The Pyramid Rating System’s All-Time Brooklyn Dodgers

Paul Moehringer’s Pyramid Rating System & All-Time Teams Aug. 27, 2015: The Pyramid Rating System: JAWS on a Career Scale March 15, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System: The Results Aug. 12, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System All-Time League and the All-Time Baltimore Orioles Sept. 2, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System’s All-Time Boston Red Sox Sept. 28, 2016: The Pyramid Rating System’s All-Time Texas Rangers

In our latest installment of the Pyramid Rating’s system all-time team series, we take our first glance at the National League and a team that in spite of not being in existence in almost 60 years still ranks as one of the better teams in the National League, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Making the assumption that this is a modern day league puts the Dodgers at some inherent disadvantages. Not being in existence since 1957 means you miss out on virtually every highly rated defensive outfielder that exists. They also don’t have anyone who you could remotely consider a modern day reliever and have very limited depth. No Brooklyn Dodger team ever needed to carry 12 pitchers at a time.

Even so, this is a team that won 12 National League pennants. If that’s the kind of talent pool you have, you’ll be able to win under any constraints, and as we will soon see this is not a team that should be taken lightly.

Franchise Included: Brooklyn Bridegrooms (NL) 1890; 1896-1898, Brooklyn Grooms (NL) 1891-1895, Brooklyn Superbas 1899-1910; 1913, Brooklyn Robins (NL) 1914-1931, Brooklyn Dodgers 1911-1912; 1932-1957
# of Hall of Famers on 25-man roster: 7
Manager: Leo Durocher

For the most part managers tend to be easy calls. Ned Hanlon’s teams were as great as Earl Weaver’s teams ever were, but Hanlon didn’t have the same type of longevity that Weaver had. Ron Washington is the longest tenured manager in Rangers history, the all-time wins leader and at the time of this article still the only one to take the Rangers to the World Series, which he did in back to back years. With the Brooklyn Dodgers there is no obvious choice.

The longest tenured manager in Brooklyn Dodgers history by far is Wilbert Robinson, in which case the team would have to be called Brooklyn Robins. Although this is the era of Brooklyn Dodger history that gives us the “Daffiness Boys”, Robinson actually finished his 18 year Brooklyn tenure with a .506 winning percentage and two National League pennants.

Unfortunately none of Robinson’s tenure captures the franchise’s unquestioned golden years of the late 40’s and mid 50’s. That is the team that won 6 six pennants over 10 years between 1947 and 1956. Any manager who picked up all 6 would be the easy choice to be the team’s all-time manager, but nobody won more than two. The closest to winning three and I feel the best from this era is the Dodgers manager from 1951 to 1953, Chuck Dressen. Despite only managing three years in Brooklyn, Dressen still managed to win 298 games and post an incredible .642 winning percentage.

In the end the person I chose to head up the team was a man with both a higher winning percentage than Wilbert Robinson and a longer tenure than Walter Alston, Leo Durocher. Much has been made in recent years of his temperament and for that reason alone I would say if this was an actual team he would not be someone I would consider, especially in this day and age. Seeing as how this is a fantasy exercise I can forgive myself for looking pasts Durocher’s obvious off field issues and focus squarely on the performance of his teams as a bench mark for whether or not he is qualified to be the skipper of this club. Over an eight and a half year tenure with the Dodgers, Durocher won 738 games, posted a .566 winning percentage and just two losing seasons. In spite of all this success Durocher’s Dodgers only won one National League pennant, but this is somewhat misleading as the 1942 Dodgers, for instance, posted 104 wins, while the ’46 Dodgers won 96. In both years the Dodgers came just two games short of Stan Musial and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Another win or two in those seasons would have made this call easier, but even without the benefit of those few extra wins I still feel like Durocher does just enough to warrant representation ahead of Robinson, Dressen and Walter Alston. No other team will have this close of a debate.

Best Overall Player and Position Player: Jackie Robinson

The golden era of this franchise begins with the arrival of Jackie Robinson and ends with his departure and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. During his playing career Robinson had no equal in baseball. Nobody, especially no  second baseman had a better combination of power, speed and defensive ability when he played than Jackie Robinson. Six times Robinson finished in the top ten in the NL in OPS and nine times Robinson finished in the top ten in stolen bases. In addition to this Robinson also led the NL in double plays turned by a second baseman every year from 1949 to 1952.

Aside from Stan Musial, I don’t believe there is a better player to be found in the National League during the ten year period from ’47 to ’56. Robinson’s ability to play both second and third base will also come in handy as the Dodgers don’t have much depth at either position and without Robinson these would no doubt be weak parts of the team. Robinson assures that at least one of these positions will be one of the best in the National League at all times and transforms what would otherwise be a below average infield into one of the NL’s best.

Best Hitter: Duke Snider

Often glossed over as the third-best (and therefore worst) of the three big New York center fielders of the 1950’s, when age and health began to chip away at Jackie Robinson’s game, Duke Snider took over as the team’s best player and no doubt their best hitter. From 1950-1956 Snider was top five in the NL every year in total bases including three years where he led the league. From ’52 to ’56 Snider finished no lower than second in OPS and also led the league two years in the category.

A fair defensive outfielder, Snider winds up being the best defensive option the Dodgers have in the outfield as well as the best offensive one. Much like the glory days of 50’s the infield/outfield combo of Robinson and Snider is the bedrock by which this team is built on and just like the 50’s it proves to be a very strong foundation.

Best Pitcher: Dazzy Vance

Unlike their LA counterparts, the Brooklyn Dodgers were built largely through offense and haven’t featured a ton of big time aces, but one exception to this rule was the face of the “Daffiness Boys”, Dazzy Vance. Throughout the 1920’s Vance would prove to be one of the most overpowering, durable and dominant starters in the game, leading the NL in strikeouts seven straight years between 1922 and 1928 as well as leading the NL in ERA three times, top ten in strikeout to walk ratio eight times and top ten in innings pitched seven times with Dodgers/Robins. All of this adds up to an average number one starter and a possible all-star candidate. There’s no question this team is built around offense, but unlike what we saw with the Texas Rangers the Brooklyn Dodgers have at least one pitcher who you could definitively say is good enough to be in the starting rotation of all 36 teams in this league and a number one starter for more than one of them. Without Vance the Brooklyn Dodgers would have one of the worst rotations in the league. With him, it makes them roughly above average which combined with their offense would make them an obvious Wild Card contender.

Best Player Not on the Roster Due to the One-Team-Only Rule: Bill Dahlen/nobody

The best Brooklyn Dodger I can find not included on the 40-man roster is Bill Dahlen, one of the most overlooked and underrated players of all-time. Obviously Dahlen will be featured later in this series, but considering the names we’ve seen up to this point, I think its fairly obvious the Brooklyn Dodgers are getting off incredibly easy. Dahlen would only be good enough to make the 40-man squad meaning the Dodgers 25-man team is completely unaffected by this rule.

Having a parade of solid GM’s the likes of Larry MacPhail, Branch Rickey and Buzzie Bravasi in the reserve clause era is no doubt the root cause of this. The Dodgers had a keen eye for scouting talent once they got them they usually didn’t go anywhere else.

Another key factor is that unlike what we’ll see with other teams like the Giants and Braves, the Dodgers have no players who you could argue really belong in both places. Don Drysdale had some success with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but there’s little doubt his peak years came in Los Angeles. Likewise Duke Snider hit .292 with the Dodgers over his five seasons in LA, but was nowhere near the kind of dominant player that he was in Brooklyn.

Strengths

We’ve seen teams use and take advantage of platoons, but we haven’t seen anything quite like this up to this point. The Dodgers only feature four full-time starters in Campanella, Jackie, Snider and Pee Wee Reese. For most teams this would be a detriment but for the Dodgers, it represents a major plus. Let’s start on the infield. At first base the Brooklyn Dodgers feature two borderline Hall of Famers in Gil Hodges and Dolph Camilli. Much has been made about Gil Hodges’ HOF candidacy, but I’m not sure why it’s taken as more or less a given that Gil Hodges was the greatest first baseman in Brooklyn Dodgers history. One of the key pickups made by Larry MacPhail, in addition to his 1941 MVP season, Camilli finished in the top ten in the NL in OPS five times with the Dodgers and three times drew 100+ walks including two years where he led the league.

As far as who was the better player with the Dodgers, it’s a tossup, but unlike most lists which simply concern themselves with who was the best player, this looks at what each brings to the table and how to best utilize each one’s talent. With Camilli being a left handed batter and Hodges a righty a natural platoon arises with Camilli seeing action almost exclusively against righties and Hodges likewise against lefties. On their own Camilli and Hodges would both be adequate starting first baseman but nowhere near all-star quality in a league where you have to a be a no doubt Hall of Famer just to garner consideration. Combined in a platoon and they become far more dangerous with Camilli being a career .294 hitter against righties and Hodges a career .299 hitter against lefties. As you can see with the DH, both players would be seeing action full time and regardless of which one is on the bench, the Dodgers will have a solid pinch hitting option to turn to.

At both second and third, Jackie Robinson presents by far the best option, but he can only play one position at a time and aside from Robinson, the Dodgers lack any quality option at either second or third. Eddie Stanky was a three time all-star in his career and a walk machine but only one of those all-star seasons came in Brooklyn, and with just four year tenure with Brooklyn he rates as a below average starter. Third base is even worse. Cookie Lavagetto may have appeared in four consecutive all-star games with the Dodgers, but only posted an OPS of .800 or better once over those four seasons and his name is hard to come by in top ten lists for any major offensive category in baseball over those four seasons.

A marginally better and far more versatile option at third is Jimmy Johnston, who played in more than 400 games with the Dodgers and had a nearly identical OPS+ as Lavagetto. While Stanky splits are virtually identical against both righties and lefties, Johnston shows a much higher propensity for hitting lefties and is a bigger stolen base threat than Stanky.

Johnston’s ability to backup short as well as third makes him a very valuable bench player as it allows the Dodgers to overload their outfield and allow their platoon matchups to really shine through.

Duke Snider would seem to be the easy call to play center and without question, Snider remains the greatest center fielder in Dodger history, not just Brooklyn, but with the position qualification rules of this league, Snider also qualifies to play in left and right and unlike a lot of other center fielders, Snider has the bat to be justified at the corners.

In left the Dodgers feature two strong left handed batters in Zack Wheat and Augie Galan, while in right field the Dodgers feature two other strong right handed batters in Dixie Walker and Carl Furillo. Zack Wheat only qualifies as a left fielder, but Galan also qualifies as a center fielder having been the team’s primary starting center fielder in 1943, but because his primary position is left and not center, he doesn’t automatically qualify to play right the same way that Snider does. Even so, with his ability to play center and Snider’s ability to play right it still enables to Dodgers to have Galan, Wheat and Snider all in the lineup against a righty simply by moving Galan to center and Snider over to right. Defensively, this is less than ideal but the idea of having two Hall of Famers and a leadoff hitter the quality of Galan, all with lefty-righty matchups in their favor is just too good to pass up. Against lefties, the Dodgers improve markedly defensively in the outfield. Even with Dixie Walker playing out of position in left, I would still consider him a better defensive option there than Zack Wheat. Snider is obvious defensive upgrade in center over Galan and unlike Snider, Furillo is a natural right fielder.

A career OPS split of .743 against lefties and .843 against righties would suggest that Walker is a weak hitter to have against lefties, but most of the plate appearances that led to those extreme splits happened before Walker arrived in Brooklyn. In 1937 with the White Sox, Walker posted OPS splits of .887 against righties and .701 against lefties. But in 1945 with the Dodgers and eight more years of experience under his belt Walker put up a near identical split with a .821 OPS against righties and a .824 OPS against lefties. Because his seasons with the Dodgers are the only seasons that matter, Walker is considered to be just about as strong against lefties as he is against righties.

Through these series of platoons and matchups the Brooklyn Dodgers are able to get far more out of their offense than they have any business doing otherwise. What’s interesting about the platoons is that they highlight different eras as well as different players. Against a righty, the Dodgers lineup pulls from nearly all parts of their franchise’s history, but against a lefty its almost exclusively players from the 1950’s. Of the players in the Dodgers left handed lineup, Jimmy Johnston is the only player to not play alongside Jackie Robinson. Compare that to the right side where Zack Wheat, Augie Galan and Dolph Camilli were all former Dodgers by the time Robinson joined the team. The righty-lefty splits are very reflective of this at a team level. The 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers as a team had an OPS split of .911 against left handed pitchers and .795 against righties. Keeping that stat in mind may help explain why neither Warren Spahn, Joe Nuxhall or Johnny Antonelli started a single game at Ebbets Field that year in spite of them being in the top three for innings pitched amongst left handed pitchers.

Defensively the Brooklyn Dodgers are an average team, but do feature two of the greatest defenders of all-time in Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese. If Robinson was a full time second baseman on this squad, he would be a Gold Glove contender, and despite of being a strictly get-on-base hitter incapable of driving in runs at the plate, defensively Pee Wee Reese ranks as one of the greatest shortstops of all-time, and makes a solid argument for being one of the five best starting shortstops in the National League.

Starting pitching wise the Brooklyn Dodgers feature an above average rotation. Dazzy Vance gives the team a legitimate staff ace, while Nap Rucker could be the pitcher across the league that nobody has ever heard of. From 1909-1912, a legitimate argument could be made that Nap Rucker was the best pitcher in the National League. Over that four year stretch Rucker finished in the top ten in the NL every year in innings pitched, strikeouts, strikeouts per nine innings, strikeout to walk ratio and in three of the four seasons he was top ten in WHIP and was top ten in ERA twice. Jeff Pfeffer, Burleigh Grimes and Preacher Roe would be very run of the mill starters in this league, but reliable ones as well and combined with their potent offense would prove to be a solid matchup for most any pitcher in the league not named Greg Maddux or Christy Mathewson.

Weaknesses

Hugh Casey may have been one of the game’s first true stars to appear strictly out of the bullpen, but aside from that the Brooklyn Dodgers have not featured a lot of notable relievers in franchise history. Their eighth inning man Joe Black won rookie of the year in 1952 and was used as a starter in that year’s World Series in a year where he posted a 2.15 ERA over 142.1 innings pitched, but it was also his only notable season in Brooklyn.

Clem Labine had the longest tenure of any Brooklyn reliever and even led the NL in saves in both ’56 and ’57, but a 3.46 career ERA with Brooklyn is far from lights out. Jim Hughes is somewhat forgotten name from that era of Brooklyn Dodger baseball, but again just a little over two full seasons and a career Dodger ERA of 3.44 doesn’t scream out dominating.

The Dodgers may have had the best bullpen in the NL in the 1950’s, but having the best bullpen in the National League for a few years and next to nothing outside of it is not going to be enough to rank as one of the league’s best. Aside from Hugh Casey there’s really no Brooklyn Dodger reliever I would have confidence in holding a lead. Casey is the only thing keeping this bullpen from being a flat out disaster and the Dodgers may be banking on him to stay healthy more than any other team is banking on their closer to be healthy. If he were to go down, it would start a domino effect that would see Joe Black be moved to the closer’s role with Clem Labine and Jim Hughes acting as bridge men. Not a bad plan of attack if it’s 1953, but in an all-time league such as this one, it would be one of the worst bullpens in baseball.

The other glaring weakness on this squad is the lack of depth at both second and third base. What allows the Dodgers to carry five outfielders is Jackie Robinson being able to play multiple infield positions. Having that gives the Dodgers a degree of versatility at two positions where depth or lack thereof is a major issue. There are players with more top ten OPS appearances in their career than all Brooklyn Dodger third baseman who have ever finished in the top-ten in OPS combined.

Not including the years from Jackie Robinson, much the same can be said at second base as well, so much like with Hugh Casey, an injury to Jackie Robinson could prove disastrous for this team. Not only would Brooklyn be losing their best player, but also the hardest to replace.

Defensively the outfield leaves little to be desired, but unlike what we see with Texas it’s not a disaster. There’s just simply nobody who I would consider even close to being a Gold Glove contender. Having someone like Carl Furillo on the roster helps mitigate these liabilities, but the inclusion of Furillo is only facilitated by the flexibility of Robinson and to a lesser extent Jimmy Johnston on the infield. If Robinson were to go down, this would also be a depth weakness that could very quickly bubble to the surface.

Conclusions

If not for the inclusion of the Philadelphia Phillies in their division, I would consider the Brooklyn Dodgers the odds on favorite to win the NL East even in spite of their inactivity for all of these years. As it stands the Brooklyn Dodgers already present a solid case for taking one of the two Wild Card spots. This is still a team capable of going toe to toe with the Cubs, Pirates and Reds the three other obvious Wild Card contenders in the National League, but also have the added benefit of playing in a much easier division. The health of both Jackie Robinson and Hugh Casey would go a long way in determining the success of this team. With both of them healthy this should be a solid 85+ win team. Without the benefit of those two and you can probably kiss any realistic chance of making the playoffs out the window and it would probably be a struggle just to get to .500.

This is a superstar laden team, but also one with some obvious depth issues at a number of positions.

Some may disagree with my decision to split up the LA and Brooklyn Dodgers into two separate franchises as they don’t have nearly the same kind of clear split that say the Twins do from Washington, but very little attention has been paid to the Brooklyn Dodgers in this light. An all-time Boston Red Sox franchise is hardly anything new or original, but you’ll be hard pressed to find many all-time Brooklyn Dodger teams that focus solely on their Brooklyn years and don’t include their LA ones and using the righty/lefty splits to build their lineup really helps display what this team was about, especially the Boys of Summer teams from the 50s.

You could attribute this franchise’s history to the New York Mets, as the Mets would have never come into existence if Dodgers and Giants never moved, but the Dodgers have still spent more years in Brooklyn than the Mets have in Queens and I feel have done enough to warrant inclusion in this league as their own individual franchise.

One of the goals of this series is to highlight all era’s of baseball history equally and splitting up the Dodgers franchise is, I think, a good way of doing that. Instead of one jumbled together super team, we now have two separate franchises each representing the pro’s and con’s from their respective era’s and double the amount of players that we would otherwise be talking about.