22 Responses to “Walt Dropo”

1. Tony Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 9:49 am

   Ryan Howard would be second on this list if not for his cup of coffee in 2004 as a September callup.

2. Andy Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 9:50 am

   Note a surprise new PI feature that you can see in my table above---league-leading totals are now shown in bold.

3. John Q Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 10:27 am

   Dropo reminds me of those great teams the Red Sox had during the late 40's-early 50's who never made the playoffs because of the limited playoff structure of the time period & the Korean War. They won 94+ games 3 years in a row ('48-50) and missed the playoffs. They won 87 games in '51 even with Dropo's injury. Then they lost Williams for almost all of '52 and most of '53 because of the Korean War.

   Also the impact the Korean War had on several Pennant Races/World Series is rarely discussed. And it was big impact players that lost time. Williams lost time, Willie Mays, Don Newcombe and Whitey Ford to name a few.

4. DavidRF Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 10:42 am

   Red Sox scored 1027 runs that year. They would have scored more if Ted Williams hadn't missed 50+ games after breaking his ankle in the All-Star Game. Five regulars had OBP's of .414 or higher.

   It was Joe McCarthy's last team (he was replaced in mid-season). He led the Cubs to a 998 run season, the Yankees to three 1000 run seasons and the Red Sox to a 1000 run season.

5. Mike S. Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:28 am

   Actually, I think it was his elbow that Williams broke. As for Korea, a couple more: Bobby Brown and Jerry Coleman.

6. DavidRF Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:32 am

   @5
   Elbow is correct. Thanks for the correction.

7. Tmckelv Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:37 am

   I was surprised to see the "*9" in Ted Williams' position column for 1939.

   I was going to make a joke about "the immortal Joe Vosmik" as the Left Fielder for the Sox that season (because I had never heard of him somehow), but he actually had a pretty solid 10-years at left field for a few teams (including a 3rd-place MVP one season).

   I love this site.

8. Matthew Hurst Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:41 am

   I checked to see whether Dropo and Cavarretta had played together. Not only were they both on the 1955 White Sox; Cavarretta's last appearance as a player was to pinch run for Dropo on May 8.

9. Soundbounder Says:
   December 20th, 2010 at 11:47 am

   Nice write-up for him in the Hartford Courant

   http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/hc-walt-dropo-obituary-1219-20101218-1,0,5711855.story

10. birtelcom Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 11:56 am

    I wonder how difficult it would be to implement a "Rookie" selection option in PI. One would, I guess, need to settle on an accepted standard or standards for defining a "rookie" and then program the standard or standards into the database to give a yes or no answer for each player-season to the question, was the player a rookie during this particular season. That could then be used to enable a PI search for just "rookie" seasons (note that any particular player may have multiple seasons in which he was a rookie, under most defintions of a "rookie", because such defintions generally depend on the player not yet having reached a certain amouunt of career playing time)

11. John Autin Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    @7, Tmckelv -- I think you're right to be surprised by the "*9" in Ted Williams's 1939 position column in the list above. Outfield games played were not officially kept by specific position in that era; I think the breakout began in the '50s. The Splinter's player page shows only "OF" for 1939; ditto the '39 Red Sox team page.

    The individual box scores for '39 do show Williams regularly playing RF. I'm puzzled as to how that OF position data can be reflected in a Play Index season search -- not just for Williams in '39, but for many player-seasons before that -- when the same info is not available anywhere on the player or team pages.

    P.S. Vosmik was actually pretty bad for a LF in '39, with an 87 OPS+ and MLB-high 27 GIDP. Vosmik did have some other good years, before Williams broke in.

12. DavidRF Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 1:08 pm

    @11
    Outfield splits have been a work in progress for a couple of decades now.

    Someone went through all the scoresheets a long time ago and game up with game-counts only. For Williams its 1939 "0-0-149", 1940 "128-0-16", 1941 "130-0-4" and then all LF after that. Babe Ruth is particularly interesting because they'd move him from LF/RF depending on park. Stan Musial is also interesting. I think the old Total Baseball books had those game totals available.

    That said, whoever did that earlier work wasn't able to split the fielding stats (putouts, assists, etc). So on the fielding stats table, they have to put "O".

13. John Autin Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    @3, John Q -- Good point about the Korean War. But it wasn't just the war; the draft was in effect continuously (with various tweaks) until the mid-'70s.

    The 1950 NL pennant race was impacted when Curt Simmons of the Phillies had to report for duty in mid-September. The Phils had a 6.5-game lead with 20 games left after Simmons's last start, but they went 9-11 from that point, the Dodgers got hot, and when the teams faced off in the last game of the season, a Brooklyn win would have forced a playoff.

    So Robin Roberts started that final game, despite just 2 days' rest since a CG in his prior appearance, which itself came the very day after another start in which he lasted 4 innings. Roberts went 10 innings to win the finale, giving him 22 IP in the last 5 days of the season.

    The absence of Simmons down the stretch (and of course in the World Series itself) affected their WS rotation, to the point that Eddie Sawyer picked reliever Jim Konstanty to start the opener. It's doubtful that the lack of Simmons affected the outcome of the WS, though, since the Philly starters generally pitched very well, whereas the offense scored just 5 runs in 4 games.

14. John Q Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    @13 John Austin,

    Good point about the draft going until the early 70's. Nolan Ryan brought up the fact that one of the reasons he struggled with the Mets from '67-71 was that he missed several segments of various seasons because he had to report to the National Guard to fulfill his military obligation.

    I brought up Korea because it seems like WW2 gets about 95% of the attention on this subject. And its huge impact players like Williams and Mays & Ford that missed time as well. The '53 Dodgers might have been the greatest team in Baseball history if Newcombe had pitched that year. Something like this would just be unfathomable in today's world. Imagine Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay or Tim Lincecum missing 2 seasons because they were in the Army in Afganstan?

15. TheGoof Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 4:31 pm

    You know, Mays appears to have been extremely likely to have broken the home run record if not for Korea, BUT...
    1) Would he have held up well under the pressure?
    2) Would that have allowed Hank Aaron to sneak up on the record even more, with less pressure, and then shatter Mays' record with less trouble?

16. Soundbounder Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    #15 The Goof

    I have also wondered about Mays reaching 714 if not for his military service. Seems highly likely.

    For the record however, Mays military service was spent playing for a baseball team in the Army that entertained troops. Several people on here have incorrectly stated he was in the Korean War. It is possible he traveled to Korea to play a few games, but he is not a Korean War veteran.

    It was fairly common for the armed forces to use sports stars as entertainers.

17. John Q Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    @16,

    I didn't mean to imply that Mays saw combat in Korea during the war. I just wanted to bring up that Mays missed basically two full seasons ('52-53) because of his military obligation.

    It's quite probable that Mays would have gotten the HR record without missing '52-53. He most likely would have stayed in SF and broken Ruth's record around 1972-1973.

    Mays' military commitment also cost the Giants the Pennant in '52, although Newcombe also missed the '52 season with the Dodgers. It's quite probable had Mays & Newcombe played in '52 that both the Giants & Dodgers would have won 100+ games.

18. John Autin Says:
    December 20th, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    Re: Mays, military service and 714 HRs: It seems possible. "Likely" seems a stretch.

    Mays missed 274 scheduled games: 120 in '52 and 154 in '53. He finished 54 HRs shy of Ruth. If he'd played all those games he missed in the service, he would have had to average a 1 HR every 5.07 games.

    To that point in his career, Mays had averaged 1 HR every 6.46 games (24 HRs in 155 games). He was actually off to a slow start in '52 when he had to leave, batting .236 with 4 HRs through 34 games.

    It's true that Mays hit 41 HRs in his first year back, giving him an average to date of 1 HR per 4.71 games, counting pre- and post-service. So there's certainly a case that he could have hit 54 HRs in the missing games.

    But when you talk about "likely," I don't think it's fair to project a player to do something that he has never done yet -- especially when he was not hitting so well at the time that he left.

    And if you think that the missing games could have put Mays close to Ruth's mark, which might have persuaded him to play another year or two, I doubt it. In 1973, his final season, Mays was 43 and batted .211 with 6 HRs in 239 PAs (after hitting 8 HRs the year before). He had some embarrassing moments. That same year, Hank Aaron (age 39) batted .301 with 40 HRs, leaving him on Ruth's doorstep. If Willie didn't get there first -- didn't catch Ruth by '73, before Aaron -- I don't see him hanging around another year just to be able to say, well, I also did it.

19. John Q Says:
    December 21st, 2010 at 12:22 am

    @18,

    Mays slow start might have attributed to the fact that he knew he was going into the army and he only played 34 games in '52. He hit 20 HR 464 ab in 1951, he hit 41 HR in 1953, he hit 51 HR in 1955, so I think it's very plausible that he would have hit 50 HR in 1952-1953 combined without Army service.

    An extra 50HR would have given Mays 678 HR after the 1970 season. He would have only had to hit 34 more HR to tie the Babe so I think its very probable that Mays would have broken Ruth's record in 1972 or 1973.

    Aaron was at 592 HR after the 1970 season.

    I think a likely scenario would have been Mays breaking the record around '72-'73 with the Giants and then never being traded to the Mets. He probably would have finished his career in '73-74 with the Giants with about 725-730 HR. Maybe he goes and becomes a DH with Oakland or some other team and pads his HR title.

    Aaron probably keeps playing in Atlanta until he breaks Mays record in '75-77. Maybe he goes to the AL to DH.

20. John Autin Says:
    December 23rd, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    @19, John Q --

    For the sake of argument, let's go with your estimate of 50 HRs as the "cost" of Willie's service time. As you said, that would give him 678 HRs through 1970. But after that, you lost me.

    "He would have only had to hit 34 more HR to tie the Babe so I think its very probable that Mays would have broken Ruth's record in 1972 or 1973."

    He would have needed 36 (not 34) to tie the Babe; but in any case, I don't understand why you project him hitting 34+ HRs from 1971-73, given that he actually did play regularly in those years, and he hit just 32 HRs. Was he supposed to play more often, or hit better, just because he was closer to the record? And it's not as though he called it quits in early '73; he played the whole season, right through the World Series. Just how were those 4 extra HRs supposed to come about? Motivation? I think Willie was always 100% motivated to do his best. And I think it's just as likely that being closer to the record would have caused him to hit fewer HRs, due to the stress.

    This one also puzzles me: "I think a likely scenario would have been Mays breaking the record around '72-'73 with the Giants and then never being traded to the Mets." But Mays was traded on May 11, 1972. (http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mayswi01.shtml#trans) I don't see how you can project him to the record by that early date using any of the variables we've discussed.

    I just can't see Mays reaching 714 HRs by the end of 1973, i.e., before Aaron got there. And if Mays didn't get there first, there was no way he was ever going to hold the career HR record for even a day, what with Aaron still going great guns in 1973-74 and being 4 years younger. And if Willie was never going to hold the record, I can't see him coaxing another season or two out of his creaky body.

    Now, maybe if he'd never left the Polo Grounds....

21. John Autin Says:
    December 23rd, 2010 at 12:54 pm

    (Minor correction: Aaron was 3 years younger than Mays, not 4. It doesn't change my argument.)

22. Andy Says:
    December 23rd, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    If Mays had 678 through 1970, he clearly would have stuck around to break Ruth's record, IF Aaron hadn't come along too. Some team--the Giants, the Mets, or someone, would certainly have allowed him to play to tack of the few more homers he needed to pass Ruth (but not, as JA correctly points out, if Aaron had already passed Ruth and Mays was shooting for #2).