Who is the best percentage player in the history of baseball? Whitey Herzog once said that he liked fast players because speed was the only thing in baseball that could be used both on offense and defense. Mulling this over, I realized that there were "speed indicators" all over a player's batting, baserunning, and fielding records, and that, if one studied the record with that object, one could assess any player's running speed by distilling the pure speed from its impure measures - triples, stolen bases, GIDP [or Ground Into Double Play], defensive range, and runs scored as a percentage of times on base.
But re-thinking the issue a year or two later, I realized that Herzog's statement is not literally true; speed is not the only thing which is useful both on offense and defense. A player has a second attribute which is useful either on offense or on defense: intelligence. In the same way that we can find a player's speed, I wondered, could we figure his "Baseball IQ" by looking at all of the things in a player's record that might indicate intelligence?
The problem with this theory is that intelligence is so generalized that it might be reflected everywhere in the player's record, rather than anywhere; anything a player does well might be expanded by intelligence or limited by stupidity. One could be driven toward the conclusion that the most intelligent players are the best players, and the dumbest players are the worst players - a conclusion which is only half true, and useless when it happens to be correct.
I decided (a) to call the resulting category "Percentage Player Index," rather than "Baseball IQ," and (b) to use four indicators of how good a percentage player someone is.
The four indicators that make up percentage player index are:
2. The player's stolen base percentage (30%).
3. The player's strikeout to walk ratio (30%).
4. The player's walk frequency in absolute terms, rather than compared to strikeouts (10%).
The best percentage player in baseball history, I concluded, was Joe Morgan.
--- Joe Morgan had a career fielding percentage of .981, as opposed to a norm for second basemen of his time of .977; I score that at .587 on the 30-percent scale.
--- Morgan stole 689 bases in his career, with only 162 times caught stealing, one of the best stolen base percentages in baseball history. I score this .801 on that 30-percent scale.
--- Morgan drew 1,865 walks in his career, with 1,015 strikeouts; I score that at .612 on that 30-percent scale.
--- Morgan's rate of walks per plate appearances is the sixteenth-best in baseball history, 1,865 walks with 9,277 at bats. I score that at .768 on the 10-percent scale.
Combining these factors, Morgan's overall rating as a percentage player is .677, the highest in baseball history for any player for whom complete data is available.
One problem here is that the National League didn't record caught stealing until 1951, so a lot of players (most players, in fact) are excluded from consideration. Eddie Collins might well have been as good a percentage player as Morgan, but we can't know because we don't have caught stealing for about half of his career, and we don't even have strikeouts for the first seven years of his career.
Elsewhere in the the Abstract, Bill James lists the best players (year by year) for the decade of the 1970s:
1971 Joe Torre
1972 Dick Allen
1973 Joe Morgan
1974 Joe Morgan
1975 Joe Morgan
1976 Joe Morgan
1977 Rod Carew
1978 Dave Parker
1979 Fred Lynn
In a section of the Abstract wherein Bill James ranks the five best consecutive seasons, all-time, for players as an element of his overall Win Shares methodology for ranking players he lists:
2) Babe Ruth 1920-1924
3) Ted Williams 1941-1948 (war years interrupted)
4) Walter Johnson 1912-1916
5) Mickey Mantle 1954-1958
6) Ty Cobb 1907-1911
7) Tris Speaker 1912-1916
8) Willie Mays 1962-1966
9) Joe Morgan 1972-1976
10 tie) Eddie Collins 1911-1915
10 tie) Stan Musial 1944-1949
In a later section of the Abstract regarding the Win Shares system;
Leadership or Disruptive Behavior
Leadership is only obliquely measured by the Win Shares system, but real and sometimes significant nonetheless. Players who are on-field and clubhouse leaders of outstanding teams, like DiMaggio, Ken Boyer, Bob Gibson, Carlton Fisk, George Brett, Hal McRae, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan - those players should be given credit for that, in evaluating their overall contribution to the team.
In ranking the 100 Greatest Players of All-Time, Bill James lists Joe Morgan as the 15th greatest-ever baseball player:
2) Honus Wagner
3) Willie Mays
4) Oscar Charleston
5) Ty Cobb
6) Mickey Mantle
7) Ted Williams
8) Walter Johnson
9) Josh Gibson
10) Stan Musial
11) Tris Speaker
12) Henry Aaron
13) Joe DiMaggio
14) Lou Gehrig
15) Joe Morgan
In addressing this 15th-greatest ranking, Bill James wrote:
Rating Joe Morgan, I have him higher than anybody else does, although everybody rates him in the Top 60, and most people in the top half of that. Joe Morgan in 1976 hit .320, and led the National League in on-base percentage (.444), slugging percentage (.576), stolen base percentage (60 of 69), sacrifice flies (12), and fewest GIDP (2). He won the Gold Glove as the league's best defensive second baseman. It seems to me that season, as a package, is the equal of anything ever done by Lou Gehrig or Jimmie Foxx or Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial. It wasn't even his best season; his best season was 1975. He had three other seasons as good as 1976.
Morgan had a career batting average of .271. How can I rate a .271 hitter ahead of Rogers Hornsby? If you count his walks and stolen bases, Morgan accounted for 6,516 career bases, leading to 1,650 runs scored. Hornsby accounted for 5,885 bases, leading to 1,579 runs scored. Hornsby played in a league where teams scored 4.43 runs per game; Morgan, an average of 4.11. Hornsby was an average fielder and a jackass; Morgan was a good glove and a team leader. Maybe you know the statistics better than I do, but my reading of the numbers puts Morgan ahead, and I don't see any subjective reason to reject the numbers, and go with Hornsby. I know a lot of people will never be able to get past the batting average, but I think Joe Morgan was a genuinely great player.
On a personal note, growing up as a T-Ball star in southwest Ohio in the 1970s in a family that was baseball-centric, the first thing outside the home that I became aware of being truly great and also that I became fanatical about - before Legos and Star Wars and horse racing and The Who and Rush - was the Big Red Machine. Bench, Rose, Morgan & Perez (and Sparky, too). That was an era when even the most die-hard fan of a baseball team likely did not have any Reds gear in the wardrobe. The next time you see highlights from the 1990 World Series, scan the crowd and note how few fans are wearing anything red, let alone any Reds-branded gear. You'll see scant few wearing red and a distinct minority wearing a Reds ballcap. Look back at crowd scenes of Riverfront Stadium in the 1970s and you'll discover the same conditions. As recently as 30 years ago (only a historian can get away with describing events of 30 years ago as "recent") Reds fans just did not sport much Reds gear. Walking into Great American Ball Park on Opening Day 2019 and you would have been hard pressed to find anyone in attendance not wearing a Reds ballcap, a Reds t-shirt or a Reds jersey and likely all of the preceding at once.
Back in the mid-1970s I did have a Reds ballcap. It wasn't an adult-sized cap that looked funny on a little kid, it was a small ballcap for a small tyke. I wore it a lot. And it could have been a hand-me-down from big brother Lou. Lou and I also had matching Reds rain jackets that were a 1970s ballpark giveaway (I still have them!). Popular in the 1970s, for kids, were t-shirts with iron-on graphics. I suppose iron-ons were an inexpensive, safer, more risk-conscious way for marketing departments to increase product visibility without wading into the then-uncertain world of brand-marketing fashion and - particularly - manufacturing. I can still remember going into Grant City and Mom buying Cincinnati Reds branded iron-on packs. Within the hour - because I couldn't wait! - I had two, count 'em two, Reds iron-on t-shirts; both featured the Reds wishbone "C" logo on the front, just like the Reds home jersey, and one shirt had on the back "ROSE 14" and the other shirt had "MORGAN 8."
Hail and Farewell, Little Joe!
