In Honor of Mo Rivera: The All Time Single Team All-Stars

The retirement of Mariano Rivera has prompted me to think of an All-Star team--actually a first team and a second team-- made up of stars who played their entire careers for a single team. This might represent loyalty of a player to his team, loyalty of the team to its player, or sheer chance, but there seems to be something special in the minds of fans about this mutual commitment. Let's start with the position of Closer, clearly headed by the great cut-fastball master, Mariano Rivera. All stats are from the leader boards of baseball-reference.com. For obvious reasons, active players have been left off the list.

First Team: Closer
Mariano Rivera: Yankees, 652 SVs (1st all-time)

Second Team: Closer
Bob Stanley: Red Sox, 132 SVs (tied for 90th overall in saves)

What astonished me about the drop from first team to second team was the extraordinary fall-off from Mariano's 652 saves to Stanley's 132. This suggests that Closers have generally been regarded as hired guns who move from team to team, far more than is true for players at any other position. This makes the mutual loyalty of the Yanks and Mo even more remarkable. I may have missed somebody along the way, but my own rather intensive checking brought me down from Rivera to Stanley. I'd welcome it if anyone can remind me another closer who bridges the gap.

Now let's move to first team position players. I started with Wins Above Replacement as an intial guide and finally found no reason to override those results. I've included a DH because all four OFs seemed worthy of inclusion on the first team. Keep in mind that many all-time great position players who we associate with a specific team, such as Wagner, Cobb, Aaron, and Mays, began or ended their careers with some other club.

FIRST TEAM, Position Players
C - Bench - 75.2 WAR (Reds) 2 MVP
1B - Gehrig - 112.5 (Yankees) 2 MVP
2B - Gehringer -76.6 (Tigers) 1 MVP
3B - Schmidt - 106.5 (Phillies) 3 MVP
SS - Ripken - 95.6 (Orioles) 2 MVP
LF - Musial - 128.0 (Cardinals) 3 MVP
CF - Mantle - 109.7 (Yankees) 3 MVP
RF - Mel Ott - 107.9 (Giants) 0 MVP
DH -Ted Williams - 123.2 (Red Sox) 2 MVP

I wouldn't mind trying to win a championship with this team. Any comments, arguments, etc. about the makeup of the team would be most welcome. I'd like to stimulate discussion on a board that has been rather quiet. I'll move on to an new page for the second team.

Now, here are the second team position players. One player on this club is very close to the first team player in WAR ranking (i.e. Whitaker and Gehringer, which may be a surprise to some), but in general there's a significant gap between first team and second team. Still, I certainly wouldn't mind shooting for a pennant with this team.

SECOND TEAM, Position Players
C - Berra - 59.3 WAR (Yankees) 3 MVP
1B - Bagwell - 79.5 (Astros) 1 MVP
2B - Whitaker - 74.8 (Tigers) 0 MVP
3B - Brett - 88.4 (Royals) 1 MVP
SS - Yount - 77.1 (Brewers) 2 MVP
LF - Yastrzemski - 96.0 (Red Sox) 1 MVP
CF - Dimaggio - 78.2 (Yankees) 3 MVP
RF - Clemente - 94.3 (Pirates) 1 MVP
DH - Kaline - 92.6 (Tigers) 0 MVP

Note the closeness in WAR scores of Clemente and Kaline. This again might come as a suprise to some. Another reason for the DH was to put both playrs on this team.

Next we have starting pitchers. Please remember that here too, some of the all time greats associated with a single team, such as Matthewson, Spahn, Marichal, and Phil Niekro, ended their careers with other clubs.

FIRST TEAM: Starting Pitchers
SP W. Johnson 152.3 WAR (Senators) 2 MVP
SP Gibson 81.9 (Cardinals) 1 MVP, 2 CY
SP Palmer Jim 68.1 (Orioles) 3 CY
SP Hubbell 67.8 (Giants) 2 MVP
SP Ted Lyons 67.2 (White Sox)

Here again, note the steep drop off between Walter Johnson and the #2 pitcher. Gibson has just over half the WAR value of the Big Train, and by the time we get to Lyons, we're way under half. Partly, this is a tribute to just how dominant Johnson actually was. Again, if I've missed somebody, please remind me.

SECOND TEAM, Starting Pitchers
SP Bob Feller 65.2 WAR (Indians)
SP Don Drysdale 61.2 (Dodgers) 1 CY
SP Whitey Ford 53.9 (Yankees) 1 CY
SP Koufax 53.2 (Dodgers) 1 MVP, 3 CY
SP Joss 45.9 (Indians)

A confession. I started out with 4 man starting rotations, but that would have meant leaving either Ford or Koufax off the second team, and I couldn't bring myself to do that. Eddie Rommel (50.4) actually qualfies in terms of WAR for the #5 spot but I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for him, so I broke my WAR pattern by going for Addie Joss, who was clearly a better pitcher than Rommel, but whose career was cut tragically short by a fatal illness. Lefty Gomez, Mel Harder,Guidry, and Rucker are all in a tight WAR cluster, a few are above Joss in WAR, and a case could be made for each of them, but to me Addie seemed the most compelling choice.

So there you have it, my All-Time Single Team All-Stars. Any comments, disagreements, or corrections of fact would be most welcome.

Yount at short? Almost half of his WAR is from CF. Jeter, maybe? Or Appling? Or Larkin or Trammell?

Bill

I am not sure about WAR but I would take Ernie "Bingo" Banks over Ripken or Yount

Berra played in 4 games for the Mets at age 40. While it had no effect on his career value, it would (technically) make him ineligible for this list. Not sure who the next best alternative would be - perhaps Joe Mauer or Bill Dickey. Hartnett had a similar problem, as he played 60 games for the Giants in his final season.

For the second team, instead of going by straight WAR, I'd suggest subbing in Chipper Jones at DH - some of Kaline's value came from defense, and that would be wasted by putting him at DH.

While Stanley had a few more saves, I'd take John Hiller over him. Craig Kimbrel, in 3+ seasons, already has more saves than Stanley, but he's only pitched 227 regular-season innings in his carer, so it's a little premature to add him on a team like this.

I agree about Banks over Trammell, but maybe not over Ripken. Also, though his WAR may not warrant it, I certainly would take Tony Gwynn over Kaline or Clemente. And I'm not sure about ranking Mantle over DiMaggio (except maybe in Strat drafts!).

What astonished me about the drop from first team to second team was the extraordinary fall-off from Mariano's 652 saves to Stanley's 132. This suggests that Closers have generally been regarded as hired guns who move from team to team.

It also suggests that there was no closer position until after the players could become free agents.

Thanks for all of the excellent responses. Here are a few of my own thoughts, which are not meant to be definitive but simply to represent my own opinions at this stage:

1. I forgot about Berra's 4 games with the Mets. That would definitely rule Yogi out. Mauer can't be used because he is still active (and an active player might move to another team before he retires.) So I would tend to replace Berra with Dickey.

2. I like the suggestion of Hiller over Stanley. Stanley had a few more saves, but Hiller was really a MUCH better pitcher.

3. Jeter can't be on the team, at least according to the rules I've laid out, because he's still active. If he retires a Yankee, he'll take over the top spot from Ripken. Jeter retiring a Yankee seems like a 99.9% probability, but we can't presume he's a 1 team player until he stops playing, or so it seems to me.

4. To my way of thinking, it's not a critical problem that Yount moved from SS to CF after his first ten seasons. I thought of the Single Team All-Stars as a way of honoring longevity and excellence on a team—Musial moved all over the OF and 1B, but that doesn't invalidate him as a LF All-Star. And Yount certainly established himself as a force at SS before switching positions. Comparing Banks and Yount, both made mid-career position switchs, but Banks moved to 1B, not CF. I'd say, advantage Yount. Plus Yount's stretch as an outstanding player was several seasons longer than Ernie's. Banks's peak may have been higher, but both won 2 MVPs. Still, I can definitely see the case for Banks. Appling also deserves honorable mention. In fact, Yount, Banks, and Appling are very close, and any one of them would be a worthy choice. I'd stick with Ripken in the #1 spot until Jeter retires, however.

5. Chipper Jones at DH is an interesting idea. I partly wanted to showcase the closeness of Kaline and Clemente, but purely as a hitter, Chipper would probably get the nod.

6. IMHO, Mantle deserves first place in CF over Dimag. Those Strat drafts are telling us something. Mantle's 1956 and 1961 seasons were truly awesome--almost off the charts, and 1957 was just as good. Dimag's best seasons never quite matched Mickey's best seasons. Dimag's highest seasonal WARs were 9.1, 8.2, 8.1, and 7.3. For the Mick it was 11.3, 11.3. 10.5 and 9.5. That's a big difference. Plus, not only was the Mick's peak much higher but his career was significantly long.

I'm tempted to make some changes to the team but will leave it in its original form in the opening posts so others can read the responses to the original team and voice their points of view. Maybe later I'll post a revised team down the thread.

What astonished me about the drop from first team to second team was the extraordinary fall-off from Mariano's 652 saves to Stanley's 132. This suggests that Closers have generally been regarded as hired guns who move from team to team.

It also suggests that there was no closer position until after the players could become free agents.

Very true, but if you go with a different stat such as Games Finished—which would tend to encompass both Closers and various earlier versions of the Relief Ace—the results are much the same. Rivera leads the all time Game Finished list with 952 GF. Unless I'm missing somebody, the next guy on the list who played for a single team is our old friend Bob Stanley with 376 GF (a drop of nearly 600 GF). This time Stanley ranks 71st instead of 90th, but the basic implication--that relief aces tend to move around a lot—remains pretty much unchanged. BTW, John Hiller is right behind Stanley on the GF list with 363.

Hoyt Wilhelm was probably the greatest relief ace of the pre-closer era. He holds the record for most relief innings pitched (1,872), and he was an amazing presence out of the bullpen. (I'm old enough to remember Hoyt in his prime, when he was a youngster of 40 to 45 years old and maintained a composite ERA of 1.92 during that period.) But while Wilhelm's career predates free agency, he pitched for 9 different teams. The pattern seems to go back a long way back.

WAR is a flawed concept. If one did not have enough evidence against it already seeing it put Koufax on second team here would be sufficient.