The Philly Fifty: #45 Al Simmons, Athletics

For the complete list and explanation of criteria and scoring, check out the Philly Fifty page

Longevity – 4

Simmons spent the first 9 seasons of his career in Philadelphia (1924-32). He came back later in his career but only played in 50 games total in 3 seasons.

Peak – 4

Simmons was a complete player who could really hit while playing above average defense in CF and LF. He had 5 seasons with an OPS over 1.000 for the A’s, and finished in the top-4 in the AL in that category in 5 seasons. From 1929-1931 he had a 22.9 WAR, bested only by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Simmons was a top-5 position player in baseball for much of his Athletics career, but never won, nor should have won, an MVP.

Popularity – 1

Despite being the most successful team in the cities’ history, Philadelphia doesn’t really associate with the Athletics at all. One thing to keep in mind as you see all these Athletics on this list is that they were in Philadelphia for 51 years. That’s more than the Sixers (48 years) and Flyers (43 years). All Athletics will be getting a “1″ here.

Team Success – 5

Not counting his cup-of-coffee at the end of his career, the A’s went 838-533-4, or an average of 98 wins per 162-game season (they didn’t play 162 back then, in case you’ve forgotten) during Simmons’ tenure. They won 3 pennants and 2 World Championships (1929 and 1930), and some believe the 1929 team to be the greatest in MLB history. During the World Series years, Simmons wasn’t the best player on the A’s (otherwise he wouldn’t be ranked down here), but he would have been the best player on the vast majority of MLB teams.

Awards – 1

When you aren’t the best known on player on your own team, and you play in the same era as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, you aren’t going to get a ton of hardware. Simmons was top-5 in MVP voting 4 times in an A’s uniform, with his highest finish being 2nd in 1925. There were no all-star games until the early 30′s, so he has nothing to show for there (though that wasn’t held against him).

Stats – 4

His Philadelphia Athletics stat ranks are as follows (note: NOT the Athletics franchise through 2011, rather just the Philadelphia era from 1901-1951).

•  1st in Hits (1,827), RBI (1,178), BA (.356)
• 2nd in doubles (348), triples (98), SLG% (.584), OPS (.983)
• 3rd in WAR (47.6), HR (209), Runs (969)
• 7th in OBP (.398)

Historical Standing – 3

It took Simmons’ 7 years to get into the HOF (not sure why it took so long), but he did make it in 1953 along with Dizzy Dean.

Excitement – 3

Obviously I never saw Simmons’ play (as will be the case for many on this list), but from what I read he was a quirky hitter. On his HOF page they state that he had “an unusual batting style in which he stepped toward the dugout.” I can’t quite picture this. He was an extremely solid player, but unlike others on the team (Foxx), I didn’t get the sense he had the “wow” factor.

Total: 25

Simmons is somewhat underrated because, as mentioned above, he played on the completely stacked A’s teams of the late 20′s/early 30′s and wasn’t usually the center of attention. He also, unlike many players back then, had a really boring name.  But when you look at his BBRef page and look at similar batters by age, his most similar batter from age 24-32 was Stan Musial. He was a well rounded player who was an above-average baserunner and defender as well.

For the complete list and explanation of criteria and scoring, check out the Philly Fifty page