Left fielder Bobby Veach with Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford made up one of best outfields ever.
(Photo credit: Detroit Public Library Digital Collections)
Today, I am presenting the list of top ten left fielders in Tigers history. Other installments in this series can be found at the following links.
Catchers
first basemen
Second Basemen
Shortstops
Third Basemen
In the previous articles, I discussed the criteria for my rankings in detail. Let's review the ground rules here:
- A player must have played at least half their games with the Tigers as a left fielder or played left field more than any other position.
- A player must have played at least two full seasons as a left fielder with the Tigers.
- Only games played with the Tigers are considered.
- If a player played other positions with the Tigers besides left field, his hitting performance in those games does count.
I will start by looking at the Baseball-Reference.com Wins Above Replacement (WAR) leader board for Tigers left fielders:
Bobby Veach 46
Willie Horton 26
Bobby Higginson 23
Charlie Maxwell 19
Rocky Colavito 17
Matty McIntyre 17
Steve Kemp 16
Dick Wakefield 13
Fats Fothergill 13
Gee Walker 12
Based on this list, Bobby Veach seems to be the clear #1 left fielder in Tigers history. Second place Willie Horton has a narrow lead over the rest of the pack, but WAR penalizes him for his time spent at designated hitter and we will see shortly, that the gap between Willie and the pack is actually bigger. The rest of the list is more tenuous with a number of shorter career players and stars like Goose Goslin and Rocky Colavito who played most of their careers outside of Detroit.
Left field is an offense oriented position, so I am going to look at Adjusted Batting Runs (ABR), which just looks at a player's offensive contribution. Batting Runs were first introduced in the Hidden Game of Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer in 1984. It is an estimate of the number of runs contributed by a player compared to an average hitter over the course of his career. This statistic is explained in more deal in the post about first basemen linked above. The ABR statistics is calculated from Baseball-Reference.com as rbat (the batting part) + rbaser (the base running part). The ABR leaders are listed below.
Bobby Veach 230
Willie Horton 167
Steve Kemp 92
Bobby Higginson 91
Rocky Colavito 91
Dick Wakefield 88
Charlie Maxwell 81
Fats Fothergill 67
Matty McIntyre 40
Goose Goslin 39
Over here, Horton cements his claim as the #2 left fielder. After that, it becomes very close with six players between 67 and 92 ABR.
In order to compare the batting excellence of players with different career lengths, we can use OPS+:
Dick Wakefield 131
Rocky Colavito 130
Bobby Veach 130
Willie Horton 127
Steve Kemp 125
Fats Fothergill 122
Charlie Maxwell 120
Al Wingo 114
Bobby Higginson 113
Ben Oglivie 113
According to this measure, Dick Wakefield and Rocky Colavito move to the top of the list, while Bobby Higginson falls down several notches.
The final top ten is shown below.
1. Bobby Veach (1912-1923 46 WAR 230 ABR 130 OPS+)
According to Fred Lieb in The Detroit Tigers, Bobby Veach "was a happy-go-lucky guy, not too brilliant above the ears...He was as friendly as a Newfoundland pup with opponents as well as teammates." He was also the best left fielder in Tigers history amassing 4 WAR or higher 7 times and finishing in the top ten in OPS and slugging five times. His best season was 1919 when he had 6.7 WAR and a 158 OPS+. In the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, James rated the 1915 trio of Veach, Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford as the best single-season outfield in baseball history
2. Willie Horton (1963-1977 26 WAR 167 ABR 127 OPS+)
Born and raised in Detroit, Willie Horton was a home town favorite for his performance both on and off the field. He helped to restore order during the 1967 riots by climbing onto a truck and pleading with fellow African Americans to stop looting and committing violence. On the field, he was a top slugger for many years finishing in the top ten in home runs five times and slugging four times. He was at his finest during the 1968 championship season hitting 36 home runs and posting a 165 OPS+.
3. Rocky Colavito (1960-1963 17 WAR 91 ABR 130 OPS+)
Rocky Colavito came from the Indians in 1959 in a famous of swap of the batting leader (Harvey Kuenn) and home run leader (Colavito). Colavito played four year with the Tigers including a fantastic 1961 season with 45 homers and a 157 OPS+. He finished in the top five in WAR in both 1961 and 1962. He also had perhaps the best outfield arm in the majors during his prime.
4. Bobby Higginson (1995-2005 23 WAR 91 ABR 113 OPS+)
Some will be surprsied at Bobby Higginson's fairly high WAR total and his high ranking on this list. Because he never played for a winning team and faded badly late in his career many fans do not remember Higginson fondly. However, he had a very solid career reaching 3+ WAR four times and 2+ WAR six times in all. His best season was 2000 with he hit .300/.377/.538 with 5.3 WAR.
5. Charlie Maxwell (1955-1962 19 WAR 81 ABR 120 OPS+)
6. Steve Kemp (1977-1981 16 WAR 92 ABR 125 OPS+)
Steve Kemp is more famous for whom he was traded (center fielder Chet Lemon in 1981) than his performance, but he was a productive hitter for the Tigers. He averaged a 132 OPS+ and 3.7 WAR between 1978-1981.
7. Dick Wakefield (1941-1949 13 WAR 88 ABR 131 OPS+)
According to Donald Honig in Between the Lines, outfielder Dick Wakefield was one of baseball's first bonus babies when he signed with the Tigers for $52,000 out of the University of Michigan in 1941. The 6'4", 210-pound outfielder quickly lived up to his promise with 3.4 WAR and a league leading 200 hits. He was off to an excellent start the next season, batting a gaudy .355 with a 190 OPS+ before being drafted into the military. He returned to the majors in 1946, but never again reached the same lofty level. In all, he had four years of 2+ WAR.
8. Matty McIntyre (1904-1910 17 WAR 40 ABR 112 OPS+)
Matty McIntyre is best remembered as being being part of the clique that tormented Ty Cobb during his early years with the Tigers, but he also performed well on the field reaching 2+ WAR four times. His best season 2008 when he had 6 WAR and led the league with 258 times on base.
9. Fats Fothergill (1922-1930 13 WAR 67 ABR 122 OPS+)
5'-10", 230-pound Bob Fothergill was give the unflattering nickname "fats" or "fatty" early in his career, but his popularity with fans also earned him the name "People's Choice". Fothergill averaged 135 OPS+ and 2.9 WAR from 1926-1929.
10. Goose Goslin (1934-1937 9 WAR 39 ABR 111 OPS+)
According to Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia by David Pietrusza, et al, Leon Goslin acquired the nickname "Goose" because he flapped his arms while running after fly balls, but it could just as easily have been a play on his last name. If Goose had played his entire career with the Tigers, he would be #1 on this list, but he played only four twilight years in Detroit. His best year with the Tigers was 1936 when he was 3.7 WAR, but his best moment came in 1935. That year, Goslin singled in the bottom of the ninth of game six of the World Series to give the Tigers their first world championship.
Edit: The Adjusted Batting Average formula and numbers have been changed since this was originally published. The final ranking of players is unaffected.
Hall of Fame slugger Hank Greenberg accumulated 54 WAR as a Tiger
(Photo credit: Society for American Baseball Research)
Today, I am presenting the list of top ten first basemen in Tigers history. Other installments in this series can be found at the following links.
Catchers
Second Basemen
Shortstops
Third Basemen
In the previous articles, I discussed the criteria for my rankings in detail. Let's review the ground rules here:
- A player must have played at least half their games with the Tigers as a first baseman.
- A player must have played at least two full seasons as a first baseman with the Tigers.
- Only games played with the Tigers are considered.
- If a player played other positions with the Tigers besides first base, his hitting performance in those games does count.
I will start by looking at the Baseball-Reference.com Wins Above Replacement (WAR) leader board for Tigers first basemen:
Hank Greenberg 54
Norm Cash 52
Miguel Cabrera 51
Rudy York 32
Lu Blue 21
Cecil Fielder 17
Darrell Evans 15
Tony Clark 12
Jason Thompson 12
Dale Alexander 11
Based on this list, it appears to be a close race for #1 between Greenberg, Cash and Cabrera. However, it must be remembered that Greenberg was one of the first players to enter the military during World War II and missed four and a half seasons. If we assume that "Hammerin' Hank" accumulated five WAR per year (a conservative estimate given his performance before and one year after the war), then that would bring him up to 79 WAR.
First base is an offense oriented position, so I am also going to look at Adjusted Batting Runs, which just looks at a player's offensive contribution. Batting Runs were first introduced in the Hidden Game of Baseball by John Thorn and Pete Palmer in 1984.
From examination of thousands of games, it has been determined that the average single contributes 0.47 runs. In other words, if one single is added to a team's hit total in each game for 100 games, that team would be expected to add 47 runs to their season total. The values for other events can be interpreted similarly. The weights are inserted into a formula to calculate batting runs (BR):
BR = 0.47 * 1B + 0.77 2B * 1.04 3B * 1.40 x HR + 0.31 * BB + 0.34 * HBP +.20 * SB - .42 CS- 0.28 * outs
In the above formula, outs are equal to at bats minus hits. The constant before outs (.28 in this example) is chosen so that the league average for BR is zero. It is generally between 0.25 and .30.
Note that there is not a standard set of linear weights for events. They vary slightly by analyst and by year, but different weights don't usually yield radically different results.
Finally Batting Runs is adjusted for ballpark factor to arrive at Adjusted Batting Runs (ABR). It is calculated from Baseball-Reference as rbat (the batting part) + rbaser (the base running part). The top ten Tigers first basemen according to Adjusted Batting Runs follows:
Hank Greenberg 418
Miguel Cabrera 405
Norm Cash 319
Rudy York 175
Cecil Fielder 112
Lu Blue 82
Dale Alexander 73
Tony Clark 62
Darrell Evans 61
Prince Fielder 53
Using this measure, Greenberg still has a narrow lead and he also played 275 more games with the Tigers than than Cabrera.
In order to compare the batting excellence of players with different career lengths, we can use OPS+:
Hank Greenberg 161
Miguel Cabrera 155
Norm Cash 139
Prince Fielder 136
Dale Alexander 129
Rudy York 128
Cecil Fielder 126
Tony Clark 121
Darrell Evans 121
Claude Rossman 115
By this measure, Greenberg is back to number one on this list. In the end, Cabrera and Greenberg are very close statistically for the time they played, but Greenberg gets the nod due to the substantial time missed due to military service. The complete top ten is shown below.
1. Hank Greenberg 1930-1946 54 WAR 418 ABR 161 OPS+
Baseball's first Jewish superstar, Greenberg was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1956. The "Hebrew Hammer" won MVP awards in both 1935 and 1940 and played on all four Tigers World Series teams (1934, 1935, 1940, 1945) of the '30s and '40s. He led the league in home runs four times and finished in the top five in OPS and slugging average seven times. Other notable Greenberg feats include 58 home runs in 1938 and 184 RBI in 1937, both the highest single-season total in Tigers history.
2. Miguel Cabrera 2008-2018 51 WAR 405 ABR 155 OPS+
Acquired from the Marlins in an eight-player deal in 2007, Cabrera has dominated the American League for most of his tenure with the Tigers. The Venezuelan slugger won the Triple Crown with a .330 batting average, 44 home runs and 139 RBI in 2012, but that might not have been his best season. In 2013, he won the sabermetric triple crown with a .348/.442/.636 slash line. He finished in the top five in the league in in Adjusted Batting Runs every year from 2009-2016 and led the league every year from 2010-2013.
3. Norm Cash 1960-1974 52 WAR 319 ABR 139 OPS+
"Stormin' Norman" had a monster season in 1961 batting .361/.487/.662 with a 201 OPS+. His 85 Adjusted Batting Runs that year was the highest total in franchise history. He has since admitted to using a corked bat that year which puts the legitimacy of those numbers in doubt. His highest OPS+ otherwise was 149, but was 120+ every year from 1960-1973. He had 12 seasons of 2+ WAR and 9 seasons of 3+ WAR.
4. Rudy York 1934-1945 32 WAR 175 ABR 128 OPS+
On August 4, 1937, the Tigers were stuck in a five game losing streak and suffering from a shortage of healthy players. With all their regular catchers injured, manager Mickey Cochrane decided to try Rudy York, the rookie without a position, as the starting catcher. He proceeded to hit an amazing 18 homers with 49 RBI for the month. Some 81 years after his big month of August, Big Rudy still holds the the American League record for most home runs in a month. York eventually became the regular first baseman in 1940 when Greenberg was moved to left field. He finished in the top five in home runs eight times and top ten in OPS five times.
5. Cecil Fielder 1990-1996 17 WAR 112 ABR 126 OPS+
In the Bill James Historical Abstract, James said that Cecil Fielder was "A big fat guy who hit home runs for a few years". That was a reference to Fielder being overrated, but it was a bit harsh. He was a productive hitter during those years and his 1990 season was one of the most memorable individual seasons I have seen. He was signed as a low profile free agent in January, 1990 after returning from a season in Japan. The big first baseman then surprised the baseball world by posting an OPS+ of 167 and leading the league with 51 home runs and 132 RBI. He never replicated that season, but he had five more seasons of 30+ home runs including a league leading 44 in 1991.
6. Lu Blue 1921-1927 21 WAR 82 ABR 110 OPS+
Blue had four more WAR than Cecil Fielder, but that was largely because Fielder was penalized for being designated hitter for parts of seasons. Because first base is a hitting position, I decided to ignore that penalty. Fielder was the better offensive player, so I moved him up a notch. Blue was no slugger, but he was an on-base machine posting on-base percentages of .400 or better five times with the Tigers. He was also a model of consistency with the following WAR totals from 1921-1926: 2.9, 3.6, 3.3, 3.3, 3.7, 2.8.
7. Darrell Evans 1984-1988 15 WAR 61 ABR 121 OPS+
Everyone was surprised when tightwad GM Bill Campbell signed free agent Darrell Evans after the 1983 season. It was the first time the Tigers had dipped into the free agent pool in a significant way and it paid off, although not right away. He hit only 16 home runs with a 105 OPS+ during the 1984 championship season and it looked like he might be all done at age 37. However, he went on to average 34 home runs over the next three seasons including a league-leading 40 in 1985. His best season was 1987 when he had 4.9 WAR and a 135 OPS+ at age 40.
8. Tony Clark 1995-2001 12 WAR 62 ABR 121 OPS+
Tony Clark was the second overall pick in the 1990 amateur draft and played seven seasons for the Tigers. He was regarded as a disappointment by many fans due to his advance billing and misfortune of being one of the better hitters on some very bad teams. He posted an OPS+ of 120 or better five times and hit 30 or more round trippers three times.
9. Dale Alexander 1929-1932 11 WAR 73 ABR 129 OPS+
Dale Alexander had an unusual career which spanned only five years from age 26 to age 30 despite a lifetime .331 batting average including his time with the Red Sox. The reason for the late start was that he was a terrible fielder. According to Bill Nowlin at SABR.ORG, there was a very good reason for the abrupt end to his career as well:
Sliding into home plate on Memorial Day, Alexander hurt his leg sliding into home plate. Red Sox trainer Doc Woods used a new deep-heat method to try to reduce pain, decrease inflammation, and thereby speed healing: diathermy. Unfortunately, Woods left the machine on too long (apparently leaving the treatment room and not returning for quite some time) and burned Alexander's leg. "They'd just barbecued his leg," said son Steve. Don Alexander reported, "It really sort of atrophied. It really was smaller than the other. Just like it was a burn. Scarring tissue. It was discolored." He was so badly burned that there was worry he might lose the leg. Fortunately, amputation was never necessary.
When he did get a chance to play, Moose had one of the best rookie seasons ever for a first baseman batting .343/.397/.580 with a 148 OPS+
10. Prince Fielder 2012-2013 7 WAR 53 ABR 136 OPS+
Cecil's son Prince Fielder was acquired as a free agent in January, 2012 when Victor Martinez went down with a knee injury that would keep him out the entire 2012 season. Cabrera shifted to third base, so that Prince could play first base. Fielder played just two seasons including an outstanding first season where he had 151 OPS+ and 4.7 WAR.
Note: Most of the data for this post were abstracted from Baseball-Reference.com
Mickey Cochrane dives to tag out Phillies base runner Pinky Whitney in iconic baseball photo.
(Photo Credit: National Baseball Hall of Fame)
Today, I am presenting the list of top ten catchers in Tigers history. Other installments in this series can be found in the following links.
Second Basemen
Shortstops
Third Basemen
In the previous articles, I discussed the criteria for my rankings in detail. Let's review the ground rules here:
- A player must have played at least half their games with the Tigers as a catcher.
- A player must have played at least two full seasons as a catcher with the Tigers.
- Only games played with the Tigers are considered. If a player played other positions with the Tigers, his hitting performance in those games does count.
The Wins Above Replacement (WAR) leaders for the Tigers are listed below.
Bill Freehan 45
Lance Parrish 30
Johnny Bassler 20
Mickey Tettleton 15
Pudge Rodriguez 14
Alex Avila 13
Mickey Cochrane 11
Brad Ausmus 8
Matt Nokes 6
Mike Heath 6
Oscar Stanage 6
Based on this, Freehan and Parrish seem to be the top two catchers, but it gets more interesting after that. First, the great Mickey Cochrane is only seventh on this list, but we need to consider that most of his WAR came in 1934 and 1935, two of the greatest seasons in franchise history. Not only that, but he was also the manager of those teams. Thus, he deserves to move up higher in the final ranking.
Then there are players like Mickey Tettleton and Matt Nokes, who would be ranked almost entirely on their offense. Similarly, Ausmus would be ranked mostly based on his defense. A look at OPS+ tells us more about offensive contribution:
Mickey Tettleton 135
Mickey Cochrane 126
Matt Nokes 115
Lance Parrish 114
Bill Freehan 112
Johnny Bassler 106
Alex Avila 105
Pudge Rodriguez 103
Aaron Robinson 100
Mike Heath 97
Not surprisingly Tettleton, Cochrane and Nokes rank much higher on this list, while Bassler and Rodriguez are lower.
So, here is my final list (Note that OWAR=Offensive WAR):
Bill Freehan (1961-1976 44.8 WAR 43.3 OWAR 112 OPS+)
Freehan was a poweful and durable catcher who was excellent both offensively and defensively. He was the top catcher in the game during the 1960s peaking with two fantastic seasons in 1967 and 1968. He posted a 144 OPS+ and 6.1 WAR and finished third in the MVP batting in 1967. He followed up with a 145 OPS+ and 7.0 WAR and was runner-up to teammate Denny McLain in MVP voting in the 1968 championship season. He is 15th among MLB catchers in career WAR and some argue that he should be in the Hall of Fame. Bill James ranked him the #12 catcher in the Bill James Historical Abstract.
Lance Parrish (1977-1986 30.1 WAR 26.1 OWAR 114 OPS+)
Parrish was another durable slugger as well as a body building fanatic. Manager Sparky Anderson initially frowned upon Parrish's weight lifting, but changed his mind when the big guy started averaging 30 home runs per year. The Big Wheel also averaged 3.6 WAR from 1979 to 1986. His best season was 1982 when he hit 32 home runs and posted a 135 OPS+ with 5.0 WAR. He was also an important piece of the 1984 championship team.
Mickey Cochrane (1934-1937 11.4 WAR 11.5 OWAR 126 OPS+)
Cochrane was one of the top five catchers in the history of the game batting .320/.419/.478 lifetime. He only played 315 games as a Tiger, but made quite an impact catching and managing two pennant winners and a world champion. in 1934, Black Mike (So named for his competitiveness and distaste for losing) batted .320/.428/.412 with 4 WAR in 1934. He did even better in 1935 batting .319/.452/.450 with 5 WAR.
Johnny Bassler (1921-1927 19.5 WAR 18.5 OWAR 106 OPS+)
Bassler was strong both offensively and defensively and was ranked by Bill James as the 47th best catcher all time. He had 7 seasons of 2 WAR or better including 1924 when he hit .346/.441/.422. He had an on-base percentage of .400 or better in each of his seven seasons with the Tigers.
Mickey Tettleton (1991-1994 14.8 WAR 17.5 OWAR 135 OPS+)
Tettleton was not a great defensive catcher, but he was an outstanding hitter posting OPS+ of 140, 137, 132, 128 in his four seasons as a Tiger. Big first baseman Cecil Fielder got more attention, but Tettleton was the better hitter as measured by OPS+ in all four seasons. Fruit Loops was one of my all-time favorite players for everything from his funky batting stance to his slugging. He finished in the top five in the league walks each of his four years and finished in the top ten in home runs three times.
Pudge Rodriguez (2004-2008 14.2 WAR 13.0 OWAR 103 OPS+)
Pudge Rodriguez was the first big Tigers signing of the Dave Dombrowski era and got off to a tremendous start batting .334/.383/.510 in 2004. He never came close to those numbers again and rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way with his moody temperament and disrespect for manager Alan Trammell. He was, however, a strong defender and contact hitter and an important piece of the 2006 pennant winner. He could arguably have been ranked ahead of Tettleton, but I am going to play favorites here.
Alex Avila (2009-2017 12.9 WAR 13.7 OWAR 105 OPS+)
Avila had an excellent season in 2011 batting .295/.389/.506. What may have been a really fine career with multiple all-star appearances was derailed by a number of concussions. He did manage four years of 2+ WAR.
Oscar Stanage (1909-1925 6.0 WAR 6.9 OWAR 69 OPS+)
Stanage makes this list mostly for longevity playing 1,095 games over 12 seasons. He wasn't much of a hitter at all batting .234/.284/.295 lifetime. The most interesting thing I could find about him was Bill James listing him as a drinking man of the 1910s in the Bill James Historical Abstract. Stanage's best season was 1909 when he had a 98 OPS+ in 77 games for a pennant winner.
Brad Ausmus (1996-2000 7.6 WAR 5.2 OWAR 90 OPS+)
Ausmus, who was traded back and forth every couple of years during the Randy Smith era, played three seasons in two stints with the Tigers. He was known mostly for his defense including a very strong ranking for pitch framing by Baseball Prospectus. Offensively, his best season was 1999 when he hit .275/.365/.415.
Matt Nokes (1986-1990 6.4 WAR 6.8 OWAR 115 OPS+)
Nokes was acquired from the Giants in 1985 in a six-player deal which also brought pitchers Eric King and Dave LaPoint to the Tigers. At the time, LaPoint seemed like the important player in the deal but it was Nokes that provided the best return. Nokes hit 32 homers as rookie and was one of the key players on the division winner. Nokes never replicated that season and was also not a strong defender.
Note: Most of the data for this post were abstracted from Baseball-Reference.com
Most of the recent Hall of Fame talk has centered around outfielder/designated hitter Harold Baines who was recently voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans or Eras Committee. Baines was a very good hitter for a long time, but almost nobody outside the committee thinks he belongs in the Hall of Fame. Baines' inclusion makes it more difficult to ignore some of this year's borderline candidates - such as Andruw Jones, Todd Helton and Lance Berkman - who were far superior to Baines. And I can't write a Hall of Fame article without plugging Lou Whitaker who was about twice as good as Baines according to WAR.
Anyway, I am going to just file away the Baines vote as a mistake and not change my Hall of Fame Evaluation based on that. Whitaker is not eligible by any means this year, so let's take a look at this year's candidates. There have been 18 new Hall-of-Fame Inductees in the past five years including 2018 inductees Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. This alleviated the log jam on the ballot which was due largely to confusion and division on how to deal with players linked to the Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED). Many holdovers and a few worthy new candidates still make the vote a challenge though. There are 35 eligible players and writers can vote for up to 10 candidates. I, of course, do not have a vote, but will fill my theoretical ballot here.
My selection process involves comparing players to their contemporaries, other players at the same position and current Hall-of-Fame members. I value peak performance and career performance equally. I use many traditional and advanced statistics, most of which can be found on Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs. Some of my favorites are plate appearances, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging average, batting runs, wOBA,and WAR for hitters and innings pitched, ERA, pitching runs, strikeouts and WAR for pitchers. I used multiple WAR statistics in my analysis, but any reference to WAR cited below is Baseball-Reference WAR.
In earlier years, I did not bring PED use into my thought process. The use of PEDs was very widespread, not only in the 1990s and 2000's, but all the way back to the sixties and even further. It was impossible to know which players stayed clean and which used and how much it affected their performance. Eliminating or even judging players based on suspicion seemed very unfair to me. It also seemed pretty obvious that the game turned a blind eye to the problem for many decades. Thus, I considered PED use to have been part of the game and choose players solely based on their on-field performance.
Starting in 2005, Major League Baseball players and owners accepted a new policy banning steroids and issuing penalties to steroid users. The policy has been expanded in recent years to include amphetamines and other PEDs. Now that it is accepted by all parties that steroid use is absolutely prohibited, this makes the process more complicated. I think it's fair to penalize players who tested positive under the agreement starting in 2005, but I do not believe these offenders should be banned from the Hall of Fame entirely. They did, after all, already serve their time through suspension. However, the qualifications for inclusion in the Hall of Fame do include integrity, sportsmanship and character as illustrated by the following clause:
Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.
Those things are very subjective and near impossible to measure, but failed drug tests are objective. Thus, I shall use proven drug use as another data point feeding my decision process. Since I do not believe PED use turns a player into one of the game's all-time greats, I would still vote for an elite player such as Alex Rodriguez when his time comes. However, I might drop a borderline player from the ballot.
The PED question first became an issue for me when first baseman Rafael Palmeiro appeared on the ballot in 2011. He was a legitimate candidate, who had tested positive in 2005. He was not a particularly strong candidate though and, given that the ballot had more than ten deserving candidates that year, it was not difficult to dismiss him.
Outfielder Manny Ramirez who tested positive for PEDs in both 2009 and 2011 is eligible this year on a ballot that is not quite as loaded as previous years. Based on his numbers, 69 WAR and a 154 OPS+, Ramirez was one of the best hitters of his generation and would surely make it if he were clean.
However, the PED data point exists for Ramirez (twice!). Ramirez was a very one dimensional player and not a slam dunk choice of the magnitude of ARod. He is more comparable to designated hitter Edgar Martinez, another viable candidate who is a one dimensional hitter. In the end, I decided that Martinez makes it and Ramirez doesn't.
Now, for my ballot:
Barry Bonds: The greatest player of his generation and on a very short list of the best players ever. You can't have a Hall of Fame without him.
Roger Clemens: As with Bonds, the Hall-of-Fame would not make much sense if it excluded Clemens. He is one of the five best pitchers in the history of the game.
Mariano Rivera: I am very stingy about voting for relief pitchers because they are generally failed starters and pitch far fewer innings than starters. However, Rivera is the best closer in the history of the game and there is not much debate about that. If you like saves, he had 652 of them which is 51 ahead of runner-up Trevor Hoffman. If you want something more sophisticated his 56 WAR tops among relievers (Dennis Eckerley was 62 WAR but more than half of that came as a starter). If you want to get even more esoteric, he is also the runaway leader in Win Probability Added (WPA) and WPA/LI as well.
Roy Halladay: Did not have gaudy career counting stats having pitched fewer than 3,000 career innings, but he was inarguably one of the elite pitchers of his era. He won two Cy Young Awards in 2003 and 2010 and finished in the top five in voting seven times. He led his league in complete games 7 times and shutouts, innings pitched and WAR four times each.
Mike Mussina: Might get overlooked because he never won a Cy Young award, but had a 123 ERA+ in over 3,500 innings and his 345 Pitching Runs was an impressive 13th all-time.
Curt Schilling: Not a very bright person and I wish he would keep his shallow opinions to himself, but that has nothing to do with his Hall of Fame worthiness. Arguably the best post-season pitcher ever, but was a lot more than that. He had a 127 ERA+, 3,116 strikeouts (15th best ever), 81 WAR (21st best).
Edgar Martinez: Gets knocked down by some because he was primarily a designated hitter. On the other hand, some of his supporters think he belongs because he was one of the best ever at his position. This is not a good argument because the position is limited to a pool of players who were among the worst fielders in the game. For a designated hitter to make the Hall of Fame, he needs to be an elite hitter and Martinez's 147 lifetime OPS+ (32nd best ever) shows that he was. He also accumulated 68 WAR with virtually no fielding contribution.
Larry Walker: A bit controversial because his numbers were inflated by the Denver altitude, but he had a 141 OPS+ and 73 WAR and was also an excellent fielder.
Scott Rolen: The Alan Trammell/ Lou Whitaker of his time, had a long distinguished career, but was never regarded as a superstar. His 122 OPS+ and outstanding defense at third base helped him accumulate 70 WAR.
Honorable Mentions: Lance Berkman, Todd Helton, Andruw Jones and Manny Ramirez (mentioned above). I could maybe be talked into including any of them, but I am leaving them out for now.
Hall of Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer amassed 81 WAR in 19 seasons with the Tigers.
(Photo credit: SABR.ORG)
Today, I am presenting the list of top ten second basemen in Tigers history. Other installments in this series can be found in the following links.
Shortstops
Third Basemen
In the previous articles, I discussed the criteria for my rankings in detail. L et's review the ground rules here along with some caveats. We are only including players who played at least half their games at second base...Actually, we are going to bend the rules here. Super utility player Tony Phillips did not have a primary position, but is going to be considered a second baseman for our purposes. Looking at his innings played below, he played slightly more innings in left field than second base (1,678 versus 1,584). We could go either way, but there is more depth in left field than second base, so he is going to be a second baseman on our list.
Tony Phillips Innings By Position
LF 1,678
2B 1,584
3B 1,236
RF 1,002
CF 278
SS 154
We generally only include players with at least two full seasons at second base with the Tigers. We are going to cheat a little here as as well though. Jim Delahanty was another complex multi-postion guy who played in the Dead Ball era. He was their starting second baseman for 46 games after coming over in a trade from Washington in 2009. He was their primary second baseman in 2010. He moved around the field a lot from 2011-2012, but played second base more than any other position. So, he will be part of the analysis.
Another rule is that we will only consider games played with the Tigers.
One way to start the analysis is to look at Wins Above Average (WAR) at Baseball-Reference:
WAR Leaders
Charlie Gehringer 80.7
Lou Whitaker 75.1
Dick McAuliffe 37.5
Tony Phillips 25.3
Ian Kinsler 19.9
Placido Polanco 19.2
Damian Easley 17.8
Frank Bolling 11.2
Jim Delahanty 7.9
Eddie Mayo 7.2
Two players - Gehringer and Whitaker - distinguish themselves from the crowd. They probably aren't as close as WAR makes them look though. They were both premier talents in their respective eras, but Gehringer was clearly better. They were similar in longevity, but Gehringer had more truly great years than Whitaker and is arguably one of the top five second basemen in baseball history.
The biggest problem with WAR in a ranking like this is we don't have a very accurate measure of defense, especially for the old timers. We can remove fielding performance by looking at Offensive WAR or OWAR. The results are not very different in this case:
OWAR Leaders
Charlie Gehringer 77.7
Lou Whitaker 67.7
Dick McAuliffe 41.8
Tony Phillips 21.4
Damian Easley 16.5
Placido Polanco 14.1
Ian Kinsler 13.7
Jim Delahanty 12.5
Frank Bolling 9.8
Ralph Young 9.3
Sometimes players can accumulate a lot of WAR by playing for a long time as average or less than average players. In order to get a better look at peak performance, we can look at OPS+. We can see from the list below that Delahanty was a very productive hitter during his short Tigers career.
OPS+ Leaders
Jim Delahanty 129
Charlie Gehringer 124
Tony Phillips 120
Lou Whitaker 117
Dick McAuliffe 111
Ian Kinsler 107
Placido Polanco 103
Damian Easley 101
Jerry Priddy 95
Germany Schaefer 94
The final ranking of all-time Tigers second basemen follows.
1. Charlie Gehringer (1924-1942 80.7 WAR 77.7 OWAR 124 OPS+)
Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer was nicknamed The Mechanical Man by Yankees hurler Lefty Gomez because "you just wind him up on opening day and forget him". He wasn't flashy but was one of the greatest second basemen in the history of the game. Gehringer amassed 7 WAR or more every season from 1933-1937, won an MVP in 1937 and finished in the top ten in MVP voting 8 times. He had his best season in 1934 when he batted .356/.450/.517 for the pennant winning Tigers. He was also an integral part of the 1935 world champions.
2. Lou Whitaker (1977-1995 75.1 WAR 67.7 OWAR 117 OPS+ )
In the 2019 Bill James Handbook, James estimated that Whitaker was the second best player not in the Hall of Fame (and not currently on the ballot). One has to go back to the 19th Century to find the best one - shortstop Bill Dahlen. The sentiment that Whitaker is one of the biggest Hall of Fame snubs is not new. In fact, it is almost universally shared by the sabermetric community. Whitaker had 10 seasons of 4 WAR or greater including his best season in 1983 when he hit .320/.380/.457 and accumulated 6.7 WAR.
3. Dick McAuliffe (1960-1973 37.5 WAR 41.8 OWAR 111 OPS+)
Bill James ranked McAuliffe as one of the top 25 second basemen of all time In The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract published in 2001. That included his time with the Red Sox, but he had his best years with the Tigers. McAuliffe often looked awkward both at the plate and in the field, but was a steady performer for 14 seasons in Detroit. He peaked from 1966-1968 when he averaged 5.6 WAR per season. His best season was 1966 when he posted a 148 OPS+ with 6.0 WAR.
4. Tony Phillips (1990-1994 25.3 WAR 21.4 OWAR 120 OPS+)
The Tigers acquired Tony Phillips as a free agent after a 103-loss 1989 season and it turned out to be one of the team's best free agent signings ever. The super utility player averaged 5.1 WAR in his five seasons in Detroit. An on-base machine, Phillips led the league in walks (132) and finished second in on-base percentage (.443) in 1993.
5. Ian Kinsler (2014-2017 19.9 WAR 13.7 OWAR 107 OPS+)
The next three players were all acquired in excellent trades. Ian Kinsler was acquired from the Rangers in a trade for first baseman Prince Fielder who had a difficult time staying healthy after leaving the Tigers. Kinsler was a very good all around player who could hit and field and run and averaged 5.9 WAR from 2014-2016.
6. Placido Polanco (2005-2009 19.2 WAR 14.1 OWAR 103 OPS+)
Polanco was acquired from the Phillies in the middle of 2005 for reliever Ugueth Urbina (who would be convicted for attempted murder shortly thereafter) and journeyman infielder Ramon Martinez. Polanco went on to have five solid seasons for the Tigers at the plate and in the field. His best season was 2007 when he batted .341/.388/.458 with 6.1 WAR.
7. Damian Easley (1996-2002 17.8 WAR 16.5 OWAR 101 OPS+)
The third great second base trade was Damian Easley for pitcher Greg Gohr in 1996. Easley averaged 3.4 WAR from 1997-2001. His best season was 1998 when he hit 27 homers, had an OPS+ of 108 with 5.6 WAR. He is interchangeable with Polanco in this ranking.
8. Frank Bolling (1954-1960 11.2 WAR 9.8 OWAR 91 OPS+)
There is a significant drop between Easley and Frank Bolling who played six seasons with the Tigers missing one while serving in the military in 1955. He was an average hitter and fielder in 785 games with the Tigers. He never had a great season but was between 2 and 4 WAR each season between 1956-1959.
9. Jim Delahanty (1909-1912 7.9 WAR 11.5 OWAR 129 OPS+)
Jim Delahanty was the second best (to Ed) of five Delahanty Brothers who played in the majors. He only played 375 games with the Tigers and was a poor fielder, but his 129 OPS+ earns him a spot on this list. He hit .339/.411/.463 with a 139 OPS+ in 2011.
10. Eddie Mayo (1944-1948 7.2 WAR 5.0 OWAR 86 OPS+)
Mayo played five seasons with the Tigers and was an important part of the 1945 world champions. He had a 112 OPS+ and 4.6 WAR that year.
Note: Most of the data for this post were abstracted from Baseball-Reference.com
Alan Trammell is the Tigers only Hall of Fame shortstop
(Photo credit: Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)
I recently wrote about the top Tigers third basemen of all time. Today, I'll look at the shortstops. Number one is our new Hall of Famer Alan Trammell and nobody else in his vicinity. The rest of the list is more difficult.
First, let's review the ground rules. We are only including players who played at least half their games at shortstop. Dick McAuliffe comes close with 42% and someone could reasonably put him on a list of Tigers shortstops if they were only looking at shortstops. If we did include him among shortstops, he would most likely be in the top five, but we are not going to do that. He was primarily a second baseman and we'll be constructing that list later.
Another rule is that we will only consider games played with the Tigers. Jhonny Peralta would do better if he we included his games with the Indians and Cardinals, but we are going to ignore those.
We are also only going to include players with at least two full seasons at shortstop for the Tigers.
Measuring offense is fairly easy. Measuring defense, especially for players that played many decades ago, is more difficult. We do not have enough information to rank player defense precisely. However, I believe we have enough to identify who was a great defender and who was a bad defender and that will be taken into consideration. Some sources which attempt to measure historic defense are:
Wizardry by Michael Humpreys
Win Shares by Bill James
The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer
For more recent players such as Jose Iglesias and Jhonny Peralta, we can also look at measures such as Defensive Runs Saved found at FanGraphs.com.
One way to start the analysis is to look at Wins Above Average (WAR) at Baseball-Reference:
WAR Leaders
Alan Trammell 70.7
Donie Bush 38.5
Billy Rogell 24.9
Harvey Kuenn 21.0
Carlos Guillen 18.6
Topper Rigney 10.9
Jhonny Peralta 9.1
Kid Elberfeld 8.1
Ramon Santiago 7.3
Jose Iglesias 7.1
WAR is a good place to start but not a good place to end. The biggest problem with WAR in a ranking like this is we don't have a very accurate measure of defense, especially for the old timers.
WAR also does not tell necessarily tell us enough about quality or peak value. For example, Ramon Santiago makes the top ten according to WAR, but he accumulated that WAR over many years as a utility player. He was a fine utility man but never a regular other than the 119-loss 2003 team.
We can remove fielding performance by looking at Offensive WAR or OWAR.
OWAR Leaders
Alan Trammell 63.0
Donie Bush 43.1
Harvey Kuenn 25.6
Carlos Guillen 22.9
Billy Rogell 19.4
Topper Rigney 13.0
Jhonny Peralta 9.2
Kid Elberfeld 8.0
Jose Iglesias 6.5
Eddie Lake 6.0
Santiago falls off the list, but there are no dramatic changes here.
Trammell and Bush lead in WAR and OWAR, but neither was the top peak performer offensively. We can get an idea of offense by looking at OPS+
OPS+ Leaders
Carlos Guillen 121
Harvey Kuenn 112
Alan Trammell 110
Kid Elberfeld 109
Jhonny Peralta 106
Topper Rigney 105
Donie Bush 92
Billy Rogell 89
Eddie Lake 85
Jose Iglesias 83
Johnny Lipon 83
Guillen is the OPS+ leader, but he does not approach the longevity of Trammell and Bush. Both peak and career will carry some weight in this ranking. Now for the Top ten Tigers third basemen:
1. Alan Trammell (1977-1996 70.7 WAR 63.0 OWAR 110 OPS+)
I posted to this blog regularly for about 10 year and during that time I often discussed Alan Trammell's Hall of Fame credentials. So, it feels good to now be able to refer to him as "Hall of Fame shortstop Alan Trammell". Arguments which say that player X is in the Hall of Fame and player Y is better than player X are flawed because there is a chance that player Y is only better than one guy who doesn't really belong. In Trammell's case, my argument was always that he was better than half the shortstops in the Hall of Fame. He is 8th among 21 inducted shortstops in WAR, 9th in Wins Above Average (preferred by some for Hall of Fame discussions because it puts more weight on excellence and a little less on longevity than WAR), 9th in OWAR and 11th in OPS+. So, now he's in and he's the only Tigers shortstop so honored.
2. Donie Bush (1908-1921 38.5 WAR 43.1 OWAR 92 OPS+)
According to the Biographical Encyclopedia of Baseball, Bush spent 65 years in organized ball as a player, manager, scout and owner. That's a lot of baseball - from the first decade of the American League's existence to the early 1970's or from Ty Cobb to Marvin Lane. This ranking is strictly based on his time as a player with the Tigers though. He played more games at shortstop (1,867) than any Tiger other than Trammell and had some excellent individual seasons exceeding 5+ WAR five times. His best year was his 2009 rookie campaign when he had 6.5 WAR, an OPS+ of 115 and a league leading 88 walks (one of five times he led the league in walks).
3. Billy Rogell (1930-1939 24.9 WAR 19.4 OWAR 89 OPS+)
Bill Rogell was one of the top defensive shortstops in the league in a Tigers career which spanned the the 1930s. A long-time Detroit City Council member after his career, Billy Rogell teamed with Hall of Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer as the keystone combo of the 1934-35 pennant winning teams. He could hit pretty well for a middle infielder too averaging 5.1 WAR and a 101 OPS+ from 1933-1935.
4. Carlos Guillen (2004-2011 18.6 WAR 22.9 OWAR 121 OPS+)
Carlos Guillen was acquired from the Mariners before the 2004 season in what turned out to be one of the team's best trades ever. He was an integral member of a team that became a perennial contender after two decades of futility. Guillen was neither durable nor a plus defender, but nobody questioned his offense. His combined good on-base skills and solid middle infield power produced an OPS+ of 100+ six times. His 136 OPS+ and 6.0 WAR in 2006 made him probably the best player on a team that made the playoffs for the first time since the 1980's.
5. Harvey Kuenn (1952-1959 21.0 WAR 25.6 OWAR 112 OPS+)
I went back and forth on Harvey Kuenn and Guillen for the 4th spot. Kuenn played more games and accumulated more WAR, but Guillen was a little better offensively. Additionally, Kuenn's reputation and numbers at shortstop were very poor which is why he became an outfielder at age 27. He could hit though. His best season was 1959 when he hit .353 to win the American League batting title. Interestingly, he was traded to the Indians after the season for outfielder Rocky Colavito who led the league in home runs in 1959. This trade also turned out great for the Tigers.
6. Topper Rigney (1922-1925 10.9 WAR 13.0 OWAR 105 OPS+
Topper Rigney played only three full seasons, but was one of the Tigers best offensive shortstops. He posted an OPS+ of 108 from 1922-1924.
7. Jhonny Peralta (2010-2013 9.1 WAR 9.2 OWAR 106 OPS+)
Peralta always looked awkward and out of place at shortstop, but he consistently posted average numbers on defensive metrics and continued to do so when he joined the Cardinals in the National League. He was certainly a solid hitter for a shortstop two times posting an OPS+ above 120. He and Rigney are interchangeable on this list. I chose Topper because I liked his name, but the odd spelling of Jhonny's first name made this a a tough choice.
8. Kid Elberfeld (1901-1903 8.1 WAR 8.0 OWAR 109 OPS+)
The 5'-7" 158 pound Elberfield was the the epitome of grit. According to the Biographical Encyclopedia of Baseball, The Tobasco Kid was spiked often and when cut he would go back to the bench, cauterize his wound with whiskey and then continue playing. He only played two full seasons for the Tigers, but was fourth among Tigers shortstops in OPS+.
9. Jose Iglesias (2013-2018 7.1 WAR 6.5 OWAR 83 OPS+)
Iglesias makes this list because we have run out of guys that could hit and he was a highlight reel at shortstop during his Tigers career. Including good field no hit Eddie Brinkman of the 1970s Tigers would have allowed me to talk about another great Tigers trade, but his numbers didn't match up.
10. Johnny Lipon (1942-1952 5.2 WAR 5.8 OWAR 83 OPS+)
To give you an idea of what kind of player Johnny Lipon was, the final choice came down to Lipon and Deivi Cruz. It was pretty close, but Lipon missed three years due to military service from 1943-1945. It does not appear to have affected his career much since he didn't play regularly until 1948, but it might have.
Note: Most of the data for this post were abstracted from Baseball-Reference.com
Travis Fryman leads Tigers third basemen in WAR
(Photo credit: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)
OK, I am going to make my first post in months. I have been thinking a lot lately about the the top third basemen in Tigers history. It's an interesting topic because it is their weakest position historically with no elite players at the position for any length of time. There is no long-term superstar such as Ty Cobb or Charlie Gehringer or Alan Trammell or anybody like that. So, who was the best Tigers third baseman ever?
We could make it easy if we included current slugger Miguel Cabrera. He has by far the two best seasons at third base in franchise history posting OPS+ of 190 in 2013 and 164 in 2012. OPS+ is OPS adjusted for league average and home ballpark. An OPS+ of 100 is average. more than 100 is above average and less than 100 is below average. There is a misconception that a 190 OPS means 90% better than league average. It doesn't quite work that way but 190 is really really good as is 164. We aren't going to count Cabrera though because he has primarily been a first baseman for the Tigers and I only want to include players who played at least half their games at third base.
Another rule is that we will only consider games played with the Tigers. So, Eddie Mathews only gets credit for the 9 homeruns he hit in 160 at bats in 1968-1969 and his 503 homeruns with the Braves and Astros will be ignored. Otherwise, he would be an easy choice for the top of the list. Similarly, Travis Fryman's games with the Indians and George Kell's games with the Red Sox never happened as far as this ranking is concerned.
We are also only going to include players with at least two full seasons at third base. So, again no Mathews
Another item is what to do about multi-position players like Fryman who was primarily a third baseman but also played a lot of shortstop. We will take all of his offense at both positions into account, but remove his defense at shortstop to the best of our ability.
The positional question reminds us that measuring defense, especially for players that played many decades ago, is difficult. We do not have enough information to rank player defense precisely. However, I believe we have enough to identify who was a great defender and who was a bad defender and that will be taken into consideration. Some sources which attempt to measure historic defense are:
Wizardry by Michael Humpreys
Win Shares by Bill James
The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer
For more recent players such as Fryman and Brandon Inge, we can also look at measures such as Defensive Runs Saved found at FanGraphs.com.
One way to start the analysis is to look at Wins Above Average (WAR) at Baseball-Reference:
Travis Fryman 28
George Kell 23
Brandon Inge 19
Ray Boone 16
Marty McManus 13
George Moriarity 13
Ossie Vitt 13
Tom Brookens 12
Pinky Higgins 11
Don Wert 10
WAR is a good place to start but not a good place to end. The biggest problem with WAR in a ranking like this is we don't have a very accurate measure of defense, especially for the old timers.
WAR also does not tell necessarily tell us enough about quality or peak value. For example, Brookens makes the top ten according to WAR, but he never had an OPS+ above 98. He also was not an above average fielder. He was basically a utility level player who somehow started a lot of games for some good Tigers teams.
We can remove fielding performance by looking at Offensive WAR or OWAR.
Travis Fryman 25
George Kell 21
Ray Boone 18
Nick Castellanos 14
Pinky Higgins 13
Marty McManus 12
Ossie Vitt 11
Brandon Inge 10
George Moriarty 10
Don Wert 10
Ed Yost 9
Note that, while OWAR does not include fielding performance, it does adjust WAR for the position that a player plays Thus, Fryman gets about three extra wins for his time at shortstop just by being a shortstop which isn't really fair for this exercise. If we remove that, he drops to about 22 WAR which puts him on a level with Kell.
Also notice that Nick Castellanos is now #4 once we remove his atrocious fielding. In his case, we actually do have enough information to know that his defense is legitimately poor enough to substantially pull down his WAR (4 WAR versus 14 OWAR)). In fact, it is bad enough that he is no longer a third baseman. Conversely, Inge drops from 19 WAR to 10 OWAR, but we can be confident that he was a strong defender and that will taken into account.
Fryman and Kell are on top of the WAR and OWAR lists but neither was the franchise's best offensive third baseman. OPS+ gives us a clue about peak offense:
Ray Boone 130
Ed Yost 127
George Kell 119
Nick Castellanos 111
Travis Fryman 106
Dean Palmer 103
Marty McManus 103
Pinky Higgins 102
Fred Haney 94
Don Wert 88
Boone (683 games) and Yost (291 games)are now on top, but keep in mind that they accumulated less playing time than Fryman (1,096 games) and Kell (826 games). Longevity and quality both count.
Now for our All-time Top Ten Tigers third basemen:
1. George Kell (1946-1952 22.8 WAR 21.2 OWAR) is typically automatically written down as the Tigers top third baseman when people put together a Tigers all-time all-star team (unless they allow Cabrera to be included), but there really is no clear cut winner. Kell and Fryman are very close in terms of offensive career value and the above sources suggest that Fryman may have been a slightly better fielder (although not definitively so). You can make a case for Fryman at #1. You could also make a case for Boone given his superior offense over four years.
It is tempting to be a contrarian and not go with Kell, but I think Kell beats Fryman by enough on peak offensive value and Boone in career value to win by a hair.
Kell's most memorable season was 1949 when he batted .343/.424/.467 with a 136 OPS+ and 4.8 WAR. He won the batting title that year by .0001 over the legendary Ted Williams. He was trailing going into the final game, but then went 2 for 3 while Williams went 0 for 2 in the finale. He finished in the to ten in the American League in on-base percentage three times and amassed over 4 WAR four times as a Tiger.
2. Travis Fryman (1990-1997 27.5 WAR 24.8 WAR) was an unassuming but steadily above average performer for the Tigers for eight years. His best season was in 1993 when he batted .300/.379/.486 with 133 OPS+ and 5.2 WAR. He also contributed 4.9 WAR in 1992 and 3.9 in 1995.
3. Ray Boone (1953-1958 16.4 WAR 18.2 OWAR) batted .312/.395/.556 in 101 games for the Tigers after being traded from Cleveland in 1953. His 156 OPS+ that year was the best for a Tiger third baseman other than Cabrera. He had three other seasons where he posted an OPS+ of 120 or higher.
4. Brandon Inge (2001-2012 18.6 WAR 10.2 OWAR) had only two seasons with an OPS+ above 100, but was an outstanding defender (70 Defensive Runs Saved at third) and played more games (1,408 including 999 as a third baseman) than any other qualifier.
5. Aurelio Rodriguez (1971-1979 13.2 WAR 4.5 OWAR) was the Brandon Inge of the 1970s, a good field no hit third baseman. He was an even weaker hitter than Inge but also a more elite defender (134 Fielding Runs according to the ESPN Encyclopedia). He was arguably the top defensive third baseman in the league during his prime with one of the best arms the game has ever seen at the hot corner. He played more games at third (1,235) than any other Tiger.
6. Pinky Higgins (1939-1946 11.3 WAR 13.3 OWAR) played 857 games for the Tigers posting a 102 OPS+. Unfortunately, he was a below average fielder (-49 Fielding Runs).
7. Marty McManus (1927-1931 13.2 WAR 12.1 OWAR) posted a 103 OPS+ in 640 games with the Tigers.
8. Ed Yost ( 1959-1960 7.1 WAR 9.2 OWAR) played only two season and was not much of a fielder, but he is second behind Boone with a 127 OPS+ . He led the league in on-base percentage both years.
9. Nick Castellanos (2013-2018 4.2 WAR 13.5 OWAR) has a 111 OPS+ in six years including four full years as a third baseman. He gets penalized for his poor defense (-64 Defensive Runs Saved).
10. Don Wert (1963-1970 10.3 WAR 9.5 OWAR) played eight rather undistinguished seasons with some good teams in the 1960s. He did play over 1,000 games at third base and had a couple of seasons with OPS+ slightly over 100.
Note: Most of the data for this post were abstracted from Baseball-Reference.com
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