Iowa's Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Iowa?
Issue #148
This is the 33rd article in a series where I am creating all-time dream teams for players born in each of the fifty US states. I’m publishing each write-up on the anniversary date that the particular state joined the union. So far I’ve covered Maryland, Louisiana, Minnesota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Virginia, Idaho, Wyoming, New York, Colorado, Missouri, Hawaii, California, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Illinois, Delaware, Mississippi, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and New Jersey.
Next up is Iowa, which on December 28, 1846 became the 29th state to join the union (according to Wikipedia).
Important caveat to what follows: I’m creating these all-time dream teams based on the birthplace data available at baseball-reference.com. I realize this might mean some players will appear for a state’s all-time dream that seems odd, e.g., a player who was born in one state but lived there only briefly, while then spending most of his youth, or especially critical years playing baseball in high school in another state. So that is an important caveat to the below dream team roster—and I’ll discuss the players that I know went to high school in a state other than Iowa towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in Iowa.)
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Iowa:
Iowa is a medium-sized US state, both by land area (23rd) and by population (30th), so you’d expect their all-time dream team to have several Hall of Famers and stars, but not be as loaded as say those from California or Pennsylvania. And I’d say that, overall, that is what the above roster provides.
There are six Hall of Famers in 1B Cap Anson, LF Fred Clarke, SS Dave Bancroft, and SP Bob Feller, Dazzy Vance, and Urban “Red” Faber. Besides Clarke, the rest of the OF is not as strong, fleshed out by the likes of Ken Henderson, Bing Miller, George Stone, and Ducky Holmes. There weren’t many candidates at 3B, so Casey Blake gets the starting nod, with defense-first Dick Green and Bobby Knoop sharing 2B duties. There were two others that I included as utility guys, as Denis Menke and Jerry Hairston Jr. both played pretty much everywhere in the infield.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Dave Bancroft (S) SS
Fred Clarke (L) LF
Cap Anson (R) 1B
Hal Trosky (L) DH
Bing Miller (R) RF
Ken Henderson (S) CF
Casey Blake (R) 3B
Dick Green / Bobby Knoop (R) 2B
Hank Severeid / John Wathan (R) C
Against LHP:
Dave Bancroft (S) SS
Fred Clarke (L) LF
Cap Anson (R) 1B
Hal Trosky (L) / Cal McVey (R) DH
Bing Miller (R) RF
Ken Henderson (S) CF
Casey Blake (R) 3B
Dick Green / Bobby Knoop (R) 2B
Hank Severeid / John Wathan (R) C
Without any obvious platoon options, there was much reason to vary the batting orders above. Dave Bancroft isn’t an elite Hall-of-Famer, but he had a 16-year career (1915-1930) for four different teams, and was considered a very good fielding SS for his era. He had a .355 OBP for his career, with a little speed that led him to score 100+ runs three times and steal 15+ bases four times. He was a switch hitter who usually hit first or second, so it makes sense to use him as the leadoff batter here.
Fred Clarke, Cap Anson, and Hal Trosky make for a potent 2-3-4 in the order. Trosky had a relatively short career, but in his prime was a beast for the Indians, hitting 25+ HR six times and driving in 100+ RBI six times. His 1936 season provided this impressive stat line: 216 hits, 45 doubles, 42 HR, 124 runs, 162 RBI, a .343/.382/.644 slash line, and a 146 OPS+. With superstar Cap Anson as the clear starter at 1B, Trosky is a natural as the DH—though I also listed old-timer Cal McVey as a possible DH as well. He played a mix of C/1B/3B/RF from 1871-1879, and like most from that era didn’t hit many HR. But he led his league in RBI twice, and had an impressive career .346/.354/.447 slash line and 152 OPS+.
I listed two guys at both 2B and C. As noted, Green and Knoop were generally light hitters, but provided good defense at 2B. Hank Severeid played in the majors for 15 years from 1911-1926, but only got into 100+ games in eight of them. He didn’t have much power but did bat .289 over his career. John Wathan had a shorter career, playing in the majors for 10 years (1976-1985) and only in 100+ games in three of them. A rare aspect of his game as a catcher was his ability to steal bases—he set a new modern-era record for catchers with 36 SB in 1982, and then had another 28 the following year.
As for the pitching staff, as I noted there are three Hall-of-Famers at the top of the rotation in Bob Feller, Dazzy Vance, and Red Faber. The first two were strikeout artists, with 8-time All-Star “Rapid Robert” Feller leading the AL in strikeouts seven times (and he no doubt would have added to those numbers if he hadn’t missed three prime baseball years to military service in World War II.) He also paced the AL in wins during each of his 20+ win seasons, taking home the AL pitching triple crown in 1940 at the age of 21 when he went 27-11 with a 2.61 ERA and 261 strikeouts. (If he hadn’t won that 27th game that would have been a lot of 2-6-1 numbers!)
Dazzy Vance is one of many all-time great pitchers for the Dodgers franchise, pitching 16 years in the majors from 1915-1935. After toiling for nine years in the minors, his career took off in his 30s as he led the NL in strikeouts in seven consecutive seasons from 1922-1928. Like Feller, he won a pitching triple crown in 1924 when he went 28-6 with a 2.16 ERA and 262 strikeouts.
Urban “Red” Faber had a 20-year major league career (1914-1933), all for the Chicago White Sox. He won 20+ games four times, and won the NL ERA title in both 1921 and 1922. For the fourth spot in this dream team rotation I went with an even earlier pitcher in Jack Coombs (1906-1920). He only had a few good seasons, but led the AL in wins twice for the Philadelphia Athletics, including posting a 31-9 record in 1910 along with an impressive 1.30 ERA (182 ERA+).
You could debate who should be the fifth man in this roster’s rotation, but I went with Mike Boddicker (1980-1993), who was an All-Star in 1984 and led the AL in wins with a 20-11 record and in ERA with a 2.79 mark. The other main candidate for the 5th spot was Earl Whitehill, a consistent pitcher for 17 years, mostly with the Tigers. He posted 10+ wins in 13 consecutive seasons, with his best year coming in 1933 when he went 22-8 with a 3.33 ERA.
The bullpen on this dream team doesn’t have any big name, modern closers but is still solid with several from an earlier generation of top relief pitchers. I listed Joe Hoerner first, as he had a 2.99 ERA (121 ERA+ over a 14-year career spread across seven teams. But you could also make a case for Bob Locker for the top spot, as he posted a career 2.75 ERA (122 ERA+) over a 10-year career, or Eddie Watt and his 2.91 ERA (117 ERA+) over ten years, or Tony Watson and his 2.90 ERA (136 ERA+) over 11 years. Joel Hanrahan (2007-2013) is the only one of the bunch to ever post big save totals, with 40 in 2011 and 36 the following year.
What about players who went to High School in Iowa?
As noted at the outset of this article, and as I’ve done for my other US State dream team write-ups, what if you change the criteria from players who were born in the state of Iowa to players who grew up—which we’ll define as going to high school—in the state of Iowa?
First off, some of the players on the roster above were born in Iowa but went to high school elsewhere, including:
2B Dick Green – South Dakota
2B Bobby Knoop – California
OF Ken Henderson – California
U Jerry Hairston Jr. – Illinois
SP Dazzy Vance – Nebraska
SP Kevin Tapani – Michigan
SP Michael Wacha – Texas
RP Bob Lee – California
If we eliminate those players from the above roster, the biggest loss would be felt at 2B, where we’d be left with just utility player Denis Menke.
On the other hand, I found two guys who were born elsewhere but went to high school in the state of Iowa and would be deserving of roster spots here:
SP Chet Brewer – Kansas
RP Dan Jennings – California
Jennings would replace Lee in the bullpen, but the more interesting addition would be Chet Brewer who played 13 major league seasons from 1925-1948 in the Negro Leagues. According to the numbers available at baseball-reference.com, he posted a career ERA of 3.48 (127 ERA+) and led his league with a 1.93 ERA in 1929. He’s not a full replacement for Vance, but would nicely compete with Boddicker and Whitehill for some starts in this team’s rotation.
All data is from Baseball-Reference.com, and also their subscription service Stathead.com. If you are a big sports fan, be sure to check out the latest features at Stathead and the Sports Reference family of sites. The state map, flag, flower, and bird images are from Wikipedia.
Did you know? I wrote a book with the same title as this Substack newsletter / blog: Now Taking the Field: Baseball’s All-Time Dream Teams for All 30 Franchises. It was published in early 2019, by ACTA Sports, the publisher of the annual Bill James Handbook and other popular titles. You can learn more about it at www.NowTakingTheField.com, or buy directly at Amazon and other booksellers.
