Now that baseball’s second season has begun (or, given that the playoffs now take more than a month, third season), fans have two things left to do: Discuss trades and signings or vote in meaningless online polls. It is the latter that inspires today’s post.

The Cardinals’ official web site is running an "All-time 9" election:

What’s your dream lineup in Cardinals franchise history? It’s time for you to decide. Vote for the best single-season hitting performances by position in Cardinals franchise history.

So let’s take a break from thinking about the Cardinals’ future and look at their storied past, shall we? The team has had many outstanding hitting performances through the years, so in order to normalize across the generations, we used weighted stats such as wOBA (Tom Tango’s version of linear weights weighted to fit an OBP scale) and wRC. So now we can come close to knowing whether Albert Pujols’s 2003 season was better than Stan Musial’s 1948 (it probably wasn’t). We’ve provided our selections for your reference in voting. Also, as it turns out, the nominees for each position occasionally aren’t even the best options; in those cases, we’ve provided some "write-in" candidates (in italics), even though fans can’t actually vote for them.

First Base: Johnny Mize, 1940

Albert Pujols’s 2009 season was more spectacular, from a weighted-stats standpoint, but probably because he had better traditional triple-crown numbers in 2006, the latter season was the one nominated. Therefore, we’re picking the Big Cat’s 1940 campaign, which edged 1928 Sunny Jim Bottomley, only because of a slightly better wRC/27 (9.7 to 9.4).

Second Base: Rogers Hornsby, 1922

The Rajah’s 1992 season makes the others look like replacement players. And it probably wasn’t even his best: in 1925, he had 174.1 wRC and a .544 wOBA, one of the greatest hitting performances of all-time for any team and likely the best by a second baseman (better even than the St. Louis Maroons’ Fred Dunlap 1884 season in which he had a .477 wOBA).

Shortstop: Edgar Renteria, 2003

Hornsby could’ve been nominated here, too: He played shortstop in 1917 and had a .413 wOBA. But Renteria’s 2003 will do — his 111.2 wRC is the most by any Cardinal shortstop (though Dick Groat’s 107.1 in 1963 comes close).

Third Base: Whitey Kurowski, 1947

Quick, name the player with the best hitting season at third base in Cardinal history. Unless you said Whitey Kurowski, you’re wrong. The club’s lesser-known Whitey, Kurowski had a career year in ‘47 with a .420 OBP and a .544 SLG, culminating in a .442 wOBA. Joe Torre’s ‘71 season was similarly gaudy and he actually produced more wRC, but we’re giving Kurowski the nod because he had slightly more wRC/27 (8.6 to 8.5). As with first base, either season is defensible.

Outfield: Stan Musial, 1948; Joe Medwick, 1937; Chick Hafey, 1929

Selecting three outfielders was tough, given that six of the nominees are Hall of Famers. Musial’s ‘48 season, one of the best in baseball history, was the only easy choice. Unfortunately, Pujols wasn’t nominated, or his 2003 season would’ve been our second pick. As it was, Muscles Medwick (please don’t call him "Ducky") had worthy .467 wOBA in his Triple Crown season, and fellow HOFer Chick Hafey struck a chord with his Jazz-Age .449 wOBA in 1929 (even though his 1930 season was possibly better).

Catcher: Ted Simmons, 1975

It’s too bad that Torre wasn’t nominated in the catcher category instead of third base, because his 1970 season — 121.3 wRC, .395 wOBA — would’ve topped Simba’s ‘75. Simmons’s year was no slouch, of course, and he has more bona fides at the position: he caught 154 games behind the plate (Torre played only 90, and another 73 at third).

Pitcher: Curt Davis, 1939

Davis is probably the best-hitting pitcher you’ve never heard of. At least he was for one spectacular season back in 1939. His .393 wOBA was probably the result of a flukishly high BABIP (.476) — his career BABIP was a more reasonable .246 — but the reality was that he avoided outs that year like few hurlers have ever done, including Bob Gibson. Just don’t tell him we said so.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.