Recently I acquired a copy of John Leptich and Dave Baranowski’s book, This Date in St Louis Cardinals History. As the name implies, it is a compilation of transactions, significant events, player birth dates, and statistics for the team from its inception through the 1982 season. Although 28 seasons have passed since its publication, it remains a great resource for all kinds of Cardinal trivia. As I thumbed through it this week, I noticed an item from January 20, 1958. That day the St Louis Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America voted on the all time St Louis All-Star team. Here’s who they chose (STA are the Browns, STN the Cardinals):

• 1B – George Sisler (STA)
• 2B – Rogers Hornsby (STN/STA)
• SS – Marty Marion (STN)
• 3B – Frank Frisch (STN)
• Utility IF – Red Schoendienst (STN)
• LF – Ken Williams (STA)
• CF – Terry Moore (STN)
• RF – Stan Musial (STN)
• Utility OF – John Tobin (STA)
• Catchers – Hank Severeid (STA), Bob O’Farrell (STN)
• Pitchers – Dizzy Dean (STN/STA), Jesse Haines (STN), Urban Shocker (STA), Grover Cleveland Alexander (STN)

How different would that list look if they updated it today? Let’s try to answer that.

First Base. George Sisler was the 1922 AL MVP, and over the course of his career led the league in hits twice, triples twice, stolen bases 4 times, and total bases once. He hit .400 or better for the season in 1920 and 1922. Truly a great hitter. He’s no longer the best professional first baseman in the history of the city, though. Sisler’s career high OPS+ (181, 1920) is only 9 points higher than Albert Pujols’ average OPS+ over his 10-year career (172). With the 2001 ROY and 3 MVPs on his resume, Albert Pujols is the clear choice now.

Second Base. Rogers Hornsby is still the greatest at that position. One could argue for Schoendienst, but since the 1958 panel chose Hornsby over the Redhead, I will not.

Shortstop. I think people forget how good Marty Marion really was. One of the first tall shortstops (he stood 6 feet 2), Marion was considered the Captain of the Swifties 1940 Cardinals teams. He won the MVP in 1944, finished in the top 10 on two other occasions (1942, 1945), and was a 7-time All-Star. He might still be the best shortstop in Cardinal history had the team not traded for Ozzie Smith before the 1982 season. While in St Louis, the Wizard finished second in the 1987 MVP vote, won 11 Gold Gloves, and was a 14-time All-Star. He also set the gold standard for defense as a shortstop. Ozzie Smith is the pick.

Third Base. Third base is interesting. Frank Frisch, the incumbent, was the 1931 MVP and a 3-time All Star (1933-1935). But here’s the thing: for most of his career he was a second baseman. Frisch only played 459 career games at third, and every year he was a Cardinal he played more games at second than third. Luckily we now have two other players to choose between: Ken Boyer and Scott Rolen. Boyer was the 1964 NL MVP and finished in the top ten in 3 other years (1959-1961). He won 5 Gold Gloves and was a 7-time All Star at third base. Scott Rolen today is widely considered one of the best defensive third basemen of all time. While with St Louis, he finished 4th in the 2004 MVP vote, won 3 Gold Gloves, and was a 4-time All-Star. Had he remained a Cardinal after the 2007 season he might have eclipsed Boyer as the best third sacker in city history, but he did not. Ken Boyer is my choice at third.

Utility IF – Red Schoendienst was selected, and remains a stellar pick. Since over 50 years have passed, I will create a second Utility IF slot, and fill it with George Sisler. Teams can always use a guy with that kind of bat control.

Outfield. The outfield is tough. Two of the men selected – Williams and Tobin – played for the Browns in the dead-ball era. There are three Cardinal outfielders since 1958 who merit selection to this team, Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Jim Edmonds. And Terry Moore was no slouch himself, a 4-time All-Star who finished in the MVP top 20 5 times (his best showing was 12th in 1941). Much like the infielders, I chose to create a second Utility OF slot because of the number of good candidates.

• Left Field. Lou Brock. Finished in the MVP top ten 5 times, and was runner up in 1974 to Steve Garvey. During that particular season he broke Maury Wills’ major league stolen base record, which stood until 1990. Brock still holds the NL record for steals in a season. He was a 6-time All-Star who led the league in steals 8 times (he also led the league in being caught stealing 7 times). Brock led the NL in doubles and triples in 1968.
• Center Field. Jim Edmonds. Rumor has it Edmonds will retire before the start of this season. He is either a borderline or actual Hall of Fame candidate, depending on who you talk to. What cannot be argued is his place in Cardinal history. Edmonds is the best offensive CF this club has employed to date, better than both Moore and Flood, and he had an above average glove to go with it. He finished in the MVP top 5 twice (2000, 2004), was a 3-time All-Star and won 6 Gold Gloves.
• Right Field. Stan Musial. Need any more be said?
• Utility OF (2). I went with Ken Williams and Curt Flood. Williams is pretty clearly the best hitting OF of the 4 remaining men I considered. Flood and Moore are almost identical statistically, so that’s really a coin flip for me. I decided the NL of the 1960s was a tougher league than the NL of the 30s and 40s, which gave the edge to Flood.

Catcher. Hank Severeid played for the Browns in the 1910s and 1920s, and finished 6th in the 1924 AL MVP race. That was the year the Browns finished second in the AL to Walter Johnson’s Senators, their second highest finish ever. Bob O’Farrell did three stints with the Cardinals (1925-28, 1933, 1935). He was the 1926 NL MVP on the first World Champion Cardinal team. However, since 1935 there have been two other men to play the position better than these two men did. They are Yadier Molina and Ted Simmons. Molina is the best defensive catcher in the league today, one of the best of all time, a 3-time Gold Glove winner and 2-time All Star. Simmons is the best offensive catcher ever to wear a Cardinal uniform (by OPS+). He finished in the MVP top ten 3 times as a Cardinal and was a 6-time All-Star.

Pitchers. Based on the way the game has changed since 1958, I broke the pitcher category up into starters and relievers.

Starters. Dean, Haines, and Alexander are all in the Hall of Fame. Really no argument there. Shocker was an excellent pitcher with the Browns, but made his reputation with the Yankees, and given the excellent pitching St Louis has seen since 1958 it’s easy for me to leave him off the list. Let’s fill out the 5-man rotation by adding the only two Cardinals to win a Cy Young, Bob Gibson and Chris Carpenter. Gibson was the 1968 NL MVP and Cy Young award winner, and the 1970 Cy Young winner. His 1.12 season ERA in 1968 is still the major league record for a starting pitcher. Carpenter won his Cy Young in 2005. He is 84-33 as a Cardinal over 7 seasons with the club. The 5 full seasons he’s been healthy he has won at least 15 games each year.

Relievers. Sticking just to closers narrows down the list but there are still lots of good candidates. Al Hrabowsky, Todd Worrell, Jason Isringhausen, and Ryan Franklin have capably held down the closers role for the team over the past 40 years. They did not make this cut. For the all-time list, I went with Bruce Sutter and Lee Smith. Of all these men Sutter is the only one in the HOF and the only one to win a Cy Young (granted he did that with the Cubs). Sutter finished in the MVP top ten 3 times as a Cardinal, and in the Cy Young top five 3 times as well. Smith holds the team record for saves in a career (160), and shares the season record (47) with Isringhausen. How good was Smith? The two full seasons he pitched in St Louis he finished second and fourth in the Cy Young voting. How Smith is not in the HOF is beyond me.

So that’s my team. Let the argument begin.

During the offseason we have been taking a look at the past, giving readers a timeline of St. Louis baseball throughout history. Last time we talked about Branch Rickey building the minor leagues and how Rogers Hornsby and Jim Bottomley started building the Cardinals into a powerhouse. However, Hornsby was running his mouth and Cardinals owner Sam Breadon demanded Rickey trade the superstar manager. What would Rickey do now?

As easy as it would have been to trade Hornsby, Branch Rickey knew that it was in the best interests of the team to keep the superstar around and continue to build the team around him. While he hoped that the anger that Breadon felt towards Hornsby would dissipate over the winter, it never really went away, Rickey just ignored it.

Coming into spring training of 1926, Hornsby, who was not one for meetings, actually had one. He pulled everyone into the clubhouse and informed them that if they did not think that the Cardinals were going to win the pennant that year, they should grab their paychecks and head on home. No one moved. Everyone was ready to go, and they were in for an uphill battle.

The Cincinnati Reds were fighting the Cardinals every step of the way throughout the entirety of the season. In June, John McGraw made possibly the worst trade of his entire career when he offered Rickey and Hornsby right fielder Billy Southworth in exchange for center fielder Heinie Mueller. Southworth was in the late stages of his career while Mueller was in the middle of an eleven year career. Mueller wound up toiling in three different cities over the next few years while Southworth had found a home, first in the second spot in the batting order, then as the manager a few years later.

The second move Rickey made was to bring in stellar pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, then nearing the twilight of a Hall of Fame career. All it took from the Cardinals was a $4,000 flyer and a waiver claim to pluck him off of the Cubs, who had tired of his antics. Despite his age (“Old Pete” was 39 when he arrived to the team) Alexander still had a lot left in the tank. However, a long and strange series of events had left him dealing with both epilepsy and alcoholism, a dangerous combination. Whereas Hornsby caused problems with his abominable vocabulary and course manner, Old Pete wore out his welcome by drinking himself under the table, showing up to the park hungover and acting disagreeable towards managers, teammates and anyone else that even looked at him funny.

Grover Cleveland Alexander

At the time of the trade the Cardinals were in fourth place and needing a boost. Alexander and Southworth provided it, Alexander going 16-7 with a 2.91 ERA in the last two-thirds of the season and Southworth slapping out a .317/.364/.488 line while driving in 69 over the same time frame. Southworth also hit the home run that clinched the pennant for the Cardinals. He took extra pleasure in the fact that the game was against McGraw’s Giants – the very manager and team that traded him away earlier in the year.

Yes, the Cardinals had clinched their first pennant since their inception in 1899. Their reward for a long season of hard work? Facing the dreaded New York Yankees and their self-proclaimed “Murderer’s Row” of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and company. After somehow managing a split of the first two games in New York, the Cardinals came home to a ticker-tape parade. They spent most of the end of the season on the road, and had not been home in almost four weeks. The city of St. Louis was bursting at the seams to welcome them home with open arms to celebrate winning the pennant, and after all the pomp and circumstance, the team still had to figure out how to take three more games against those dreaded Yankees.

After getting victimized by some mammoth Babe Ruth home runs in game five, the Cardinals headed back to New York down 3-2, and everyone thought the Series was all but over. “Old Pete” took the ball for game six, but he did not have to work very hard to pull out the win, as the rest of the starting nine put up a ten spot against manager Miller Huggins and the rest of the vaunted New York lineup.

Game seven brought about one of the most peculiar endings of a series in baseball’s history. Jesse Haines, who was a stalwart of the rotation for many years, had started the game and pitched well into the seventh inning, but he was running out of gas. The knuckleballer had worn his fingers to the bone, and when his knuckles started bleeding and Haines could only throw meatball fastballs, Hornsby had no choice but to remove his pitcher and look to the bullpen to save the day.

Who did he call for? None other than Old Pete Alexander, who had pitched the previous day and then went out and got rip roaring drunk after the game to celebrate his victory. He was in the bullpen sleeping off his hangover when teammates had to rouse him and inform him that he was going into the game right away, no time for warming up or even stretching. Hornsby could care less, stating that watching Alexander pitch drunk or hungover was better than watching any other pitcher pitch completely sober.

Old Pete struck out Tony Lazzeri to end the bottom of the seventh, then whipped through the eighth inning, only to find himself facing the top of the order in the ninth. After shutting down the first two batters, Alexander came face-to-face with none other than Babe Ruth himself. The Bambino ran the count full, then took a pitch that by all accounts could have gone either way, depending on which team you were pulling for. Old Pete howled at the umpire who dared to call ball four against him, and Ruth trotted down to first base.

Then, the unbelievable happened: Ruth tried to steal second. Now, don’t get me wrong, Babe Ruth had stolen bases all throughout his career. Not a lot of them, but enough. In 1926 alone he stole 11 bases, and he was determined to pick up one more in this deciding game. The Babe said he wanted to get into scoring position in the off-chance that Bob Muesel was actually able to sneak a hit out of the infield. The plan backfired as catcher Bob O’Farrell shot a bullet of a throw to Hornsby down at second, who stood on the bag with the ball waiting for Ruth to arrive so he could lay down the tag. When Ruth arrived and the final out was recorded, the Cardinals had their first World Series championship and the team mobbed Old Pete, who could only smile and shrug his shoulders, almost as if to say, “No big deal, just doing my job.”

The Cardinals returned to St. Louis as world champions, and spirits were high. However, things were about to come crashing down in a big way. Sam Breadon could not resolve his differences with Rogers Hornsby, so just two months after bringing home the first championship for the city of St. Louis since Charlie Comisky and the Browns back in 1888, the superstar second baseman/manager was sent packing to the New York Giants in exchange for second baseman Frankie Frisch and pitcher Jimmy Ring.

The city was horrified, the team was stunned, and Rickey was vilified. Everyone assumed that Rickey was to blame for the trade, when in reality he felt sick about the trade to the point where he forced Breadon to do it if he was so intent upon trading Hornsby. It looked like a horrible swap – Frisch appeared to be a so-so infielder and Ring had only managed to win eleven games the previous year for the Giants. The trade actually caused Hornsby’s career began to take a sharp turn south. He had a good first year with the Giants, then jumped to the Boston Braves for a season before heading to the Chicago Cubs and winning an MVP there his first year in town (1929). A bone spur slowed down his playing career after that point, but that was the least of his troubles. Gambling kept him broke despite the fact that he was one of the highest paid players in the game. Although he hung around in the majors for another eleven seasons, by his last season he was a broken and humbled man, despite his steadfast anger towards Sam Breadon.

Frankie Frisch

The Cardinals were still a strong team in 1927, despite feeling rather stony in the beginning towards their new second baseman Frisch. Frisch thought St. Louis was great after the cold atmosphere created by the aging and unwavering John McGraw, who had been merciless in his constant ridicule with Frisch. He liked playing for a team that liked playing baseball instead of just going through the motions, miserable because of the manager they were playing for.

“The Fordham Flash” fit in well in St. Louis, doing all the little things that would endear him with the fans, whether it was flashing the leather in the field and setting assist records that still stand to this day, racing around the bases picking up steals, or slapping hits all over the diamond. He could never replace the power of Hornsby, but what he lacked in brawn he made up for in literally every other category. By the end of the 1927 season, the Cardinals found themselves just a game or two out of first in the National League, but they had won over the fans again after what could have been a disastrous break-up when Hornsby left.

Unfortunately the manager position became somewhat of a revolving door after Hornsby left. Catcher Bob O’Farrell got the spot by default for 1927, but he passed it off to Bill McKechnie in 1928, who lost the spot one third of the way through 1929 to Billy Southworth and then Gabby Street, who finally stepped up and took the reins until midway through 1933.

1928 put the Cardinals back on top in the National League. Led by Rickey’s pride and joy of the farm system in Jim Bottomley and Chick Hafey and anchored on the infield by Frisch, the team wrapped up the pennant on the second to last day of the season, and found themselves face to face with nearly the same Yankees team that they had miraculously beat out two years previous.

This year the Series went in favor of the Bronx Bombers, as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig put on a two man show, with Ruth playing the lead as he hit .625 and blasted 3 home runs to Gehrig’s .545 with 4 such shots. Breadon was furious at the dreadful four game beating the Cardinals were handed, and demoted manager McKechnie to the minors, bringing up Rochester manager Billy Southworth. The team was pleased with the idea of Southworth being the player/manager, as he had always been a strong clubhouse presence before agreeing to playing and managing in Rochester during the 1928 season.

Southworth knew how Breadon worked. He wanted a winner, and Billy thought he knew just how to do that – by making sure that the team was in line and under his thumb constantly. He became known as ‘Billy the Heel,’ and the players all knew he was trying way too hard to be the boss, when all he needed to do was keep things on an even keel and treat them like the adults that they were. After stumbling into July with a 43-45 record, Breadon realized his mistake and dropped Southworth back down to the minors, replacing him with the man who had just been ousted in McKechnie. It did not matter. The team finished at 78-74, well off the pace.

Thankfully, help was on the way, and his name was Gabby Street. Who is he? Check in next week!

Angela Weinhold covers the Cardinals for i70baseball.com and writes at Cardinal Diamond Diaries. You may follow her on Twitter here or follow Cardinal Diamond Diaries here.

The Kansas City Royals must have thought they were pretty well set at the shortstop position on the eve of the 1982 MLB Daft.

Fred Patek, part of a strong double-play combination with former second baseman Cookie Rojas, was out of baseball, but his in-house replacements seemed promising. U L Washington, the toothpick-sporting middle infielder, seemed poised to take over the position as a starter. And waiting in the wings were Onix Concepcion, a young Puerto Rican speedster, and Buddy Biancalana, a rookie defensive specialist with a lot of promise.

That must be why they drafted an outfielder, John Morris, in the first round, and waited until the seventh round to select a shortstop: Auburn University’s Doug Gilcrease.

You’ve probably never heard of Gilcrease, since he didn’t make it past AA ball. But of course you’ve heard of the second shortstop the Royals drafted in 1982, all the way down in the 19^th round.

It was Bret Saberhagen.

The young star from Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, Calif., didn’t stay a shortstop for long. The Royals pictured his tall, lanky body on the mound. In 1983, his first season in pro baseball and his first year out of high school, Saberhagen dominated A ball, compiling a 10-5 record with a 2.30 ERA in 16 starts before a quick promotion to AA, where he played out the rest of the season.

The next year – 1984 – Saberhagen, a mere 20 years old, started the season on the big league team.

Talk about skyrocketing through the minor leagues.

The Royals were in a period of transition. New manager Dick Howser promised a rebuilding year. Although the team had had success in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, even making it to the World Series against the Phillies in 1980, the Royals had only gone as far as offensive phenom George Brett could carry them. Their pitching staff was getting older; they lost the brilliant Steve Busby to a career-ending injury in 1980, Dennis Leonard was coming to the end of the line, and 1984 proved to be Paul Splittorff’s last season. Future Hall of Famer Gaylord Perry had been brought in for the 1983 campaign, but he retired at the end of that season.

To fill in the gaps, the Royals brought in Charlie Leibrandt, who had seen some success with the Cincinnati Reds, and Danny Jackson was a promising young starter. Bud Black was there, too, perhaps the most solid pitcher of the bunch at the time, and a rookie named Mark Gubicza was there. Dan Quisenberry was holding down the last innings as well as or better than any closer in baseball.

But they were missing one final piece.

In walks Bret Saberhagen.

Sabes started out the season in the bullpen in 1984, but he quickly impressed Howser and was inserted into the rotation, making 18 starts before the end of the season and compiling 10 wins and a 3.48 ERA. The Royals made it to the ALCS, and Saberhagen started one game, earning a no decision. Kansas City lost to Detroit, the eventual World Series champ.

He was a lock to be a part of the rotation in 1985. And the 21-year-old was nothing short of spectacular. Saberhagen won 20 games and had a 2.87 ERA, striking out 158 batters. His WHIP was a sterling 1.058, the best in the league that season. He won the Cy Young Award for his efforts. And he helped propel the Kansas City Royals to the World Series.

Thanks largely to Bret Saberhagen, they won the series in seven games. Two of their four wins were Saberhagen complete-game victories: a one-run, six-hitter in Game 3, and a brilliant shutout in decisive Game 7. Saberhagen was the World Series MVP, and even got to speak with the president:

But Saberhagen is also remembered for one more thing during the 1985 World Series. He became a father. His son was born during Game 6, which means Drew Saberhagen’s 25^th birthday will be this coming Tuesday.

After ’85, Saberhagen slipped into an unusual pattern: he only pitched well in odd-numbered years. In 1986 he went 7-12 with a 4.15 ERA and was even demoted to the bullpen at one point. In 1987, he was back to form, winning 18 games with a 3.36 ERA – such an impressive bounce-back that he won the TSN Comeback Player of the Year award. Saberhagen wasn’t terrible in 1988, but he lost 16 games (compared to 14 wins) and his ERA hitched up to 3.80.

Then came 1989.

Saberhagen pitched, arguably, the best season in Royals franchise history, beating even his 1985 totals. His 23 wins, .793 win percentage, 2.16 ERA, 262.1 innings pitched, 180 strikeouts, 12 complete games and 0.961 WHIP were the best in the league. He was awarded a second Cy Young Award, and we’ll come back to the significance of that later.

Here’s a little-known fact: after the 1989 season, the Royals gave Saberhagen a 3-year, $8.9 million contract, making him the highest-paid player in baseball. It’s little-known because his reign only lasted for five days, when the Minnesota Twins gave Kirby Puckett a 3-year, $9 million deal. The big contracts kept rolling in. By the end of the week, Saberhagen wasn’t even the highest paid player on the team; the Royals gave Mark Davis, the 1989 NL Cy Young Award winner, a 4-year, $13 million contract.

The Royals’ plan to dominate the world with two Cy Young winners failed. Davis was a bust, and in 1990 Saberhagen was brought down by injuries – perhaps caused by three straight seasons throwing more than 250 innings – and he appeared in only 20 games, collecting a 5-9 record.

He still fought the injury bug in ’91, but again he found a winning form, and sketched a 13-8 record and a 3.07 ERA. That year was more memorable for Saberhagen, though, because he pitched a no-hitter at Kauffman Stadium, on Aug. 26 against the Chicago White Sox. No Royals pitcher has thrown a no-hitter since.

To reward him for a strong season and a great career, the Royals traded Saberhagen in the winter of 1991, along with Bill Pecota, to the New York Mets for Gregg Jefferies, Kevin McReynolds and Keith Miller.

Perhaps the Royals were trying to sell high, a sentiment fans are coming to understand more and more. And perhaps they were hoping to unload him before another even-numbered collapse. Either way, the Mets got a proven starter, and the Royals some much-needed offense.

Neither gamble turned out the way the teams hoped – at least not right away. McReynolds, the most promising of the bunch sent to Kansas City, batted in the .245 range over two seasons, but he did smash 24 home runs over 229 games. In 1994, he was traded back to the Mets in exchange for Vince Coleman, the former Cardinals sensation. Coleman stole 50 bases for the Royals in 1994. Keith Miller played for the Royals longer than any of the trio, until 1995. He played in 106 games in ’92, compliling a .284 average, but he was a bench player during the rest of his tenure. Gregg Jeffries only played for Kansas City one season; in 1992, he batted .285 as a full-time third baseman, knocking in 75 runs and contributing 10 round-trippers. He was traded to the Cardinals after the season for Felix Jose, who played in Kansas City until 1995.

What did the Mets get out of the trade? As expected, Saberhagen busted in even-numbered 1992, winning only three games over 15 starts. The next year wasn’t much better: Saberhagen, still fighting nagging injuries, was 7-7 but posted a solid 3.29 ERA.

In 1994, Saberhagen broke his streak of odd-numbered success and put up some remarkable numbers. Of course, 1994 was the year of the baseball strike, and Saberhagen’s historic season was shortened.

What did he accomplish that season? To begin with, a record of 14-4 with a 2.74 ERA and 143 strikeouts. Here’s where he made history: Saberhagen walked only 13 batters the whole season. That’s a rate of 0.7 walks per nine innings. Saberhagen had fewer walks than wins – the only time that’s ever happened in the modern era. Despite the strike-shortened year and a canceled World Series, Major League Baseball still gave out post-season awards, and Saberhagen finished third in NL Cy Young voting.

(By the way, the other piece of the trade, Bill Pecota, batted .227 over 269 at-bats for the Mets in 1992 and was quietly ushered out the back door after the season.)

At the trade deadline in 1995, the Mets decided to part ways with Saberhagen, sending him to the Colorado Rockies, who were in the middle of a playoff hunt, for Juan Acevedo and Arnold Gooch. The Rockies, a high-altitude team, had never had a successful starting pitcher. Saberhagen and the Rockies were hopeful he would break that mold. But he didn’t. He only started nine games for the Rockies down the stretch, compiling a 2-1 record with a 6.28 ERA. The Rockies, however, made it to the playoffs, and Saberhagen returned to postseason pitching for the first time since 1985, getting the ball in Game 4. But he only lasted four innings, and the Rockies lost the game – and the series – to the Braves.

Saberhagen missed the entire 1996 season due to injury, and after the season the Rockies cut ties with him. Saberhagen was signed to a small-money contract with the Boston Red Sox, and still he missed much of the year.

The former Royals ace had one last blast in 1998. He was a part of the Boston rotation for almost the entire season, and Saberhagen, rebuilt shoulder and all, compiled a 15-8 record with a 3.96 ERA. Once again, he won the TSN Comeback Player of the Year Award, becoming one of only six players to win twice. He also pitched well in 1999, with a 10-6 record and a 2.95 ERA over 22 starts. He pitched for the Red Sox in the postseason both years, but never got another playoff victory – and he never made it back to the World Series.

After missing all of 2000, Sabes tried once again to pitch in ’01, but his comeback lasted only three starts. At the end of the 2001 season, he called it quits.

What do we make of Bret Saberhagen’s career?

Saberhagen is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he received only a handful of Hall of Fame votes, not even enough to keep him on the ballot a second year. Clearly, he wasn’t good enough to warrant Hall of Fame consideration.

Right?

Let’s take a look at a couple things. First off, hardware. Saberhagen is one of only 14 pitchers in the history of baseball to win two Cy Young Awards. If you remove from that list all the players who are either still active (Johan Santana and Tim Lincecum) and those not yet eligible for Hall of Fame consideration (Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine), you have the following list:

Steve Carlton

Sandy Koufax

Jim Palmer

Tom Seaver

Bob Gibson

Denny McClain

Gaylord Perry

Bret Saberhagen

Out of that list, only two players are not in the Hall of Fame: Saberhagen and Denny McClain, famous for being the last pitcher to win 30 games in a single season. Of the players who are retired from baseball but not yet eligible for Hall of Fame consideration, it seems like all of them should be locks for the Hall of Fame – if the Steroid Era doesn’t keep some of them out.

But hardware measurements can be deceiving; after all, Bob Hamelin won the Rookie of the Year Award. So let’s look at something more measurable: WHIP.

Sabremetricians consider WHIP to be one of the best statistics for measuring the quality of a pitcher, much better than ERA or wins or strikeouts. WHIP stands for “Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched.” A player who gives up five hits and three walks (5+3=8) over eight innings will have a WHIP of 1.0.

A good pitcher usually has a WHIP of between 1.25 and 1.5. Great pitchers live under 1.25, and often lower. Only one pitcher, Addie Joss, has a career WHIP under 1.

Bret Saberhagen’s career WHIP is 1.14, which ranks him 30^th on the all-time list, tied with pitchers like Fergie Jenkins, Greg Maddux and Curt Schilling. Here are a few pitchers with career WHIPs worse than Saberhagen’s: Bob Gibson, Gaylord Perry, John Smoltz, Whitey Ford, Roger Clemens, Dennis Eckersley, Don Drysdale, Warren Spahn, Carl Hubbell and Roy Halladay, the active WHIP leader.

Saberhagen probably doesn’t have enough wins (167) or strikeouts (1,715) to make it into the Hall of Fame.

But perhaps 20 years from now, when statisticians re-examine players from the 80s and 90s, someone will uncover Saberhagen’s numbers, and they’ll realize this guy was special.

And his best years were in Royal blue.

Matt Kelsey is a Royals writer and the content editor for I-70 Baseball. He can be reached at mattkelsey@i70baseball.com.