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.