Minnie Minoso

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Minnie Minoso

2015 Veterans' Committee HOF Ballot: Minnie Minoso

The Baseball Hall of Fame recently announced their 2015 Veterans' ballot. One player on the ballot is Minnie Minoso.

The first table below presents Minnie Minoso's career as measured by Player won-lost records.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWin Pct.	pWOPA	pWORL	eWins	eLosses	eWin Pct.	eWOPA	eWORL
Minnie Minoso Basic Player Won-Lost Records
												Value Decomposition
1949	CLE	23	9	0.6	0.7	0.430	-0.1	-0.1	0.6	0.7	0.454	-0.1	-0.0
+– 1951		25	146	18.9	15.7	0.546	1.1	2.4	19.5	15.1	0.563	1.7	3.0
	CHA		138	18.6	15.5	0.545	1.0	2.4	19.2	14.9	0.562	1.6	2.9
	CLE		8	0.4	0.2	0.628	0.1	0.1	0.4	0.2	0.617	0.1	0.1
1952	CHA	26	147	20.4	18.1	0.529	0.5	2.0	20.7	17.8	0.538	0.8	2.4
1953	CHA	27	151	24.2	16.1	0.601	3.2	4.9	22.4	17.9	0.556	1.4	3.1
1954	CHA	28	153	27.6	18.1	0.605	4.0	5.9	25.9	19.8	0.566	2.3	4.1
1955	CHA	29	139	19.8	17.9	0.525	0.4	2.0	20.3	17.4	0.538	0.9	2.4
1956	CHA	30	151	23.5	18.9	0.554	1.3	3.0	24.0	18.3	0.567	1.9	3.6
1957	CHA	31	153	25.5	19.0	0.573	1.9	3.7	24.0	20.5	0.539	0.4	2.2
1958	CLE	32	149	22.8	19.8	0.535	0.3	1.9	22.9	19.8	0.537	0.4	2.0
1959	CLE	33	148	23.4	16.9	0.580	2.6	4.2	22.0	18.4	0.545	1.2	2.8
1960	CHA	34	154	21.9	18.8	0.538	0.5	2.2	21.8	18.9	0.536	0.5	2.1
1961	CHA	35	152	22.0	18.1	0.548	1.4	3.2	21.0	19.1	0.524	0.4	2.2
1962	SLN	36	39	2.6	2.9	0.474	-0.3	-0.1	2.5	3.0	0.456	-0.4	-0.2
1963	WS2	37	109	9.0	11.5	0.439	-1.6	-0.8	9.4	11.1	0.460	-1.2	-0.3
1964	CHA	38	30	0.8	1.0	0.430	-0.1	0.0	0.9	0.9	0.488	0.0	0.1
1976	CHA	50	3	0.0	0.2	0.147	-0.1	-0.1	0.1	0.2	0.275	-0.1	-0.0
1980	CHA	54	2	0.0	0.0	0.000	-0.0	-0.0	0.0	0.0	0.000	-0.0	-0.0
------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,835	263.0	214.0	0.551	15.1	34.5	258.0	219.0	0.541	10.1	29.5
			------	------	------				------	------
PostSeason (career)			0	0.0	0.0			0.0	0.0	0.0			0.0
			------	------	------	------		------	------	------	------		------
COMBINED			1,835	263.0	214.0	0.551		34.5	258.0	219.0	0.541		29.5

Minnie Minoso was one of the earliest players to integrate Major-League Baseball. The early phases of integration were fairly slow and limited in terms of opportunities, with many of the earliest integrators reaching the major leagues later than they likely would have in later generations.

This can be seen somewhat in the case of Minnie Minoso, who did not become a major-league regular until age 25. While it is not necessarily that unusual for a player to make his major-league debut at age 24 or 25, it is fairly unusual for a player as good as Minnie Minoso to do so.

I should note, at this point, that there is some uncertainty about Minnie Minoso's actual age. Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference both list Minoso's date of birth as November 29, 1925, so that he was 25 throughout his first full major-league season in 1951. Some earlier sources had listed Minoso as having been born in 1922, which would have made him 28 in his first full major-league season (and 91 today). I think the 1925 date is well-established by now as correct, but the argument that I'm about to make actually becomes even stronger if Minoso was, in fact, born in 1922.

As shown in the first table, Minnie Minoso was a major-league regular from age 25 through age 35. The next table shows the 10 players most similar to Minnie Minoso from age 25 through 35, as measured by Player won-lost records.

Player	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL	Batting	Baserunning	Pitching	Fielding
						Wins over Baseline
Minnie Minoso	1643	250.0	197.5	17.3	35.5	13.8	0.9	0.0	4.6
Roberto Clemente	1572	237.6	192.6	12.9	30.4	15.2	0.6	0.0	4.5
Bobby Abreu	1726	241.2	203.7	12.1	29.3	15.5	0.9	0.0	3.4
Dave Winfield	1639	236.1	202.4	10.6	27.4	14.4	0.1	0.0	3.6
Billy Williams	1761	256.0	210.1	12.3	31.2	17.5	1.1	0.0	2.7
Wade Boggs	1663	212.5	180.7	15.5	30.5	13.9	0.3	0.0	4.7
Ken Boyer	1656	220.9	189.9	12.0	28.4	9.6	0.7	0.0	4.9
Craig Biggio	1621	224.0	187.6	19.7	36.2	11.2	1.3	0.0	3.0
Al Kaline	1452	202.0	158.5	13.4	28.2	14.7	0.9	0.0	4.5
Dwight Evans	1542	204.2	168.2	13.5	27.9	14.9	0.7	0.0	3.8
Jimmy Wynn	1521	209.6	175.2	11.1	26.9	16.6	0.5	0.0	2.9

The ten players most similar to Minoso over this age range include six Hall-of-Famers and eight members of the Hall of Merit (with the other two players not eligible for either Hall yet).

According to Minoso's biography at SABR's website, Minoso was a Cuban League All-Star in 1946 (at age 21) and "crushed Pacific Coast League pitching" in 1949 and 1950 (at ages 23 and 24), so it seems at least plausible to think that Minoso could have been a (very good) major-league starter two or three years earlier than he was. It is, perhaps, harder to make the case at the other end of his prime: Minoso was neither the first nor the last major-league player whose last good season came at age 35. Still, my sense is that major-league teams were, perhaps, reluctant to give as many chances to black players than to white players in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is possible, then, that a white Minnie Minoso might have gotten more opportunties for a bounceback season or two in his late 30's. But that is certainly highly speculative.

Even so, Minoso's prime doesn't merely stack up with one or two lower-tier Hall-of-Famers. Minoso's prime is very much a Hall-of-Fame caliber prime, at least as measured by Player won-lost records - note, he beats all 10 of his most-similars in pWOPA and pWORL. Add in his continuing association with baseball, his place in history as a pioneer among Cubans specifically and Caribbeans in general in the major leagues: I think that makes Minoso a Hall-of-Famer.

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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