Career stats adjusted for military service

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.