Sep 28, 2015; Cleveland, OH, USA; Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor (12) motions to the crowd after hitting a home run during the first inning against the Minnesota Twins at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports
Four of the five franchises in the American League’s Central Division were founding members of the AL. That’s a lot of history and countless historic seasons. Which ones were the greatest of all-time in the AL Central?
The month of June has decidedly belonged to the city of Cleveland as far as the sports world is concerned. In addition to the Cavaliers winning an NBA championship and ending one of the most merciless streaks of fan anguish in history, the Indians are sitting atop the standings in the American League Central.
But that lead is tenuous at best, as the Tribe’s rivals in the division have all experienced high levels of success in the recent past, which should make for an entertaining summer race to the postseason. The most competitive division in all of Major League Baseball thus far in 2016, just seven games separate the top four teams, and any race that includes the likes of Miguel Cabrera, Jose Abreu and Eric Hosmer is sure to have some fireworks in the second half.
These are all cities and teams with rich baseball histories. Collectively, the clubs in the AL Central represent four of the founding members of the American League, have won 14 world championships, and have sent 43 players to the Hall of Fame.
With that in mind, we here at Call to the Pen wondered which players have had the most historic seasons for each of these teams. As it turns out, the names are among the biggest the game has known, and span the course of MLB history.
Next: Captain Lou.
Cleveland Indians – Lou Boudreau (1948)
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The name Lou Boudreau is likely not the first, or even the tenth, to come to mind when one thinks about the history of professional baseball in Cleveland. Not with a cast of characters that includes Napoleon Lajoie, Tris Speaker, Earl Averill, Al Rosen, Larry Doby, and Jim Thome, among many others. And while those names appear on the list of greatest individual season by a position player in Indians’ history, it’s Old Shufflefoot that stands at the top.
Boudreau was made player-manager by owner Alva Bradley after the 1941 season at the age of just 25, and he oversaw the last World Series title that Cleveland has seen to this day. That 1948 team included the likes of Doby, Joe Gordon, Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, and Satchel Paige, but it was Boudreau that had a season for the Indians’ record books.
Slashing .355/.453/.534 with 34 doubles, 18 home runs, 106 runs batted in, Boudreau guided the Tribe to a 97-58 record, just a game better than the Boston Red Sox, won AL Most Valuable Player, made his seventh all-star team, and beat the Boston Braves four games to two in the Fall Classic.
Boudreau’s 10.4 bWAR in 1948 bests that of anyone else in Indians’ history, and he remains third in career bWAR behind only Lajoie and Speaker. But as we’ve seen over the course of the past year, a new shortstop in a Cleveland uniform may give that mark some competition, as Francisco Lindor continues to be among the best in the AL at the age of just 22.
The Royals won the second World Series championship in franchise history under the watchful eye of a Vice President of Baseball Operations who had helped win the first. For 20 years, George Brett was the undisputed leader of Kansas City’s ballclub on the field, and he has continued his involvement ever since the end of his Hall of Fame career.
Brett put together a historic season in 1980, leading the Royals to the AL pennant and a World Series matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies. Though KC would have to wait until 1985 for a title, he had a year that is among the greatest the game has ever seen, and the single best in franchise history.
That year, Brett won the slash line triple crown, leading the league with a .390 batting average, .454 on-base percentage, and .664 slugging percentage, as well as having top marks with a 1.118 OPS and a 203 OPS+. He hit 33 doubles and 24 homers, drove in 118 runs, made the all-star team, won a Silver Slugger, and took home the only MVP award of his career on his way to a franchise-best 9.4 bWAR.
Since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, Brett’s 1980 season was the second-closest any player in the big leagues has come to the vaunted .400 mark again, trailing only Tony Gwynn’s .394 average in 1994. As late as September 19th, his average was above the .400 level, but he refused to miss games to protect it despite playing through injuries all season.
The question of the greatest individual season for the Detroit Tigers is really not so much about which player it belongs to, but which of Ty Cobb’s seasons it would be. The Georgia Peach holds the top five single season bWAR totals in franchise history, and six of the top ten. Cobb trails only Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, and Willie Mays among position players in career bWAR for a career, and posted a number above 10.0 three times in his 24 big league seasons.
The greatest of those years actually came in a year that, on its surface, seems to pale in comparison to others both for Cobb as a player and the Tigers as a team. In 1917, Detroit finished fourth in the American League with a 78-75 record, 21.5 games behind the pennant-winning Chicago White Sox.
Cobb slashed .383/.444/.570 that season, all of which were best in the AL. He also led the league with 225 hits, 44 doubles, 24 triples, 55 stolen bases, and OPS of 1.014, and an OPS+ of 209 at the age of 30.
1917 marked the 10th of Cobb’s 12 batting titles, the sixth of seven times he would lead the league in OBP, the eighth and final time he led in slugging, and the ninth of 10 instances with the best OPS. Despite the general understanding that he was not exactly a fun or kind man, there’s no arguing he was one of the greatest batsmen the game of baseball has ever known.
Some 60 years after Cobb’s finest season, and 11 years into his career, Rod Carew had the greatest individual season that the Minnesota Twins franchise has ever seen. Founded in 1901 as the Washington Senators before a 1961 move to the Twin Cities, the club has been home to iconic names like Sam Rice, Goose Goslin, Joe Cronin, Harmon Killebrew, and Kirby Puckett.
By 1977, Carew was already a 10-time all-star and five-time batting champion, a former AL Rookie of the Year, and well on his way towards the 3,000 hits club, but he blew away everything he had done to that point en route to being named the league’s MVP.
Carew slashed .388/.449/.570 that season, leading the league with 239 hits, 128 runs scored, 16 triples, a 1.019 OPS, and a 178 OPS+. He added in 14 home runs and 100 RBIs for good measure as he made his 11th straight all-star game and won his sixth batting title. Carew’s .388 batting average was the highest MLB had seen since Ted Williams hit at the same rate in 1957.
Minnesota, which was in the AL West at the time, finished in a distant fourth place, 17.5 games behind the division-winning Royals at the time. Carew would play only one more season for the club before being traded prior to the 1979 season to the California Angels.
At the age of 31, Carew’s 1977 season was good for 9.7 bWAR, which remains the best mark in Senators/Twins history for a position player, and his 63 career bWAR mark is second only to the legendary Walter Johnson in the franchise’s annals, just ahead of the slugging Killebrew.
While the Chicago White Sox in the first quarter of the 20th Century are best known for the Black Sox scandal and throwing the World Series in 1919, the team was also home to one of the best hitters in the history of baseball in Eddie Collins.
1915 was Collins’ first on the South Side, having been sold by Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics for a then-record $50,000 to the Pale Hose after a contract dispute. He had been named AL MVP in 1914 after leading the A’s to the World Series, and the White Sox made him the third-highest paid player in the game behind only Cobb and Tris Speaker.
The White Sox finished with a 93-61 record in 1915, but that was only good enough to be 16.5 games behind the pennant-winning Boston Red Sox who were led by Speaker and a 20-year old pitcher named Babe Ruth.
Collins had a .332/.460/.436 slash line for the Sox that season, with 22 doubles, 10 triples, 77 RBIs, 46 steals, an .896 OPS, and a 165 OPS+. He amassed a 9.4 bWAR that is the highest mark in franchise history, though it comes in just third-highest in his career.
In a career that spanned parts of 25 years, Collins collected 3,315 hits with a .333/.424/.429 slash line. His 123.9 career bWAR still ranks 13th all-time and 10th among position players, and his 2,643 singles are the third-most in history behind only Pete Rose and Cobb. Collins was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1939, his fourth year of eligibility.
