Remembering Don Mueller

Former New York Giants All-Star Don Mueller passed away at the age of 84 on Wednesday in St. Louis. Mueller played for the Giants from 1948-1957, and he spent the last two seasons of his career with the Chicago White Sox. He was part of the Giants squads that won the World Series in 1951 and 1954, and he was an All-Star selection in 1954 and 1955.

In Game 3 in the NLCS against the Brooklyn Dodgers on October 3, 1951, Don Mueller hit a single in the bottom of the ninth to get things cooking for the Giants. They were down 4-1, and Mueller’s single helped Alvin Dark move over to third base. Whitey Lockman stepped up to the dish and delivered an RBI double, but Mueller broke his ankle as he slid into third base on the play. After he was carried off the field, Bobby Thomson hit “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World” to give the Giants a 5-4 win. They would win the World Series that year, and Mueller played a key role in their triumph.

Mueller was known as “Mandrake the Magician”, because he had a knack for finding a hole in the infield and getting the ball through for a hit. “Mandrake the Magician” comes from a popular comic strip at the time, and Mueller certainly lived up to this nickname; he had a .296 batting average in his career. His father, Walter Mueller, was an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1922-1926 who didn’t have as much success in the Majors.

After three pedestrian seasons to start his Major League career, Don Mueller broke out in 1951 and was worth 1.9 WAR and hit a career-high 16 home runs. He had a wRC+ of 94, which is slightly below average for a right fielder. Mueller’s main source of value came from his defense, and his Total Zone rating of +8 was the best of his career- it was his only season with a TZ of +5. His ISO of .154 was also a career-high, and it was the only time in his career in which he had an ISO of at least .150.

Mueller improved in 1952 and was worth 2.5 WAR, and he hit double-digit home runs (12) for the last time in his career. He continued to play solid defense and had the highest walk rate in his career (6.9%). It was the only time in a full season in which Mueller had a walk rate above 5%. He really came through as a hitter and had a .350 wOBA and tied a career high with a 108 wRC+.

In 1953, Don Mueller started a streak of three straight seasons with a batting average above .300. He hit .333 with a wOBA of .351, but his wRC+ was only a league-average 100 due to his lack of power (.071 ISO). His defense was starting to slip, and Mueller was worth a slightly below-average 1.5 WAR that year.

The St. Louis native got his first taste of stardom in 1954, as he was named to his first All-Star team. He set a career-high for WAR and was worth 3.3 wins above replacement. He hit .342 with a .363 OBP and a 108 wRC+. The New York Giants would win the World Series that year, and Mueller’s offensive numbers were a huge reason for their overall success. After all, Mueller did lead the league with 212 hits and was 12th in MVP voting in what was easily the best season of his career.

Mueller made back-to-back All-Star teams after hitting .306 in 1955. It wasn’t the best year in his career, and Total Zone rates his defense as a horrid -10 for that season. He drove in 83 runs and had a decent season overall and had 185 hits that year.

However, the last five seasons of his career did not yield much success, and he was worth a combined -3.5 WAR over these years (-0.7 WAR per season). He retired at the age of 32 after the 1959 season, and he was being treated for gout and arthritis at the time. Don Mueller had a successful 12-year career in the Majors, and he was instrumental in two World Series victories and was also a two time All-Star. Mueller isn’t in the Hall of Fame and wasn’t anything near a Hall of Famer, but he was a solid player who achieved every ballplayer’s dream; he won a ring.

I decided to use Lewie Pollis’s Simple WAR Calculator to see how much Don Mueller was worth over 162 games using his career averages. He was worth about 0.7 WAR per season, and this includes those last five seasons that really drag his overall value down. In his prime, he was an above-average offensive hitter who provided solid defense for the Giants, as well as some clutch hitting.

The most notable skill that “Mandrake the Magician” displayed as a Major Leaguer was his ability to keep the ball in play. He walked just %3.6 percent of the time in his career and struck out just 3.2% of the time in 12 seasons. This means that he made contact about 93% of the time, and that’s quite remarkable. His power numbers and overall offensive value are constrained when looking at his advanced statistics because of this old school approach to hitting a baseball. As a kid, he practiced playing by hitting corn kernels with a whiffle ball bat. This may have contributed to his uncanny ability to make contact, and Mueller was truly a unique hitter. Despite a career WAR of 6.1, Mueller was a star for a couple of seasons and was an important player for the Giants. He may not have been a star over his career, but Mueller was definitely a solid cog for two World Series champions.