The Hall of Fame Case for Ron Santo (Part 3 of 3)

On Monday December 8th, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the voting results of the Veterans Committee.  In a three part series, guest columnist and reader, “Dying Cub Fan” takes a look at the candidacy of former Cubs third basemen, Ron Santo. We ran this piece two years ago, but it's lost in Internet limbo and well, Santo deserves it, so we're running it again. Plus, the voting process has changed this year, as there are only 10 players for the committee to consider, so here's hoping this is the year.  You can join the revolution on Facebook as well.

---

 

Why has Santo been overlooked?

Santo did not do well in BBWAA voting when he was eligible for consideration by the writers. He was considered by the BBWAA 15 times, and his best showing came in 1998 (his last year on the writers’ ballot), when he received 204 votes (43.13%, well short of the 75% needed for election).¹⁴ He was removed from the ballot after the 1980 election (the first time he was eligible for BBWAA consideration) for failing to receive the required 5% vote; he was reinstated to the ballot in 1985. Under the selection process of the reconstituted Veteran’s Committee (which has elected no one since being reconstituted in 2001, following the former Veteran’s Committee’s pick of Bill Mazeroski, and which now considers players every two years), Santo received 56.8% of the vote in 2003 and 65% in 2005, each time short of the 75% vote needed. The former Veteran’s Committee did not publish their voting results.

When Santo retired, there were three third basemen in the Hall of Fame, Collins, Traynor and Baker, only one of whom had been elected by the BBWAA (Traynor in 1948). Since Santo’s retirement, Mathews, Robinson, Schmidt, Brett and Boggs have been elected by the BBWAA, with each one other than Mathews having been elected in his first year of eligibility. The Veteran’s Committee added Lindstrom in 1976 and Kell in 1983. Hall of Fame voters had ample opportunity to elect Santo; until Schmidt’s first year of eligibility, he was the best qualified third baseman on the ballot. As shown above, at the time he retired he was better than two of the three third basemen then in the Hall of Fame. He was not as good as Mathews, but Mathews was elected prior to Santo’s first year on the ballot. He was better than Robinson, but Robinson sailed through on the first ballot (with a 92% vote), while Santo was kicked off for not getting 5% in his first year on the ballot. It is difficult to see why he was overlooked by the voters.

In addition to his more obvious hitting skills, such as home runs and Rbi, Santo had skills that tend to be underappreciated: plate discipline and defense. His walk totals and on-base percentages were very high. He was also the best defender at his infield position in his league for a period of several years.

The list of Hall of Fame members for whom extensive credit has been given for defensive accomplishments appears to be small, particularly outside of the shortstop and catcher positions. Yet, while Santo was not as good defensively as either Schmidt or Robinson (and, although it is difficult to truly compare them based on the eras in which they played, for the sake of argument we can take Collins and Traynor as better defensively than Santo, even though each made more errors in fewer games),¹⁵ Santo was a very good defensive player at a key defensive position, a multiple Gold Glove winner who still holds National League and Major League fielding records thirty years after his retirement. In addition to being recognized as the best defender at a key defensive position in his league for an extended period, he was clearly better defensively than Boggs, Brett, Mathews and Lindstrom and would appear to have been better defensively, in his time, than Baker was in his. It is difficult to say whether he was better than Kell defensively.

Voters may not have adjusted Santo’s offensive numbers to account for the run-starved environment in which they occurred. Santo seems to have suffered for having played on teams that did not win pennants or reach the post-season, and in particular seems to have been associated with the Cubs’ legendary collapse in 1969.¹⁶ Unfortunately, that year was his one real try at a championship, and he and his team fell short.

As for not playing on a pennant winner, a good case can be made that the Cub record during his tenure was largely due to factors outside of Santo’s control. Was it Santo’s fault that the Cubs were as bad as they were for so much of his career? Santo did not play under a manager for five of the first six seasons of his career, but instead played under a “college of coaches” and an “athletic director”: was it his fault that his team was as mismanaged as it was?¹⁷ It was due to Santo and Williams (and not Banks, who was no longer a great player) that the Cubs finally climbed out of the second division in 1967; for the first several years of Santo’s career, the Cubs had few other players who were any good at all.

One of the arguments I have seen is that the late 60s-early 70s Cubs already have three Hall of Famers in Ernie Banks, Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Williams, and to put Santo in as well would disproportionately reward a team that did not win. There are several problems with this argument. One, a very good case can be made that Santo was better than Williams or Jenkins, and it is very clear that Santo was much better than Banks during the period that the two played together (the vast majority of Banks’ worth as a Hall of Famer having come from his seasons prior to 1964). Also, Jenkins did not join the Cubs until 1966. Two, it is not all that uncommon for teams to have multiple Hall of Famers on them and not win. The Pirates from 1932 through 1935 had four or five Hall of Famers on the team every year and did not win. After winning a pennant in 1962 (and losing the World Series), from 1963 through 1966, the Giants had five Hall of Famers each year and did not win. The White Sox from 1933 through 1935 had three Hall of Famers and did not finish above .500 in any of those years. The New York Giants between 1927 and 1932 had 5 or 6 Hall of Famers on the team each year, but didn’t win (they did win in 1933 when they had 4, one of whom was not playing regularly). There are other examples. Finally, the Hall of Fame is about honoring players, not teams.¹⁸ While it is relevant to evaluate a player based on his team’s success (or lack thereof), one shouldn’t penalize a player merely for playing on a team with other Hall of Famers or simply for playing on a bad team. Santo deserves to have his play evaluated on its own merits.

Santo was known for being an emotional player, and was also something of a hothead at times, at one time physically attacking Leo Durocher, apparently after having been goaded into it. Santo’s unfortunate habit of sometimes clicking his heels following Cubs’ victories in 1969 was widely seen as bush league at the time, and has endured in public perception of him. By contrast, Brooks Robinson was immensely popular with fans and sportswriters, which may have had something to do with him being elected on the first ballot.

In The Politics of Glory, Bill James said the following:

The Hall of Fame, in a sense, has been caught between hops at third base. Third base is a half-and-half position -- half of a “slugger’s position” like first base or left field, but half of a “glove man’s position” like second or short. A good third baseman is expected to contribute both ways, more so than a player at any other position. This, in effect, creates a third set of standards, unique to the position. The Hall of Fame selection system uses two distinct sets of de facto standards. Bobby Doerr doesn’t have numbers that would put him in the Hall of Fame if he was an outfielder, but he was a second baseman, so he’s in. The same with Arky Vaughan, Yogi Berra, Bill Dickey, Johnny Bench, Pee Wee Reese and many others.

Conversely, the career batting statistics of Rocky Colavito would unquestionably qualify him for the Hall of Fame -- if he had been a shortstop. Joe Judge’s numbers would be plenty good -- if he was a second baseman.

Third basemen are neither fish nor fowl; they need a third standard. The system just isn’t quite subtle enough to form an intermediate standard, and honor the guys like Santo and Ken Boyer who played a good third base (Santo won five Gold Gloves) and also could hit.

Santo seems to have suffered because voters have not had an appreciation of the skills involved in playing third base. The three third basemen most recently inducted (Boggs, Brett and Schmidt) all met one or more of the classic de facto offensive tests for Hall of Fame selection (e.g., 3,000 hits, 500 homers, .300 lifetime batting average, etc.). These tests have not been imposed on shortstops or second basemen or catchers and had not been theretofore uniformly imposed on third basemen (Robinson, for example, met none of them). A third baseman should not need to post those kinds of numbers to get in if he can otherwise establish elite player status, as Santo did.

Santo compared to other Hall of Fame Members

In 2001, Bill James ranked Santo as the 87th best player of all time (and Brooks Robinson 91st).¹⁹ There are 195 players in the Hall of Fame. Thus, if you use James’s analysis, Santo was not just a better player than half of the third basemen currently in the HOF, he was a better player than over half of all players currently in the Hall of Fame. Even if you don’t buy into James’s analysis, it is fairly easy to make a long list of players that are in the HOF who were not close to Santo’s level. Santo was better than, among others, Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance, Burleigh Grimes, Herb Pennock, Waite Hoyt, Hughie Jennings, Roger Bresnahan, George Kelly, Travis Jackson, Chick Hafey, Lloyd Waner, Hack Wilson, Ross Youngs, Rick Ferrell, Ray Schalk, Rabbit Maranville, Dave Bancroft, Jesse Haines, Bobby Wallace, Frankie Frisch, Ted Lyons, Nellie Fox, Phil Rizzuto, Bill Mazeroski, Elmer Flick, Eppa Rixey, Enos Slaughter, Tony Lazzeri, Red Faber, Sam Rice, Billy Herman, Jim Bottomley, Lefty Gomez, Rube Marquard, Earle Combs, Richie Ashburn, Kiki Cuyler, Max Carey, Harry Hooper and Vic Willis. And those are the easy cases; James has ranked him higher than Billy Williams, Carl Hubbell, E. Delahanty, Bill Dickey, Joe Cronin, Tony Perez, Orlando Cepeda, Carlton Fisk, Robin Roberts, Kirby Puckett, George Sisler, Bill Terry, Luke Appling, Juan Marichal, Gabby Hartnett, Nolan Ryan, Luis Aparicio, Jim Palmer, Lou Brock and Bobby Doerr.

It is a common argument that we shouldn’t add players to the Hall of Fame simply based upon their being better than current Hall of Fame members who shouldn’t have been elected. Kell and Lindstrom were poor selections, and if Santo’s case was predicated simply on his being better than they were, I would agree that he should not go in. However, he was not just better than they were, he was better than many other Hall of Famers as well, both third basemen and otherwise. He would be squarely in the middle of the current Hall of Fame contingent from third base. Put another way, for someone to argue that the only players in the Hall that Santo is better than are those that should not have been elected, that argument would imply that over half the players in the Hall and half of the third basemen in the Hall should not have been elected. As Bill James said, “Ron Santo towers far above the real standard for the real Hall of Fame.”

One problem with the concept of players who “shouldn’t be in” lies in setting the standard of who should be in, which is quite difficult to do; the Hall of Fame voters have been unable to set an identifiable standard since they first started electing people almost 70 years ago. It is clear that the standard is not at the Babe Ruth/Honus Wagner/Mike Schmidt/Willie Mays/Ted Williams level, which Santo clearly does not meet: if it were, Hall of Fame membership would consist of about 10 or 15 players. As it is, the standard is lower than that; if you consider the records of those who are actually in the Hall of Fame, it is much lower. Santo was better than a number of players currently in the Hall of Fame, and it isn’t a small number. None of those people is about to be removed from the Hall of Fame. He was not just better than Kell and Lindstrom. Santo was better than many of those elected, and it’s not just the questionable selections; he is not a marginal case. It is ridiculous to say that Santo shouldn’t go in because he doesn’t meet a certain standard when a large number (possibly over half) of the current HOF members don’t meet that standard either. Although Santo was not as good as Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, Boggs or Baker, he is comfortably within any objective rational standard of who should go in.

Other Criticisms of Santo

There are several valid criticisms of Santo. He faded very quickly and was out of baseball soon after his skills started to slip, before his 35th birthday. As a result he did not suffer through seasons like the ones Robinson endured at the end of his career, which lowered Robinson’s career batting average and OPS. Nonetheless, Santo ranks eighth in terms of number of games played at third base. His career was considerably longer than the careers of Kell and Baker. He played a lot more games at third than did George Brett. Also, as noted above, he had more big years at the plate than did Robinson, Kell, Traynor, Lindstrom or Collins. Even if he had extended his career by playing additional subpar seasons past his prime, doing so would not have taken away the big years that he did have.

Santo hit considerably better at home than on the road. Santo hit .296/.383/.522 with 216 home runs at home, and .257/.342/.406 with 126 home runs on the road. Dealing with split information is somewhat troublesome, since full split information is not available for players that played prior to the mid-‘50s. Simply doubling Santo’s road homers and extending his road rate stats for his career is an unfair adjustment, although some may be tempted to do this. Even if you made this simplistic adjustment, Santo’s adjusted OPS would exceed Robinson’s actual OPS.

Santo’s sOPS+ numbers (which compare a player’s split to major league average by split), season by season, show that the differential between his home and away numbers was not as severe during his prime, but got worse as he aged (1968 being a particularly bad year for him on the road). During his best years (1964-1967), his home/away splits looked like this:

1964: OPS H 1.006, A .922 sOPS+ H 184, A 171
1965: OPS H .908. A .846 sOPS+ H 163. A 155
1966: OPS H 1.019, A .878 sOPS+ H 190, A 160
1967: OPS H .977, A .836 sOPS+ H 186, A 157

Further, Santo is far from the only player to have benefitted from a strong home split. For example, although we lack full split information for many players, here are the home and away splits for three recent Hall of Famers:

Yastrzemski:

H: .306/.402/.503 OPS .904
A: .264/.357/.422 .OPS: 779 (league OPS during career: .733)

Boggs:

H: .354/.443/.491 OPS .934
A: .302/.387/.395 OPS .781 (league OPS during career: .750)

Puckett:

H: .344/.388/.521 OPS .909
A: .291/.331/.430 OPS .761 (league OPS during career: .744)

(Santo’s career road OPS was .748 versus a league OPS of .733)

All were elected to the Hall of Fame in the past 20 years by the BBWAA and all had their careers during a time when full split information was available. Arguably, none of them would have gotten in if people had done the simplistic analysis of extending his away line for his whole career.

While full split information is not available for a lot of players, we know relatively more about home run splits. There are plenty of players in the Hall of Fame who benefited significantly from a home field advantage. On the Cubs, this would include Ernie Banks (290 at home, 222 on the road), Billy Williams (245 at home, 181 on the road) and Ryne Sandberg (164 at home, 118 on the road). There are of course non-Cubs in the Hall of Fame who benefited significantly from a home field advantage, such as Mel Ott (who hit 323 homers at home and 188 on the road), Frank Robinson (321 at home, 265 on the road), Jimmie Foxx (299 at home, 235 on the road), Hank Greenberg (205 homers at home, 126 on the road).²⁰ While one could discount Santo’s home run totals a bit because of this, I view this as a mitigant to his Hall of Fame candidacy, not a disqualification. You would have to take away a lot before Brett or Robinson caught him. As noted above, other Hall of Famers have received similar benefits. Also as noted above, his home run stats should also be adjusted upwards on account of the era in which he played. Because the big strike zone era was during his peak, it is possible that he lost more offense to the effects of that than he gained from his home advantage.

Conclusion

Santo was one of the top ten third basemen who have ever played major league baseball. Santo was the best at his position in the major leagues for an extended period. His numbers fit him squarely in the middle of those currently in the Hall of Fame who played third base, which is an historically underrepresented position. He was a significantly better batter than half of the current major league third basemen in the Hall of Fame. His home run and walk stats exceed those of every third baseman in the Hall of Fame except for Schmidt and Mathews. He has been ranked by Bill James as among the best 100 baseball players of all time. He was better than over half of the current members of the Hall of Fame. He was a good defender and a terrific hitter who had the misfortune to play on a number of bad teams. His exclusion to date from the Hall of Fame has been a terrible mistake. He belongs in the Hall of Fame and should be elected at the next opportunity.

References

¹⁴ See http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/history/hof_voting/alpha/S.htm

¹⁵ Note that Traynor’s career fielding percentage at third, .947, was exactly equal to the league average at third for his career. Collins’s career fielding percentage at third was .929, while the league fielding percentage while he played was .907. Santo’s career fielding percentage was .954, while the league fielding percentage while he played was .948. Traynor led the NL in putouts seven times, in assists three times and in double plays four times. Santo led the NL in putouts seven times, in assists seven times and in double plays six times. Collins led the league in putouts five times, in assists four times and in double plays three times. Traynor’s career range factor was higher than Santo’s, 3.12 to 3.07, against league averages of 2.82 and 2.58, respectively; Collins’ was 3.61 (against a league average of 3.33, perhaps reflecting more “small ball”).

¹⁶ Santo did not play well in September 1969, during which time the Cubs lost 13 games in the standings to the Mets. He hit .240 with one home run and 11 rbi in 23 games. He was not the only Cub to play poorly that month. Beckert hit .211, Kessinger hit .192, Hundley hit .162, Hickman hit .229 and Banks hit .186. Holtzman went 1-5 with a 4.46 ERA. Jenkins’ ERA was 4.68. Only Billy Williams seems to have played at all well during that fateful month (.278, 6 hr, 13 rbi).

¹⁷ For a good history of the Cubs during Santo’s era, see http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-williams-santo-cubs-1961-1965/; http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-williams-santo-cubs-1966-1969/; and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-williams-santo-cubs-1970-1973/.

¹⁸ The BBWAA rule on voting is simply as follows: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.” http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/rules.htm. The Veteran’s Committee rule is similar: “The Committee shall consider all eligible candidates and voting shall be based upon the individual’s record, ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the game.” http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/veterans/rules.htm.

¹⁹ There are, of course, other lists. The Sporting News came out with a top 100 list in 1998 which did not list Santo, Baker, Lindstrom, Collins or Kell, but which listed Schmidt (28), Mathews (63), Traynor (70), Robinson (80) and Boggs (95). In 1999, the Society for American Baseball Research (the “SABR”) released the results from their “Top 100 Players of the Century Survey” (voted upon by 865 SABR members), which did not list Santo, Lindstrom, Baker, Collins or Kell, but listed Schmidt (16), Mathews (31), Robinson (32), Traynor (70) and Boggs (80). See http://www.thebaseballpage.com/positions/rankings/3B.php.

²⁰ Certain split statistics courtesy of http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2795. Certain splits also set forth in the 1988 Historical Baseball Abstract; see also http://www.retrosheet.org/.