Personally, I don’t see a good argument World War II shortened his playing career.
In 1943 he had 3 plate appearances in the majors.
He misses 1944-1946.
In 1947, he plays in 28 games and bats under .200 with a 44 OPS+
In 1948, he’s the starting first baseman and plays a full season. He hits .249 and has an OPS+ of 82, which is truly absolutely horrific for a starting first baseman.
I suppose we could say if he’d spent more time in the minors he would have developed faster, but this is making a lot of assumptions, all of them extremely generous to Hodges. WWII hurt a lot of guys careers, but Hodges isn’t a great case of them.
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