RIP Joe Morgan: Key Cog in the Big Red Machine

This morning I awoke to the sad news that one of the greatest second basemen in the history of baseball, Joe Morgan, passed away yesterday at the age of 77.  Little Joe was one of the four stars on the Big Red Machine from the 1970s, the others being Johnny Bench, Pete Rose and Tony Perez. Those Cincinnati Reds teams, under manager Sparky Anderson, won four N.L. West titles between 1972 and 1976, winning three pennants and two World Series titles (in 1975 & 1976).

Bill James, in his New Historical Baseball Abstract, ranked Joe Morgan as the best second sacker of all-time.

It’s been a very tough year for the Baseball Hall of Fame family. In April, we lost Al Kaline. And, just in the last six weeks, we’ve lost Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and now Morgan.

This piece was originally posted on Morgan’s 75th Birthday (September 19, 2018). It has been updated with today’s sad news.

Cooperstown Cred: Joe Morgan (2B)

• Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1990 (with 81.8% of the vote)
• Colt ’45s/Astros (1963-71), Reds (1972-79), Astros (1980), Giants (1981-82), Phillies (1983), Athletics (1984)
• Career: .271 BA, .392 OBP, .427 SLG, 2,517 Hits, 268 HR, 1,133 RBI
• Career: 689 SB, 162 CS (81% success rate)
• Career: 132 OPS+, 100.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• Two-time N.L. MVP (1975 & 1976)
• 1975: .327 BA, .466 OBP, .508 SLG, 94 RBI, 107 Runs, 169 OPS+, 11.0 WAR
• 1976: .320 BA, .444 OBP, .576 SLG, 27 HR, 111 RBI, 113 Runs, 186 OPS+, 9.6 WAR
• 10-time All-Star
• 5-time Gold Glove Award Winner
• Scored 100 or more runs 8 times
• Walked 100 or more times in 8 different seasons
• Led the N.L. in Offensive WAR for 6 straight seasons (1972-77)
• Member of 1975 & 1976 World Champion Cincinnati Reds

(cover photo: joemorgan8.com)

Career Highlights

Joe Leonard Morgan was born on September 19, 1943 in Bonham, Texas. His family moved to Oakland, California when Morgan was 5 and he maintained a residence in the area until his passing. The left-handed-hitting Morgan, small in stature at 5’7″, was not considered a good enough player in high school to be offered a baseball scholarship by any four-year college. Instead, Morgan enrolled in Oakland City College, a two-year school.

As one of the best players in the league, Morgan finally attracted some attention and he was signed by the Houston Colt .45’s on November 1, 1962, when he was 19 years old. From his SABR Bio, it was Morgan’s first manager, Billy Goodman with the Durham Bulls in the Carolina League, that taught the young second baseman the value of taking the first pitch.

Anyway, the Colt .45’s were an expansion franchise in 1962 so they weren’t very good, giving a talented young player the chance to make the majors quickly. Morgan made his MLB debut in 1963, just two days after his 20th birthday.

Despite the cup of coffee in ’63, Morgan didn’t become a full time player in Houston until 1965, when the franchise was renamed the “Astros” and moved into what was then called the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Astrodome.

The Astrodome, of course, was baseball’s first domed stadium and the first to employ artificial turf, a surface that favored the game of the speedy second baseman. In his career, Morgan’s OPS was .859 on turf compared to .766 on natural grass.

Morgan was the Astros’ everyday second sacker from 1965 to 1971 with the exception of 1968 when he played only 10 games due to a torn knee ligament. It was early in his career in Houston that Morgan started his trademark elbow flapping. Teammate Nellie Fox (a future Hall of Famer) who suggested Morgan flap his left elbow to keep it from getting too low when he was ready to hit.

The Big Red Machine

In November 1971, Joe Morgan was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in a 7-player deal. He was dealt with center fielder Cesar Geronimo and pitcher Jack Billingham in exchange for first baseman Lee May and second baseman Tommy Helms. This was a great trade, of course, for both Morgan and the Reds.

Morgan had made two All-Star squads while with the Astros but, in Cincinnati, he made the mid-summer classic for eight years in a row, the first seven as the N.L. starter.

In Morgan’s first six seasons with the the Big Red Machine (1972-77), he averaged .301 with a .429 on-base% and .495 slugging%. This translated to an adjusted OPS+ of 159, which was tied with Willie Stargell for the best in baseball for those years. This from a second baseman. Morgan’s OPS+ was six points better than Reggie Jackson‘s, in Reggie’s prime.

In the meantime, Little Joe won five straight Gold Gloves and averaged 60 stolen bases per season. For those six seasons, Morgan’s all-around game translated to a WAR of 53.6, which was nearly 10 “wins” better than Rod Carew‘s 44.3, which was second best. Morgan scored more runs, drew more walks, and had a higher OBP than any other player. Only Lou Brock had more steals but Morgan’s success rate was 7 points better.

A truly remarkable statistic, shared with me on Twitter by Ryan Spaeder: for four consecutive years (1973-76), Morgan had at least 50 extra-base hits, 100 walks and 50 stolen bases. He is the only player in baseball history to do this even once. Except he didn’t do it once. He did it for four years in a row!

In 1975 & 1976, Morgan led the Reds to the N.L. West title en route to winning back-to-back MVP Awards. In Game 7 of the famous World Series against the Boston Red Sox, Morgan delivered the game-winning hit to break a 3-3 tie in the top of the 9th inning.

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After the ’76 World Series, the Big Red Machine was slowly dismantled. First baseman Tony Perez was traded after the ’76 season. The ’77 and ’78 Reds did not make the playoffs, bested by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Pete Rose left as a free agent after ’78 and Sparky Anderson was fired. Morgan was still a good player in 1978 and 1979 but his performance wasn’t close to his extraordinary run of the previous years. After the ’79 season, the Texas native signed a free agent deal with his original club, the Houston Astros.

Joe Morgan’s Final Five Seasons

Joe Morgan spent the final five seasons of his career playing for four different clubs. In 1980, he was a key contributor to the first Astros’ team ever to make the post-season.

The N.L. West champions faced off with the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS. In the first baseball playoff game ever to be played indoors, Morgan’s leadoff triple in the top of the 11th inning led to Houston’s 1-0 victory in Game 3.

Ultimately, the Houston would fall to Philadelphia in a thrilling five-game series.

Morgan was released by the Astros in December. He signed a free-agent deal with the San Francisco Giants, where he would spend two seasons. In 1982, the 38-year old second baseman flashed some of the hitting form that he had displayed earlier in his career, hitting .289 with a .400 on-base% and 136 OPS+. This was good enough for a WAR of 5.1.

On the last game of the ’82 season, Morgan kept the Dodgers out of a first-place tie with Atlanta when he hit a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 7th inning.

In December 1982, Morgan was traded for the second time of his career, this time to the Philadelphia Phillies, where he was reunited with Perez and Rose on a team that would go on to win another pennant. Morgan only hit .176 in the ’83 post-season, with two of those hits being solo home runs in the World Series. The Phillies would fall to the Baltimore Orioles in five games.

Morgan was released again and played his last season, at the age of 40, with his hometown Oakland Athletics.

Joe Morgan Underrated?

While Morgan was one of the greatest second sackers of all-time, he was also underrated. Why do I say underrated? It’s because The Little General was awarded “only” 81.8% of the BBWAA vote as a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection in 1990.

Although getting into Cooperstown on the first ballot on the first try is a good thing regardless, Morgan’s total was smaller than the percentage earned by first-ballot picks in subsequent years by excellent but lesser players such as John Smoltz (82.9%), Dennis Eckersley (83.2%), Paul Molitor (85.2%), and Kirby Puckett (82.1%).

Morgan was on the same ballot as Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer, who got 92.6%. The year before, Bench got 96.4% while Carl Yastrzemski earned 94.6%.

Looking back from a historical perspective, what was it about Morgan’s career that made 81 writers choose not to consider him worthy of a first-ballot Cooperstown selection? Without going back and interviewing those 81 writers, it’s clear to me that Morgan’s career batting average of .272 and total of 2,517 hits might well have been held against him.

Morgan’s value as an offensive player was not in his batting average, it was in his superior on-base ability combined with his superb base-running skills. The reason Morgan got “only” 2,517 hits was because he drew 1,865 walks, which was the third most in baseball history at the time of his retirement (behind only Babe Ruth and Ted Williams). Remember, in 1990, on-base% was not a “thing” yet, unless you a reader of James’ Baseball Abstracts (as I was).

Even if someone were to note Morgan’s prolific base-on-balls skills, they likely would have attributed it to Little Joe’s 5 foot 7 inch stature. Remember, we know differently now, but at the time walks were considered something bad that the pitcher did, not something good that the batter earned.

Anyway, Morgan’s 4,545 times on base (by hit, walk, HBP or reaching on an error) is the 3rd most ever for a second baseman, behind only Eddie Collins and Craig Biggio. Morgan reached base more than 3,000-hit men Rod Carew and Nap Lajoie. In the case of Biggio, the longtime Astros second baseman reached base 134 more times than Morgan but needed an extra 1,175 plate appearances to do it.

The Little General also stole 689 bases with a spectacular 81% success rate. On Baseball Reference, Morgan’s 80.1 runs added due to base-running is the 8th best in the game’s history. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is calculated by adding four component parts (batting, fielding, base-running and double-play avoidance) while adding a positional adjustment. In total, Morgan’s career WAR of 100.6 is the fourth best among second basemen in baseball history (behind Rogers Hornsby, Collins and Lajoie).

In essence, what the 81 BBWAA writers in 1990 missed were some of Joe Morgan’s sabermetric numbers, many of which didn’t exist at the time.

One of Baseball’s Smartest Players

In the 2000 edition of his Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James called Joe Morgan one of the smartest players of all-time. He called Morgan the best “percentage” player ever based on his fielding percentage, his stolen base percentage, his strikeout-to-walk ratio and walk frequency in absolute terms.

Hall of Fame expert Jay Jaffe, in The Cooperstown Casebook, notes the irony that Joe Morgan’s “sabermetric credentials are eclipsed only by his shrill and incoherent disdain for the entire field of inquiry.” Jaffe’s JAWS system, incidentally, ranks Morgan 4th (behind Hornsby, Collins and Lajoie).

Morgan, of course, had a long career as Jon Miller’s partner on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball and also called post-season games in the mid-1990’s on NBC Sports with Bob Costas. Miller and Morgan, especially in the early years of their partnership, had no respect for one another.

Morgan generally had no respect for anyone who didn’t play the game. Miller, a Hall of Famer himself as a Spink Award winner, looked upon Morgan as a typical baseball player analyst who didn’t study or learn enough about the current players.

I worked very briefly on Sunday Night Baseball in 1994 and was shocked by Morgan’s lack of understanding about the context of baseball statistics. I was an Associate Producer at the time, which meant I was responsible for producing all of the graphics on the telecast.

ESPN, under Coordinating Producer Jed Drake and Producer Phil Orlins, was innovative in the use of graphics on baseball telecasts. ESPN was the first network to show a player’s on-base% in addition to his batting average, home run and RBI totals.

Anyway, Morgan strongly believed that RBI was the key statistic for an offensive hitter.

While I was building the graphics for the telecast, Orlins told me that Morgan wanted me to include RBI in all graphics regarding a player’s average with runners in scoring position. I protested, saying that the average fan would draw the wrong conclusion if they saw, for instance, that Joe Carter had 92 RBI in 187 at bats with RISP in 1993. “Everyone looks good in the RBI department when runners are on 2nd or 3rd base. It’s a meaningless stat,” I argued. Orlins agreed with me but said simply, “Joe Morgan’s in the Hall of Fame and we’re not.”

Anyway, in Jaffe’s piece he footnoted a piece from 2005 by SF Weekly’s Tommy Craggs in which the writer interviewed the ESPN analyst, who lit into the whole sabermetric movement and the best-selling book Moneyball in particular.

“I don’t read books like that. I didn’t read Bill James’ book (referring to the Historical Baseball Abstract), and you said he was complimenting me. Why would I wanna read a book about a computer, that gives computer numbers?… Why would I wanna read the book? All I’m saying is, I see a game every day. I watch baseball every day. I have a better understanding about why things happen than the computer, because the computer only tells you what you put in it. I could make that computer say what I wanted it to say, if I put the right things in there. … The computer is only as good as what you put in it.”

— Joe Morgan (in SF Weekly, July 6, 2006)

Joe Morgan’s Legacy

The first and only time I ever saw Joe Morgan play in person was at the 1977 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. I was 10 years old, having just started becoming a passionate baseball fan two years prior. The first World Series I ever saw was in 1975 and, although I was rooting for the Red Sox, was immensely impressed with the Big Red Machine.

Morgan, having won the NL MVP and two World Series rings with the Big Red Machine in ’75 and ’76, was one of the biggest stars in baseball. He batted leadoff for the National League squad in the ’77 Mid-Summer Classic and was facing Jim Palmer of the Baltimore Orioles (the two would, 13 years later, enter Cooperstown together).

Anyway, on a 3-2 pitch, Morgan hit a home run deep to right field off Palmer, setting the pace in a 4-run first inning. The N.L. would go on to win the game 7-5.

To me, as a baseball fan growing up, Joe Morgan was a big star who delivered in the big moments. I watched him break my heart in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the ’75 World Series. I watched him (in person) hit a home run off the great Palmer. I watched a veteran player who, in a new uniform, lead the Astros to the brink of the pennant. And I saw him hit two home runs for the Phillies in the ’83 Fall Classic.

As I started to learn more about baseball history and its statistics, I started to find new appreciation for the greatness of Joe Morgan the player. Whether you rank him as the first or fourth best second baseman of all-time, he’s the best by far that I’ve ever seen.

At the time of his passing, Morgan was a Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Directors of the Hall of Fame. One of his key missions in that role is to keep players out of the Hall of Fame who used Performance Enhancing Drugs. In November 2017, Morgan sent a mass email to all the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, pleading with them not to induct players who “cheated.”

Regardless of how you feel about Joe Morgan the former ESPN analyst or his lack of interest in modern metrics, this is a man who cared deeply about the history of the game. Those who loved Morgan the baseball player can remember him with the knowledge that he was one of the greatest players of the last 50 years and one of the best (if not the very best) second basemen of all-time. RIP Joe.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Joe Morgan Links

• SABR Bio (by Charles F. Faber)
• Baseball Hall of Fame Page
• Second Base JAWS Leaders (from Baseball Reference)

Embed from Getty Images