Alright, you don’t need to be a child of the 90′s OR have rooted for the Braves to know this. But my point is that when I was younger, I thought it was very cool that three teammates shared the same birthday, with Maddux and Justice being born in the same year. So for the past 20 or so years, I am reminded of this whenever I see 4/14 on the calendar. This year I decided to see if there are any other groups of teammates sharing the same date of birth and with similar success as the 90′s Braves trio.

It turns out there are only six different foursomes to have played together. Note that the 1924 Cardinals played together again in 1925, and the 1952 Dodgers also played together in 1950.

Two things jump out at me about this list. First, Roberto Hernandez was known as Fausto Carmona in 2007, and his birth date was 12/7/1983. This means that we didn’t know this team was a foursome until Hernandez’s real date of birth was discovered in January of 2012. Second, October 4th appears twice on the list. Even more incredible, Mark McLemore was a part of both foursomes. Not only was he versatile enough to play multiple positions, he was also able to make this list twice.

Maddux, Justice, and Avery didn’t make the previous list because they were unable to find a fourth player to join the team. Let’s take a look at players born on the same exact day (year included).

It turns out there has only been one team in history with three different players born on the same exact day. Since Talbot was traded to the Seattle Pilots in May, I even checked to see if the trio actually played together. Sure enough, they each played in the same game five different times.

As for pairs of teammates on the same team, there are 375 different instances in Baseball history. Instead of listing all of them, I’ll list those with combined WAR over 7.

Maddux and Justice were teammates from 1993-1996. In 1997, Justice was traded to the Indians, but that didn’t’ stop Maddux from finding another teammate. Catcher Greg Myers (also born on 4/14/66) would be a teammate of Maddux’s in 1997 and 1999, meaning the Braves were one year away from inclusion on the previous list.

Back in December, my wife gave birth to twins, one boy and one girl. We named our son “Mickey” after Mickey Mantle, my father’s boyhood hero. So naturally, I’ll start off with the All-Mickey Team.

Before searching, I knew of a number of “Mickeys” throughout Baseball history. But I wasn’t sure if there would be enough to assemble an entire roster. Sure enough, there have been 40 since 1871, and 26 with significant big league time.

Catchers (first and middle names)
Mickey Cochrane (Gordon Stanley)
Mickey Tettleton (Mickey Lee)
Mickey Owen (Arnold Malcolm)

Cochrane was named “Mickey” from the derogatory Irish term “Mick”, even though he was of Scottish descent. Interestingly, both Tettleton and Owen’s name were inspired by Cochrane. Tettleton was named after fellow Oklahoman Mickey Mantle, who was named after Cochrane. Mickey Owen was nicknamed “Mickey” when he first reached the Majors because he reminded his teammates of Cochrane.

First Base
Mickey Vernon (James Barton)
Mickey Rocco (Michael Dominick)

First Base is a strength for this team because of Vernon, especially since guys like Mantle and Tettleton also spent time at the position. Vernon gets all the playing time here since Rocco was essentially a WWII replacement player.

Second Base
Mickey Morandini (Michael Robert)
Mickey Witek (Nicholas Joseph)

Not a strength here. I would platoon the two with Morandini facing Righties and Witek vs Lefties. Witek would also be used as a utility infielder since he spent some time at 3B and SS.

Third Base
Mickey Klutts (Gene Ellis)

Easily the weakest position on the team. Klutts was never a full time player, amassing just an 85 OPS+ in 579 career PA’s. Outfielder Mickey Hatcher spent 125 career games at 3B, so he could see some time there. It looks like I’ll have to teach my son to play the “hot corner”, although that would contradict my plan on having him throw with his left hand.

Shortstop
Mickey Doolan (Michael Joseph)
Mickey Haslin (Michael Joseph)

Interestingly, both players have the same given first and middle names. Doolan had a weak bat, but was fantastic with the glove. Defensive Regression Analysis (DRA) has him leading the league in 4 separate seasons. Haslin would join Mickey Witek as more of a utility infielder. Outfielder Mickey Stanley could also spell Doolan, as he was the starting SS in the World Series for the 1968 Tigers.

Outfield
Mickey Mantle (Mickey Charles)
Mickey Rivers (John Milton)
Mickey Stanley (Mitchell Jack)
Mickey Hatcher (Michael Vaughn)
Mickey Brantley (Michael Charles)

The Outfield is full of Center Fiedlers, which would allow them to cover a lot of ground. I would keep Mantle in Center and put Rivers in Left and Stanley in Right (purely due to arm strength).

The Lineup
1. Mickey Rivers (L / LF)
2. Mickey Cochrane (L / C)
3. Mickey Mantle (B / CF)
4. Mickey Vernon (L / 1B)
5. Mickey Tettleton (B / DH)
6. Mickey Stanley (R / RF)
7. Mickey Morandini (L / 2B)
8. Mickey Klutts (R / 3B)
9. Mickey Doolan (R / SS)

Rotation
Mickey Welch (Michael Francis)
Mickey Lolich (Michael Stephen)
Mickey McDermott (Maurice Joseph)
Mickey Haefner (Milton Arnold)
Mickey Harris (Maurice Charles)

The rotation is full of southpaws, except for “Smiling Mickey” Welch, who would be the ace of the staff. Lolich is a formidable “number 2″ and the only other pitcher with more than 100 career victories. McDermott, Haefner, and Harris were all roughly league average pitchers, making a decent 3 through 5.

Bullpen
Mickey Scott (Ralph Robert)
Mickey Hughes (Michael J.)
Mickey Callaway (Michael Christopher)
Mickey Mahler (Michael James)
Mickey Storey (Mickey Charles)
Mickey Weston (Michael Lee)

The Bullpen is weak, so they’d have to hope their starters go as deep as possible. Storey, with the same given name as Mantle, is the lone active player on the team. Last year, he took this line drive off his head. He is currently in the Blue Jays organization.

Manager
Picking Cochrane as the manager would be an easy decision. In fact, Vernon is the only other manager in history with the name.

Overall, this is a pretty good team. Especially since it was essentially derived from a nickname, having only three players with actual given names of “Mickey”. Mantle, Cochrane, and Welch are the lone Hall of Famers.

Soon, I’ll be releasing more All-Name Teams as well as some other name-themed teams.

But this isn’t a book review. There have been plenty written, and probably much better than I could do. I wanted to bring up one small, mostly forgettable incident during his season with the Padres. In August of 2006, the Padres visited Shea in his first trip back to New York. This is an excerpt from that chapter….

Before the first game, the scoreboard guys played another video of me, to the tune of the Beatles song “In My Life,” which was nice but a little schmaltzy, and the fans did a singsongy “Mike Pee-OTS-a” cheer when I got to the on-deck circle for the first time, which was also nice and not too schmaltzy. Then the Mets swiped four bases on me and beat us, 3–2. The next night, I threw out Endy Chavez trying to steal second in the second inning and he immediately jumped all over the umpire, as though there was no conceivable way the call could be right. His body language said, “What the hell? Are you kidding me?” I’m thinking, come on, I can’t throw anybody out? Get the fuck off the field.

Nothing too important. He’s just defending his throwing arm, which was pretty bad in his final year behind the plate. But since the internet is a wonderful thing, and mlb.com has released a bunch of old clips, I decided to see if I could find the video. Sure enough, mlb.com had the exact play…..

The first thing I notice, and you probably do as well, is that Chavez shows very little emotion after being thrown out. Granted, the video cuts away from Endy and there are a few seconds that we don’t see. But there is no way that he can “jump all over the umpire” in that time. He even slaps at his helmet, looking more disappointed in himself than the call.

Like I mentioned earlier, this play (and his account of the play), are of little importance. My problem is that this type of thing happens a lot in these types of autobiographies. For some reason, I continue to be surprised whenever I spot them. In an era of retrosheet, baseball-reference, mlb.com and the abundance of available data, how could the author/editor/fact checker not spot these before publication? I suppose it’s because a lot of these don’t cause much uproar, even when they are spotted. No one is going to care that Piazza either misremembered or used a little artistic license, except for maybe Endy Chavez himself.

Rob Neyer goes through a number of these stories in his book “Rob Neyer’s Big Book of Baseball Legends”. It opened my eyes to how often stories can be embellished and the ease that they can be verified.

As for Piazza, it’s not surprising, since he seemed to paint a lot of people as an enemy in order to make himself the protagonist. I just think it was unnecessary, because we all know how good he was. If I had a vote, I would have put him in the Hall, and I imagine he’ll get in at some point in the next few years.

Recently, one of the books went through Robinson’s 1946 season with the Montreal Royals and how he absolutely dominated the International League where he had a .349/.468/.462 slash line. On top of that, he stole 40 bases, and led the league in runs with 113. But what is most impressive was his 92/27 BB/K ratio. This was all accomplished in just his second year of Professional Baseball (played for KC Monarchs in ’45).

But it was Montreal’s parent club that got me thinking. After 154 games, the ’46 Dodgers finished in a tie with the Cardinals, which led to the first tiebreaker in Modern Baseball. At the time, the National League rules stated that a best of 3 game series would decide the Pennant. But as you can see from the graph, Brooklyn lost in 2 games and would never have more than a 54% chance of winning the series.

My initial thought was “Could the Dodgers have won Pennant, had they brought up Robinson in 1946″? I decided to dig a little deeper.

The first question is, what position would Jackie play in Brooklyn? In college and in the Negro Leagues, he served mostly as a Shortstop. In Montreal, he was the Royals primary Second Basemen. But Pee Wee Reese and Eddie Stanky had those positions locked down for the Dodgers (both were 5+ win players in ’46).

Third Base was a possibility, where the veteran Cookie Lavagetto was getting most of the playing time down the stretch. “Cookie” had a fine first half slash line of .287/.405/.396 and the Flatbush faithful would have been in an uproar to see him relegated to the bench.

That leaves First Base as the only real possibility, where Jackie would go on to play in 151 games the following season. Down the stretch, Manager Leo Durocher was platooning Howie Schultz (vsL) and Big Ed Stevens (vsR). Neither were established stars, nor did they have a ton of potential be stars.

The problem was that by 1946, Robinson had never played the position. In fact, he didn’t even own a First Basemen’s glove until the following spring. But suppose Branch Rickey had Robinson play the position in Montreal to prepare him for a late-season call-up. Could Jackie have been the difference between the Pennant and a second place finish?

Brooklyn was in first place for the majority of the season, but they were overtaken by St. Louis in August. By September, they were 2.5 games back. With the Cardinals surging, the Dodgers would have very little room for error. In fact, they didn’t error much by going 21-8 in the final month.

In September, Schultz and Stevens combined for a .250/.313/.379 slash line. This is nothing spectacular, especially at First Base. For Robinson in AAA, he would record a .323 Batting Average in September for Montreal in 102 at bats, with just 1 extra base hit. Also, Robinson’s first month in the big leagues the following season would produce a .225/.354/.325 line. September ’46 and April ’47 are different environments for sure, but it shows how he struggled in his first taste of the big leagues.

What I have failed to mention to this point is the biggest factor of all, which is the impact of breaking the color barrier during a pennant race instead of on Opening Day. It would have helped that the Dodgers played 22 of their final 29 games in Brooklyn, where Robinson received less abuse than on the road. But how would his teammates have reacted to his call-up mid-season? For the same players who signed petition refusing to play, would they have done so in a pennant race? We’ll never know for sure, but let’s “assume” he would encounter the same environment that he actually did in the following season.

So could Robinson have made a difference in the 1946 National League Pennant Race? My guess is probably not. There are too many assumptions and unknown variables to ever know for sure. But the 1946 Dodgers were already playing very well down the stretch, and an improvement on a .724 September winning percentage would have required a big difference.

For further reading on Jackie’s 1946 season with the Montreal Royals, MiLB.com has a game log with day-by-day accounts.

Split stats were obtained from Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet

Thanks to Retrosheet, every single postseason play, game, and series is included. I’ve also added postseason tiebreakers. Before I get emails about the tiebreakers, I realize they are technically regular season games. I just wanted to include them since they are a “loser goes home/winner advances” format.

What I’ve done is incorporate single game win probability into postseason series, to show how each play impacts the team’s probability of winning the series. I’ve set the Home Field Advantage at .559. 55.9% is simply the Home team’s winning percentage throughout postseason history. The reason I included a home field advantage is to show the importance of having an extra home game during a series.

One of my favorite features is the Top Plays list. I’ve tried to include as many filters as possible to narrow down searches. According to my WPA database, Francisco Cabrera’s game winning single in the 1992 NLCS is the biggest series changing play in postseason history. The Braves chances of winning the series before the play was 27%, jumping to 100% afterwards.

But if you apply the “World Series Probability” filter, Hal Smith’s 3-Run HR in the 1960 World Series is the biggest play in history. This filter shows the team’s change in probability of winning the World Series, not just that particular series. Bill Mazeroski’s homerun an inning later is the only Game 7 walk-off in World Series history, but it was Smith’s homerun that is by far the biggest series changing play.

Some other notes from this database….

–The biggest comeback in postseason history was in the 1986 World Series by the New York Mets. In Game 6, with 2 outs and no runners on, the Red Sox had a 99.3% chance of winning the series.

–The second biggest comeback in history was in the same season’s ALCS. This time the Red Sox came back from the Angels’ 99.1% chance of winning.

–The least eventful series, in terms of average change in win probability per play, was the Giants 4-game sweep in the 1989 World Series. All the “excitement” occurred off the field that year.

–Babe Ruth’s caught stealing to end the ’26 World Series was a 10% swing, which is the largest for a caught stealing in World Series history.

–Dave Roberts stolen base in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS was just the 10th biggest in the 2004 postseason and the 2nd biggest in that season’s ALCS. It only increased the Red Sox chances of winning the series by 1%.

–Derek Lowe recorded the top 2 postseason strikeouts of all-time, both from the 9th inning in the deciding game of the 2003 NLDS. With a 4-3 lead, Lowe struck out Adam Melhuse and Terrance Long, increasing the Red Sox chances by 28% and 26%.

–There have been 46 postseason walk-off homeruns. 9 of those have been series clinching.

–The first postseason walk-off homerun happened in Game 1 of the ’49 World Series (Tommy Henrich).

–Of the 46 walk-off homeruns, the smallest increase in series win probability was Nelson Cruz’s Grand Slam in the 2011 ALCS, just a 2% increase.

–In the “2-2-1 Format” for a 5-Game Series, the home team is just 5 for 15 (.333 Win%) in game 5′s.

–Game 6 of the 2011 World Series has 3 of the top 4 plays from all Non-Clinching World Series games. (1)Freese’s 9th Inning triple, (2)Berkman’s 10th Inning single, (4)Hamilton’s 10th Inning Homerun. David Freese’s 11th Inning walk-off is 22nd on the list.

The Steve Bartman Incident Game 6 of 2003 NLCS
Prior to the play, the Cubs had a 96.0% chance of winning the pennant. Had Moises Alou caught the foul ball, their chances would have increased to 97.6%. Instead, Mark Prior walked Luis Castillo, making their chances 93.6%, a 4% difference. Steve Bartman didn’t walk Luis Castillo, nor did he allow the 8 runs in the inning.

Two batters later, Alex Gonzalez committed an error on a possible double play ball. Before the play, the Cubs chances were 89.7%. Had Gonzalez turned the double play, the inning would have ended with a 97.1% chance. But he committed the error, making the Cubs chances 84.7%, a 12.4% difference.

The Game 6 loss isn’t entirely the fault of Alex Gonzalez, but he had a lot more to do with it than Steve Bartman.

Also, I want to apologize about some of the play descriptions. Most of them are fine, but it’s very difficult to write code for rare plays.

Finally, I don’t currently have data for individual player’s cumulative series WPA. Mainly because I’d like to divide the credit amongst all players without just crediting the batter for offensive plays and pitcher for defensive plays. Unfortunately, I do not have a method for that at the time.

The red line shows how many games the average MLB team would have with that run difference. The Orioles are just about in line with the MLB average in terms of their losses, EXCEPT for their 1-run losses. While the average team would have 16 1-run losses, the O’s have just 6.

Looking at their victories, they have far more 1 and 2 run wins than average, but are slightly below average in victories of 3 runs or more (except for 6).

It also doesn’t help that they have just one victory of 9 or more runs, while they have lost by that deficit a total of 5 times.

Even with a superb bullpen, is this sustainable?

So I took a look at each team’s top career WAR earner to see which team had the lowest. I narrowed the search to 1901-2007 and also took out the Federal League. As a side note, I understand that Career WAR is not the only factor in determining a player’s “superstar” level, but this is the term I decided to use.

Here are the Top 10 teams with the lowest career WAR leader.

The above list was originally peppered with teams from 2011/12, but I took them out since their players are still active. The lowest current team is the Royals, whose leader is Alex Gordon with 13.6 WAR. I’d bet good money that Hosmer, Moustakas, or even Wil Myers will end up with far more than 13.6.

Since the ’21 Braves are the only team to finish above .500, I decided to take a look only at the teams with more victories than losses…..

Save for the ’21 Braves, I was quite surprised that no other team has had their top player with less than 30 career WAR. You would think there would be another .500+ team over the course of a century.

The ’05 Athletics may climb off this list before it’s said and done, since they have a few active players with some good years left in them (most notably Dan Haren).

While I’m at it, I’ll take a look at each team’s average career WAR weighted on playing time (plate appearances and innings pitched). This should give us a good overall view a team’s “star power”, not just their top player. I also added each team’s attendance rank in their league.

The ’54 A’s were truly an awful team. They did have Gus Zernial and Vic Power (playing CF), but they also had a bunch of negative career WAR players. Their attendance also reflects their “star power”, finishing dead last in the AL. The 3,957 per game average was just 31% of the league average. To compare that to today, the Indians have the worst attendance at under 20,000, but it is still 65% of the league average.

We’ll give the ’43 Athletics a break because of The Second World War. The talent pool was severely limited.

Just off the list at 13, the 1964 Mets had an average career WAR of 5.3 and still finished second in the league in attendance. With a shiny new stadium, those New Yorkers sure were happy to once again have National League baseball!

Now let’s take a look at the highest average career WAR…..

It doesn’t hurt to have Babe Ruth on your team, seeing as how he played for half the teams on the list. The ’33 Yankees had 9 Hall of Famers, while the ’28 A’s had 7.

The 1927 Athletics finished just 4th in the league in attendance. I guess Ty Cobb, Zack Wheat, Eddie Collins, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, and Mickey Cochrane weren’t enough to bring the fans to the park. In fact, their attendance dropped over 2k per game from the previous season.

The list is dominated by the Yankees, Red Sox, and Athletics. They actually took the top 19 spots. Other top teams were the mid-1920′s Senators, late 90′s Braves, and late 50′s Braves.

And finally, I’ll take a look at the lowest average career WAR of all the Pennant Winners……

As you might imagine, the list was dominated by recent pennant winners, so I removed the teams with active players who have years ahead of them. As before, we’ll give the World War teams a break due to talent pool restrictions.

Some history buffs may have been able to peg the ’14 Braves to top this list. Their roster contained two Hall of Famers (Maranville and Evers), but their star pitchers either had career years in 1914 or flamed out due to injury.

This was a long post, so thanks for your patience.

I know this took me a lot longer than I originally expected, so I apologize for the delay.

Since most of the players on the list are Pitchers, I decided to separate the list between Position Players and Pitchers. This is because there is a disagreement amongst voters about whether Pitchers should be included in the MVP vote.

Top Position Players

You’ll notice most of these players had high dWAR’s. Fielding ability can easily be overlooked (or incorrectly evaluated) by voters, which may explain why some of these players did not receive votes.

Top Pitchers