Building a Winner: Bad

Leo Durocher while with Brooklyn

There are a lot of ways to construct a winning team. You can create it internally through a farm system. You can trade for the right players. You can out right buy players from another team. In the last 50 or so years you can go through the free agent market. And of course you can use any combination of these to build your team. I want to take something of an extended look at how one team did it.

As a Dodgers fan I’m much more familiar with their doings than with other teams, so it’s reasonable for me to look at how the Dodgers built a winning team. In this case I’m going to single out the 1941 Brooklyn team that got to a World Series, then faltered, but laid the foundation for the team that was generally in contention through the remainder of the team’s time in Brooklyn (1957).

To start, here’s the main part of the roster of the pennant winning 1941 team. Infield (first around to third): Dolf Camilli, Billy Herman, PeeWee Reese, Cookie Lavagetto. Outfield: Pete Reiser, Joe Medwick, Dixie Walker. The catcher was Mickey Owen. Starting pitchers (guys with double figure starts): Kirby Higbe, Whit Wyatt, Curt Davis, Fred Fitzsimmons, Luke Hamlin. The bullpen (guys with 20 or more appearances from the pen): Hugh Casey and Mace Brown (and Casey also had double figure starts). And the bench (guys with 50 or more games played): Lew Riggs (primarily a 3rd baseman), Pete Coscarart (primarily a 2nd baseman), Herman Franks (a catcher), and Jim Wasdell (and outfielder). The manager is Leo Durocher. Keep all those names in mind as we go through the process of putting this team together. These are the guys we’re ultimately looking for in order to create a winning team.

Now here’s a look at the same team in 1937. The order is the same (infield, outfield, catcher, starters, bullpen, bench, manager): Bud Haslett, Lavagetto, Woody English, Joe Stripp, Heinie Manush, Tom Winsett, John Cooney, Babe Phelps, Max Butcher, Hamlin, Fred Frankhouse, Waite Hoyt, Van Mungo, Fitzsimmons, Roy Henshaw, George Jeffcoat, Jim Lindsey, Gibby Black (outfield), Jim Butcher (2nd, 3rd, and outfield), Roy Spencer (catcher), Lindsay Brown (Short). Burleigh Grimes is the manager.

The ’37 Dodgers finished sixth of eight teams in the National League. They were 62-91, 33.5 games out of first and 17.5 out of fifth place. They finished sixth in batting average, OBP, OPS, runs, and hits; seventh in slugging; dead last in home runs. At least they were third in stolen bases (all of 69) and second in doubles. The pitching was worse. They were seventh in ERA, runs, earned runs, complete games (which meant a lot more in 1937 than it does today, and last in shutouts. At fourth in strikeouts, they managed to get into the top half of the National League. And to top it off they were dead last in fielding percentage. In short, the Daffiness Boys stunk up the place.

Five years later they won the NL pennant. A lot of things changed. But a few things remained. Off the 1937 squad, Cookie Lavagetto remained. He’d moved from second to third. Although many of his traditional stats had regressed, he maintained an OPS+ of 110 (down one point from 1937) and his WAR (BBREF version) moved from 2.5 to 2.7. Luke Hamlin was still around also. His ERA was up, his wins down, his ERA+ was down 25 points, and his WAR had gone from 3.4 to a negative. Fitzsimmons was also there. By 1941 his ERA and ERA+ were much better although his WAR was unchanged. So even the holdovers from 1937, especially Hamlin, weren’t doing much to help the team make its five-year rise. To do well, an entire overhaul needed to occur. In the next few posts I want to look at that overhaul.

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Twice

Johnny Vander Meer about 1940

Baseball is full of obscure records and feats. Some of those records and feats are accomplished by the greats of the game, others by players who had one moment in the sun. Johnny Vander Meer is one of the latter.

Vander Meer was a left-handed starter for Cincinnati in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known as one of those scatter-armed lefties who could throw the ball through a brick wall, but you needed to make it a pretty big brick wall because it was anybody’s guess where the ball would impact the wall. His rookie year was 1937. He went 3-5 with an ERA of 3.84 in 19 games (10 starts). He struck out 52 in 84 innings, but walked 69. By June 1938 he was trudging along on the way to a 15-10 record with 103 walks and 125 strikeouts. On Sunday, 11 June, with a record of 5-2, he got the start in an afternoon home game. By the end of the game, he’d thrown an absolute jewel.

He faced the Boston Bees (now the Braves) and he shut them out. In fact, he no-hit them. He faced 28 total batters, walked three (including Woody English), stuck out four (including Vince DiMaggio) and used a couple of double plays to get out of two of the walk situations. All in all it was a great performance. It was the first no-no of the season and only the sixth of the decade of the 1930s. There were to be only two more for the remainder of the decade.

One of those came four nights later in Brooklyn. Vander Meer. now 6-2, again took the mound for the Reds. This time he shutdown the Dodgers in the first night game in Ebbets Field history. He wasn’t quite as good that night. This time he walked eight and struck out seven. Hall of Fame outfielder Kiki Cuyler got two of the walks and first baseman Dolf Camilli was issued three. But the Reds lit up four Dodgers pitchers for six runs (including a three run home run by first baseman Frank McCormick).

Vander Meer became an instant celebrity. No one had even thrown consecutive no-hitters. No one has done it since. It remains a unique moment in baseball lore. He won his next game (also against Boston) 14-1, giving up four hits, walking seven and striking out two. He managed to reach 10-2 before taking his next loss against Chicago on 10 July (he lost 3-1). As mentioned above, he finished 10-5, and made the All Star Game for the first time. He started, got the win, gave up one hit and struck out one. At the end of the season, Cincinnati finished fourth. They would make the World Series in 1939, win it in 1940, then slip back into the pack.

Vander Meer didn’t do much in either 1939 or 1940. He had good years in 1941, ’42, and ’43, winning three straight strikeout titles (and leading the National League in walks in ’43). He went off to war in 1944 and 1945, came back to Cincy, had one more decent year in 1948, then was out of the Major Leagues after a one game stint with Cleveland in 1951. He played minor league ball for a while, including throwing a no-hitter in 1952, then retired.

His record was 119-121 with an ERA of 3.44 (ERA+ of 107), 1132 walks, and 1294 strikeouts. So he was never a great pitcher. Well, except for those two nights in June 1938, when he was arguably the greatest ever.