Time for part two of the Teams of the Decades Starting with Five. Yesterday's post (and an explanation of how this works, though I hope it's self-explanatory) is here.

1955-1964
C: Elston Howard (.289/.333/.461, 117 OPS+, 4400 PA)
1B: Stan Musial (.307/.390/.514, 137 OPS+, 4563 PA)
2B: Nellie Fox (.287/.348/.360, 94 OPS+, 6710 PA)
3B: Eddie Mathews (.276/.384/.517, 147 OPS+, 6515 PA)
SS: Ernie Banks (.282/.342/.538, 133 OPS+, 6295 PA)
LF: Frank Robinson (.304/.390/.556, 149 OPS+, 5735 PA)
CF: Willie Mays (.315/.390/.595, 164 OPS+, 6691 PA)
RF: Hank Aaron (.323/.380/.576, 161 OPS+, 6707 PA)
SP: Whitey Ford (173-69, 2.69 ERA, 136 ERA+, 2279 IP)
RP: Hoyt Wilhelm (72-77, 113 Sv, 2.72 ERA, 137 ERA+, 1225 IP)

Notes: Yogi Berra narrowly missed being named to a second all-decade team -- an incredible feat for a catcher -- but ironically, it's the fact that he was moved out to play (a dreadful) left field at the end of his career to make room for Howard that knocks him off this list for me...Stan the Man again didn't quite play 50% at first base, but he did play >40% there, and he's just a much better candidate, even in the last nine years of his career, than Orlando Cepeda or Roy Sievers...Fox might be the worst hitter on any of these teams, but his defense and durability make him the best of a pretty weak 2B crop...rigid OF positioning rules kept the second-best player of the decade, Mickey Mantle, off the team entirely...the decade cutoff kills Sandy Koufax, whose dominant period is split right in two between 63-64 and 65-66.

1965-1974
C: Johnny Bench (.270/.340/.483, 130 OPS+, 4587 PA)
1B: Willie McCovey (.280/.402/.552, 165 OPS+, 5278 PA)
2B: Joe Morgan (.273/.390/.424, 133 OPS+, 5866 PA)
3B: Ron Santo (.277/.371/.465, 128 OPS+, 6307 PA)
SS: Rico Petrocelli (.254/.336/.434, 113 OPS+, 5433 PA)
LF: Carl Yastrzemski (.292/.399/.490, 147 OPS+, 6439 PA)
CF: Jimmy Wynn (.259/.369/.459, 136 OPS+, 6135 PA)
RF: Hank Aaron (.296/.378/.566, 160 OPS+, 5873 PA)
SP: Bob Gibson (177-107, 2.65 ERA, 135 ERA+, 2626 IP)
RP: Hoyt Wilhelm (37-30, 81 Sv, 2.11 ERA, 159 ERA+, 613 IP)

Notes: Santo is even stronger on a 1960s team, but I think he still just edges out Brooks Robinson for this squad...Petrocelli edges out the shockingly similar (for this decade, anyway) Jim Fregosi...Willie Stargell was a better hitter than Yaz in what I believe was the better league, but Yaz could use a glove...Winn just beats out the endgame Willie Mays, but Winn and #3 CF Reggie Smith continue to duke it out for the title of Most Completely Forgotten Great Player Ever (Post-War Edition)...F-Rob shifted to RF primarily this decade, and holy crap were there a lot of great right fielders; Aaron, Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Roberto Clemente, and Al Kaline, not to mention Tony Oliva and Rusty Staub, all spent a good part of the decade at the top of their games...Tom Seaver was the best pitcher, but got a late start for this decade, and that Gibson guy wasn't bad either.

1975-1984
C: Gary Carter (.271/.344/.460, 123 OPS+, 5665 PA)
1B: Keith Hernandez (.300/.390/.447, 132 OPS+, 5729 PA)
2B: Joe Morgan (.270/.396/.433, 131 OPS+, 5390 PA)
3B: Mike Schmidt (.269/.387/.547, 155 OPS+, 6355 PA)
SS: Robin Yount (.288/.334/.432, 115 OPS+, 6257 PA)
LF: George Foster (.283/.348/.500, 134 OPS+, 5949 PA)
CF: FRed Lynn (.294/.373/.498, 135 OPS+, 5409 PA)
RF: Dave Winfield (.292/.361/.488, 140 OPS+, 6141 PA)
DH: Hal McRae (.299/.360/.465, 128 OPS+, 5667 PA)
SP: Steve Carlton (180-102, 3.03 ERA, 123 ERA+, 2592 IP)
RP: Goose Gossage (80-68, 228 Sv, 2.45 ERA, 154 ERA+, 1120 IP)

Notes: Carter gets all he can handle from Ted Simmons, one of the more underrated players in recent memory; shockingly similar batting lines, but Carter had the better D...likewise, Morgan just barely beats out another of those unheralded superstars, Bobby Grich...Jim Rice comes frighteningly close to beating out Foster, since this was pretty much the exact period during which he was pretty good, and it was a slow time for LFs, but Foster's better D carries the day...Reggie was oh-so-close in RF in both this decade and last, as was Seaver...eh, why not add a DH too?

1985-1994
C: Mickey Tettleton (.242/.368/.445, 125 OPS+, 4463 PA)
1B: Will Clark (.302/.378/.499, 145 OPS+, 5347 PA)
2B: Ryne Sandberg (.291/.354/.470, 123 OPS+, 6089 PA)
3B: Wade Boggs (.333/.425/.457, 140 OPS+, 6609 PA)
SS: Cal Ripken (.272/.345/.442, 117 OPS+, 6872 PA)
LF: Rickey Henderson (.288/.410/.460, 142 OPS+, 5774 PA)
CF: Kirby Puckett (.320/.362/.486, 127 OPS+, 6646 PA)
RF: Tony Gwynn (.334/.388/.452, 132 OPS+, 6085 PA)
DH: Brian Downing (.269/.379/.446, 128 OPS+, 4403 PA)
SP: Roger Clemens (163-89, 2.85 ERA, 152 ERA+, 2260 IP)
RP: Dennis Eckersley (37-25, 291 Sv, 2.56 ERA, 153 ERA+, 587 IP)

Notes: Tettleton? Yeah, it's a dry decade for catchers; guy sure could hit for a while there with that crazy stance, though...Eddie Murray is another great who was the best over two decades but not quite good enough during either one to make the team; here, Clark narrowly beats out Don Mattingly after Donnie got off to a huge lead early in the decade...Lou Whitaker almost certainly had the better overall career, but this decade was right in Sandberg's wheelhouse...Boggs has no competition at all, while Ripken crushes two other Hall-quality options in Alan Trammell and Ozzie Smith...Tim Raines, living in Rickey's shadow yet again (Rickey was almost certainly the #1 player of this decade)...flip a coin between Puckett and Brett Butler for CF and between Downing and Harold Baines for DH...Clemens had one incredible decade, maybe the best (by this definition of "decade") since Walter Johnson...Eck's stats are from 1987 on, since he was still a starter in '85 and '86.

1995-2004
C: Mike Piazza (.316/.390/.567, 150 OPS+, 5418 PA)
1B: Jeff Bagwell (.293/.413/.551, 148 OPS+, 6873 PA)
2B: Craig Biggio (.289/.379/.452, 115 OPS+, 6882 PA)
3B: Chipper Jones (.303/.400/.536, 139 OPS+, 6630 PA)
SS: Alex Rodriguez (.306/.383/.577, 144 OPS+, 6326 PA)
LF: Barry Bonds (.315/.485/.684, 206 OPS+, 6181 PA)
CF: Jim Edmonds (.296/.388/.556, 141 OPS+, 5536 PA)
RF: Sammy Sosa (.286/.366/.588, 144 OPS+, 6508 PA)
DH: Edgar Martinez (.316/.430/.541, 153 OPS+, 6036 PA)
SP: Randy Johnson (165-66, 2.70 ERA, 172 ERA+, 2123 IP)
RP: Mariano Rivera (47-31, 336 Sv, 2.43 ERA, 190 ERA+, 728 IP)

Notes: Can't let myself pick Ivan Rodriguez over Piazza -- I just don't believe a catcher's defense can possibly make up the massive difference in offense -- but I'll admit it's closer than I would've thought, and Jason Kendall was up there, too...can't go wrong with Biggio, Roberto Alomar, or Jeff Kent at second...we all recognize that Chipper's a slam-dunk Hall of Famer now, right?...add Ken Griffey, Jr. to the list of legends victimized by the timing in place here, and Bernie Williams and Kenny Lofton to the list of players victimized by the underappreciated awesomeness of Edmonds...the RF corps of Sosa, Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, and Larry Walker seems to me to rival the slew of great RFs from '65-'74, though of course your mileage may vary...Unit v. Pedro Martinez is about as close as it gets, while Greg Maddux, much like Koufax, was victimized by having his greatest years straddle two decades.

Well, I don't know if anyone else is interested in this, but I really like it. I'll be back on Thursday with a look at where we are at the halfway point of the current midpoint decade.

Comments (2)

Great work
written by Barry Gillis, February 25, 2010

Very well done.

I'm curious how you worked out the OPS+ numbers for the players. Did you simply use the B-ref OPS+ for each season, multiply it by the plate appearances, create the sum of these ten results, then divide by the total plate appearances ?

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written by Bill@TDS, February 25, 2010

Thanks, Barry!

Yikes, no, that would take forever. Baseball-reference.com actually does all the work for you nowadays. If you subscribe to the Play Index premium service, this kind of thing is pretty easy -- you can tell it you're looking for totals from a certain range of seasons, select the position and the percentage of time the player must have spent at that position to qualify (I generally used the default of 50%), and then sort it by any number of stats. I went though each of the positions and time periods above, sorted by PA and including OPS+ in one of the optional fields (IS-style ). It automatically generates the OPS+ just for the period you're searching.

If you don't want to pay for their service, they'll do this for each individual player for you for free (at least, I'm pretty sure it's free). On Clemens' page, clicking his 1985 and then 1994 stat lines gives me his combined stats for that time period, including ERA+.

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