True veteran ballplayers

By Matt

As a little tribute to Memorial Day, I completely wasted...er... spent part of my recent free time on a project I've been pondering for years. Often, I hear how great soandso modern baseball player is: “He just passed Bob Feller’s win total!” "He’s got more homers than Ted Williams!”
Well, what rankles me is that we’re quick to forget that more than a few players walked away from the game to serve their country. While injuries are part of the game, leaving the major leagues to fight overseas is something few modern players can imagine. Although we can never get those years back, we can still speculate what their totals might have been if they hadn’t picked up Uncle Sam’s phone call (or, in Teddy Ballgame’s case, made a second call).
So, I played around with some algebra (admittedly a little rusty) - and tried to be conservative - to estimate what these great players totals could have been.

The basic theory was to use the two years before the player left for the service and the two years after he returned to project what the missing years might have looked like, at least for home runs and wins. (Next year, maybe I’ll try hits.) I also used a little math trickery to account for trends.
I didn’t think it was fair to pretend a guy who missed a year at the tail end of his career would perform at the same levels he did during his peak. For instance, let’s look at Warren Spahn. Spahn missed parts of three and a half seasons while serving in World War II.
Now, over his whole career, Spahn averaged 17 wins a season. But it’s not quite fair to just plug in another 51 wins for Spahn since, when he left for the service, he had zero career victories. He was a rookie. The season he returned, he won eight games. Even Spahn noted that he wasn’t the same before and after the service.
“People say that my absence from the big leagues may have cost me a chance to win 400 games,” Spahn said, according to Baseball Historian. “But I don't know about that. I matured a lot in three years, and I think I was better equipped to handle major league hitters at 25 than I was at 22. Also, I pitched until I was 44. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to do that otherwise.”

So, using baseballreference’s unbelievable statistical database, I tried to factor in that Spahn was not yet at his peak during his service. Using the one year before he left and the three years after he returned he averaged 11 wins, about 64 percent of his career average. So, I figured at the time he left, Spahn was about 64 percent of the pitcher he was over his whole career. I took 64 percent of 11 wins, which came out to seven wins. Over three and a half seasons, Spahn could have added, rounding down, 24 wins to his career total. Even that moderate increase would have moved him past Christy Mathewson and Grover Cleveland Alexander. Except that Alexander also missed time for World War I…
(A note for nerds: I fudged the numbers a bit more for players who were well over their career numbers. By saying that Alexander was 1.3 times his career average, the numbers got out of whack. I simply filled in the missing numbers to keep things conservative.)

For home run hitters, I did a similar thing, except I took the home run rate (home runs per at bat) from the two seasons before and after they left for the service, then applied that to a whole season. For instance, Willie Mays played just 34 games in 1952, then missed all of 1953 while he was serving in the Korean War. In the two years before he left for the service, he homered every 24.6 at bats. In the two years after he returned, he homered every 12.4 at bats. So his phantom home run rate would be one homer for every 18.5 at bats, 89 percent of his career total. So, if Mays had gotten a full 560 at bats in those two seasons (a conservative estimate), he would have hit 53 more home runs. Enough to put him one behind Ruth before Aaron got there. Interesting, right?

Even keeping the totals conservative, a few people would have made significant jumps on the career list and at least one person would have been added to both the 300-win and 600-home-run clubs.
Obviously, none of this is real. But on Memorial Day, Matt figured why not thank the players who stepped away from the game by putting a little perspective on their sacrifice.
Spahn said, it best: “After what I went through overseas, I never thought of anything I was told to do in baseball as hard work. You get over feeling like that when you spend days on end sleeping in frozen tank tracks in enemy threatened territory. The Army taught me something about challenges and about what's important and what isn't. Everything I tackle in baseball and in life I take as a challenge rather than work.”

CURRENT CAREER HOME RUN LEADERS
Barry Bonds 762
Hank Aaron 755
Babe Ruth 714
* Willie Mays 660
Missed 1953 and all but 34 games in 1952 for Korean War
Ken Griffey Jr 613
Sammy Sosa 609
Frank Robinson 586
Mark McGwire 583
Harmon Killebrew 573
Rafael Palmeiro 569
Reggie Jackson 563
Alex Rodriguez 553
Mike Schmidt 548
Jim Thome 545
Mickey Mantle 536
Jimmy Foxx 534
Manny Ramirez 533
* Ted Williams 521
Missed 1943, 1944 and 1945 for World War II
Missed all but 43 games in 1952 and 1953 for Korean War
Frank Thomas 521
Willie McCovey 521
Ernie Banks 512
Eddie Mathews 512
Mel Ott 511
Eddie Murray 504
Gary Sheffield 500
Lou Gehrig 493
Fred McGriff 493
* Stan Musial 475
Missed 1945 for World War II

LEADERS ADJUSTED FOR SERVICE
Barry Bonds 762
Hank Aaron 755
Babe Ruth 714
Willie Mays 713
Ted Williams 651
Ken Griffey Jr 613
Sammy Sosa 609
Frank Robinson 586
Mark McGwire 583
Harmon Killebrew 573
Rafael Palmeiro 569
Reggie Jackson 563
Alex Rodriguez 553
Mike Schmidt 548
Jim Thome 545
Mickey Mantle 536
Jimmy Foxx 534
Manny Ramirez 533
Frank Thomas 521
Willie McCovey 521
Ernie Banks 512
Eddie Mathews 512
Mel Ott 511
Eddie Murray 504
Gary Sheffield 500
Lou Gehrig 493
Fred McGriff 493
Stan Musial 488
Willie Stargell 475

WIN LEADERS (modern era)
Walter Johnson 417
* Pete Alexander 373
Missed nearly all of 1918 and 1919 for World War I
Christy Mathewson 373
* Warren Spahn 363
Missed 1943, 1944, 1945 and half of 1946 for World War II
Greg Maddux 355
Roger Clemens 354
Steve Carlton 329
Eddie Plank 326
Nolan Ryan 324
Don Sutton 324
Phil Neikro 318
Gaylord Perry 314
Tom Seaver 311
Tom Glavine 305
Lefty Grove 300
Early Wynn 300

TOTALS ADJUSTED FOR SERVICE (modern era)
Walter Johnson 417
Pete Alexander 407
Warren Spahn 387
Christy Mathewson 373
Bob Feller 357
Greg Maddux 355
Roger Clemens 354
Steve Carlton 329
Eddie Plank 326
Nolan Ryan 324
Don Sutton 324
Phil Neikro 318
Gaylord Perry 314
Tom Seaver 311
Tom Glavine 305
Lefty Grove 300
Early Wynn 300

Other notables:
Red Ruffing from 273 wins to 293
Whitey Ford from 236 wins to 258

Note: Feller has 266 career wins, but missed nearly four full seasons at the peak of career.

There were countless other sacrifices by hundreds of lesser known players, including some who died in service. There’s no way to account for what was lost.