Mike Schmidt
George Brett
Eddie Mathews
Wade Boggs
Brooks Robinson
Ron Santo
Adrian Beltre
Chipper Jones
Paul Molitor
Scott Rolen
Mike Schmidt
Wade Boggs
Jimmy Collins
George Brett
Pie Traynor
Chipper Jones
Eddie Mathews
Brooks Robinson
Scott Rolen
Frank “Home Run” Baker
Alright, here’s my ballot.
Mike Schmidt
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Eddie Mathews
Adrian Beltre
Chipper Jones
Brooks Robinson
Graig Nettles
Home Run Baker
Jimmy Collins
I don’'t know why people are apologizing for picking Graig Nettles. He was an awesome player. The career .248 average isn’t good but he was as good a defensive player as anyone and he hit homers , played in bad hitter’s parks and contributed to championship teams. He helped the PADRES win a pennant. Come on.
Like others, I’m a bit weirded out by the fact that it seems all the greatest third basemen who ever played started after World War II. There is basically no pre-war player who, statistically, is anywhere near Ken Boyer, except Baker, who career is very short. I chose Baker because
- His peak was really high, and
- Being in six World Series and being named “Home Run” because you hit two huge homers off Hall of Famers to win a World Series counts for something.
After that there are like six guys competing for my #10 vote. And as of my writing this sentence I don’t know who it is. Maybe explaining my difficulty will help me decide.
The observations and difficulty about Pie Traynor are all correct. Prior to the realization that Mike Schmidt was going to blow him off the map, Traynor was commonly called the best third baseman ever. I started reading about baseball in 1980 or so, so a lot of the limited resources then were written prior to that and Traynor was the consensus choice as the best third baseman ever, usually above Brooksie and way, way past Ron Santo and Ken Boyer.
In retrospect we know now that Traynor was not a truly great hitter; his numbers were inflated by playing at a time hits were cheap, and he was a one dimensional hitter. Even if you give Traynor a great deal of credit for defense, and I believe he should be given more credit than WAR gives him because contemporary, subjective impressions are probably as accurate as WAR if not more so, he’s not as good a player as Scott Rolen.
**Ray Dandridge **is one of the two major candidates for best Negro League third baseman but he was basically… Pie Traynor, a glove man who didn’t have a lot of power. I don’t think third base is a strong position in Negro League histoory. It is interesting to note Dandridge wasn’t one of the players selected by the original Negro Leagues Committee. True story: Bill Veeck wanted Dandridge badly, and offered him a chance to join MLB in 1947 and he might well have beaten Jackie Robinson to being the first black MLB player. But Dandridge was settled in Mexico and making pretty good coin so he said, nah, I’m good.
Ron Santo has, statistically, the stongest case, with a solid career and incredible peak. If you believe the numbers at his peak he was as good as Mike Schmidt. My problem with this is
- The Cubs had like four guys at the same time who were all Hall of Famers if you goo by the numbers. Why the hell did they never win? and
- Again, the incredible flourishing of third basemen at the time weirds me out.
Jimmy Collins was a 19th century player and I’ve no idea what to do with that, but he was legit a hell of a player. In terms of pre-war players Collins, I think, has a much better case than Pie Traynor.
Scott Rolen is one of those guys who I’m like, really? He was that good? Of course in Toronto he is largely remembered as being the guy the Jays traded to get Edwin Encarnacion, which ranks as a hell of a trade. But you look at the record and he had great years for championship teams.
Judy Johnson is the other Negro League competitor for a spot. Johnson was the first African-American COACH in the majors, which a lot of people don’t know, and was a pretty accomplished scout; he found Dick Allen for the Phillies. Johnson was, like Dandridge, a light-hitting contact guy known for his glove. To be honest, MLB and the Negro Leagues both lack power hitting third basemen prior to the 1950s.
I find it insstructive, in considering Negro League players, to look at what their teammates were doing. Johnson played for the Philadelphia Hilldale Eagles in 1926, at 26 and in his peak; he hit .319 with two homers. He might have been the fifth best hitter on the team. Granted, two of his teammates were Oscar Charleston and Biz Mackey, which is like being a teammate of Ty Cobb and Johnny Bench, but he was also outhit by John Beckwith and Clint Thomas, and the team’s leadoff hitter was Otto Briggs, who was 35 years old. In 1927 he hit .253 while a guy named George Carr, whoever that was, hit .339. Granted in 1925 Johnson put up huge numbers… but so did half a dozen of his Phil-Hilldale teammates. You’d think a Hall of Famer would stand out a little more. You don’t look at George Brett’s teams in his prime and think “I guess this guy was maybe one of the team’s better players, maybe.”
So based on spreading my votes out across history a little I’m going with Collins. I’m not thrilled about it, but whatever.
ETA: I should point out that the Negro Leagues did have at least one legit slugger at third base, Boojum Wilson, but he was an absolutely terrible fielder.
Here is an interesting A / B comparision.
BA .248 / .248
HR 390 / 414
RBI 1314 / 1354
OBP .329 / .361
SLG .421 / .431
OPS+ 110 / 119
Top 20 MVP 3 / 4
A: Graig Nettles
B: Darrell Evans
Believe me, I considered B. However, he wasn’t really a terrific glove man, which is why he played over 40% of his career at first base or DH.
I suspect that except for shortstop this’ll be the most defensively awesome set we elect. And maybe not even then. Who’s the WORST defensive player getting significant support - George Brett? Brett wasn’t Brooks Robinson, but he was a pretty decent fielder. Wade Boggs had a poor reputation early in his career but I always though he was pretty slick out there. Most of the picks are elite defenders - Robinson, Schmidt, and Beltre are all genuinely awesome fielding Gods. Chipper was good enough I guess. Mathews was solid.
Wade Boggs was my absolute all time favorite player when I was a kid. Until he broke my heart and went to the NYY, but even then I didn’t root against him. That said, I always thought of him as an average fielding 3B. He didn’t kill his team in the field, but he sure wasn’t Brooks Robinson, either.
He won a couple gold gloves late in his career with the Yankees, but I thought at the time it was more of a career achievement award for him. For his first GG award in '94 he only started 87 games at 3B.
#1 of course is probably why he had to wait to die to be elected. Not sure why you would want to simply reinforce that myth. And I don’t know if “incredible” is warranted; if chance or the Almighty wants 5 HoF 3B playing at one time, not sure why you would use that against one of the candidates.
In any event, the first answer to your question is that one of said HoFers, Ernie Banks, was no longer playing at a HoF level, averaging around 2.5 WAR per season. The 2nd one, Billy Williams, while perhaps not a mistake, exactly, definitely is in the lower tier of the Hall (and will not go in on our LF ballot). At the time the three played, Santo was the best position player, tho on the pitching side Fergie was probably his equal.
The other answer is that the Cubs struggled to find any other decent players. That ill-fated 1969 squad had exactly 5 position players over 1.0 WAR (note Banks was not one of them). Their pitching fared better (7). I don’t see how what other people do (the Cubs’ brass in this case and their failure to find enough average players) should reflect poorly on Santo.
My apology is, yes, the average and he hung on way too long for the last three years in his last year with the Padres and as essentially an unsuccessful pinch hitter with Expos and Braves.
Also, kind of the perception, at least from my experience as an unabashed Yankees homer, that when talking about the great third basemen of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, he typically tends to get left out a bit when talking about Schmidt and Brett and Robinson and Boggs, etc.
Mike Schmidt
Brooks Robinson
George Brett
Graig Nettles
Wade Boggs
Home Run Baker
Matt Williams
Chipper Jones
Eddie Matthews
Buddy Bell
Mike Schmidt
Graig Nettles
Eddie Mathews
Frank “Home Run” Baker
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Pie Traynor
Chipper Jones
Ron Santo
Brooks Robinson
I see John diFool has partly addressed some aspects of these comments, but I never quite understand this line of argument. I sometimes figure I must be missing something, because it seems that most people (perhaps John excepted) disagree with me… Anyway, it has to do with giving credit to guys whose teams win pennants and debiting the accounts of those who don’t.
Here’s I look at the Nettles/Santo situation as described above.
Graig Nettles had a very nice season for San Diego in 1984. But it wasn’t exactly a season for the ages. By WAR, he was the fifth best position player on the Padres that year, and tied for the eighth best player overall; his 2.3 is not going to knock anybody’s socks off. The Padres won 92 games, which gave them the division going away, as no one else reached .500.
Now, Santo in 1969. Santo was the best of the Cubs’ position players according to WAR; he had 5.5 (the next best was Don Kessinger at 4.0). On the team as a whole, he ranked third after two pitchers. The Cubs won 92 games, which should sound familiar. But because the Mets won 100, no pennant.
So to me, it seems like Graig Nettles is way down on the list of “Why the Padres Won the West in '84.” We could start with Tony Gwynn and his 6.3 WAR and continue with Kevin McReynolds and his 5.1; we could throw in the fact that the rest of the division sucked. And yet–and RickJay is far from the only person I know of to do this–the Padres’ win in 1984 is often seen as Nettles’s doing, and maybe Steve Garvey’s and Goose Gossage’s as well. We give Nettles the credit, and we downplay or forget about Gwynn and McReynolds and the lousy teams that made up the rest of the West, and I really don’t get that.
Whereas, in contrast, it seems like Ron Santo is way up there on the list of “Why the Cubs Nearly Won the East in '69.” Why didn’t the Cubs win? Blame Jim Hickman and Al Spangler, who weren’t any good in right field; blame Don Young and Jimmie Qualls, who made up a pretty big hole in center; blame Ernie Banks for no longer having any knees. Blame Leo Durocher for not giving his players enough rest; blame management for not giving Durocher much of a bench to work with; blame the Mets for having a fluke season. --Or, blame Ron Santo for not singlehandedly making up that eight-game deficit, or something, and I really don’t get that either.
Anyway, from where I sit Santo was a lot better in '69 than Nettles was in '84, and the question of who won the division and who didn’t doesn’t enter into my evaluation of the two players. But as I say, a lot of people certainly do upgrade Nettles and other guys who played for championship teams, and downgrade Santo and those who didn’t; so who knows.
Just one final thought–the Cubs of that era are rightly (IMHO) known as underachievers, but it’s worth noting that they were up against some pretty fierce competition. In '67 and '68, for example, the Cubs were not the only NL team that had four Hall of Famers. The Cardinals, after all, had Gibson, Carlton, Brock, and Cepeda. The Giants had Mays, McCovey, Marichal, and Perry (and they never won anything either except a single division title in 1971). The Braves of the early to mid-sixties couldn’t win with Aaron and Mathews along with Torre, Alou, and others; the Pirates had Clemente and Stargell and Mazeroski (okay, okay, I know), and surrounded them with some fine players too, and they couldn’t break through till 1970. Four future HoFers or no, it’s hard to look back and see too many years in which the Cubs should have been at the top of the league.
Forget the 1984 Padres. The Yankees won the pennant in 1976 and the WS in 1977, and Nettles led both teams in WAR, 8.0 and 5.5 respectively. He was third (5.7) on the 1978 WS winner behind Ron Guidry (9.6) and Willie Randolph (5.8).
I will correct myself-Billy W. is probably in play for LF (BBRef has him as 11th on their JAWS list).
A few plays obviously do not a HOFer make, but as an 11 year old Yankee fan, watching Nettles in the World Series in 1978 cemented him in my mind as a great third baseman.
Link to short YouTube highlight video: Link
Oh, sure, I’m not trying to tear down Nettles in any way. I enjoyed watching him. I think he was probably one of the top 12-15 third basemen ever and if the powers that be want to put him in the HoF (or if we want to put him in our Hall of Fame) I’ve got no problem with that. I was discussing the '84 Padres because that was brought up earlier. Certainly it’s very impressive to be the best player on a World Series team–and to do it twice in a row, as you note Nettles did with the Yankees in 76-77, is even more impressive.
But Santo’s best years were better, and it’s not especially close, even if he wasn’t on a championship team. Nettles’s top five WAR marks: 8.0, 7.5, 5.7, 5.5, 5.5. Santo’s: 9.8, 8.9, 8.9, 7.7, 6.7. The difference in peak value is so great that Santo is ahead in career WAR, 70 to 68, even though he washed out of the league at age 34 and Nettles continued to pick up a couple WAR points a year into his forties. It just makes me think about the role of championships in evaluating players, is all, and I wonder again if using numbers of titles as a yardstick is entirely fair. (Then again, Santo did eventually make the actual Hall of Fame, and Nettles hasn’t…)
You’re right, of course, Santo was the superior player. It feels fine to make a sentimental vote here for a borderline (at best) player like Nettles, but if I had a real HoF vote, I think it would be a no. If his OPS was around .800, then maybe.
You could save Molitor for the multipositional ballot, if you wish, and add Nettles.
I don’t buy it. The Cubs finished 2d 5GB in 1970 w/84Wins, 2d 8GB in '69 w/92W, 3rd in '68 13GB with 84Wins, 3rd 13GB in '67 w/87Wins and nothing even closed to contention from 1959 through 1966. That’s a pretty lousy performance for a team with so many HoFers IMHO.
Again, the question is whether you should hang the responsibility for that onto individual players-I don’t think you ultimately can. As already noted, only 3 were playing at a HoF level during said time period, with none of said seasons anywhere close to the Ruth/Ted Williams/Trout level.
Right. I already said that the Cubs did underachieve to some degree. But what happened to them in 1969, as has been pointed out, had a lot to do with their inability to surround their best players with guys who could play even a little. They were a very good team that year–and they were very good despite getting just about nothing out of right field, center field, and first base. Maybe they “should” have won the division anyway, but it’s hard to succeed when you get so very little production out of three positions.
Here’s a fun year from that period to look at: 1965. (They only had three HoFers at that point; Jenkins hadn’t come aboard yet, so it was just Santo, Williams, and Banks.) Though I grew up in Chicago I wasn’t aware of baseball and the Cubs till about '69, so this is all new to me.
Anyhow: The Cubs were bad that year–they went 72-90, finishing eighth. Their two best players, on the other hand, were pretty damn good. Williams had a WAR of 7.7. Santo also had a WAR of 7.7. Not bad, right?
(Well…not just “not bad.” Not just “pretty damn good.” Players currently on the HoF ballot who never had a season as high as 7.7 WAR include Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, Fred McGriff, Jeff Kent, and Ivan Rodriguez. Only three of those guys–Raines, Guerrero, and Ramirez, once each–ever got above 7.2, half a point away. So: both Williams and Santo, by this measure, had better seasons in 1965 than any of these eight guys EVER had.)
Bottom line: Williams and Santo, each playing above the capacities of a strong Hall of Fame candidate, together accounted for 15.4 WAR. Yet the Cubs as a team had a total offensive WAR that season of…12.8. Banks was only at 1.9, and somebody named Don Landrum was at 1.8, and everybody else was barely over 0 or, quite often, under it: 0.3, -0.6, -1.0, 0.2, 0.5, -0.4, -0.8, and on and on and on. A chunk of what Williams and Santo contributed was taken away by a bunch of guys who had dismal seasons.
The pitchers weren’t that bad, but they weren’t great either. The best two WAR totals (3.2 and 2.9) were turned in by relievers, which probably isn’t a great sign…
Well, I can’t imagine blaming that 72-90 record on Williams and Santo. I can’t imagine what anyone expected or wanted those two guys to do that year to get the Cubs into contention. What they needed was to stop being surrounded by teammates who were has-beens and never-wases and not-ready-for-the-big-times. I think if you look at it closely, you’ll see that this is basically the story of the Cubs in that era.