I don't talk about it frequently here but I am a huge baseball fan, huge. I have been fascinated by the statistics since my father brought home my first pack of baseball cards in 1973 when I was 7. I played a little bit when I was younger, been to quite a few parks over the years and every summer I get the MLB extra innings package from Directv.
One of the great things about being a fan of the game and the history of the game is debating what players were the best at this position or that position, greatest all time teams, anything like that is a ton of fun for me. I could go on and on.
As a child of the 70's, a favorite player of mine, along with just about every kid from that decade was Joe Morgan. He was a hall of famer, won two MVP awards and won two world series but I think what made him so popular, aside from being the best 2nd baseman of the 1970's was that he wasn't that much bigger than us as kids, I blew past his 5'7" in 7th grade, and the way he jerked his elbow before each pitch as a mechanism to make sure he had his proper stance.
Earlier this week someone posted their all-time first team and second team. I clicked through of course figuring I'd disagree with a few things. Johnny Bench was the first team catcher and Josh Gibson was the second team catcher. Was Bench better than Yogi Berra or Roy Campanella? I can't say for sure either way but that's a brutally tough choice and my favorite player from when I was a kid, Carlton Fisk, as much as it pains me to admit, is probably just outside that inner circle of Bench, Gibson, Berra and Campy and you'll find some people who think Mickey Cochrane is the best catcher of all time which is a head scratcher.
There'd be no such debate at 2nd base though. Morgan might be first but if not, definitely he'd be on the second team. He wasn't. How could this be? The second team 2nd baseman was Eddie Collins. Heard the name, knew nothing about him. A quick look at the numbers for Collins and sure enough, they are much better than Morgan's and keep in mind, Morgan's numbers are great. Morgan's average WAR per 162 was 6.1 which is outstanding. But Collins WAR per 162 was 7.1. Collins was a career .333 hitter which is 62 points higher than Morgan. Collins had 800 more hits than Morgan playing just three years longer than Morgan. Collins had more RBIs too. I often look and how many seasons a player's WAR was above 5 but for this comparison let's go with 6. Morgan had five such seasons while Collins had 10 including five years with a single season WAR above 9.
Setting aside the potential flaw of comparing players from different eras due to it being a counterfactual, Collins was clearly better in my opinion. Morgan=great, Collins=greater. And the top 2nd baseman of all time, Rogers Hornsby. How good was Hornsby? Career .358 hitter, WAR per 162 was 9.1 including eight seasons above 9 and a ninth season at 8.9. In really only 15 seasons as a full time player he had 2930 hits including seven seasons with more than 200 hits. The numbers are mind boggling. He was miles ahead of Collins who was miles ahead of Morgan.
Thinking Morgan might the be best 2nd baseman of all time, as truly great as he was, is simply not evident in the numbers, not even close. Maybe I should have realized this long before now but when faced with overwhelming evidence, I changed my mind.
This post isn't actually about baseball.
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