Five Tool Players

My goal is to identify all players in baseball history who can reasonably be described as "successful five-tool players". "Successful" is necessary because any number of players have been hyped as five-tool players at the age of 22 (Juan Samuel, Jeff Francoeur, Grady Sizemore, Von Hayes, Tommie Agee, Corey Patterson), only to find themselves fighting for a job in a few years; don’t want them on the list.

This continues a discussion that started on Twitter. . ..or maybe it was television; I don’t know. Who knows where any conversation starts. I’ll start by accepting Alex Speier’s list of five-tool players in the game today: Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, and Javy Baez. Then we’ll do an organized search for who else ought to be on the list.

Data Base. First, I’ll eliminate 19th century players, because that’s not real major league baseball, and second, I’ll eliminate anybody who hasn’t played 500 games in the majors. All five of Alex’s guys, young as they are, have played 500+ games in the majors. There are 2,771 players left in the data base. At the end of this process, I will have decided that:

1,424 of them could throw (51%)

1,100 could field (40%)

1,056 could run (38%)

490 could hit for power (18%), but only

405 could hit for average (15%).

But how did I decide this?

It’s a mixture of judgment and sabermetrics. To make judgments about 2,771 players one at a time would take weeks and result in many errors, so most of it is done by creating "rules" that I will explain below. But if I looked at the output from the rules and knew that it wasn’t right, then I changed it. If I looked at a result and just didn’t like it, I left it alone; if I looked at a result and knew that it was wrong, then I changed it. Working it category-by-category:

ARM:

If a player has a good long career as a catcher, a shortstop, a third baseman or a right fielder, you can assume that he has an arm. Some center fielders have good arms, some don’t. A few left fielders have had good arms, and a few first basemen. Most second basemen are second basemen because they don’t throw well enough to be shortstops, but there are 20-25 second basemen who are well known for having had good throwing arms. About half of the players are credited with having good throwing arms; not claiming my ratings are always right.

FIELDING:

Tough one. Here’s what I did. I credited a player with being a good fielder if

1) He won a Gold Glove at any point in his career,

2) He had a long career at catcher, second base, shortstop or center field, or

3) I knew that he was, in fact, a good fielder.

It’s actually more complicated than that; I assigned a "position value" to each defensive position, and then multiplied that by the number of career games played. If a player played 1,000 career games at catcher or shortstop, that’s a good defensive player unless we know that he isn’t. Two players in five are identified as good fielders.

RUNNING:

Speed is actually easy for me, because I have fought that battle many times before. You can very accurately infer speed from things in the player’s record like stolen bases, triples, grounding into double plays, defensive position and runs scored as a percentage of times on base. I have in my personal data file, my I-don’t-care-whether-you-like-it-or-not file, a "Speed Score" for every player every season, based on these factors and sometimes my personal judgment. It’s a 1-to-10 scale, but even Kendrys Morales isn’t a flat 1.00 and even Byron Buxton isn’t a perfect 10.

We will credit a player with having speed if:

1) He has a career Speed Score of 7 or higher,

2) He has a season with a Speed Score of 9 or higher, or

3) He has a Speed Score of 6 or higher in a career of 2000 games or more.

Again, it is more nuanced than that, but I don’t want to get into it. It’s judgment. There’s a lot of guys who can run. Juan Beniquez could run. There have been a lot of guys who were in the majors BECAUSE they could run. Almost 40% of the players in my data are identified as being able to run.

HITTING FOR POWER:

I’ll mark anyone as having "power" if they

1) Ever led the league in home runs,

2) Ever hit 30 homers in a season, unless the 30-homer season was a stone fluke, or

3) Hit 200 homers in their careers.

Also, I credited Cesar Cedeno with having power, which makes him a five-tool player; he hit 199 homers in his career, so I decided 199 was really the standard only it looks stupid to write it that way. I drew the line between Rondell White and Cesar Cedeno; you have to draw it somewhere. Also, I credited Woodie Held and Glenallen Hill as having power, because obviously they did, and I credited a few catchers with having power who don’t meet any of these standards (Cliff Johnson, Elston Howard, Del Crandall, Andy Seminick, Russell Martin), but that doesn’t make any big difference because none of them are five-tool players anyway. And I credited Honus Wagner with having power. Honus was enormously strong, a weight-lifter in a period when baseball players didn’t lift anything heavier than a case of Jack Daniels, and it just seems to me he has to be credited with power although he was a line-drive hitter and never quite led the league in homers.

490 players in my data are credited with have good power, or just less than one in five. That leaves "Hitting":

HITTING

We say that the five-tool player can do five things: Run, Throw, Hit, Field, and Hit for Power. What is generally meant by "Hit" in that expression is hitting for a good batting average, although we can stretch it a little by including OPS; this is the 21st century.

I will credit a player with hitting for a good average if:

1) He has won a batting title and is not named "Norm Cash",

2) He has 3000 career hits,

3) He has 2500 career hits and a batting average of .285 or more,

4) He has 1500 career hits and a .290 batting average, or

5) He has a career average of .300.

Also, I credited everybody with being able to "hit" if he had 1000 career hits, a .280 average and an .800 career OPS; that gets a few guys like David Ortiz and Kent Hrbek and Adrian Gonzalez. Also, I arbitrarily credited Andre Dawson and Rusty Staub with the "hit" skill although their career averages were .279.

So 405 players in history are credited with being able to "hit"—meaning they can hit at a pretty exceptional level.

Here are the five toughest questions in regard to these issues, although there are thousands of others just like them:

1) Should we say that Ty Cobb hit for power?

2) Should we say that Rogers Hornsby could field?

3) Should we say that Mickey Mantle could throw?

4) Should we say that Stan Musial could throw? And

5) Should we say that Hank Aaron could run?

Ty Cobb never hit more than 12 homers in a season, hit only 117 home runs in a long career, and reached double figures in home runs only twice, so it is not that obvious that we should say that he was a power hitter. But Cobb did lead the league in home runs once, with 9, which qualifies him in the "power" category by the standard that I gave, and, besides that, he hit 20+ triples four times, led the league in triples four times. It seems ultimately clear to me that the issue of Ty Cobb’s power is like the issue of Joe DiMaggio’s speed. DiMaggio stole only 30 bases in his career, never more than six in a season, but that doesn’t mean that he lacked speed; it just means that players didn’t do that much base stealing in his era, on his teams. The same with Cobb’s power; it is there; he just didn’t really display it in the same form that other players did.

Rogers’ Hornsby as a fielder. . . .our presumption is that a player having a long career at a premium defensive position, like second base, should be regarded as a good fielder. Hornsby was famously not a great second baseman, but what I suspect many of you don’t know is that Hornsby played 356 games at shortstop and 192 at third base early in his career. Hornsby wasn’t a BAD second baseman, honestly; he is, rather, a unique player, in that he is the only player in major league history who had a long career at second base although he was not really a good second baseman. He was such an exceptional hitter that people made allowances for him.

What it came down to for me—again, you don’t have to agree—is this. Second base in 1920 was not really a premium defensive position, and Hornsby was moved to second base because it was not a premium defensive position. In 1920 and before, third base was more of a premium defensive position than second base. This shifted gradually between 1920 and 1940—Hornsby’s years. But I decided that Hornsby should not be given credit for being a five-tool player, because his defense was not strong enough.

Mickey Mantle’s arm. . . well, Mickey did not have a great arm. He did not have a bad arm. I think Mickey Mantle is, as much as anyone except Mays, what we MEAN by the term, "Five Tool Player". Trout doesn’t have a great arm, either; it’s not a huge deal. Cobb didn’t have a great arm. I think it was good enough.

Musial’s arm is. . .well, more problematic than Mantle’s. Musial, as I suppose you all know, began his career as a pitcher, moved to the outfield after an injury to his shoulder, and did not have a great arm after the injury.

Musial as an outfielder had more outfield assists in his career than Mantle, and in fewer innings. I’m not writing that off, and I never saw Musial play live, although I saw him on TV at the end of his career. My judgment is that his arm is too problematic to describe him a five-tool player. If you say he could throw then you have to say that he could field. He wasn’t that valuable in the field; he did play 300 games in center field in his career, and almost 800 in right field. That’s evidence on behalf of his arm—but he was basically, most of his career, a left fielder and a first baseman. I just think it is a bridge too far to give him credit for all five tools. I sort of think he can choose to be credited with an arm or choose to be credited with being able to field, but I’m not going to give him both.

And then there is Aaron’s speed. Modern sportswriters tend to accept at face value that Aaron was fast because he stole 31 bases in 1963—he was a 30/30 man—and stole 240 bases in his career. But Aaron in his first four seasons in the majors was 8 for 16 stealing bases, and twice grounded into 20 or more double plays. Sportswriters would say, and not uncommonly, that he was slow.

Aaron ran back on his heels. He learned to steal bases to stop people from saying that he was slow. Aaron had—has—tremendous pride. People said he was slow; it hit his I’ll-show-you button, which is one of the greatest things an athlete can have, a good I’ll-show-you button. He was NOT slow, but was he really fast?

I wouldn’t say that he was fast, but I did; I wouldn’t but I did. I credited him with speed for purposes of this system, but he wasn’t REALLY fast. Frank Robinson was a lot faster than Aaron until he (Robby) got hurt.

Lot of tough calls. . .does Vada Pinson have power? Does Barry B. have a strong enough arm? Is Norm Cash’s batting title a fluke? OK, that’s one’s not tough.

Using these lists, I have:

493 players who were not outstanding in any of these areas,

1,150 players who had one notable skill,

641 players who excelled in two areas,

329 players who had three of these skills,

114 players who had four of these skills, and

44 five-tool players.

Not all of those 44 five-tool players were GREAT players. Some of them were very good players who got hurt before they reached greatness. Some of them had five tools at the start of their careers, but didn’t keep them. Some of them had all five tools, I guess, but it’s a marginal classification.

I will run the list below, but then we have another wrinkle. David Wright was a five-tool player. Look at him; count the tools. One, two, three, four, five. He was a five-tool player, and he is "active" in 2018, or is going to be on the last day of the season or something. Andrew McCutchen was a five-tool player, and he’s still quite active, although he is missing a tool or two. Matt Kemp as a young man was a five-tool player.

Somehow, we have to count not only how many ACTIVE five-tool players there are, but how many of them still have all five tools. I’ll repeat that sentence in a minute; first I’d better list the 44 players that I decided should be counted as five-tool players. Chronologically, they are:

Nap Lajoie (1896-1916)

Honus Wagner (1897-1917)

Sam Crawford (1899-1917)

Ty Cobb (1905-1928)

Hal Chase (1905-1919)

Tris Speaker (1907-1928)

Bob Meusel (1920-1930)

Al Simmons (1924-1944)

Earl Averill (1929-1941)

Joe DiMaggio (1936-1951)

Larry Doby (1947-1959)

Duke Snider (1947-1964)

Mickey Mantle (1951-1968)

Willie Mays (1951-1973)

Al Kaline (1953-1974)

Hank Aaron (1954-1976)

Ken Boyer (1955-1969)

Roberto Clemente (1955-1972)

Frank Robinson (1956-1976)

Vada Pinson (1958-1975)

Tony Oliva (1962-1976)

Reggie Smith (1966-1982)

Cesar Cedeno (1970-1986)

Dave Parker (1973-1991)

George Brett (1973-1993)

Dave Winfield (1973-1995)

Robin Yount (1974-1993)

Andre Dawson (1976-1996)

Kirby Puckett (1984-1995)

Barry Larkin (1986-2994(

Barry Bonds (1986-2007)

Ellis Burks (1987-2004)

Roberto Alomar (1988-2004)

Craig Biggio (1988-2007)

Larry Walker (1989-2005)

Ken Griffey Jr. (1989-2010)

Shawn Green (1989-2003)

Alex Rodriguez (1994-2016)

Nomar Garciaparra (1996-2009)

Scott Rolen (1996-2012)

Bobby Abreu (1996-2014)

David Wright (2004-present)

Matt Kemp (2006-present)

Andrew McCutchen (2009-present)

Plus Mookie, Baez, Ramirez, Trout and Lindor, but that’s not my list; that’s Alex’s list.

Of course, you are entirely free to accept my list of five-tool players or not. I’m a huge fan of Craig Biggio, but I don’t know that I would accept him as a five-tool player myself. Take if for what it is worth.

But as I was saying, somehow we have to count not only how many ACTIVE five-tool players there are in a season, but how many of them still have all five tools.

Win Shares seems like the easiest way to deal with that. A successful five-tool player should have. . . well, 25, 27 Win Shares in a season. Pretty sure that David Wright isn’t going to make it this year.

Let us say that if a five-tool player has 18 or more Win Shares in a season, then we will credit him as retaining the bulk of his skills. All five of the players Speier started with—Mookie, Trout, Baez, Lindor and Ramirez—will easily clear that standard this year, and Matt Kemp might as well, with his comeback season, although Kemp’s speed is LONG gone.

They key question: Is this an unusually large convocation of five-tool players?

In my judgment it is not, at least stated in that way. It is an unusual number of five-tool players who are having MVP-type seasons. It is not a terribly unusual number of five-tool players having pretty good seasons.

By my count, there were six such players in 1909-1910: Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Sam Crawford, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie and Hal Chase. Chase was not a great player, but he was a greatly talented player.

That was the record until 1956, but in 1956 there were eight five-tool players have very good or great seasons: Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Al Kaline, Frank Robinson, Hank Aaron, Ken Boyer and Larry Doby. Roberto Clemente was also active at that time, but not yet playing well enough to be counted.

In 1959 there were eight again, with Vada Pinson replacing Ken Boyer on the list. Vada Pinson was the Mookie Betts of 1959.

In 1960 there were eight again, with Clemente replacing Duke Snider. For several years after that there were 7 or 8 every year. In 1964 the count went to nine: Mays, Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Ken Boyer, Roberto Clemente, Vada Pinson, Al Kaline and Tony Oliva.

It stayed around that number for a few years, dropped off to four in 1976: Brett, Cedeno, Dave Parker and Dave Winfield. In 1988 I have nine five-tool players; Kirby Puckett, Robin Yount, George Brett, Dave Winfield, Ellis Burks, Andre Dawson, Barry Larkin, Barry Bonds and Roberto Alomar. In 1992 I have ten five-tool players—players who had five tools when they were young—and who were still very good players in 1992: Barry Bonds, Kirby Puckett, Robero Alomar, Ken Griffey Jr., Larry Walker, Barry Larkin, Dave Winfield, Craig Biggio and Robin Yount.

Some of those players were older in 1992—Winfield and Yount, certainly—but they were still productive players, so the number of players of that description in the majors at that time was larger than it is now.

If you raise the standard to 25 Win Shares, you have fewer years with an equal concentration of stars, but you still have six in 1956—Mantle, Snider, Kaline, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. In 1959 you have 6, in 1962 you have 6, and in 1964 there are 7.

In order to make it TRULY unique, then, what you have to do is this: You have to say that this is an unusual number of YOUNG five-tool players having MVP-type seasons.

Yes.

Yes it is.

But every moment is unique, so everything is unprecedented if you add enough qualifiers to it. You can accept my list, or you can make your own. But if you accept mine, then the number of five-tool stars in the game today is not tremendously high by historic standards.