January 30, 2007
Top 40 Minnesota Twins: #22 Zoilo Versalles
Versalles came to Minnesota along with the rest of the team when the Senators became the Twins in 1961 and immediately stepped in as the starting shortstop, going 2-for-5 with two steals in a 6-0 win over the Yankees on Opening Day. Despite being a 21-year-old rookie with 104 career at-bats coming into the season, Versalles started each of the first 15 games and ended up hitting .280/.314/.390 in 129 games for a Twins team that finished near the bottom of the league with a 70-90 record. A .704 OPS doesn't look like much, but MLB shortstops combined to bat just .257/.324/.358 in 1961, meaning Versalles was above average at his position as a 21-year-old. Much like his rookie season, Versalles' entire career can be appreciated better by placing his numbers in the context of both the era he played in and the position he played. Rarely did Versalles post raw numbers that would turn heads today, but for a shortstop in the pitcher-friendly 1960s he was an excellent hitter. Interestingly, Versalles never topped the .280 batting average he posted in 1961 and batted above .260 just twice more, but made up for it by adding significant power. After going deep just seven times in 510 at-bats as a rookie, he homered 17 times in 1962 to kick off a four-year stretch with double-digit long balls. In fact, from 1961 to 1965, Versalles led all MLB shortstops with 73 homers. Contrary to today, shortstop back then was simply not manned by guys capable of hitting the ball out of the park. All of which is what made the two-year run Versalles put together beginning in 1964 so impressive. Playing in 320 of a possible 324 games spread over two seasons, the man they called "Zorro" combined to bat .266/.315/.447 with 39 homers, 22 triples, 78 doubles, 41 steals, 141 RBIs, and 220 runs scored. During that two-year span, Versalles ranked second among all MLB hitters in doubles and runs, third in triples, eighth in extra-base hits, and 10th in steals and total bases. That kind of offensive production was unheard of from a shortstop at that time, because the position as a whole batted a measly .248/.312/.348 between 1964 and 1965. To put that in today's context, consider that MLB shortstops batted .274/.333/.407 in 2006. If you adjust Versalles' 1964/1965 numbers to that environment, he comes out hitting .295 with a .525 slugging percentage, which is Miguel Tejada territory. The second half of Versalles' amazing two-year run was his finest season and one of the most memorable years in Twins history. After finishing 79-83 in 1964, the Twins blitzed through the AL in 1965, posting a 102-60 record that still stands as the team's all-time best. The starting shortstop and leadoff man in 155 of those 162 games, Versalles batted .273/.319/.462 with 19 homers and 27 steals while winning a Gold Glove and leading the league in runs, doubles, extra-base hits, and total bases. He was particularly outstanding in the second half, batting .303/.349/.500 after the All-Star break, including .353 in August and .337 in September as the Twins put away the White Sox and Orioles to take the AL pennant. Finally, while most of the Twins hitters flailed away at Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers in the World Series, Versalles put the finishing touches on his amazing season by batting .283/.333/.500 with three extra-base hits, three runs, and four RBIs in seven games. Versalles blew away the competition in the AL MVP voting by receiving 19 of 20 first-place votes, with the lone dissenter casting his ballot for teammate Tony Oliva, who finished a distant second. Decades later, it has become popular to use Versalles' MVP as a way to identify and attack perceived flaws within sabermetrics. The thinking seemingly being that because his raw numbers weren't particularly impressive in 1965, most "stat-heads" probably think Versalles winning the AL MVP was a big mistake. For instance, Twins blogger Seth Stohs once opined: Taking it several steps further, Cool of the Evening author Jim Thielman wrote: It is not difficult to find those who have done that in regard to Versalles, and printed their conclusions in books and on various Web sites, stating Versalles was undeserving. Facts suggest otherwise. A thorough review of Versalles' season--what he actually did during games, what managers and other players said at the time, not years later, shows that becoming an MVP is more than just piling numbers high. If you're a Twins fan who harbors resentment towards stats-based analysis, it's tempting to set up that argument. "Versalles was great in 1965, but those dorks with their calculators don't think so!" Unfortunately, that's inaccurate and ultimately nothing more than attacking a defenseless strawman. The premise that those who "scrutinize numbers" don't view Versalles' season as a great one is flawed because of a failure to recognize that any stat-head worth a damn would look past raw totals. Versalles' numbers aren't eye-popping at first glance, but one of the main goals of sabermetrics is placing numbers like that in proper context. Depending on the circumstances, that means looking beyond oft-quoted numbers like batting averages and RBIs, adjusting for era and offensive environment, and making additional positional adjustments. In all cases it means doing things that Versalles' supporters would surely agree with, which makes the entire "argument" silly. What Stohs and Thielman are really arguing against is their perceived notion of sabermetrics, which appears to be off base. They see Versalles' season as not being superficially impressive, and because they associate sabermetrics with statistics they have an easy target. In reality, accusing stat-heads of being unable to or disinterested in placing raw numbers in better context is about the furthest possible thing from the truth. That's a huge part of what sabermetrics is all about. Plus, in an ironic twist those "designer metrics [created] with a computer" that Thielman rails against actually show Versalles' 1965 season in an extremely favorable light. For instance, here's the 1965 AL leaderboards for two prominent numbers-driven metrics, Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) and Runs Created Above Position (RCAP):
VORP and RCAP represent only offensive contributions, yet Versalles still comes out at or near the top of the heap despite the presence of guys like Oliva, Rocky Colavito, and Carl Yastrzemski. Given that he was also a Gold Glove-winning shortstop that year, it's not difficult to understand why he also does well in metrics like Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) and Win Shares (WS) that incorporate both offensive and defensive contributions:
Thielman uses all kinds of strong language to protest the unattributed idea that Versalles was an undeserving MVP, saying "facts suggest otherwise" while taking unnamed masses to task for their apparent decision to "cast a revisionist layer over it all." In reality, the same "designer metrics" he scoffs at are in agreement with the "facts" he's chosen to trust, with both "sides" showing that "becoming an MVP is more than just piling numbers high." Between blindly assuming that if Versalles won the MVP today "sabermetricians would probably take issue with" the decision and attacking a strawman argument that doesn't exist, people like Stohs and Thielman fail to see that whether you choose one of those four metrics or something similar, the end result will be that Versalles comes out looking like either the top choice for MVP or an extremely legitimate contender. Those nasty stat-heads with their calculators and spreadsheets aren't so bad. In fact, sometimes those designer metrics their computers spit out can actually serve to illuminate a subject, such as showing that a .273/.319/.462 hitter can be perfectly worthy of an MVP award. Plus, if you're going to criticize stat-heads for using numbers-based analysis to claim that a Twins hitter didn't deserve an MVP award, there's little need to go back four decades when going back four months would be fine. Deserving or not, he followed his MVP season with two terrible years, batting .249/.307/.346 in 1966 and .200/.249/.282 in 1967 as back problems plagued him. No amount of contextual adjustments make those hitting lines pretty, and in November of 1967 the Twins shipped Versalles and Mudcat Grant to the Dodgers for Johnny Roseboro, Ron Perranoski, and Bob Miller. Grant still had some excellent years left in his arm, but Versalles was finished as an effective player. He batted .196 in 122 games as the Dodgers' starting shortstop in 1968 and was left unprotected in the expansion draft that offseason, where the upstart Padres selected him in the 20th round. Traded to Cleveland a month later, Versalles batted .226 in 72 games as a utility man before being let go, at which point he finished the season with a stint in Washington. Versalles spent 1970 in the Mexican League before signing with the Braves in 1971, batting .191 over 194 at-bats in his final MLB season. Versalles went from a 25-year-old MVP to losing a fight against the Mendoza Line within two years and never recovered, which perhaps fuels some of the perception that he wasn't a deserving MVP. While it may be true that his career was among the worst ever for an MVP winner and both his on- and off-field decline were sudden and depressing, none of that takes away from the quality of his 1965 season. It was truly one of the greatest years in Twins history, for one of the greatest teams in Twins history. Had he played in a different era, much about Versalles' career--from his raw numbers to his post-playing days--would have been improved. As it is, he serves as an example of how suddenly and unexpectedly greatness can arrive, and how suddenly and unexpectedly it can vanish. Asked to rate his own play, Versalles once said he'd "like to be somebody else so I can see how I look." Forty years later, and thanks to people "creating designer metrics with a computer," I say Versalles looked damn good.
ZOILO CASANOVA VERSALLES | SS | 1961-1967 | CAREER STATS
G PA AVG OBP SLG OPS+ WARP WS
1065 4500 .252 .299 .387 91 34.2 119
Zoilo Versalles won the 1965 American League MVP award. He had a really great season. Believe me, if it happened now, SABRmetricians would probably take issue with that decision.
Statistically, 1965 was a mixed bag for Versalles, and in recent years those who scrutinize numbers have suggested he did not deserve to win the 1965 Most Valuable Player award. ... Researching an era or epoch to see how it was, reading what people of the era did and said at the time, rather than cast a revisionist layer over it all, is actually an approach to studying history that was introduced around 1800. Applying this research to baseball is preferable to creating designer metrics with a computer in an attempt to ascertain how it was.
VORP RCAP
ZOILO VERSALLES 51.3 Tony Oliva 38
Carl Yastrzemski 44.9 Rocky Colavito 35
Tony Oliva 41.6 Don Buford 32
Jim Fregosi 41.0 ZOILO VERSALLES 29
Leon Wagner 38.2 Earl Battey 28 WARP WS
ZOILO VERSALLES 10.2 Tony Oliva 33
Don Buford 9.5 ZOILO VERSALLES 32
Tony Oliva 9.4 Don Buford 30
Jim Fregosi 8.9 Rocky Colavito 28
Rocky Colavito 8.7 Brooks Robinson 26TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
Triples 56 4th
Hits 1046 9th
XBH 330 10th
Total Bases 1604 10th
Runs 564 11th
Doubles 188 11th
Steals 84 11th
RBI 401 15th
Homers 86 16th
Walks 251 23rd
