Pittsburgh Pirates All-Time Team

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in first place while the St. Louis Cardinals are in last place. 

Also the Yankees are in the AL East basement, the Diamondbacks are a half game ahead of the Padres and the Marlins are keeping pace with the moneybag Mets. What is going on in baseball this year?!?


Let's take a look at the Pirates All-Time team before I jinx them. 

Pittsburgh benefited from home field advantage in the 1960 World Series, giving Bill Mazeroski the chance to walk off with a World championship. The Bucs also won the 1925 fall classic while playing their home games at Forbes Field. [There aren't any official Forbes Field cards so this will have to do.]

Danny Murtaugh won two titles as Pirates' skipper, in 1960 and 1971. He's second to player/manager Fred Clarke in games managed and victories for the franchise.

Here's Murtaugh's all-time lineup:

"Big Poison" Paul Waner is the DH, while "Maz" is here for one clutch hit and a whole lot of defense. Hold that thought.

Arky Vaughan would start on at least half the league's all-time teams. Murtaugh would love to move him to second base but the Hall of Fame shortstop played there just once in his career. The lineup looks pretty strong as-is, and yet....

	Pirates stats	oWAR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
	*Bill Mazeroski	19.7	0.260	0.299	0.367	0.667	84
	George Grantham	26.2	0.315	0.410	0.491	0.901	129
	*Jake Beckley	23.8	0.300	0.359	0.442	0.801	123

Meet George Grantham, the greatest second baseman in Pirates history. According to these stats Grantham should be starting for this squad, or at the very least taking Beckley's spot on the bench.

Taking a look at defensive stats, Mazeroski boasts the best dWAR in Pirates history at 24.0 (an all-time top-25 total). Beckley, the only primary first baseman on this roster, checks in with a cromulent 3.4 dWAR.

Our boy George may have been a heck of a hitter but in the field he was subpar, posting a -3.9 dWAR over seven Pirates seasons. Grantham won't be the only deserving star squeezed out of this roster.

There's no room for Andy Van Slyke with Clark and Parker on the Pittsburgh bench. That's not a knock against him, the Pirates outfield has at least a dozen options with Kiner, Cutch, Clemente, Waner, and more:

	Pirates stats	WAR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
	*Dave Parker	34.8	0.305	0.353	0.494	0.848	131
	Al Oliver	27.3	0.296	0.335	0.454	0.789	119
	Andy Van Slyke	31.0	0.283	0.353	0.458	0.811	124
	Ginger Beaumont	22.3	0.321	0.369	0.404	0.773	124
HOF	Lloyd Waner	29.5	0.319	0.356	0.399	0.755	100
HOF	Max Carey	53.4	0.287	0.363	0.391	0.754	111

Oh, and Willie Stargell was primarily a left fielder until the mid-1970s. It's too bad Murtaugh can't trade two of these guys for some starting pitching...

The question of who is the greatest pitcher in Pirates history? is what started this whole All-Time series. Aside from Bob Friend, every hurler in this rotation retired no later than 1926.

Murtaugh calls in some more modern arms to compete with these dead-ball stars.

	Pirates stats	WAR	ERA	ERA+	K/BB	WHIP
	*Bob Friend	47.6	3.55	108	1.94	1.287
	*Sam Leever	41.0	2.47	123	1.44	1.141
	John Candelaria	32.0	3.17	117	2.66	1.174
	Bob Veale	23.9	3.06	113	1.97	1.321
	Pud Galvin	22.7	3.10	107	1.17	1.253
	Vern Law	26.1	3.77	101	1.83	1.284

Okay, Pud Galvin isn't exactly modern but he's the only Hall of Famer here. The "Candy Man" should get the fifth spot - not over Leever, but Bob Friend. It's another tough call for Murtaugh, to keep or cut the franchise's leader in starts, wins, innings, and strikeouts. Once again, brand loyalty wins out. Thank you for being a Friend...

There are no new contenders in the Pirates' bullpen, though there is one minor decision for Murtaugh to make.

Who gets the ball in the 9th inning: Roy Face or Kent Tekulve?

	Pirates stats	SV	ERA	ERA+	K/BB	WHIP
	*Kent Tekulve	158	2.68	139	1.50	1.245
	*Roy Face	186	3.46	110	2.43	1.239

Face's numbers are especially impressive considering the era, but you can't go wrong with either guy. Honestly it should probably be Mark Melancon; his four Pirates seasons were unreal. 

Looking ahead, the Bucs handed out big bucks to extend Bryan Reynolds for eight seasons (what's more shocking, that or leading the NL Central on Cinco de Mayo?) Oneil Cruz and Ke'Bryan Hayes have stalled, but 2021 1st overall pick Henry Davis is on the way to my card collection.


TL; DR: No changes from the original roster. First time that's happened in this reboot.



Come back tomorrow for our next All-Time Team, the last place St. Louis Cardinals. (seriously, how weird is this season?)




Thanks for reading!



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All-Time Teams: Pirates

Today's team has won more pennants than any Pennsylvania-based baseball team. Here's the all-time roster for the Pittsburgh Pirates:

Manager: Danny Murtaugh

Home: Forbes Field

Leading off for the Pirates.. the Shortstop.. Honus Wagner

The greatest all-around shortstop of all-time, Honus Wagner accumulated 130.8 career WAR - the seventh-highest mark of any position player and the highest total by an infielder. Wagner won eight batting titles, led the league in on-base percentage four times, slugging percentage six times, doubles seven times, and RBI four times. His 3,420 career hits are eighth all-time and his 732 stolen bases are tenth all-time. Honus holds career franchise records for runs scored and triples, and five of the top ten single-season WAR totals in team history.






Batting second for Pittsburgh.. the Designated Hitter.. Paul Waner

Paul Waner owns the highest career batting average of any player with over 2,000 at-bats for the Pirates. He won NL MVP honors and the first of three batting titles in his sophomore season of 1927. "Big Poison" slashed .340/.407/.490 over his 15 years with Pittsburgh. He led the league in runs scored twice, triples twice, and doubles twice - including an incredible 62 in 1932. Waner is the Pirates' career leader with 558 doubles and 1,681 runs created. He would surely start in right field if not for the presence of the next player in this lineup.






Batting third.. the Right Fielder.. Roberto Clemente 

An icon to baseball fans everywhere - especially in Latin America - Roberto Clemente won four batting titles, twelve Gold Gloves, and two World Series in his Hall of Fame career. A 15-time All-Star, Clemente was named NL MVP in 1966 after setting career highs in home runs, total bases, and RBI. The Pirates' all-time leader in total bases finished the 1972 season with exactly 3,000 career hits (also a team record) before his tragic death at the end of that year.



Batting fourth.. the Left Fielder.. Ralph Kiner

Ralph Kiner set the standard for Pittsburgh power hitters over his relatively short career. In just eight seasons with the Pirates, Kiner blasted 301 home runs - the second highest total in team history. The six-time All-Star led the majors in long balls every year from 1947 to 1952, including two seasons of over 50 homers. Kiner's career slugging and OPS averages are second in Pirates history, and he owns team records for single-season slugging percentage, walks, and home runs. Kiner was elected to the Hall of Fame on his 15th try in 1975. 






 Batting fifth.. the First Baseman.. Willie Stargell

Willie Stargell played more games as a left fielder but Pittsburgh has plenty of outfield options. "Pops" won the NL MVP as a first baseman in 1979, leading the "We Are Family" Pirates to their most recent World Series title. The Hall of Fame slugger finished top-3 in MVP voting every year from 1971-1973, leading the majors in home runs twice. Stargell's 475 home runs, 953 extra-base hits, and 1,540 RBI are the highest career totals in Pirates history. Only Clemente and Wagner played more games in a Pittsburgh uniform.






Batting sixth.. the Center Fielder.. Andrew McCutchen

The only active player in this lineup, Andrew McCutchen is currently a starting outfielder for the other Pennsylvania ball club. In his nine seasons with the Pirates, "Cutch" made five All-Star teams, won four Silver Slugger awards, a Gold Glove in 2012, and NL MVP honors in 2013 after leading Pittsburgh back to the playoffs for the first time in twenty years. McCutchen led the team in WAR every year from 2010-2014 and posted eight consecutive seasons of 20 or more home runs - including his last seven in the Steel city.






Batting seventh..the Third Baseman.. Pie Traynor

Pie Traynor places in the Pirates' top ten in several categories including doubles, triples, total bases, runs batted in, runs created, and runs scored. In seventeen seasons with the team Traynor batted .300 or better ten times, collected 100+ RBI seven times, and finished top-10 in MVP voting six times. His 2,416 career hits are tied for fourth in team history and ninth-all time among third baseman. In 1948 Traynor became just the second player at his position to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.






Batting eighth.. the Catcher.. Jason Kendall

Jason Kendall played more games behind the Pirates plate than anyone in team history. A true 'gamer', Kendall is fifth all-time in games caught; every other catcher in the top 20 played more seasons. The three-time All-Star hit .300 or higher in six of his nine seasons with the Bucs, including three seasons with a batting average at or above .320. An exceptional base runner for a catcher, Kendall stole 20 or more bases in a season three times, and no catcher in 105 years has accumulated more career steals.



Batting ninth.. the Second Baseman.. Bill Mazeroski

If you compare Bill Mazeroski's offensive numbers to George Grantham 's it may appear that I'm breaking my own rule "Don't look at the names, look at the numbers." However Mazeroski's accolades are too numerous to ignore: ten All-Star nods, eight Gold Gloves, the highest career defensive WAR in Pirates history, two World Series victories (including the first walk-off home run in the Fall Classic) and a plaque in Cooperstown. "Maz" may have been a below-average hitter overall but he does have the tenth-most home runs in team history.

The Starting Pitcher for the Pirates.. Babe Adams

Charles Benjamin Adams made the fourth-most starts and the fifth-most appearances of any Pirates pitcher, coming out of the Pittsburgh 'pen 128 times in his 18 years with the team. Despite a meager strikeout total, "Babe" compiled a 50.1 career WAR - the highest total of any Pirate pitcher - thanks to pinpoint control. Four times Adams posted the lowest WHIP and walks per 9 innings in the majors. He won two World Series titles with the Bucs sixteen years apart, in 1909 and 1925.

Now let's take a look at the Pirates' bench and bullpen:

Catcher - Manny Sanguillen
1st Base - Jake Beckley
Infield - Arky Vaughan
Outfield - Fred Clarke
Outfield - Dave Parker

Sanguillen made three All-Star teams and won World Series titles with the Pirates in 1971 and 1979. Beckley collected 2,938 hits and posted 61.3 WAR in his Hall of Fame career. Vaughan had Honus Wagner as a hitting coach and became a Hall of Famer in his own right, slashing .324/.415/.472 over ten years with the Pirates. Clarke was player-manager for four pennant-winners and the 1909 World Champions, batting over .300 eleven times in his Hall of Fame career. "Cobra" won two batting titles, three Gold Gloves, and NL MVP honors in 1978.



#2 Starter - Wilbur Cooper
#3 Starter - Bob Friend
#4 Starter - Deacon Phillippe
#5 Starter - Sam Leever

Cooper is second among Pittsburgh pitchers in WAR and first in wins. Friend made four All-Star teams and leads the franchise in strikeouts. Phillippe led the league in K:BB ratio five times and compiled the second-best fielding-independent ERA in Pirates history. Leever has the fourth-lowest ERA and the fourth-highest WAR of any Buc hurlers, and his win total is tied with Adams for second in team annals. John Candelaria was the only other starter I considered.




RH Reliever - Al McBean
LH Reliever - Tony Watson
RH Reliever - Dave Giusti
RH Reliever - Mark Melancon
RH Reliever - Kent Tekulve
RH Reliever - Roy Face

Watson made the third-most relief appearances in Pirates history and made the NL All-Star team in 2014. Guisti finished top-10 in Cy Young voting three times and led the NL with 30 saves for the 1971 World Champion Pirates. Melancon played just four years with Pittsburgh but his 130 saves, 1.80 ERA, and 0.926 WHIP in that time were more than enough to earn a spot. Face was a six-time All-Star and leads the franchise in saves and appearances. "Teke" is second in those categories and his 1,050 career appearances are ninth all-time.




Stay tuned for our next All-Time Team, the St. Louis Cardinals.


Thanks for reading!


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A Special Sports Card Tour Stop - Pittsburgh

As you've no doubt heard Mr. Matthew Scott - Secret Santa organizer, Bob Walk superfan, and victim of frequent JBF bombings - is retiring from the baseball card blogosphere to spend more time with his family. I'm sad to see him go, but I totally understand. 

Blog post tributes to BWTP have been lighting up our blog rolls all week... and it just so happens that the next stop on The Collector's Sports Card Tour is Matt's favorite sports city. Today we're in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is home to three pro sports teams - the Pirates, the Steelers, and the Penguins. Each steel city team has won at least five championships.

The Steelers have six Super Bowl titles - more than any other NFL team. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers stopped them from capturing a seventh Lombardi trophy, defeating Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLV after the 2010 season.

I don't have any Steel Curtain-era cards (vintage football cards rarely appealed to me)...

..and I don't have many recent Steelers stars, either. 

My meager football card collection has just two cards of Antonio Brown and two cards of Le'veon Bell, including a Prestige RC I pulled from a repack and a Contenders pennant I pulled from a retail box. 

The same 16-pack Fairfield box that yielded the Bell RC also yielded this shiny Big Ben:

I probably have more Kordell Stewart cards in my collection than any Steeler, and an 8 x 10 photo that will be included in a football-only giveaway prize.

Most of my Steelers star cards are of Hines Ward and Rod Woodson. I'm surprised I don't have more Jerome Bettis or Ben Roethlisberger.

In the next few days I'm going to post a basketball stars checklist page at the top of my blog. Once that's done I'll get to work on a list of football stars I need.

Since I don't have a lot of Steelers cards to show off I thought I'd include a Staring Lineup from my collection. I mentioned this Bubby Brister SLU in one of my earlier blog posts, back when I thought I was going to do a whole series on Buying Back My Childhood.

So far I've only managed two such posts - the one linked above, and one about 1988 Panini baseball stickers.

I'm slowly plugging away at completing the '88 album, but I'm unwilling to pay 50 cents a sticker on COMC unless it's an all-time great like Barry Bonds. Believe it or not, Barry was just 49 cents - the lowest-priced sticker available during the Spring Cleaning sale.

COMC has been largely responsible for my interest in vintage baseball cards. When I started shopping on the site four years ago I was amazed at how many high quality singles were available for as low as a dollar, and so I gobbled up a bunch from the '50s and early '60s.

It just so happened that many of them were Pirates - including a 1955 Topps Gair Allie and Preston Ward ($1.15 each), 1958 Topps Dick Groat ($1.45), 1961 Topps Roy Face WS Highlight ($0.75), and a 1971 Topps Willie Stargell ($2.65). Those cards were sold or traded, while others were sent to PSA for grading.

I purchased this 1959 Topps Bob Friend ungraded for $1.04 from the notorious JoelsHitShow:

This one's a keeper - unless I decide to sell my '59 singles to fund my 1956 Topps set.

I have ten Pirates cards in my '56 Topps set build, but Brian (Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary) showed off all the Buccos in his post so I won't repeat him here.

More COMC purchases - the Roy Face was $5.31 ungraded, while the Vern Law cost less than that ($4.57) as-is.

I've had my share of hits and misses with purchasing vintage cards off the site. For example, these two Bucs legends are no longer in my collection:

I spent $19.42 on this Roberto Clemente card. Could you tell from the scan that it's 'diamond cut'? 

This 1979 Topps Willie Stargell only cost me 95 cents. It looked a little off-center to me, but I submitted it to PSA anyhow:

'79 Pops cards are very tough to find in this condition. I was so excited when I got it back from PSA I posted about it on my blog. My personal blog. The one I maintained prior to this, in which I discussed writing and pop culture and crushes to my mostly-female audience who could not care less about sports cards.

That's when I decided to write a baseball card blog...and that's when I found Bob Walk The Plank. Thanks to Matt I've learned a lot about Pirates past and present, and gained a new appreciation for the franchise's history.

One Pirate legend I've always appreciated is Bill Mazeroski, the first player in World Series history to blast a series-clinching walk-off hone run. 

I thought I had more Honus Wagner cards but the Ted Williams card co. appears to be the only one in my collection. IMO, Wagner is still the greatest shortstop in baseball history.

There's no Andrew McCutchen collector more prolific and dedicated than Brian, author of the blog Collecting Cutch and owner of nearly 200 different 1/1 cards. My Cutch collection is considerably less impressive. The Optic base card was a dime box find, while the Bowman Chrome refractor RC was a $16.25 impulse buy on COMC in 2014.

Let's finish the Pirates portion of this post with some gold parallels, a Starling Marte FYC and a Tim Wakefield XRC. I know Matt has a soft spot for those bad Pirates teams of the '90s and '00s, specifically all-star catcher Jason Kendall.

Here's a new arrival from the big box courtesy of Brad's Blog. There was also a stack of '89 Bowman Bucs in there. I'm still separating the thousands of cards into keepers, traders, and giveaway prizes. Which reminds me...

This will be one of three Penguins-themed back issues in a box of books that I'll be offering up. I think I bought it just because I was so thrilled to see hockey on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (I have to try and get a copy of the Capitals special issue before it's too late.)

It's hard to argue that Sidney Crosby is the NHL's signature superstar. He might be a little vanilla for my taste but "Sid The Kid" has lived up the the hype from day one. No one could write a story about when - or if - he'd ever win a Stanley Cup; Crosby captained the champs as a 21 year-old. A year later, he scored the golden goal for Team Canada in the Vancouver Olympics.

Another one of my grading success stories concerns this Upper Deck Crosby RC. I bought it ungraded for about $112 on eBay back in 2006, when I was having terrible luck pulling the top RCs from packs. I submitted it to BGS and kept it in my completed set - until last summer, when I sold the entire set to fund my 1956 Topps set build. 

Basically I traded the Crosby for a '56T Mickey Mantle and the rest of the set for a '56 Ted Williams.

These Crosby cards will stay in my collection - especially the Black Diamond RC.

One last slabbed single to show off. I bought this Jaromir Jagr RC from 4 Sharp Corners when I was hoarding rookie cards of legendary players. I was thrilled when he signed with the Devils months after my purchase-but I never got to see him play in person. 

 

Did you know that "Jaromir" is an anagram for "Mario Jr"? You can't make this stuff up. 

The Pittsburgh Penguins would not exist without the legendary Lemieux. "Super Mario" saved the franchise at least twice - once when the Pens drafted him in 1984, and again when he rescued the team from bankruptcy in the early aughts.

This 'lost rookie cards' insert depicts Lemieux in the 1984-85 Topps/OPC design. As such, it's one of my Ten Most Wanted cards - a list that needs updating since I've recently crossed off two cards.

This OPC Platinum gold was the best retro parallel pull from the first box of Platinum I purchased, and partially inspired my nearly finished Frankenset (another page I need to update..sheesh I'm falling behind here!)

This Captain's Cloth relic belongs to my wife. It's hand-numbered to 100 on the back.

We have a Hockey News special issue somewhere with Mario Lemieux photo-shopped into a Devils uniform. The accompanying article was a 'what if?' based on Pittsburgh and New Jersey jockeying for his draft rights. (I won't say the Pens purposely tanked, but...)

Evgeni Malkin would be a franchise superstar on his own, but he's been content to ride shotgun with Sidney Crosby. I always wondered what he could do outside Sid's shadow.

On an unrelated note, he would have been the perfect spokesman for Score hockey cards.

This Dany Sabourin O-Pee-Chee was the last one I needed to complete the 800-card '08-09 O-Pee-Chee set.
 

I bought it off the Beckett marketplace, which I don't often do anymore. It's great for hard-to-find singles but it's time consuming and the quality isn't always great (this Sabourin has a dinged corner but I'll never be able to replace it.)

The rest of my best Penguins cards - including a pair of Ron Francis inserts (that trade destroyed the Whalers), and some goalie goodies. The mask card next to the Johan Hedberg insert is also Johan Hedberg. The Matt Murray Canvas card is one of my favorite photos from recent UD sets. Finally, the Marc-Andre Fleury Prisine RC is part of a set I'm one card shy of completing (I need #31 Ed Belfour. Anyone have it?)

I didn't have much of an opinion on Fleury one way or the other until he led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final this past season. Three consecutive SCF appearances is impressive-but the leadership and stability he provided to the "Golden Misfits" made me a Flower fan.


Favorite Pirates player: Trevor Williams (why doesn't he have any Topps cards yet?!?)

Favorite Steelers player: Le'veon Bell or T.J. Watt

Favorite Penguins player: Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang

Next tour stop: Portland



Thanks for reading. And Matt, thanks for everything my friend. Hope to see you again sometime. All the best to you and your family.

Raise the Jolly Roger! :)

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