Career stats adjusted for military service

[the 'stache]

I've often looked at some of the greats of the game who lost playing time to military service, and wondered what their numbers would have looked like had their careers not been interrupted. Last night, I selected four Hall of Fame players to examine: Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Hank Greenberg and Joe DiMaggio. Using their career numbers, obtained from Baseball Reference, and a spreadsheet I designed in Microsoft Excel, I set out to forecast their career numbers based on their averages immediately before and after their military service.

Of the four players, I must admit that Ted Williams intrigued me the most. He's considered by many (myself included) the best pure hitter to ever play the game. He combined a spectacular natural ability with a tireless work ethic. He studied opposing pitchers, and memorized what they threw in different situations. He took a scientific approach to the art of hitting, perfecting his swing, making sure that his bats were made to his exact specifications. Williams served his country twice, in World War II, and as a naval aviator for the Marines in the Korean War (where he saw combat). I used the two seasons immediately before and after each tour to approximate what his numbers would have been in the time he missed. Of course, there is no way of knowing what he would have done. He could have easily outperformed these numbers. Or, he could have gotten hurt. And there's no telling how long he would have played if he'd not been called to active duty. He might have stopped playing well before 1960. This model assumes constant production.



The next player I examined was Joe DiMaggio. DiMaggio missed 3 full seasons in the prime of his career, between ages 28 and 30. However, the two seasons immediately before and after his service do not come close to meeting his career peaks in performance. It's easy to assume that the numbers he'd have produced for these three years would have been better than the ones I've added. But the baseline increase to his career figures are still quite impressive.



Hank Greenberg was one of the greatest power hitters of his generation. He lost four and a half years of his career, and like DiMaggio, those seasons were in his prime. Greenberg is one of the greatest run producers in the game's history, driving in 1,276 runs in only 1,394 games, meaning he drove in a run in 91% of the games he played. With the addition of these games he missed to military service, he surely would have made the 500 home run club.



Finally, we have Bob Feller, the first Major League baseball player who signed up for military service after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Feller is one of the greatest power pitchers to ever play the game, making his Major League debut as a fireballing 17 year old in 1936. His military service cost Feller 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts. While he made the Hall of Fame, there's no doubt that his career numbers would have put him with the greatest pitchers of all time if he'd had those nearly four years in his prime. His military service interrupted a run of five consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins. He averaged 24.4 wins a season.



There are certainly other players who have lost time to military service. Willie Mays, who was a rookie in 1951, lost more than 250 games to military service. It's quite possible that he would have hit 700 home runs, and driven in over 2,000 runs.

What other players can you think of that had their career numbers diminished by their military service?

[clydepepper]

Bill-

That is fine work. You picked the right four to examine.

I suggest Warren Spahn, whose career was not interrupted in the middle, but just as he got to the Majors. Three full years lost including a Battle of the Bulge Purple Heart.

I may be trickier to predict what he would have done with the lost time.

Again, fascinating work - we appreciate it.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Bill-

That is fine work. You picked the right four to examine.

I suggest Warren Spahn, whose career was not interrupted in the middle, but just as he got to the Majors. Three full years lost including a Battle of the Bulge Purple Heart.

I may be trickier to predict what he would have done with the lost time.

Again, fascinating work - we appreciate it.

Thank you, Raymond.

Spahn would be very tricky, yet interesting. Could he have picked up 37 wins in those three seasons, and make it to 400? Maybe. He won 20 or more games 13 times, and he was a 20 game winner as early as 1947. If he'd pitched those three years, though, would he have played as long as he did?

[CW]

Interesting analysis!

I'm not sure how much his career was cut short, but how about Mathewson?

[Jim65]

Very interesting reading.

[howard38]

Johnny Mize merits a look. He was nearly as good as Greenberg (he is Greenberg's most comparable player according to Mlb-ref.com) and lost three prime years during the war. He likely would have finished with over 450 HRs and around 1,700 RBIs.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by howard38

Johnny Mize merits a look. He was nearly as good as Greenberg (he is Greenberg's most comparable player according to Mlb-ref.com) and lost three prime years during the war. He likely would have finished with over 450 HRs and around 1,700 RBIs.

It's funny that I didn't catch that Johnny Mize had missed years in his prime, as I was looking at his career stats on Baseball reference about a week ago.

I took Johnny's seasonal averages from 1941 to 1948. Usually I will average based on the two full seasons prior to and after military service, but 1946 was a pitching dominated season. Mize only hit 22 home runs, but league leader Ralph Kiner only had 23. So, while he was outstanding for that season, I felt another season after his service should be included to normalize his power production. Otherwise, Mize would have had seasonal home runs of 16, 26, 22 and 51. I added his 1948 season with 40 home runs to come up with averages that were more representational of Mize's power capabilities.

Mize has always fascinated me. He and Carl Yastrzemski are the only players in Major League history to have three seasons of 40 or more home runs, but then no other seasons with over 30. He never ended a season with between 31 and 39 home runs. But, Mize had prodigious power. He holds the Major League record with six three home run games. That's impressive. And I feel that had he played those three years of his prime, he'd likely have had another season with about 40 home runs, and another two in the mid twenties or slightly higher.

Here are his adjusted career numbers then.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by CW

Interesting analysis!

I'm not sure how much his career was cut short, but how about Mathewson?

Christy Mathewson's career was already in decline when he was traded from the Giants to the Reds (along with fellow future Hall of Famer Edd Roush). He made a commitment to them to manage for three years. He pitched in one game for the Reds in 1916, then retired after the season. He was a full time manager for 1917, and the first 118 games of 1918. Mathewson enlisted late in the fall of 1918. By then he'd retired as a baseball player, so his career numbers were in no way affected by the war.

[almostdone]

Very fascinating Bill. I have looked at this before with Williams but not the others and not to the extent that you did. Thank you.
I know he didn't miss as much playing time in WWII as the others but I have wondered what Stan Musial's final numbers would have been. Maybe in the 500 hr club? Or perhaps even that much closer to 4000 hits, although I think that would be a bigger stretch.
Also I wonder about one of my all time favorites, although not the power hitter like the others, Pee Wee Reese?
Drew

[veleno45]

Awesome stats Bill. I love the topic. I wonder if there were "2nd tier" players that could have made a HOF run if their stats were there those years. A player like Johnny Pesky comes to mind. He lost 3 out of his 1st 4 years due to service, yet led the AL in hits his 1st 3 years playing. If you insert those missing 3 years that is a pretty good resume for a non-power hitter.

[the 'stache]

Ok, so we're looking at:

Musial
Reese
Pesky

Give me some other suggestions, guys, and I'll look them over tonight.

[CW]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Christy Mathewson's career was already in decline when he was traded from the Giants to the Reds (along with fellow future Hall of Famer Edd Roush). He made a commitment to them to manage for three years. He pitched in one game for the Reds in 1916, then retired after the season. He was a full time manager for 1917, and the first 118 games of 1918. Mathewson enlisted late in the fall of 1918. By then he'd retired as a baseball player, so his career numbers were in no way affected by the war.

Ah, gotcha. Very interesting -- will look forward to more analysis.

[the 'stache]

Ok, I'm signed up with Imageshack again. I'm used to their format, so it's not worth wasting my time looking around.

Musial's interesting. The season he missed was 1945. Musial was already a superstar by this point in his career, but he had not yet found his home run swing. He wouldn't hit more than 20 home runs in a season until 1948 (the year he exploded for 39), and he only hit a combined 60 home runs in the two seasons before and after his military service. So, there's virtually no chance he'd have hit 25 home runs that missed season. But, if he'd have played that '45 season, maybe he finds his home run swing before 1948.

We don't know for sure if his home run power resulted from a changed approach at the plate, or just because he matured more physically. One thing we know. He was already putting up spectacular extra base hit numbers prior to his home run surge-68 doubles and triples in 1943, 65 in 1944 and a whopping 70 in 1946. Sometimes it's a simple adjustment at the plate that helps a player find their power. That's what happened with Robin Yount. He'd certainly matured physically, and the decision to do weight training increased his strength. But it was a slight adjustment in his swing that ultimately helped him become a home run threat. The starting position of his hands were lowered considerably, and a shortstop that averaged 7 home runs for every 162 games played between 1974 and 1979 became a superstar that averaged 22 home runs per 162 games played between 1980 and 1985. Like Yount, a subtle change to the positioning of Musial's legs, or his hands, could have provided more loft to the fly balls he was hitting. So while Musial might have only hit 16 or 17 home runs in the season he missed, I believe he would have had a slight increase to his home run totals the next few seasons, and I think it's not at all a stretch to think he'd have hit 500 home runs. People talk about his compiling 1,815 hits at home, and 1,815 hits on the road. But if you look at his run production, those numbers are also remarkably similar. He scored 1,949 runs and drove in 1,951 runs. He certainly would have crossed 2,000 in each category.

Tonight, I will project Musial's adjusted career numbers, as well as those for Pee Wee Reese and Johnny Pesky. Pesky is one of my favorite all-time Red Sox, and I also think he's one of the most overlooked great players in the team's history. It will be a treat to see where his numbers might have ended up. If you guys have any other suggested players, I'd be happy to start looking at them, too.

Just as an aside, while looking at Musial's career stats, his power surge I think is too often overlooked. I already believe that Stan Musial's 1948 season is one of the five greatest offensive performances in baseball history. As far as complete statistical domination goes, nobody has matched what Musial did that year.

Nobody in the modern era has ever led their league in runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, average, on base, slugging, OPS, and total bases in the same season. Musial fell 1 home run short of doing just that. Only Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize, who each hit 40 home runs, kept "the Man" from achieving something that we may never see. Musial was simply sensational in 1948. He scored 135 runs, had 230 hits, including 103 extra base hits (46 doubles, 18 triples, 39 home runs). He drove in 131 runs, led the NL hitting .376 with a .450 OBP and a .702 SLG. His OPS of 1.152, OPS + of 200 and 429 total bases were also the tops in the National League.

Want to really put Musial's season in perspective? Since 1900, only two hitters have hit seasons where they hit .370 with 45 doubles, 15 triples and 35 home runs: Musial, and Lou Gehrig in 1927.

[veleno45]

I think Luke Appling finished his career just over 200 hits short of 3000, yet I think he lost almost 2 years to the war. If your numbers puts him over 3k hits, I think you have to petition for him to be an honorary 3k hit club member.

[howard38]

Two guys whose stats are tough to project because they weren't quite the same players when they returned from military service:

Everyone knows that Cecil Travis lost four years to the war after having a career year in 1941. He was only 27 and batted .359. He struggled badly when he returned and retired soon afterwards.

Sam Chapman also had a career year in 1941 and also lost four years. He was only 25 when he batted .322 w/25 HRs. He was a decent player when he returned but never close to his 1941 level.

Dick Wakefield might also fall into this category. He was in the service, discharged and then went back in the service. In the meantime he batted .355 w/12 HRs in just half of the 1944 season when he was only 23. When he returned again in 1946 he was never as good.

I guess it's impossible to project what kind of numbers these guys would have put up if their careers had not been interrupted. Maybe their big years were just flukes or perhaps they would have been hall of famers.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by veleno45

I think Luke Appling finished his career just over 200 hits short of 3000, yet I think he lost almost 2 years to the war. If your numbers puts him over 3k hits, I think you have to petition for him to be an honorary 3k hit club member.

Chris, there have been a few players, some of the greats of the game, that just missed a big milestone, and I've always wondered why they didn't come back to at least achieve that milestone.

I'd be a team player first, of course. But if I finished a season with 499 home runs, you can bet I'd play one more year.

Sam Rice missed the 3,000 hit club by 13. Sam Crawford by 39. Frank Robinson by 57.

But one of the guys that really killed me was Al Kaline. 399 home runs. Same with Andres Galarraga. Dale Murphy hit 398 bombs.

[the 'stache]

Johnny Pesky's career numbers get quite a nice boost. He was a great player for the Red Sox. His first three seasons he had over 200 hits. Not a lot of power, but the guy could flat out hit. They had a nice core with Williams, Doerr, DiMaggio and Pesky.

[the 'stache]

Stan Musial with stats adjusted to reflect the 1945 season spent in the Navy.



And Pee Wee Reese after adding in 3 averaged seasons spent in the armed forces.

Reese would go over 1,000 RBI with these figures added in. Truth be told, I'm a little surprised by how good his numbers were for a shortstop in his era. He was quite productive with the bat.



In fact, Reese has the 10th highest WAR of true career shortstops (and I define true career shortstops meaning that at least 75% of the games played were at shortstop).

10th all-time of 108 qualifying shortstops between 1901 and 2014.

[veleno45]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Johnny Pesky's career numbers get quite a nice boost. He was a great player for the Red Sox. His first three seasons he had over 200 hits. Not a lot of power, but the guy could flat out hit. They had a nice core with Williams, Doerr, DiMaggio and Pesky.

With your new numbers for Pesky, I would say the war could have kept him out of the HOF. If you take your numbers and compare them to HOF shortstops (More seasons and games at SS vs 3rd) he is right there with Sewell, Rizzuto, Reese, etc.

[the 'stache]

Chris, assuming Appling played every game in 1945 (the Sox played 149 in total, and Appling missed all but 18), as well as the entire 154 games from the 1944 season, he missed 285 games in total due to service in the military during WW II.

I sampled statistics from the period of 1940 to 1943. During that span, he averaged 150 games per season. I took his 150 game average, and a multiplier of 1.9 to hit 285 games. So, by taking his statistical averages from the 40-43 seasons, and multiplied by a factor of 1.9, I arrived at his projected figures. Yes, he surpassed the 3,000 hit club, and quite easily, I may add.

Here are his career numbers adjusted for military service which cost him 285 games in the Major Leagues:



He's truly one of the best two or three players the White Sox have ever had, and while it's not a shame that he served his country (I think I speak on behalf of everybody reading this thread when I say we greatly appreciate the sacrifices these men made in defense of our freedom), it is too bad that Appling was not allowed his chance at the 3,000 hit club.

He didn't really have any power to speak of, with only 45 career home runs. When you take that into consideration, though, a career OPS that's a hair under .800--as a shortstop in the 30s and 40s--is quite impressive. He was truly a model of consistency. He first hit .300 in what was really his second full season, 1933 (.322). He was 26 years old. He last hit .300 in 1949 at age 42 (.301). He hit .300 fifteen times, winning two batting titles in a career that saw him hit .310. He hit .388 in 1936, which is pretty much unheard of in the modern era, especially for a shortstop. He was the MVP runner up to Lou Gehrig, who hit .354 with 49 HR and 152 RBI. Gehrig got 73 voting points to Appling's 65. And as great as he was offensively, he was incredible defensively, too. He has the lowest career fielding percentage of any player appearing in 1,900 or more games due to his 643 career errors. But his range was spectacular, and he made plays other shortstops couldn't have dreamed of. When he retired, he held the Major League record for double plays by a shortstop, and held the American League record for assists and putouts by a shortstop.

Appling is, in my opinion, one of the best pure hitters of his time.

Originally Posted by veleno45

I think Luke Appling finished his career just over 200 hits short of 3000, yet I think he lost almost 2 years to the war. If your numbers puts him over 3k hits, I think you have to petition for him to be an honorary 3k hit club member.

[veleno45]

Awesome, awesome info Bill. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Since you are vindicating numbers for everyone, is there anything you can do for Shoeless Joe?

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by veleno45

Awesome, awesome info Bill. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Since you are vindicating numbers for everyone, is there anything you can do for Shoeless Joe?

Thank you, Chris. I'll look at Shoeless Joe tonight, too, but I don't know if I can convince Bud Selig to lift the ban.

I have to look at the players Howard listed earlier. Those guys I'll start looking at after I eat dinner, and finish watching the Brewers (hopefully) beat the Nationals.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by veleno45

With your new numbers for Pesky, I would say the war could have kept him out of the HOF. If you take your numbers and compare them to HOF shortstops (More seasons and games at SS vs 3rd) he is right there with Sewell, Rizzuto, Reese, etc.

He certainly matches up well from a statistical standpoint. One thing that hurts him when compared to Joe Sewell, Scooter Rizzuto and Pee Wee Reese is a lack of rings. The Indians won the World Series in 1920, Joe Sewell's first season. The Yankees also won it all in 1932 with Sewell playing 125 games at short for them.

Phil Rizzuto's Yankees won 8 World Series (and that's just while he was there. They also won the 1943 World Series while he was on active service).

Pee Wee Reese only got one ring in his career when the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series. But, there is one thing in his favor. The Dodgers won six National League pennants while Pee Wee was there.

Johnny Pesky's Boston Red Sox only won one American League pennant while he was there, in 1946, and of course, they lost that Series to the Cardinals.
-----------------------------

One other really interesting stat I found while looking over Joe Sewell's career stats. He had a total of 8,333 plate appearances. He walked 824 times. Know how many times Joe Sewell struck out in his entire 14 year career? 114! Joe Sewell struck out once every 63 at bats for his career! In 1925, Sewell was third in the American League MVP vote, hitting .336 with 204 hits, 37 doubles and 98 RBI. He struck out 4 times in 699 plate appearances.

That's insane. He walked 64 times, and struck out 4 times. He had 608 at bats, and struck out 4 times, or once every 152 at bats.

[itjclarke]

Fun stuff Bill. I've done this exercise in my head for several of these guys many times, but it's really cool to see numbers/totals listed.

An interesting WWI era player is Grover Alexander, who may have had a real shot at 400 wins. He'd won 30 or more three years straight prior to losing most of the 1918 season, averaging 27 wins a year up to that point. That said, he was sold to the Cubs prior to the 1918 season, so maybe he wouldn't have gotten those 27 more wins?? Regardless, he was on an amazing run when the Great War cut his career in half.

[the 'stache]

Hey, Ian.

It's hard to project how a player would have done when missing time like Pete Alexander did because, as you mentioned, he was traded to the Cubs. His win totals were all over the place. In 1919 he went only 16-11 even though he led the league with a 1.72 ERA. That, and he only started 27 games instead of his usual 40 +. What's really interesting about his run in that decade was his string of seasons leading the league in ERA. In 1915, '16 and '17, he led the NL in ERA all three years, averaging out to an incredible 1.54 ERA. Now, this is still dead ball era, but that's impressive. When he was traded to the Cubs, he didn't miss a beat. In 1918, in only 3 starts, he had a 1.73 ERA. The next two seasons, he again led the NL in ERA with a 1.84 ERA across those two seasons. If he'd not missed pretty much the entire 1918 season, he had a great chance at leading the National League for six straight seasons, with an ERA below 2.00 every year. I don't care what era you're pitching in, that's remarkable.

You have to figure he missed 40 starts in 1918, and another 16 or 17 starts in 1919. And while he was with the Cubs, he had a .610 winning percentage (though he had more success early on, winning 27 in 1920 with a .659 winning pct). But if you figure he's healthy for those 56 starts he missed, and has roughly the same winning pct, he wins 34 games by my estimates. Now, there's no way of knowing if he'd have pitched as long as he did on the back end, but I have a feeling he would have. In his late 30s and early 40s, he was still quite an effective pitcher. So yes, I do think he'd have made up those 27 wins to get to 400. As it stands, 373 wins is a hell of a career. Oddly enough, though, Alexander seems to be somewhat of a forgotten man in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

I certainly hope that baseball finds a way to start attracting younger fans again, and that those fans are educated about the game's history. Greats like Alexander, and Mordecai Brown, and Eddie Plank should be remembered and revered.

[almostdone]

Bill,
I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to do this. I worked an 11 1/2 hr day yesterday and when I got home I said hello to my wife and went to our bedroom to change. I decided to pick up my iPad and see any updates quickly. I started reding your posts to my question on Reese and Musial and pouring over the numbers. Time got away from me so when I went back downstairs my wife asked if everything was ok. I told her with a huge smile about this thread and the numbers that could have been. She politely listened and tried to share in my joy but after a few minutes of my rambling she just looked at me and said "You're such a nerd sometimes". I know she was kidding ( sort of) but I took it as a compliment.
Thanks again for doing all this. It it's really fascinating to me and I'm sure many others on this forum.
Drew

[teetwoohsix]

Amazing work Bill! I'm very impressed by your analytic skills and research, this thread is very intriguing. Thanks!

Sincerely, Clayton

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by howard38

Two guys whose stats are tough to project because they weren't quite the same players when they returned from military service:

Everyone knows that Cecil Travis lost four years to the war after having a career year in 1941. He was only 27 and batted .359. He struggled badly when he returned and retired soon afterwards.

Sam Chapman also had a career year in 1941 and also lost four years. He was only 25 when he batted .322 w/25 HRs. He was a decent player when he returned but never close to his 1941 level.

Dick Wakefield might also fall into this category. He was in the service, discharged and then went back in the service. In the meantime he batted .355 w/12 HRs in just half of the 1944 season when he was only 23. When he returned again in 1946 he was never as good.

I guess it's impossible to project what kind of numbers these guys would have put up if their careers had not been interrupted. Maybe their big years were just flukes or perhaps they would have been hall of famers.

Chapman had an interesting stat line when he returned from active service. In 1940, he showed outstanding power potential with 26 doubles and 23 home runs along with his 23 home runs. He hit .276 in 134 games, but struck out 96 times in 508 official at bats. For the period, that was a pretty high strikeout rate. He was ever so slightly below a 19% strikeout rate. The next season, his real breakout season of 1941, one of the reasons for his improvement was a big cut in his strikeout rate. In 552 at bats, he hit .322 with 29 doubles, 25 home runs and 106 RBI. He'd more than cut his strikeout rate in half to just under 9%. He struck out only 49 times, and walked 46 times.

He missed all of 1942 to 1944, and almost 1945. In looking at his numbers after returning, while he never again had the same level of success he had in 1941, he maintained his improved strikeout rate. Between 1946 and 1950, he had a .261 AVG with 19 HR and 85 RBI per season. Still pretty good. His strikeout rate for the period was about 12.4%. But again, when you consider his walkout to strikeout ratio was almost exactly 1:1, I wonder why he didn't have a little more success than he did. 322 walks and 333 strike outs with good power-you have to wonder what he might have accomplished had he not been away from the game for so long. It's actually remarkable that he was away from the game as long as he was, and still enjoyed a pretty successful run when he did come back.

By my estimation, he missed about 562 games because of his service in the Navy during WW II. For the 1942 to 1945 period he missed, I used his production from 1939 to 1946 as a basis, and his career numbers are greatly improved.



Cecil Travis was really coming into his own when he joined the Army in the winter of 1941. He'd been an All Star three of the prior four seasons, and he'd finished second in the American League in hitting with a .359 average. In many seasons, that would have won him a batting title. Unfortunately for Travis, that was the year that Ted Williams hit .406.

From 1937 to 1941, Travis had averaged 140 games played. Therefore, I estimate that he missed some 525 games to military service between 1942 and 1945. A career .314 AVG across 7,000 career at bats would make for a pretty impressive career, don't you guys think?



Dick Wakefield, I admit, is a player I knew nothing about. I'd heard his name a few times, but I don't recall ever looking at his career stats. But it's really sad that he didn't get a chance to continue his career. If you look at that first season and a half he had roughly 1,000 at bats (1,029 to be precise). The guy had a .328 average at 23 years old. What's more, in his first season, he'd hit only 7 home runs in 633 at bats, driving in 79 runs. In his second season, he'd hit 12 home runs with 53 RBI in only 276 at bats. He finished 6th in the MVP vote his rookie season. He was so good in 1944 that he finished 5th in the MVP vote even though he only played in 78 of 154 games. In 1945, while Wakefield was serving America in the Navy, his Tigers won the World Series. It's almost impossible to think that Wakefield wasn't a superstar in the making on one of the best teams in baseball. But Wakefield was arrogant, and headstrong. He bet Ted Williams that when they got back to baseball, he'd hit for a better average than Williams, hit more home runs and drive in more runs than Williams. When he returned to the Majors, he never regained his stroke.

I can average out the time missed based on those roughly 1,000 at bats. It shows tremendous potential, and a level of play that he never again achieved once he returned to the Major Leagues.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by almostdone

Bill,
I absolutely appreciate you taking the time to do this. I worked an 11 1/2 hr day yesterday and when I got home I said hello to my wife and went to our bedroom to change. I decided to pick up my iPad and see any updates quickly. I started reding your posts to my question on Reese and Musial and pouring over the numbers. Time got away from me so when I went back downstairs my wife asked if everything was ok. I told her with a huge smile about this thread and the numbers that could have been. She politely listened and tried to share in my joy but after a few minutes of my rambling she just looked at me and said "You're such a nerd sometimes". I know she was kidding ( sort of) but I took it as a compliment.
Thanks again for doing all this. It it's really fascinating to me and I'm sure many others on this forum.
Drew

Originally Posted by teetwoohsix

Amazing work Bill! I'm very impressed by your analytic skills and research, this thread is very intriguing. Thanks!

Sincerely, Clayton

Thank you, gentlemen. Drew, I think in this instance, being a bit of a nerd is a good thing. Baseball, more than any other sport I've ever seen, lends itself to statistical analysis. That statement is reinforced by the seemingly endless array of new metrics introduced every couple of years, ones that I have not yet begun to understand, let alone master. The most interesting advancements, in my opinion, are the fielding metrics. I don't know how they can be accurately applied to older players, but wouldn't it be interesting if we were able to compare Ruth, Aaron, Clemente, Kaline and Ichiro, and definitively determine who had the best range, the best instincts, the strongest arm, and which of those Hall of Famers was truly the best overall defensive performer. If those numbers favored Clemente as much as I think they would, how would that change the perception of Clemente. If we're able to say "Babe Ruth, as a hitter, meant this many wins, while Clemente, with his glove and arm, won this many games."

Brooks Robinson versus Eddie Mathews, Ozzie Smith versus Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Bench versus Ivan Rodriguez. It opens up so many interesting possibilities. Maybe these defensive metrics need to be refined over time. Or, maybe they're accurate already. But to think that we might be able to answer questions that have existed for decades, and then create new questions from those answers...I will openly admit I'm happy to be a baseball nerd in the year 2014.

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Hey, Ian.

It's hard to project how a player would have done when missing time like Pete Alexander did because, as you mentioned, he was traded to the Cubs. His win totals were all over the place. In 1919 he went only 16-11 even though he led the league with a 1.72 ERA. That, and he only started 27 games instead of his usual 40 +. What's really interesting about his run in that decade was his string of seasons leading the league in ERA. In 1915, '16 and '17, he led the NL in ERA all three years, averaging out to an incredible 1.54 ERA. Now, this is still dead ball era, but that's impressive. When he was traded to the Cubs, he didn't miss a beat. In 1918, in only 3 starts, he had a 1.73 ERA. The next two seasons, he again led the NL in ERA with a 1.84 ERA across those two seasons. If he'd not missed pretty much the entire 1918 season, he had a great chance at leading the National League for six straight seasons, with an ERA below 2.00 every year. I don't care what era you're pitching in, that's remarkable.

You have to figure he missed 40 starts in 1918, and another 16 or 17 starts in 1919. And while he was with the Cubs, he had a .610 winning percentage (though he had more success early on, winning 27 in 1920 with a .659 winning pct). But if you figure he's healthy for those 56 starts he missed, and has roughly the same winning pct, he wins 34 games by my estimates. Now, there's no way of knowing if he'd have pitched as long as he did on the back end, but I have a feeling he would have. In his late 30s and early 40s, he was still quite an effective pitcher. So yes, I do think he'd have made up those 27 wins to get to 400. As it stands, 373 wins is a hell of a career. Oddly enough, though, Alexander seems to be somewhat of a forgotten man in the first few decades of the twentieth century.

I certainly hope that baseball finds a way to start attracting younger fans again, and that those fans are educated about the game's history. Greats like Alexander, and Mordecai Brown, and Eddie Plank should be remembered and revered.

I just looked at his wiki page and according to that GC was sold by the Phillies because they feared he'd be drafted. Wow! How patriotic of them!

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by itjclarke

I just looked at his wiki page and according to that GC was sold by the Phillies because they feared he'd be drafted. Wow! How patriotic of them!

That sounds like a move the Brewer front office would do. I don't care what was going on, there's no way I would get rid of a pitcher who had thrown a combined 36 shutouts in the last three seasons. They'd have to pry him from my cold, dead hands.

He threw almost 5,200 innings in his career. Strange how these older pitchers were able to throw all these innings, and yet they never would have needed Tommy John surgery, if it were available in their time.

[CxG Voodoo Doll]

This is so cool. It's like a "what if" moment in an athletes career.

What if...

Sosa/McGwire/Bonds/A - Rod etc never used Ped's?

What if...

Mantle was never addicted to alcohol?

Cool thread. Interesting stuff.

[howard38]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Chapman had an interesting stat line when he returned from active service. In 1940, he showed outstanding power potential with 26 doubles and 23 home runs along with his 23 home runs. He hit .276 in 134 games, but struck out 96 times in 508 official at bats. For the period, that was a pretty high strikeout rate. He was ever so slightly below a 19% strikeout rate. The next season, his real breakout season of 1941, one of the reasons for his improvement was a big cut in his strikeout rate. In 552 at bats, he hit .322 with 29 doubles, 25 home runs and 106 RBI. He'd more than cut his strikeout rate in half to just under 9%. He struck out only 49 times, and walked 46 times.

He missed all of 1942 to 1944, and almost 1945. In looking at his numbers after returning, while he never again had the same level of success he had in 1941, he maintained his improved strikeout rate. Between 1946 and 1950, he had a .261 AVG with 19 HR and 85 RBI per season. Still pretty good. His strikeout rate for the period was about 12.4%. But again, when you consider his walkout to strikeout ratio was almost exactly 1:1, I wonder why he didn't have a little more success than he did. 322 walks and 333 strike outs with good power-you have to wonder what he might have accomplished had he not been away from the game for so long. It's actually remarkable that he was away from the game as long as he was, and still enjoyed a pretty successful run when he did come back.

By my estimation, he missed about 562 games because of his service in the Navy during WW II. For the 1942 to 1945 period he missed, I used his production from 1939 to 1946 as a basis, and his career numbers are greatly improved.



Cecil Travis was really coming into his own when he joined the Army in the winter of 1941. He'd been an All Star three of the prior four seasons, and he'd finished second in the American League in hitting with a .359 average. In many seasons, that would have won him a batting title. Unfortunately for Travis, that was the year that Ted Williams hit .406.

From 1937 to 1941, Travis had averaged 140 games played. Therefore, I estimate that he missed some 525 games to military service between 1942 and 1945. A career .314 AVG across 7,000 career at bats would make for a pretty impressive career, don't you guys think?



Dick Wakefield, I admit, is a player I knew nothing about. I'd heard his name a few times, but I don't recall ever looking at his career stats. But it's really sad that he didn't get a chance to continue his career. If you look at that first season and a half he had roughly 1,000 at bats (1,029 to be precise). The guy had a .328 average at 23 years old. What's more, in his first season, he'd hit only 7 home runs in 633 at bats, driving in 79 runs. In his second season, he'd hit 12 home runs with 53 RBI in only 276 at bats. He finished 6th in the MVP vote his rookie season. He was so good in 1944 that he finished 5th in the MVP vote even though he only played in 78 of 154 games. In 1945, while Wakefield was serving America in the Navy, his Tigers won the World Series. It's almost impossible to think that Wakefield wasn't a superstar in the making on one of the best teams in baseball. But Wakefield was arrogant, and headstrong. He bet Ted Williams that when they got back to baseball, he'd hit for a better average than Williams, hit more home runs and drive in more runs than Williams. When he returned to the Majors, he never regained his stroke.

I can average out the time missed based on those roughly 1,000 at bats. It shows tremendous potential, and a level of play that he never again achieved once he returned to the Major Leagues.

Good stuff, Bill. I think Travis would have finished w/close to 3,000 hits though simply because had his feet not frozen during the Battle of the Bulge he may well have played at a high level until the early 1950s instead of retiring at the age of 33. The other two guys didn't have as much of a track record so I do't think there is any way to know how their careers would have progressed had they not missed so many prime seasons.

Interesting about Alexander too. I had seen pictures of him in military dress but had never considered how his career might have been affected. Two other pitchers I hadn't thought of until you started this thread are Red Ruffing and Ted Lyons. Both were near the end of their careers but also were still pitching at high levels and continued to do so when they returned. Ruffing lost two and a half years and likely missed winning 300 because of it. Lyons lost three full seasons and it is conceivable that he could also have won 300. The year before he entered the service he completed all twenty of his starts and led the league in ERA. When he returned at age 45 he completed all five of his starts w/an ERA of 2.32. An amazing streak of twenty-five straight complete games all after the age of forty.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by CxG Voodoo Doll

This is so cool. It's like a "what if" moment in an athletes career.

What if...

Sosa/McGwire/Bonds/A - Rod etc never used Ped's?

What if...

Mantle was never addicted to alcohol?

Cool thread. Interesting stuff.

Thank you

Baseball fans have been playing the "what if" game ever since the game was first played. What if Candy Cummings hadn't started throwing that curveball in the 1870s? What if somebody like Branch Rickey had come along ten years earlier, and the color barrier was broken before Jackie Robinson? What if fans had a chance to see Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell, and Satch while he was in his prime? What if the Dodgers hadn't moved to the west coast? It's fun to play the game, because fans can daydream about what might have been. I can dream about the Brewers being able to replay the 1982 World Series and actually having Rollie Fingers. He'd won the Cy Young and MVP the season before. Yet he was unable to play in the '82 series at all because of injuries. In a series that went to seven games, having him available could have meant the difference between winning and losing. Fingers had saved 29 games with a 2.60 ERA.

But while all that is pure fantasy, what we're doing here is an amalgamation of fantasy and fact. We know that if it weren't for war, these men we are talking about would have been playing baseball. All of them. And while they could have played better than, or worse than the numbers we are arriving at, and the possibility exists that they may have retired earlier if they don't miss years to military commitment, I feel that these adjustments create career numbers that are believable. Ted Williams missed more than 4.5 years of his career. We saw how good he was at the end of his career. Outside of the 1959 season when Williams battled through a neck injury suffered in the preseason, he was still a great ballplayer. In 1957, at the age of 38, he hit .388 to lead the American League. The next season, he again led the league with a .328 season. And, in 1960, his final season, with the neck injury a thing of the past, he bounced back to hit .316 with 29 HR and 72 RBI in 113 games-at age 41.

Is there anybody that couldn't see Ted Williams smashing close to another 200 home runs with almost 5 more seasons in his prime? Not this baseball fan

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by howard38

Good stuff, Bill. I think Travis would have finished w/close to 3,000 hits though simply because had his feet not frozen during the Battle of the Bulge he may well have played at a high level until the early 1950s instead of retiring at the age of 33. The other two guys didn't have as much of a track record so I do't think there is any way to know how their careers would have progressed had they not missed so many prime seasons.

Interesting about Alexander too. I had seen pictures of him in military dress but had never considered how his career might have been affected. Two other pitchers I hadn't thought of until you started this thread are Red Ruffing and Ted Lyons. Both were near the end of their careers but also were still pitching at high levels and continued to do so when they returned. Ruffing lost two and a half years and likely missed winning 300 because of it. Lyons lost three full seasons and it is conceivable that he could also have won 300. The year before he entered the service he completed all twenty of his starts and led the league in ERA. When he returned at age 45 he completed all five of his starts w/an ERA of 2.32. An amazing streak of twenty-five straight complete games all after the age of forty.

Howard, I absolutely agree with you about Travis. Enthusiastically so.

When I look at a hitter, and assess if they have a shot at 3,000 hits, a couple of the factors I weigh heavily are consistency, health, and most importantly, how early did they start playing? Travis was already a Major Leaguer at age 19. By age 21, he was already getting 170 hits a season. In 1939, he hit .292, and totaled only 139 hits because, per Wikipedia, he had two bouts of the flu. Every other year he was a .300 hitter, and he wasn't just squeaking by, either. From 1934 on, he hit .319, .318, .317, .344, .335, .292, .322 and .359 in 1941. The man was simply a great hitter. When he's compared to his peers, he holds his own with the very best baseball has to offer.

Consider the period from 1934 to 1941. Travis had the sixth highest batting average in all of baseball for that period (minimum 3,000 plate appearances)



Look at the names on that list. When you're on a list ahead of Charlie Gehringer, Luke Appling, Hank Greenberg, Arky Vaughan, Bill Dickey, Earl Averill and Paul Waner, among others, you're running with the high society.

And in the last four years, he was trending upwards. Here's a list of all Major League Hitters for the period of 1938 to 1941, sorted by most hits.



Now, that's including the '39 season where he had two bouts of the flu. Between 1940-1941, nobody in all of baseball had more hits than Cecil Travis' 388.



Travis was a .342 hitter those last two seasons. He was getting a lot of plate appearances, and striking out only 48 times in 1,249 plate appearances was a discipline trend that was going to continue getting Travis more and more playing time.

The surgery done to his feet after he suffered frostbite at the Battle of the Bulge essentially curtailed what was going to be, in my opinion, a Hall of Fame career. Even after he came back, and hit only .241 for his final 800 at bats, he hung up his cleats still having a .314 career average.

I hope that, if anything, we've shown just a few members of Net 54 who Cecil Travis was, and how outstanding a ballplayer he was. He fought for our country, and when he wasn't putting his life on the line for America, he was a hell of a hitter.

[the 'stache]

Willie Mays, as great as he was, as jaw dropping as his career totals are, still missed about 274 games of his career to military service. 274 games early in his career. The 1951 National League Rookie of the Year was meant for greatness. Then he was drafted by the Army, and he missed all but 34 games the next two seasons. The year he came back, he was the National League MVP. He hit .345 with 41 HR and 110 RBI. The next season he hit .319 with 51 HR and 127. Between 1954 and 1964, 10 years, he hit .320 with 382 home runs and 1,088 RBI.

So, imagine that we averaged the earliest years of his career and projected what he would have done in those 274 games.



Mays goes from 660 home runs to 727. Mays' career WAR of 156.2 goes up even more.

[71buc]

Originally Posted by clydepepper

Bill-

That is fine work. You picked the right four to examine.

I suggest Warren Spahn, whose career was not interrupted in the middle, but just as he got to the Majors. Three full years lost including a Battle of the Bulge Purple Heart.

I may be trickier to predict what he would have done with the lost time.

Again, fascinating work - we appreciate it.

I have read that Spahn attributed his post war success to his military service. He believed that prior to his service he was too cautious and did not know how to compete. He claimed the military provided him the toughness necessary to compete and helped him get his priorities in life straight. He went as far as to say he doubted he would have stuck in the majors without the years he lost to his military service. His was a different and very refreshing perspective.