Sunday Notes: Was Ken Singleton Better Than Dale Murphy?
The most recent of my “Who Was Better” polls on Twitter featured Dale Murphy and Ken Singleton, and while it drew only a modicum of interest — only 95 people cast votes — the results were nonetheless telling. Murphy won in resounding fashion — 76.8% to Singleton’s 23.2% — and it’s unlikely that the percentages would have been markedly different with a more-robust sample size. Murphy is a two-time MVP who made seven All-Star teams and was once on a Hall of Fame trajectory. Singleton made three All-Star teams and received nary a vote in his one year on the ballot.
But was Murphy actually better than the less-ballyhooed Singleton, who broke into the big leagues with the New York Mets before excelling with the Montreal Expos and the Baltimore Orioles? Let’s look at a few of their numbers, keeping in mind that Murphy played in 2,180 games, Singleton in 2.082 games.
Murphy: .265/.346/.469, 2,111 hits, 398 HR, .357 wOBA, 119 wRC+, 44.3 WAR.
Singleton: .282/.388/.436, 2,029 hits, 246 HR,.371 wOBA, 134 wRC+, 44.4 WAR.
Peaks matter, so here is the best eight-year stretch for both:
Murphy: .284/.374/.517, .386 wOBA, 139 wRC+, 39.7 WAR.
Singleton: .297/.406/.464, .390 wOBA, 147 wRC+, 35.6 WAR.
And the best six-year stretch:
Murphy: .289/.382/.531, .394 wOBA, 144 wRC+, 32.4 WAR.
Singleton: .300/.405/.475, .394 wOBA, 151 wRC+, 28.1 WAR.
Murphy has the edge in peak WAR, but that’s driven primarily by defense and base running. The Atlanta Braves legend also hit for more power than the erstwhile Expo and Oriole, but in terms of overall offensive value, Singleton grades out as the better of the two. Murphy’s top wRC+ season was 151. Singleton eclipsed that mark four times, topping out at 166.
Better overall player? Again, the edge goes to Murphy if you’re going peak WAR. But if you’re going full career, and/or put the most weight on offensive rate stats, the answer is much murkier. Let’s put it this way: regardless of how you’d answer the poll, Singleton — a New York Yankees broadcaster for the last two-plus decades — is vastly underrated. He was a fantastic hitter.
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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS
Jackie Robinson went 22 for 44 against Al Brazle.
Larry Doby went 21 for 30 against Bob Kuzava.
Roy Campanella went 20 for 40 against Vern Bickford.
Ernie Banks went 19 for 51 against Sal Maglie.
Willie Mays went 18 for 42 against Ray Washburn.
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Jon Lester’s announcing his retirement on Wednesday prompted me to look back at the first interview I did with him, which was in August 2004. I was early in my baseball-writing career at the time, while Lester was a 20-year-old Boston Red Sox prospect pitching in High-A. He very well could have been in another team’s system.
Lester told me that summer that he was a little surprised to have been drafted by the Red Sox, as he hadn’t even met Boston’s area scout prior to being selected 57th overall in 2002. He named the Seattle Mariners, Chicago White Sox, and Arizona Diamondbacks as teams that had expressed particular interest leading into draft day.
And then there was the near trade, which would have sent Lester and Manny Ramirez to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Alex Rodriguez in December 2003. Reportedly agreed upon, the deal never came to fruition due to salary implications that weren’t to the liking of the Player’s Union.
Lester said the following when I asked about the trade that didn’t happen:
“When it first came up, I was shocked. And the more I thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed. Being part of a deal that included players of that caliber was an honor, I’ll tell you that. But hey, I’m glad it worked out the way it did. A lot of Red Sox fans probably aren’t glad, but I love playing for this organization. I’m happy to still be here.”
Red Sox fans ended up being happy, as well. Jon Lester had a stellar nine seasons in Boston, as well as an outstanding career overall.
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Camden Yards is being reconfigured to make it less of a launching pad, particularly for right-handed hitters. The Orioles are moving the left field fence back by nearly 30 feet feet (losing approximately 1,000 seats in the process) and also raising its height. According to MLB.com’s Zachary Silver, the distance to “true left field” will henceforth be 384 feet — in the words of GM Mike Elias, “very similar to PNC Park, in Pittsburgh.” According to Elias and assistant GM Sig Mejdal, the objective is increased neutrality. It’s no secret that pitchers haven’t been particularly enamored with taking the mound in Baltimore.
The impending changes bring to mind the Detroit Tigers’ having made a similar decision, albeit in the opposite direction, prior to the start of the 2003 season. Looking to make Comerica Park play more neutrally, they shortened the distance of the left centerfield fence from a cavernous 395 feet to a more-hitter-friendly 370 feet.
In one respect, both moves make perfect sense. Each was originally an extreme in terms of how the ballpark played. But is that actually a bad thing? One of the reasons that Camden Yards has long been considered a gem is that it’s not cookie-cutter. Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium are likewise unique, as was the Polo Grounds. Conversely, many of the stadiums built in the 1970s and 1980s were ultimately deemed disappointments because they epitomized the term “cookie-cutter.”
Camden Yards isn’t in danger of falling victim to the label. It will remain a quality venue due to its other attributes. That said, the increased neutrality will make the Orioles’ home venue a little less interesting than it’s always been. Not that pitchers will complain, mind you.
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A quiz:
A total of 28 MLB players have hit 500 or more home runs. Of them, Babe Ruth boasts the highest slugging percentage (.690). Which of them has the lowest slugging percentage?
The answer can be found below.
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NEWS NOTES
The Kansas City Royals have promoted Paul Gibson to senior director of pitching. The 62-year-old southpaw transitioned into scouting and coaching roles after taking the mound for three teams from 1988-1996. Gibson made 214 of his 319 appearances with the Detroit Tigers.
The Colorado Rockies have hired Jordan Pacheco as their hitting coach at Triple-A Albuquerque. The 35-year-old University of New Mexico product played for three teams, most notably the Rockies, from 2011-2016.
Longtime broadcaster Dave Van Horne is reportedly retiring. Van Horne called games for the Montreal Expos from 1969-2000, and has been the radio voice of the Miami Marlins since 2001.
Eddie Basinski, an infielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944-1945, and for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1947, died last week at age 99. A native of Buffalo, Basinki banged out 147 big-league hits, then moved on to the Pacific Coast League where he played 12 seasons, nine of them with the Portland Beavers.
Carl Linhart, whose big-league career comprised three games and two plate appearances with the Detroit Tigers in 1952, died earlier this month at age 91. Born in Zborov, Linhart is one of five natives of the Czech Republic in MLB history.
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The answer to the quiz is Eddie Murray, who finished his career with 512 home runs and a .476 slugging percentage. Reggie Jackson (563 home runs and a .490 SLG) is the only other player with at least 500 home runs and a slugging percentage below .500.
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This Friday’s episode of FanGraphs Audio featured Dan Dickerson, the radio voice of the Detroit Tigers, and Don Gonyea, who grew up in Michigan and is now a political correspondent for NPR. The duo are longtime friends, and along with a mutual love of baseball, they are both great storytellers. The podcast included the following lengthy anecdote from Gonyea, who recalled a late 1980s visit to Tiger Stadium:
“Dan’s doing news [at WWJ], and I’m doing news, and we’re both covering Detroit. We would go to the ballpark together and get $5 reserve seats at old Tiger Stadium; we’d sit there and watch the game and talk about life. Anyway, my wife, Laurie, joined us for one of those games. We meet Dan at the ballpark, and he comes walking up to us, and he’s lugging this big grade-school book bag — one of those leather ones that opens at the top and it’s got the handle. It’s full of baseball reference books. The Bill James books are in there. Everything is in there. It’s jam-packed.
“I’ve seen this before, because I’ve been to the ballpark with Dan. It’s what Dan does. And Laurie starts to kind of mock him for lugging all of his books from home to the ballpark. But lo and behold, about the second or third inning, Laurie has a question about something that happened on the field, or about some player. Dan, without skipping a beat, reaches into his book bag, and pulls out a book. It’s got the answer in it; he knew where to find it… And for me, that is who Dan Dickerson is, and it’s why I just love the guy. My wife has not mocked him since.”
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About a week ago, I shared on Twitter that Orval Overall and Jack Taylor each had 12 wins, three losses, 116 hits allowed, 30 earned runs allowed, and one home run allowed with the 1906 Chicago Cubs. What I was perusing when I happened across that nugget isn’t nearly as remarkable, but it is notable. The 1906 Cubs went 116-36-3, a .763 winning percentage that ranks as the best in the club’s modern-era franchise history.
The three best records in overall franchise history, all of which came prior to 1890, are notable for another reason. From 1876-1889, the team was known as the Chicago White Stockings. They became the Colts (1890-1897) and the Orphans (1898-1902) before becoming the Cubs in 1903.
One more note on the Frank Chance-led club that dominated the National League in 1906: They lost the third-ever World Series, falling to the American League champions in six games. The team that bested them was the Chicago White Sox.
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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE
Baseball is not just a business, and Joe Sheehan explained why — in no uncertain terms — in his newsletter.
Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri wrote about how Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker has changed and improved the Cooperstown conversation.
Playing for multiple teams reduces a player’s chances of being elected to the Hall of Fame by 50% or more. The new research Bill James Online.
Shingo Takatsu 다카쓰 and Masahiro Yamamoto have been elected to the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame, while Randy Bass fell short. Jim Allen has the story at jballallen.com.
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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS
Rollie Fingers made 19 starts for the Oakland A’s in 1970. He had one complete game, and the longest of his 26 relief appearances was eight-and-two-thirds-innings against the Washington Senators.
Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger threw complete games in a 26-inning 1-1 tie between the Boston Braves and Brooklyn Robins on May 1, 1920. Called due to darkness, the game was played in a time of three hours and fifty minutes. (In 1984, the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox played a 25-inning game that lasted eight hours and six minutes.)
Sandy Koufax went 97-27 with a 172 ERA+ from 1963-1966.
Lefty Grove went 104-25 with a 175 ERA from 1929-1932.
Mike Piazza hit 40 home runs for the New York Mets in 1999. He didn’t have any multi-home-run games that season.
New York Mets outfielder Kevin McReynolds stole 21 bases without being caught in 1988. Washington Senators infielder Pete Runnels was caught in all 10 of his stolen base attempts in 1952.
Carlton Fisk had 128 career stolen bases. The Hall of Fame catcher had 17 steals in each of his age-34 and age-37 seasons.
The Minnesota Twins released Harmon Killebrew on today’s date in 1975. The Hall of Fame slugger signed with the Kansas City Royals a week later and went on to slash .199/.317/.375 with 14 home runs in the last of his 22 big-league seasons.
Players born on today’s date include Rod Miller, who at age 17 struck out in his only career plate appearance while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1957. Miller’s manager, Walton Alston, struck out in his only career plate appearance while playing for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936.
Also born on today’s date was Ferdie Schupp, a left-handed pitcher who had a pair of stupendous seasons with the New York Giants before incurring a shoulder injury. In 1916, Schupp went 9-3 with a 0.90 ERA over 140-and-a-third innings, a record-setting performance he followed up on by going 21-7 with a 1.95 ERA over 272 innings the following year. Schupp’s 0.90 ERA in 1916 is the lowest in MLB history for a pitcher who tossed as many innings.
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.
Missed your twitter poll on Murphy and Singleton. Had I seen it I would have voted for Murphy too, but I know to expect the but … that comes after every poll. Singleton had a much better MLB career than I realized, but I have always appreciated his broadcasting career. He has paired well with Michael Kay and David Cone and whoever else has been in the booth. I am a Cards fan, but enjoyed the hour or so of listening to the Yankees broadcast before a Cards game began. He had a humble way of making his points in the booth. I will miss that voice now that he has retired from broadcasting.
I said it last year and will say it again. Your Sunday Notes are a must read. I am a stat nerd and have a FG subscription to pour over all the numbers, but your column humanizes baseball and its past. It is a joy to read.
Illusions shattered: I like to think of David as an ancient scribe-spirit, older than human language. It’s traumatic to learn he was just starting out as a journalist in 2004 – my mind cannot comprehend the depth and complexity of baseball knowledge he has on such a short time scale!
A great read, as always.
If I’m remembering this right, in one of his old Baseball Abstracts Bill James considered the potential impact of a strike-zone change and thought it might hurt certain hitters, Murphy among them (because of Murphy’s height and maybe swing). If you look at Murphy’s numbers, there’s support for that. After hitting 44 HR in 1987, with an OPS of 157, and 7.7 BWAR, he managed a total of 4.9 BWAR for the last seven years of his career. It could have been coincidental, but..
Wait…youre using Baseball Reference stats ( bWAR) on Fangraphs???….ballsy
Excellent point. I thought Fangraphs had installed an automatic converter. My bad.
I mean, if Jay Jaffe can use rWAR, so can we! They’re both great resources.
This is a bit of a strange way to frame Dale Murphy’s defensive contributions. He was a below average CF and a plus RF while Ken Singleton was a bad corner outfielder. It’s not crazy to think that you have to be a quite a bit better on offense to actually be the better player when you are starting off with that handicap.
Singleton is a class act in the booth too, one of the best. I remember checking out his career stats and thinking the skillet on paper fit my tastes, these guys capable of .400 OBPs still feel underrated. My guess is that his skills as a player and general classiness was enough to make him One of the Good Ones for those above,hence the sharp post career life, but sure seems like his ceiling has been capped in certain ways
I am a firm believer that the way we (collectively) remember players is largely dependent on how many teams they played for, and how long they stayed with one team in their prime.
Murphy is remembered almost exclusively as a Brave, despite playing for 3 more teams at the end of his career.
While Singleton did play with the Orioles for 11 years, his prime was split among 3 different teams, clouding the way many fans remember him.
Some other examples of very good players who are underrated in our collective consciousness due to team-hopping (whether of their own volition or no):
Graig Nettles 64.3 WAR
Roberto Alomar 63.6 WAR
Kenny Lofton 62.4 WAR
Gary Sheffield 62.1 WAR
Bobby Abreu 59.8 WAR
Some of these players are still highly regarded, but not as much (IMO) as they should be. Compare to players of similar value who played most or all of their prime with 1 or at most 2 teams:
Tony Gwynn 65 WAR
Alan Trammel 63.7 WAR
Rod Carew 62.8 WAR
Ryne Sandberg 60.9 WAR
Andre Dawson 59.5 WAR
If you did a Twitter poll of Nettles vs. Gwynn, Alomar vs. Trammel, Lofton vs. Carew, Sheffield vs. Sandberg, and Abreu vs. Dawson, I bet the latter players would win most of them.
There are exceptions of players who played for lots of teams in their prime, but they have to be truly exceptional for us to remember them that way:
Adrian Beltre
Jim Thome
Rickey Henderson
I agree with the basic point but I also think it’s a bit overstated. There are lots of differences between the two groups, not just how many teams they played for. And most of those differences favor the second group, at least in terms of an unscientific twitter poll.
For example. the second group has three players who won the MVP whereas the first group has none. The second group has 4 players who were consistently voted to the All-Star game by the fans whereas the first group only has one. The second group has two of the greatest hitters of all-time in terms of batting average (which tends to be overrated) whereas the first group has none.
So while I agree that the second group would win most of those competitions (except for Alomar vs Trammel), I’m not sure how much of it has to do with the numbers of teams played for vs other factors.
That’s fair. But imagine Yastrzemski vs Frank Robinson? Robinson had 2 MVPs, Yastrzemski had 1, they each won the triple crown.
Robinson was objectively the better player, putting up more value in fewer plate appearances.
But I bet a Twitter poll that asked people to vote without looking them up would be a lot closer to 50/50 than you would expect.
Same thing for Mickey Mantle vs. Rickey Henderson (though in reverse, as Mantle was a bit better in fewer games). Instead of the 60-40 in favor of Mantle I would expect if they had both played for just one team, I think the result would be like 90-10 Mantle.
I think you’ve got a point but I’m not buying these specific examples. For one, Mantle vs Henderson isn’t exactly fair because Mantle was actually better. If 90% of people tell you that 11 is greater than 10, what exactly is that telling you? Likewise, I always thought of Frank Robinson as being better than Yastrzemski.
I think the argument is a lot stronger when you’re not talking about all-time greats. People are well aware of the exploits of Mickey Mantle, Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan, etc. It’s the guys like Craig Biggio, Tony Gwynn, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, Kenny Lofton, etc where we’d expect the biases to be strongest because we spend less time thinking about them.
That’s fair, though I really don’t think Robinson exists in the collective consciousness the way Yastrzemski does. In fact, if you asked casual fans to name a player to get the triple crown, after Miggy, you’ll get a lot more Yaz than Robinson.
So I was wondering if this was really true, that the masses would pick Yaz over Robinson. So I went to the website ranker. Frank Robinson is at #33, and Carl Yastrzemski as at #44. Considering that Frank Robinson is #17 in fWAR and Yaz is at #23, that seems pretty reasonable. Not definitive proof, but it is an interesting data point.
But Tony Gwynn is hanging out at #29, and Griffey is at #18, and Ernie Banks is at #22. So I think in some sense you’re right.
@dl80 On the Triple Crown thing, I wonder if people would be more likely to mention Yaz than Robinson (especially fans who didn’t see either of them play, like myself) because Yaz was the last guy to do it before Miggy, and so anytime a player looked like they might have a shot at the Triple Crown, Yaz’s name would get mentioned.
6 of Singleton’s top 7 WAR seasons were with Baltimore. He had 1 really good year in Montreal in 1973, but, the other 2 years were not up to the same level. & he only had about 600 total PA’s with NYM across 2 partial seasons as a young player.
Add in that Baltimore was a contender for most of his 11 years, even making 2 WS & winning 1 & I don’t think he fits the same criteria of guys that jumped around a bunch. Basically, 75% of his WAR & almost all of his notoriety was with Baltimore
All good points
AKA the Kevin Brown effect…
I always enjoyed Singleton’s announcing the Yankees games and was sorry to see him retire after last season. I knew he was vastly under appreciated for his career as an outfielder but didn’t realize just how good he was.
Regarding the new dimensions at Camden Yards – Gleyber Torres is the saddest ballplayer in the league right now. And I’m okay with the greater distance but don’t raise the height of the fence and eliminate the chance for spectacular homerun-robbing catches. Big 👎 to that.
Gleyber hasn’t hit a HR in Camden since 2019. He’ll survive.
Yeah. He’s hit a grand total of 12 HR since 2019.
Laying aside for the moment that Singleton was a corner outfielder (and defensively not a very good one), how does another centerfielder, inexplicably undervalued in public perception and not currently heading for the Hall, stack up to these two? The one I have in mind, of course, is Jim Edmonds, so it might be better to reverse the polarity of the question: how do they stack up to him?
For the 6 and 8 year stretches, David is using consecutive years which is different than what Jay does for JAWS which uses the best 7 years, regardless of whether they’re consecutive or not. If you look at the best 6 non-consecutive years, for example. Murphy has a slightly larger lead: 36.0 vs 30.8 (16.9% edge for Murphy). In fact, if you line up their best seasons, Murphy wins the first 6 times. Singleton only starts winning once you pass their peaks.
7.1 vs 5.7
7.0 vs 5.7
6.0 vs 5.6
5.7 vs 5.1
5.6 vs 4.5
4.6 vs 4.2
2.6 vs 3.1
I honestly can’t see a case for SIngleton. Throughout their best seasons, Murphy was always better than Singleton. The only case for Singleton would be to dismiss Murphy’s superior defense, which as Sadtrombone noted above doesn’t make any sense.
Of course, none of this is to dismiss Singleton. He was a fantastic player. But Murphy was better. (and if you use Baseball-Reference, the gap is even wider).
Carlton Fisk also put up positive defensive and baserunning numbers in his final full season in 1992 as Ron Karkovice’s backup. He was 44 years old and had caught more than 2200 games by the end of that year.
“Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…a long time.”
Karkovice was the prototypical no-hit, great fielding catcher that seemed to exist on almost every team in the pre-PED era.
An 81 career wRC+ was carried by a 41% caught stealing rate, and he was known as a good fielder, though we don’t really know for sure about his framing.
Some other contemporary examples that it made me remember or look up:
Tony Pena
Joe Girardi
Pat Borders
Kirt Manwaring
Brad Ausmus
Dan Wilson
Jorge Fabregas
There aren’t many of these kinds of catchers left today. I’m guessing teams aren’t as willing to tolerate a total black hole on offense, no matter how good the defense is.
Roberto Perez, Austin Hedges, and Martin Maldonado are the best examples in today’s game, and they are even more extreme than those in the 1990s. They routinely run a wRC+ well below 80 and still get 200-300 (or more) plate appearances.
Eh, the league wRC+ for catchers was 89 last year
The Sheehan link was amusing. I’ve encountered lots of people who strongly agree with him…and lots more people who agree with the “it’s the owner’s right to make an annual profit” idea that he finds abhorrent. They’re both wrong of course
If I could only take one, I’d take Murphy. However, Murphy did gain a slight advantage due to playing in Atlanta. Singleton’s splits are pretty even while Murphy got a boost in Fulton.
I was going to post the same thing. Murphy got a halo effect from playing in “The Launching Pad”, which helped his basic #’s (BA, HR, RBI) look better. We didn’t have OPS+, wRC+, etc. in the 80’s. & Barry Parkin below does have a point, the Braves being on every day, helped give Murphy some publicity.
I do think Murphy was better & wonder if he would have been a HOF if Atlanta hadn’t wasted 2-3 years trying to make him a catcher while also playing him at 1B.
Ironically, my memory was that both were (incorrectly) considered good defensive players when they were playing. Singleton had a good arm, which was overvalued at that time. & Murphy actually won 5 GG’s when he was primarily playing CF.
I wonder if everyone believes Dale Murphy was a better ballplayer than Singleton for one basic reason….the Braves were on TV every day and all we heard was Skip Carays love affair with Dale Murphy!!
Also, during his peak years Murphy was clearly the standout player on the Braves, while on the Orioles Singleton got less attention because of Palmer, Flanagan, a young Eddie Murray, etc.
Singleton was one of my favorite non-Yankee players when I was growing up. Roy White was one of my favorites on the Yankees. Clearly, I had an affinity for switch-hitters who could get on base even as a kid. Singleton could do everything well but run. Had a strong OF arm too. His lack of speed though hurt him on the bases and in the OF, but he was still one heck of a hitter. The exact type who get underrated. His prime years also occurred during an offensively depressed period.
I’d rate Murphy ahead due to his peak and position, but I might be tempted to take Singleton for his career. That’s likely the little boy in me speaking from the past.
Comparisons like this really make me think about what I mean when I say one guy was “better” than another.
I love Ken Singleton. He finished top 10 in MVP voting four times and you can still argue that people didn’t fully appreciate him.
But Murphy in his prime was an absolute wrecking ball, and that’s borne out whether you’re using advanced metrics or baseball-card stats. If the question were “Who would you rather add to your contending team, 26-year-old Dale Murphy or 26-year-old Ken Singleton?” you’d have gotten the same skew in the results.
Career value is real, and Singleton’s stretch as … um, let’s call it “capable of starting for winning teams” did end up being longer than Murphy’s. But I guess that’s not what I’m thinking of when I say “better.”
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