Greatest Ever: Oakland Athletics

In my last post, I chose Lefty Grove and Eddie Collins as the greatest Philadelphia Athletics of all time. Today I'll choose the greatest Oakland A's:

Hitter

I'm going to choose this one first because it's so easy. Here are the candidates: Reggie Jackson, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson.

It's pretty obvious who's number one, right? Henderson, of course. He played four separate stints with the A's, helping them to four postseason appearances. But what he's really known for his his title as The Greatest Leadoff Hitter Ever. He got on base over 40% of the time, and, during his prime, he hit for more power than many cleanup hitters. He hit 81 leadoff homers, easily the record, including 44 of them for the A's. Bill James once wrote that if you split Rickey Henderson in half, you'd have two Hall of Famers. He clearly stands as the greatest Oakland A hitter of all time.

Pitcher

This comes down to a starter vs. a reliever: Catfish Hunter or Dennis Eckersley. They're both in the Hall of Fame, they both won multiple pennants, they both won Cy Young Awards.

Let's break it down a little.

Hunter had four 20-win seasons for the A's, plus one more for the Yankees. Eckersley had four 40-save seasons for the A's, plus four more 30-save seasons (2 for the A's) and a 20-win season (for the Red Sox). (I know that statistically or sabermetrically, a 20-win season is not truly analogous to a 40-save season, but we're just having fun here.)

Eckersley is considered one of the 3 or 4 greatest relief pitchers of all time, but that's mainly because relief pitching is a relatively new phenomenon in baseball history. Hunter doesn't rank among the top 25 pitchers of all time, though he was one of the 5 or 6 greatest starting pitchers of the 1970s (behind at least Seaver, Carlton, and Palmer, just off the top of my head).

It's a close contest, and I went back and forth several times in my thinking. But I finally decided that a starting pitcher who logs 300 innings per season is simply much more valuable than a reliever who tosses 70 or 80, even if those 70 or 80 innings are the most important of a game.

I'm going to go with Catfish Hunter as the greatest pitcher in Oakland A's history.

New Regular Feature: Greatest Ever for Each Team

Fellow blogger Joe Posnanski has a long post today trying to identify the greatest position player ever for the Mets. You should check it out.

It's given me the idea to start another new regular feature on Baseball Mud to identify the greatest two players -- pitcher and position player -- for each franchise. Some will be easier than others.

To start, I'm going to pick my local favorite, the Oakland A's.

Now, the A's spent the first 50 years of their existence in Philadelphia before moving first to Kansas City, then to Oakland. So I'm going to cheat a little and select two sets of winners. Today I'm going to focus on the old Philadelphia A's.

Pitchers

The candidates: Eddie Plank (1901-1914), Chief Bender (1903-1914), Lefty Grove (1925-1933).

They're all Hall of Famers, and they all won championships. Plank is the franchise leader in wins with 284 as an Athletic, followed by Grove with 195 and Bender with 193.

But who are we kidding. Grove is clearly the greatest pitcher to wear a Philadelphia Athletics uniform. He was possibly the greatest pitcher of all time. He won 20+ games 7 times in his 9 seasons in Philly, and was only traded because owner Connie Mack needed the money.

Position Players

The candidates: Eddie Collins (1906-1914, 1927-1930), Mickey Cochrane (1925-1933), and Jimmie Foxx (1925-1935).

At first blush, Eddie Collins would be the obvious choice due to his length of service (13 years for Collins vs. 9 for Cochrane and 11 for Foxx). But Collins also won a couple of pennants with the White Sox (or Black Sox), so he might even qualify as the greatest White Sox ever, too. (We'll get to that later.)

Foxx did a lot of damage as a slugging first baseman and won two championships. Cochrane also won those same two championships before moving to Detroit to win another. Cochrane is one of the top 5 catchers of all time. Foxx is one of the top 5 first basemen.

But Collins is one of the top 2 or 3 second basemen, and he won three championships with the A's (four pennants total, plus two more pennants with the Sox).

It's a slightly difficult decision, but ultimately Collins is my choice for the greatest position player in Philadelphia A's history.