The true greatness of Joe Morgan
But was the Reds superstar better than Gehrig, Foxx, DiMaggio, and Musial?
We’ve lost several heroes during the past few weeks.
Hall of Famers Lou Brock, Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, and Tom Seaver — four of baseball’s greatest stars in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s — all passed away between the last day of August and October 8.
And then came the news of a fifth. Joe Morgan, the most essential cog in Cincinnati’s famed Big Red Machine, died on October 11 at the age of 77.
The obituaries emphasized the obvious points. They noted Morgan’s consecutive Most Valuable Player awards in 1975 and 1976, his inclusion on nine of the National League’s 10 All-Star squads during the same decade, his skill at the plate (four times leading the NL in on-base percentage) and as a second baseman (five Gold Gloves), and his election to the Hall of Fame in 1990, his first year of eligibility.
But the New York Times added an intriguing point. It quoted Bill James, the patron saint of sabermetrics, as suggesting that Morgan’s performance in his second MVP year, 1976, was “the equal of anything ever done by Lou Gehrig or Jimmie Foxx or Joe DiMaggio or Stan Musial.”
Well, there’s no doubt that Morgan was outstanding in 1976. He hit for average (.320) and power (27 homers). He tore up the basepaths (60 stolen bases). He scored 113 runs and drove in 111. He led the big leagues in on-base percentage (.444), slugging average (.576), and sacrifice flies (12). And he won a Gold Glove.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about Morgan’s miraculous season was that his selection as MYP wasn’t unanimous. Five of the 24 voters opted for his Cincinnati teammate, George Foster, who paced the majors with 121 RBIs. (Foster would pick up the trophy the following year.)
So, yes, Joe Morgan, was truly outstanding in 1976. But better than Gehrig, Foxx, DiMaggio, or Musial? It’s hard to imagine.
The only logical thing to do is to compare the peak years of all five superstars. Here are the basic stats:
Gehrig, 1927 — 47 HR, 173 RBI, .373 BA
Foxx, 1932 — 58 HR, 169 RBI, .364 BA
DiMaggio, 1941 — 30 HR, 125 RBI, .357 BA
Musial, 1948 — 39 HR, 131 RBI, .376 BA
Morgan, 1976 — 27 HR, 111 RBI, .320 BA
The clear conclusion is that Morgan was fifth-best in this group. His numbers may have been tremendous, yet he trailed the other four stars in each of the three traditional categories by which we measure hitters.
But that wasn’t what James was talking about.
Morgan brought a rare blend of power and speed to the game. The 1976 season was one of seven in which he hit at least 15 homers and swiped at least 40 bases. His 60 steals that year came in just 69 attempts, an impressive success rate of 87%.
And Morgan’s batting eye was equally amazing. He walked 114 times in 1976, part of a six-year streak in which he drew more than 110 walks every season.
This was an exceptional player, one who could get on base in a number of ways — and then take the extra base that most others couldn’t reach. This was the rare kind of star who could spark one of the greatest clubs of the past half-century. The 1976 Reds swept through the NL Championship Series and the World Series without losing a game.
The best measure of this kind of ability is BPO, the ratio of a player’s bases to his outs. Bases include total bases from all hits, as well as walks, steals, hit batsmen, sacrifice hits, and sacrifice flies. The latter two stats indicate a batter’s willingness to give himself up to gain a base for his team.
Here are the results for the same five players, ranked by the BPOs for their peak years:
Gehrig, 1927 — 1.494 BPO
Foxx, 1932 — 1.470 BPO
Morgan, 1976 — 1.334 BPO
Musial, 1948 — 1.288 BPO
DiMaggio, 1941 — 1.213 BPO
These are astounding numbers. Each of these players generated considerably more than one base for every out that he made. Compare their figures to the leaguewide BPO averages for the 2019 season: .726 in the American League, .719 in the National League.
But Morgan is still third, isn’t he? BPO proves that his peak season was better than the corresponding summits for Musial and DiMaggio, but not Gehrig and Foxx.
Ah, but there’s one more step.
Conditions change dramatically from era to era, as we all know. A .300 batting average was nothing special in 1930, when the norm for the major leagues was .296. All eight regulars for the NL champion Cardinals topped .300 that season. Yet the big-league average dived to .242 by 1967. Only four players in the entire American League hit better than .300 that year.
We need to take these fluctuations into account when judging the relative value of each player’s performance. So I compared individual BPO with the league average for the same season. These are the adjusted rankings:
Morgan, 1976 — 1.334 BPO, .631 league, 111.6% better
Gehrig, 1927 — 1.494 BPO, .730 league, 104.5% better
Foxx, 1932 — 1.470 BPO, .719 league, 104.3% better
Musial, 1948 — 1.288 BPO, .660 league, 95.2% better
DiMaggio, 1941 — 1.213 BPO, .679 league, 78.7% better
Joe Morgan, as you can see, was 111.6% better than the typical National League batter in 1976. He exceeded the norm for his era by a larger margin than any of the other four stars did. And that, to me, is the best measure of greatness, the truest indicator of dominance.
Bill James said an astounding thing about Morgan, something that frankly seemed to be unbelievable at first glance.
I’m now ready to believe it.