Once upon a time, back in 2001 when The Baseball Library was still a going concern on the internet, I wrote a piece about the horrible job the Veterans Committee had done in electing players to the Hall of Fame. The focus of that piece was the comparison of Wally Schang and Ray Schalk, two contemporary catchers in the American League in the 1910s and 1920s, one who was elected to the Hall of Fame (Schalk) and one who was not (Schang). I called that piece…
The Schalk-Schang Redemption.
Yes, I am singularly proud of that title. The piece itself is pretty awful, in retrospect, and very dated in terms of the stats and analytics used, but it was well over 20 years ago, so I’m cutting myself some slack. Besides, the main points I made in that piece were right. The Veterans Committee has been terrible historically in the selections they’ve made for the Hall of Fame, and Schang really was at least as good as Schalk. In fact, in retrospect, he was clearly better.
So, what I’m going to do today, hopefully, is a better job at comparing those two catchers. I’m not going to get into the entire Veterans Committee discussion again, because I think it’s going to be pretty obvious at the end of this that they made a mistake in which of these guys they decided to honor.
Though he made his major league debut as a nineteen-year old in 1912, he played only 23 games, so Ray Schalk’s rookie year in the big leagues was 1913 as the regular catcher for the White Sox. He didn’t really hit very well, batting just .244/.297/.344 with an OPS+ of 80, but he was already a very good defender. He threw out 48% of would-be base stealers and helped guide the White Sox pitching staff to the lowest ERA in the league. Overall he was worth 1.8 WAR, and finished 20th in MVP voting.
And Wally Schang, also a rookie American League catcher that season, was already better than him.
Schang, playing for the A’s, batted .266/.392/.415, an OPS+ of 138. Like Schalk, he threw out 48% of attempted base stealers, but he also helped Philadelphia win the pennant and then the World Series. Schang batted .357/.438/.714 in that World Series, totaled 2.8 WAR, most in the league among catchers, and finished 8th in MVP voting.
And that’s very close to how their respective careers developed for their rest of their time in the big leagues. I’m going to compare them season by season, and that point is going to be very clear. After 1913, the score is 1-0 in favor of Schang.
1914
Schang batted .287/.371/.404, an OPS+ of 137. He threw out 51% of base stealers, was worth 4.3 WAR, finished 10th in MVP voting, and the A’s won the pennant again. Schalk, improved his hitting to .270/.347/.314, and OPS+ of exactly 100, threw out 50% of attempted base stealers, and totaled 4.2 WAR, but the White Sox fell to a 6th-place finish and sub-.500 record. Despite this, Schalk finished ahead of Schang in MVP voting, a 6th-place finish.
I’d call this season a push.
Schang 1, Schalk 0, Ties 1
1915
Schalk basically replicated his prior season, batting .266/.366/.327, and OPS+ of 105. He led the league by throwing out 53% of attempted base stealers, posted 4.2 WAR again, and the White Sox made a huge leap to a record of 93-61 and third place, mostly because the A’s had started selling off their best players, including Eddie Collins, who moved from Philly to Chicago before the season. Schang’s team suffered the consequences, crashing from first place to last place and a terrible 43-109 record. Schang still played well, hitting .248/.385/.343, an OPS+ of 122, but with a bit of a slip in his defense despite maintaining a good rate of controlling the running game. He was worth 3.2 WAR.
Advantage, Schalk.
Schang 1, Schalk 1, Ties 1
1916
Schang rebounded a bit in 1916, posting an OPS+ of 140 with a batting line of .266/.358/.420 and better defense. He was worth 3.6 WAR for an even worse A’s team that remained in last place. Schalk’s offense fell off from the year before, and he would never again play a full season in which his OPS+ reached the league average of 100. In 1916 he batted .232/.311/.305, an OPS+ of just 84, but he stole 30 bases and still played excellent defense. He was worth 3.2 WAR and the White Sox finished in second place.
Advantage, very slightly to Schang, but let’s call it a tie to be as fair as possible.
Schang 1, Schalk 1, Ties 2
1917
Schalk’s White Sox won the World Series this year, and he was essentially the same player he’d been the year before. His OPS+ was 89, but he played excellent defense again and was worth 3.7 WAR. Schang was in his final year with the terrible A’s before also being moved to a better team. They finished last again, but Schang replicated his 140 OPS+, led the league in being hit by pitches, and again played passable defense. Schang also had been used at third base and in the outfield for a few years by this point, and continued to do that. He posted 3.6 WAR.
Another push.
Schang 1, Schalk 1, Ties 3
1918
Schang was mercifully traded to the Red Sox before the war-shortened 1918 season. His offense dropped to an OPS+ of 100, but he was still worth 1.2 WAR and the Sox won the World Series with Schang hitting .444/.545/.444 against the Cubs. Schalk had a bad year, hitting just .219/.301/.255, a 67 OPS+, and his still-good defense wasn’t enough to keep his WAR total from dropping to just 0.5.
Advantage, Schang.
Schang 2, Schalk 1, Ties 3
1919
This may have been the year that got Schalk elected to the Hall of Fame eventually. Not because he was particularly good on the field, where his OPS+ was still just 93 and he played his usual defense, but for what happened off it. The White Sox infamously threw the World Series, or at least some of them did. Schalk was not among them. He was outraged that his teammates would throw the Series and testified against them in court, garnering praise for his honesty.
Schang, meanwhile, had one of his best seasons yet. He batted .306/.436/.373, a 133 OPS+, and had one of his best defensive seasons. He was worth 4.0 WAR, best in the league among catchers, compared to Schalk’s 2.8.
Ignoring all the gambling drama and focused just on the field, this was another season for Schang.
Schang 3, Schalk 1, Ties 3
1920
Schalk repeated his 1919 campaign, only with a remarkable 61% rate of catching base stealers, which led the league. That helped bump his WAR total to 3.7. Schang’s was 3.4, as he maintained his hitting (132 OPS+), but regressed a bit on defense and spent more time in the outfield.
Mildly in favor of Schalk, but we’ve been calling these ties, so we’re do that again.
Schang 3, Schalk 1, Ties 4
1921
The Red Sox, like the A’s before them, were now firmly in rebuilding mode. After the 1920 season, the traded Schang to the Yankees in yet another exodus of talent from Boston to New York. The Yankees won the pennant with Schang as their regular catcher, batting a career high .316 with a 122 OPS+. He was worth 4.0 WAR.
Schalk had a down season in 1921, posting an OPS+ of just 70 and slipping a bit defensively as Chicago lost all of the players who had been banned by the commissioner and sank to 7th place. He was worth 1.2 WAR.
Advantage, Schang.
Schang 4, Schalk 1, Ties 4
1922
Schalk had a resurgence, posting 3.8 WAR and finishing 3rd in MVP voting despite having an OPS+ of just 97. He defense was really good again, but enough to be third in MVP voting? No, not really. But this was the first year the MVP existed since 1914, and Schalk’s reputation as one of the honest Black Sox had emerged since then, so the voters rewarded him.
Meanwhile, Schang and the Yankees were just as good as they’d been the year before. He was worth 4.2 WAR as New York won the pennant again, and he finished 13th in MVP voting because apparently they voters didn’t care that he’d batted .316, they preferred gritty defense and honesty from their catchers in 1922.
Another push.
Schang 4, Schalk 1, Ties 5
1923
In 1923, Schang had his first subpar year as a hitter. He batted just .276/.360/.342, an OPS+ of 84, and was worth only 0.6 WAR, but the Yankees won the World Series, Schang’s third title with his third franchise, and he hit .318 against the Giants.
Schalk’s career crashed that season. His OPS+ was a terrible 55 on a batting line of .228/.306/.277, and his vaunted defense also crumbled. He was worth -0.3 WAR.
Neither was good, but the advantage goes to Schang.
Schang 5, Schalk 1, Ties 5
1924
Schalk’s woes continued, with a 49 OPS+ and -0.2 WAR as he played in just 57 games. His career appeared to be nearing its end. But Schang had a nice bounceback season. He hit .292/.382/.427 and was worth 2.2 WAR.
Advantage, Schang.
Schang 6, Schalk 1, Ties 5
1925
One year later, Schalk had his own bounceback year. He still didn’t hit much, with an OPS+ of only 86, but his defense returned and he led the league by throwing out an incredible 72% of attempted base stealers. He was worth 2.9 WAR. Now it was Schang’s turn to be bad, as he had a 65 OPS+ and was worth only 0.1 WAR at the age of 35.
Advantage, Schalk.
Schang 6, Schalk 2, Ties 5
1926
This was the final season Schalk and Schang were both the primary catchers for their respective teams. Schalk was still with the White Sox, played in 82 games, batted .265/.349/.314, his OPS+ was 76, and he was worth 0.9 WAR. It was a perfectly adequate season for a fading former star.
Schang had been traded in the offseason to the Browns, and while the team was poor, Schang was quite good. He hit a career-high .330 and had an OPS+ of 135. He was worth 3.6 WAR.
Advantage, Schang.
Schang 7, Schalk 2, Ties 5
It’s fair to stop the year-by-year comparisons at this point, because Schalk was done as regular player. He played in 16 games in 1927, 2 in 1928, and 5 with the Giants in 1929. It’s also fair, though, to note that Schang had three more very good seasons as a regular catcher for the Browns from 1927-29, averaging 94 games, an OPS+ of 116, and 2.5 WAR per year. He also went back to the A’s as a forty-year old bench player in 1930 and got his fourth ring as they won the World Series again.
In fourteen head-to-head seasons as the regular catchers for American League teams, Schang was better than Schalk in seven of them, Schalk was better in two, and they were essentially of equal value in the other five. In just those 14 years, it seems pretty clear who the better player was:
Schalk gets points for greater durability and defense, but Schang was the markedly better player on markedly better teams. And then Schang had three more solid seasons tacked on top of this after Schalk’s career was essentially over, and then added yet another World Series title to his résumé as a bench player. Four times in the fourteen seasons they were competitors Schang had the most WAR among American League catchers compared to just once for Schalk, and four more times he had the second-most, compared to just twice for Schalk.
If this was a prize fight, the referee would stop it. Schang was better than Schalk, period. Even the folks at Fangraphs, whose WAR calculations for catchers are weighed more heavily to Schalk’s defensive strengths, conclude that Schang was easily better:
When it came time to vote on these guys for the Hall of Fame, the baseball writers passed on both of them. Schalk was first on the ballot in 1936, and typically fluctuated between 9% and 45% of the votes cast. He was never particularly close to being elected, but the Veterans Committee voted him in the very first year they could, 1955, one year after his final year of eligibility with the writers.
Both the writers and the Veterans Committee were less kind to Schang. He appeared on the ballot in 1948 and got just one vote. Two years later, he also got just one vote. He reappeared on the ballot in 1956, one year after his contemporary Schalk had been voted in by the Veterans Committee, but that didn’t change the outcome for him. Yet again he got a single vote. He bumped up to 3% in 1958 and 4% in 1960, but then he never appeared on a ballot again.
The typical explanation for this disparity is that teams of that era wanted their catchers to be focused on defense and handling the pitching staff rather than offense. That’s true to an extent, but half the American League still wanted Schang as their regular catcher at different points in his career, and three of those four teams won the World Series with him playing catcher. That would seem to be a pretty powerful indictment of the notion that catchers of that era were only valued for defense, or that Schang’s offensive talents somehow made his defense unacceptable, but none of that helped him with Hall of Fame voters.
That’s a shame, because in the first forty years of the 20th Century, Wally Schang was 3rd in WAR among all major league catchers.
Gabby Hartnett - 54.5
Mickey Cochrane - 49.7
Wally Schang - 48.0
Bill Dickey - 47.2
Roger Bresnahan - 41.9
Ray Schalk - 33.1
Johnny Kling - 29.1
Steve O’Neill - 26.4
Rick Ferrell - 25.9
Ernie Lombardi - 25.5
The two catchers ahead of him are in the Hall of Fame. So are the three immediately behind him, including Schalk, along with a couple others further down the list.
For reasons I don’t think anyone can explain well, Wally Schang simply hasn’t been given a fair look by any of the voting bodies for the Hall of Fame, despite all of his catching peers having been honored already.
I doubt this newsletter will help with that, but it would be nice to see him get the career redemption he deserves.
While noting that WAR seriously undervalues catcher defense, I have read speculation that Schalk's election to the Hall was largely based on sympathy for being an "honest" member of the Black Sox. That may be so, but it doesn't excuse ignoring Wally Schang, an excellent player and deserving of the Hall. I will note, though, that talking about a Hall "ballot" in the 1930s or even 1940s is inaccurate. In those early days, no list of eligible players was provided; voters simply mailed in a list of those for whom they wanted to vote. Even active players sometimes received votes in those early elections.