Note: This is part of a series for Baseball Digest in which I pick each MLB team's best player/coach at every position. The complete Yankees list is up on the website. The complete Dodgers list just hit the web today. Work has started on the Red Sox piece. Visit SoapBoxSportsByte for excerpts before its launch next week. Franchise Player: Jackie Robinson
This is no surprise; most Dodgers fans, pundits and commentators would choose Robinson as the Dodgers’ franchise player. They would harp on his undeniably massive contributions not just to the game of baseball, but to the civil rights movement and the course of human history as well. They would also, in a way, be spectacularly misguided. No. 42’s efforts to break baseball’s color barrier and integrate our national pastime were brave, important—and eventually—revolutionary. But sociopolitical actions aren’t why Jackie Robinson stakes his claim to his rightful place atop any and all Dodgers, Brooklynites or otherwise. Robinson is the greatest player in franchise history, because, well…he’s the greatest player in franchise history. Robinson is the rare athlete who is prevalent in the lexicon of both the baseball-crazed and the baseball-ignorant, so it’s not worth “educating” you on a topic that you’re most likely already familiar with. Jackie’s beginnings are extremely interesting, however—if only because they paint a stirring portrait of a man who, from an early age, seemed prepared to dodge the racial slurs, threats and beer bottles that would be hurled at him on a daily basis. Often, writers and historians speak about how Branch Rickey chose the one person who would have survived an insertion into such a tumultuous environment. This isn’t hyperbole. Robinson’s early life was a microcosm of his later one; he was raised by a sharecropping single mother in an otherwise entirely white neighborhood. Dealing with discrimination and hardship from the beginning of his childhood, Robinson was desensitized to similar challenges he would eventually face at Ebbets Field and ballparks around the nation. More important, however, Robinson was an outstanding athlete and baseball player, a testament to the rest of the country that black ballplayers could succeed and even excel in a game dominated by whites. As the first UCLA athlete to win varsity letters in four sports, an All-American on the football team and, eventually, as a Negro Leaguer, Robinson was as likely as any contemporary black player to be successful beyond the initial integration of the sport. Of course, all of that makes him an impressive human being—but not necessarily the best player in the history of one of baseball’s most storied franchises. Already a ripe 28 years old, Jackie broke into the majors in 1947. Perhaps the added maturity helped Robinson with the difficult transition, but it certainly detracted from his statistical standing amongst the all-time greats in both the Dodgers’ history and any other. Robinson is fourth in franchise history in WAR despite playing in nearly 1,000 games less than both Pee Wee Reese and Zack Wheat, who rank second and third, respectively. He appeared in 541 fewer games and stepped to the plate 1,831 fewer times than legendary (and first-ranked) center fielder Duke Snider. Given his relatively anonymity, I don’t think many are going to make a case for Zack Wheat as the franchise’s premier player, so let’s not bother comparing him to Jackie Robinson. For the seven people out there who would try and do so: a) Wheat played most of his 18-year career for the Brooklyn Robins in the dead-ball era. b) Even though he was a Hall of Fame offensive player from the dead-ball era, he posted just four seasons over 5.0 WAR. c) You could have put Al Capone on the 1917 Phillies and he would be worth at least one win above dead-ball era replacement level. As for the Pee Wee Reese proponents, take a look at his .269/.366/.377 career line and then see if you’re ready to disband the Pee Wee fan club. It’s really between the Duke and Jackie—it’s that simple. Nobody in franchise history can even come close to their achievements. So why does Jackie get the nod over the Duke? It’s somewhat a matter of extrapolation. In terms of quantitative stats, it’s hard to compare the two ballplayers given the relatively brevity of Robinson’s career. The issue with Snider is therefore complicated. He hit at least 40 HRs in five straight seasons, hit .300 seven times and had a four-year WAR peak of 9.7, 9.4, 8.6 and 8.1. One could easily make the argument that his peak years were much more impressive than Robinson’s. To an extent, that would be right. But this is where the guesswork (or as previously mentioned, the extrapolation) comes in. No one ever wants to use the unknown as a deciding factor when evaluating athletes. NBA fans talk about how great the perennially disabled Grant Hill could have been, but they never say, “I think he deserves more credit than Kobe Bryant because he might have been just as good if he didn’t sign with FILA.” Such an assertion requires far too many unsubstantiated assumptions. We can only guess how good a healthy Hill would have been; we are also assuming that nothing else would have derailed his career. But Robinson’s artificially brief career comes with a set of extenuating circumstances that must be taken into consideration. We know how good he was. It’s just a simple matter of how long he played—a matter of a significant portion of what may very well have been his prime being ripped from him because of the color of his skin. Yes, Jackie’s home run, runs, RBI and hit totals are the David to Snider’s Goliath, but it’s impossible to compare the two careers in that light. Robinson started his major league career at 28 years old. He was clearly already a viable major league star, finishing with a .297/.383/.427 and a 4.5 WAR in his rookie season. But two years later he began to move from being simply a “star” towards legendary status, posting a 16 HR, 122 R, 124 RBI, 37 SB, .342/.432/.528, 10.0 WAR line that captured him the 1947 MVP award and established him as a player with a rare combination top-flight speed and hitting ability. Over the next four years, he would post WARs of 7.1, 9.4, 8.4 and 6.8. Only once in his career would he finish a season with a WAR under 4.0, with a low of 2.3 coming in his 36-year-old ’55 season. He was also an outstanding fielder, playing both second and third base at a level far above average. Yet he would end his career at just 8.5 WAR below the Duke’s career mark. Robinson never had a poor season. Even with the cumulative burden of Negro League-induced cross-country bus trips, cockroach motels and incessant discrimination, he didn’t show any signs of wear and tear until he was 36. The next year, he bounced back and posted a season that incited many more quips along the lines of “Look, it’s Old Jackie,” than “Damn, Jackie sure looks old.” By contrast, Snider’s best performances came in his age 26-29 seasons. By the time he was 30, he had slowed down. By 31, he was hardly a replacement player, let alone a history-defining star. Is it really that far-fetched to say that Robinson would be the obvious statistical choice had he not had the misfortune of being born into such a shameful environment? After all, he posted a combined 9.7 WAR over his first two seasons, even as he dealt with everything that goes along with making such an impossible transition. With a 10.0 WAR in 1949, he topped that figure in the next season alone. Had his career begun as an unhindered 23-year-old, it seems entirely possible he would have started his career similarly. Then that MVP season might have come earlier. His peak would have been longer. He wouldn’t have lost two to four years of his prime to the anachronistic color barrier. Perhaps his individual peak seasons become even more impressive, as he would have been able to focus solely on being a baseball player. As Jackie Robinson becomes unburdened from the pressures of serving as an impromptu civil rights icon, subsequent generations look back with reverence on his once-in-a-lifetime baseball abilities—not just his history-defining propensity for racial diplomacy. Maybe it’s better for the history of the game that Robinson’s added experience helped him to prove his worth immediately. Maybe that instant success from a Negro League transplant was important to showing the white-dominated country the virtues of their dark-skinned counterparts. Maybe it’s better the way it was. Maybe. 1B: Gil Hodges In the Pantheon of Major League Baseball franchises, the Yankees obviously reign supreme. Their 27 World titles would attest to that. Many would say that the Cards, owners of 10 championship banners, would be the Hera (without the incest, of course) to the Yankees’ Zeus. But who else is in the Pantheon? Who comes next? The Giants, especially given their recent Blackbeard-infused title, seem to be up there for sure. But there is no doubt that the Dodgers stake a claim somewhere at the top of this Mount Olympus of sorts. They’ve won six titles—tied for fifth all-time—and the moniker “Dodgers,” for whatever reason, always seems to connote with a storied franchise. Every single player honored in Baseball Digest’s similar piece about the Yankees is a Hall of Famer. Many were first-ballot inductees. Some made it through the Veterans Committee. A couple will make it soon after their active careers come to a close. Of course, Jason Giambi qualifies for none of these categories—although one can only hope that his Golden Thong eventually finds display somewhere in Cooperstown. But for one of baseball’s most historic and beloved teams (no thanks to Frank McCourt), the Dodgers’ history is tainted by a dearth of true superstars. They’ve only had two first-ballot Hall of Famers in the history of the franchise. One was a certain color barrier-shattering second baseman; the other, a Yom Kippur-observing left-hander. First baseman Gil Hodges never secured induction into the Hall, whether it was of the first-ballot variety or otherwise. Hodges makes this list both by virtue of his own impressive career and the lack of any strong challenger. So instead of wasting time telling you why Steve “Don’t-Call-Me-Harvey” Garvey, Eric “Fifth-String-Color-Commentator” Karros or Dolph “Who??” Camilli aren’t entirely awesome, let’s talk about Gil Hodges’ very strong, albeit not Hall of Fame-worthy, career. A 19-year-old Hodges debuted with the Dodgers in 1943 but was quickly brisked off by the Navy to the eastern front of World War II, where he saw battle on Tinian and Okinawa. Perhaps as a factor of his youth at the time of enlistment, Hodges was not as hindered by military service as many other stars-turned-soldiers were in the '40s. A career .274/.360/.488 hitter, Hodges took about a year and a half to adjust to the majors following his return from (or, depending on how you look at it, return to) duty. Following an average rookie campaign, Hodges ripped off nine consecutive 3.0-plus WAR seasons, including five seasons over 5.0 and a seven-win 1954 campaign. Over that time span, he never hit less than 23 home runs, hit over 30 HR six times and topped 40 twice. He drove in over 100 runs in seven consecutive years and scored 90 runs six times and 100 runs three times. He was easily one of the best players of the era, being selected to seven All-Star teams and finishing in the top 20 of the MVP balloting eight times. From 1948 to 1957, he was the league’s ninth-most valuable offensive player. You might have heard of the players who finished ahead of him. Featuring the likes of Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle and teammates Snider, Robinson and Reese, every single one was a Hall of Famer. Over that span, he also finished ahead of Willie Mays and Eddie Mathews, although the two had played around roughly half the games that he had. Jesse Golomb researches and writes for BaseballDigest.com. He is also the creator and writer of SoapBoxSportsByte, a blog that incorporates statistical analysis as well as fan perspective into daily pieces on the MLB, NFL and NBA. He can be followed on Twitter @SoapBxSprtsByte or contacted by email at
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