Would Nellie Fox Fan More Today?

[Mike D.]

With more high velocity pitchers than ever, and fresh relievers inning after inning instead of tired starters, I'm sure he'd strike out more than he did in that era. How much more is tough to say.

[brian1961]

Who really cares?

When he lived and played his heart out for the ChiSox, he whipped his fat bat around and got many a blunk single, or a bunt that he'd frequently beat out. Nellie was a man of his times, and I'm just glad the White Sox had 'em on their side. When the Sox won one of the 2 pennants the Yankees didn't in the 50s, he hit .375 in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. At least two of their pitchers, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, were flamethrowers. Koufax was still a couple years away from stardom, but he did pitch a total of 9 innings and was erratic, but scary when he was good. How Nellie did against curve ball artists like Whitey Ford, I don't know at the moment. Put it this way, if Nell had a weakness, the other teams would have caught on quick and fed him a strict diet of that weakness. But little Nellie didn't back down to anybody, and he got his hits. He was a fixture at the South Side for a long, long time.

--- Brian Powell

[Peter_Spaeth]

Amazing a team led by two dink hitters Fox and Aparicio and with not that great pitching (Wynn and a great year from Bob Shaw) beat out the Mantle-Berra etc. etc. etc. Yankees, but they had a horrible year.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Amazing a team led by two dink hitters Fox and Aparicio and with not that great pitching (Wynn and a great year from Bob Shaw) beat out the Mantle-Berra etc. etc. etc. Yankees, but they had a horrible year.

Not that great pitching? They had the best pitching staff in the American League with a 3.29 team ERA. They had Billy Pierce who was still above even though he had an off year. They also had a good bullpen. Their offense was terrible, 6th of 8th in runs, batting average and OPS+.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Amazing a team led by two dink hitters Fox and Aparicio and with not that great pitching (Wynn and a great year from Bob Shaw) beat out the Mantle-Berra etc. etc. etc. Yankees, but they had a horrible year.

Originally Posted by rats60

Not that great pitching? They had the best pitching staff in the American League with a 3.29 team ERA. They had Billy Pierce who was still above even though he had an off year. They also had a good bullpen. Their offense was terrible, 6th of 8th in runs, batting average and OPS+.

And the Sox would have won the World Series were it not for Chuck Essegian's WS OPS of 3.417

[Peter_Spaeth]

That Fox didn't fan is one reason I am a Fox fan. If Fox played today we fans could watch him on Fox and see how much he fanned.

[the 'stache]

Nellie was a good player, but Tony Gwynn's the far more impressive player from a strikeout standpoint. Fox had a career OPS+ of 93. He was 7% below league average as a hitter when SLG and OBP are considered.

Tony Gwynn struck out 434 times in his career. That's in nearly the exact same number of ABs. Yes, he struck out twice as often as Fox, once in every 21.4 ABs, but where Fox was a lifetime .288 hitter, Gwynn hit .338 for his career with a 132 OPS+. Fox hit .300 six times. Gwynn hit .289 in his rookie year of 1982 at age 22, playing in only 54 games. He never hit below .300 again. 19 straight seasons hitting over .309. Eight batting titles. And while he was never exactly a power hitter, after meeting with Ted Williams for the first time at the 1992 All Star Game when Ted told him he could hit for more power with some adjustments to his approach. Well, his last nine seasons, Gwynn did just that. He hit an incredible .356, with a .400 OBP and a .500 SLG.

And he only struck out 143 times in those 3,587 at bats, or once every 27.5 ABs.

Take that, Nellie Fox.