Atlanta Braves history: Top 10 outfielders part 2

My list of the top ten outfielders in Atlanta Braves Franchise history brings together two players who played a hundred years apart.

Yesterday’s look at Atlanta Braves franchise outfielders reviewed players from near the same era.  I begin this post with a Hall of Fame centerfielder, who joined the Atlanta Braves franchise at the end of the nineteenth century.  He’s followed by a player lacking Hall of Fame credentials and depending on a completely different skillset.

The franchise’s long history meant I had to attempt to level the playing field across seven generations of players. I settled on plus stats as the way to do that.  Plus stats like OPS+ tells us how well a player stacks up against the rest of the league during his era, with 100 as league average.

Using a Fangraphs custom player search by position, I created a table of the following plus stats.

• wOBA – if you care about determining how well a player contributes to run-scoring, wOBA is a more accurate representation of that contribution than OPS
• wRC+ – If you want a rate statistic for hitters that weights each offensive action and controls for league and park effects, wRC+ is for you.
• AVG+
• OBP+
• SLG+

In addition to plus stats, I considered sample-size in terms of games played, impact on the franchise, and contribution to the team’s success. I considered Hall of Fame membership and worthiness, and at times had to delve into minutia to make a choice.

Ranking players sounds simple. We believe we know what they accomplished, but I found the law of recency often clouds that evaluation. Some choices were obvious; others required hours of study before I made a decision

Throughout this post, I’ll reference biographies available for view on the SABR website, news articles mentioned in those biographies that may not be available online any longer, and books that may no longer be widely available.  Bold type in a set of statistics indicates leading the league.

Number eight- Sliding Billy

No one stole more bases or scored more runs in the 1800s, that William Robert ‘Billy’ Hamilton. Despite his many records and the way fans cheered his base-stealing, the sports pages wrote little about him at the time.

Bill James ranked Billy Hamilton as the ninth-best center fielder of all time in the 1999 edition of The New Historical Baseball Abstract, writing about his “anonymity” of a player that fans nicknamed Sliding Billy.

“Hamilton was completely invisible in the literature of the sport up to 1960 . . . and was not elected to the Hall of Fame until 1961. He left no legend behind him, no stories, no anecdotes . . .

The Quakers (Phillies) dominated the National League after acquiring Hamilton in 1890, led by their speedy centerfielder. In his five seasons in Philadelphia, Hamilton led the league in stolen bases four times, walks, runs, and OBP three times, batting average twice and posted a 1.014 OPS in 1893.

In 1895, the Phillies finished 15 games back in third place. Hamilton led the league in walks, runs, steals, and batted .389/.490/.495/.985.  Fangraphs calls that a 6.9 fWAR, .471 wOBA, 157 wRC+ season.

The Phillies wanted Beaneaters third-baseman Billy Nash as their new manager and traded Hamilton to Boston to get him.

You’re my leadoff man

Beaneater manager Frank Selee made Hamilton his leadoff man and gave the speedster a permanent green light.  In 1896, Hamilton played in all 131 games batting .366/.478/.468/.946, a 145 OPS+, had 192 hits, 110 walks.

In 1897, the Beaneaters added two pitchers to help Kid Nichols in the rotation, Hamilton batted .343/.461/.414/.875, scored 152 runs, walked 105 times, Bobby Lowe drove in 106, Hugh Duffy 129, Jimmy Collins 132, the Beaneaters won 93 games and the NL Pennant.

The club won the title again in 1898 with Hamilton batting .369/.480/.453/.933 at the top of the lineup, but age started to wear on the legs of Hamilton in 1899. Now 33, he managed only 84 games in 1899 after injuring his knee on a slide in May.

Hamilton returned to play a full 136 game season in 1900, batting .333/.449/.396/.845, but stole only 32 bases and for the first time since his rookie season of 1888, scored less than a run per game.

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Unlike his namesake acquired by the Atlanta Braves in 2019 who found getting on base a challenge, Sliding Billy got on base at a .449 or better clip until 1901. In that final year, Hamilton’s average fell below .310 for the first time since coming to the NL, and his OPS, though still good enough for an OPS+ of 113, was his lowest since 1888.

Instead of hanging on for another season, Sliding Billy requested a release and hung up his spikes. He returned to the franchise in 1911 and spent two years as a scout. Today Hamilton ranks:

• third all-time with 914 stolen bases
• fourth all-time with a.455 SLG% ahead of Lou Gehrig at number five
• tied for seventh all-time with a .344 BA (Ted Williams), just.0003 behind Tris Speaker
• tied #14 with a .433 wOBA (John McGraw, Johnny Mize)
• #27 with 1697 runs scored

When Hamilton retired, he led baseball in walks, batting average, OBP, and stolen bases. He remains one of three players to average more than a run a game in his career. The mental giants on the veteran’s committee led by Kennesaw Mountain Landis gave him 2.6% of the vote in 1936, and the BBWA gave him 0.4% in 1942

Sliding Billy died on December 6, 1941, but it took the BBWAA 21 years to give him his rightful place in Cooperstown. On July 24, 1961, three of his children represented Sliding Billy at his induction into the Hall of Fame.

A great non-trade

In January 1994, the Atlanta Braves were looking for a closer and in discussions with the Royals for Jeff Montgomery. According to Max Rieper on SB Nation, in return, the Royals wanted Justice or Ron Gant and Mark Wohlers. The Braves wanted to substitute Ryan Klesko for Justice, but the Royals didn’t want the unproven player.

Justice was scorching the league with a .313/.427/.531 line and 19 homers when the strike ended play in 1994. Klesko appeared in 92 games, batted  .278/.344/.563/.907, hit 17 homers, and Wohler appeared in 51 games with just four bad outings.

In 1993 the Royals’ righty Montgomery saved 45 games in 1993, with a 2.27 ERA, 1.008 WHIP, a 10.1 k/9 rate, and hitters batted .206/.263/.291/.554 against him.

In 1994 he saved 27 games in 32 opportunities, his ERA jumped to 4.03, his WHIP jumped climbed 1.00 to 1.410, and his K/9 dropped to 6.7

Bullet dodged.

The Atlanta Braves World Series season

When baseball returned in 1995, Justice remained a dependable piece in the lineup. From April 26 through June 1 he batted .278/.398/.500/.898, but hit only four homers then miss two weeks with an injury. He returned June 17 and finished the season 253/.365/.479/.844 with 24 homers and 78 RBI.

He struggled against the Rockies in the NLDS and the Reds in the NLCS. In the World Series, he batted .250/.400/.450/.850, walked five times, struck out once, and as I recall, hit a home run you can watch by clicking this link; Tony Pena’s reaction; is worth watching.

Justice played in one more Atlanta Braves season, but it lasted just 40 games. In the bottom of the second inning, he swung at a pitch from future Brave Denny Neagle, and separated his shoulder, ending his season.

On March 25, 1997, the Braves traded Justice and Marquis Grissom to the Indians for Kenny Lofton and Alan Embree.

On August 17, 2007, David Justice became the first member of the team that began The Streak inducted into the Atlanta Braves Hall of Fame.

That’s a wrap

It’s remarkable that a player with Billy Hamilton’s credentials took so long to earn his place in Cooperstown, it just also shows how relationships with the press and owners affected how much fans knew about him.

Thirty-five years passed between Hamilton’s retirement and the first Hall of Fame vote.  Voting in the early days of the Hall was less effective than a Twitter poll for the best bagel. It took another 20 years or so to get voting better organized.

I think David Justice had one of the prettiest swings I’ve ever seen. Minus the injuries that cost him so many games and the strike, he might have ended his career with 450 homers and at least one MVP under his belt.

Part three coming soon.