Dawson vs. Sosa

One of the really cool things about Rally’s new Baseball Projection site is that he has Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for all players since 1955. Harry Pavlidis has gone over the Cubs at each position since ‘55 over on CubsF/X. He was nice enough to send me the data and the first thing I noticed was RF. We all know Sammy Sosa was good at baseball, but how good he was compared to other right fielders for the Cubs since 1955 is kind of amazing. Take Andre Dawson, for example. While it’s not at all fair to compare Sosa to Dawson as Cubs, I’m going to do it anyway. Sosa played most of his career as a Cub and Dawson played with the Cubs for the tail-end of his career. Andre Dawson will likely go into the Hall of Fame next year and when he does, he’ll go in as an Expo or something is wrong. Dawson had a couple good years with the Cubs. His first 2 years in 1987 and 1988 were pretty good years. Neither were as remarkable as some Cubs fans would like to remember, but whatever. In fact, in Dawson’s 6 years with the Cubs he had only 14.7 WAR. That’s right. An average player would have had 12 WAR assuming he gets 700 plate appearances per season, but the fact is that Andre Dawson, while a very good player at one point in his career, was not that great with the Cubs. He had 3.7 WAR in ‘88 and 3.0 WAR in ‘87 and the other 4 years were between 1.9 and 2.2. You’re probably wondering how Dawson’s ‘88 was a better season than ‘87. Simple. Dawson’s obp was actually below league average in 1987, but above average in 1988. The league slugged .425 in 1997, but slugged only .384 in 1988. The league OBP was .343 in 1987, but .326 in 1988. Dawson’s OBP was .328 in ‘87 (15 points below league average) and his slugging was .568 (143 points higher than average). In 1988 his OBP was .344 (18 points above league average) and his slugging was .504 (128 points higher than average). Andre Dawson had a better season in 1988 than he did when he won the MVP award a year earlier. I’d bet that very few of the Cubs fans who consider Dawson a sure thing HOF player would even realize that. I also doubt they’d realize that Dawson was significantly better in Montreal than he was in Chicago. I don’t think Dawson belongs in the HOF, but if he goes in as a Cub something is terribly wrong. The best years of his career were in Montreal when he played beside Tim Raines making one of the best outfields in baseball. Dawson had 43 WAR with the Expos and only 14.7 with the Cubs. Frankly, I’m unsure why Cubs fans have taken up the battle they have in trying to get Andre Dawson into the Hall of Fame. He was slightly above average as a Cub, but he sure as hell wasn’t anywhere close to Hall of Fame worthy based on those years and I’m willing to bet the average Cubs fan would tell you he had his best years in Chicago. They’re wrong. Dead wrong. Another interesting thing about the quest that some Cubs fans are on in their hopes that Andre Dawson gets into the Hall of Fame is that another right fielder in Chicago was a little better than Dawson in their careers, but so much better as a Cub it’s not even funny. Sammy Sosa had 7 seasons better than Dawson’s best season as a Cub. He had 10 seasons better than Dawson’s 1987 MVP season. Yes, all but 2 of Sosa’s seasons with the Cubs were better than the season in which Andre Dawson won the National League MVP. As you can see (click on the image to enlarge it), Sosa’s worst season as a Cub (2004) was better than half of the years Andre Dawson was as a Cub! Somehow, Cubs fans would like to forget how good Sosa was. Even over on CCD’s site, 68% of Cubs fans don’t want Sosa’s number retired. Sosa will probably never get into the Hall of Fame because of the suspicion of using steroids though at this point we have no evidence whatsoever that says he did. Nobody has said they sold these drugs to Sosa. Nobody has said they administered them. Sosa never failed a drug test. There is not an ounce of evidence here. Nothing. But, you know, Sosa’s boom box and all, he left the final day of 2004, he must have taken steroids because he broke our hearts, rigth? Ridiculous. Cubs fans are utterly ridiculous. Some of them make me sick. The 68% of fans who say Sosa’s number should be retired make me sick. And even worse, these are the same people who want Dawson in the Hall of Fame and I can guarantee you it has nothing to do with the years he played in Montreal in which he was a significantly better ballplayer. I doubt most Cubs fans even know that. That 3.0 WAR season (1987) in which Dawson won the MVP Award might be the worst vote in history for it. I can’t say for sure and am not going to look back through all the years, or even look through 1987 thoroughly enough, but it’s absolutely ridiculous that a player who was worth only 3 wins on a last place team could win MVP. Seriously! That’s a decent season, but it’s not even All-Star caliber. Here’s an incomplete list of players who had more WAR in 1987 than Dawson: Tony Gwynn: 8.2 Tim Raines: 7.1 Eric David: 7.8 Dale Murphy: 7.4 Ozzie Smith: 7.4 These guys weren’t just better than Dawson, they were more than twice as valuable and in the case of Gwynn, nearly 3 times better than Dawson was. Here are some more: Daryle Strawberry: 6.3 Jack ClarK: 6.6 Kal Daniels: 4.6 Mike Schmidt: 5.2 Juan Samuel: 3.2 Howard Johnson: 4.5 Randy fucking Ready: 5.4 Andy Van Slyke: 5.2 Will Clark: 4.8 Bill fucking Doran: 4.4 All of those players with the exception of Juan Samuel were at least 1.4 wins better than Andre Dawson and far more worthy of winning the MVP Award. This is my favorite one: BOB BRENLY: 3.4 Yes, the current Cubs color analyst was better than Andre Dawson in 1987. This isn’t anywhere near a complete list. This doesn’t include pitchers, but they usually don’t win MVP Awards. Then again, if you’re picking somone who had the season Dawson did, you may as well. That may have been a good time to select a reliever as far as I’m concerned. In 2008, 65 MLB hitters were worth 3.1 WAR or more. 50 pitchers were worth more than 3.0 WAR. Last season 115 players were more valuable than Andre Dawson in his MVP season. Think about that for a moment, people. Let that settle in. That is nearly 4 players per team who were more valuable than Dawson’s MVP season. I doubt 1987 was much different with the exception of there being fewer teams and therefore fewer players, but it’s safe to say that at least 60 players (probably closer to 80 or 90) in Major League Baseball were more worthy of winning the Most Valuable Player Award than was Andre Dawson in 1987. A large part of the reason why Dawson won this undeserving award was because of how he signed with the Cubs. The offseason that followed the 1986 season ended up a painful one for the owners. It was ruled that owners colluded in an attempt to drive down player salaries, which resulted in a huge settlement for the MLBPA. Andre Dawson was one of the players who had trouble finding work and in March, 1987 he handed the Cubs a blank check with his signature already on it. Rather than the media focusing on the problem here (the owners), they instead celebrated a player who was willing to help the owners drive down prices. Dawson did not win the award because of how he played in 1987. Several dozen players were more valuable than he was. He won the award because it made a nice story. Nothing more. Nothing less. Attempts to glorify his 1987 season (won the award on a last place team) are nonsense. He was undeserving of the award, which meant that another more deserving player (Tony Gwynn?) did not win it. There’s nothing to glorify here. Especially since the season wasn’t even that good of one. As you could tell from the chart above, Sammy Sosa was a significantly better player for the Cubs than was Andre Dawson, but ignorant Cubs fans can’t look at anything objectively. This probably sounds like I’m bashing Andre Dawson and his abilities to play this game. I’m not. I’m simply stating that Andre Dawson wasn’t a great player for the Cubs and the numbers prove that. He was an exceptional player for the Expos, but still wasn’t the best player on his team. Tim Raines got only 20-some percent of the vote this past year while Dawson got over 60%. Something is wrong. What is it about Dawson and the Hall of Fame? Would there be as large a group of fans desperately wishing for him to get in had he never played for the Cubs? What is it?