Tough Act to Follow

Poor Didi Gregorius. Not only is he taking over for a future, first-round Hall of Famer (Derek Jeter). He’s also taking over for someone who set a record for holding the same position for the same club for the most years (20). Finally, he’s doing that for the most storied baseball team on the planet (the New York Yankees).

"Didi," meet Captain Clutch

He’s not, however, the first player to ever have done something like that. I mean, off the top of my head, I can think of Mantle taking over for DiMaggio and – because I’m a Pirate fan – Richie Zisk taking over for Clemente and Dave Cash taking over for Maz. And, when you think about it, someone had to take over for Gehrig, and Schmidt, and Banks – though who that might actually be isn’t right on the tip of my tongue.

Who else is out there?

Methodology

So, here’s what I did:

1. I started out with a list of all the Hall of Famers
2. I narrowed down the list to players who retired with a team they had played with for at least 10 years.
3. I further narrowed down the list to players who played at the same position for at least their final 10 years
4. Finally, I made sure everyone was a starter in all those years

Of course, that does eliminate quite a few guys. At the same time, though, who thinks of Ty Cobb as an A, or Babe Ruth as a Brave, or Robin Yount as a center fielder, or Cal Ripken as a third baseman? Did you realize that Eddie Murray played with 4 other teams after the Orioles? That the one and only year Al Kaline didn’t start in right field for his 22 years with the Tigers was his last one, where he got 558 at bats, all as a DH?

Cobb as A

Unfortunately, this also eliminates almost all pitchers. When a Sandy Koufax or a Walter Johnson retires, it’s not always obvious who’s the team’s new number one (though maybe I could do a separate post just for these guys). And closers? Jeez, I don’t think any of them ever stayed with the same club for 10 years.

Results

All of those hefty requirements resulted in a list of 20 players:

Old Guy	Team	Position	New Guy
Cap Anson	White Sox	1B	Bill Everitt
Ernie Bank	Cubs	1B	Jim Hickman
Yogi Berra	Yankees	C	Elston Howard
Lou Brock	Cards	LF	Bobby Bonds
Roy Campanella	Dodgers	C	John Roseboro
Roberto Clemente	Pirates	RF	Rihie Zisk
Bill Dickey	Yankees	C	Aaron Robinson
Joe DiMaggio	Yankees	CF	Mickey Mantle
Carlton Fisk	White Sox	C	Karkovice
Frankie Frisch	Cards	2B	Stu Martin
Lou Gehrig	Yankees	1B	Babe Dahlgren
Tony Gywnn	Tigers	RF	Bubba Trammel
Barry Larkin	Reds	SS	Felipe Lopez
Bill Mazeroski	Pirates	2B	Dave Cash
Bid McPhee	Reds	2B	Joe Quinn
Ryne Sandberg	Cubs	2B	Mickey Morandini
Ozzie Smith	Cards	SS	Royce Clayton
Bill Terry	Giants	1B	Gil Mancuso
Pie Traynor	Pirates	3B	Lee Handley
Ted Williams	Red Sox	LF	Carl Yastrzemski

"And no anchovies …”

Well, that’s all well and good.  What I want to know, though, is who made out? Who was a disaster? What team didn’t miss a beat? What team created a hole on the field that didn’t get filled for another 20 years?

A good way to look at that is WAR, wins above replacement – pretty much the standard way these days to evaluate players’ all-around performance. I used WAR in two ways:

• Comparing the 2 players WARs from year-to-year - i.e., the old guy's last year and the new kid's first
• Comparing their yearly WAR averages over their whole careers

The first one gives you a good straight-up number. The second one, though, compensates for any single-year effects – the old guy’s having a particularly poor last year, the rookie’s a little wet behind the ears, etc.

Winners

It may be hard to believe, but some teams actually saw an improvement when they went with the new guy. As a matter of fact, this situation actually describes two-thirds of the sample. That’s not too surprising, though, when you simply consider the age difference between the two. The best (or should I say “worst”?) examples of these include Berra to Howard (4.2 difference in WAR) and Mazeroski to Cash (4.1).

Now, of course that’s the year-to-year view. It’s a very different story when you look at career WAR. In that case, there are only two Hall of Famers who had lower total WARs that their replacements. And they are Brock to Bonds (1.74) and DiMaggio to Mantle (0.09)

That last number brings up another possibility to measure success, the least amount of change from year to year. Year-to-year, we’ve got three under 1.00 – Gehrig to Dahlgren (-0.1), Terry to Mancuso (-0.5), and Gwynn to Trammel (-0.8). Career-wise, we’ve got the DiMaggio-Mantle 0.09 mentioned above, but the even more equitable Mazeroski to Cash difference of 0.01 as well.

 

Yankee Clipper, meet Commerce Comet

Of course, this won’t mean all that much if you’re going from one mediocre performance to another. What I’m really interested is are any transitions that went from one all-time great to another all-time great. And a good way to get a bead on that is to simply total the two players’ WARs. Year-to-year that gives us Dimaggio-Mantle (9.4), Clemente-Zisk (7.1), and Berra-Howard (6.8). Career? Don’t be too surprised that DiMaggio-Mantle again lead the pack (12.2). Runners up include Clemente-Zisk, at 7.1 (and, yes, that’s mostly Roberto), and Schmidt-Hayes (and, indeed, that is almost all Schmitty).

Losers

Okay, now comes the fun part …

Biggest falling off year-to-year?  Would you believe Teddy Ballgame to Yaz?  Yup, Williams' last year clocked in (out?) at a very respectable 3.0. The 21-year-old Yazstrewski, however, was a little overmatched, with a WAR of -0.3.  Total difference?  -3.3.

 

Splendid Splinter, meet Carl Michael Yastrzemski

Career? Wow! This one is huge. In fact, we’re going from Gehrig’s absolutely incredible 6.6 to poor Babe Dahlgren’s pretty darn unimpressive 0.35.

 

Iron Horse, meet The Babe 

(actually, just a Babe – 

actually, that’s really just short for “Ellsworth”)

Totaling both WARs together? Interestingly, the lowest totals include genuine all-time stars Cap Anson and Carlton Fisk. Of course, their partners in crime were also Bill Everitt and Ron Karkovice.