Mordecai Brown by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Mordecai Brown

Page 109

best players on the team were and how good they were relative to their contemporaries and others in baseball history.

The 1906-10 Cubs had remarkable stability among their core regulars, with eight position players and four pitchers on the roster for all five years. In this era, core regulars received nearly all of the playing time, and with rosters at just 18, bench players filled in only when necessary. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the Cubs' core players; eight position players and five pitchers, including Carl Lundgren who was on the team only through 1908, accounted for 96% of the team's total WAR over those years. In 1906, for example, aside from their eight starting position player regulars, Chicago had only three position players appear in more than five games: second catcher Pat Moran, who caught 61 games; infielder-outfielder Solly Hofman, who appeared in 64 games; and outfielder Doc Gessler, who appeared in 25. Only Moran and Hofman made more than 100 plate appearances.

A multi-position regular; Stan Musial, alternating between first base and the outfield throughout his career, may be the most notable multi-position regular in league history; and five starting pitchers and a dedicated relief ace, the concept of which really did not come into vogue until after WWII. Each player must have been the best in the league at his position for