NL Player of the WeekLloyd Waner
Our last biography is of Lloyd Waner (HA50), the brother of Paul Waner. Like Paul, Lloyd was an outfielder for the Pirates and entered the HOF. Unlike Paul (but like many 1930s era HOF'ers) his credentials are a little questionable by today's standards. It might be that batting was mostly measured by average in the late 1960s, whereas today we look more closely at "OPS" which is combined on base percentage and slugging percentage.
Lloyd played for Pittsburgh from 1927 through 1940. In his BEST year, his OPS+ was only 115. Unlike Paul, he was a contact hitter with a high batting average and OBP, but rarely hit more than a single. In an 18 year career, he only hit 27 home runs. On the other hand, he only struck out 173 times, or less than 10 times per season. A speedster, Lloyd's ability was to get on base for Paul to drive him in, and he and Paul were known to opposing fans as "little poison" and "big poison." Bill James also estimates he was consistently among the best fielders in the NL all throughout the 1930s.
Waner was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1967. His HOF entry makes the case for Waner's intangibles (speed and fielding) but it's unlikely we'll ever see another HOF'er selected with a lifetime OPS+ of 99.
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