants, falling just short of a championship.

2. 1933 Yankees (1932 No. 7)
91-59, second in AL
Hall-of-Famers: Earle Combs, Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Babe Ruth, Joe Sewell
Murderer’s Row at last; there can’t be too many teams that ran six Hall-of-Famers out on the field every day.

1. 1900 Superbas (Dodgers) (1899 No. 10)
82-54, first in NL (won unofficial postseason series)
Hall-of-Famers: Hughie Jennings, Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley
The National League shrunk from 12 teams to 8 for the 1900 season, causing a glut of good players. Bill Dahlen should’ve gotten a plaque in Cooperstown years ago, and Jimmy Sheckard and Fielder Jones wouldn’t be embarrassments either.

1946-2010

5. 1982 Angels
93-69, lost ALCS
Hall-of-Famers: Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson
Reggie won the home run title in his first year with California, and there were three other former MVPs (Carew, Fred Lynn, and Don Baylor) rounding out the supporting cast.

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

3. 1996 Orioles (1998 No. 7)
88-74, lost ALCS
Hall-of-Famers: Roberto Alomar, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken
Murray came over midseason in a trade with the No. 1 team on this list; the O’s were bumped from the playoffs by the yin to Steve Bartman’s yang.

2. 1976 Reds (1974 No. 4, 1975 No. 8, 1977 No. 9)
102-60, won World Series
Hall-of-Famers: Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez
The most famous Machine this side of Brian Wilson’s parlor.

1. 1996 Indians (1997 No. 6, 1995 No. 10)
99-62, lost ALDS
Hall-of-Famers: Eddie Murray
A mind-boggling lineup; youngsters Brian Giles and Jeff Kent were on the bench. The amazing thing is, Omar Vizquel and Jim Thome are still accumulating significance today.

Astute readers might’ve noticed another feature of the scatterplot from earlier—teams on the ends of the timeline are much less significant, because their players have only one side of history on which to rack up playing time. In Part 2 of this series, we’ll look at prior and future PA totals, which will allow these teams on the margins to get in on the action (spoiler alert: The Cleveland Spiders weren’t always terrible). See you next time!


11 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jim C
12 years ago

Check the roster for the Senators in 1927. The starting outfield is all in the Hall, as well as Bucky Harris, Walter Johnson, and Stan Coveleski, though this was the final roundup for the Big Train and Coveleski, they did play on the team.

David P Stokes
12 years ago

It would be interesting to see a similar list for pitching staffs (probably should go by innings pitched, to parellel the use of PA for the batting lineup), and then somehow combine the two.

Richard Kenno
12 years ago

Very interesting, thank you. I agree with David Stokes, it would be interesting to see a comparison of pitching staffs to arrive at the top teams combining both hitting and pitching. I was also curious as to what teams came up having had the least legendary or remarkable lineups.

John Britt
12 years ago

Jim: Absolutely; the Senators from roughly 1923-1933 had a lineup full of famous names, and the ‘27 team is #14 on my list.  I’d forgotten Tris Speaker played a year there.

David/Richard: Coming right up in Part 2.  Mets and Dodgers fans will have something to celebrate.

Tyrus
12 years ago

If you only considered career impact and ignored the current season, the 1927 A’s had an incredible collection of legends:

– Ty Cobb
– Lefty Grove
– Jimmie Foxx
– Eddie Collins
– Rube Walberg
– Mickey Cochrane
– Al Simmons
– Zack Wheat

Of course, many were at the very end or beginning of their careers; Cobb was 40 (and had a 134 OPS+!) and Foxx was 19. But I doubt so much talent every shared a locker room.

Tyrus
12 years ago

Isn’t there another legend who should be mentioned with the 1970s Reds, even though he’ll never make the Hall of Fame?

Bobby A
12 years ago

Very nice post, John. Thank you.

I am neither an Angels nor Bobby Grich fan, but my first thought when seeing the ‘82 Angels with no mention of Grich was that he was overlooked, yet again.

It’s unfortunate. He has an interesting hall of fame case, with no chance of it ever mattering.

John Britt
12 years ago

– And after his Senators stint, Speaker’s last stop was the ‘28 A’s.  Six men had gotten 3000 hits by 1928, and Connie Mack had three of them at once.

– Listen, I’m as big an Ed Armbrister fan as the next guy, but… oh.

Ted M
12 years ago

And in 1928, the A’s lost Wheat, but picked up Speaker.  Admittedly, Cobb, Speaker and Collins combined only put up about 650 plate appearances,and really only Simmons, Grove and Cochrane were in their primes but that’s still a ton of talent. 

I’ve always said that if I could go back in time, I’d want to see a 1928 A’s vs Yankees game.  Many of them may not have been in their prime or even played a whole lot, but there’s more inner circle and HOF talent on those two rosters than any others that I can think of.

A’s have Cobb, Speaker, Collins, Grove, Foxx, Cochrane, & Simmons, and Mack managing.

Yankess have Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Dickey, Durocher, Hoyt, Pennock & Coveleski (27 Senators weren’t quite the final round-up), with Huggins managing.

So, between the two teams, 15 Hall of Famers, including (it could be argued) the greatest player of all time, the 2 greatest first basemen of all time, 2 of the top 5 center fielders of all time, 2 of the top 10 catchers of all time, one of the top 3 second basemen of all time, and one of the top few pitchers of all time.

Jacob Rothberg
12 years ago

Colour me surprised that the ‘93 Jays don’t show up on this list.

Jim C
12 years ago

If good information could be found, I bet some of the lineups of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, KC Monarchs, Homestead Grays, and others should make the list.