Snapshots from the 1980s: Wade Boggs
As noted in the introduction to last Friday’s conversation with Chris Chambliss, three years ago I did a series of short interviews that were never published and will appear in this space over the coming weeks. They focus on baseball during the decades of the 1980s, and today’s subject is Wade Boggs, who played for the Red Sox, Yankees and Devil Rays from 1982-1999.
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Boggs, on OBP in the ‘80s: “That was my game. It was how I thrived, but at the point in time that I played, I was criticized for doing something that is now fashionable – Moneyball, or whatever you want to call it. Today, everybody is looking for a guy who can get on base 250 times a year, and at the time I was doing it I was getting 200 hits and 100 walks. Then I would go to arbitration and be criticized for doing something that [front offices] now love.
“Billy Beane, the guy in Oakland, is the one who really put it on the map and it’s been fashionable for close to 10 years by now. Like I said, it wasn’t that way when I played, especially earlier in my career. I led off, so I always felt that it was my job to get on base and set the table for Jim Rice, Tony Armas, Dwight Evans, and all the big guys coming up to drive me in. That was a part of the game that I excelled at, but quite frankly, it was a part of the game that I was criticized for.”
On how he developed his approach: “It was something that I was always good at — hitting line drives, working counts, and being satisfied with a walk. A lot of guys weren’t satisfied with walking; they would rather swing and eventually try to get a hit. My approach was that if a pitcher wants to pitch around you and give you a free pass, you should take it. Getting on base is a big part of the game.”
On why he was a great hitter: “It was probably a combination of good eyesight and good eye-hand coordination. With those two things I could recognize a pitch on the way and make an adjustment with my swing to hit various pitches. That’s probably one of the things that set me aside from other hitters.
“I had the same swing in Little League that I did at 41, when I retired. I never really tinkered with my swing, stance, or anything like that. I stood in the same place all the time and never really changed.”
On what he considers his best season: “It’s hard to say, but maybe the year I had 240 hits. I think I hit .368 that year. The year that I hit 24 home runs and drove in 89 was probably the best production year I had.”
On hitting 24 home runs in 1987: “I think that it was an El Nino year where the wind was blowing out a little more. I went back and tried to analyze it and the only thing I did a lot more of that year was hit a lot more fly balls. Consequently, they went out of the ballpark. The next year I tried to duplicate that swing and just couldn’t do it.”
On the best pitchers in the American League in the 1980s: “Oh gosh, I could go on and on. Toronto had Dave Stieb, and Jack Morris was around. Ron Guidry was at the end of his career in the ‘80s, but he was still doing well. Mark Langston is another. I went through a whole era of pitchers and got to face the same guys over and over, and there were a lot of good pitchers. I had success against a lot of them.”
David Laurila grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and now writes about baseball from his home in Cambridge, Mass. He authored the Prospectus Q&A series at Baseball Prospectus from December 2006-May 2011 before being claimed off waivers by FanGraphs. He can be followed on Twitter @DavidLaurilaQA.
I knew Boggs in 1979, when he was playing at Bristol. Even then, he was being underrated, because people expected third basemen to hit home runs. He spent two years at every stop on the minor league ladder, even though he hit over .300 with a high OBP every year. When he finally made the Sox in 1982, it was only because he was out of options and because no other team was willing to spend $25,000 to sign him as a minor league free agent.
Yeah, can you imagine a 20yr old IF in AA today putting up .300 AVG & .400 OBP in a relatively tough hitting environment, and the club deciding they should repeat the level? He may have wasted a year or two in the minors, but it did make him better prepared to hit well over .300 immediately in the majors. If he had been brought up earlier and hit .280, Boston might well have shipped him out. Worked out well for everybody in the end, because that LH inside out swing was tailor made for Fenway Park.
It also didn’t hurt that he was really solid with the glove, too. A guy with a .420ish OBP, and it’s not like he was a slap hitter, either. Not many home runs, but 40 doubles and a few triples in a year is definitely useful power. It’s not like he’s Juan Pierre, who never had an ISO at .100 or higher.
If I recall, the big sticking point was the depth chart at 3rd base. They had Butch Hobson in the late 70s, and he was a fixture there. Then they had Glenn Hoffman who was a young prospect that was supposed to be good. Then Carney Lansford was at third base and he was hitting .300+.
Once they could trade Lansford to the As, Boggs was brought up.
What was cool was that Lansford was a fixture on the late 80s/early 90s As, who were the Sox’s biggest rivals in that era.
It’s interesting how players think. Boggs talks of how walks are very valuable, but then he counts 87 as his best season due to the HR and RBI.
By wOBA and RC, it was his best season, but barely more productive than his 88 season where he had 5 HR and 58 RBI.
In 87 his OBP was .461, in 88 it was .476. Those are some amazing seasons.
It’s also interesting that Boggs was criticized for just hitting for singles and walking, while Tony Gwynn was viewed as a pure or complete hitter.
Meanwhile Rickey Henderson, the greatest leadiff hitter ever, trails Boggs in OBP during many seasons.
This is the beauty of stats, they have the potential to trump perceptions if we use them correctly.
FWIW, count me as one that drastically under appreciated Boggs.
If you don’t have power you have to steal bases apparently. If Boggs did exactly the same stuff at 2b he would have gotten a ton of early recognition. Stupid close-minded baseball.
Actually, he said that ’88 was the best “production,” that he had. An interesting qualifier. He said that ’85 (when he had 240 hits and hit .368) was the best year he had, which WAR agrees with. Part of that is that he got a career high in PAs, with a .450 OBP. But yeah, he was really a more impressive hitter than he got credit for.
’83: 8.1 WAR
’84: 6.5 WAR
’85: 9.4 WAR
’86: 8.2 WAR
’87: 9.2 WAR
’88: 9.3 WAR
’89: 8.8 WAR
That is a Pujols-ian level of consistent dominance. I’m sure almost nobody realized it at the time.
Really? I remember fearing Boggs more than any batter the Twins faced.
Yeah, as a Jays fan, Boggs was clearly the best player on the Red Sox and an absolute nightmare to face in Fenway. I remember being aware early on of his 200 hit/100BB streak, and exactly how impressive/rare that was. I think the other guys who did it more than once or twice were Ruth and Gehrig.
Massive home/road splits, but it doesn’t seem fair to penalize him for them as much when trying to evaluate him – not many other hitters, ever, were as well suited to Fenway as Boggs was. He hit .369 there – as a comparison, Todd Helton has hit .354 in Colorado. Fenway was Boggs’ own personal Coors field.
Wow, a home/away OPS split of 0.974 / 0.781 is huge. This includes his entire career, but he had very large splits while wearing pin stripes too.
The year he hit 24 HR was 1987, the “juiced ball” season.
The Chicken Man was my favorite player growing up. Boggs was a machine. Thanks for the great read.
Question: What are the greatest individual seasons (based on WAR) by position players since 1945 with five or fewer home runs? I have looked at all individual seasons since 1945 and here is a list of the top 20 such players:
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1988): 9.3 WAR
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1989): 8.8 WAR
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1983): 8.1 WAR
Pete Rose, Reds (1973): 7.9 WAR
Lou Boudreau, Indians (1947): 7.6 WAR
Johnny Pesky, Red Sox (1946): 7.6 WAR
Willie Wilson, Royals (1980): 7.6 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1954): 7.5 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1958): 7.5 WAR
Bert Campaneris, A’s (1968): 7.3 WAR
Kenny Lofton, Indians (1993): 7.3 WAR
Stan Hack, Cubs (1945): 7.2 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1955): 7.0 WAR
Ozzie Smith, Cardinals (1989): 6.9 WAR
Chone Figgins, Angels (2009): 6.9 WAR
Harry Walker, Cardinals & Phillies (1947): 6.8 WAR
Rod Carew, Twins (1974): 6.8 WAR
Nellie Fox, White Sox (1959): 6.7 WAR
Luke Appling, White Sox (1946): 6.6 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1951): 6.6 WAR
I’d like to know if Boggs’ 1988 season is the best individual season by a position player with five or fewer dingers but I just spent way too much time putting together this list, so if anybody out there is bored…
That final paragraph was poorly written. I meant to write that I’d like to know if Boggs’ 1988 was the best single season in the history of MLB by a player with five or fewer dingers. I am guessing that there are some 19th Century or early 20th Century guys that might top Boggs’ 1988 but maybe not.
Interesting list, thanks for sharing. Surprised Rod Carew is only on there once, looks like he hit more home runs that I thought.
Thanks for sharing the interview. Growing up a Sox fan in the 80s I worshipped Boggs and was so sad when he left Boston. He was always one of my favorite cards every year because of all the *bold* print on the back…My memory and what Boggs has said seems to match in that he was not appreaciated by ownership/management in the way that he should have been and I was always disappointed about that.
Some interesting comments to read as well. Good stuff!
Ty Cobb and Billy Hamilton come to mind….I will look them up right now
Ty Cobb in 1915 hit 3 HR’s and had a WAR of 10.5 in 156 games. His slash was .369/.486/.487 w/ 96 SB’s.
B.Hamilton had a 8.0 WAR season in 1894. He hit .404 w/ a .523 OBP and 98 SB’s! His WAR was held back by only playing 129 games(shorter seasons then).
H.Wagner had 2 seasons over 10 WAR w/ <5 hr's.
T.Speaker had 3 seasons at 9.2/9.3 WAR.
E.Collins had 5 season at 9.5+, including one w/ 11.1 WAR in 1909 w/ 3 hr's….great defensive value at 2b w/ great avg/obp.
Thanks for the work. I went ahead and decided to turn my question into “What are the greatest individual seasons (based on WAR) over since 1919 (the year that the 24-year-old Babe Ruth truly burst onto the scene by hitting 29 home runs) by a position player who hit five or fewer home runs?,” since your guys all late 19th Century and pre-Babe Ruth era guys. Here is a revised list of the top 20 (well, 21, actually) individual seasons:
Eddie Collins, White Sox (1920): 9.5 WAR
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1988): 9.3 WAR
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1989): 8.8 WAR
Joe Cronin, Senators (1933): 8.5 WAR
Lou Boudreau, Indians (1944): 8.3 WAR
Luke Appling, White Sox (1943): 8.1 WAR
Wade Boggs, Red Sox (1983): 8.1 WAR
Pete Rose, Reds (1973): 7.9 WAR
Bobby Veach, Tigers (1919): 7.6 WAR
Lou Boudreau, Indians (1943): 7.6 WAR
Lou Boudreau, Indians (1947): 7.6 WAR
Johnny Pesky, Red Sox (1946): 7.6 WAR
Willie Wilson, Royals (1980): 7.6 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1954): 7.5 WAR
Richie Ashburn, Phillies (1958): 7.5 WAR
Joe Sewell, Indians (1923): 7.4 WAR
Luke Appling, White Sox (1935): 7.3 WAR
Bert Campaneris, A’s (1968): 7.3 WAR
Kenny Lofton, Indians (1993): 7.3 WAR
Dave Bancroft, Giants (1922): 7.2 WAR
Stan Hack, Cubs (1945): 7.2 WAR
When you look at guys from the pre-Babe Ruth era, you really get the sense that Wade Boggs seems to be an early 20th Century star who got into Jules Verne’s time machine and plopped into the 1980s. He even had that great mustache!
If I could be a major league baseball player, I would want to be like Wade Boggs. I’d rather be like him than like a complete hitter like Albert Pujols. Don’t know why really.
I think Boggs seems really human whereas Pujols seems more like a superhero. Hitting puts such a premium on hand-eye coordination it is possible for normal looking people to be amazing hitters. You could be Wade Boggs but look and maybe feel more or less like yourself. I can see where that might be more amusing than being Pujols.