Actually, upsets in the World Series aren’t
that unusual. It just takes a certain kind of upset to make headlines that
suggest that the current WS champion is one of the worst ever. In most cases,
it’s a team with very little hitting prowess that gets really good pitching,
and rides same all the way to the title. And, in extreme cases of the poseur, in
cases where a WS winner should bow down and say, “we’re not worthy,”
it’s a team of, to be polite, generally undistinguished talent that somehow
sneaks into, and off with, the World Series.
It is still possible that Pablo Sandoval will
become a great hitter. And that Buster (Pocket Full of) Posey will become one of
the great catchers of all time. Or that Pat Burrell will be one of those
sluggers that lasts as a force until he’s 40. Or Aubrey Huff experiences a
late-in-career renaissance. Or that Cody Ross is really a great clutch hitter in
the postseason. Or that Freddy Sanchez will get 1000 hits in the next five years
and end up with another batting title or two (now we’re really starting to
stretch). But don’t count on it, because all but the first two scenarios are
highly unlikely, and they’d all pretty much have to happen for anyone, 20
years from now, to look back and say, “that 2001 Giants team REALLY was
loaded.”
No one who knows anything has ever said that
about the 1969 Mets, the poseur poster child of World Series winners. The Mets
were, quite simply, a terrible team that took advantage of tremendous pitching
and a hot streak late in the season. Put it this way, absent the Tom Seaver-led
pitching staff (and certainly no one can deny that Seaver was a great pitcher),
the ’69 Mets’ best player over the course of his entire career was
probably… wait for it… Donn Clendenon, who couldn’t even spell his first
name correctly, and who didn’t even spend the entire year in
New York
(he came over from the Expos in a trade and only had 202 ABs with the Mets.)
Number two was Amos Otis – a fine all-around ballplayer to be sure, but one
who, as a rookie with the 1969 Mets, had 93 at bats and hit .151/.202/.204 –
that’s right, a .406 OPS.
Herewith are the 1969 Mets who made more than
100 plate appearances with the 1969 Mets, starting with the regulars…
69 OPS+ Career OPS+
Jerry Grote
84
83
Ed Kranepool
87
97
Ken Boswell
103
85
Bud Harrelson
81
76
Wayne Garrett
56
95
Cleon Jones
151
110
Tommy Agee
122
109
Ron Swoboda
91
101
Art Shamsky
139
110
Al Weis
53
59
Rod Gaspar
66
55
Donn Clendenon
114
116
Bob Pfeil
49
63
J.C. Martin
59
73
Ed Charles
68
103
Amos Otis
13
114
To coin a phrase… what a bunch of stumblebums. And it wasn’t even a case
of a bunch of normally lousy hitters having good years all at once. Only
Boswell, Jones, Agee and Shamsky had years significantly better than their
career norms, with Jones and Shamsky having huge fluke career years. And,
offsetting that were such absolute clunkers as Garrett, Weis, Gaspar, Pfeil and
Martin – all of whom had bad years amongst largely undistinguished and short
careers.
The 1969 Mets finished, out of 12 teams in the National League,
Seventh in batting average
Eighth in hits
Eighth in home runs
Eighth in stolen bases
Ninth in runs
Tenth in on base percentage
Eleventh in doubles
Eleventh in slugging percentage
Eleventh in OPS
On the other hand, there was the pitching staff
W-L ERA+
Tom Seaver
25-7 165
Jerry Koosman
17-9
160
Gary
Gentry
13-12 106
Don Cardwell
8-10 121
Jim McAndrew
6-7
105
And the bullpen was almost as good.
W-L SV ERA+
Frank Edwin McGraw
9-3 12
163
Ron Taylor
9-4 13
134
Nolan Ryan
6-3 1
104
Cal Koonce
6-3 7
73
Jack DiLauro
1-4 1
152
Now maybe Don Cardwell, Cal Koonce and Jack DiLauro weren’t names to strike
fear in hitters’ hearts, but any staff with Seaver, Koosman, Ryan and McGraw
(two no-questions-asked Hall of Famers, and two stars) doesn’t have anything
to apologize for. The Mets’ 1969 pitchers were first in shutouts and hits
allowed, second in ERA and runs allowed, third in saves and fourth in
strikeouts. Maybe the hitters should have apologized for taking the same bus to
all their away games.
The 2010 Giants’ story isn’t quite as extreme, and can’t even be
completely written, since most of these guys will be playing somewhere next
year. But, it still wasn’t a lineup that featured a single hitter that a good
pitcher should normally be afraid of, to say nothing of any realistically
potential Hall of Famers…
10OPS+ Career OPS+
Buster Posey
129
rookie year
Aubrey Huff
138
115
Freddie Sanchez
98
97
Juan Uribe
99
85
Pablo Sandoval
95
120
Andres Torres
119
100
Pat Burrell
132
116
Aaron Rowand
75
100
Nate Schierholtz
81
87
Edgar Renteria
90
94
Bengie Molina
74
86
Travis Ishikawa
91
91
Eli Whiteside
86
70
Jose Guillen
85
99
Mark DeRosa
46
96
Cody Ross
118
104
To coin a phrase… what a bunch of mediocrities. Their best hitters in the
regular season were either rookies (Posey), guys having career years (Huff,
Torres), or guys who only spent part of the season in SF (Burrell, Ross). The
bench was terrible and only two regulars throughout the entire season (Huff and
Torres) had good years. (Recalling that Posey didn’t come up from the minors
until after Molina, another stiff who can’t hit, was shipped off to, of all
places,
Texas
.)
Even with the late-season additions of Burrell, Guillen and Ross, the 2010
Giants finished, out of 16 teams in the NL,
Ninth in runs
Ninth in doubles
Ninth in on base percentage
Thirteenth in walks
Fifteenth in stolen bases
On the other hand, the pitching was,
First in ERA
First in saves
First in hits allowed
First in strikeouts
Second in runs allowed
Third in home runs allowed
W-L ERA+
Tim Lincecum
16-10 119
Matt Cain
13-11 130
Jonathan Sanchez 13-9
133
Mason Bumgarner 7-6
136
Barry Zito
9-14 98
W-L SV ERA+
Brian Wilson
3-3 48
226
Sergio Romo
5-3 0
188
Santiago
Casilla 7-2
2 210
Guillermo Mota
1-3 1
94
Jeremy Affeldt
4-3 4
99
Everyone Else
11-0 2
The 1906 White Sox and the 1914 Boston Braves also fit this mold. Without
going into excruciating detail, it’s worth noting that the 1906 Sox were
eighth, or last, in the American League in hits, home runs, batting average,
slugging and total bases – although they did finish third in runs scored,
because they played small ball so well. (They were also second in ERA and first
in runs allowed.)
This was also a largely undistinguished team of sub-100 career OPS+ batters.
(In fact, a lot of them were sub-90.) Outside of future Hall of Famer George Davis, the only hitters worthy of the name over their careers were
player/manager Fielder Jones (and that was his real name) and fourth outfielder
Patsy Dougherty.
The 1914 Braves actually weren’t outstanding in either hitting or pitching
over the course of the season. They just got hot in the second half of a season
wherein the National League was pretty well-balanced in the first half of the
year. Plus, the three aces of their staff, Dick Rudolph, Bill James (who had a
very short career – the other two had sort of average careers) and Lefty Tyler
had, what were up to that point, career years and the two best players in the
field, Rabbit Maranville and Johnny Evers, while they were both later elected to
the Hall of Fame, were both mistakes by the Veterans Committee, and essentially
good field, no hit players.
More recently, this same poseur case could be made for the 1987 Twins and the
2006 Cardinals, except that the Twins would also win the 1991 Series and the
Cardinals had previously won more than 100 games in both 2004 and 2005… so
they were both pretty decent teams that really just won it all with mediocre
season records.
You can’t say that for the Giants, and, unless there’s some huge influx
of hitting talent in the off-season, you won’t be able to even say that the
Giants are repeat National League champions in 2011. Even with a fine pitching
staff, they’re poseurs.