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My Phillies All-Time 9 Ballot
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My Phillies All-Time 9 Ballot
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To commemorate yesterday's trip-9s — 9/9/09 — Major League Baseball is running a series of polls they're calling The All-Time 9 wherein fans are encouraged to choose their team's all-time best lineup from the best individual seasons at each position in the team's history.
It's sort of a wonky exercise, foremost because no one player can be represented by more than one season — i.e. Mike Schmidt probably has 10 seasons better than Dave Hollins' 1993, but Schmidt only gets one slot on the ballot, though that does reduce the risk of, say, Schmidt splitting the vote among himself, but I digress. It's also a little wonky because you're choosing a pitcher based on his hitting stats. But wonky and fun are not mutually exclusive. So let's jump in.
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| Vote for your All-Time 9 here. |
First Base:
This one's tough for a number of reasons, but most notably because it's really tough to compare numbers from different eras. Von Hayes' 1986 line would look a lot different had he been playing in a different era — a few more points of batting average, about 10 more home runs as per Baseball Prospectus' translated stats. The biggest jump here is Deron Johnson's 1971 line, which jumps to .267/46/114 when adjusted for context. Ryan Howard's 2006 MVP campaign takes a slight dip when cntextualized, but not nearly enough to unseat it as the greatest offensive 1B season in Phillies history. (Baseball Prospectus' translated stats attempt to normalize all statistics are a tool used in an attempt to accurately compare players who performed in eras with drastically different offensive conditions.)
Vote: Ryan Howard
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Second Base:
The pickings are a little slimmer at the keystone, but so far this poll puts into context just how lucky Phillies fans are to be watching the greatest ever at their respective positions. Samuel's 1987 looks quite a bit better when adjusted for era context, .265/33/102, but the numbers they don't show you here, namely Utley's on-base skills, make this a no-brainer.
Vote: Chase Utley
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Third Base:
More competitive than you'd have thought, as Allen's '66 season looks pretty good stacked up against Schmidt's 1980 campaign. Complicating matters, Allen put up his numbers in just 141 games. Further blurring things is that even though 1980 was not a particularly fecund offensive era, 1966 was a wasteland. The translated stats suggest that Allen's 1966 season indeed bests Schmidt's 1980 effort. Translated, Allen's line .325/52/126 with a .419/.730 OBP/SLG to Schmidt's .279/63/128, .386/.695. Everyone else here is chaff. Remember that we're talking purely offense here, and there's no other conclusion. This is surprising to me, but …
Vote: Dick Allen
Rest of the lineup after the jump...
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Shortstop:
Slim pickings here, as the Phils have a long history of all-glove, no-stick shortstops. I do think a case could be made for including Dickie Thon's 1989 season, as it's better than both Bowa's and Hamners, but there's not a lot of room for debate here: Jimmy Rollins is the Phillies' best offensive shortstop, and his 2007 MVP season is easily his best line.
Vote: Jimmy Rollins
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Catcher:
A tough one here, as the Phils have had a lot of guys put up decent numbers behind the plate, with none of them sticking out as "the guy." When it comes down to it, it's a three-horse race between Darren Daulton (though Dutch's 1992 is easily better than the 1993 campaign listed here), Andy Seminick and Stan Lopata (with apologies to Mike Lieberthal). And really, adjusted for context, it's still a toss-up. All three mix power and excellent on-base skills. If Daulton's 1992 campaign were in the mix rather than his 1993, he'd win by a nose, so my vote goes to him.
Vote: Darren Daulton
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Outfield:
This one's tough, and right about now my analytical patience is running a tad thin, so let's set some quick rules: There should be a CF, and two corner OF represented, which makes things a little less muddled. At CF, you've got juice enthusiast Lenny Dykstra squaring off against Richie Ashburn's excellent 1951 campaign and Cy Williams' excellent 1923. Not considering defense, I think you have to go with Williams, whose 41 home runs are impossible to ignore. At the corners, Chuck Klein's .386/40/170 season cannot be matched, but picking a second corner is a bit tougher. Ed Delahanty is a hall of famer, but most of his best seasons came before the turn of the century, which seems to be the cut-off point for this poll, and translating his 1901 line results in a big uptick in HR and a drop-off in batting average. Lefty O'Doul's near .400 campaign is largely the product of an insane offensive era, and I have a problem putting such a flash in the pan on my all-time team. I'm gonna go on a limb here and make Bobby Abreu's 2004 campaign my second corner OF, as his combination of power, speed and insane on-base abilities will look nice anywhere in this order.
Votes: Cy Williams, Chuck Klein, Bobby Abreu
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Pitcher:
This one's tough because pitchers have such small at-bat totals in any given season. Lefty's got rep as a pitcher with a good stick, and it was deserved. Randy Wolf was also good with the bat in his time here. But since we're dealing with such paltry sample sizes, I think it's fair to focus in on individual game performances and give the nod to Rick Wise for the June 23 no-hitter he threw, during which he hit 2 home runs, marking perhaps the best single-game performance by a pitcher ever (note, not the best pitching peformance, which likely goes to Harvey Haddix). Besides, Wise deserves a little recognition for a lifetime spent as the answer to the trivia question: Who did the Cardinals get in return for Steve Carlton.
Vote: Rick Wise
So that's my lineup, and here's how I'd bat them:
- Abreu
- Utley
- Klein
- Allen
- Howard
- Williams
- Daulton
- Rollins
- Wise
Baseball Musing's Lineup Analysis say your worst possible lineup would score 6.75 runs a game.
Wow, between E James Beale and Brian Howard, I can't figure out which CP writer knows less about sports. You guys really ought to give up the whole "sports reporting/opinion/whatever you want to call it." Because you suck at it.
Care to share why, Ed? Or is "you suck" the best argument you can conjure?
Man, where is Steve Jeltz in this conversation? That's all I want to know.
Brian, you clearly left out all the CLUTCH! players from your line up. Therefor you suck. By the way, I love the phrase "ought to" don't you? I mean it is just so much more folksy than "should." People who know about sports use words like "ought to," Brian. Let this be a lesson to you.
Now an Edgar Allan Poe enthusiast - that is from whom I would like to obtain my sporting news!
Ed, it's definitely me - BH knows his Cy Williams. And Corner outfielders be damned, I'm picking three center fielders and playing defense for days day. If the Gold Glove committee can do it in their imaginary life I'm doing it in mine: Dykstra, Ashburn and Chuck Klein.
For what it's worth, I'm rescinding my choice of Williams. I was temporarily blinded by those 41 home runs — which is not like me, but what can I say? Williams OBP and SLG were fairly pedestrian given the offensive climate in 1923. His Davenport Translation rate stats (and yes, I know DTs are not gospel) are .226/.319/.530 which just will not do. So between Dykstra's 1993 and Ashburn's 1951, the nod would go to Nails. However, Ashburn's '55 and '58 seasons are actually more impressive than his 51 campaign in terms of on-base percentage and slugging (he showed upticks in doubles and triples respectively), so I think I'll go off the board and choose Ashburn's 1958 campaign (.350/.440/.441 with 13 triples and 30 steals in 42 attempts). I plugged all of their Davenport Translated OBP and SLG into the Baseball Musings site Hoag pointed me to and came up with a lineup that for which the best possible configuration scored 8.5 runs a game and at worst scored 7. I'd still be concerned — if, you know, this fantasy land were possible — about the overall lefthandedness of the lineup, but I'll roll the 16-sided dice on it.
And Beth, you're right! That's why I'm putting Glenn Wilson on my team retroactively. Clutchiness is next to godliness.
Brian, I misunderstood the exercise here. I thought the plan was to put together the best hitting lineup of players who had played that position. I now realize all you wanted to do was pick the best individual stats for any particular year. My big gripe with the CP covering sports is that you guys aren't sports journalists. You just watch them on TV (or go to games) and spout your opinion. I can get that by listening to the idiots who call in to sports radio shows. Go out and do some real journalism.
Ed, I'll spare you the spiel about the size of our staff and cut to the quick: I'm not, as you insinuate, a sports reporter. But sports writing — as evidenced by the rise in popularity in Baseball Prospectus and Rob Neyer's ESPN column — is not all about getting quotes in the locker-room (which are generally canned anyway). There's significance in analyzing from afar and while, yes, I'd love to have a reporter in the locker room every game, I don't. I'm a fan, an armchair statistical analyst and someone who's been living and dying with the Phillies for 29 years. I've got a paper to run, but post on the Phillies when I think I have something to offer. Beale, on the other hand, does get access to games — he was in the press box for most of last year's Phillies playoff run and has contacts within the four majors. But in his role as a columnist, he's providing analysis. We don't cover sports the way the dailies do — we can't — but we do know sports and aren't about to pretend that a) they're not part of the city discussion and b) that we don't have something to offer. I'm sorry you're not a fan of the coverage, but I'd certainly welcome you as a debater in the comments section when you disagree. As to the all-time 9 ballot, I'd hoped I'd made it clear that MLB.com was looking for the single best purely offensive season at each position — a somewhat ridiculous, fantasy baseball-driven exercise if you ask me — but perhaps I should have been more clear. Schmidt and Ashburn are obvious choices on any all-time Phillies team based on longevity, consistency, and offensive and defensive excellence. But I was surprised at just how good Allen's 1966 season was given the offensive climate. Schmidt's myriad talents combined with an ability to not alienate/infuriate his teammates/fans combine to make him head-and-shoulders the best thirdbaseman to ever play for the Phillies or anywhere. But I'd never looked at Allen's stats and really considered the context.
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