Schmidt or Roberts?

Sorry to my readers for the overload of posts today, but this is one I've been holding for a few weeks. I decided against running it as a column in my paper, and it was ignored by a blogging site, so I'll share it with all of you now. We're no longer preoccupied with the Trade Deadline, and I think this is an interesting topic over which to mull. Enjoy.

Earlier this year, Bob Costas conducted an interview with Phillies great Dick Allen. As predicted, Costas asked him all about playing during the turbulent 1960s, the controversy he often stirred up as an outspoken athlete and his reputation for hitting tape-measure blasts.

At the end of the interview, Allen gave his opinion on who he thought the better Phillie was, Robin Roberts or Mike Schmidt. It’s generally an unfair comparison between a pitcher and position player, but much like he did during his playing days, Allen gave the controversial answer when he said Roberts. Costas pressed him on that briefly, but Allen simply replied that Roberts took the mound for nine innings every time out and dominated hitters.

In retrospect, Allen’s opinion is understandable, considering that he played when Roberts was already a pitching legend and Schmidt wasn’t on the map yet. It’s not surprising Allen would defer to the elder Hall of Famer.

But who really was a greater Phillie?

Several Top Ten Phillies lists found online all rank Schmidt higher than Roberts, though lists like that always tend to favor hitters over pitchers. Schmidt also helped Philadelphia to win its first-ever World Series title, and he added three MVP awards and numerous Gold Gloves. To be fair, Roberts guided Philly to its first World Series in 35 years in 1950, and the Gold Glove and Cy Young awards didn’t exist during his prime.

The only way to truly compare a pitcher and a hitter from two different eras is to see how they match up with their top contemporaries. Roberts’ were likely Warren Spahn and Whitey Ford, while Schmidt’s top competition were fellow third basemen Brooks Robinson and Darrell Evans.

Roberts was widely considered the best pitcher in baseball from 1950-1955, but his career ERA of 3.41 was significantly higher than Spahn (3.09) or Ford (2.75). His winning percentage was also the worst of the three, but he also had the lowest run support.

Allen wasn’t exaggerating about Roberts’ durability. He led the league in innings pitched for five straight years, and his 346 2/3 innings in 1953 are second-most by a Hall of Fame pitcher in a single season after World War II. He threw more than 300 innings in a season six times.

However, Spahn managed to pitch at a high level later into his career. He only threw more than 300 innings in a season twice, but he was still easily cracking the 200-inning mark into his 40s. Spahn pitched more seasons and innings than Roberts, while allowing 71 fewer home runs. That was perhaps Roberts’ biggest drawback; he wasn’t a ground-ball pitcher. He also never struck out 200 batters in a season – not as dominant as Allen originally suggested.

Saber-metrically speaking, one aspect of pitching that Roberts did dominate throughout his career was control. Though Ford posted the highest career strikeout rate of 5.6 per nine innings, Roberts’ strikeout per walk rate of 2.61 was far ahead of Ford and Spahn, who both posted a 1.8 mark. Roberts had the best WHIP (1.17) among the three, and his BB/9 rate of 1.7 is ranked 45th all-time and ninth among Hall of Fame pitchers.

Those final numbers help Roberts’ case, but Schmidt’s comparisons to Robinson and Evans aren’t nearly as hazy.

Robinson, dubbed “The Human Vacuum Cleaner,” was a better fielding third baseman than Schmidt, with a higher career range factor and fielding percentage, but Schmidt trumps the other two in nearly every offensive category. Phillies fans know about his 548 home runs, but Schmidt’s career OPS of .908 ranks 27th all-time among Hall of Fame hitters. Schmidt also set all-time team marks in runs, hits, RBI, walks and total bases.

According to the numbers, you can make an argument for and against Roberts’ superiority over his peers, but Schmidt was clearly the best. He also played during one of the organization’s most successful periods, further brightening his spotlight.

Sorry, Dick, looks like you got this one wrong. The best pitcher in baseball for a brief time doesn’t compare to arguably the best hitting third baseman in history, regardless of the discrepancy between pitching every fourth day and playing every day. Maybe Costas should have asked Allen’s opinion about a more sensible pitcher-hitter comparison like Schmidt and Steve Carlton. I put it to all of you to hash that one out.

Rolling the wrong way

My initially-shallow well of useful information to dispense about a Phillies loss has been now been completely tapped, so I won't even make the effort this time.

I will instead reveal a troubling realization I made a mere 12 hours ago: Jimmy Rollins does not represent what I believe to be a model baseball player - particularly as a leadoff hitter, the role he's occupied for the majority of his career.

My discovery of this was first made possible from Jimmy's own mouth and strengthened by my current reading of "Moneyball," Michael Lewis's bestseller, which I'm utilizing to sharpen my baseball knowledge and observations of the game. The information I've soaked in has cast the game in an even more negative light than the Steroids Era.

It started with an interview Bob Costas conducted with Rollins and Ryan Howard for MLB Network in late May. It aired a month later and I finally caught it yesterday afternoon. The interview, like many before it, fell short of my expectations. The majority of Costas's questions were fluff-dominated, and Howard gave his usual cliche answers without a hint of clarity or intellect (I get more substance out of high school athletes), while J-Roll did his typical job of looking cute for the camera and the audience.

The only meaty question Costas aimed at the stars concerned an infamous incident in 2008 when Rollins got chewed out by Charlie Manuel for not hustling down the line on an infield pop-up that was dropped. At the time, Rollins didn't question his manager's disappointment and immediately owned up to his mistake. While he repeated those words to Costas, he then tried to justify why he didn't charge out of the batter's box. I can't recall his exact words, but no justification should have ever been attempted. You don't hustle, you hurt the team. Period.

Costas remained on this topic for a few minutes and asked Rollins what the point was of walking out of the batter's box and admiring a home run, rather than running on contact to try and reach second base in case the ball didn't leave the yard. Jimmy's response was something like this:

"When you've been around long enough, you get a good feel for which balls are going to be home runs. Sometimes you hit balls that you're not sure if they're going to go out or not, but you've got to make it look like you know."

Before making that ridiculous comment, Rollins had already said what most devoted Phillies fans knew, that his idol growing up was Rickey Henderson. The thing Jimmy loved the most about Rickey was his showmanship; how he worked the entertainment aspect of the game. His cocky statement about admiring home runs only confirmed the fact that he didn't adapt the right aspects of Rickey's game to his own.

It's true that Rickey showed off and he displayed a remarkable mix of power and speed, but the area of the game he absolutely dominated was the very definition of a leadoff hitter - getting on base. In addition to all of his stolen bases, runs and homers, Henderson walked 2,190 times in his career, which was briefly an all-time record before being broken by Barry Bonds (a ton of Phillies fans, including myself, saw his record-setting free pass with the Padres in 2001, as it came in a game against the Phils). Jimmy Rollins' 484 walks barely scratches the surface.

In even more glaring example of the colossal gap separating the two players, Henderson's career on-base percentage of .401 ranks 43rd all-time among non-active players. Jimmy Rollins does not even have the highest career OBP on his team. In fact, of all the starters in the lineup, J-Roll's career OBP of .330 is dead last. As the students of the Bill James School of Baseball will tell you, OBP is the best tool we have of measuring a hitter's performance for his team.

This realization is damning to say the least, but I have always believed that hustle and putting forth your absolute best effort all the time are the highest responsibilities of any athlete. Many baseball players today are too blinded by their bank accounts and star status to give their all on the field, and J-Roll is no exception. We've all watched as his home run totals have ballooned over the past four years (an average of 12 in his first five seasons to an average of 22 from '06-'09), and he most likely stood and stared at each one with a smugness Rickey would applaud. Unfortunately, those shots don't mean much when he's not reaching base with any kind of regularity.

I'm not saying that Rollins isn't a valuable piece of the team, as his MVP year in 2007 will prove, but he could be helping out the Phillies so much more just by making small adjustments most leadoff hitters should perfect in the minor leagues like working the count better and hitting to all parts of the field.

And Jimmy, don't stand and watch the ball. Bust out of the box and think about second base.