10 May 2011, by Ted
Reeves Wiedeman, Kansas City native, is on the editorial staff at the New Yorker. You can find his writing on a variety of topics at reeveswiedeman.net. Follow Reeves on Twitter @wiedemar.
From 1992 to 1995, he was fine but never great in his role as the Royals’ first baseman. Fine but never great is basically what being a Royals fan felt like from 1992 to 1995. Squeezed between George Brett and Mike Sweeney, Wally Joyner was also the first basemen of the formative years in my life as a sports fan. I chose basketball.
09 May 2011, by Eric
We wanted to figure out just how well the typical first baseman hit in the 90s so we asked our resident statistician Kenneth Morgan to help us do that. He came up with the typical 90s 1B season, and then he figured out which individual player seasons of the decade were most closely aligned with that one. (Later this week, we'll reveal which player, using an original formula developed just for P&P, is the most typical 1B of the 90s.)
Close to 200 different men could say that they played first base in the 1990s. These men ranged from greenhorns like Stephen Larkin and Terry Francona, to mainstays like Mark Grace and Rafael Palmeiro. In an attempt to determine which player had a seasonal statistical line that epitomized a 1990s first baseman, we will have to dive head first into the depths of the record books.
After much deliberation, and with the assistance from Eric and Ted, ten categories were determined to be the most relevant in characterizing a 1990s first baseman. These categories are listed in the chart below. Additional thoughts behind the selections, as well as the various weightings I used, will be revealed in part two of this exploration later this week.
To narrow our pool to only the steadiest of 90s first basemen, I decided on using 3000 plate appearances as the minimum for eligibility. To determine a typical statistical line for a single season from the group, I took averages from the 10 relevant categories -- assuming that a full season consisted of 600 plate appearances and 150 games. The row marked “Typical”, highlighted in dark blue, shows this average statistical line.
Next, I wanted to find who, from our group, had a year in the 1990s that most closely mirrored the average “Typical” line you see near the top. I sifted through the player pages from a group of 17 first basemen and found the yearly lines that were close to our benchmark in at least 4-5 categories. These seasons were then compared to the “Typical” season and ranked based on overall deviation percentage from the mean.
Here are your award winners:
Gold Medal = Mo Vaughn, 1993
Silver Medal = Andres Galarraga, 1995
Bronze Medal = Jeff Bagwell, 1995
I was pretty shocked to see three sluggers at the top of this list. Part of the reason for this was that 1995 was a strike shortened year, constricting the amount of at-bats each of them had that season. Before I started I assumed that this exercise would spit out the likes of a Wally Joyner season, or perhaps a Mark Grace campaign.
What did we learn from this fun experiment?
If you could only watch one year’s worth of games to taste the flavor of a 1990′s first baseman, you’d better choose Mo Vaughn’s 1993 season.
In part two, we will we will find out who the most 1990’s first baseman was for the entire decade!
09 May 2011, by Ted
Will Leitch is a Contributing Editor at New York Magazine, the founder of Deadspin, and a St. Louis Cardinals fan. You can find him on here on Tumblr, and on Twitter at @williamfleitch. He selected Pedro Guerrero as a first baseman that epitomized the 1990s in first sackers.
Pedro Guerrero. The first baseman for some rather miserable Cardinals teams managed by Joe Torre, he was long past his prime by the time he came to St. Louis, thanks to age, a ruptured tendon and a lingering friendship with O.J. Simpson. He still had a decent couple of years, passably impersonating a power hitter, or at least what a power hitter looked like to Cardinals fans at the time, and reaching double digits in home runs TWICE. He also, on one evening in July 1990, when a ball was hit three feet to his right, is rumored to have twitched. He was replaced by Andres Gallarraga, then Gregg Jeffries, then John Mabry, then Dmitri Young, then Mark McGwire. After his career was over, he was arrested trying to buy 33 pounds of cocaine, but the charges were dropped because -- and I swear I am not kidding -- his lawyer successfully lobbied the judge to give him lenience because "his IQ was too low" to understand what he was doing. His friendship with O.J. ultimately soured, when Simpson called 911 on him in 1999, claiming that Pedro had abducted his girlfriend and was binging on cocaine with her. He is still alive, somehow.
09 May 2011, by Eric
Eric Freeman writes about the NBA for Ball Don't Lie. He thinks Andres Galarraga is the most '90s first baseman. Follow him on Twitter at @freemaneric.
JT Snow won his first Gold Glove in 1995, one year after the strike and, if we’re to believe the legends, the time at which steroids became a general fact of playing in the majors rather than an intriguing option for increased success. In that season, Snow registered an impressive OPS of .818 with 24 homers and 102 RBI. After showing flashes in his first two seasons with the Angels, he proved that he was a hitter worthy of a corner infield position in an era where power became more prominent than ever.
That Snow had to prove himself as a hitter rather than a fielder is an important distinction relative to his position. For most players, first base is a refuge rather than a proving ground, a spot for burly men with delinquent gloves. Many of the league’s best 1B batters of the ‘90s were good defenders, to be sure, but the position is almost always one that good batters learn to play, not a spot they take to naturally.If he'd had any speed at all, he would've been an outfielder.
Snow, though, was always something of the Platonic ideal of a defensive first baseman. In one game, all his skills were on display: the ability to dig anything out of the dirt, a throwing arm better fit for a right fielder, quick instincts on bunts and grounders, a peerless grasp of the 3-6-3 double play, and a generally commanding presence. Whereas most infields are controlled by the shortstop, Snow typically called off his teammates on any reasonably catchable infield pop-up -- even when he had to run over the mound -- and made any necessary strategic decisions. In part, that was a necessity due to his playing with such rangeless wonders as Rich Aurilia and Jeff Kent. For the most part, though, he played the role of infield captain because he had so obviously earned it. He cleaned up others’ messes and made everyone look better. If he'd had any speed at all, he would've been an outfielder.
Still, his offense was always a work in progress. A year after his excellent 1995, Snow saw a significant drop in production and suffered the indignity of being traded to the Giants for the uninspiring Allen Watson in the offseason. While an immediate success as the team’s No. 5 hitter, he proved so bad as a right-handed hitter that he ditched switch-hitting entirely, only to spend the rest of his career struggling to reach basic competence against lefties. He was the first baseman on the 2002 NL Champs, but he’s best remembered as saving Dusty Baker’s young son at the plate at the end of a Game 5 blowout win. He hit .327 for the 2004 team but could no longer pull the ball with any power. By the end of his career, he seemed to hope for walks if it meant he wouldn’t embarrass himself by feebly grounding out on a pitch he would have crushed for a double in his prime. Even the greatest single moment of his career, his game-tying three-run homer off Armando Benitez in the 2000 NLDS against the Mets, was a lesson in diminished accomplishments -- the ball barely traveled more than 310 feet down the right-field line at Pac Bell Park, and the Giants lost the game in extra innings.
But Snow was forever a lineup fixture. Playing in an infield that contained exactly one plus defender in his nine years with the franchise (Bill Mueller, 1997-2000), Snow helped keep low-strikeout pitchers like Kirk Reuter, Mark Gardner, and Livan Hernandez from the kinds of seasons FIP suggests they deserved. He was a necessary figure on a team that never had a particularly impressive defense.
Snow followed up his ‘95 Gold Glove with five more in a row -- and probably would have won more if his offense had kept his name in the news -- cementing his legacy as one of the best defensive first basemen of all time. But with his bat forever a work in progress, he never seemed to fit in with the monstrous peers like McGwire, Bagwell, and Vaughn. On a team like the Giants, he played a role more commonly associated with a shortstop or center fielder. His defense defined him; his hitting more like a bonus.
As we get farther away from Snow’s career, he’ll likely fade into obscurity as his numbers look more pedestrian and his defense becomes quantified rather than described. But he was an important figure of the era, if only because he stood in such stark contrast to what we expect from a first basemen in the field. Where most teams desire only adequacy, he raised the ideal to new heights.
09 May 2011, by Eric
Jonah Keri, the author of The Extra 2%, is America's foremost Montreal Expos nostalgist, a Tim Raines for Hall of Fame advocate, and an excellent podcaster. Keri selected Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell as the quintessential first basemen of the 1990s.
Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas were born on the same day: May 27, 1968. They put up preposterous numbers. Not Barry Bonds, "73"-type numbers, but still very large ones, for many years. In any other generation, they would be shoo-ins for Hall of Fame induction. More than just Hall of Fame recognition, they would be recognized the way all-time greats are. Better than Willie McCovey, not quite Jimmie Foxx. That's the kind of company they would be keeping.
But because of the era in which they played, that recognition could take a while, far longer than is fair or reasonable. Bagwell has already been denied first-ballot entry into the Hall. He's supposed to be a good bet to make it on his second try, but that's no sure thing. Thomas, who lacked Bagwell's defensive and baserunning skill, and thus gets pegged even more aggressively as a big, hulking slugger in an era where that's somehow not a good thing, could face an even tougher road into Cooperstown. Even after both eventually get their plaques, they'll be forgotten soon enough, just two more home run hitters in an era where Brady Anderson and Luis Gonzalez went off for vintage Gehrig and Aaron seasons.
I have my issues with denying Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and Sosa their rightful place in history, and in our collective imagination. But the Steroids Era’s lingering legacy is guilt by association.
Few players will suffer more for it than Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas.