Opening Day is next week, so today’s MLB Monday is prepping for a lot of fantasy baseball drafts this week. We take time off from that today to consider the career of Larry Doby: our two-time pick for American League MVP (1950, 1952) and also our pick for the 1948 World Series MVP (an award which did not exist at the time). That’s a pretty impressive list of accomplishments, although we’re willing to guess most modern-day baseball fans don’t even know who he was, in terms of his impact on baseball.

Sadly, he might be best known as the first modern-day Black player in the American League, as he debuted in the majors during the 1947 season for the Cleveland Indians, playing in 29 games after Jackie Robinson broke the ethnicity barrier earlier that year with the Brooklyn Dodgers. But Doby was more than just a trailblazer: he was a darned good ballplayer who earned 49.2 WAR across 13 seasons, although three of those seasons totaled just 157 games combined. So, he really played an equivalent of 11 years.

Doing the basic math there, we see he put out about 4.5 WAR per season, despite not making his MLB debut until his age-23 campaign. He is in Cooperstown for both his prodigious baseball talents and his historic significance, as during his peak seasons—from 1948 to 1956—Doby posted 46.8 WAR, showing he was pretty much one of the best players in the sport for that nine-year stretch from his age-24 year to his age-32 season. Again, doing the math? That’s an average of a 5.2 WAR annually, which is hot.

He peaked in 1952 with 7.0 WAR, which topped the junior circuit, and in the three-year period from 1950-1952, he contributed 20.1 WAR to the Cleveland cause. These are some serious achievements, as the Indians won the 1948 World Series and then lost the 1954 World Series. Considering the team had not won it all at the time since 1920, and now it has not won it again since 1948, Doby was a part of the team’s greatest run of success hitherto in its existence. We don’t think it’s a coincidence, of course. Do you?

His first full season resulted in that World Series championship, as he posted 4.8 WAR as a “rookie” although he had played 141 games over five years with the Newark Eagles, an old Negro League franchise. In that playing time, he accrued 7.6 WAR, showing he could impact the game in many ways: a .340 average, 20 home runs, 17 stolen bases, etc. The MLB game at the time didn’t feature a lot of running, so Doby only managed 47 SBs in his major-league career, but we don’t doubt he could have stolen more.

An All Star in seven consecutive years (1949-1955), he spent most of his career in Cleveland. But after the 1955 season, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Jim Busby and Chico Carrasquel. Let that sink in for a moment, in terms of how much value he still add at that point. After two seasons in the South Side (totaling 7.0 WAR), he then was traded twice before the start of the 1958 season: first to the Baltimore Orioles (for a package that included Billy Goodman) and then back to Cleveland, strangely.

Future MLB managerial star Dick Williams was part of the trade back to the Indians. With the Cleveland organization for one more season at age 34, Doby played part-time and still contributed 1.5 WAR to the team’s cause. Yet with his age-35 year approaching, the Indians did not see Doby in their future plans, and so they traded him to the Detroit Tigers. Interestingly, this deal featured Tito Francona, who was also part of that deal with the Orioles noted above. The circles often complete themselves, no?

Doby didn’t last long in Detroit, hitting just .218 in 18 games before the White Sox came calling again: they purchased his contract, and while he didn’t have a big role, Doby did participate in 21 games as Chicago won the AL pennant. But it would be his last hurrah, as he did not play in the World Series—and his MLB career came to an unceremonious end. However, we look back now and see a lot of interesting details in the statistical profile Doby left behind for us to analyze and assess. Check this out:

  • 1950: Led the AL in OBP and OPS
  • 1952: Led the AL in WAR, runs, HRs, SLG, and OPS+
  • 1954: Led the AL in HRs and RBI

His final MLB marks include a .283 batting average, an .876 OPS, 253 HRs, and break-even defense, combined, playing second base and centerfield. He rates out as the 18th-best CF in baseball history, more than justifying his place in Cooperstown. Oddly, he never earned more than 3.4 percent on the original balloting in the late 1960s, but in 1998, the Veterans Committee rightfully voted him into the Hall. Doby died five years later, so it’s a very good thing he got to enjoy the honor for a few years before he passed.

We do wonder if racism had something to do with his low HOF balloting, as if he’s still the 18th-best player at his primary position now, he had to have been considerably higher in the late 1960s (we guesstimate he would have been rated the eighth best at that time, so to keep him out of Cooperstown reeks of some problematic bullshit). Either way, we have nothing but respect for Doby, clearly, as his raw numbers caused us to give him multiple AL MVPs that went to other players during his actual career. Godspeed.