Mailbag: The Dead Ball Era Player Rankings
February 23, 2007
Dylan Jasper:
Can you explain why Mathewson rates so low on your list? 30, with
Vaughan, Robinson, and Morgan in front?
Keith:
Dylan,
I feel that there were too many dominant pitchers during the dead ball era to
consider Mathewson a Top 20 player. Young, Brown, Walsh, Plank, Waddell, and
Joss all had excellent runs themselves. Plus, as fantastic as his 2.13 ERA
looks, remember that unearned runs were quite common in that period. His 3.04
RA is far more mortal.
I've actually been moving Mathewson down in recent years as Clemens, Maddux,
Pedro, and The Big Unit have displayed more longevity than Mathewson. Comparing
pitchers to position players can be tricky, but I certainly don't think it
appropriate to have nine pitchers among my top 25.
I give Vaughan, Wagner, and A-Rod special props for being so very much better
than the fourth best shortstop of all time, whomever you consider that to be.
F-Rob and Morgan were fantastic all-around offensive players in a difficult era
for hitters. I often feel that I have Robinson ranked too low.
Thanks for the question, and I'd love to hear your defense of Mathewson.
Dylan Jasper:
I understand not wanting to bog down the top 30 with too
many players from one position or era for that matter. And I
recognize that Mathewson is no Walter Johnson, like the New
York sports writers of his time liked to do. But to discount
his 372 wins and four 30+ win seasons due to playing for a
good ball club (Giants played .591 ball during his time with
them) can be problematic. Like you said he had an
unbelievable world series ERA, much due to throwing three
shutouts in the 1905 world series! From his first full
season of 1901 to 1914 he never posted an ERA over 3.00. He
also had posted an ERA+ ratio over 200 twice in his career,
something that took all the other pitchers you
mentioned, Waddell, Young, Mordecai, Plank, Walsh, Joss
combined to match. Also players like Walsh, Joss, and
Waddell didn't have the longevity that Mathewson
did. Plank is probably underrated as I never hear is name
brought up when speaking of all time great pitchers but did
in fact have a very productive career. You have Cy Young
ranked 14, a full 16 spots ahead. Cy Young was an ace but he
was rarely the dominant pitcher of the league for all his
years. In fact he had years which relatively weren't
dominant. I don't feel that Mathewson should be
penalized all the way down to number 30 just because he
played for a good ball team and there are other pitchers who
had excellent careers.
As for Johnson, I feel that I could make a strong case for
Walter Johnson being ranked perhaps even ahead of Cobb, it
just depends on what you value more.
I also think more credit should be given to Lajoie. He burst
into the ML and performed immediately, while still driving a
cab about town. A peak season of .422 (.426?) in 1901. And
after leaving the Phillies for Clevelend he was credited for
a mere .405 average as result of a careless statistician of
the day who recorded 220 hits instead of the correct figure
of 229. Although lacking the speed of Cobb. His stats show
Lajoie among the best all-time in putouts,
putouts per game , assists, and double plays. And this was
when fielders used barely larger then hand sized gloves. He
finished with a much lower .338 BA then he should have due
to playing his last three years of a 20 year career well
below his career standard, batting .258 .280 and .246. and
if not for those last three years I believe he would have
finished with a slugging % over .500 and an OBP over
.400 about equal with Cobb. Point is if Cobb is ranked
second, Lajoie should be a bit more respected. Thanks for
writing back, and the list is informative to see what others
think and value.
Keith:
Dylan, I'm certain that I never pooh-poohed Christy's winning percentage; his
Wins Above Team total is the fourth highest of all time. You can tell from my
rankings that I would never rank a 3-Finger Brown ahead of Mathewson, only
note that Christy perhaps didn't stand out from his contemporaries as much as a
Tom Seaver did.
You make a good point about his longevity, then compare him to Cy Young... Cy
will make every pitcher look bad in that comparison. As for dominance, Young's
career ERA+ is higher than Christy's, so I'm not sure where you're going with
that, either. Mathewson did lead his league in ERA and strikeouts more times,
but Young led his league more often in wins, win percentage, innings, complete
games, shutouts, BAA, OBPA, WHIP, BB/9, and pitching runs.
The problem we have with LaJoie's 1901 season (I say we because this is one
of the few things we agree on at BaseballEvolution.com), is that it came before
the foul-strike rule was employed in the AL. To top it off, the 1901 AL was the
most extreme expansion year of all time (excluding the Federal League years),
meaning Nap was feasting on some very diluted pitching. Obviously, he still had
some fantastic seasons after the foul-strike rule was finally adopted in 1903,
but you seem to be slightly mislead by his 1901 numbers.
As a point on analysis, if you're going to throw away LaJoie's three worst
seasons, you need to do the same for Cobb, Morgan, or any other player you're
comparing him to. Not that Cobb had any bad seasons, nor would Lajoie's numbers
even approach Cobb's if you performed that unjust analysis.
Defensively, LaJoie was one of the best 2B ever, but one correction: he was
not even close to being among the best all time in double plays. In fact, both
Bill Mazeroski and Nellie Fox had over 50% more career double plays than Nap.
The game was played much differently in LaJoie's time. The prevalence of
sacrifice hits and steals meant a higher putout rate and lower double play rate
for every second baseman. You need to adjust these things for era just as you
would ERA or OPS. But since it takes much more skill to turn a double play than
it does to record a putout, second base defense is much more important today
than it was 100 years ago.
We love getting feedback like this, and if you ever put together a top 100
list of your own, we'd be happy to publish it on our site. Our staff comes out
with updated lists every year at the All Star break.
Disagree with something? Got something to add? Wanna bring up something totally new? Keith resides in Chicago, Illinois and can be reached atkeith@baseballevolution.com.