But that’s hardly a sign of his versatility, is it? If he has to play a position that doesn’t require a strong throwing arm, he’s not doing a service for the team, it’s doing him a service. What you’re saying is that because Musial couldn’t throw well, and some seasons could hardly throw at all, he should be credited as a defensive wizard. That makes no sense at all. Mays OTOH had one of the strongest and most accurate throwing arms in the history of baseball, as well as footspeed (something that helps on both offense and defense) far in excess of Musial’s. Otherwise they were pretty much the same ballplayer, but I don;t understand why you’re not counting Mays’ clear advantages as clear advantages.
There is very little provable in baseball defense. Fielding percentage, assists and personal observations…that’s about all there is. In Musial’s case he has one of the hightest fielding percentage of all time to support his value.
Oh yes he was. The difference is that he played instead of setting out the game. That’s why he was so valuable.
Playing 4 different positions on a day in day out basis was hard too…especially when a lot of it was PLATOONING…even during the game.
You got that right…and about 99% at CF.
During their respective careers, Musial’ Cards won 1803 games and Mays’ Giants won 1685. Could have been do to lots of reasons but I’m guessing neither team’s wins would have been as great without Musial and Mays on their teams. But I like your idea about other players that were on the teams. The Cards were able to keep their best hitter in the line-up by alternating his defensive position and bring in a better offensive or defensive match-up against the opponent. I think you’re starting to get the idea of Musial’s worth.
Am I not suppose to conclude my agrument in a way that supports my argument???
Take a 39 year old player who’s played more than 1,000 games at first base, including almost all of his three previous season, put him back in the outfield where he plays four more seasons and you say “that’s hardly a sign of his versatility”? If the Cardinals were merely “doing him a service” why didn’t they let Musial play out his career at first base, especially with his “fielding limitations, mostly, and less than spectacular footspeed”?
I have the utmost respect for Willie Mays. Look at the very first post I made in this thread.
Hell, I even provided a cite!
The only thing I object to is the undertone that Musial was, at best, only an average defensive player.
[QUOTE=Charlie Noble]
In Musial’s case he has one of the hightest fielding percentage of all time to support his value.
[/QUOTE]
You keep saying this but it’s not true. Musial’s fielding percentage as an outfielder isn’t even in the top 200 fielding percentages of all time. His fielding percentage as a first baseman isn’t in the top hundred.
He was sure a lot better than average, but “one of the highest fielding percentages of all time” is a wild stretch of the facts when he’s not even cracking the top 100/200.
The record holder for outfielders, in case anyone cares, is Darin Erstad, and for first basemen is Casey Kotchman, which I think says more about the validity of fielding percentage as a metric at the major league level than it does about the defensive immortality of Darin Erstad or Casey Kotchman.
I’ve noted a number of times that Musial was not an average defensive player. He was clearly above average at both first base and left field, where he played most of his career.
Again, it is not a shot or an insult to Musial to note that he wasn’t the defensive player Willie Mays was, just as it is hardly an insult to Alex Rodriguez to admit that he doesn’t have the glove Ozzie Smith did, or that Chipper Jones is not the glove wizard Brooks Robinson was.
And like it or not, the fact Musial wasn’t pinned to a defensive position, especially a hard defensive position, IS a valid point in discussing whether Musial was an elite, rather than just useful, fielder. If you look at a list of the game’s truly elite defensive players in modern times, almost all of them played the same position for almost their entire career. You can assemble the list any way you want - by any fielding metric, by Gold Gloves, or just by constructing a list of players noted for their defensive genius. Ozzie Smith, Brooks Robinson, Frank White, Tris Speaker, Mark Belanger, Clete Boyer, Graig Nettles, Dave Concepcion, Mazeroski, Schmidt… all those guys either stuck to one position or switched only when they were too old to play it anymore. It’s perfectly valid to ask “hey, if Musial was as good a fielder as Mays, why the hell would they waste his time at first base?”
Which is a far more fair assessment than some others in this thread have made.
When Mays was tried at 1B at age 40 he basically couldn’t handle it…footwork and excessive errors (15 in 709 chances - .974 FPC). Not being able to play 1B no doubt shortened Mays career from 40 on, appearing in only 242 more games (Musial played in 382 at 40 and beyond.)
But how ironic it is for this thread. After mocking Musial because he played one of the “weakest positions” at 1B (and OF corners). Mays moves to 1B and fails at age 40. Meanwhile Musial returns to the OF at age 40 for his last 3 years and registers a .980 FPC with16 assists…and all this with a bum arm.
And think about this: At age 42, injured and aging, Musial finishes 3rd in the batting title race registering a .330 BA; .416 OPS; .508 SLG.
Stan the Man, for sure!
If you check my early posts I qualified that claim about Musial stating “for any fielder playing in 2500 games or more”. I just got tired having to constantly repeating the same old qualification. See my post #18 and I’m sure there are more.
Musial’s lowest fiedling percentage was RF where his FCP was .981 which matches Mays career FPC at CF. Think about that, Musial is bouncing all over the field at defensive positions and his worst rate of fielding errors matches Mays’ career rate.
Mays was great at CF, Musial was great at 4 positions. But go ahead an insult Musial because that is about all there is left to do.
Musial was an elite at multiple positions which puts him in a very unique category of players. It’s that simple.
I know what you mean kunilou, Musial has just been pounded in the thread.
Hope you’re not including me in that grouping. I’ll happily concede that Musial was a better than average 1B-man and LFer. But you need to concede that the value of playing these positions well is lesser than playing CF well, and MUCH less than playing CF superlatively.
If Jack Buck says that Mays is the best, and no one saw Stan play more games than Jack Buck, why isn’t that good enough for you?
Charlie–you need to look at the norms for each position. 1B is the easiest position to play, and has the highest fielding position, mainly because most of the catches of the 1Bman makes are routine tosses from an infielder. The correct comparison is to fielding percentage (which is much less useful than range) at the same position. Otherwise you’re comparing apples to tangerines.
In the last years of Stan’s career, the Cardinals had a Gold Glover at 1b, Bill White, and no decent left fielder. LF is the next easiest position to play so they stuck him there, to keep his bat in the lineup.
Charlie–another way for you to look at this discussion is in terms of what you seek to prove: you’re arguing like Stan’s advocate, with the goal of persuading everyone that he was a better player than Willie Mays, which is certainly not the majority opinion. I think RickJay and I (and most other Mays advocates) would be happy to shown that you’re right and we’re wrong, while you won’t accept Mays’ superiority under any circumstances.
As I see it, to demonstrate Musial’s superiority, you would need to show that he contributed offensively to such a greater than Mays that his superiotity far outweighs Mays’ advantages on defense and on the basepaths, where Mays is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest players ever, while Stan’s reputation is merely as a above average player. You haven’t done this yet.
Your other course would be to show that Stan’s defensive ability is better than most people contend. So far, your claims here rest on fielding percentage (which as I show above are NOT comparable between positions) and on versatility, which would be more impressive if he had shuttled between more difficult fielding positions, and if he had been shuttled (which is what I think you meant by “platooned”) due to his skill rather than his lack of skill. For example, he was moved from the OF to 1B because he had an injured throwing arm–this is a defect in his game, yet you try to make the case that this is somehow to his advantage.
But overall you would do better to argue as if your opponents were willing to have our minds persuaded by persuasive evidence, which we are, rather than as people who have their minds made up.
Pfft…Mays? Musial? They all pale in the comparison to the greatness that was Steve Jeltz.
Indeed, Musial was very sure handed. Nobody doubts it; the guy had great hands.
Nobody’s insulting Musial. You need to consider PRR’s points made in the previous posts.
Believe me, and I say this with total sincerity; if you made a convincing argument Musial was greater than Mays I’d completely buy it.
Strangely, nobody at the time thought Musial was an elite defensive player, and you’ve not made the case to the contrary.
Musial was a very good defensive player. “Great,” meaning a glove man of truly remarkable proportions, I just don’t see the evidence for. He had excellent hands; his range and arm were nothing special and he did not, aside from the little time he spent in center, play the hard-to-fill positions. His flexibility DID give him some added value but not enough, from what I can see, to rank him as an all-time great.
WAR ranks Musial as about the 148th most valuable defensive player of all time, in terms of career value. I think that’s fair. 149th is a lot better than it sounds - by way of comparison the 149th most valuable hitter of all time is Fred Lynn, who was a hell of a hitter but nobody thinks of him as being in the same class as Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Stan Musial.
Now, you might think 149th is low, and you may well be right. Maybe he’s really more like 115th. But he wasn’t top ten. And that’s no insult.
And where would they stick Mays in the last years of his career?
[I’m leaving town for a couple of days, so no post until back. Keep the discussion going…]
Where does Mays rank?
Thanks, and who the hell is Germany Smith???
and not to further hijack my own thread, but Cal Ripken is much higher than I would have thought.
According to baseball-refernece:
- Brooks Robinson
- Andruw Jones
- Roberto Clemente
- Ozzie Smith
- Mark Belanger
- Barry Bonds
- Carl Yastrzemski
- Germany Smith (19th century player)
- Willie Mays
- Cal Ripken Jr.
I know the Ripken ranking surprises people, but he was, in my honest opinion, a much better defensive player than he is given credit for. In his prime he was a sensational shortstop and IMHO was robbed of a number of Gold Gloves - and that’s a lot for me to sday because one of my favourite players, Tony Fernandez, stole some of them. Ripken didn’t fit the traditional mold of a shortstop and didn’t play it the way Ozzie or Tony did - Ripken played incredibly deep, deeper than anyone else could, nad used the best arm I’ve ever seen on an infielder to make up for it. He was excellent at it. So you have a solid shortstop/third baseman playing for years and years… it adds up.
According to Fangraphs:
- Brooks Robinson
- Andruw Jones
- Mark Belanger
- Ozzie Smith
- Roberto Clemente
- Barry Bonds
- Willie Mays
- Carl Yastrzemski
- Cal Ripken
- Joe Tinker
You generally see the same names at the top of both lists. I won’t bother digging up the Win Shares numbers because they’re too hard to find and I lost my copy of the book, but it was substantially difference in terms of whom made the top 10; Win Shares doesn’t put as many corner outfielders in the top (it drops Musial lower as well, IIRC) because Win Shares places more emphasis on positional value. Fangraphs separates positional value out from its calculations; if there is an easy way to separate them I cannot find it, but just eyeballing it, it drops all corner outfielders way out of the top 10 and pushes up middle infielders, third basemen, and catchers, while leaving center fielders alone. If you adjust for Fangraph’s positional scores top top ten are all infielders and Ivan Rodriguez.
Personally I’m actually okay with that assessment; I think middle infielders are vastly more valuable than outfielders.
I’m not totally sold on WAR for fielders, I should point out, and in other threads I have questioned its accuracy for particular fielders in particular seasons. However, overall, the various methods keep returning the same results. You don’t see any methods that anyone accepts anymore claiming Broosk Robinson sucked and that Bobby Bonilla was a great fielder. You can then argue strenuously over positional differences; I really, really do not believe Barry Bonds was one of the ten best defensive players of all time. He was a terrific left fielder but he was still a left fielder who amassed high WAR numbers in seasons when the NL just happened to have a lot of weak fielders stuck there, something Fangraphs tries to adjust for with its positional rating.