How Good Was Pie? Is Pie STILL a Top 10 3Bman?

[Bill Burgess]

I remember as a kid when Pie Traynor was universally called the best ever 3rd baseman. I'm talking around 1957-62. I had a coffee table soft back book, called Big Time Baseball, and Pie was the all time 3rd B. (The rest were: Gehrig, Hornsby, Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, DiMaggio, W. Johnson, Dickey)

And I never heard anything different until reading Bill James' first Historical Abstract, 1985, were he opines, "Thirty years ago Pie Traynor was generally recognized as the greatest third baseman of all time. . . . With the flood of high-quality third basemen of the post war era, Traynor can no longer be considered near the top at the position, and with the development of better understanding of the significance of offensive statistics, there have arisen serious questions about whether he belonged there at the time."

That was the very 1st time where I had heard Pie put down, and since then, probably due to Bill James writing that, many others have felt empowered to put him down and crap all over him. And that just doesn't sit well with me.

Mathews' bat, and Robinson's glove were valid competition, but to kick Pie out of the top 10? No way. Flood of post-war high quality 3rd basemen? There was Mathews, Robinson, Santo, both Boyers, Kell. Where's his vaunted "flood"? All better than Traynor? Prove it.

I'd hope we can settle this issue, once and for all, here at The Fever. While I might not rate Pie at the top any more, I certainly don't see any need to declare open season on a wonderful player, and take cheap shots, such as "He doesn't rate in the top 10, and never did."

To me, that's just pissing all over history. And it just isn't true. The only competition Traynor had for all time honors, from 1930-60, was Jimmy Collins. I just can't rate Home Run Baker in the same class, due to his clumsy defense. Traynor was a superb defender, at the Hot Corner, where reflexes are paramount. The slogan used to be in his day, "Hornsby doubled down the left field line, and Traynor threw him out." His defense was impeccable, and his hitting was very good, in a sea of fancy high average contact hitters. And Pie Traynor held his own quite nicely, thank you. Listening to ElHalo defend Pie all alone, reminds me of Davey Crockett, swinging his ol' Betsy, on the walls of the Alamo.

Here are my top 3rd basemen, where I give bonus value to defense.

1. Schmidt
2. Brett
3. Santo
4. Traynor
5. Mathews
6. Boggs
7. Robinson
8. Collins
9. Ken Boyer
10. Bill Madlock
11. Judy Johnson, Negro leagues
12. Oliver Marcell, Negro leagues
13. John McGraw, pre- 1900
14. Ossie Bluege
15. Willie Kamm
16. Bill Bradley
17. Freddie Lindstrom
18. George Kell
19. Larry Gardner
20. Clete Boyer

The order after Santo is totally fluid.
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Pie's Relative Stats:

----Relative BA-----Rel.Slg.-------Rel.Onbase----Rel.ISO-------OPS+
---------1.08---------1.04------------1.02----------------------107 (712th)

leecemark; November 12, 2004, 07:44 AM
The Final Tally
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1. Mike Schmidt 183
2. George Brett 162
3. Eddie Mathews 152
4. Wade Boggs 133
5. Ron Santo 87
6. Frank Baker 79
7. Brooks Robinson 77
8. Pie Traynor 63
9. Ken Boyer 23
10. Darrell Evans 17

--Schmidt was a run away winner, which I'm sure is no surprise to most of us. There were alot of people getting votes and the 9th and 10th place winners were each actually mentioned by less than 1/3 of voters each with quite a few players having higher finishes on somebody's ballot than either Boyer or Evans.
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538280; 11-16-2005, 12:18 PM
The results are now in. It wasn't particularly close, Mike Schmidt ran away with this one. These are the final results:

1. Mike Schmidt-177 (14)
2. Eddie Mathews-122
3. George Brett-122
4. Wade Boggs-98 (1)
5. Ron Santo-87
6. Frank Baker-50
7. Brooks Robinson-47
8. Pie Traynor-28
9. Ken Boyer-20
10. Paul Molitor-17
10. Jimmy Collins-17
10. Darrell Evans-17
13. Ray Dandridge-12

No one else received more than 10 points.
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Bill Burgess; May 9, 2007, 03:41 PM
Here are the results of our 3Base poll, with the revised totals included from AG2004's ballot.

3Base:
1. Mike Schmidt - 154
2. George Brett - 136
3. Eddie Matthews - 117
4. Wade Boggs - 102
5. Ron Santo - 69
6. Frank Baker - 60
7. Brooks Robinson - 42
8. Paul Molitor - 40
9. Jimmy Collins - 31
10. Pie Traynor - 21
11. Chipper Jones - 17
12. Pete Rose - 10
13. John McGraw - 6
13. Scott Rolen - 6
13. Ray Dandridge - 6
16. Clete Boyer - 4
16. Edgar Martinez - 4
18. Stan Hack - 2
18. Harmon Killebrew - 2
18. Darrell Evans - 2
21. Judy Johnson - 1

What we need more than anything else here, is for a stat person to do the Relative BA/SLG/OBP for Pie & all of his fellow 3rd basemen peers. I would if I could, but square roots were not embedded into my gene pool.

And look! Voila! Someone has!
.....Relative BA/OBP/SLG
1. Schmidt....100/113/134
2. Mathews....104/115/128
3. Brett......116/112/123
4. Baker......115/109/127
5. Santo......103/108/116
6. Boggs......122/123/107
7. Collins....105/101/114
8. Hack.......110/117/103
9. Molitor....116/111/111
10. Boyer.....107/104/112
11. Traynor...108/102/105
12. Robinson..106/099/105
13. Nettles....95/101/109
14. Rosen.....107/111/126
I date all my baseball photos using the following book. (Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century: The Official ML BB Guide, Researched, Illustrated & Written by Marc Okkonen, 1991, 1993)

Also, the following website, hosted by the Hall of Fame, mainly using the same book above, but also using images after 1993, has assisted me in dating some of the photos. http://exhibits.baseballhalloffame.org/dressed_to_the_nines/database.htm#database

On this photographic gallery, I have attempted, using the book above, to date all the photos. If I caption a photo with the following, John Smith, Cubs OF, 1910-13, that means that the photo was taken sometime between 1910-13, when the player was on the Cubs. It does NOT mean that the player was only on the Cubs in that time frame. He might have been on the Cubs from 1900-18, but the photo was only taken between 1910-13.
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How Good Was Pie? Thread/Photos (http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=37345)---BB Ref (http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/traynpi01.shtml)

-------Pie Traynor, Pirates' 3B, September 27, 1927 -------------------------- 1922-----------------------------------1937
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Image17-3.jpg

-------------Pirates' 3B, 1923-31 ----------------------------------1925-----------------------------------1925
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Image59.jpg

-------------------------1920-----------------------------------------------------------1925
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Image30-1.jpg

-------------------- Pie Traynor, Pirates' 3B, 1933----------------------------------September 30, 1925
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Image19-2.jpg

--------------1932------------------------------1923-31
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Image6-20.jpg

-----Pie Traynor, Pirates' 3B, 1923-31-------------------------------------------------------------1927-----BB Reference (http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/traynpi01.shtml)
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Player%20Tributes/Image2.jpg

Pirates' manager, 1938-39---------------------------------------------------------1925
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Player%20Tributes/Image5.jpg

--------------------1923-31---------------------------------------------------------------------------1931
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Bills%20Rare%20Photo%20Finds/untitled-4.jpghttp://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Miscellaneous/Traynor1931.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/BillBurgess/Player%20Tributes/Image8-6.jpg

[Gonzo]

Pie wasn't the best of all time, but he had some good years (he batted .366 in 1930)

[prof93]

Heres mine at 3rd.

1.Schmidt
2.Mathews
3.Rosen
4.Brett
5.Traynor
6.Robinson
7.K.Boyer
8.Boggs
9.Kell
10.Santo

[Windy City Fan]

.......Relative BA/OBP/SLG
1. Schmidt.........100/113/134
2. Mathews........104/115/128
3. Brett.............116/112/123
4. Baker.............115/109/127
5. Santo............103/108/116
6. Boggs............122/123/107
7. Collins............105/101/114
8. Hack..............110/117/103
9. Molitor............116/111/111
10. Boyer.............107/104/112
11. Traynor......108/102/105
12. Robinson.........106/99/105
13. Nettles...........95/101/109
14. Rosen.............107/111/126

--------------------------AVG--------OBP--------SLG-----
Mike Schimdt -----.267 (.267) .380 (.335) .527 (.394) 100% 113% 134%
Ron Santo---------.277 (.268) .362 (.334) .463 (.399) 103% 108% 116%
Eddie Mathews-----.271 (.260) .376 (.326) .509 (.399) 104% 115% 128%
George Brett----- .305 (.264) .369 (.330) .487 (.396) 115% 111% 123%
Wade Boggs------- .328 (.268) .415 (.337) .443 (.413) 122% 123% 107%
Pie Traynor ----- .320 (.295) .362 (.353) .435 (.412) 108% 103% 106%
Brooks Robinson --.267 (.253) .322 (.324) .401 (.383) 106% 99% 105%
Ken Boyer-------- .287 (.269) .349 (.335) .462 (.412) 107% 104% 112%
Jimmy Collins---- .294 (.279) .343 (.339) .409 (.367) 105% 101% 111%
Frank Baker------ .307 (.266) .363 (.334) .442 (.349) 115% 109% 127%


Now of course these are raw unadjusted numbers, but as a hitter Traynor doesn't seem to stack up with the elite men at his position. In average he is 4th in percentage above his league, but its a wide gap between him and the guys ahead of him. Plus Traynor doesn't seperate himself from the pack below him.

For OBP, Traynor ends up looking even worse. His OBP differential is 5 points less than his batting average differential, the third biggest drop of the group. His differential score is the second lowest as well. Slugging wise, Traynor finishes only ahead of Robinson.

Lets take a quick look at speed. None of these guys were real speedsters, but a few of them could run on occassion. Below is a list of their career stolen bases and the number of years they played. Traynor looks like he is 5th, but there is a wide margin between him the players below him.

Baker (13 years) 235
Brett (21) 201
Collins (14) 194
Schimdt (18) 174
Traynor (17) 158
Boyer (15) 105
Mathews (17) 68
Santo (15) 35
Robinson (23) 28
Boggs (18) 24

So currently Traynor appears to to be the weakest hitter of the group and a good baserunner, but not the best. If he is going to make a case for the top 5, it would need to be on his defense.

--------------------------FP--------Range
Mike Schimdt ---- .961 (.956) 3.35 (2.87) 100.5% 117%
Ron Santo-------- .954 (.948) 3.07 (2.58) 100.6% 119%
Eddie Mathews---- .956 (.950) 2.92 (2.68) 100.6% 109%
George Brett----- .951 (.953) 2.98 (2.58) 99.8% 113%
Wade Boggs------- .962 (.951) 2.62 (2.33) 101.1% 112%
Pie Traynor ----- .947 (.947) 3.12 (2.82) 100.0% 111%
Brooks Robinson-- .971 (.953) 3.10 (2.74) 102.1% 113%
Ken Boyer-------- .952 (.950) 2.92 (2.64) 100.2% 111%
Jimmy Collins---- .929 (.907) 3.61 (3.33) 102.4% 108%
Frank Baker------ .943 (.937) 3.43 (3.24) 100.6% 106%

We see Traynor does not exactly stand out from the pack here either. His fielding percentage differential is the second lowest and is dead even with the league. There are 5 third basemen with better range factors. Also surprising was that these numbers do not seem to indicate that Home Run Baker was a subpar fielder, as Bill implies.

Looking at the numbers, I'd probably take Collins over Traynor. They're very close as hitters, but I think Collins might have an edge there. Collins is also a faster runner and a more sure handed fielder. Traynor does beat him in range factor. I'd say they are close, probably about a coin flip. As to Baker vs. Traynor, I'll give Traynor the edge in the field based on his reputation that I have heard touted here, but the numbers seem to indicate Baker was an above average fielder himself. Baker was also a faster runner and far better hitter. Overall, I'll take Baker.

I look at Traynor as an inferior version of Wade Boggs. Boggs is a far better hitter, beating Traynor is average, OBP, and slugging when compared to the league. Boggs is slower, but only 3 third basemen have a better fielding differential than him and Boggs has a slightly better range factor to boot.

If I had to rank the 10 guys above, it would go something like this:

1. Mike Schimdt
2. Eddie Mathews
3. George Brett
4. Wade Boggs
5. Frank Baker
6. Ron Santo
7. Jimmy Collins
8. Ken Boyer
9. Pie Traynor
10. Brooks Robinson

[torez77]

To me, Traynor is one of the 6 best 3B of all time. Schmidt, Brett and Boggs made my all-time Dream Team. Brett made it mostly because of his .390 year in 1980 (remember my DT goes by best single-seasons). However, when and if I create Dream Team II, Traynor will definitely be one of the 3B, along with Eddie Mathews and Brooks Robinson. Those choices are easy.
To me, Boggs is the most underrated 3B ever. I'm glad to finally see him getting respect on this thread. His .328 avg leads all 3B! Need I say more?

[leecemark]

--Traynor was a very good hitter for average, but certainly not great. Well below Boggs and Brett in that department. He wouldn't take a walk and has a medicore OBP as a result. He didn't have much power -much further behind Schmidt and Mathews here than he was behind Boggs and Brett at average. He was also way behind Santo, Boyer, Baker, Nettles and even Robinson in this department. He has a great reputation defensively, but statisically looks more good than great. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was one of the best ever with the glove, but I wouldn't put him ahead of Robinson or Collins. If he was better than Schmidt or Boyer or Nettles it sure isn't provable. We had a lengthy debate on this subject a few days ago as a side discussion on the "Honus Wagner the 4th Best SS?" thread. I spit out a pile of numbers there, that I won't bore you with here, but if you're interested you know where to look.
--Add up Traynor's total package and I see a very good 3B. He was the best of the 20s and I'd say the 3rd or 4th best prior to 1950. Jimmy Collins and Home Run Baker are IMO quite a bit more valuable. I also have Stan Hack ahead of Traynor, but that is open to question. The number of quality players at third since 1950 is much higher than it was before and Traynor has fallen to the point where I have a hard time seeign him in my top 10. As I see it:
1. Mike Schmidt: best by a wide margin
2. Edide Mathews: Close as a hitter, but Schmidt's glove/legs much better
3. George Brett: Power shortage puts him behind Mathews
4. Frank Baker: best before 1950. Peak maybe best period.
5. Ron Santo: Why is he not in Cooperstown
6. Wade Boggs: On base machine
7. Jimmy Collins: Great glove and very good bat for his time
Numbers 8-13 could easily be shuffled around depending on what you're looking for. This is how I have it (today anyway).
8. Stan Hack: Best of the 30s, drop in NL numbers helps Traynor vs Hack
9. Paul Molitor: If he really qualifies at 3B
10. Ken Boyer: the most underrated great 3B
11. Pie Traynor: already said enough
12. Brooks Robinson: better peak than Traynot, but had some miserable years
13. Graig Nettles: low BA, but glove and power won alot of games

[ElHalo]

If anybody has a copy of Traynor's home/road splits, I'd love to see them. Because I really don't think he was helped out that much by Forbes Field.

It's my firm (very firm) opinion that Traynor is easily the best contact hitting 3rd baseman of all time. The only guys who are close are Brett, who's not as good as Traynor, and Boggs, who was made by Fenway.

If you go by SLG and HR, then yes, Traynor's power numbers aren't as good as a lot of 3rd basemen. If you go by RBI's, then nobody was as good of a power hitting 3rd baseman as Pie except for Schmidt.

As for his fielding... yeah, statistically he's more good than great. But if you go by straight statistics... Mike Schmidt is much better than Brooks Robinson, and Terry Pendleton is head and shoulders above either of them. I don't know too many people who'd agree with either statement. I'll stick with Pie as my best defensive 3rd baseman.

So, to me, Pie's the best contact hitting third baseman ever, the best defensive third baseman ever, and damn near the best run producing third baseman ever... that makes him the best third baseman ever. If you want to drop him a few slots from the top, that's fine... but I can't see a realistic argument for sliding him out of the top 5.

Howard Groskloss, who played with Pie in the early 30's and is one of the few living players to have played with him, said of Pie a few years ago: "He was the greatest third baseman ever and one of the greatest all time players." No less a baseball mind than John McGraw called Pie "the greatest team player" that McGraw had ever seen. He was a huge "intangibles" player... one whose contribution came in much more strongly than it showed in the stat sheet.

If you want to put Mike Schmidt ahead of Pie, hey, go ahead. If you want to put a guy with a .267 career average ahead of a guy with a career .320... that's fine. There are people who believe that Mark McGwire and his career .263 mark are better than Lou Gehrig, too.

[Bill Burgess]

Since Mark mentioned that he'd made a very relavant post on the Honus Wagner - 4th Best SS thread, I'd thought I'd go retrieve it and some of ElHalo's rebuttal to it. I think that they are both germane to the debate.

But what I still insist is that until we get a truly qualified comparison for relative BA/SLG/OBA/OPS we're all just flailing and pre-supposing. And speculation just won't quell this debate. We require certainty. Certitude. Where are our stat men when we need them?!

Defensively, I rate them in the following groups.

1. Robinson, Billy Cox
2. Traynor, Bluege,
3. Schmidt, Collins, Kamm, Bradley

leecemark:
--"ElHalo, I think you missed my point in the earlier post on Forbes Field. What I said was Forbes was a huge negative for power hitters, but an excellent park for line drive, gap type hitters - like Pie Traynor. Forbes yielded home runs at only 69% of the league average, but allowed 2% more runs than the league average. Now 2% isn't anything to worry about in judging a hitter. It was basically a nuetral park offensively. However, if you have a nuetral park without the benefit of home runs that suggests it gave up hits, including many more doubles and triples than the average park. Traynor definately lost soem HR to forbes, but that wasn't his game anyway. He didn't hit them on the road either. Forbes was a significant plus park for a player of Traynor's type.
--Traynor does have the second best BA all time amoung thridbasemen. However, that also needs to be looked at in context. The National League BA for the years Traynor played was .295. If you were just 5% better than average you hit .310. Sure Traynor drove in nearly as many runs per year as Schmidt - there were alot more runs being scored in the 1920s. Traynor never led the league and seldom his team. For example, when the 1925 Pirates won the pennant they averaged 5.96 runs per game. Traynor drive in 106 good for 3rd on the team. When the 1980 Phillies won the pennant they averaged 4.49 runs per game (2nd in the NL). Schmidt drove in 121 leading the league and leading his team by 34.
--I know you've conceded that Traynor has no arguement using OPS+, and I have some issues with the stat myself, but in this case the numbers are so overwhelming against Traynor you really can't argue them away:
Traynor's best year was 125.
Schmidt's best year was 199, he had 13 better than Traynor's best
Mathew's best year was 172, he had 10 better than Traynor's best
Brett's best year was 202, he had 12 better than Traynor's best
Baker's best year was 174, he had 8 better than Traynor's best
Boggs' best year was 173, he had 9 better than Traynor's best
Santo's best year was 164, he had 8 better than Traynor's best
Robinson's best year was 145, he had 3 equal or better than Traynor's best
Boyer's best year was 143, he had 3 better than Traynor's best
Nettles' best year was 135, he had 2 better than Traynor's best
Hack's best year was 142, he had 5 better than traynor's best
Molitor's best year was 161, he had 9 better than Traynor's best
Collins' best year was 142, he had 4 better than Traynor's best
--Even if I were to agree that Traynor was the best defensive thridbaseman ever, he has alot of ground to make up offensively on all of these guys. Robinson, Schmidt, Boyer, Nettles and Collins were all outstanding defensive players who Traynor couldn't possible have more than a slight defensive advantage over regardless of how good he was. Only Molitor might be described as below average defensively.
--Maybe Traynor could make up the difference with his glove or legs or some sort of intangible factor on the back half of this group. If you want to call him a better all around player than Brooks Robinson I'll give you that much. He was not nearly as good as Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, Baker, Boggs or Santo."

ElHalo:
"Mark,

Forbes field was a great linedrive hitters park... for lefties. For righties, not so much. Guess which one Pie was?

That .295 average is deceiving. That's park adjusted. Let me give you an example...

In 1927, Pie hit .342. Baseballreference lists the league average that year on Pie's page at .299. In reality that year, the league average was .282... part of that is made up of pitchers being taken out of the adjusted league average, but much of it is a park adjustment. Forbes Field's park adjustment that year was 5% (105 park factor)... 5% that Traynor never got to see, because he hit from the wrong side of the plate.

No, Traynor never led his league in RBI... but he was in the top 10 9 times in 13 full seasons... not exactly shabby. George Brett, by comparison, was top 10 in RBI 4 times in 20 seasons; Eddie Mathews was top ten 7 times in 16 seasons. Nettles cracked the top 10 3 times; Santo 8 times; Boggs, never.

As for OPS+... ok, Pie didn't hit homers or draw walks much. That's fine. Ichiro, in his four years in the league, has never finished in the top 10 in OPS or SLG, and has finished in the top 10 in OBP only once, with a tenth place showing. But I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to say he's not a top 10 hitter in the AL... matter of fact, I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to say he's not been a top 5 hitter in the AL since he came to the states.

There are others things to talk about... Pie was top 10 in MVP voting 6 times. By comparison, Mathews had only 4 top 10 finishes; Brett, 5. Santo and Boggs had 4. Nettles, 2.

Offensively, the only 3Bman who really stands out to me as head and shoulders above Pie is Schmidt... and Schmidt's BA really, really, really drops his value in my mind. If we're talking in terms of OPS+, I'd probably say that the fact that Schmidt has a .267 career BA would probably cause me to drop at least 35 points off his career OPS+ in rating his offensive value... there is no excuse for a star major league player to ever have a career BA below .275.

So, again... Traynor is the number 1 all time 3Bman.

Postnote... I should point out: I'm not specifically discriminating against Schmidt here with this. Guys like Joe Morgan, Phil Rizzuto, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Willie McCovey and, to a lesser extent because of his position, Johnny Bench, all get the down arrow because of their inexcusable BA's. I lop off 30 or 35 points worth of career OPS+, and go from there. No amount of home runs or plate discipline can make up for an inability to but the bat on the ball."

ElHalo:
"Mark,

I didn't at all admit that the BA at Forbes was 17 points higher than the BA for the league in general.

I said that, in 1927, the BA listed at baseballreference.com was 17 points higher than the league BA. But the BA's listed at baseballreference.com, adjusted by park, aren't just the BA's attained by hitters at that park.

What they do is, get the total park factor... 105, 107, 98, whatever. Then they divide that number by 100, to get an index to 1... 1.05, 1.07, 0.98, etc. Then they take the square root of that number, and multiply it by the actual league batting average, to get the "adjusted" league BA for that particular park.

Point being... for a park like Fenway, which is much easier on righties than on lefties, the adjustment factor is going to be the same... and could be completely unrepresentative of actual reality. If there were a lot of runs scored at Forbes because of the short right field wall, even if it was a total negative for BA... BA would be adjusted up for the park as a whole, because there is no "BA factor"... just a total park factor.

Speaking of which, I'm curious why you seem to think that the deep power alleys in Forbes' Left field harms contact hitters... it's generally thought that Death Valley in Yankee stadium, which was similarly large, and similarly needed a LF'er of great range, was extremely hard on RH hitters... and the (admittedly quick and informal) numbers I was looking at earlier tended to show that LH'ers had a much easier time of it than righties in Forbes.

As for the other guys you mention as greater contact hitters than Traynor... well, start with Boggs. Everybody and their brother knows that Fenway is a HUGE hitter's haven... what with the Green Monster, the Pesky Pole, etc... well, you know what? When Boggs had his greatest average seasons, in 85-88, Fenway had a park factor of 103, 100, 102, and 104... why? Couldn't tell you. How was Fenway a neutral park in 1986? Don't know, but Boggs gets full credit for his BA in 86 (even though everybody knows that if anybody was made by Fenway, it was Boggs, with his line drives off the Green Monster), while Traynor's was consistently degraded because of a LH hitter's advantage he never got.

If you just flat index the numbers that baseballreference.com gives you, then Kell and Baker might seem to be better average hitters that Traynor. But that's just flat not true. I'd really, really like to see a relative BA for Traynor that's not park adjusted... and one of these days I'll sit down and do it... won't be incredibly hard, since pulling pitchers out is the hardest part, and that's not necessary for leagues with no DH.

My fingers are twitching, itching to put Pepper Martin in the top 3 3Bmen of all time... but I'll refrain. Everybody who saw both Baker and Traynor were pretty much unanimous in saying Traynor was better. The guys post 1950 with the best arguments are Schmidt, Mathews, and Brett... and I really do basically dismiss Schmidt and Mathews out of hand. I wouldn't want either one of them on my team, regardless of how many HR's they hit... BA's like that are simply inexcusable. There's really no way around that simple fact. Brett... Brett was a very, very good player. I remember watching him and liking him a lot. But he's no Traynor.

If I'm ranking 3Bmen... specifically leaving Pepper Martin out of the discussion... it would go:

1. Traynor
2. Brett
3. Baker

Then everybody else... that's pretty much just that. Boggs gets downgraded because of his abuse of the Green Monster (he was ok, but not truly impressive, with the Yanks). Mathews and Schmidt get the boot for temerity (fun fact... even if they were paid the same amount of money and were equal defensively, I'd rather have Tony Clark than Jason Giambi play 1B for the Yankees... they're both equally useless at this point in getting the bat on the ball, but at least Clark doesn't have pretentions of being an All Star). Traynor's easily better than everyone else. That's pretty much all I have to say on this."


I'd say this exchange between leecemark/ElHalo furthered the quality of the debate nicely.

Any takers re: the Relative BA/SLG/OBP/OPS? C'mon, guys? We need your help here. ElHalo" Would this be too much for you? RMB? What about it?

I refuse to believe that Robinson/Boggs outhit Pie until I see the stat proof with my own eyes. And when I see it, I'll believe it.

Bill Burgess

[baclightning]

If you want to put Mike Schmidt ahead of Pie, hey, go ahead. If you want to put a guy with a .267 career average ahead of a guy with a career .320... that's fine. There are people who believe that Mark McGwire and his career .263 mark are better than Lou Gehrig, too.
What's interesting about that is that the guy with the .267 average had a significantly higher OBP (.380 to .362) than the guy with the .320 average, and a much higher slugging percentage (.527 to .435). I'll take the guy with the higher OBP and higher SLP every time, thank you...

[torez77]

What's interesting about that is that the guy with the .267 average had a significantly higher OBP (.380 to .362) than the guy with the .320 average, and a much higher slugging percentage (.527 to .435). I'll take the guy with the higher OBP and higher SLP every time, thank you...

Depends on what your team needs. If I was down one in the bottom of the ninth and a man was on third, I'd pick Pie over Schmidt because he has a better chance to slap him in. There's a good chance Schmidt may strike out in that situation. If I really needed a HR, of course I'll take Schmidt. I will admit that Schmidt's lifetime .267 BA is pretty darn low. You want base hits, take Pie. You want walks and HRs, take Schmidt, but you'll also have to live with the K's.

[Appling]

If I had to rank the 10 guys above, it would go something like this:

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Eddie Mathews
3. George Brett
4. Wade Boggs
5. Frank Baker
6. Ron Santo
7. Jimmy Collins
8. Ken Boyer
9. Pie Traynor
10. Brooks Robinson
Thanks for your great job of summarizing the relevant stats to guide this discussion.

Prior to 1960, the three best MLB third basemen ever were generally listed as Frank ("Homerun") Baker, Jimmy Collins and Pie Traynor,with Traynor almost always ranked first in this group. In those days we relied almost solely on "raw numbers" rather than adjusted to league average or park adjusted; and "batting average" was the most respected of all hitting stats.

These biases all favored Traynor over Collins and Baker at that time, so he was widely regarded as the best-ever third baseman to that time. Pie had the highest (raw) BA, and Baker's homerun power and slugging pct. advantage seemed trivial when compared with power hitters after Ruth. Traynor happened to enjoy his best hitting years when the whole NL went nuts, so his raw BA looks better than after adjustment to league norms.

Strange to say it today, but fielding percentage was then the most used stat for a fielder -- before Range Factor came into common use. Again Traynor does better on (raw) fielding percentage (without adjustment for era).

I agree pretty much with your overall ranking here. Without doubt the best third basemen ever were Schmidt, Brett, Mathews and Boggs.
I might also rank Santo ahead of Baker and Collins -- which says the 4 or 5 best third basemen ever all played after 1960. Traynor was highly regarded before 1960 because his competition was so weak.

And "on further review" we now view the careers of Jimmy Collins and Frank Baker as better than originally believed (and better than Traynor's) because we now value other numbers (especially OBP and fielding range factor) ahead of raw BA and raw fielding %. At least seven MLB third basemen should be ranked ahead of Pie Traynor.

[prof93]

I didn't rank them either, but it is a shame that Ray Dandridge and Judy Johnson don't get mentioned.

Ray Dandridge-Those who saw him play considered him to be the best fielding 3rd baseman in baseball history, Negro or MLB!! His fielding often was compared to Brooks Robinson's after Brooks came up and many claimed Dandridge had the better arm.


Judy Johnson-Johnson was often called the "Black Pie Traynor". Johnson was known for his grace at intelligent play at 3rd base, and was a solid line drive hitter who posted BA of .406 in 1929 and .391, .369, and .392 in other seasons.

[DoubleX]

If you want to put a guy with a .267 career average ahead of a guy with a career .320... that's fine. There are people who believe that Mark McGwire and his career .263 mark are better than Lou Gehrig, too.

Always with the batting averages El Halo :rolleyes:

Let's try a few other numbers out. Who would you rather have, a player with a career a +107 OPS+ (Traynor) or a player with a career +147 OPS+ (Schmidt)? And since I know you also like to look at peaks, Schmidt topped out at +199, while Traynor never got above +125, and that was during a golden era for offense.

Here a few more numbers - Schmidt averaged 37 homers a year while Traynor averaged only 5. Schmidt's career OBP was .380, Traynor's was .362 - so even though Pie batted 50 points higher than Schmidt, he still got on base much less than Schmidt. Schmidt edges Traynor in SB's as well.

It would appear that Pie was a very one-dimensional batter - he could hit for good average (during a time when the league average was an extremely high .295 anyway), but couldn't offer much else at the plate in that he didn't get on base much outside of hits and that he had extremely little power. So it's very narrow to favor Pie or Schmidt based purely on average, because Schmidt was most definitely the better player in most every other facet of the game. But go ahead, you pick Pie for your team because he hit .320 during a time when the average player was hitting nearly .300, while I pick the better player (including batting), Schimdt, to man the hot corner for my team and we'll see which player contributes more...

Also, I don't agree that Pie was the best contact hitting 3B. Boggs not only had a higher career average (.328 to .320), Boggs' average was 60 points above the league average, Pie's was only 25. Even with taking into consideration Boggs' advantage from playing at Fenway, I don't think you can make up that huge discrepancy in how much better a hitter Boggs was in his day than Traynor was in his day. Boggs' tremendous plate discipline (.415 career OBP) and hitting technique had much more to do with why he was a great hitter than playing at Fenway did.

[ElHalo]

Always with the batting averages El Halo :rolleyes:

Let's try a few other numbers out. Who would you rather have, a player with a career a +107 OPS+ (Traynor) or a player with a career +147 OPS+ (Schmidt)? And since I know you also like to look at peaks, Schmidt topped out at +199, while Traynor never got above +125, and that was during a golden era for offense.

Here a few more numbers - Schmidt averaged 37 homers a year while Traynor averaged only 5. Schmidt's career OBP was .380, Traynor's was .362 - so even though Pie batted 50 points higher than Schmidt, he still got on base much less than Schmidt. Schmidt edges Traynor in SB's as well.


Well, you do forget to mention Traynor's RBI's... he might have the best RBI/HR ratio of any player in the post dead ball era. And ordinarily it doesn't really matter that much to me for a hitter, but Pie's got one of the best K rates of any hitter ever.

As for Schmidt's OPS+ advantage... ordinarily I'm a big believer in OPS+, but if a player's got a career BA below .275, I really do just dismiss him out of hand. That's completely unacceptable for a position player that's not a catcher. That's the reason that I can't possibly consider Schmidt the best 3Bman of all time, that's why Joe Morgan doesn't crack my top 50 position players of all time or my top 5 catchers of all time (behind Hornsby-Lajoie-Collins-Gehringer-Frisch), it's the reason Reggie Jackson doesn't crack my top 10 all time RF'ers, and it's the reason Mark McGwire, despite his tremendous OPS+, doesn't crack my all time top 5 1Bmen. Sorry, it's just absolutely not ok for a star major leaguer to hit below .275. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Don't care what else they contribute; if they can't hit over .275, they don't belong on a major league roster as anything other than a utilityman.

It's also why, even as a Yankee fan, and even completely disregarding salary, injuries, and defense, there are at least a dozen major league 1Bmen I'd rather have than Jason Giambi. A BA that low is simply not an option.

[DoubleX]

Well, you do forget to mention Traynor's RBI's... he might have the best RBI/HR ratio of any player in the post dead ball era. And ordinarily it doesn't really matter that much to me for a hitter, but Pie's got one of the best K rates of any hitter ever.

As for Schmidt's OPS+ advantage... ordinarily I'm a big believer in OPS+, but if a player's got a career BA below .275, I really do just dismiss him out of hand. That's completely unacceptable for a position player that's not a catcher. That's the reason that I can't possibly consider Schmidt the best 3Bman of all time, that's why Joe Morgan doesn't crack my top 50 position players of all time or my top 5 catchers of all time (behind Hornsby-Lajoie-Collins-Gehringer-Frisch), it's the reason Reggie Jackson doesn't crack my top 10 all time RF'ers, and it's the reason Mark McGwire, despite his tremendous OPS+, doesn't crack my all time top 5 1Bmen. Sorry, it's just absolutely not ok for a star major leaguer to hit below .275. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Don't care what else they contribute; if they can't hit over .275, they don't belong on a major league roster as anything other than a utilityman.

It's also why, even as a Yankee fan, and even completely disregarding salary, injuries, and defense, there are at least a dozen major league 1Bmen I'd rather have than Jason Giambi. A BA that low is simply not an option.

You make some valid points (especially about the RBIs, a facet that I deliberately left off because Schmidt and Traynor were very close in that way) and I've learned it's impossible to shake your stance on BA :). But sometimes you have to take into consideration the era a player played in, especially when one of the two players played during the offensive golden age of the 20s and 30s and the other played during the offensive depressed period of 70s and 80s.

Pie's .320 might look pretty good, but not nearly as good as say Boggs' .328 considering that the league average was 30 points higher in Trayor's day. Taking era into consideration, Schmidt's BA is not nearly as bad as it seems - he batted .267, the same as the league average. Had Schmidt played in Pie's day and hit the league average, he would have been all the way up to .295 and I don't think you would begrudge him that too much. So if you're just going to blindly compare averages, you have to factor in eras, meaning that Traynor and Schmidt would be much closer with Schmidt being well above your .275 definition of respectability. Couple a .295 adjusted for era average with all of Schmidt's other advantages over Traynor, and I think your argument becomes pretty weak. Or, vice versa, if Traynor had played in Schmidt's day, his average being 25 points above league average would plummet to .292. Would you consider Traynor a hall of famer if you were to blindly look at his .292 average? Would his lack of power and plate discipline be able to compensate for the fact that he no longer stands out at first glance with a .320 average? (Also, at 60 points above league average, Boggs would have hit .355 in Traynor's day, and given your love for averages, I'd expect him to be one of your favorite players). My point is that you superficially look at averages like they are shiny objects, without questioning the substance behind an average. Pie was not really a .320 hitter. Had he played in most any other era, he would likely have been under .300 and perhaps even under .290.

Also, even though Pie batted more than 50 points higher than Schmidt, his on base percentage was still much lower than Schmidt's - that should tell you that Schmidt was a more disciplinedhitter than Pie. Throw in Pie's almost anemic +107 OPS and you get a hitter that's just above average. So I don't reasonably believe that an argument can be made that Pie was a better hitter than Schmidt, especially after you figure that by hitting the league average as he did in his day, Schmidt would have been very near .300 in Pie's day (or Pie below .300 in Schmidt's day, thus without a .320 average to help him stand out upon a superficial look).

[dgarza]

Mathews' bat, and Robinson's glove were valid competition, but to kick Pie out of the top 10? No way. Flood of post-war high quality 3rd basemen? There was Mathews, Robinson, Santo, both Boyers. Where his vaunted "flood"? All better than Traynor? Prove it.


Who is kicking Pie out of the top 10? Are you saying James said this? Or someone else?

You went from James saying "Pie MIGHT not have been the best 3rdb at any given point" (meaning he was 2nd or 3rd) to Pie being kicked out of the top 10 all together. I don't know where you got that leap.

And as for the post-war flood, I think you mentioned about 8 or 9 in your 1st post. I'm not counting Boggs in the flood because the James quote seems to come from 1985.

[dgarza]

And considering it was 1985, these guys looked good at the time as well

Evans
Horner
Nettles
maybe Bell

and there was
George Kell
and you can count Killebrew if you want, maybe Perez?

[Bill Burgess]

"Who is kicking Pie out of the top 10?

Are you saying James said this? Or someone else? You went from James saying "Pie MIGHT not have been the best 3rdb at any given point" (meaning he was 2nd or 3rd) to Pie being kicked out of the top 10 all together. I don't know where you got that leap."

Good guy Dave:

I can see how my linear progression was not clear. But just to show you that I didn't just pull that assertion out of my butt, allow me to clarify my alarm.

This is from Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract, revised, 1988, pp. 373:

"--------Peak Value-------Career Value
1. Mike Schmidt-----------Mike Schmidt
2. George Brett-----------Eddie Mathews
3. Eddie Mathews---------Brooks Robinson
4.Wade Boggs------------George Brett
5. Brooks Robinson-------Jimmie Collins
6. Home Run Baker-------Ron Santo
7. Al Rosen--------------Ruddy Bell
8. Ron Santo------------Ken Boyer
9. Jimmie Collins---------Stan Hack
10. Harlond Clift---------Craig Nettles or Darrell Evans

Bill James began his individual summary on Pie with this.
"Thirty years ago Pie Traynor was generally recognized as the greatest third baseman of all time.
. . .
With the flood of high-quality third basemen of the post-war era, Traynor can no longer be considered near the top at the position, and with the development of better understanding about the significance of offensive statistics, there have arisen serious questions about whether he belonged there at the time."

Bill James concluded his piece on the third basemen with this remark, "Do I really believe that Darrell Evans was a better player than Pie Traynor?

The answer is yes."

Today, in Bill James' "New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Oct., 2001, pp. 588, Bill James now rates Pie Traynor, #15 among 3rd basemen.

Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, Boggs, Baker, Santo, Robinson, Molitor, Hack, Evans, Bando, K. Boyer, Nettles, Rosen, Traynor.

If that is not putting Pie down, and then pissing and crapping all over him . . . I rest my case dgarza. Do you see my point now?

Bill Burgess

[Windy City Fan]

Williams' OPS is enough to put him in discussion. Its better than Traynor, Collins, and Robinson. Defensively, I never really considered Williams to be a top notch 3rd defensive basemen and I was surprised to hear he won 4 GG's. His fielding statistics are as follows: Fielding Perctange .963 (.950) 101.4% Range Factor 2.67 (2.36) 113%. That puts him not too far off of Robinson statistically.

You can knock his low average, his lack of plate discipline (high K totals combined with very low walk totals), his fragility (only 6 seasons with 140 games or more), and his low counting stats, but it does appear he belongs in the discussion if not on the list. Williams also has a black ink score of 8 and a grey ink score of 58 - not exactly overwhelming. So Williams was never really among the elite sluggers of the game in his day, but then again, how many 3rd basemen were? Schimdt, Mathews, and Baker.

Lets compare Williams to players of a similar nature. Good, but not elite sluggers with good gloves at third.

Santo has the advantage in black (11 vs. 8) and grey (147 to 58). Ken Boyer is beat by Williams in black innk (4 to 8), but kills him in grey (138 to 58). Even Robinson, the weakest hitter of any the people we are talking about, beats Williams in black (10 to 8) and grey (133 to 58). A lot of this can be attributed to Williams' frequent injuries. If he managed to stay healthy and play the 500 or so games he missed, then he would have a stronger case.

Other problems for Williams are that he was consistently outshined by his contemparies, both away from his position and at it. Boggs, Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen all have better rate statistics at the plate.

Williams probably belongs in the top 15 or so, but I can't see such a fragile player making the top ten without overwhelming statistics - which Williams doesn't have.

[dgarza]

Bill James concluded his piece on the third basemen with this remark, "Do I really believe that Darrell Evans was a better player than Pie Traynor?

The answer is yes."

Do you see my point now?


Now I see the connection.

[AG2004]

dgarza,
This is from Bill James' Historical Baseball Abstract, revised, 1988, pp. 373:

"--------Peak Value-------Career Value
1. Mike Schmidt-----------Mike Schmidt
2. George Brett-----------Eddie Mathews
3. Eddie Mathews---------Brooks Robinson
4.Wade Boggs------------George Brett
5. Brooks Robinson-------Jimmie Collins
6. Home Run Baker-------Ron Santo
7. Al Rosen--------------Ruddy Bell
8. Ron Santo------------Ken Boyer
9. Jimmie Collins---------Stan Hack
10. Harlond Clift---------Craig Nettles or Darrell Evans

Bill James concluded his piece on the third basemen with this remark, "Do I really believe that Darrell Evans was a better player than Pie Traynor?

The answer is yes."

Today, in Bill James' "New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Oct., 2001, pp. 588, Bill James now rates Pie Traynor, #15 among 3rd basemen.

Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, Boggs, Baker, Santo, Robinson, Molitor, Hack, Evans, Bando, K. Boyer, Nettles, Rosen, Traynor.

If that is not putting Pie down, and then pissing and crapping all over him . . . I rest my case dgarza. Do you see my point now?

Bill Burgess

I wonder - if James were twisting the subjective part of his ratings to knock Traynor down, you might have a point. However, there are five objective parts to James' ranking formula, and given the data in his New Abstract, it's fairly easy to determine how they would rank before subjective factors are considered. I have calculations for the objective parts of the rankings for James' top 25 as of the end of the 1999 season.

Schmidt - 150.57
Brett - 138.96
Mathews - 146.19
Boggs - 139.29
Baker - 139.14
Santo - 132.80
Robinson - 117.23
Molitor - 127.86
Hack - 126.14
Evans - 118.70
Bando - 124.26
Ken Boyer - 116.68
Nettles - 113.07
Rosen - 127.17
Traynor - 108.99
Cey - 115.21
Collins - 114.16
Elliott - 114.30
Bell - 108.54
Leach - 114.23
Groh - 122.16
Ventura - 113.14
Williams - 111.98
Yost - 109.78
Caminiti - 118.18

Now, Traynor ranks 24th out of these 25 on the objective part of the rankings, and he'd probably rank below some people who aren't in the top 25 as well. James' subjective factors <i> boost </i> Traynor's rating up to 15th. I don't see how that's putting Pie down.

[Bill Burgess]

AG2004,

I notice you use the word objective, as if it is self-evident. Some of us are a little too cynical to see things that way. I see "subjectivity" as simply a deeper objectivity.

Please allow me to notice some finer points.

2. The Player's Win Shares in His Three Best Seasons: Was the decision to use a players 3 best seasons, a subjective or objective decision.

3. Five Best Consecutive Seasons: Was the decision to use a player's 5 best consecutive seasons, a subjective or objective decision. (If you feel as if I'm quibbling on these remarks, notice the material on pp. 348, regarding Cobb/Mantle on 5/6 best seasons.

5. The Time Line Adjustment: Is the choice to create an arbitrary timeline adjustment to favor later players a truly objective one? Was it necessary or subjective to its essence?

Was the decision to use consecutive best seasons, as opposed to best seasons, a subjective one, or an objective one?

Would not the arbitrary decision to use 5 yr. segments, tend to create a presumption of greatness for those who "bunched" their best seasons, where players who had extended longer periods of quality, like Cobb, Collins, Spahn, Young, W. Johnson, Mathewson, Ryan, Rose, Mays, Musial, Aaron, Henderson and other 20 yr. stars show to better advantage without the "show-casing" peaks.

I realize that the distinctions between objective/subjective are not always crystal clear in pristine clarity.

Bill Burgess

[AG2004]

Bill,

I didn't intend to use "objective" as meaning self-evident. It may have been more accurate to indicate that this was the total from the formula used before what James added what he calls the "Subjective Element" to the ratings.

I was merely looking for an antonym to "subjective" to describe the other elements, and "objective" was the first word I could think of. "Formulaic" and "number-crunching" are other possibilities, but they and "non-subjective" seemed too clumsy.

Actually, the main reason I made the computations were to see if James were - uh - performing certain metaphorical bodily functions on Traynor. If the formula is seriously flawed, that's one thing, and reflects a lack of competence rather than a lack of fairness. If James were rating Traynor far below the point where the first five parts of his formula indicated, then I could accept that James had some type of vendetta against Traynor.

I may have misinterpreted your words - they seem to be attacking James' character instead of his conclusions. My purpose of listing the numbers was to show that such an attack was completely unwarranted. I don't agree with all his conclusions - he rates the 19th-century stars lower than I think they should be rated - but he doesn't seem to have acted dishonestly in creating his rankings.

[Bill Burgess]

AG2004,

Pretty nice post. And I hope I didn't offend you in any way. You're a very good poster, and my tone sometimes becomes far more shrill and abrasive than I ever intend. But when I get really into this stuff, something takes over and I become too pointed or heated.

I really can't believe that Bill James gets too involved with personalities, or personal with the players. All I was really trying to show was that ALL stat systems are subjective down to their toes. They have to be, because the creators are subjective. All the decisions are arbitrary, even when the creator is trying his utmost to be fair, balanced and honest. It's the nature of the system.

Do I think Bill James has it in for Pie Traynor? No, not at all. But his system isn't as "truly objective" as Bill would like it to be.


Bill Burgess

[csh19792001]

Depends on what your team needs. If I was down one in the bottom of the ninth and a man was on third, I'd pick Pie over Schmidt because he has a better chance to slap him in. There's a good chance Schmidt may strike out in that situation. If I really needed a HR, of course I'll take Schmidt. I will admit that Schmidt's lifetime .267 BA is pretty darn low. You want base hits, take Pie. You want walks and HRs, take Schmidt, but you'll also have to live with the K's.

That's an excellent point. People just AUTOMATICALLY assume that no matter how low a guy's BA is, as long as his SLG is high and OBP decent, he must be good offensively. A guy who K's constantly, walks a lot, and hits lots of homers is only good in certain situations, on certain teams. And, the utility of a player like that is dependent on where he bats in the lineup.

Schmidt is currently my alltime 3B, but it has been largely by default. Maybe I remember him as a better fielder than he actually was. One could make a good argument for Boggs or Robinson, or maybe even Pie.

A bit more about Schmidt/Traynor-

Schmidt's OBP is higher, especially adjusted, and his secondary average is surely MUCH higher. However something important hasn't been addressed here. Mike Schmidt struck out SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE times more than Pie Traynor! Does 490 more homeruns sound commensurate with 1605 more strikeouts? That's a TON of outs made and rallies killed due to one dimensional baseball- swinging from the heels, EVERY time. This is indicative of a guy who swings all out regardless of situation and what the teams needs at that point. Tactless and artless, and a cancer of the modern, homrun-obsessed game.

[Bill Burgess]

IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE READ FIRST:

As the creator of this thread, I RESERVE the RIGHT to delete, move, consolidate all posts which are not in the best interests of this thread. No opinions will be changed in any way. Bill Burgess
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like to fight the Pie Traynor fight all over again. And I hope the main combatants continue to bring their best game to the combat zone.

Mark, ElHalo, Andy, and a lot of other fiesty veterans.

You can & should vote more than one option!!!

[Bill Burgess]

How good was Pie?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember as a kid when Pie Traynor was universally called the best ever 3rd baseman. I'm talking around 1957-62. I had a coffee table soft back book, called Big Time Baseball, and Pie was the all time 3rd B. (The rest were: Gehrig, Hornsby, Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, DiMaggio, W. Johnson, Dickey)

And I never heard anything different until reading Bill James' first Historical Abstract, 1985, were he opines, "Thirty years ago Pie Traynor was generally recognized as the greatest third baseman of all time. . . . With the flood of high-quality third basemen of the post war era, Traynor can no longer be considered near the top at the position, and with the development of better understanding of the significance of offensive statistics, there have arisen serious questions about whether he belonged there at the time."

That was the very 1st time where I had heard Pie put down, and since then, probably due to Bill James writing that, many others have felt empowered to put him down and crap all over him. And that just doesn't sit well with me.

Mathews' bat, and Robinson's glove were valid competition, but to kick Pie out of the top 10? No way. Flood of post-war high quality 3rd basemen? There was Mathews, Robinson, Santo, both Boyers, Kell. Where's his vaunted "flood"? All better than Traynor? Prove it.

I'd hope we can settle this issue, once and for all, here at The Fever. While I might not rate Pie at the top any more, I certainly don't see any need to declare open season on a wonderful player, and take cheap shots, such as "He doesn't rate in the top 10, and never did."

To me, that's just pissing all over history. And it just isn't true. The only competition Traynor had for all time honors, from 1930-60, was Jimmy Collins. I just can't rate Home Run Baker in the same class, due to his clumsy defense. Traynor was a superb defender, at the Hot Corner, where reflexes are paramount. The slogan used to be in his day, "Hornsby doubled down the left field line, and Traynor threw him out." His defense was inpecable, and his hitting was very good, in a sea of fancy high average contact hitters. And Pie Traynor held his own quite nicely, thank you. Listening to ElHalo defend Pie all alone, reminds me of Davey Crockett, swinging his ol' Betsy, on the walls of the Alamo.

Here are my top 3rd basemen, where I give bonus value to defense.

1. Schmidt
2. Brett
3. Mathews
4. Santo
5. Boggs
6. Traynor
7. Robinson
8. Collins
9. Boyer
10. Bill Madlock
11. Judy Johnson, Negro leagues
12. Oliver Marcell, Negro leagues
13. John McGraw, pre- 1900
14. Ossie Bluege
15. Willie Kamm
16. Bill Bradley
17. Freddie Lindstrom
18. George Kell
19. Larry Gardner
20. Clete Boyer

The order after Santo is totally fluid.

What we need more than anything else here, is for a stat person to do the Relative BA/SLG/OBP for Pie. I would if I could, but square roots were not imbedded into my gene pool.

[Bill Burgess]

Leecemark contributed this from a previous thread on Pie Traynor:

--Bill, I'm not as good a numbers guys as some, but in this case most of the work has been done for us. Baseball-reference.com has player and league (adjusted for park) numbers for all players. All you need to do to get the relative figure is divide player by league. Here's the numbers for Traynor:

..............League..........Traynor............. Traynor Relative to League
BA...........295..............320................. ..108
OBP.........353..............362.................. .102
SLG.........416...............435................. .105

--So you can see Traynor was a pretty good, but far from great, hitter for average at 8% better than league. His lack of patience hurts him and he is only 2% better in OBP. His lack of power also drags his slugging down to 5% better than league. With his glove and above average bat, Traynor was a well above average player and I'd have liked to have him on my team. He was hardly someone to build a lineup around though and vastly overrated when listed by some as the best 3B ever.

--In closing, I'll say again I'm not great with numbers and my simplistic formula may be off by a few points. My figures do give Traynor an OPS+ of 107, same as his actual, so I'm close if not exact. If somebody who enjoys number crunching more than I do wants to make a correction, please do.

--I ran that same rough calculation for numbers for the top 14 (thats as far as I've gotten running my own formula for 3B's) thirdbasemen on my list. Here's the leaderboard, followed by individual totals. Again there may be a couple points margin of error here. Please forgive any errors of a journeyman caliber numbers man.

Relative BA............Relative OBP.............Relative Slugging
1. Boggs 122.........1. Boggs 123............1. Schmidt 134
2. Brett 116.........2. Mathews 115........2. Mathews 128
3. Molitor 116........3. Schmidt 113.........3. Baker 127
4. Baker 115..........4. Hack 117............ 4. Rosen 126
5. Hack 110...........5. Brett 112.............5.Brett 123

--Below are the individual totals in the order I rank thirdbasemen by my own formula. These numbers didn't actually play a part in my rankings (although they are components of OPS+ which did), which include values for quanity as well as quality, plus fielding, baserunning and and intangible contributions.
........................Relative BA/OBP/SLG
1. Schmidt.........100/113/134
2. Mathews........104/115/128
3. Brett.............116/112/123
4. Baker.............115/109/127
5. Santo............103/108/116
6. Boggs............122/123/107
7. Collins............105/101/114
8. Hack..............110/117/103
9. Molitor............116/111/111
10. Boyer.............107/104/112
11. Traynor..........108/102/105
12. Robinson.........106/99/105
13. Nettles...........95/101/109
14. Rosen.............107/111/126
--These are the only players at 3B I've taken a look at since devising my rating formula. There are still some good ones to go that might alter the back part of this list. I guess if you really don't like to see Pie out of the top 10 we can call Molitor a DH. Thats actually more accurate, but I don't keep a separate list of career PH's - even the ones who get to do it 4-5 times a game.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Elhalo, Jim Rice was at least as highly regarded in his own time as Traynor. Less than 20 years later I don't think anybody has him in their top 10 LFers and his Hall of Fame chances aren't looking so hot. Sometimes stepping back a little gives you a better view than those who saw it up close (I was a huge Rice fan myself in the 70s). I believe you've made the same arguement yourself pretty persuasively quite recently.

[Bill Burgess]

Imapotato chimed in with this one:

Mr. El Halo,

Arguing defense?
Please don't go there...lol

McGraw rarely played...and when he did it was a late inning PR, and then he'd go in at 3rd...so 2 innings per game makes that career total better than it is.

The TWO years...yes only 2, that McGraw played more than 100 games at 3b, his RF was 40-50 points below league average...and his fielding % was horrid! Even for his time...why do you think he stopped playing FT?

McGraw does not even belong in a list of top 3rd baseman

Mr. Burgess,

Although I might rate HR Baker a little higher, knowing he left the game because he needed to be a single dad, it remains that Baker held every single fielding record before Pie Tarynor took them. Plus he was the protype slugger and a key member of tha A's dynasty...AND his RF and F% was so much above league average its scary...I always have him top 10 at least...on your list I would put him ahead of Robinson

Tommy Leach, it would be behind or just ahead of Santo...and both Leach and Santo should be ahead of Boyer and Collins...I think you have Boyer too high...and it doesn't bother me that Negro League players are on your list...but how high they are in it...w/o any discernable stats...you have them ahead of some very good major leaguers, and I was not one of the HATE brigade, so I look at the Negro Leagues as what they were...a low level baseball league with a very small pool to get talent, playing against said talent and also Cuban leagues. What they did against Major Leaguers mean nothing more than Celebrity softball...if my livelihood was baseball, I'd have fun playing an exhibition against a Negro all star team, but in no way would I throw a curve or dive for a ball...etc. While the negro league team, would take it as a challenege to beat major leaguers.

Just my opinion, but overall, the Negro teams of the 20's and 30's could match up with any PCL team...but wouldn't beat even the Browns or Phillies on a regular basis.
----------------------------------
Pie Traynor, Pirates' 3B, 1925

[dgarza]

1. Schmidt
2. Boggs
3. Brett
4. Mathews
5. Baker
6. Jones
7. White
8. Santo
9. Robinson
10. Rosen
11. Hack
12. Traynor
13. Boyer
14. Meyerle
15. Lyons
16. Elliot
17. Zimmerman
18. Kell
19. Bonilla
20. Collins
21. McGraw
22. Madlock
23. Evans

[RuthMayBond]

13th is the absolutely most generous he can be ranked

[iPod]

Mark (leecemark) and Jim (ElHalo) locked on in a battle to the death, or exhaustion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Postnote... I should point out: I'm not specifically discriminating against Schmidt here with this. Guys like Joe Morgan, Phil Rizzuto, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Willie McCovey and, to a lesser extent because of his position, Johnny Bench, all get the down arrow because of their inexcusable BA's. I lop off 30 or 35 points worth of career OPS+, and go from there. No amount of home runs or plate discipline can make up for an inability to but the bat on the ball."


I vaguely remember this conversation, and I'm pretty sure this point was made in the original thread, but I'll make it again.

Lop off 35 points from Schmidt's career OPS+ (147). It's still above Traynor's (107). Overcoming 40 points of OPS+, 3 MVP awards (when he never finished higher than 6th), 72 points of black ink (74 to 2), and 90 points of gray ink (224 to 134) is a LOT for Traynor to overcome based on batting average, defense, and intangibles.

For one thing, Schmidt wasn't as bad a contact hitter in his prime as his .267 average suggests. In his prime, he was certainly capable of hitting for a respectable average, especially for as much power as he was giving the Phillies. He hit as high as .316 in the strike year, '81, and also had years where he hit .293, .290, .286, .282, and .280. He had only 1 top ten finish in batting average, 4th in 1981, but that placing was higher than Pie's highest showing, 5th in 1927. Pie was a better contact hitter, granted. But it's not like if you took him and put him in the Vet in the '70s, he'd hit .320 again. And it's not like if you put Schmidt in Forbes Field in the '20s, he'd hit .267 again. And besides, the differences in power put them in completely different spheres. Schmidt had 1,200 more total bases than Traynor, and played in an era when fewer runs were scored.

Pie Traynor was seen as a defensive monster at third base. Can't take that away from him. OK, but Mike Schmidt won 10 gold gloves. Even if you could make the claim with certainty that Traynor was a better glove than Schmidt, how much advantage could Traynor possibly take over Schmidt in this department?

As for intangibles... fine, Traynor supposedly had loads of them. That's great, but Schmidt was universally seen as the best player of his era. Jeter supposedly has loads of intangibles. Pujols is seen as the best player in the league right now, setting aside Bonds for his absence in '05. Which is more intangibly valuable? I'd take the latter.

I just don't really see the argument. Unless you just absolutely, unequivocally refuse to take a mediocre BA guy over a high BA guy, the argument for Traynor over Schmidt seems awfully weak.

[yanks0714]

The argument I have in support of Pie Traynor is the evolution of 3B over time.

We place him below the 3B who came on the scene after 3B was transformed into a hitting/power position.

Now, with that evolutionary change to the position + new statistical metrics we penalize Pie Traynor. Okay, fine, we penalize him but what we ignore, yes, ignore, is that at the time he played, 3B was considered a defensive position. Whatever a 3B provided offensively was icing on the cake.
In another thread I challenged posters to list how Pie stacked up offensively against other 3B of his era. Someone provided the numbers and Pie Traynor clearly was well ahead of all the others. Clearly.

As for today's statistical metrics, Pie doesn't look nearly as good. But I think we do need to take into consideration that Pie played very well in his era for what was expected of a 3B. Very well. He hit for what was considered to be the most important thing in those days, BA.

If you want to ignore the historical aspect of 3B primarily being a defensive position into a offensive position I can't stop you. But that is why Pie Traynor looks worse and as a result ranks lower than the post-position evolution. Lets not make the mistake of evaluating via today's metrics alone. We need to understand what those metrics are about and WHY they show as they do. The numbers alone don't give us enough to go on. Behind the numbers is a story....we need to listen to it.

Let's not shortchange Pie Traynor because of changes that took place in the position after he retired. Let's listen to some of the historians and sportswriters who watched him and his contemps play.
Numbers don't always tell the story. Believe me.....I work with stats in my job every day.

I generally rank Baker ahead of Pie primarily due to his hitting/power numbers. Baker was not a "clumsy" fielder. Lord knows that with the emphasis on defense at the position in that era Connie Mack wouldn't have played him there. I suspect that that Baker was a 'highlight reel' type fielder turning in some spectacular plays but also booting a few more routine plays.
Read ' Frank 'Home Run' Baker ' by Barry Sparks to get a sense of his defense.

[iPod]

The argument I have in support of Pie Traynor is the evolution of 3B over time.

We place him below the 3B who came on the scene after 3B was transformed into a hitting/power position.

First, Schmidt was a fabulous defensive third baseman himself, and had to play in a league where a lot of ballparks used artificial turf. Just because Schmidt didn't play in a league that really emphasized the importance of a good fielding third baseman, it doesn't mean a league that does emphasize it wouldn't greatly appreciate him.

Second, whether or not he received a great deal of recognition for being a great defender at an important defensive position, it still doesn't change the end result, which is that he clearly wasn't as heralded in his time as Schmidt was in his time. Schmidt won 3 MVP awards. Traynor never finished higher than 6th. Here are his placings:

1925 NL: 8th
- Hornsby won the award, but 2 other Pirates finished above Traynor; RF Cuyler (2nd), and their SS Glenn "Buckshot" Wright (4th).

1926 NL: 13th
- Bob O'Farrell won the award; again, 2 other Pirates finished above Traynor. This year, it was Ray Kremer (3rd), and Paul Waner (12th). Les Bell (6th) and Freddie Lindstrom (9th) finish above him amongst 3B.

1927 NL: 7th
- Both Waner brothers finished above him; Paul 1st, Lloyd 6th.

1928 NL: 6th
- Traynor's best showing in the voting for his career, but another Pirate had a better year supposedly; Burleigh Grimes finished 3rd. Traynor finished 2nd amongst 3B, behind Freddie Lindstrom who had 231 hits.

1929 NL: 7th
- Again, 3rd MVP on the Pirates; Grimes (4th), and Lloyd Waner (5th) both edged him out in the voting

1931 NL: 13th
- Finally the highest placing Pirate, but he finishes 13th. Sparky Adams, another 3B, finishes 9th.

1932 NL: 8th
- Back to 2nd on the Pirates. Paul Waner finishes 4th.

1933 NL: 8th
- First on the Pirates, but Pepper Martin is the highest placing 3B (5th).

Only twice was he named by the writers as the best player on the Pirates; 13th in 1931, and 8th in 1933. And this isn't a Lou Gehrig situation, where he played under the shadow of a consistently superior player or something. 6 different players finished above him during Traynor's time with the Pirates. 4 times, two Pirates finished above him.

4 out of the 8 times, Traynor finished in the MVP voting below at least one other third baseman; 1926, 1928, 1931, and 1933. In 1927, when the Pirates won the pennant, Traynor did lead all NL 3B in OPS+, but not by much:

1) Pie Traynor (Pirates), 114
2) Andy High (Braves), 112
3) Chuck Dressen (Reds), 112
4) Freddie Lindstrom (Giants), 111
...

Traynor's best season was probably 1930, when he had a 124 OPS+ and batted .366.

1) Freddie Lindstrom (Giants), 141
2) Woody English (Cubs), 125
3) Pie Traynor (Pirates), 124
4) Tony Cuccinello (Reds), 104

I'm overstating the expectations of the hitting of a third baseman here, because the other 4 NL third baseman in each year were either slightly or well below average. However, to say that Traynor completely dominated the market on NL third baseman, year in, year out, isn't really accurate. Freddie Lindstrom absolutely could hang with Pie Traynor as a hitter. And only 4 times in his career was Traynor the highest voted third baseman in the NL, 13 full seasons.

My point is, Traynor absolutely was seen by the writers as a very good player. But did he get the kind of respect that Schmidt got? No way in hell. And this is in spite of the fact that, as you say, less offense was expected out of third baseman during Traynor's time. When you combine this observation with all the numbers I regurgitated in my first post, it seems pretty clear to me that Traynor was at the very least behind Schmidt, which means, by definition, he can't be the best third baseman ever.

[538280]

1.Mike Schmidt
2.Eddie Mathews
3.George Brett
4.Ron Santo
5.Wade Boggs
6.Frank Baker
7.Ray Dandridge
8.Sal Bando
9.Jimmy Collins
10.Paul Molitor
11.Oliver Marcelle
12.Brooks Robinson
13.Darrell Evans
14.Ken Boyer
15.Ron Cey
16.Stan Hack
17.Graig Nettles
18.Al Rosen
19.Heinie Groh
20.Pie Traynor
21.John McGraw
22.Chipper Jones
23.Lave Cross
24.Edgar Martinez
25.Bob Elliot

I see Pie as the best thrid baseman in the 1920s, even though that isn't really saying all that much. The crop of 3B at that time wasn't very good. He was only a fair hitter in all three categories (BA, OBP, SLG) compared to league average, but I am willing to give him a break because 3B was a defensive position in his time.

I think Pie's fielding has been way overblown. I think in an effort to make their all time teams look stronger, many of Pie's advocates in the 1950s (when he was regarded as the #1 3B) really pushed his fielding. Pie's play by that time had been forgotten by most, and they probably got away with it. Pie wasn't at all the outstanding fielder they said, but rather just a good solid fielder, not up to the standards of other great 3B like Collins, Cross, Lee Tannehill, and even Heinie Groh.

Speaking of Heinie Groh, I can't see a way to possibly say Pie was better. Groh was a better fielder, and was actually a better hitter as well. Traynor was regarded as a better hitter, but that's just because his skills were overrated at the time while Groh's were undervalued and actually went completely unnoticed (walks weren't even counted for individual hitters). Statistically, Pie comes up way short of Heinie:

Win Shares
Career
Groh-271
Traynor-271
(They're tied despite Pie's better longevity. That shows you how much better Groh was while playing)

Top 3 WS Seasons
Groh-37, 30, 28
Traynor-28, 26, 26
(Not all that close. Groh's peak is way better)

Top 5 Consecutive WS Seasons
Groh-147
Traynor-119
(Again, not even close)

Relative Hitting Stats

BA
Groh-108
Traynor-108
(Once normalized for era, Traynor's supposed strength doesn't look so great)

OBP
Groh-113
Traynor-103
(Not even close. Groh's patience at the plate makes him a far better hitter than Pie)

SLG
Groh-105
Traynor-105
(Since Tranor played in a really tough park for power hitting, he probably was a better slugger than Groh. But, a one or two point SLG advantage doesn't even begin to make up a 10 point Rel. OBP difference)

So, overall, Groh kills Pie everywhere. He was a better hitter, had a much better peak, and was a better fielder. I would like to see what argument anyone can put forth for Pie. Eyewitness accounts in this case mean very little. Should we penalize Groh just because his skills were underavalued at the time? Of course not, that's completely unfair. I guarantee you if they played today Groh would be regarded as better.

[Bill Burgess]

I wanted to dredge the bottom for this old thread.

I hope that those who posted great here the first time can transfer their best arguments to the new Pie Traynor thread.

[Bill Burgess]

The Younger Generation! Some have Pie at 29th, and Groh at 11th.

Well, the good news is that most still rank Pie in the Top 10 3Bmen, and Groh isn't near him. Below is the results of our recent 3B poll. No Groh in sight, while Pie came in 8th, and Collins 11th.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The results are now in. It wasn't particularly close, Mike Schmidt ran away with this one. These are the final results:

Mike Schmidt-177 (14)
Eddie Mathews-122
George Brett-122
Wade Boggs-98 (1)
Ron Santo-87
Frank Baker-50
Brooks Robinson-47
Pie Traynor-28
Ken Boyer-20
Paul Molitor-17
Jimmy Collins-17
Darrell Evans-17
Ray Dandridge-12

No one else received more than 10 points.
---------------------------------------------------------------
I think Traynor/Collins are close in value. Glad Santo got his props.
If no one else is loving bottle bat boy, why do I have to do a Pie/Heinie? If you insist he was, then I have another item for The Best of Chris. Bill James ranks Pie 15th, Groh 21st among 3B. Appears you stepped in doo-doo.

Bill

[Bill Burgess]

Alright. Let's do this.

Traynor/Groh:

Traynor was a much better fielder, and a slightly better hitter, even though Forbes suppressed his power numbers much more than Crosley Field did to Heinie.

It appears that Heinie had nice patience and walked well, which drove up his on-base numbers, which in turn drove up his TPR figure from Total Baseball.

Pie was the more valued player for my dough. Heinie did better with the bat than I thought, but still couldn't catch Pie. And Pie's league was slightly better.

[CTaka]

To me, that's just pissing all over history. And it just isn't true. The only competition Traynor had for all time honors, from 1930-60, was Jimmy Collins. I just can't rate Home Run Baker in the same class, due to his clumsy defense. Traynor was a superb defender, at the Hot Corner, where reflexes are paramount.
Traynor was a great defender, but I don't understand the comment about Baker being "clumsy" on defense. Bill James gives both Baker and Traynor a "B" fielding grade, with Baker having a slightly higher number of fielding Win Shares per 1000 innings. Baker's ratio of fielding runs above replacement player per number of games played is also a tad higher than Traynor's. I'm not saying Baker was the equal of Jimmy Collins (my personal choice for best defensive 3B ever) or Brooks Robinson, but that doesn't sound like a "clumsy" glove man to me.

My top ten would be:

1. Mike Schmidt
2. Eddie Mathews
3. George Brett
4. Home Run Baker
5. Wade Boggs
6. Ron Santo
7. Jimmy Collins
8. Paul Molitor
9. Stan Hack
10. Brooks Robinson

I have Chipper Jones knocking on the top ten door with Pie just behind him. Thus I voted that I no longer have Traynor in the top ten.

[538280]

Alright. Let's do this.

Traynor/Groh:

Traynor was a much better fielder, and a slightly better hitter, even though Forbes suppressed his power numbers much more than Crosley Field did to Heinie.

Wrong! How you could possibly say Traynor is a better hitter is beyond me. They're the same in rel. BA, Heinie kills him in rel. OBP, and they're the same in rel. SLG (although Traynor did play in a tough slugging park, so I'll give him a small edge there). But, overall a slight SLG advantage doesn't make up a huge OBP advantage.

I suppose contemporary opinion probably supports Pie as a better hitter, but that means close to nothing in this case. At that time, walking wasn't considered an important offensive skill, and thus Groh's best strength (getting on base) was neglected by people at the time. In other words, the people didn't recognize Groh's value. I said Groh would be considered better today because today people have finally begun to understand the importance of plate discipline.

Traynor's skills, on the other hand, were way overrated. His main skill was contact hitting (though he still wasn't any better than Groh at it), which was thought to be far more important at the time that it really was.

You're also badly mistaken about fielding as well. At the time, Groh's main strength as a player was considered to be his fielding. He beats Pie handily in almost all fielding metrics (except RF, which is by far the least significant, and Groh kills him in error rate, which negates that big time):

Rel. RF
Groh-103
Traynor-111

Rel. Fielding %
Groh-102
Traynor-100
(The two point difference is actually a huge deal. Traynor's F% at third was .947, the same as the league average. Groh's F% was .967, compared to the league average of .946. That's a huge difference. Groh also holds perhaps one of the most amazing unheralded records, in that he still holds the single season record for fielding percentage at third base.)

Defensive Win Shares/1000 innings
Groh-5.29
Traynor-4.65

FRAR
Groh-483
Traynor-413

FRAA
Groh-155
Traynor-103

So, overall Groh beats him in every metric, except RF, but that is countered because Groh was making far few erros, and RF doesn't take errors into account. Groh was the better fielder, Bill.

It appears that Heinie had nice patience and walked well, which drove up his on-base numbers, which in turn drove up his TPR fifure from Total Baseball.

Pie was the more valued player for my dough. Heinie did better with the bat than I thought, but still couldn't catch Pie. And Pie's league was slight better.

Not so sure the league is all that much stronger. In Groh's first few years the NL was the superior league to the AL, but while Pie played the leagues were not equal and he played in the inferior one. They're about the same with league quality for me.

What was Pie more valuable for, Bill? You just presented very, very little evidence and didn't check things as much as you should have. That was probably overall one of the worst arguments I've ever seen you make. Don't assume Pie was a better fielder just because you've never heard anything about Groh, because Heinie was regarded as a fabulous fielder and the numbers prove that. The record he holds is simply amazing (perhaps one of the most impressive records there is). The advancements in equipment technology has made it so that sort of thing shouldn't happen, and yet Groh was so great at reducing errors that he really defied logic, and continues to do it today.

[ElHalo]

Wrong! How you could possibly say Traynor is a better hitter is beyond me. They're the same in rel. BA, Heinie kills him in rel. OBP, and they're the same in rel. SLG (although Traynor did play in a tough slugging park, so I'll give him a small edge there). But, overall a slight SLG advantage doesn't make up a huge OBP advantage.

Top 10 in RBI: 9 times for Pie; 1 for Groh (career /162: 106 for Pie, 55 for Groh... note that Mike Schmidt's /162 is 107)
Top 10 in BA: 6 for Pie, 3 for Groh
Top 10 in SB: Pie, 4. Groh, 1.

The fact that Pie's strengths (BA and RBI's) have been sacraficed on the altar of BB's by baseball fans who really should know better doesn't change the fact that Pie Traynor was a fantastic hitter, infinitely better than his 107 OPS+ would lead one to believe. Calling Groh better than Traynor is just silly and wrongheaded.

[Cyclone792]

Top 10 in RBI: 9 times for Pie; 1 for Groh (career /162: 106 for Pie, 55 for Groh... note that Mike Schmidt's /162 is 107)
Top 10 in BA: 6 for Pie, 3 for Groh
Top 10 in SB: Pie, 4. Groh, 1.

The fact that Pie's strengths (BA and RBI's) have been sacraficed on the altar of BB's by baseball fans who really should know better doesn't change the fact that Pie Traynor was a fantastic hitter, infinitely better than his 107 OPS+ would lead one to believe. Calling Groh better than Traynor is just silly and wrongheaded.

Top 10 in OBP: 6 for Groh (led his league twice), 0 for Pie
Top 10 in SLG: 3 for Groh, 1 for Pie
Top 10 in OPS: 3 for Groh (led his league once), 0 for Pie
Top 10 in OPS+: 4 for Groh, 0 for Pie
Top 10 in RC: 5 for Groh (led his league once), 3 for Pie

The league OPS for Heinie Groh's career was .695. He played in a ridiculously low scoring environment. The league OPS for Pie Traynor's career was .769, a much higher scoring environment.

Groh was better.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

How good was Pie?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember as a kid when Pie Traynor was universally called the best ever 3rd baseman. I'm talking around 1957-62. I had a coffee table soft back book, called Big Time Baseball, and Pie was the all time 3rd B. (The rest were: Gehrig, Hornsby, Wagner, Cobb, Ruth, DiMaggio, W. Johnson, Dickey)

And I never heard anything different until reading Bill James' first Historical Abstract, 1985, were he opines, "Thirty years ago Pie Traynor was generally recognized as the greatest third baseman of all time
James ranks Traynor #15 all time in the current Historical Baseball Abstract. He ranks Stan Hack #9. He gives some pretty good reasons why he ranks Hack higher than Traynor. When you get the time you should read the Stan Hack entry in the Historical abstract...

[538280]

Top 10 in OBP: 6 for Groh (led his league twice), 0 for Pie
Top 10 in SLG: 3 for Groh, 1 for Pie
Top 10 in OPS: 3 for Groh (led his league once), 0 for Pie
Top 10 in OPS+: 4 for Groh, 0 for Pie
Top 10 in RC: 5 for Groh (led his league once), 3 for Pie

The league OPS for Heinie Groh's career was .695. He played in a ridiculously low scoring environment. The league OPS for Pie Traynor's career was .769, a much higher scoring environment.

Groh was better.

Amen, brother.

ElHalo can use his BA and RBIs all day long, but the fact is they have very little to do with how teams acutally win ballgames. They are both misleading as well, because Groh was a leadoff hitter his whole career. That gives him far less RBI opportunities and makes it so he'd be better off taking his pitches rather than always going for hits at the expense of walks.

[iPod]

James ranks Traynor #15 all time in the current Historical Baseball Abstract. He ranks Stan Hack #9. He gives some pretty good reasons why he ranks Hack higher than Traynor. When you get the time you should read the Stan Hack entry in the Historical abstract...

Yeah, that's one of my favorite articles in that book. Honestly I don't see much justification for Traynor even over Hack, let alone Schmidt or Brett.

James' arguments:
1) Hack hit .301 while Traynor hit .320, but much of this is because league BA's were higher in Traynor's day.

Even if you use ElHalo's actual regular league BA for Traynor, .285, the adjusted BA is still pretty much the same, right around 10% greater than league average. If you use .295 for Traynor, Hack pulls ahead. Hack finished 4th in batting average three times; Traynor's best finish was 5th. Hack led the NL in hits twice, Traynor never finished above third.

2) Traynor drove in far more runs than Hack, but a large part of this is because Hack was a leadoff man. Pie was regularly amongst the top RBI men in his league's, but Hack was regularly amongst the top run scorers. 4 times, he finished 2nd in runs scored, and he was in the top 5 six times. Pie was in the top 5 in RBI only twice.

Another side argument here is that because Hack was a leadoff man, he had a lot more baserunning value than Traynor. For some odd reason, James says that running is a neutral point between the two, but I don't see how this holds at all. Every year from 1936 through 1940, Hack was either first or second in the league in stolen bases.

3) Using runs created, Hack and Traynor had very similar RC/27 totals (5.89 to 5.81), but Hack played in an era when fewer runs were scored. I've always felt that runs created tend to underrate leadoff men, but despite this and the era bias against Hack, the two have essentially the same RC rates. This is (I assume) because Hack was a significantly more patient hitter, regularly finishing amongst the league's walks leaders, while Traynor was impatient.

4) Traynor was a better fielder than Hack, but not enough to offset the differences in offense. James cites that Hack was a fine defensive third baseman himself, and made fewer errors.

5) Hack played for four NL champions, while Traynor played for only two. Also, Hack generally played better in the World Series, hitting .348 in WS play, while Traynor hit only .293.

[RuthMayBond]

I don't understand your reluctance to do this Groh/Traynor thing. This is what you wanted when you started this thread right? I have replied to your argument, now you're supposed to reply to mine.
I've got Groh as having a razor-thin edge over Traynor, extremely close

[Bill Burgess]

I don't understand your reluctance to do this Groh/Traynor thing. This is what you wanted when you started this thread right? I have replied to your argument, now you're supposed to reply to mine.

Traynor/Groh:

Offense--G-----PA----Outs----AB-------H-----D----T----HRs---R-----RBI-
PT----1,941--8,293--5,467--7,559----2,416--371--164---58--1,183--1,273
HG----1,676--7,035--4,548--6,074----1,774--308-- 87---26--- 918----566


---------BB---SO---SB----TB----SH---GIDP--HBP--Rel.BA--Rel.OBP--Rel.SLG.
PT------472--278---158--3289---231---47----31---1.07-----1.02----1.04
HG------696--345---180--2334---182----?----83---1.08-----1.13----1.04




Defense:
---------PO-------A-------DP----E----PO/G-----A/G------DP/G-------E/G
PT------2390----3,672----318---348---
HG------2172----3,568----408---223---


---Blck Ink---Gry --Hall/Fame Stand.-OPS+--Hll/Fme Monitor---Win Shares-TPR
PT---2--------134-------43.1---------107---------96.0----------274------28.2
HG--14---------90-------23.8---------118---------23.5----------272------31.2

Per 162 g---AB---R---H---2B--3B--HR--RBI--SB--BB--SO--TB---SH-HBP
PT---------631--99--202--31--14---5--106--13--39--23--275--19--3
HG---------587--89--171--30---8---3---55--17--67--33--226--18--9

------------------------------------------------
I think we can safely now deduce that Pie kills Heinie offensively. And he did it with Forbes Field on his back, and against tougher competition. Both played in the NL, and Pie played later. Just look at their average for RBIs/162 g. Pie just clobbers him. Pie wins for longevity, better glove (yes, you're wrong), contemporarie's opinions/reputation, and hitting. So I guess that just about covers everything important. But I do hear that Heinie had a better sense of humor. So it ain't a total loss. You are taking Win Shares WAY too out of context, while ignoring other stuff. And only using league strength when it suits your argument.

First Allen close to Ty in hitting, and now Heinie over Pie. You must have a thing for players who have no chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. Who would have believed I had to do a Traynor/Groh and be serious?

Happy now?

Bill Burgess

[CTaka]

Originally Posted by william_burgess@usa.net
To me, that's just pissing all over history. And it just isn't true. The only competition Traynor had for all time honors, from 1930-60, was Jimmy Collins. I just can't rate Home Run Baker in the same class, due to his clumsy defense. Traynor was a superb defender, at the Hot Corner, where reflexes are paramount.

Traynor was a great defender, but I don't understand the comment about Baker being "clumsy" on defense. Bill James gives both Baker and Traynor a "B" fielding grade, with Baker having a slightly higher number of fielding Win Shares per 1000 innings. Baker's ratio of fielding runs above replacement player per number of games played is also a tad higher than Traynor's. I'm not saying Baker was the equal of Jimmy Collins (my personal choice for best defensive 3B ever) or Brooks Robinson, but that doesn't sound like a "clumsy" glove man to me.

Since no one has answered my question, does that mean that the consensus on this board is that Baker was indeed a "clumsy" defender? I've always considered Baker a good but not great fielder, but certainly not "clumsy". If someone has information to either corroborate Bill's assertion or mine, I'd appreciate the opportunity to learn.

[538280]

This so ubelievably stupid, Bill. You won't believe. You're using stats the wrong way. Pie did not kill Henie offensively. It was actually the other way around. First off, your relative stats above are wrong. THis is how they should be:

BA
Groh-108
Traynor-108

OBP
Groh-113
Traynor-103

SLG
Groh-105
Traynor-105

OPS+
Groh-118
Traynor-107

So, they're tied in BA and SLG, I suppose I'll give the SLG to Tranor because of Forbes. The league quality can also give him a slight lead in BA, but Groh still has the huge 10 point advantage in OBP.

The RBIs mean absolutely nothing, Bill. Even though they're not too far from being contemeporaries, Groh played in a far lower run context. This makes all the numbers on the top row utterly useless. Also, Groh was a leadoff man his whole career while Pie got to play in the middle of the order. Pie was also impatient, which actually drove up his RBI. Groh was very patient, which has a negative effect on RBI.

The HOF Standards/HOF Monitor mean very little too because they aren't adjusted for context and aren't really fair to a leadoff man who gets on base all the time. A player with the skill set of Groh in the deadball era probably couldn't do any better in those tests than Groh himself has. Groh does slightly worse in gray ink, but that's just because Gray Ink for some strange reason doesn't include OBP. If it did, I think Groh would pass him there are go even futher ahead on Black Ink.

You say he's a better fielder. Well, why? I posted statistical evidence in support of Groh, could you give me some sort of reason for Traynor being better in the field?

Your argument just convinced me you can really use numbers to say anything you want to say, if you skew them just enough, and don't take into consideration the context in which they were put up.

[ElHalo]

Pie was also impatient, which actually drove up his RBI.

Yes, exactly... thus making him more valuable. Yet another problem I have with the "skill" of not swinging.

[538280]

Yes, exactly... thus making him more valuable. Yet another problem I have with the "skill" of not swinging.

I could see that argument if Groh batted 3rd or 4th, but since Groh was a leadoff hitter it loses all its steam.

[RuthMayBond]

This so ubelievably stupid, Bill. You won't believe. You're using stats the wrong way. Pie did not kill Henie offensively. It was actually the other way around. First off, your relative stats above are wrong. THis is how they should be:

That's taken care of with adjusted stats

[RuthMayBond]

Traynor was a great defender, but I don't understand the comment about Baker being "clumsy" on defense. Bill James gives both Baker and Traynor a "B" fielding grade, with Baker having a slightly higher number of fielding Win Shares per 1000 innings. Baker's ratio of fielding runs above replacement player per number of games played is also a tad higher than Traynor's. I'm not saying Baker was the equal of Jimmy Collins (my personal choice for best defensive 3B ever) or Brooks Robinson, but that doesn't sound like a "clumsy" glove man to me.
I have Baker as 7x PO king, 2x assist king, 4x fielding% king, probably deserving five Gold Gloves, so I wouldn't call that clumsy.

[abacab]

http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1101&pid=14330

A fair and evenhanded biography of Traynor, as a man as well as a player.

[DoubleX]

Wow Bill. You've gone aways back with some of those previous conversations. I was actually surprised (and honored) that something I said almost a year and a half ago found its way into this.

My thirdbase rankings, more than any other position, are always in flux after the top 6 or 7 spots. However, Traynor almost never makes my top 10, and if he does it is at 10. Two reasons I even put Traynor that high: 1) Reputation - it says a lot to be widely considered the best 3Bman of a half century, and that has to factor in somewhere. 2) His RBI numbers are extremely impressive, as is his BA in a few individual seasons.

Nevertheless, the cream of the thirdbase crop came after WWII, and with the exception of Frank Baker, the post WWII players dominate my thirdbase rankings. Here's what I got today (and it will probably be different tomorrw):

1) Mike Schmidt
2) George Brett
3) Eddie Mathews
4) Wade Boggs
5) Ron Santo
6) Brooks Robinson
7) Chipper Jones - This is probably an unpopular choice
8) Frank Baker
9) Ken Boyer
10) Paul Molitor - If you can consider him at 3B
11) Pie Traynor
12) Darrell Evans

The next dozen, in no particular order:

Sal Bando
Buddy Bell
Ron Cey
Jimmy Collins
Bob Elliot
Heinie Groh
Stan Hack
John McGraw
Graig Nettles
Scott Rolen
Al Rosen
Matt Williams

[DoubleX]

Move up Nettles, down Boyer & Traynor & Bando & Collins, don't forget Leach/Harrah/Ventura and you got a pretty good list

Not enough room for everyone. Harrah, Ventura just miss, as does Heinie Zimmerman, Tim Wallach, and George Kell. Didn't Leach play more games in the OF?

I think Boyer is underrated. He was a poor man's Ron Santo. Boyer had a great glove, he won an MVP, and for a decade could be counted on for .290, 25, 90.

[RuthMayBond]

Not enough room for everyone. Harrah, Ventura just miss, as does Heinie Zimmerman, Tim Wallach, and George Kell.I'm just saying Nettles belongs above Traynor

<Didn't Leach play more games in the OF?>

yep, barely :ughh

<for a decade could be counted on for .290, 25, 90.>

Almost

[dgarza]

7) Chipper Jones - This is probably an unpopular choice

Great, cuz I got him at #6

The only member of my top 10 who I have not seen mentioned on any other list at all (even top 25) is Deacon White. I just noticed this.

[RuthMayBond]

Great, cuz I got him at #6

The only member of my top 10 who I have not seen mentioned on any other list at all (even top 25) is Deacon White. I just noticed this.I've got him at about #14 but even a reasonable next year and I think he moves up three slots. Deacon White really gets shafted in Win Shares

[538280]

That's taken care of with adjusted stats

Yeah, but I feel generic park factors often aren't enough compensation, especially in a case like Forbes where it may actually help BAs but really hurt SLG%.

[RuthMayBond]

Yeah, but I feel generic park factors often aren't enough compensation, especially in a case like Forbes where it may actually help BAs but really hurt SLG%.And there's always righty/lefty :( :noidea :ughh :confused:

[Bill Burgess]

Pie's a better hitter because he had more RBI's?

No. RBI's are team related, but look at the per 162 games line. Pie all but buries Heinie. On what basis do you assert that Heinie is as good a hitter?

Pie is clearly the superior hitter, in a much tougher ballpark, in a slightly tougher league. So, where is Heinie's case as the better all-around player?

I just can't see it. But I am open to an argument for Heinie if there is one.

Bill

[DoubleX]

Great, cuz I got him at #6

The only member of my top 10 who I have not seen mentioned on any other list at all (even top 25) is Deacon White. I just noticed this.

Deacon White is certainly a plausible choice. He's just a bit too old school for my taste.

I don't know why people tend to rank Jones lower. Offensively, he's right up there with Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, and Boggs, which is a considerable distance ahead of anyone else at 3B (except may Frank Baker). And Chipper has been doing it for a decade. I can't see begrudging him too much for the years spend in LF, even Mike Schmidt spend a season of his prime away from 3B, and George Brett played almost 1000 games at either DH or 1B. Is Chipper an all-time great fielder? Certainly not, but he's solid at 3B. Offensively, he's just about as good as anyone has ever been as a thirdbasemen. I think it's time he got his due, particularly since this is a position where there aren't that many truly standout players.

Some things to consider about Chipper:

- 141 OPS+ - Only Schmidt and Mathews are higher. Sure Chipper will go down some, but he'll likely still be in the mid 130's with the likes of Brett, Baker (plus Mcgraw and Rosen who had much, much shorter careers), and higher than Boggs and everyone else that's played significantly at thirdbase (A-Rod doesn't yet factor into any of this).

- MVP Award and five top 10 finishes

- 7 seasons batting over .300 (9 seasons over .295)

- 8 seasons with more than 100 RBI

- 6 seasons with at least 30 homeruns

- He's been the centerpiece of a team that contends each and every year, despite massive turnover

[538280]

You're absolutely correct. I went back and corrected it. Although the hitting differential isn't obvious via Relative stats, it does appear in its true form by their per 162 games line. There is where our true story lies.

Bill

The per 162 games line means absolutely nothing. As I said earlier, although they were close to contemporaries, Pie played in the huge offensive eras of the 1920s and 1930s while Groh played the majority of his carer just before 1920. The difference of the run environment they played in was tremendous. Look at the league averages for their time:

BA
Groh's time-.271
Pie's time-.295

OBP
Groh-.329
Pie-.353

SLG
Groh-.366
Pie-.416

OPS
Groh-.695
Traynor-.769

See? Comparing raw numbers between them isn't fair at all. It is comparing apples and oranges. If you want a good indicator of hitting skill, look at the relative stats. They accurately portray Groh as the superior hitter.

The huge difference in RBI is completely noconsequetial, because of the environment, and also because Groh batted leadoff his whole career while Pie was in the middle of the order.

You've proved absolutely nothing, Bill, and I'm still waiting for you to provide me with any evidence that Pie was a better fielder. He may have had slightly better range, but Groh has one of the best relative error rates of all time, and still holds the record for single season fielding percentage from a thrid baseman. I think that that may actually be one of the most amazing records we still have. Traynor, on the other hand, was erratic at third. His error rate is the exact same as the league average for his time.

[Bill Burgess]

Yeah, but I feel generic park factors often aren't enough compensation, especially in a case like Forbes where it may actually help BAs but really hurt SLG%.

Wow, Chris! I am finally in deep agreement with you. Forbes was hard on sluggers like Wagner, Clemente, Stargell, but probably enhanced their raw BA, and Relative BA a significant number of points.

Mark suggested that a long time ago in our Battle of Clemente, but no one else has picked up on that until you just did now. So kudos for perceptive observations! I've been waiting to give you some props, but you haven't let me till now. Let's keep it up.

And I think I can find some new ammo for our Pie/Heinie skirmishing.

Bill

[Appling]

I ranked Pie Traynor as the #1 thirdbaseman thru the first half of the 20th Century -- but IMO he has since by eclipsed by at least four others: Eddie Mathews, Brooks Robinson, George Brett and certainly Mike Schmidt.

Prior to 1950, 3B was a pretty weak position in the HOF race. Traynor might be considered by some as the "best of a sorry lot" but that is perhaps overdone. I would still rate Traynor ahead of Santo or Kell, and perhaps just slightly ahead of that old-timer, Jimmy Collins.

[Bill Burgess]

Traynor/Groh:

Assists per 154 games:

Pie Traynor ----291
Heinie Groh----304
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historical Credits:

Pie Traynor:

Points in MVP Voting:

1926: 14 - .14%
1927: 18 - (7th, .23%)
1931: 17 - 17(6th, .27%)
1932: 31 - (3rd, .35%)
1933: 20 - (8th, .25%)
1934: 0 -
1935: 0
1937: 0

Named outstanding ML 3Bman 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1931, 1933, by the Sporting News.
-----------------------------
Heinie Grow:

Points in MVP Voting:

1913: 0
1914: 2 (.03)
1927: 0

1925 - Tore up his knee late in the 1924 season, and it never really did come back. (Bill James, Historical BB Abstract, 1985, 1988, pp. 525)
---------------------------------------------
In terms of defensive excellence, Pie was not alone in his mastership. He was the mirror reflection of his AL counterparts, Ossie Bluege and Willie Kamm. They were his equals with the glove, but far inferior in their hitting, which explains why they have disappeared from the "fame radar".

Record of Hall of Fame Voting:

-------------------Traynor---------------Groh
1936-----------------16-------------------0
1937------------------0-------------------1
1938------------------3-------------------3
1939-----------------10-------------------0
1942-----------------45-------------------0
1945-----------------81-------------------1
1946-Nominated------65-------------------0
1946-----------------53-------------------0
1947----------------119-------------------0
1948-----------------93, elected-----------1
1950---------------------------------------2
1954---------------------------------------1
1955---------------------------------------5
1960---------------------------------------1
----------------------------------------------------
Hmm. Wouldn't be surprised if the lone vote for Heinie in 4 elections was the same lone sports writer.

Before Pie Traynor, there were 3 great 3rd basemen, Ned Williamson, Jimmy Collins and Bill Bradley, but only Collins could hit his way out of a paper bag, and are hence remembered today.

Another source of fruitful recognition is the awards given by the Baseball Magaizine and the Sporting News. Sporting News is already given above and Pie crushes Grow.

Bill Burgess

[Wee Willie]

I would still rate Traynor ahead of Santo or Kell, and perhaps just slightly ahead of that old-timer, Jimmy Collins.Why would you rate Pie ahead of Santo?

[538280]

Traynor/Groh:

Assists per 154 games:

Pie Traynor ----291
Heinie Groh----304
-------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is all nice and good, but I've tried to stress how using historical opinions is very unfair in this case. Groh's skills at that time were extremely underappreciated. OBP wasn't even a statistic, and they though a walk was the sole responsibility of the pitcher. Leadoff men were ignored as well. Traynor, on the other hand, was exactly the type of player who is historically overrated. A high BA, impatient hitter who had lots of RBIs, mostly just because of the environment he was playing in.

So, this still doesn't sway me at all. I think historical opinions are unfair, just because of the differences in how people portrayed the game through time. And you still haven't given me any evidence as to why Pie is a better fielder.

[Bill Burgess]

This is all nice and good, but I've tried to stress how using historical opinions is very unfair in this case. So, this still doesn't sway me at all. I think historical opinions are unfair, just because of the differences in how people portrayed the game through time. And you still haven't given me any evidence as to why Pie is a better fielder.

Like I once told you before, Chris, you have lost your way. And this is a perfect case. I showed how Sporting News chose Traynor as its outstanding 3rd baseman for many years, and his Hall of Fame support from those who had seen them play, and simply because it doesn't agree with your pre-conceived values, you seem to feel as if you are entitled to just blow it all off.

Well, I'm here to tell you, you can't do that, and retain a shred of credibility. Those eye-witnesses knew from whence they spoke and you are playing a guessing game 80 years after the fact. Doesn't work that way, Chris.

Heinie Groh will never make it to the Hall of Fame. And for bedrock reasons. His peers never perceived him to play at the levels you do.

In other arguments, you contradict yourself. In the Wagner/Sisler batttles, I correctly pointed out that they didn't walk, due to walking wasn't considered the valued commodity it later was. And when I suggested they would have taken that into consideration if they'd played later, you didn't accept my premise. You discounted them on era considerations.

And now, you're also denying Traynor his due credit. Walking wasn't considered very valuable in the twenties, and hence, that is one reason why Pie didn't try to walk much. Hitting was stressed then. But who is to suggest that Traynor/Wagner/Sisler wouldn't have adjusted to a later accepted value and stressed walking as a greater part of their game?

You are still breaking the rules of player evaluations, Chris. Oh yeah, I forgot. You are a Jamesian student. And as such, you are not concerned with what might have happened, but only with what did.

And like Bill James, who couldn't master a hypothetical, that is why you fail.

[RuthMayBond]

I showed how Sporting News chose Traynor as its outstanding 3rd baseman for many years, and his Hall of Fame support from those who had seen them playIs it possible that back then they had flaws in evaluation? (heck, a lot of people have trouble with it now)

<Those eye-witnesses knew from whence they spoke>

And we all know eyewitnesses are never biased

<Heinie Groh will never make it to the Hall of Fame.>

And he probably shouldn't. And maybe Traynor shouldn't have.

<You are still breaking the rules of player evaluations, Chris. Oh yeah, I forgot. You are a Jamesian student. And as such, you are not concerned with what might have happened, but only with what did.

And like Bill James, who couldn't master a hypothetical, that is why you fail.>

Thank you, judge and jury :laugh

[dgarza]

<Heinie Groh will never make it to the Hall of Fame.>

And he probably shouldn't. And maybe Traynor shouldn't have.


Heinie Groh probably shouldn't, but I have no problem with Traynor making it.

After the 1937 season, I see the historical 3B rankings like this:

1. Frank Baker
2. Deacon White
3. Pie Traynor
4. Levi Meyerle
5. Denny Lyons
6. Heinie Zimmerman
7. Jimmy Collins
8. John McGraw
9. Heinie Groh
10. Lave Cross
11. Freddie Lindstrom
12. Ezra Sutton
13. Bill Joyce

I don't have Tommy Leach as a 3B, but if I did, he would make #9, between McGraw and Groh.

[538280]

Like I once told you before, Chris, you have lost your way. And this is a perfect case. I showed how Sporting News chose Traynor as its outstanding 3rd baseman for many years, and his Hall of Fame support from those who had seen them play, and simply because it doesn't agree with your pre-conceived values, you seem to feel as if you are entitled to just blow it all off.

Well, I'm here to tell you, you can't do that, and retain a shred of credibility. Those eye-witnesses knew from whence they spoke and you are playing a guessing game 80 years after the fact. Doesn't work that way, Chris.

I am entitled to blow it all off. The people at that time had problems with player evaluation. They didn't realize how important plate discipline was, they thought it had everything to do with the pitcher. In this case, Groh's main skill was overrlooked, while Pie's main skills (BA, RBI) were thought to be far more important than they really were. In other words, those people were all subconsciously biased.

Also, since people back then didn't have relative stats, they just had to look at the raw numbers. The raw numbers clearly favor Pie almost everywhere, just because of the run context he played in. I don't have a shadow of a doubt that if they were around today Groh would be considered the better player.

Heinie Groh will never make it to the Hall of Fame. And for bedrock reasons. His peers never perceived him to play at the levels you do.

That would be legitimate if Groh was a more modern player, when he skills were appreciated, but because of the time he played in eyewitness accounts will always be biased against him. I think for the Hall he's a borderline case.

Anyway, who says Traynor deserves his plaque either? He's marginal at best.

In other arguments, you contradict yourself. In the Wagner/Sisler batttles, I correctly pointed out that they didn't walk, due to walking wasn't considered the valued commodity it later was. And when I suggested they would have taken that into consideration if they'd played later, you didn't accept my premise. You discounted them on era considerations.

And now, you also denying Traynor his due credit. Walking wasn't considered very valuable in the twenties, and hence, that is one reason why Pie didn't try to walk much. Hitting was stressed then. But who is to suggest that Traynor/Wagner/Sisler wouldn't have adjusted to a later accepted value and stressed walking as a greater part of their game?

It wasn't considered a commodity, so what we can do is compare him to league for his time. That is done with a stat called relative IsoPD. Traynor's rel. IsoPD is 72, so he walked 28% less than the average player of his time. Penalizing him for impatience at the plate is completely fair.

So, even in compaison to people of his time, he still was very impatient. Anyway, we're comparing him to Heinie Groh here, a player who didn't seem to be effected by the difference in era. Groh deserves his props over Traynor for taking his pitches.

[Bill Burgess]

I am entitled to blow it all off. The people at that time had problems with player evaluation. They didn't realize how important plate discipline was, they thought it had everything to do with the pitcher. In this case, Groh's main skill was overlooked, while Pie's main skills (BA, RBI) were thought to be far more important than they really were. In other words, those people were all subconsciously biased.

Also, since people back then didn't have relative stats, they just had to look at the raw numbers. The raw numbers clearly favor Pie almost everywhere, just because of the run context he played in. I don't have a shadow of a doubt that if they were around today Groh would be considered the better player.

Well, Chris. The people of long ago didn't have problems with player evaluations. They formed a tight consensus. You are the one who can not accept the agreed-on consensus of a large number of more-than qualified observers. For you to believe that you are capable of knowing more about these players than those who played with/against them is pure ego speaking.

Your advanced stats? Seeing is believing! Below are the per 162 game hitting averages.

Per 162 g---AB---R---H---2B--3B--HR--RBI--SB--BB--SO--TB---SH-HBP
PT---------631--99--202--31--14---5--106--13--39--23--275--19--3
HG---------587--89--171--30---8---3---55--17--67--33--226--18--9

There is absolutely no possible way you can defeat the hard, objective evidence. Pie crushes Heinie at the plate. Your former point, that we should consider that "Heinie hit lead-off" is a self-defeating argument.

Perhaps if he hit better, he would have earned a more advantageous hitting position in his lineup.

Both were contact hitters. Neither had power to speak of.

So Pie kills Heinie in the batter's box. Now defense.

Pie attracted so much attention with his glove, he became famous for it, much like Brooks Robinson did in later eras. He was recognized by all of that day. Groh may have been a good fielder too. But if so, he never became famous for it. His glove wasn't a legend.

For you to blow off eye-witnesses, just because they disagree with you, is the whelp of a pup. If you feel entitled to do that, than what prevents everyone from blowing off the allegations of others that Oscar Charleston was a fantastic, phenomenal player. Because, at the end of the day, all we really have to go on is other's opinions of the quality of his game.

So, be very careful how hard you flush contemporary opinion down the toilet. The reputations you save, may be those of your favorites. And it wouldn't be pretty. Blow off opinions as inherently biased, and you're destroying the very foundation on which rests the good names of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, John Lloyd and Biz Mackey.

So, be most alert. The charge of bias is a loaded one. It does a disservice to those you accuse, and yourself. And it also determines your status as a man. It takes a real man to not throw rocks at someone else's views, but show how the facts are different.

Most of the time, the majority of the time, stats confirm peer opinions. In the over-whelming majority of the time. Matt Souders PCA system verified a lot of my defensive guys.

And by the way, Pie Traynor's hitting position in the lineup may not have been perfect. He probably had in front of him, Lloyd Waner, Kiki Cuyler, Paul Waner, George Grantham.

Interestingly, in his final season, the Reds traded Heinie to Pie's team, the Pirates.

[538280]

Well, Chris. The people of long ago didn't have problems with player evaluations. They formed a tight consensus. You are the one who can not accept the agreed-on consensus of a large number of more-than qualified observers. For you to believe you are possible of knowing more about these players than those who played with/against them it pure ego speaking

Maybe it is ego speaking, but still, those people of long ago greatly undervalued the value of the base on balls. Is there anything wrong for me to step in 80 years later and say, "Well, they didn't give Groh his fair look, just because they undervalued his main skill." I don't see anything wrong with rejecting contemporary opinion in Groh's case, because it almost ignores his primary skill.

Your advanced stats? Seeing is believing! Below are the per 162 game hitting averages.

Per 162 g---AB---R---H---2B--3B--HR--RBI--SB--BB--SO--TB---SH-HBP
PT---------631--99--202--31--14---5--106--13--39--23--275--19--3
HG---------587--89--171--30---8---3---55--17--67--33--226--18--9

There is absolutely no possible way you can defeat the hard, objective evidence. Pie crushes Heinie at the plate. Your former point that we should consider Heinie hit lead-off is a self-defeating argument.

Perhaps if he hit better, he would have earned a more advantageous hitting position in his lineup.

Both were contact hitters. Neither had power to speak of.

So Pie kills Heinie in the batter's box. Now defense.

Bill, I think you missed part of my argument. My main argument for the disparity in those per 162 games stats was that Groh played in a much lower run context. Remember when I showed the BA, OBP, SLG, and OPS in their respective times? In Pie's time, many, many more runs were scored, so using raw unadjusted stats in unfair. Look at the relative stats and you'll see how Groh crushes Traynor.

My argument about Groh being a leadoff hitter was just a small point, and it only applied to the RBI disparity. Nevertheless, I have a huge problem with this quote:

Perhaps if he hit better, he would have earned a more advantageous hitting position in his lineup.

It has nothing to do with one batting order slot being more "advantageous", it just has to do with their skill set. Groh's main skill was getting on base, so naturally he'd bat in the spot where that skill is most crucial, leadoff. Pie, because he was impatient and only slightly better than league at getting on base, would be more suited for the middle of the order. We shouldn't penalize Groh just because his style was a little different.

And, the case in power isn't so clear either. They have the same rel. SLG, but I'm willing to give it to Pie because he played in Forbes. But, for those of use who like league leadership (you), Heinie did lead his league twice in doubles. Groh killed Pie on Black Ink, 14 to 2, and it would be even more of a margin if OBP was counted in Black Ink (don't ask me why it isn't).

Pie attracted so much attention with his glove, he became famous for it, much like Brooks Robinson did in later eras. He was recognized by all of that day. Groh may have been a good fielder too. But if so, he never became famous for it. His glove wasn't a legend.

For you to blow off eye-witnesses, just because they disagree with you, is the whelp of a pup. If you feel entitiled to do that, than what prevents everyone from blowing off the allegations of others that Oscar Charleston was a fantastic, phenomenal player. Because, at the end of the day, all we really have to go on is other's opinions of the quality of his game.

So, be very careful how hard you flush contemporary opinion down the toilet. The reputations you save, may be those of your favorites. And it wouldn't be pretty. Blow off opinions as inherintly biased, and you're destroying the very foundation on which rests the good names of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, John Lloyd and Biz Mackey.

So, be most alert. The charge of bias is a loaded one. It does a disservice to those you accuse, and yourself. And it also determines your status as a man. It takes a real man to not throw rocks at someone else's views, but show how the facts are different.

Most of the time, the majority of the time, stats confirm peer opinions. In the over-whelming majority of the time. Matt Souders PCA system verified a lot of my defensive guys.


Most of the time they do, but in this case they apparently don't. I showed you how Groh beats Traynor pretty handily in every fielding metric. So, which do you go with, stats or eyewitnesses? I tend to go with the stats, but if you want to go with the eyewitnesses that is your right.

My thoughts on why Traynor is considered to be a better fielder is that he was probably the more flashy fielder. Most of the stats do show Traynor with superior range, but Heinie more than makes that up because of his fabulous error rate. Fielders are noticed more for the flashy plays they make rather than just great consistency, so once again the eyewitnesses may be unfairly pointed towards Pie.

[jalbright]

But by the same logic, most home runs shouldn't count because the pitcher made a mistake there too. Or a double is a screwup between the pitcher and the fielders not being at the right place. Or steals are often the result of getting a good jump--and so on, because there is an element of a mistake in virtually every event on a baseball field. From a hitter 's perspective, a walk requires taking advantage of the mistakes of the pitcher (and umpire).

Bill, if you have to go to lawyerese like this:
Although somewhat contrived, the above logic isn't totally without merit.
It's pretty obvious you're reaching. When you think about it, all you've really said is ElHalo's argument isn't insane. If that's the best you can say, you've truly said nothing.

Jim Albright

[AG2004]

For you to blow off eye-witnesses, just because they disagree with you, is the whelp of a pup.


Technically, he's not blowing off eye-witnesses just because they disagree with him. He's discounting their opinions based on two factors, both of which can be evaluated independently of Groh/Traynor comparison.

First, he notes that BA was overrated and BB and OBP were underrated back then. If this were true, then that would lead to some distortion of their opinions of ballplayers in general, and not just Groh and Traynor in particular. We know that many great baseball minds of the day regarded BBs as a sign of laziness on the part of the hitter. According to them, someone who drew a lot of walks was just waiting for the pitcher to make a mistake, and not trying to get to first base on his own. We know today that's not the case, and what they saw as a negative was actually a positive. In this case, his criticism is fair.

Second, he also notes that contexts weren't taken into account. Groh was 27 in 1917; Traynor was 27 in 1927. As Bill has pointed out, there was a lot of difference between baseball in the 1910s and baseball in the 1920s. In 1917, the average NL team scored 3.53 runs per game. However, Groh played in Cincinnati, and baseball-reference gives the BPF for Cincinnati (considering all games, home and away) as 96, one of the lowest in the league. In 1927, the average NL team scored 4.58 runs per game. Traynor, however, played in Pittsburgh, and its BPF of 107 was the highest in the league.

Thus, at the age of 27, Groh was playing in a situation where the average team would score just 3.39 runs per game. At 27, Traynor was playing in a situation where the average team scored 4.90 runs per game. It is only fair to adjust the raw numbers for this difference, and hence this second criticism - the eyewitnesses were relying on just the raw numbers - is justified.



If you feel entitiled to do that, than what prevents everyone from blowing off the allegations of others that Oscar Charleston was a fantastic, phenomenal player. Because, at the end of the day, all we really have to go on is other's opinions of the quality of his game.


We also have some statistics collected from Negro League games of the day, and records from Cuban competition. Granted, they aren't quite to the standards of the statistics MLB has provided for Charleston's contemporaries, but we do have more to go on than other people's opinions.


So, be very careful how hard you flush contemporary opinion down the toilet. The reputations you save, may be those of your favorites. And it wouldn't be pretty. Blow off opinions as inherintly biased, and you're destroying the very foundation on which rests the good names of Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, John Lloyd and Biz Mackey.


Opinions can be valuable, but we also have to learn where they are biased and why. Otherwise they can lead us astray. Also, we have to remember that opinions are not facts. While the numbers don't lie, they can be "economical with the truth" (that is, they don't necessarily tell us the whole story), and there can be problems with the concepts behind created formulas. If the numbers created by the formulas match up with opinions most of the time, I'd say that the formula just might well be a very good one.

In the case of the players Bill mentioned above, we have records to go along with the opinions. In the case of Lloyd, Paige, and Gibson, the numbers I've seen and the opinions of contemporaries both lead me to similar conclusions. Mackey is an exception; he may have been a defensive star, but his offensive numbers lead me to believe that he was somewhat overrated by his contemporaries. (On the other hand, the numbers I've seen have boosted my regard for Louis Santop over what his contemporaries thought of him. It works both ways.)


Most of the time, the majority of the time, stats confirm peer opinions. In the over-whelming majority of the time.


Exactly. In the cases that they don't, we have to consider whether the formula has a problem, or whether there was bias in the peer opinions.

There was one defensive formula which rated Johnny Bench as the worst defensive catcher in major league history. The formula didn't adjust catcher POs and FAs for the fact that most of the putouts were caused by pitchers recording strikeouts, and it didn't adjust for the fact that catchers on poor teams generally get more attempts at throwing out runners than catchers on good teams do. (If we had data on CS for catchers as well as their assist totals, we could come up with a much better formula.) There was something definitely wrong with the formula in that case.

On the other hand, the biases mentioned above do affect the ratings of Traynor and Groh, especially the one caused by relying on raw numbers without adjusting them for the context. In this case, I'm more willing to go with the adjusted numbers than with eye-witness accounts.

(I'm also wondering if there was another factor working against Groh. From 1910 to 1918, the AL won the World Series eight times out of nine, and we know that the White Sox threw the Series in 1919. I wonder if this factor caused people to greatly undervalue NL players of the 1910s, and, if so, how much. It could be worth looking into.)

[AG2004]

I forgot to mention above that contemporary opinion ranked Judy Johnson as better than Jud Wilson, while I, looking at the numbers as well as opinion, consider Wilson better than Johnson. In my view, the Johnson/Wilson comparison would indicate some problems with eye-witness accounts in evaluating 3B; this is relevant to the Groh/Traynor comparison.

The people over at baseballthinkfactory's Hall of Merit agree with me; Wilson is in, while Johnson isn't. Likewise, the HOM has enshrined Groh, but not Traynor.

[Bill Burgess]

Technically, he's not blowing off eye-witnesses just because they disagree with him. He's discounting their opinions based on two factors, both of which can be evaluated independently of Groh/Traynor comparison.

First of all, I am calling Chris on this because in the past, Chris has indeed freely admitted he "blows off" much opinion. In my Cobb Consensus, he does this constantly. And in many other instances, he freely admits he puts little stock in opinions. Prides himself on his distain for them.

Second, he also notes that contexts weren't taken into account. Groh was 27 in 1917; Traynor was 27 in 1927. As Bill has pointed out, there was a lot of difference between baseball in the 1910s and baseball in the 1920s. In 1917, the average NL team scored 3.53 runs per game. However, Groh played in Cincinnati, and baseball-reference gives the BPF for Cincinnati (considering all games, home and away) as 96, one of the lowest in the league. In 1927, the average NL team scored 4.58 runs per game. Traynor, however, played in Pittsburgh, and its BPF of 107 was the highest in the league.

In this context, it's a little bit of a role reversal, with Chris defending the deadballer, and I the liveballer. How ironic. Anyway, the opinions expressed in the Groh/Traynor comparison are mostly based on their defense.

I showed how Sporting News put Traynor on many of their annual teams at 3rd. And that is not era based. It was defensively based more than offensively based.

But I do acknowledge your point that when we talk about offense, we do need to make an adjustment to be just to Heinie Groh. Crosley field/Forbes Field requires an adjustment. But while we should make that adjustment, we should also bear in mind that Groh's leadoff position in his lineup accounted for his seeming lack of offensive productivity, and his lack of hitting cloud placed Heinie at the leadoff spot.

Nice posting, AG2004
On the other hand, the biases mentioned above do affect the ratings of Traynor and Groh, especially the one caused by relying on raw numbers without adjusting them for the context. In this case, I'm more willing to go with the adjusted numbers than with eye-witness accounts.


Even if walks, onbase average weren't emphasized before 1920, I don't think we should conclude that the era observers could not judge good fielders. If most observers believed Pie could outfield Groh, what basis is there to doubt their perceptions.

True, opinions are not ALWAYS right, but it many times is. Can you recall offhand any other case where an average fielder became a defensive legend, and later was shown to be otherwise? Try reading Willie Kamm's article in Historical Articles. It applies to this posting also.

Bill Burgess

[Bill Burgess]

He was better than average, not average, and he was overrated after he played not during, but Nap Lajoie might fit that criteria.

Then how do we explain his winning of all of those Sporting News awards for most outstanding ML 3rd basemen.

(Named outstanding ML 3Bman 1925, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1931, 1933, by the Sporting News.)

They were awarded the winter following each season, and were primarily due to his defense, presumably.

However, I concede that perhaps he was partially given those awards due to his outhitting his 3rd base peers.

[538280]

, I don't think we should conclude that the era observers could not judge good fielders. If most observers believed Pie could outfield Groh, what basis is there to doubt their perceptions.

True, opinions are not ALWAYS right, but it many times is. Can you recall offhand any other case where an average fielder became a defensive legend, and later was shown to be otherwise? Try reading Willie Kamm's article in Historical Articles. It applies to this posting also.

Bill Burgess

In this case Bill, there is a reason to doubt the people of that era's perceptions. Defensive metrics have come to a unanimous conclusion that Groh was indeed a better fielder than Traynor. Eyewitnesses have apparently came to a different conclusion. But, I feel there are reasons in this case to trust the stats and doubt the eyewitnesses. I already stated the first reason earlier, and I'll repeat it again:

"My thoughts on why Traynor is considered to be a better fielder is that he was probably the more flashy fielder. Most of the stats do show Traynor with superior range, but Heinie more than makes that up because of his fabulous error rate. Fielders are noticed more for the flashy plays they make rather than just great consistency, so once again the eyewitnesses may be unfairly pointed towards Pie."

There are also other factors, which is the "hanging reputation" factor that I've talked about before. Fielding metrics show Traynor being a standout defensive 3B in his first few years, and then dropping off to average. Is it possible that Pie lost his ability, but didn't lose the rep? I think it is completely possible for that to happen with fielders, mostly because they didn't have a great way to quantify it. Groh was just as good in his younger years (probably didn't quite have the rep due to factor 1), and still stayed at that level for much longer. He was better defensively than Pie.

[yanks0714]

I think you may have a point on this. After reading this thread all the way through, as well as going back to several posts, I went in and looked at Groh's and Traynor's fielding.

Pie had more range than Groh. Clearly. But their overall defensive stats, percentage wise are not that far apart.

I think Pie was better at going after balls, maybe making more errors in the process. Probably making more 'flashy' plays thereby impressing observers. Groh didn't have the range but cleanly fielded what he got to but not 'looking' particularly good while doing so.

Groh was 'steady' while Pie was more spectacular.

I would prefer the Pie style as he would get to more balls that would be hits while accepting the errors increase. My feeling is that the number of hits he takes away would far owtweigh the errors.

Bill, I suspect that the TSN awards were more to his hitting ability than his fielding. As we've seen before, Pie was outhitting his immediate contemps at 3B.

In a far more enlightened day we can look 'back' with 20-20 hindisght and say that modern opinion regarding Groh and Traynor is wrong.
But I don't laugh when my Dad used to tell me how he ploughed fields behind a horse just because as the tractor wasn't yet available. The same can be said that in Groh's time BBs were not valued as highly.

Bill, I think you dead wrong on your point about why Groh wasn't hitting lower in the lineup. He may well have been hitting lead-off simply because they noticed he got on base (without realizing OBP and walks) and/or they had better power hitters to fill in the 3-4-5-even 6 spots in the order.

[Bill Burgess]

In this case Bill, there is a reason to doubt the people of that era's perceptions. Defensive metrics have come to a unanimous conclusion that Groh was indeed a better fielder than Traynor. Eyewitnesses have apparently came to a different conclusion. But, I feel there are reasons in this case to trust the stats and doubt the eyewitnesses. I already stated the first reason earlier, and I'll repeat it again:

Chris,

I recommended you read that Willie Kamm article on 3rd base defense. He gives a better explanation of why we should be sceptical of defensive metrics. For example:

1. Fielding Average - All one has to do is stay planted in one spot, not risk errors, and post a FA of 1.000.

2. DPs - Too dependent on one's DP partner. Also dependent on quality of pitcher's staff to keep bases clear of traffic.

3. PO's - Too dependent on one's pitcher, if they pitch inside/outside.

4. Assists - Dependent on whether or not the pitching staff can keep the bases clear of traffic.

Willie Kamm also brings out the good point that the best infielders are not flashy. Like a highly skilled pool/billiards player, they played their batters properly, and didn't have to dazzle with flash.

He makes the point that spectacular plays are often the result of misplayed balls. Mispositioning your batter, starting too late, and then you NEED to put on the flash. Better fielders are already positioned properly, and make the hard ones look routine.

Bill Burgess

[AG2004]

But I do acknowledge your point that when we talk about offense, we do need to make an adjustment to be just to Heinie Groh. Crosley field/Forbes Field requires an adjustment. But while we should make that adjustment, we should also bear in mind that Groh's leadoff position in his lineup accounted for his seeming lack of offensive productivity, and his lack of hitting cloud placed Heinie at the leadoff spot.

Bill Burgess

According to Chris, Groh's leadoff position in the lineup accounted for his lack of RBIs, and this lack of RBIs seems like a lack of offensive productivity.

I'm going to consider only Groh's peak (1917 to 1919) below. During those three years, Groh had some slugging ability. He finished among the top ten in SLG in the National League each of those three years, peaking at third in 1919. Groh also finished among the top five in the league batting average in each of those three seasons.

I also looked at the statistics for the entire Cincinnati team for those three years. Edd Roush had a higher BA than Groh in each of those three years. Roush was also the team's slugger, such as sluggers were during the deadball era.

Now, a team needs a leadoff hitter no matter what. Groh and Roush had much higher BAs than everyone else on the team, and Roush was the best choice for driving in runs. This means that making Groh the leadoff hitter was pretty much a no-brainer. Look over the Cincinnati rosters from 1917 to 1919, and tell me who you'd make the leadoff hitter if you managed the team. I wouldn't be surprised if Groh were your choice.

Now, as a leadoff hitter, Groh wasn't going to be in a position to drive in that many runs or record high RBI totals. However, he was in a position to score runs. Groh was second in the league in runs scored in 1917 and 1919, and first in 1918 - and remember that he's playing half his games at Crosley Field. That was great offensive productivity. But if you pay attention only to RBI and ignore runs scored, it really doesn't look like offensive productivity.

Traynor's offensive averages during the late 1920s don't stand out from those of his teammates, and the Pirates had enough weapons for them to put Traynor into the heart of the order; thus, he could get a lot of RBIs. Groh's teammates in Cincinnati weren't quite as good on offense as he was, which meant that Groh had to be the leadoff hitter. Groh's position in the batting order wasn't based on his lack of offensive clout; it was based on his teammates' lack of offensive clout, and that's why Groh couldn't rack up the RBIs like Traynor did.

[538280]

Chris,

I recommended you read that Willie Kamm article on 3rd base defense. He gives a better explanation of why we should be sceptical of defensive metrics. For example:

1. Fielding Average - All one has to do is stay planted in one spot, not risk errors, and post a FA of 1.000.

Not true. 95% of errors from third come from erratic throws. Staying in one spot and not risking errors will have a negligible effect on fielding percentage for a third baseman. This may be a valid point for any other position though. Fielding percentage from third base is mainly an evaluation of one's throwing arm.

2. DPs - Too dependent on one's DP partner. Also dependent on quality of pitcher's staff to keep bases clear of traffic.

Bill James has an "expected double playes" formula built into defensive Win Shares. It adjusts for the partner and the people on base.

3. PO's - Too dependent on one's pitcher, if they pitch inside/outside.

Bill James doesn't include POs in his formula for defensive Win Shares from 3rd. He writes an essay about in Win Shares, and shows that they have little to do with the 3B's ability. Also check Jerry Denny comment in NHBBA.

4. Assists - Dependent on whether or not the pitching staff can keep the bases clear of traffic.

All adjusted for in DWS.

Willie Kamm also brings out the good point that the best infielders are not flashy. Like a highly skilled pool/billiards player, they played their batters properly, and didn't have to dazzle with flash.

He makes the point that spectacular plays are often the result of misplayed balls. Mispositioning your batter, starting too late, and then you NEED to put on the flash. Better fielders are already positioned properly, and make the hard ones look routine.

That goes against eyewitness, for stats. Eyewitnesses value the flashy play, stats make no difference on how the play looks. That is actually a good argument for why stats are a better way of evaluating fielders.

Bill Burgess[/QUOTE]

[538280]

Chris, did you even LOOK at that last of Defensive Win Shares grades you referred me to the other day? If that doesn't cement in your head that defensive statistical metrics are of no value whatsoever, then nothing will.

Actually, could you repost the link to that? I want to take a look at it again.

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=35689&highlight=Defensive+Shares+Letter+Grade+Ratings

[538280]

Bill, are you finally starting to realize that Groh really was a superior hitter? Your argument about the averages per 162 games is highly flawed, because of the difference in era. Groh beats Pie handily in relative stats. The only thing Pie is still better at with era adjustments in RBI. The RBI is also highly flawed, because Pie batted third and Groh batted leadoff, and Pie had a great supporting cast of players for him to drive in.

Eyewitness accounts are also unfair to Groh, because his main offensive skill (plate discipline) was undervalued at the time.

Have you finally seen the light? All of your arguments for Pie have been shot down with logic and evidence.

[Bill Burgess]

Bill, are you finally starting to realize that Groh really was a superior hitter? Have you finally seen the light? All of your arguments for Pie have been shot down with logic and evidence.

Funny. I was going to ask you the same question. The Legend of Pie's glove was not based on flawed peer observations. Or anything else. He was a big, rangy guy with a powerful arm. He was especially noted for how well he guarded the line. A popular headline was, "Hornsby doubled down the line, and Traynor threw him out."

But I do realize that Heinie played in the deadball era, and leadoff at that. So I can award him a solid bump up as a hitter. And I do like that he walked very well. I am not dismissing him as a hitter, but I also don't think Traynor hit 3rd. It was probably closer to 5th-6th.

I must still rank Pie higher as a 3rd baseman than Heinie Groh. But you have succeeded in giving me a better appreciation of Heinie.

Did you read Willie Kamm's article? I'm starting to think that if I adopt a particular position, you will adopt an opposing position. Hope I'm being a little paranoid.

Bill Burgess

[538280]

Funny. I was going to ask you the same question. The Legend of Pie's glove was not based on flawed peer observations. Or anything else. He was a big, rangy guy with a powerful arm. He was especially noted for how well he guarded the line. A popular headline was, "Hornsby doubled down the line, and Traynor threw him out."

The statistics show that he did have very good range and was probably a flashy, fun to watch type fielder (which may contribute to eyewitnesses overrating him). His arm may have been powerful but his error rate suggests that it wasn't accurate.

Did you read Willie Kamm's article? I'm starting to think that if I adopt a particular position, you will adopt an opposing position. Hope I'm being a little paranoid.

Bill Burgess

I'm having trouble finding the Kamm article. Could you give me a link?

I'm not just purposely disagreeing with you, I've agreed with you on some things, like Biz Mackey being a legitimate all time great. You just make some decisions that I vigorously disagree with, so I end up arguing with you quite a bit.

[Bill Burgess]

--------------------What the Baseball Records Mean to the Player
The Public Rates a Ball Player Upon His Batting Average and Upon Brilliant Fielding Player, Both are Inaccurate and Deceptive, The Players Realize This and are Inclined to Protest, but Few of Them Can Suggest Improvements

-------------------------From an Interview with William Kamm----------------------
-------------------------(Baseball Magazine, February, 1928, pp. 387, 388)

"The breaks decide" is a common saying among ball players, and that is true very often of a game or even a series. No doubt pennants have been won in a close race by the breaks, the element of luck that no one can forsee or prevent. Certainly the breaks are of the utmost importance in winning or losing ball games. But when you come to discuss a player's reputation, his general standing with the writers and the public, I would say that the dope decides. After all, it is the dope which separates good players from those who are just fair, and in particular, the dope decides who shall be known as baseball's stars.

Why is Ty Cobb called the greatest player who ever lived? There are a number of answers. His grand batting average is better than that of any other player. He hit over .300 for twenty-two years, a record. He made over four thousand hits. These and similar items of statistics come readily to any fan who is discussing the game's best. But such figures are plain dope. Was Cobb a better hitter than Joe Jackson? He himself has admitted that Rogers Hornsby was the greatest hitter he ever saw. Was Cobb a better player, say than Tris Speaker? What is the foundation of Cobb's great reputation? It's the dope.

I'm not offering any criticism of dope. I understand too well the value of dope to the ball player. It's really his stock in trade, the gauge of his ability. The public has eyes for the .300 hitter when it will virtually ignore the .290 hitter. Certain artificial standards have grown up in baseball. They are all drawn from the accepted dope. They have a value, but after all, rating players on the dope is a good deal like measuring brains by the circumference of a man's skull. Dope is an indication, but it's not necessarily proof.

The particular averages that baseball players prize the most are batting averages. When the weekly figures come out during the season, you'll find most of the players in the hotel lobby scanning the column to see what they're hitting. And literally millions of other people are scanning those columns. I doubt if there is any one thing printed in the papers during the summer time that attracts such widespread attention as the batting averages of Big League ball players.

But just what do the batting averages tell the reader? Something, to be sure, but how much? Batting averages are not only the most popular of baseball statistics, but I believe they're the most accurate. And still they're only half accurate, at best. To a considerable extent they are the sport of circumstance. They give a crude idea of a player's ability with the stick at the precise moment when they are issued. But they are, for all that, colored by other considerations than batting eye or timeliness of swing.

Take the one factor of ball parks, for instance. In some ball parks a right field hitter would get most of the breaks. Such parks might not help a left field hitter a particle. They might even be a handicap to a straightaway hitter. But the batting average don't say anything about that. Not that the situation isn't pretty well understood by the baseball public. They know that the shape and size of the ball park has a considerable influence on the batting of certain ball players. They also know that other players far from being helped, are handicapped by the same conditions. But who will undertake to say how many batting points a particular park will add to one player's average or subtract from another player's average?

The condition of the infields in various parks is also a factor to be reckoned with. Some infields are as hard as a brick. The ball is much more apt to break through the inner defense at such parks than at certain other parks. A hard line hitter is a good deal more apt to come through with a single on certain fields than he is on other fields, simply because the nature of the infield is suited to his particular style of batting. Such an infield might be a positive detriment to the fleet runner who beats out infield hits. Such an infield would not help the fellow whose average drive is a long belt to the outfield. But what expert goes through the records with a fine toothed comb and decides how many points he should allow on some batter's average for a particularly favorable infield?

Even the climate has some influence on batting. At Salt Lake City slugging records, due to the altitude, the light air and a variety of other factors, became something of a joke. At Chicago where I have played for several years, the strong lake wind which blows usually from one direction, is a thing to be treated with respect by a lot of hitters. Veteran players have told me that their averages suffered thirty points or more because of this peculiar condition at Chicago.

A batter's position in the line-up colors his average considerably. Everyone knows that the lead-off man suffers somewhat from his position. He can't always hit, because he is expected to wait the pitcher out. The second man in the line-up is also handicapped. He is supposed to sacrifice. Hazen Cuyler complained, I understand, because he was called upon to bat in the two-hole. There is no doubt that batting in that position would cut down the average player's mark a number of points. But just what credit do the league statistics give the fellow who led off the batting list or hit in the two-hole?

Batting averages are open to even graver criticism than any I have hinted at. For one thing, they fail to take into consideration the length of a hit. I am aware that a player gets a certain credit for total bases. Of late years there has also been a disposition to figure out a slugging average which would rate players according to the force, as well as the frequency of their hits. But the time honored old system of dividing number of hits by times at bat is still the prevailing one.

It is this system which determines the .300 hitter. But what, after all, does that tell you about a batter's ability? If he made twenty homers and forty-five two-baggers, how would you contrast him with a fellow who, say, made two homers and eighteen two-baggers? It would not take the opposing pitcher long to size up those two batters, even though they both hit for exactly the same average. Nor would it cause the rival managers much study to decide which of the two was the better hitter. But records are silent on that point.

Babe Ruth, this year, hit around .350. [.356] That is a good average. But there were a number of other fellows who hit around .350. [5 hit above Ruth in AL that yr. 1. Heilmann, .398, Simmons, .392, Gehrig, .373, Fothergill, .359, Cobb, .357] There were several who hit far above that figure. Were they better hitters than Babe Ruth? You would get a laugh anywhere if you claimed any such absurdity. But the batting averages do that very thing and get away with it.

And here again any attempt to rate slugging averages, though a step in the right direction, would bring you face to face with fresh difficulties. Certain ball parks unquestionably favor the sluggers. Where would justice draw the line between a pop fly that just floated over the fence, beyond the reach of the waiting outfielder, and a solid smash that would be good for four sacks on an open field?

Personally I have always felt that a base on balls should be recognized in batting averages. It is now, but in a purely negative way. A player gets a certain amount of credit for the number of passes given him during a season. But these passes do not help to fatten his batting average any. They should, in simple justice, for a batter is passed usually either because the pitcher fears him, is which case he has won his transportation to first, by his acknowledged batting ability, or else he is crafty enough and has a keen enough batting eye to wait the pitcher out, in which case he has certainly earned his base.

Firmly as I am convinced, however, that passes should figure in a batting average, I would be at a loss to explain how. They are not hits. Are they half as valuable as hits? Just what value would you assign to a base on balls? Who know? I'm sure I don't.

There is another conspicuous weakness in batting averages. The batter who advances the runner get no particular credit, unless he drives that runner home. Even there that credit does not affect his own batting average any. A certain negative credit is given him for a sacrifice, but a sacrifice does not help a batter's average. It merely doesn't work against that average.

A batter may be retired himself, but at the same time advance one or two runners, perhaps drive home a winning run. You'd never know this from looking at his average. Take a good hit and run player. Even when such a player fails to come through, he will generally advance the runner or runners, though he is thrown out himself. He batting was really important, in some cases decisively so, but he gets no credit. Is this fair to him?

Give me the names of two players I never saw before. Tell me that one fellow hit .310 and the other .290. Ask me which is the better hitter and I would say, "I don't know." Aren't the records there? Surely .310 is better than .290. Is it? Who knows? The .290 hitter might be, for all practical purposes, far the better hitter of the two. Everybody who ever saw a ball game knows that. And yet the dope decides. The .310 hitter would outrank the .290 man with nine-nine out of one hundred.

Whatever you can say against batting averages, and you can say plenty, goes double when you discuss fielding averages. Fielding averages are so notoriously unfair that few people pay any attention to them at all. Ball players, among themselves, never even discuss fielding averages. Why should they? They unusually mean nothing, because if you follow them literally, you are pretty sure to go astray in your estimates.

The system of rating fielding averages, as everyone knows, is to divide the chances accepted by the total chances offered. The errors that a player makes are the black marks against his record which bring down his average. Take third Base, for example. That is my position and I know more about third base than any other position on the field. Pick out of a hat the names of two Minor Leaguers that I never heard of. Tell me both are third baseman, that one of them fielded .960 and the other .930. Ask me to pass judgment upon their respective class As a fielders. Could I do it? Could anyone else do it? It is perfectly possible in any league for a second baseman, say, to field 1.000 and be fired for incompetence. If he stands in his tracks, handles only easy chances and keeps his mind on his record, he may go on from day to day, as long as the manager tolerates his presence in the line-up, without ever making an error.

There are not a few outfielders every year who have a fielding average of 1.000. That is, they have accomplished their work without an error. Are they the best outfielders in the game? You can give odds of one hundred to one that they are not. The best outfielders in the game never have a perfect fielding average. Very often you will find their names rather well down toward the bottom of the list.

The system of reckoning fielding averages is so unjust that a number of other systems have been suggested. The number of chances accepted is perhaps a better gauge of a player's ability than the present fielding average. But even that is open to grave criticism. The underlying theory seems plausible enough. A hustling player who covers a lot of ground will handle more chances, other things being equal, than a fellow who doesn't. But how can you be certain that other things are equal?

The type of pitching makes a profound difference to a fielder's chances. When Thurston wore a White Sox uniform and toed the slab for us, I might get seven or eight chances in a single game. Thurston depended very largely upon the screw ball and the batters naturally pounded that towards third. When Al Thomas is on the slab with his fast ball, I'm lucky to get one or two chances in a game. Batters connecting with the fast ball generally drive it to the outfield or through the box. They seldom pull it to third base.

Over a period of years it might very well follow that a fielder's ability could be determined roughly by the number of chances he handled. But there would be grave inequalities along the line and the final summing up would be far from exact.

I have even heard it suggested that a fielder should be rated on the number of difficult or brilliant plays he makes. I think the crowd is inclined to rate him that way. They see a fellow pull a phenomenal play one day and perhaps toward the end of the week they see him pull another. They are convinced that he is a great fielder. They talk about him and the impression gains ground that he is an uncommon fielder. But such plays, however they may thrill the spectators, are very misleading. More often than not a difficult play was really the result of bad judgment. The fielder either neglected to play the batter properly or he misjudged the ball.

The underlying principle is much the same as in championship billiard matches. A great billiard player will run off a long string of easy shots with monotonous regularity. Once in a while he'll make a difficult shot. But even a mediocre player can do that, once in a while. What the great player did was to assure himself a lot of easy shots, because he played the game as it should be played.

A great fielder will generally do the same. He may not have a particularly difficult chance to handle throughout a whole series. Some other player of far less ability, covering the same position, may have three or four difficult plays. And yet his work may be ragged and inefficient in contrast with the player who knew his job, who played his batters properly and who by his superior generalship, avoided the necessity of risking difficult plays.

Personally, I would say, without hesitation, that an indifferent fielder would make more brilliant plays in a season, that looked good to the stands, than a capable fielder.

Besides, there are certain tricks in the trade which wise fielders understand. Baseball has become an acknowledged show business. The player must advance himself and he often does by playing to the galleries. When he knows he has a play well in hand, he may start a little late, take a spurt at the finish and make an easy play really look hard. A certain amount of speed and flashy effort will make one player look like a million dollars in contrast with another fielder as good, who does his work in a more methodical, less spectacular way.

Sometime ago was discussing averages with a man of long experience. He gave his advice with a good deal of conviction. "Let the manager decide," was his vote. "The manager knows his own players better than anyone else. He knows which are the valuable players, what fellows are underrated and those who are inclined to be overrated. His judgment should rule."

There's no fault with his logic, so far as it goes. But I'm afraid in practice such a system would not go very far. In the first place the manager is handicapped at the outset. He can't really tell all he knows. It wouldn't be fair to his men, if he did so. Besides, managers are human. They can make mistakes. Some of the greatest players who ever lived have been passed up by wise managers. No doubt managers aim to be fair, but they can't wholly get away from preferences and bias any more than other people. Managers occasionally get down on a player. Besides, managers see the faults in their own men a little too clearly and are inclined to magnify the good points of players on other clubs that they do not know so well. It's the old case of distant pastures looking the greenest. Many a manager has traded a player because he has certain faults for a player on another club who had far more serious faults that he knew nothing about.

What can be done for fielding averages? I have no definite suggestions to offer. But I imagine that an improved system, if there ever is any such system, will be a combination of several things. It isn't just to rate a fellow on the errors he makes. It isn't just to rate him wholly upon the number of chances he accepts. But if you tell me that an unknown third baseman in a league that I never saw had fewer errors than any of his fellow third basemen, and at the same time handled more chances, I'd say, without knowing any more about him, that he was a good fielder.
(Baseball Magazine, February, 1928, pp. 387, 388)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's Note on Willie Kamm.

Born: February 2, 1900, San Francisco, CA
Died: December 21, 1988, Belmont, CA

5'10 1/2", 170 lbs. B/R, /T/R

AL 3B:
White Sox, 1923 to May, 1931
Indians, 1931 1935.

Hit .308 in 1928. Known as sharp glove. career BA .281. 1,692 games, 1,643 hits, 347 doubles, 85 triples, 29 HRs, 802 Runs, 826 RBIs, 126 SB, single until 1955, died of Parkinson's disease.

[ElHalo]

The statistics show that he did have very good range and was probably a flashy, fun to watch type fielder (which may contribute to eyewitnesses overrating him).

Let's just analyze this comment for a second.

Probably a flashy, fun to watch type fielder... which may contribute to eyewitnesses overrating him.

Will you ever, ever, EVER realize that being "fun to watch" has inherent value strictly and legitimately on its own, independant of any other factors?

[ElHalo]

A post I just did about why I give Pie a great deal of intangibles credit; it was in the HoF forum that nobody really reads, but since there's an ongoing Pie thread here, I figured I'd throw it down.


Originally Posted by RuthMayBond
Please give me some little tiny basis for your opinion



I actually wrote a very, very, VERY lengthy piece on this particular subject... oh, sometime around March or so. I've got to make it a habit to actually save those lengthy, research intensive articles when I write them.

Off the top of my head, just to list a few things....

Take a look at Rabbit Maranville's career, and more specifically at the number of games played while he was with the Pirates. He credited Pie with keeping him sober, keeping him on the field, and making him concentrate and focus on baseball, keeping him able to play. After he left the Pirates and Pie's calming influence, his career took a nose dive.

Same thing with the Waner brothers. Paul and Lloyd often noted that they had an "us against the world" attitude coming up in the league that led to all kinds of personal difficulties before they hit the bigs. Traynor was able to smooth all that out and keep the clubhouse mellow, as well as keep the two of them sober enough to be able to concentrate on baseball and keep themselves disciplined enough to work on the game only and focus... again, look what happened without Traynor: When Pie left the team (as a manager) after the 1939 season, both of their careers were essentially over, as they couldn't concentrate enough to keep themselves in shape or stay sober enough to keep themselves on the field.

Glenn Wright, who took Rabbit's spot at SS, was known as a fantastic fielder who didn't care enough about baseball to really take advantage of his skills. With Pittsburgh (playing next to Pie, who worked out with him every day and held lengthy talks with him about how great he could be if he fully utilized his skills) he was a good offensive player and an all time great defender. The second he left Pittsburgh, he stopped focusing on baseball, injured himself playing handball, was able to come back for one season with Brooklyn and play good offense but with defense that nobody would confuse with his old work, and essentially lost interest and gave up on the game.

Or look at Chuck Klein, a notorious drinker and layabout who was pretty much finished as a player, but who Pie was able to coax a solid, sober half year out of right before he (Pie) retired as a manager.

Or Gus Suhr, who went from iron man, steadily consistent 1Bman under Pie (setting an NL record with 822 consecutive games played) to out of the league within 8 months of leaving Pie.

Basically, when you look at all kinds of different players with all kinds of different problems, you'll find one thing. Pie Traynor kept them sober, he kept them focused, and he kept their minds on the game when they wanted to stray. And when they left Pie and his influence, they no longer could concentrate, and they lost their ability to play at a high level.

And, yes, I think that he deserves credit for that when it comes time to put him on an all time list.

[RuthMayBond]

Take a look at Rabbit Maranville's career, and more specifically at the number of games played while he was with the Pirates. He credited Pie with keeping him sober, keeping him on the field, and making him concentrate and focus on baseball, keeping him able to play. After he left the Pirates and Pie's calming influence, his career took a nose dive.OK, except I don't think Pie did that much in 1921, and Rabbit was pretty good in 29 & 30. And you're also telling me that a guy who you think should be in the hall only had at most four good years until his career took a nosedive.

<Same thing with the Waner brothers. Paul and Lloyd often noted that they had an "us against the world" attitude coming up in the league that led to all kinds of personal difficulties before they hit the bigs. Traynor was able to smooth all that out and keep the clubhouse mellow, as well as keep the two of them sober enough to be able to concentrate on baseball and keep themselves disciplined enough to work on the game only and focus... again, look what happened without Traynor: When Pie left the team (as a manager) after the 1939 season, both of their careers were essentially over>

Lloyd wasn't that great in '39 either, it's called aging. Paul was 37 in '40.

<Glenn Wright, who took Rabbit's spot at SS, was known as a fantastic fielder who didn't care enough about baseball to really take advantage of his skills. With Pittsburgh (playing next to Pie, who worked out with him every day and held lengthy talks with him about how great he could be if he fully utilized his skills) he was a good offensive player and an all time great defender. The second he left Pittsburgh, he stopped focusing on baseball, injured himself playing handball, was able to come back for one season with Brooklyn and play good offense but with defense that nobody would confuse with his old work, and essentially lost interest and gave up on the game. >

How could he be "known" as bad somewhere else when he started in Pittsburgh?

<Or look at Chuck Klein, a notorious drinker and layabout who was pretty much finished as a player, but who Pie was able to coax a solid, sober half year out of right before he (Pie) retired as a manager.>

Klein also had a good lineup around him.

<Or Gus Suhr, who went from iron man, steadily consistent 1Bman under Pie (setting an NL record with 822 consecutive games played) to out of the league within 8 months of leaving Pie.>

Suhr was already on the way down in '39 in Pitt. I'm not saying Pie didn't help but there could be other explanations, and some of your assertions don't hold water.

[Bill Burgess]

The statistics show that he did have very good range and was probably a flashy, fun to watch type fielder (which may contribute to eyewitnesses overrating him). His arm may have been powerful but his error rate suggests that it wasn't accurate.

While your guess that perhaps Traynor had a flashy style, which fooled, beguiled and seduced his observers, is a possibility, I have a simpler theory.

It's my guess that Pie had a style that was very unflashy, and based on his knowledge of how to play his batters properly, thereby not necessitating the need for a flashy style.

My theory is that it had to do with his SS partner, the fabulous Glenn Wright. Together, they effectively sealed up the left side of the Bucs infield from 1924-1928. Wright was constantly compared defensively to Honus Wagner, who had retired only 8 seasons previously, 1916.

I have the strongest intuition that they benefited from a "shared halo" effect. Each conferred an aura of solidity on the other. They were, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, the tightest defensive left infield side of the diamond that baseball ever saw, then, before or since.

So that, I believe, is a far stronger, simpler theory of why Pie Traynor received such good reviews for his defense. More than good reviews, I should say. He did, actually become a Legend of the Glove. Make no mistake about that. And I happen to suspect that Glenn Wright might have had more than a little to do with that. At least it sounds plausible to me.

Bill Burgess

[538280]

While your guess that perhaps Traynor had a flashy style, which fooled, beguiled and seduced his observers, is a possibility, I have a simpler theory.

My theory is that it had to do with his SS partner, the fabulous Glenn Wright. Together, they effectively sealed up the LF side of the Bucs infield from 1924-1928. Wright was constantly compared defensively to Honus Wagner, who had retired only 8 seasons previously, 1916.

I have the strongest intuition that they benefited from a "shared halo" effect. Each conferred an aura of solidity on the other. They were, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, the tightest defensive LF infield side of the diamond that baseball ever saw, then, before or since.

That's not a bad theory. Makes sense. My theory makes sense as well. But, did you see my second factor? Here it is again:

"There are also other factors, which is the "hanging reputation" factor that I've talked about before. Fielding metrics show Traynor being a standout defensive 3B in his first few years, and then dropping off to average. Is it possible that Pie lost his ability, but didn't lose the rep? I think it is completely possible for that to happen with fielders, mostly because they didn't have a great way to quantify it. Groh was just as good in his younger years (probably didn't quite have the rep due to factor 1), and still stayed at that level for much longer. He was better defensively than Pie."

I think that as well is plausible. This all may have been jumbled into one to make Pie to be reputed as a vastly better fielder than he really was. I still maintain that the stats in this case have come to the right conclusion in calling Groh the better fielder.

[Bill Burgess]

Chris,

Your theory, while not bad, requires more stat documentation than one single stat. Defensive Win Shares, per season, is a good start, but we should also look to other defensive metrics.

I've heard terrible things about Fielding Runs from Total Baseball.
I wouldn't mind seeing Matt Souder's PCA year by year breakdowns as well.

If the leading defensive metrics all line up and show a consensus, I would be open to their conclusions.

I have no qualms with your "hanging reputation" theory. Maybe Groh did retain his defensive skills longer. But another factor is that Pie lost Wright as his partner after 1928.

Another factor is their DP combo partners. Did one have a better partner at turning the DP? Don't know. But it's worth glancing at.

Bill Burgess

[538280]

If the leading defensive metrics all line up and show a consensus, I would be open to their conclusions.


And yet the leading metrics all do line up to show Groh as a better hitter, fielder, and overall player than Traynor, and you're not willing to accept that conclusion.

Or maybe you are. Have you now changed your tune?

And the quality of the DP partner is adjusted for in DWS.

[Bill Burgess]

And yet the leading metrics all do line up to show Groh as a better hitter, fielder, and overall player than Traynor, and your not willing to accept that conclusion.

Or maybe you are. Have you now changed your tune?

And the quality of the DP partner is adjusted for in DWS.

I AM open, but would like to see the stats for myself. Can you show the data?

[Bill Burgess]

Earlier it was suggested that Heinie Groh hitting leadoff and Traynor hitting 3rd was a big reason for their difference in offense, plus the live ball.

I looked it up on Proquest and Traynor hit 6th in 1925, and 5th in 1927-28.

The later lineup was:

Lloyd Waner
Clyde Barnhart
Paul Waner
Glenn Wright
Pie Traynor
George Grantham

So Traynor was not in the ideal position either.

Bill

[csh19792001]

I AM open, but would like to see the stats for myself. Can you show the data?

Where's all that data? Fielding and otherwise.

[Bill Burgess]

OK. I dug this post out of page one of this thread.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris posted this post on December 11, 2005, on this thread, page 1, #17.

You're also badly mistaken about fielding as well. At the time, Groh's main strength as a player was considered to be his fielding. He beats Pie handily in almost all fielding metrics (except RF, which is by far the least significant, and Groh kills him in error rate, which negates that big time):

Rel. RF
Groh-103
Traynor-111

Rel. Fielding %
Groh-102
Traynor-100
(The two point difference is actually a huge deal. Traynor's F% at third was .947, the same as the league average. Groh's F% was .967, compared to the league average of .946. That's a huge difference. Groh also holds perhaps one of the most amazing unheralded records, in that he still holds the single season record for fielding percentage at third base.)

Defensive Win Shares/1000 innings
Groh-5.29
Traynor-4.65

FRAR
Groh-483
Traynor-413

FRAA
Groh-155
Traynor-103

So, overall Groh beats him in every metric, except RF, but that is countered because Groh was making far few erros, and RF doesn't take errors into account. Groh was the better fielder, Bill.

[Bill Burgess]

On December 11, 2005, iPod contributed this wonderful chronicle of Pie Traynor's MVP polling. This shows that he polled well among the sports writers of the 1920's-1930's. Many have speculated that Pie didn't get recognized until 1950. Not so. Was heavily decorated among 3Bmen of his era. And against this record of MVP recognition, Heinie Groh can offer nothing.

True, there was no MVP in Groh era, but he could have scored well in Sporting News, Baseball Magazine's annual all-star teams. So far, no one has offered to show that, if it exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
MVP awards. Traynor never finished higher than 6th. Here are his placings:

1925 NL: 8th
- Hornsby won the award, but 2 other Pirates finished above Traynor; RF Cuyler (2nd), and their SS Glenn "Buckshot" Wright (4th).

1926 NL: 13th
- Bob O'Farrell won the award; again, 2 other Pirates finished above Traynor. This year, it was Ray Kremer (3rd), and Paul Waner (12th). Les Bell (6th) and Freddie Lindstrom (9th) finish above him amongst 3B.

1927 NL: 7th
- Both Waner brothers finished above him; Paul 1st, Lloyd 6th.

1928 NL: 6th
- Traynor's best showing in the voting for his career, but another Pirate had a better year supposedly; Burleigh Grimes finished 3rd. Traynor finished 2nd amongst 3B, behind Freddie Lindstrom who had 231 hits.

1929 NL: 7th
- Again, 3rd MVP on the Pirates; Grimes (4th), and Lloyd Waner (5th) both edged him out in the voting

1931 NL: 13th
- Finally the highest placing Pirate, but he finishes 13th. Sparky Adams, another 3B, finishes 9th.

1932 NL: 8th
- Back to 2nd on the Pirates. Paul Waner finishes 4th.

1933 NL: 8th
- First on the Pirates, but Pepper Martin is the highest placing 3B (5th).

Only twice was he named by the writers as the best player on the Pirates; 13th in 1931, and 8th in 1933. And this isn't a Lou Gehrig situation, where he played under the shadow of a consistently superior player or something. 6 different players finished above him during Traynor's time with the Pirates. 4 times, two Pirates finished above him.

4 out of the 8 times, Traynor finished in the MVP voting below at least one other third baseman; 1926, 1928, 1931, and 1933. In 1927, when the Pirates won the pennant, Traynor did lead all NL 3B in OPS+, but not by much:

1) Pie Traynor (Pirates), 114
2) Andy High (Braves), 112
3) Chuck Dressen (Reds), 112
4) Freddie Lindstrom (Giants), 111
...

Traynor's best season was probably 1930, when he had a 124 OPS+ and batted .366.

1) Freddie Lindstrom (Giants), 141
2) Woody English (Cubs), 125
3) Pie Traynor (Pirates), 124
4) Tony Cuccinello (Reds), 104

I'm overstating the expectations of the hitting of a third baseman here, because the other 4 NL third baseman in each year were either slightly or well below average. However, to say that Traynor completely dominated the market on NL third baseman, year in, year out, isn't really accurate. Freddie Lindstrom absolutely could hang with Pie Traynor as a hitter. And only 4 times in his career was Traynor the highest voted third baseman in the NL, 13 full seasons.

My point is, Traynor absolutely was seen by the writers as a very good player. But did he get the kind of respect that Schmidt got? No way in hell. And this is in spite of the fact that, as you say, less offense was expected out of third baseman during Traynor's time. When you combine this observation with all the numbers I regurgitated in my first post, it seems pretty clear to me that Traynor was at the very least behind Schmidt, which means, by definition, he can't be the best third baseman ever.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[538280]

I AM open, but would like to see the stats for myself. Can you show the data?

I'll show you some total player metrics.

Career Win Shares
Groh-271
Traynor-271

Top 3 WS Seasons
Groh-37, 30, 28
Traynor-28, 26, 26

Sum of Top 5 Consecutive WS Seasons
Groh-147
Traynor-119

WS per 162 Games
Groh-26.19
Traynor-22.62

TPR
Groh-30.4
Traynor-18.4

Top 5 TPR Seasons
Groh-5.8, 4.8, 4.1, 3.4, 3.3
Traynor-3.6, 3.6, 3.2, 2.9, 2.3

Career WARP3
Groh-81.5
Traynor-77.0

Top 5 WARP3 Seasons
Groh-10.6, 9.2, 9.1, 8.1, 8.0
Traynor-8.8, 8.2, 7.2, 6.9, 6.8

Groh comes out WAY ahead in every peak measure and is ahead or tied in every career measure.

[iPod]

Earlier it was suggested that Heinie Groh hitting leadoff and Traynor hitting 3rd was a big reason for their difference in offense, plus the live ball.

I looked it up on Proquest and Traynor hit 6th in 1925, and 5th in 1927-28.

The later lineup was:

Lloyd Waner
Clyde Barnhart
Paul Waner
Glenn Wright
Pie Traynor
George Grantham

So Traynor was not in the ideal position either.

Bill

5th is still a lot better than 1st if you're looking for RBI's.

[538280]

5th is still a lot better than 1st if you're looking for RBI's.

It is. It may actually be only slightly worse than 3rd. 4th is the best RBI position. And this does absolutely nothing to change the eras they played in, or the teams they played for. Pie's huge RBI advantage still means close to nothing.

RBI isn't any good anyway. It tells just as much about the environment the player is performing in as how well he is performing.

[Bill Burgess]

RBI isn't any good anyway. It tells just as much about the environment the player is performing in as how well he is performing.

Actually, I agree. RBIs tell us more about the quality of one's team mates than anything out. Same with Runs.

Total Baseball lists them in Fielding Runs thusly.

Traynor - 114
Groh - 59

TPW
Traynor - 28.2
Groh - 31.2

I asked Matt Souders for his PCA values for both players, offense/defense.

Bill Burgess

[538280]

Actually, I agree. RBIs tell us more about the quality of one's team mates than anything out. Same with Runs.

Total Baseball lists them in Fielding Runs thusly.

Traynor - 114
Groh - 59

TPW
Traynor - 28.2
Groh - 31.2

I asked Matt Souders for his PCA values for both players, offense/defense.

Bill Burgess

Fielding runs in their original form in Total Baseball were completely useless. They made no adjustment for the defensive context the player played under (the groud ball/fly ball tendency of the pitchers, the DP partner, LH/RH pitchers, and various other factors). In the newest ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, they have come up with a new fielding runs that adjusts for all of those things. It sees Traynor/Groh like this:

Groh-55
Traynor-25

That huge reworking of Traynor's fielding also brings his TPR down nearly 10 points. That may also contribute to Pie being overrated defensively in his time. The raw fielding stats showed him as better than he really was, because his defensive context was highly favorable, apparently.

[Bill Burgess]

The original purpose of this thread is to determine the Fever members present status of Pie Traynor.

As of today, December 20, 2005, 22 Fever members have voted on this poll.

14 members have still voted Pie into their Top 10 3B.

8 members have voted Pie no longer in their Top 10.

That is 63.63%. Not too shabby. And it is also understood that those 8 members have sometimes voted Pie far lower than 10th.

The Traynor/Groh skirmish is a mere sidelight to the deeper, more profound festivities.

[leecemark]

--Except that Henie appears to have kicked Pie's henie in that shirmish. I've had Pie just in/out of my top 10, but always ahead of Groh. It seems I was wrong about that and there is one more guy who clearly belongs ahead ahead of Traynor.

[Bill Burgess]

--Except that Henie appears to have kicked Pie's henie in that shirmish. I've had Pie just in/out of my top 10, but always ahead of Groh. It seems I was wrong about that and there is one more guy who clearly belongs ahead ahead of Traynor.

Hmm. You really think so, Mark?

Well, the good news is that most still rank Pie in the Top 10 3Bmen, and Groh isn't near him. Below is the results of our recent 3B poll. No Groh in sight, while Pie came in 8th, and Collins 11th.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The results are now in. It wasn't particularly close, Mike Schmidt ran away with this one. These are the final results:

Mike Schmidt-177 (14)
Eddie Mathews-122
George Brett-122
Wade Boggs-98 (1)
Ron Santo-87
Frank Baker-50
Brooks Robinson-47
Pie Traynor-28
Ken Boyer-20
Paul Molitor-17
Jimmy Collins-17
Darrell Evans-17
Ray Dandridge-12

No one else received more than 10 points.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Uh? You were saying, Mark?

[leecemark]

--That was before Chris' convincing argment in favor of Groh. Henie had no advocate in that poll and Pie will always have a core of support from people who love his BA and old time rep. Never mind that Pie's rep didn't really develop until well after he retired.

[Bill Burgess]

Never mind that Pie's rep didn't really develop until well after he retired.

This belief despite Pie's winning so many Sporting News awards for outstanding ML 3rd baseman, and the above post of how well he polled in MVP awards?

Sheesh, Mark. What will it take to show you the light? The man was a legend during his career, largely due to the tight left infield wall he formed with Glenn Wright, 1924-1928.

Bill

[leecemark]

--Traynor's best finish in the MVP voting was 6th. He was the best 3B of his time. I'm not disputing that. So was Groh before. So was Stan Hack just after him. Somebody has to be the best at a position and Traynor's competition was uninspiring. Hell, Frank Malzone made 6 All Star games and finished 7th in the MVP race once and he is barely a top 50 all time 3B.

[SABR Matt]

Pie Traynor's PCA Offensive Line:
Age Yr Outs Wins Wins/Yr
20 1920 44 -0.15 -1.66
21 1921 14 0.00 0.00
22 1922 426 2.96 3.38
23 1923 427 8.09 9.21
24 1924 416 3.07 3.59
25 1925 424 5.69 6.52
26 1926 418 4.23 4.92
27 1927 412 5.28 6.23
28 1928 419 5.24 6.08
29 1929 372 6.14 8.02
30 1930 338 7.64 10.99
31 1931 440 4.12 4.55
32 1932 351 4.20 5.82
33 1933 464 3.11 3.26
34 1934 332 1.42 2.08
35 1935 159 0.26 0.79
37 1937 11 -0.22 -9.72

A solid offensive career for Mr.Traynor...not something I would call revolutionary. To give you anidea where he is among third basemen offensively:

199 third basemen recorded at least 2000 batting outs. and Traynor ranked 80th among those 199 with a career 5.43 Wins/486 Outs. Traynor is of comparable offensive skill with Jeff Cirillo, Denny Walling, Artie Latham, and Lance Mulliniks.

Heinie Groh's Offensive Line:
Age Yr BaO OWC OWY
22 1912 35 0.60 8.33
23 1913 304 3.63 5.80
24 1914 341 4.91 7.00
25 1915 465 4.38 4.58
26 1916 415 4.38 5.13
27 1917 424 7.64 8.76
28 1918 348 5.43 7.58
29 1919 324 5.32 7.98
30 1920 419 6.78 7.86
31 1921 272 4.20 7.50
32 1922 332 2.55 3.73
33 1923 343 4.38 6.21
34 1924 421 4.20 4.85
35 1925 51 0.04 0.38
36 1926 27 -0.07 -1.26
37 1927 25 0.04 0.78

In his prime, Groh was one of the most consistant hitters of the deadball era...but once again...not one of the greatest. For his career, Groh stacks up this way:

6.24 Wins per 486 Outs...51st of the 199 third basemen with at least 2000 batting outs. He's comparable to Doug DeCinces, Bill Melton, Art Devlin, and Ken Caminiti.

Now...the defensive side...first for Traynor:
Age Yr PRG ADWC ADWY
20 1920 16 0.18 1.82
21 1921 4 0.00 0.00
22 1922 146 0.72 0.80
23 1923 152 1.66 1.77
24 1924 141 1.98 2.27
25 1925 153 3.64 3.85
26 1926 153 3.20 3.39
27 1927 151 4.94 5.30
28 1928 148 3.89 4.26
29 1929 133 1.44 1.75
30 1930 129 0.68 0.85
31 1931 155 1.48 1.55
32 1932 128 2.41 3.05
33 1933 154 3.28 3.45
34 1934 107 0.97 1.47
35 1935 51 0.86 2.73
37 1937 3 0.04 2.16

Gold Gloves in 1925, 1927, and 1928 for Traynor. Second place finishes in 1926 and 1933.

For his career, that's 2.64 Wins per 162 games at third. That's 24th all time out of 166 qualifying third basemen with at least 800 games at the position.

Heinie Groh looked like thist:
Age Yr PRG ADWC ADWY
22 1912 16 0.29 2.94
23 1913 116 2.38 3.32
24 1914 134 2.81 3.40
25 1915 161 3.81 3.83
26 1916 154 2.48 2.61
27 1917 160 1.87 1.89
28 1918 126 2.38 3.06
29 1919 121 2.16 2.89
30 1920 142 1.30 1.48
31 1921 94 0.61 1.05
32 1922 98 1.51 2.50
33 1923 112 1.66 2.40
34 1924 137 1.26 1.49
35 1925 10 0.07 1.13
36 1926 7 0.11 2.55
37 1927 7 0.22 5.09

Overall he's31st of 166 qualifiers with a 2.53 W/162 G career scoring rate ondefense...very close to Traynor. The duo are comparable to Matt Williams, David Bell, Jeff Cirillo, Vinny Castilla, Mike Schmidt, Harry Steinfeldt and Aurelio Rodriguez. Both outstanding glovemen...but again...not really "best of the best" criteria.

That having been said, it's rare to get a guy who can hit and field at an above average rate...when you add the two skills together, here are the top 40 scorers in career Wins Created among third basemen (this does bias toward players with long careers, but breaking it into a per game rate is dangerous because some hitters DH or play another position for part of their career, and some fielders become expert defensive replacements...just bear that in mind)
First Last
Mike Schmidt
Eddie Mathews
George Brett
Paul Molitor
Wade Boggs
Brooks Robinson
Darrell Evans
Ron Santo
Edgar Martinez
Graig Nettles
Tommy Leach
Stan Hack
Buddy Bell
Eddie Yost
Bob Elliott
Frank Baker
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonilla
Jimmy Collins
Ken Boyer
Ron Cey
Jimmie Dykes
Harlond Clift
Robin Ventura
Gary Gaetti
Pie Traynor
Tim Wallach
Chipper Jones
George Kell
Matt Williams
Scott Rolen
Bill Madlock
Ken Caminiti
Heinie Groh
Carney Lansford
Willie Kamm
Lave Cross
Doug DeCinces
Arlie Latham
Ken Keltner

Traynor is 26th, and Groh is 34th. They're similarly skilled players...neither qualifies as material for a debate about who belongs in anyone's top ten.

[Bill Burgess]

Lining up Matt's data:

Offense:

Traynor: 80th of the 199 third basemen with at least 2000 batting outs.

5.43 Wins/486 Outs.

Groh: ...51st of the 199 third basemen with at least 2000 batting outs.

6.24 Wins per 486 Outs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defense:

Traynor: Gold Gloves in 1925, 1927, and 1928 for Traynor. Second place finishes in 1926 and 1933.

24th of 166 qualifying with a 2.64 Wins/162 games at third basemen with at least 800 games at the position.

Groh:

31st of 166 qualifiers with a 2.53 W/162 G career scoring rate on defense...very close to Traynor.

Traynor is 26th, and Groh is 34th.

[538280]

Traynor is 26th, and Groh is 34th.[/B]

And Matt has gotten a result completely disagreeing with all other total player metrics. I'm sorry, but to be convinced by this I'd really have to get into the nuts and bolts of PCA and see if it's really any good.

Also, that is only on career PCA. Traynor did have a longer career, but the other metrics all showed Groh having a WAY better peak. I'm not sure about PCA, but it may say the same thing, and if it does, then rating Groh over Traynor with PCA is still reasonable.

[leecemark]

--Bill even if PCA has Traynor ahead of Groh, its having Traynor 26th amoung 3B's isn't exactly doing your main premise any good. It gives additional evidence that he doesn't belong in anybody's top 10.

[Bill Burgess]

--Bill even if PCA has Traynor ahead of Groh, its having Traynor 26th amoung 3B's isn't exactly doing your main premise any good. It gives additional evidence that he doesn't belong in anybody's top 10.

That's right, Mark. See? I'm not trying to skew the results. I often argue against myself. Which shows honor/credibility. I'm the furthest from stat men, but at least I'm going out of my way to present the full range of defensive metrics.

You guys failed to show PCA or TB's Fielding Runs. What other defensive stats are you not presenting? Let's be comprehensive. Show whatever is out there, and let's let the chips fall where they may. That way, at least we can say that we tried.

Anyone else know of any defensive stats to show? Anywhere? Does ThinkFactory do white guys?

[RuthMayBond]

That's right, Mark. See? I'm not trying to skew the results. I'm the furthest from stat men, but at least I'm going out of my way to present the full range of defensive metrics.

You guys failed to show PCA or TB's Fielding Runs. What other defensive stats are you not presenting? Let's be comprehensive. Show whatever is out there, and let's let the chips fall where they may. That way, at least we can say that we tried.

Anyone else know of any defensive stats to show? Anywhere? Does ThinkFactory do white guys?Obviously some stats are more meaningful than others, and baseballprospectus does tend to tinker with their stats from time to time

Traynor: 1.10 adjusted Range Factor, 7x PO king, 3x A king, 1x fielding% king, 106 adjusted production rate, 343 adjusted fielding runs above replacement, 102 adjusted fielding runs above average, personally 4 hypothetical Gold Gloves

Groh: 1.02 adjusted Range Factor, 3x PO king, 6x fielding% king, 111 adjusted production rate, 304 adjusted fielding runs above replacement, 141 adjusted fielding runs above average, personally 4 hypothetical Gold Gloves.

Conclusion: both guys were top 15 defensive 3B. I've personally got them right next to each other, with a slight edge to Traynor defensively, probably not worth worrying about

[Bill Burgess]

What have I learned from this thread?

I still rate Pie over Heinie defensively. Why? Because I trust eye-witnesses more than I trust defensive stats. I believe that Heinie's lower errors account for his good glove ratings, but I am not convinced that that he fielded better.

I refer you to the Herman Long example. A ton of errors in service of stopping balls is no vice. A dearth of errors by not pursuing balls is no virtue.

I am impressed that Heinie Groh had more value than I thought, mainly due to his plate patience, which drove up his OBP. I do value walking as a skill, and Pie was too influenced by his era, which stressed hitting. So it's fair to debit him some offensive value there. I acknowledge that point.

Even though Matt Souders ranks both players far down his 3B list, I am STILL gratified to see the Fever house rank Pie in our top 10. I take that to imply that we give more credit to eye-witness reports of Pie's excellent glovework, rather than defensive stats, which lower his defensive status.

So that's what I've walked away with from this excellent, detailed, heavily-participated in Pie Traynor thread. I consider it well worth having been brought back! Don't you?!

And I want to commend Chris/Mark for battling so very valiantly as the loyal opposition. You both scored many good points and direct hits. So good going on that. I thank you both for such good work. Nice work, brothers.

This doesn't mean the discussion is over, by any means. Just wanting to give the props where they are so richly deserved.

What have you guys learned?

Bill Burgess

[RuthMayBond]

I refer you to the Herman Long example. A ton of errors in service to stopping balls is no vice.Long actually led his league in SS fielding% twice, and other metrics do show he was pretty good

[Bill Burgess]

Traynor: 1.10 adjusted Range Factor, 7x PO king, 3x A king, 1x fielding% king, 106 adjusted production rate, 343 adjusted fielding runs above replacement, 102 adjusted fielding runs above average, personally 4 hypothetical Gold Gloves

Groh: 1.02 adjusted Range Factor, 3x PO king, 6x fielding% king, 111 adjusted production rate, 304 adjusted fielding runs above replacement, 141 adjusted fielding runs above average, personally 4 hypothetical Gold Gloves.


Thank you so very much, Jeffrey!! Now that's what I'm talkin' about. Good solid stuff. You personally give each 4 hypothetical GG. Good. I like that. Do you know of any other defensive metric which we may have overlooked, that slipped through the cracks?

I'd like to think we covered them all in one post or another. But I suspect that there are a few out there, that no one saw fit to pull on in the boat.

Ranginess/arm are probably your 2 most valued assets in the HOT CORNER. And Pie shades Heinie in both counts - Range/assists.

And let us never forget that fielding the infield was easier in the deadball era, when balls traveled slower through the infield, and fielders had a better chance of catching up with them and converting them to PO/A/DP.

Thanks again, Jeff! Good work.

Bill

[538280]

Ranginess/arm are probably your 2 most valued assets in the HOT CORNER. And Pie shades Heinie in both counts - Range/assists.


Pie probably did have better range than Groh, but the stat don't say that he had the better arm. His arm may have been stronger, I'm not sure, the only way you can really tell that is by watching them, and obviously I have never seen either. But, doesn't Groh's very low error rate suggest that his arm was very accurate?

Think about it: What are most 3B errors? They are throwing errors. The ball is thrown way too high, low, or off to the side. Arm accuracy is critical for a 3B, and it seems Groh had an extremely accurate throwing arm. Pie's arm probably wasn't near as accurate.

And Total Baseball's fielding runs mean absolutely nothing. Did you see this post I made?:

Fielding runs in their original form in Total Baseball were completely useless. They made no adjustment for the defensive context the player played under (the groud ball/fly ball tendency of the pitchers, the DP partner, LH/RH pitchers, and various other factors). In the newest ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, they have come up with a new fielding runs that adjusts for all of those things. It sees Traynor/Groh like this:

Groh-55
Traynor-25

That huge reworking of Traynor's fielding also brings his TPR down nearly 10 points. That may also contribute to Pie being overrated defensively in his time. The raw fielding stats showed him as better than he really was, because his defensive context was highly favorable, apparently.

[SABR Matt]

Actually most third base errors TODAY are throwing errors (although Russ Davis was the king of the dropped fly ball), but the further you go back in time, the more the errors turn out to be booted grounders.

[Bill Burgess]

Pie probably did have better range than Groh, but the stat don't say that he had the better arm. His arm may have been stronger, I'm not sure, the only way you can really tell that is by watching them, and obviously I have never seen either. But, doesn't Groh's very low error rate suggest that his arm was very accurate?

Think about it: What are most 3B errors?[/I]

Throwing errors are a possibility, but we don't have the required data to come to that conclusion, yet. If Heinie has a better arm, why did Pie lead his league in assists 3 times, Heinie zero. Sounds like Pie threw fairly well.

Scarcity of errors could be indicative of a good arm, OR it could be indicative of lack of range. Many errors accrue from going into short left, looking up, getting disoriented, and falling while trying to make a valiant catch. Others come from having good enough reflexes to knock down hard shots down the line, but not being able to get a handle on the ball and throw it.

Another factor is that Pie was able to lead his league in assists 3 times, while having a super defensive SS to his left, in Glenn Wright, 1924-28, the heart of Pie's career prime.

[538280]

Another factor is that Pie was able to lead his league in assists 3 times, while having a super defensive SS to his left, in Glenn Wright, 1924-28, the heart of Pie's career prime.

But remember what I said about the defensive contexts? Pie played behind a ground ball staff.

[538280]

Where'd you read this?

What about Groh's staff? Have you read anything about the trends of the pitchers he fielded behind, overall?

It would be helpful in furthering out understanding of the value of the fielding measures on the floor here.

I do not know about Groh's staff.

I have never read about Pie's staff, but Total Baseball dropped his fielding runs nearly 100 "runs" after they adjusted for defensive context. Doesn't that mean he had to play in a very, very favorable environment?

[538280]

No, but they adjust for the pitchers' handedness and expected double plays (rather than just actual DP). They also have a formula for "expected putouts", and "expected assists", but it appears it does not adjust for the groundball/flyball tendency of the staff.

Still, though, there was a huge swing in Pie's fielding runs. Maybe Bill was right, maybe it has something to do with him being helped tremendously by his DP partner, Glenn Wright.

[Ubiquitous]

Pie Traynors obit from the sporting news.

[Ubiquitous]

Heinie Groh

4612

-------Heinie Groh, Reds 3B, 1913-21----------------------------------------------------1919-21
-------BB Reference Data (http://www.baseball-reference.com/g/grohhe01.shtml)

1793017931

[Ubiquitous]

The Sporting News, September 7, 1968, pp. 34. Heinie had died on August 22, 1968. Thank you ubiquitous!!!

46131793417935

[538280]

This has been a very good thread with great discussion on this subject. I'd like to come in and give my two cents on the subject once again.

As I've maintained throughout, I think Heinie Groh was certainly the better player. The statistical evidence is damning. They have very similar career value, but Groh kills Pie on peak and per game measures. Using Win Shares, WARP3, or TPR it's not even close, Groh wins by a landslide. PCA shows it as virtually even.

Looking at it statistically on offense, it's not even close. Groh has a way better OPS+ (118 to 107). Groh beats him by 10 points in rel. OBP and they are tied in rel. BA and rel. SLG. I'm willing to call Traynor a better slugger. His park was really tough for power, and his league was a bit stronger. But, park effects hurt his rel. BA, since Forbes was a great park for singles hitters. Groh was the better contact hitter.

All other things are pretty much even, so plate discipline takes center stage. There Pie can't compare to Heinie. Traynor walked about 28% less than the average player of his time, Groh walked 36% more. Walks can be overrated by stat men, but still they do mean something, certainly enough in this case that Groh can become a much better offensive player because of them.

Bill presented his argument for Pie's supremacy with their per 162 games averages. This is obviously unfar; Groh played in a time where the league average OPS was .695, Traynor played when it was .769. Although they're not too far from being contemporaries, Groh played mostly right before the intorduction of the live ball while Traynor played right after.

Pie's RBI totals are impressive, and Groh's not impressive, even in context. But, this again means very little. Traynor got to bat 5th most of his career behind the Waner brothers in a great offensive context. I don't have the data, but I'd bet almost every 5th hitter in the 1920s and 1930s averaged about 100 RBIs a year. Groh was a leadoff man in the deadball era playing for only okay run scoring teams. Not an ideal RBI position at all. I'm willing to bet Groh probably drove in more runs than most did in that same position. The RBI argument is a rye.

Pie was reputed to be one of the best fielders from the hot corner of all time. This also may be a bit overblown though. It appears Traynor was flashy but somewhat erratic, with good range but a relatively high error rate. Groh was the opposite. Although his range was still solid, his error rates were among the best of all time. He was more than 20 points above the league fielding percentage for his career and still holds the single season F% record, despite huge advances in glove technology over the years.

Stats show Traynor to be solid, but unspectacular and usually put him below Groh.

In Ubiquitous' obituaries he gave us, it gives huge props to Pie's fielding, claiming he "astounded opponents and teammates with the glove". Groh does get some praise for his fielding, though not to that degree. What we have here is stats vs. eyewitnesses. With fielding, it is reasonable to trust the eyewitnesses, so you can give Traynor a fielding edge.

As overall players, eyewitness opinions again heavily favor Traynor. But, their skill sets have more to do with that than their acutal ability. Traynor has way better raw numbers, which certainly swayed many old timers in his way since they didn't have relative stats the way we do now. Groh's main skill was plate discipline, which was undervalued by people of the time. They thought it was almost entirely on the pitcher, and thus didn't give Groh much credit for that. The eyewitness argument, like the RBI one, is largely a biased against Groh and towards Traynor.

ElHalo says Traynor was the greatest intangilble player ever. Maybe that's true. But, I'm not so sure how much intangilbles should count for. Groh was considered a great intangible player himself who always got along with teammates and was one of the leaders of the great 1919 Reds who won the tainted World Series. John McGraw asked him to come back to the Giants when he was older because he though he was a good man and player and had fond reccollections of him in his early years.

The evidence ElHalo presents for Traynor is valid, but I'd like to see some proof that it was actually Traynor who helped all those guys. Perhaps some quote from someone. I do know Dick Bartell played with Traynor a long time and considered him selfish and describes him as an "agitator". The evidence for Maranville may be true, but it should also be remembered that Maranville's upturn in offense may largely be due to the park he played in. He went from one of the toughest hitting parks ever (Braves Field), to a park that really suited a contact hitter with little power such as himself (Forbes).

Traynor probably was a good intangible player, but I'd like to see more evidence from ElHalo before I really take that claim to heart.

Either way, though, I don't see how that can put Traynor over Groh. The statistical evidence is too damning.

[Bill Burgess]

This has been a very good thread with great discussion on this subject. I'd like to come in and give my two cents on the subject once again.

Either way, though, I don't see how that can put Traynor over Groh. The statistical evidence is too damning.

Not bad, Chris. Considerably less biased than previously, and I find your summation reasonable. While we still come to different conclusions on them as overall players, you have shown me that Heinie Groh is much more than I had previously thought of him.

But I see no reason to push him at Traynor's expense. We can laud them both, for different reasons. And I still caution others to be somewhat wary of defensive stats, at least at this time. The many factors that Willie Kamm cautioned us about remain valid for me.

A low error count, accompanied by a high FA, has long been suspect of poor range/initiative. I am not saying that is true in Henie's case. I'm simply cautioning us to be cautious. Defense is the hardest thing to measure. And I'm not saying eyewitnesses can not be misled by flashiness covering up poor positioning/bad judgment.

So, I think the obits have tempered your enthusiasm, Chris, and that's not a bad thing.

Bill Burgess

[ElHalo]

The evidence ElHalo presents for Traynor is valid, but I'd like to see some proof that it was actually Traynor who helped all those guys. Perhaps some quote from someone.

Well, you've certainly heard the famous McGraw quote: "If I had to pick the greatest team player in baseball today-and I have some of the greats on my own club-I would have to pick Pie Traynor."

And then there's Branch Rickey, who called Pie: "a man of intellectual worth on the field of play."

The best book on the subject is Fred Lieb's "The Pittsburgh Pirates," originally published in 1948 but happily reprinted a few years ago and available a lot of places.

[538280]

BTW, where do you rate Groh?

I'd also like to (in a true Bill Burgess style), give some posts previously made on behalf of Groh on other threads:

Cyclone792 posted this on the "Second Edition Top 10 Third Basemen Poll" thread:

His best seasons were in a terrible era for run scoring and in a pitcher's park, and two of his top seasons (1918 and 1919) were shortened due to WWI, lessening their perceived impact on his peak value. Putting his numbers into context and giving him minor war credit for those two top seasons, he rates very well, as win shares shows.

Groh's win shares totals by season: 37, 34*, 32*, 28, 25, 24, 19, 19, 18, 15, 13, 12, 2, 1, 1

I gave him 6 win shares of war credit for 1918 and 2 win shares of war credit for 1919, which I don't believe is an abnormally high amount. His top 3 season peak is tied for 6th all-time and his top 5 season peak is 7th all-time. His slightly lower career value hurts him a bit, but the peak is what pushes Groh to 11th for me.

That brings up another good point previously unmentioned. Groh comes out about equal to Traynor in career value, but he did serve a bit in WWI, so he should probably be considered ahead there.

Wee Willie provided this on the same thread:

Some Win Share comparisons among early 3B:

Career Win Shares
Heinie Groh - 271
Pie Traynor - 271
Jimmy Collins - 273
Lave Cross - 275

Career Win Shares Per 162 Games
Heinie Groh - 26.19
Pie Traynor - 22.62
Jimmy Collins - 25.59
Lave Cross - 19.58

Top 3 Seasons, Total Win Shares
Heinie Groh - 95
Pie Traynor - 80
Jimmy Collins - 89
Lave Cross - 69

Top 5 Consecutive Seasons, Total Win Shares
Heinie Groh - 147
Pie Traynor - 119
Jimmy Collins - 129
Lave Cross - 97

If you value the Win Shares system, Groh has a pretty good case for being ranked the highest among this group of players. Jimmy Collins seems to be the closest to him statisically, with Traynor 3rd and Cross 4th. If you use WARP3 instead of Win Shares, each player seems to perform very similarly.

Collins does have the strength of opinion going over Groh, though. I think that helps him make up some ground that may allow me to rank him over Groh. It's a tough call. Traynor, on the other hand, is a little too far behind in the numbers for me to put him over the other two

[538280]

This is a good old thread where I talked a lot about one of the most underrated players of all time, Heinie Groh.

Just interested, Bill, where do you rank Groh right now, and where do you rate Traynor?

Do you still have Traynor above Wade Boggs? If so, I'd like to show you the true absurdity of that ranking.

Wade Boggs came up in the mid 80s with the Boston Red Sox, and quickly was one of the best hitters in the game. He was a singles slap hitter without much power, but didn't really resemble Ichiro or Juan Pierre, because he wasn't really that kind of hitter. He wasn't just a singles hitter who slaps the ball, doesn't have a great OBP, and makes a ton of outs. Boggs could control the strike zone. He walked a ton, finishing top 5 in walks seven straight years 1983-1989. When you add 110 walks a year to a .360 average, you're going to have one hell of a hitter. Boggs was an OBP machine, perhaps the greatest leadoff man the game has ever seen for a few years. He led the league in OBP six times, and every year 1985-1989. He just missed the OBP crown one year in 1984, when he finished second. Rickey Henderson even couldn't keep up his leadoff pace.

Boggs never did have great home run power, even though he hit a ton of doubles, over 40 from 1985-1991. He was no doubt helped by the Green Monster in left field in that regard though. Boggs was known for lifting the ball up to the wall, and he got many doubles in this way.

Boggs never was a home run hitter but he did explode for 24 in 1987. Really, take a look at his 1987 season. .363 average, 105 walks for a league leading .461 OBP. 24 home runs, 40 doubles for a .588 slugging percentage, third in the league. You think Traynor could put together a hitting season like that? Boggs had a 173 OPS+-48 points higher than Traynor's career high.

Now, Boggs was not a glove wizard, but he was a solid fielder. He won two Gold Gloves, and is graded a B by Win Shares (the same as Traynor). BP has Boggs 90 runs above average, Traynor 103.

Traynor was a very good fielder, probably better than Boggs. But, to claim his fielding edge overcomes Boggs' hitting edge is nothing short of ludicrous.

Let me talk about the main criticism of Boggs, that he was never the same player after 1991. He wasn't. Certainly the post 1991 Boggs was somewhat of a dissapointment given his greatness before that year. But, the only reason for that is because Boggs was SO great before then. That's why IMO Boggs is underrated by many people. They remember the dissapointing post 1991 Boggs. He was still a very good player though. He was still hitting over .300, his OBP was still around .400, and he was just as good a slugger as he was.

He was having one hell of a year before the strike in 1994. He was a Gold Glove 3Bman that year, and hit .342 with a ton of walks and good power

Anyway, this is in a comparison to Traynor, and Boggs had 9 full seasons before '91, and a very good three quarters of a season. The bulk of Traynor's career is twelve years 1922-1933. Only three years difference. In total, Boggs has way more longevity. Boggs played in 2439 games, Traynor in 1941. Boggs had 10740 PAs, Traynor 8293.

So, overall there's no reasonable justification for having Traynor over Boggs. Hopefully you realize that.

[Bill Burgess]

Just interested, Bill, where do you rank Groh right now, and where do you rate Traynor?

Do you still have Traynor above Wade Boggs? If so, I'd like to show you the true absurdity of that ranking.

I do still have Pie ranked over Wade. Here is my current 3B rankings. You can always find them in Members Official Opinions. I keep mine current, as I hope everyone else does to.

3B - Schmidt, Brett, Santo, Traynor, Mathews, Collins, Boggs, Robinson,
Boyer, Cox, Bradley, J. Johnson, NL, O. Marcel, NL, Dandridge, NL,
Madlock, Bluege, Kamm, Baker, Molitor, Gardner, Ned Williamson.

BTW - Here are yours.
1. Mike Schmidt 2. Eddie Mathews 3. George Brett 4. Ron Santo 5. Wade Boggs 6. Frank Baker 7. Ray Dandridge 8. Sal Bando 9. Paul Molitor 10. Jimmy Collins 11. Oliver Marcelle
12. Brooks Robinson 13. Darrell Evans 14. Ken Boyer 15. Heinie Groh 16. Ron Cey 17. Stan Hack 18. Chipper Jones 19. Al Rosen 20. Graig Nettles 21. Pie Traynor 22. Lave Cross 23. John McGraw 24. Bob Elliot 25. Edgar Martinez

You ask me about Heinie Groh, but I see you lack Bill Madlock, who won 4 BA titles while at 3B. And it also seems a little odd that Matt Williams never generated much commentery as a 3B guy. I saw him and he was credible both with glove/bat.

And you also omit the glove guys, Cox, Bluege, Kamm, as well as Judy Johnson. Sigh. Oh, well. I guess that is the beuaty of BB. We all see our guys through the prism of our individual perceptions. (Really wish though you find a place to tack Bradley/Madlock onto the tail of your rankings.)

Bill

[SABR Matt]

Uh...you believe Traynor is superior to SCHMIDT?

There's no point in even having a discussion on that subject...geez, EH

[yanks0714]

There's a very easy way of resolving this.

Do you rank Boggs behind Schmidt? I assume the answer is yes.

Since you rank Schmidt ahead of Boggs, and Traynor is clearly superior to Schmidt, there's no reasonable justification for putting Boggs behind Traynor.

Now listen, I'm a Pie Traynor fan....but there is absolutely no way in the world he is better than Mike Schmidt!!!

I have Boggs ahead of Traynor as well. So are Eddie Mathews, Frank Baker, and George Brett. Ron Santo belongs ahead of Pie as well. Brooks Robinson, Jimmy Collins, and Ken Boyer are in the mix as well. Some can argue for Stan Hack. Chris has convinced me to take another look at Heinie Groh and I'm still looking with an idea that he will move up for me.

Sadly, Pie Traynor is dropping in my 3B rankings but he'll never drop as far for me as some of the posters have him at.

[SABR Matt]

I have him 24th...the fact that he was a rather poor hitter by any standard of measurement does him in. I mean he was a BAD hitter...but certainly not top-20 great.

[Bill Burgess]

I have him 24th...the fact that he was a rather poor hitter by any standard of measurement does him in. I mean he was a BAD hitter...but certainly not top-20 great.
I had always thought that Pie was hitting above his league average. So how does that make him 'bad'?

Bill

[SABR Matt]

it doesn't...I didn't say he was a bad hitter...just not a great one.

He was a slightly above average hitter (poor by Hall-of-fame standards) and an above average fielder (13th greatest all time in that department by the GI method with PCA) at a position where it's difficult to accumulate value on defense alone.

[DoubleX]

I had always thought that Pie was hitting above his league average. So how that that make him 'bad'?

Bill

I probably mentioned this someplace in this thread many moons ago, but Pie's .320 average is a mirage. The league was batting like .295 during his career (in some years, the league average was well over .300). If Pie played in most any other generation, his career average likely falls below .300, and I have my doubts that he makes the Hall without the nice shiny average.

That being said, Pie was an RBI machine despite very poor power, so he gets some points for that in my book. Plus, 3B being such a very thin position before WWII, Pie also gets some credit for being among the best (if not the best) for the first 50 years or so of the century. But that's only good enough for him to rank around 12th for me (maybe 10th if I'm feeling generous).

[Imapotato]

1. Mike Schimdt
2. Eddie Mathews
3. George Brett
4. Wade Boggs
5. Frank Baker
6. Ron Santo
7. Jimmy Collins
8. Ken Boyer
9. Pie Traynor
10. Brooks Robinson

I have

1. Frank Baker
2. George Brett
3. Mike Schmidt
4. Pie Traynor
5. Jimmy Collins

As for Groh, at least one player shows the flaws of win shares

Groh was 5'7...so of course he was going to walk a lot or hit tons of fouls with the bottle bat, in which he choked up immensley

He bunted alot for hits, and his extra base hits are nothing spectacular, he was ok in the field but not great

If he was 6'2 he would have been forgotten, like Randy Johnson if "The Big Unit" was 6'2

No one during that time even considered him in the league of Frank Baker

His best years, were during the Federal League and then WWI...eye popping

If you have Groh high on your list, Willie Kamm and Harry Steinfeldt must look really good as well

[DoubleX]

I have

1. Frank Baker
2. George Brett
3. Mike Schmidt
4. Pie Traynor
5. Jimmy Collins

Deference to the old school, eh?

I got:

1) Mike Schmidt
2) George Brett
3) Wade Boggs
4) Eddie Mathews
5) Ron Santo
6) Frank Baker
7) Brooks Robinson
8) Ken Boyer
9) Chipper Jones - I'm sure most disagree with this.
10) Pie Traynor - Guess this is a generous day for me.

My next ten have the following (in no particular order):

Jimmy Collins
Sal Bando - 538 has persuaded me to bump him up a little
Bob Elliot - Very underrated
Stan Hack
Darrell Evans
Graig Nettles
George Kell
Heinie Groh
Al Rosen
Ron Cey

[ElHalo]

I have...

1. Rodriguez
2. Traynor
3. Schmidt (though I really, really don't believe in my heart of hearts that he deserves to be this high)
4. Boggs
5. Brett
6. Baker
7. Mathews
8. Collins
9. Hack
10. Rosen

[Bill Burgess]

I have

1. Frank Baker
2. George Brett
3. Mike Schmidt
4. Pie Traynor
5. Jimmy Collins


JT,

That's an old list. Haven't used it in a long time. My updated list is as follows.

3B - Schmidt, Brett, Santo, Traynor, Mathews, Collins, Boggs, Robinson,
Boyer, Cox, Bradley, J. Johnson, NL, O. Marcel, NL, Dandridge, NL,
Madlock, Bluege, Kamm, Baker, Molitor, Gardner, Ned Williamson.

[ElHalo]

Uh...you believe Traynor is superior to SCHMIDT?

There's no point in even having a discussion on that subject...geez, EH

Traynor's a fine player. He's a guy who hit in the top 10 in his league 6 times, RBI's nine times, bashed singles and triples with alacrity, struck out almost never, and was, in my personal opinion, one of the top three or four defensive 3Bmen of all time. That much being said, if I'm just going off his pure skill as a player, it's arguable that he wouldn't make the top 100 players of all time (I'd probably have him in the 90's, but can't say for certain)... however, as I went on about at length elsewhere in this thread, Pie Traynor is the single greatest intangibles player in the history of baseball... in ways that had real, tangible effects on the baseball field (see my earlier post on the subject from a few months ago). He's one of the few people (at last count, I had a total of four in baseball history) who gets a significant intangibles boost from me in my rankings. It's enough for me to bump him up to around 40th all time, which is enough for him to rank ahead of Schmidt.

I really don't have any time at all for players like Schmidt. A contumacious, wilful refusal to hit for average is the biggest in game sin a player can commit in my mind. When a guy averages only 83 singles / 162 games, there's only so valuable he can be, no matter what else he's doing on the baseball field. I rank Schmidt in my top 3 third basemen, and my top 50 players overall, solely out of respect for other people's opinions. If it was purely up to me, he wouldn't make my top 100 position players. A not-nearly-as-good Mark McGwire playing at 3B instead of 1B? No thank you. McGwire doesn't rank in my top 10 at his position, or in my top 100 players. It's a fate that, in my opinion, Schmidt should share... although, as I said, out of respect for others' opinions, I rank him insanely highly.

(And on a side note... I know that he's got a reputation for defensive excellence, which the stats seem to indicate is warranted... but I still have the intuitive notion, which must be constantly suppressed, that a hitter in the mold of Killebrew, Cecil Fielder, and Rob Deer, must necessarily also be in the same defensive mold as them.)

[DoubleX]

Traynor's a fine player. He's a guy who hit in the top 10 in his league 6 times, RBI's nine times, bashed singles and triples with alacrity, struck out almost never, and was, in my personal opinion, one of the top three or four defensive 3Bmen of all time. That much being said, if I'm just going off his pure skill as a player, it's arguable that he wouldn't make the top 100 players of all time (I'd probably have him in the 90's, but can't say for certain)... however, as I went on about at length elsewhere in this thread, Pie Traynor is the single greatest intangibles player in the history of baseball... in ways that had real, tangible effects on the baseball field (see my earlier post on the subject from a few months ago). He's one of the few people (at last count, I had a total of four in baseball history) who gets a significant intangibles boost from me in my rankings. It's enough for me to bump him up to around 40th all time, which is enough for him to rank ahead of Schmidt.


How would you feel about Traynor is his career BA was .290 instead of .320? Could you still rationalize him being the 3Bman of all time with a .290 BA and almost no power?

Traynor's shiny .320 BA is a mirage. If he played in most any other era, his BA would fall below .300, and without that shiny, standout, number, he could be sitting on the outside of the Hall, just like Stan Hack and Bob Elliot. I only rank Pie as high as I do because he tends to be regarded as the best 3Bman of pre-1950 and I figure that must count for something. But if I were to just go by statistics, I'd have a hard time distinguishing Pie as better than Stan Hack, Bob Elliot and George Kell, and that would likely put Pie in the 15-20 range at 3B for me.

[ElHalo]

How would you feel about Traynor is his career BA was .290 instead of .320? Could you still rationalize him being the 3Bman of all time with a .290 BA and almost no power?

To be perfectly honest with you, I'd feel fine about it.

Yes, yes, everybody knows how high the league average BA was in Traynor's time. No, that doesn't change anything. Regardless, he was playing in an era with a whole lot of guys who were tremendous hitters, and he was almost always among the leaders. Except for his rookie year, he was above average every single season of his career.

And not hitting for power? Sure, he didn't do much in the way of homers, but he's fifth all time in triples among guys who started after the deadball era.

And, for all the hand wringing about how amazing Schmidt's power numbers were, there's the simple statement:

RBI/162:
Schmidt, 107
Traynor, 106

[DoubleX]

And, for all the hand wringing about how amazing Schmidt's power numbers were, there's the simple statement:

RBI/162:
Schmidt, 107
Traynor, 106

Perhaps a simple statement for a simple mind?

Again, that has a lot to do with the era. Traynor played in one of the most, if not the most, prolific offensive era ever, meaning that more runs were being scored and thus more runs being batted in. Whereas Schmidt played in one of the more depressed eras. Here are all the 130+ RBI seasons in the NL during the careers of both players; as you'll see, in Traynor's era, because there was so much more offense, it was easier to put up high RBI totals (this works nicely since both played in 18 seasons):

Traynor (1920-1937)
191 - Hack Wilson (1930)
170 - Chuck Klein (1930)
159 - Hack Wilson (1929)
154 - Joe Medwick (1937)
152 - Rogers Hornsby (1922)
151 - Mel Ott (1929)
149 - Rogers Hornsby (1929)
145 - Chuck Klein (1929)
143 - Rogers Hornsby (1925)
143 - Don Hurst (1932)
138 - Joe Medwick (1936)
137 - Jim Bottomley (1929)
137 - Chuck Klein (1932)
136 - George Kelly (1924)
136 - Jim Bottomley (1928)
135 - Mel Ott (1934)
135 - Mel Ott (1936)
134 - Kiki Cuyler (1930)
132 - Irish Meusel (1922)
131 - Paul Waner (1927)
130 - Jack Fournier (1925)
130 - Babe Herman (1930)
130 - Wally Berger (1935)

Total of 130+ RBI Seasons during Traynor's Career: 23

Schmidt (1972-1989)
149 - George Foster (1977)
137 - Andre Dawson (1987)
130 - Greg Luzinski (1977)

Total 130+ RBI Seasons During Schmidt's Career: 3 (20 less than during Traynor's career)

So your statement comparing RBI/162 is really comparing apples/oranges because high RBI totals were at a far greater premium during Schmidt's era than during Pie's.

Here's another example for you that should illustrate the huge disparity in offensive proficiency between the two eras: In 1929, Traynor drove in 108, that was only enough for 13th in the league. In 1984 Mike Schmidt led the league with 106!

Now let's look at leaderboards:

Times Leading League in RBI
Schmidt: 4
Traynor: 0

Times in Top 3 in League in RBI
Schmidt: 9
Traynor: 1

Times in Top 10 in League in RBI
Schmidt: 12
Traynor: 9

So just like BA, Traynor's RBI totals are something of a mirage due to the heightened production of his era, especially compared to the depressed production of Schmidt's era.

[ElHalo]

I never saw Traynor play, but I remember Mike Schmidt as a surprisingly smooth and very reliable fielder at third base. As for his size (6'2" - 195 #) I think he compares very much with players like Honus Wagner (5'11" - 200#) or Cal Ripken (6'4" - 200#) or Alex Rodriguez (6'2" - 190 #). All decent fielders!

Well, maybe Honus was built more like Killebrew (6'0" - 195 #).

It always surprised me that Schmidt's teammate Greg Luzinski (6'1" - 220 #) -- with his massive chest and forearms -- hit for a higher average than Schmidt and had fewer strikeouts -- but Greg hit fewer homeruns.

Yet Mike, despite his greater HR power, was a far better fielder than Greg.

It's not necessarily a matter of size so much. I associate good fielding with sharp instincts, quickness, and intelligence. I always assume low BA, high power guys to be really, really dumb (to the point where they probably need help tying their shoes), slow, and basically good for absolutely nothing as a human being other than being willing providers of domestic abuse.

[538280]

You ask me about Heinie Groh, but I see you lack Bill Madlock, who won 4 BA titles while at 3B. And it also seems a little odd that Matt Williams never generated much commentery as a 3B guy. I saw him and he was credible both with glove/bat.


Bill, Madlock was a horrible defensive 3B, and he was a completely one dimensional offensive player. Couldn't walk, couldn't hit for power. You like contemporary opinion, he's 348th all time in MVP shares. He wasn't considered to be a great player in his time.

You have him that high yet don't mention Sal Bando. Bando was the captain (and a great one) of one of the greatest teams of all time, a great hitter, a pretty good fielder. Reggie Jackson gives him great praises for how he held the team together, he says there's no way they couldn't have won without the stableizing force of Sal Bando.

Madlock won four batting titles, but that was all because of his tendency to "get hurt" all the time at the end of the year when he had the batting championship. Bill James says it best, "The last month of the season, if he was in the hunt for a (batting) title, the guys in the press box used to run a poll to see who could pick the days Madlock's hamstring would keep him out of the lineup".

While Bando was a great influence in the cluhouse like I said, get a load of this (courtesy of The Baseball Page):

On August 22, 1971, while with Pittsfield of the Eastern League, Madlock was suspended for the entire season for his involvement in a brawl. It all started when Madlock was nearly beaned in the head by pitcher Bob Cluck. An enraged Madlock broke from the restraint of home plate umpire Ken Kaiser and charged the mound, setting off a war. White Sox scout Deacon Jones, who was in the stands, said, "It was the best fight I've seen in my many years in baseball." The Pittsfield police had to come onto the field to restore order, arresting one player. Several witnesses claimed that Madlock had swung a bat and hit a Waterbury player in the arm. Later, the league shortened his suspension, League President Roy Jackson stating: "As I reconstruct the picture, there was no actual swinging of the bat over his head, but there was some swishing of it back and forth. I want to be fair about it. He (Madlock) has served a 14-day suspension and has paid a $75 fine. That's a reasonable penalty. I feel that he has learned his lesson."

August 1975: Madlock was fined by the National League office for his argument with umpire Art Williams on a close play at first base in which Madlock was called out. In a rare display of invective, Madlock managed to be thumbed by both Williams and home plate umpire Bruce Froemming, who overheard the third baseman's angry profanity-laden tirade. Two years later Madlock and Williams butted heads again. On July 3, 1977, Williams called Madlock out on a pitch, prompting the Giants' star fell to his knees, hand his bat to the stunned umpire and proclaim: "You take this and try to hit that pitch." Madlock was run out of the game, his second straight ejection.

On May 1, 1976, Madlock was part of a fight between the Cubs and the Giants in Candlestick Park. It was all precipitated by brushback pitches (of course). When Madlock was hit by Jim Barr, the ultimate fight broke out, featuring a real doozy between the Giants' Gary Matthews and Chicago's George Mitterwald. Madlock was fined $500 for charging the mound and throwing punches.

August 1976: Madlock criticized his teammates on the Cubs' pitching staff for not "protecting him." After being plunked nine times by pitches to lead the NL to that point, Mad Dog challenged Cubs' pitchers to get some payback.
Why would the Cubs trade a two-time defending batting title winner? In January 1977, 82-year old owner Phil Wrigley gave the answer: "When these players are impossible to deal with, I'd rather let somebody else have them." Madlock was unhappy with the team's contract offer (reportedly over $100,000) and according to the Cubs, uncooperative. "My bags are packed. If the Cubs don't think I'm worth it, fine. They can send me on. I'd be stupid to sign for $105,000 or $110,000."

March 1978: Madlock and Giants' ace John Montefusco got into a clubhouse fight after words were exchanged. Madlock interrupted Montefusco as he was being interviewed and soon fists were flying. After the fight, Madlock ripped his teammate: "I've heard and read where Montefusco has said this team is a team of losers."

In the spring of 1979, Madlock got into a feud with Giants ownership. On June 26 he helped instigate an ugly brawl between the Giants and Braves. Madlock was brushed back by a pitch and after popping up on a later delivery, he elbowed Atlanta hurler Bo McLaughlin while running to first. A full-scale baseball fight ensued, with Madlock jabbing punches at McLaughlin and Braves' pitcher Larry McWilliams as well. the incident was later called the "final straw" that sent Madlock to Pittsburgh in a trade two days later.

April, 1980: Madlock hollered at a Pirates' farmhand pitcher (Jess Zaske) to "throw harder!" during batting practice prior to an exhibition game against the Twins. Several Pirates players (including Dave Parker) standing around the cage yelled at Zaske to "Hit him!" Zaske came inside with his next pitch, skimming Madlock's left arm. Madlock walked to the mound and punched Zaske. Asked why he had thrown at the Pirates' star, Zaske said "They told me to." Madlock later apologized for the incident.

On May 1, 1980, Madlock got into his most infamous situation. After home plate umpire Gerry Crawford rung him up on a called strike three, Madlock let him have it. When a teammate handed him his glove, Madlock continued to argue with Crawford face-to-face. During the argument he took his glove and shoved it into the face of the startled umpire. He was immediately ejected and fined. The National League suspended him indefinitely, eventually deciding on 15 days and a $5,000 fine, one of the biggest punishments in history. The furor over his indiscretion was lost on Mad Dog: "If I had wanted to hurt him, I would have." Madlock lost far more than the $5,000 fine. His 15 days of unemployment cost him more than $27,000.

August 1980: Madlock came under attack by the Chicago Cubs after he rolled hard into second base, taking out rookie infielder Steve Macko and putting him on the disabled list. Madlock: "I was just being aggressive."
After the strike, which ripped apart the season, was settled in 1981, Madlock criticized the scheduling of exhibition games during a training period. "We're better off just working out. I can't get up playing an American League club, not even in spring training."

After winning his third batting title, in 1981, Madlock signed a six-year, $5.4 million contract with the Pirates. During the '81 season, the Pirates had accused the Chicago Cubs of tampering with Madlock and infielder Phil garner, both potential free agents.

In May 1982, Madlock stood up for Pirates' scout Howie Haak, who was embroiled in controversy over some remarks he made about blacks in baseball. Haak claimed the Pirates needed more white players to draw fans. Madlock deflected the controversy, "What Howie said was the truth and it wasn't anything that hadn't been said before. I know Howie. He is not a racist."

In early July of 1985 (while MLB players were on strike), Pirates' team captain Bill Madlock slammed the idea of city or county ownership of the team, which was being proposed by some as salvation for the struggling franchise. "The City Council can't make decisions now on little things. To me, it would be ridiculous... They'd have to understand that baseball is a business, but you can't run it like a business. A corporation, they deal in numbers and to them, a ballplayer would just be another employee."

In August 1985, Madlock was ready to leave Pittsburgh. He saw the writing on the wall: "Hey, I'm a Pirate, you know that, and it's left up to the Pirates. If they're going to go with a youth movement here and it looks that way, maybe it would be in their best interests to trade me." To encourage a swap to the Yankees, for whom Madlock wanted to play, the former batting champ turned it on against the Mets, knowing that George Steinbrenner was watchful. In a three-game set in Shea Stadium, Madlock blasted four homers, had six RBI, six runs scored, and seven hits. "Do the Yankees need a third baseman?" Madlock said with a sly grin. "I gave them (Pittsburgh) permission. I'm a 10-and-5 man and I gave them no limitations on where I could be traded." Later that month Madlock was dealt to the Dodgers.

In March of 1986 Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth exonerated Madlock as part of the "Pittsburgh Drug Trials." Madlock's name had been wrongly associated with that scandal, which netted several Pirates' and opposing players for using and selling illegal substances in MLB clubhouses in the early 1980s. Madlock held bitter feelings over the issue, especially toward former teammate Dave Parker, who had told the court that Madlock had given him amphetamines in their Pirates' days. Said Madlock, "It hurt to think that a guy you've known for 10, 12 years, someone you think is your friend, would lie for no apparent reason. I haven't talked to him since — and I don't know if I ever will — so I don't know his reason." Ueberroth and MLB's position was that Madlock had been wrongly accused. "Bill Badlock's reputation on and off the field is above reproach," the commish said. Parker shot back at his former teammate: "...Three or four other individuals had already mentioned his (Madlock's) name. When they asked me on the stand, I wasn't about to perjure myself for a borderline friend..." Willie Stargell had also been accused of supplying players with drugs, but he too was cleared by MLB.

September 1987: Now with Detroit, Madlock injured Blue Jays' infielder Tony Fernandez with a hard slide in a big game in the division race. Madlock quickly came under fire, again. Blue Jays players and fans chimed in. Within a few days of the incident, Madlock was receiving death threats in his Toronto hotel room. "It's nothing. I've been in scrapes before, and this ain't even close." The play was a turning point in the race, and Detroit took the AL East by two games, eliminating the Jays on the final day of the season.

In February 1989, more than a year after his final major league competition, Madlock was still trying to get back into the game. He was discouraged by what he saw, and as usual he was not shy about speaking out. "I'm not stupid enough to believe I can start out at the top, but you don't have to go to college and get a Ph.D. to be a manager. We (blacks) can play for them, but we can't manage them. We can hit home runs and chase the ball, run it down, but when the black player is getting ready to retire, all they say is, 'See you later.'

In August of 1991 Madlock's name was cleared in charges of income tax evasion. It was revealed that his former agent had swindled the IRS and was solely responsible for the shady dealing for which Madlock's name had been dragged into the headlines for a few years.

Madlock suffered some embarrassing episodes after his playing days were through. Twice he was arrested for writing bad checks, once as he was leaving a plane taking him back from an old-timers' event at the All-Star game in 1995. He also failed to appear several times for court hearings and bench warrants were issued for his arrest. Despite the setbacks, Madlock was later hired into MLB.

So, Bando was just as good a hitter, he just had a completely different style, he was a much better fielder, and while Madlock was a horrible influence Bando was a great one. Madlock sat out games to get a batting title. Do you ever think Sal would do that? Come on now, Bill. Don't follow the 4 batting titles blindly. Bill Madlock isn't a guy you or me would want on a team.
-----------------------------------
No replies on Madlock, Bill?

I must say, I'm surprised you like him so much. You should know better. He had basically a nothing repuation, pretty much everyone saw that his batting titles were cheaply won, he was a brutal fielder, a completely one dimensional offensive player, and a headache in the clubhouse. He also was rumored to be a cocaine distributor.

As I said, don't follow 4 batting titles blindly. Those 4 were all cheap. Sal Bando (who I you don't even seem to rate at all) was the far greater player.

If you want REAL batting titles, you might want to look at Wade Boggs and move him up.....
---------------------------------------------
Bill:
You're right. I was going on a 3B getting 4 BA titles. All the stuff you bring up didn't show up on his stat page. Was invisible on baseball-reference. And I'd not heard anything else, either good/bad. Was curious as to the total media blackout on Bill Madlock. I actually hadn't heard anything else on him. Didn't even know he was black for 2 years, until I saw a picture of him. But let's not hi-jack off Pie Traynor anymore. OK?

[Bill Burgess]

Anyone with any further thoughts on Pie? Just to keep this thread current and out of jeopardy?

[stejay]

4th best in my view, behind-

1. Schmidt
2. Home run baker
3. Cal ripken jr

[RuthMayBond]

4th best in my view, behind-

1. Schmidt
2. Home run baker
3. Cal ripken jr
Yeah, Ripken played an entire one-fifth of his career there, with about a 90 OPS+.
Mathews and Brett were certainly no Ripken :rolleyes:

[stejay]

Hey man, that is my opinion.... I am not swayedby anything, I am sticking with that ranking.

[RuthMayBond]

I am not swayedby anything.That would explain your opinion

[stejay]

Whats that supposed to mean. Are you being sarcastic again lol:noidea

[RuthMayBond]

Hey man, that is my opinion.... I am not swayedby anything, I am sticking with that ranking.It's things like these that make me sad that you're a Clevelander . . . but
THRILLED you're a Yank fan :rofl:

[stejay]

Man, you are sad. lol:rofl: You have to insult someone to make your point.

[RuthMayBond]

Man, you are sad. lol:rofl: You have to insult someone to make your point.C'mon, we're having fun. But where did you get those rankings, and you're the one who chooses not to even consider looking at them

[stejay]

C'mon, we're having fun. But where did you get those rankings, and you're the one who chooses not to even consider looking at them

I knowman, no hard feelings lol. I made my own rankings, because I had not seen Mathews play, and I have Brett at 5th.

[RuthMayBond]

I knowman, no hard feelings lol. I made my own rankings, because I had not seen Mathews play, and I have Brett at 5th.I'm impressed that you saw Home Run Baker AND Pie Traynor play :highfive:
Love to see the rest of your list

[stejay]

Haha. I have seen archive footage of them. My top 10 is-

1. Schmidt
2. Baker
3. Brett
4. Traynor
5. Mathews
6. Boggs
7. Robinon
8. Kell
9. Ventura
10. Nettles

Fair enough, I have done more research, and have decided to exclude Ripken. I have been blinded by his awesomeness at SS, and you know. Sorry for that guys, but I have changed my philosophy for a second.

[RuthMayBond]

Haha. I have seen archive footage of them. My top 10 is-

1. Schmidt
2. Baker
3. Brett
4. Traynor
5. Mathews
6. Boggs
7. Robinon
8. Kell
9. Ventura
10. NettlesVentura? Darrell Evans and Ron Santo say hi

<Fair enough, I have done more research, and have decided to exclude Ripken. I have been blinded by his awesomeness at SS, and you know. Sorry for that guys, but I have changed my philosophy for a second.>

:eek::faint::faint::faint::faint::faint::faint: :faint: :faint: :faint:

[stejay]

I like Ventura. Are we going into an argument about this again lol.

[RuthMayBond]

I like Ventura. Are we going into an argument about this again lol.No need to argue just because you're wrong ;)

[stejay]

No need to argue just because you're wrong ;)

Here we go.....:rofl:

[leecemark]

--Pie Traynor was easily the best MLB thirdbaseman of his generation. Of course there are a couple Negro Leaguers who were better hitters and possibly better all around 3B's (depending on how big Traynor's defensive advantage may be. If John Beckwith and Jud Wilson rank above him then Traynor probably isn't a top 20 3B. If they don't then he may still merit a top 10 slot, based on his standng out so much in his own time. A comparison that does not take dominance in his era into account would have Traynor behind at least 10 thirdbasemen of my lifetime, much less all time.

[yanks0714]

My position on Pie Traynor is that he should get credit for being considered one of greatest at his position prior to the time that 3B were expected to be stronger hitters. 3B used to be a critical defensive position, moreso than 2B was.
Traynor was considered great at his position, although I personally feel Baken and Jimmy Collins were better, at a time when defense was emphasized at 3B. I think he deserves credit for that. With the change in defensive spectrum with the advent of liveball with less bunting the defensive requirement at 3B dropped.

My question would be should we penalize Pie Traynor for what he did when 3B was pretty much an entirely differnt position before the spectrum shift? Looking at Pie and comparing him to latter day 3B make him look inadequate.
I try to give him creit for what he did in his day. I rank him in the top 10 3B of all time despite the fact that other more recent 3B have the better numbers.

[hellborn]

This has probably been covered before, but it's so hard to rank 3Bmen because the requirements of the position have changed so much. Dead ball third sackers had to be exceptionally agile because fielding bunts and chops was a critical part of their job...and, they really needed to spring on sac bunts and try to get the lead runner, as teams would not just take the easy out and allow the advance if they could help it. There were some big guys like HR Baker playing third then (and he did play it well), but they were mostly small, quick guys. Playing somebody like Killebrew or Miguel Cabrera there would have been out of the question. First was somewhat similar...think about how many first basemen who played a fair amount with the dead ball make top ten or twenty lists for their positions. Sisler will make some, and he was an example of a guy who could really field his position and also hit, although I would argue that his BAs are inflated by his home park. Most every other guy will be from the live ball era on, because the older guys were mostly glove men, but people don't give them any credit for the defense at that position. The big hitters who get the attention from that era were mostly OFers...Cobb, Speaker, Jackson, Crawford. Lajoie and Hornsby stand out at 2B, which was considered less of a demanding position because the DP was relatively rare...Hornsby played mostly SS before the live ball, though. Wagner was another guy who could combine outstanding hitting and defense at a tough position.
Traynor played in the live ball era, but I see him as being in the mold of the dead ball 3Bman (entrenched attitudes die hard). In a later time, he might have been tried out at SS, and maybe he would have had enough glove for it and stood out more with the bat. As it is, he looks kind of like an early version of George Kell...a fine player with good BAs and nice OBPs, but not a dominant hitter.
I still can't see Traynor up there with Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, and Baker, but he might sneak in the top 10 3Bmen. Top 20 for sure.

EDIT - Yanks0714 beat me to it!!!!

[brett]

If you look at major league all star teams up into the 60s they were LOADED with third basemen with 100 OPS+ scores-average hitters. There were exceptions.

Third base was probably even more important than second base during certain periods. I think Traynor has a 107 OPS+. I don't think that people understand the premium that managers placed on third base defense at one point. You could manage with a poor fielding second baseman. A deficient third baseman-either in arm, or ability to handle bunts and you could get beat by an actually willful attempt of the opposition to attack the third baseman.

Still, even if Traynor was equivalent to Mazeroski in the field, he would have a hard time cracking the top 100 on value.

[Bill Burgess]

If Pie had been born later, like today, would he be competitive?

[dgarza]

If Pie had been born later, like today, would he be competitive?
Yes, probably, but in a different way, and to a lesser degree.
He had a good eye and I imagine good speed.
Maybe he'd make a better 2B today?

[Bill Burgess]

Would Pie be George Brett? I concede he couldn't be compared with Mike Schmidt. I'll give you that much. But what about George? Weren't they about comparable as fielders, but George was by far the better hitter.

[dgarza]

Would Pie be George Brett? Pie wouldn't have Brett's power.
I think you've aiming too high.
I'm thinking of a slightly better Jeff Cirillo.

[RuthMayBond]

Would Pie be George Brett? I concede he couldn't be compared with Mike Schmidt. I'll give you that much. But what about George? Weren't they about compable as fielders, but George was by far the better hitter.How about Scott Rolen?

[Colorado Express]

I put Traynor as either 4 or 5 all-time (placed him 4 on this poll).

[Bill Burgess]

Pie wouldn't have Brett's power.
I think you've aiming too high.
I'm thinking of a slightly better Jeff Cirillo.
Is that the best you can do, Dave? I have Pie ranked at my #5 for 3B, after Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, and Santo.

Maybe Jeff is closer with Scott Rolan.

[RuthMayBond]

Is that the best you can do, Dave? I have Pie ranked at my #5 for 3B, after Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, and Santo.

Maybe Jeff is closer with Scott Rolan.I'm thinking of decent hitting, excellent fielding 3B. Maybe Buddy Bell, Santo, Ken Boyer, Collins, Ventura, Groh?

[Bill Burgess]

I'm thinking of decent hitting, excellent fielding 3B. Maybe Buddy Bell, Santo, Ken Boyer, Collins, Ventura, Groh?
Those are not a bad listing, actually, Jeff. Not bad.

[RuthMayBond]

Those are not a bad listing, actually, Jeff. Not bad.Sometimes even this blind squirrel finds an acorn :laugh

[dgarza]

Is that the best you can do, Dave? I have Pie ranked at my #5 for 3B, after Schmidt, Brett, Mathews, and Santo.

Maybe Jeff is closer with Scott Rolan.
It's not the best I can do, it's the best Pie Traynor can do.

For batting, I would think Traynor would have more power today, but not enough to call him a slugger. I don't think Traynor would hit 20+ HRs on a regular basis, so I rule out comparisons to Ventura, Rolen, Boyer, Santo. Such comparisons turn Traynor into a player he was not.
Buddy Bell maybe, his prime being a closer comparison to Traynor. Perhaps Bill Madlock.

But Jeff Cirillo is not a bad comparison to Traynor. Their peaks and averages are very similar. Like I said in a previous post, Traynor would be better than Cirillo, but he'd be a similar type of player. Pie would not be the best 3B in his league.

Calling Pie a Top 5 thirdbaseman is doing a disservice to 5-10 other 3B.

[Bill Burgess]

It's not the best I can do, it's the best Pie Traynor can do.

For batting, I would think Traynor would have more power today, but not enough to call him a slugger. I don't think Traynor would hit 20+ HRs on a regular basis, so I rule out comparisons to Ventura, Rolen, Boyer, Santo. Such comparisons turn Traynor into a player he was not.
Buddy Bell maybe, his prime being a closer comparison to Traynor. Perhaps Bill Madlock.

But Jeff Cirillo is not a bad comparison to Traynor. Their peaks and averages are very similar. Like I said in a previous post, Traynor would be better than Cirillo, but he'd be a similar type of player. Pie would not be the best 3B in his league.

Calling Pie a Top 5 thirdbaseman is doing a disservice to 5-10 other 3B.
It is not my intention to give Pie Traynor anything he doesn't have coming. But what does he have coming, if he played today?

Here are his relative numbers.

----Relative BA-----Rel.Slg.-------Rel.Onbase----Rel.ISO-------OPS+
---------1.08---------1.04------------1.02----------------------107 (712th)

And to go along with that, he would be the best defensive 3B in the game today. I am not saying he was a slugger. He was not. But he more than held his own with the leagues' average hitters, and buried them with his leather.

And what's so not good about that?

[dgarza]

It is not my intention to give Pie Traynor anything he doesn't have coming. But what does he have coming, if he played today.

Here are his relative numbers.

----Relative BA-----Rel.Slg.-------Rel.Onbase----Rel.ISO-------OPS+
---------1.08---------1.04------------1.02----------------------107 (712th)

And to go along with that, he would be the best defensive 3B in the game today. I am not saying he was a slugger. He was not. But he more than held his own with the leagues' average hitters, and buried them with his leather.

And what's so not good about that?
So far that seems good, but also pretty much like Buddy Bell, which is good but not great.

So, yes, Pie Traynor would be competitive today, but only to the extent that a player like Buddy Bell was.

[Bill Burgess]

So far that seems good, but also pretty much like Buddy Bell, which is good but not great.

So, yes, Pie Traynor would be competitive today, but only to the extent that a player like Buddy Bell was.
Actually, Buddy was not bad. Wouldn't mind having him. But I still think Pie edges him with the glove.

[Seattle1]

PIE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp2K-vIXB1o)

:laugh

Ha ha just kidding! ;)

[CTaka]

I still have a hard time taking Traynor over Jimmy Collins. Traynor played a few more years so he gets an edge on career value, but I think Collins takes the edge in peak value. They are very close offensively, both in EqA (Collins at .269 and Traynor at .268) and OPS+ (113 for Collins and 107 for Pie). Very close with a slight edge to Collins. Traynor was a great defender, but I think Collins may be the best defensive 3B ever. Collins's fielding percentage was 2.5% better than league average while Pie was right at league average. Collins has the edge in both fielding RAR2 and RAA2. I acknowledge that Pie had a terrific glove, but I'd give Collins the edge here.

The LQ advantage may actually work in Collins' favor here, as 3B was a more important defensive position in Jimmy's era than it was in the 20's and 30's. The deadball put a heavy emphasis on constant bunting, and Collins had the reputation of charging bunts and throwing people better than anyone else in the game.

Buddy Bell seems to be a fairly good comp for Traynor. Bell's EqA of .273 is slightly better than Traynor's .268. Bell's career fielding RAR2 of 434 and RAA2 of 129 compare favorably with Traynor's 436 and 77. I'd agree with Bill that Traynor may still get the edge with the glove since Bell's totals are based on playing 321 more games at 3B than Pie, but they are close.

Bell may have a tad more power if they played in the same era, but Traynor would have greater speed skills as both a basestealer and baserunner. I'd say that Traynor and Pie are decent comps with both a notch below Collins.