The Hall of Fame Case for Ron Santo (Part 1 of 3)

On Monday December 8th, the Baseball
Hall of Fame will announce
the voting results of the Veterans Committee.  In a three part series, guest columnist and reader, “Dying Cub Fan”
takes a look at the candidacy of former Cubs third basemen, Ron
Santo. We ran this piece two years ago, but it's lost in Internet limbo and well, Santo deserves it, so we're running it again. Plus, the voting process has changed this year, as there are only 10 players for the committee to consider, so here's hoping this is the year.

“Red
Sox Nation: In your opinion, who’s the best player not in the
HOF?
Bill James: Ron Santo”

10/27/04
Interview with Bill James on RedSoxNation.Net,
¹
http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11048

Ron
Santo has a meritorious case for election to the
Baseball Hall of Fame. There are currently thirteen third basemen²
in the Hall of Fame: Frank
“Home Run” Baker, Wade
Boggs, George
Brett, Jimmy
Collins, Ray
Dandridge, Judy
Johnson, George
Kell, Freddy
Lindstrom, Eddie
Mathews, Brooks
Robinson, Mike
Schmidt, Pie
Traynor and Jud
Wilson (who was inducted in 2006). When compared to
the ten major league third basemen currently in the Hall of Fame
(leaving aside, for purposes of this discussion, the three Negro
League players, Johnson, Dandridge and Wilson), Santo’s offensive
numbers fit squarely in the middle of that group. The offensive
numbers demonstrate that Santo was better than five of the major
league third basemen currently in the Hall of Fame. The numbers
indicate that Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, Baker and Boggs (in roughly
that order) were better than Santo. Santo has a clear edge on
everyone else.

During his
career Ron Santo was a nine-time All-Star. He finished in the top
ten in MVP voting four times. He had the fifth highest RBI total of
all major league players during the 1960s (topped only by Willie
Mays, Hank
Aaron, Harmon
Killebrew and Frank
Robinson). During that period no player in the
National League drew more walks. ³ He won five
consecutive Gold Gloves at third base, and led NL third basemen in
putouts, assists, chances and double plays in many seasons. He was
among the league leaders in on base percentage and slugging
percentage throughout the 1960s; he finished in the top 10 in both
categories in his league in every season from 1964 through 1967. He
hit more home runs in his career than any third baseman currently in
the Hall of Fame other than Mike Schmidt and Eddie Mathews. He
combined power and defense to a degree that was unprecedented for
third basemen. He coupled that with an ability to draw walks that
added value in a manner that has often gone unappreciated.

In his 2001
Historical Baseball Abstract Bill James ranked Santo as the 6th best
third baseman of all time; he ranked Robinson 7th. He ranked Traynor
as the 15th best third baseman (behind Stan
Hack, Darrell
Evans, Sal
Bando, Ken
Boyer, Graig
Nettles and Al
Rosen), Collins 17th (after Ron
Cey), Kell 30th and Lindstrom 43rd.

Santo fits
squarely within the middle of the group of third basemen in the Hall
of Fame. Santo was arguably the best player at his position in the
major leagues for an extended period of time, a dominant hitter and a
great defender. He should be in the Hall of Fame.

Understanding
Context

One of the
difficult things in evaluating players is determining what statistics
mean in different eras. Yet understanding the context in which Santo
played is important to understanding how good he was, and
understanding what the game was like during the time Collins played,
or when Lindstrom or Traynor played, is important to understanding
what their numbers mean. Santo never hit .379 like Lindstrom did in
1930, or .366 like Traynor did that same year. In what was an
off-year for him, he hit .246 in 1968, the “Year of the Pitcher,”
with 26 homers (6th in the league) and 98 rbi (2nd) when the league
batting average was .243, the average team scored 3.43 runs a game
and the league ERA was 2.98. In 1930, the league batting average in
the NL was .303, the average team scored 5.68 runs per game and the
league ERA was 4.97. In 1930, Bill
Terry hit .401, Babe
Herman hit .393, Chuck
Klein hit .386 and Lefty
O’Doul hit .383;⁴ Lindstrom’s high
batting average that year was fifth in the league, Traynor’s ninth.
In 1930, the New York Giants’ team batting average was .319; the
Cubs had a team on base percentage of .378 and a team slugging
percentage of .481. The 106 rbi that Lindstrom had in 1930 did not
rank in the top ten in the league that year; Traynor’s 119 rbi that
year were 8th in the league. In Lindstrom’s other big year, 1928,
the average team scored 4.70 runs per game, the league batting
average was .281 and the league ERA was 3.99. In 1967, the NL
batting average was .249, the average team scored 3.84 runs per game
and the league ERA was 3.38. Santo hit .300 with 31 homers (3rd in
the league) and 98 rbi (7th) that year. Santo and Lindstrom finished
in the top ten in batting average the same number of times, three.
Traynor, Lindstrom and Collins all played before the color line was
broken. Traynor, Lindstrom and Collins did not have to face Koufax,
Drysdale, Marichal, Gibson, et al. in the mid-to-late sixties, or
contend with night baseball. Santo did.

In January 1963,
the strike zone was expanded by rule. After 1968, a year in which
the American League batting champion hit .301, rule changes were
instituted lowering the height of the mound from fifteen inches to
ten and reverting the strike zone to its 1962 dimensions. In the
2001 Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James described the
1963 strike zone change in this way:

The effect of this redefinition was dramatic. The action was taken .
. . because there was a feeling that runs (and in particular home
runs) had become too cheap. Roger Maris’ breaking Babe Ruth’s
single-season home run record contributed to that feeling. The
thinking was that, by giving the pitchers a few inches at the top and
bottom of the strike zone, they could whittle the offense down just a
little bit.

The action cut deeper than anticipated. Home run output in 1963
dropped by ten percent, and total runs dropped by 12%, from 4.5 per
game to 3.9. Batting averages dropped by twelve points. Baseball’s
second dead ball era had begun. (2001 Historical Baseball
Abstract, p. 249)

James has also
noted that some teams (the most notable example being the Dodgers)
took advantage of the fact that mound height was not closely
regulated during the ’60s to build mounds even higher than the
fifteen inches the rules then permitted, giving power pitchers even
more of an advantage. Santo’s best years coincided exactly with
this period.⁵

One of the best
ways of trying to assess the historical context of a player’s
numbers is to examine that player’s performance relative to his
contemporaries. Of readily available statistics, the OPS+ stat does
this pretty well. The correlation of OPS (compiled by adding a
player’s on base percentage to his slugging percentage) to a
player’s ability to produce runs has been well demonstrated. OPS+
measures a player relative to the OPS league average on a scale based
on 100. A 100 OPS+ in any year is the league average. When
evaluated in terms of OPS+, as will be shown below, Santo stands out.
Another way of evaluating historical context is by using Win Shares.
Here as well Santo stands out.

As will be shown
below, Santo had a much higher level of peak offensive performance
than every major league Hall of Fame third baseman other than
Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, Baker and Boggs. In this analysis, he is
very close to Baker and Boggs, however, closer to them than the third
basemen below him are to him. His career numbers stack up solidly in
the middle of all major league Hall of Fame third basemen as well.

Career
Statistics

Here are the
career offensive statistics for the ten major league Hall of Fame
third basemen (with Santo included) ranked by career OPS+:

Santo is behind
only Schmidt and Mathews in career home runs. He ranks behind
Schmidt, Mathews, Brett and Robinson in career RBI, but Brett and
Robinson each had nearly 2,000 more career at bats than Santo.

Peak
Value

Santo put up
more big years, relative to his contemporaries, than did Robinson,
Collins, Kell, Lindstrom or Traynor. What follows is an evaluation
of how Santo and the ten current major league third basemen in the
Hall of Fame performed offensively when compared to their
contemporaries, using the OPS+ statistic on a season-by-season basis.

Here are the ten
major league Hall of Fame third basemen (with Santo included) listing
number of seasons with an OPS+ over 110, 130 and 150 (or 10%, 30% and
50% better than league average):

As this table
shows, Santo had more big years, relative to his contemporaries, than
did Lindstrom, Collins, Traynor, Robinson or Kell. From 1964 though
1967, Santo’s numbers stacked up favorably with the very best
offensive players in the National League; at the same time he was
winning Gold Gloves at a key defensive position. During the ’60s,
Santo was third in the entire National League in RBI, with 937; the
only players with more were Aaron and Mays (Frank Robinson had more
as well, but he was traded to the AL after the 1965 season). Santo
was a dominant offensive player for a sustained period, something
that cannot be said of Lindstrom, Collins, Traynor, Robinson or Kell.
Robinson had one year when he performed at such a level (1964).

Kell, Traynor
and Lindstrom were similar players offensively: despite high batting
averages, none of them had much power and none of them walked very
much. Santo’s power and plate discipline give him a clear edge
over these three players.

The Bill James
Win Shares analysis supports the conclusion that Santo was a dominant
force in the ’60s, having at least 30 win shares in 4 consecutive
years (1964-1967). According to James, a 30 win share season is “in
general, an MVP-candidate season.” (2001 Historical Baseball
Abstract, p. 335). Santo never won an MVP, but a reasonable
argument can be made that he was the best player in his league in
several years, particularly in 1964 and 1966. Neither Traynor nor
Kell ever had a 30 win share season. Robinson, Collins and Lindstrom
each had one.

References

¹
Bill James has written several times on Santo’s merits for Hall of
Fame induction. See James, The Politics of Glory: How
Baseball’s Hall of Fame Really Works, Macmillan (1994) at
343-44; James, 2001 Historical Baseball Abstract, Free Press
(2001) at 541-42. For another piece supporting Santo, see
http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/neyer_rob/1514118.html.

²
See list at
http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/lists/pos&3B.htm.
There are fewer third basemen in the Hall of Fame than there are
players from any other position, even after giving effect to the
induction of four third basemen in the past ten years (three from the
major leagues and one, Jud Wilson, from the Negro Leagues).

³
Decade stats courtesy of
http://www.baseballimmortals.net/decades/decades.shtml.

⁴
Klein and O’Doul were teammates on the Phillies in 1930. Their
high batting averages helped the Phillies to a last place finish with
a 52-102 record. The Phillies scored 944 runs (over six runs per
game), but gave up an astronomical 1199 runs (nearly eight runs per
game).

⁵
For an interesting take on the large strike zone era, see
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/re-imagining-the-big-zone-sixties-part-1-1963-1965/;
and
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/re-imagining-the-big-zone-sixties-part-2-1966-1968/.