With three of the top seven WAR among all position players, right field is the Tigers strongest position,historically. Al Kaline is the leading right fielder and has the second highest WAR (91.0) behind Ty Cobb. Following Kaline are Harry Heilmann (65.7) and Sam Crawford (65.7). The top ten right fielders are listed in Table 1.
The Tigers right fielders also rate well by WAR per 600 plate appearances (WAR600) taking four of the top nine spots among all Tigers position players. Table 2 shows that the leading right fielder is Heilmann (4.84 WAR600) edging out Kaline (4.77). The next two spots belong to Crawford (4.50) and Roy Cullenbine (4.49). Cullenbine had three very good seasons for the Tigers averaging 109 walks per year with a .416 OBP from 1945-1947
Table 1: Top Ten Tigers Right Fielders by WAR
Player | PA | WAR |
Al Kaline | 11,448 | 91.0 |
Harry Heilmann | 8,128 | 65.7 |
Sam Crawford | 8,646 | 64.8 |
Kirk Gibson | 4,718 | 25.6 |
Jim Northrup | 4,885 | 19.7 |
Vic Wertz | 3,198 | 15.5 |
Roy Cullenbine | 1,938 | 14.5 |
Magglio Ordonez | 2,784 | 13.6 |
Pete Fox | 4,217 | 11.0 |
Goose Goslin | 2,204 | 9.1 |
Table 2: Top Five Tigers Right Fielders by WAR600
Player | PA | WAR600 |
Harry Heilmann | 8,128 | 4.84 |
Al Kaline | 11,488 | 4.77 |
Sam Crawford | 8,646 | 4.50 |
Roy Cullenbine | 1,938 | 4.49 |
Magglio Ordonez | 2,268 | 3.49 |
Lee, I figured the Tigers Big Three Hall of Fame Rightfielders would be close in WAR600. Kaline's Consistency of Excellence and Greatness shows up in his Total WAR number of 91. Heilmann was just a feared righthanded slugger of the era, and Crawford was certainly no slouch with his near 3000 hits and the all time lifetime leader in triples and lifetime .309 average. I seem to remember Goslin playing in leftfield for the Tigers during his 4 years, so maybe he split his playing time at the corner outfield positions. I came across this link from the Hardball Times back in 2006 and wanted to share it with you and everyone. It uses the RCAA - Runs Created Above Average. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-all-time-all-franchise-all-star-team/
ReplyDeleteI enjoy all your Tigers info with charts and everything, especially the Tigers history as these blog stoies give the younger Tigers fans the names to Tigers players from the past. Thanks, Ron