Mississippi's Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Mississippi?
Issue #142
This is the 28th 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, and Delaware.
Next up is Mississippi, which on December 10, 1817, became the 20th 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 Mississippi towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in Mississippi.)
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Mississippi:
This roster has pretty solid depth and a number of star players, but just one Hall of Famer: all-time Negro Leagues great Cool Papa Bell. According to the stats we have available at baseball-reference.com, Bell played for major-league level Negro Leagues starting at the age of 19 in 1922, and then played 21 seasons, from 1922-37 and 1942-46. The CF never led his league in batting average, but he accumulated a .325/.394/.446 slash line and 126 OPS+. He had some power early in his career, but primarily he was known for his speed, leading his league in stolen bases seven times and runs scored five times.
Some have argued that Dave Parker deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, as his resume includes 2,712 hits, 526 doubles, 339 HR, 154 SB, 1,493 RBI, a .290/.339/.471 slash line, and 121 OPS+. A seven-time All-Star, he had a strong arm in RF that earned him three Gold Glove Awards, including in 1978 when he won the NL MVP Award after capturing his second consecutive NL batting title with a .334 average, along with 30 HR, 117 RBI, and 20 SB.
This dream-team roster has several other solid OF including Ellis Burks, Chet Lemon, Negro Leagues star Bill Hoskins, and Sam Jethroe who starred in both the Negro Leagues and the NL after integration. I further included several others for depth, including the unrelated Gee Walker and Harry Walker, Larry Herndon, Corey Dickerson, and Dmitri Young.
There is also solid depth at three of the four infield positions, with SS being the exception. Buddy Myer had a 17-year major league career, playing mostly 2B but getting into 200+ games at both SS and 3B. He scored 100+ runs four times and had a .303 average and .389 OBP, so I listed him as the top SS on this roster to make room for Bill Melton as the starter at 3B, and five-time All-Star and eight-time Gold Glove Award winner Frank White as the starter at 2B.
At 1B I gave the starting nod to George Scott, an eight-time Gold Glove Award winner who hit 20+ HR five times, including leading the AL with 36 HR and 109 RBI in 1975. The other top 1B candidate was Luke Easter, who spent his 20s playing semi-pro ball and serving in the military before finally joining the Homestead Grays in 1947. He did well for two years and was signed by the Cleveland Indians. After crushing the ball in the minors he was called up and then had three consecutive seasons with 25+ HR for the Indians. Ongoing knee and ankle issues led to an early end to his major league career, though his power hitting capabilities meant he was able to continue to play at the AAA minor-league level until finally retiring at age 48 in 1964.
In addition to SS this dream team is fairly weak at catcher, with the Negro Leagues’ Tommie Dukes (1928, 1932-39, 1945) as the top candidate. According to the numbers available at baseball-reference.com he had little power or speed, but posted a respectable career .301/.359/.425 slash line and 114 OPS+. Jake Gibbs is the backup here, having mostly been a part-time player for the Yankees from 1962-71.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Cool Papa Bell (S) CF
Bill Hoskins (L) LF
Dave Parker (L) RF
Luke Easter (L) DH
George Scott (R) 1B
Bill Melton (R) / Howard Easterling (S) 3B
Frank White (R) 2B
Tommie Dukes / Jake Gibbs (L) C
Buddy Myer (L) SS
Against LHP:
Cool Papa Bell (S) CF
Ellis Burks (R) LF
George Scott (R) 1B
Bill Melton (R) 3B
Dave Parker (L) RF
Chet Lemon / Brian Dozier (R) DH
Frank White (R) 2B
Tommie Dukes (L) C
Buddy Myer (L) SS
The leadoff spot is strong with Bell of course, and I like a LF platoon of Hoskins and Burks batting second. I also think a platoon makes sense at DH, though there are plenty of candidates to consider. I went with the left-handed power bat of Easter against RHP, and a combination of Lemon and Dozier against LHP—though you could also play Lemon in CF in those games and let Bell get in some DH at-bats.
Bill Melton usually hit clean-up during his career, so I like him in that spot against LHP, with him splitting duties at the hot corner with switch-hitting Howard Easterling against RHP. Both Dukes and Gibbs hit left-handed, but Gibbs batted only .198 against LHP, so I think he’d only spell Dukes behind the plate against some RHP. And finally, given his high OBP, having Myer hit ninth is like having another solid leadoff man for much of the game.
As for the pitching staff, the ace is Roy Oswalt (2001-2013), a three-time All-Star who never won a Cy Young Award, but came in the top six in the voting in six seasons. He won 20+ games twice, and led the NL with a 2.98 ERA in 2006.
You could also make a case for five-time All-Star Claude Passeau (1935-1947) for the top spot, as he won 15+ games six times, including a 20-13 record in 1940. The two retired with almost identical ERAs—Oswalt at 3.36 and Passeau at 3.32. But given the different eras in which they played, Oswalt’s translates into a 127 ERA+, while Passeau’s translates into a 113 ERA+.
How you rank the other starters I included on this roster could be debated, but I liked Reb Russell (1913-1919), Guy Bush (1923-38, 1945), and current star pitcher Brandon Woodruff to round out the five-man rotation. Willie Mitchell had a pretty standard name, but you have to like the nicknames of the other two I included: Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd and Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell.
The bullpen on this dream team lacks any strong, modern-era closers. I included seven relievers, with the best of the bunch being Chad Bradford who pitched for six teams over 12 seasons from 1998-2009. He only had 11 saves over his career, but posted a 3.26 ERA which was an impressive 138 ERA+.
What about players who went to High School in Mississippi?
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 Mississippi to players who grew up—which we’ll define as going to high school—in the state of Mississippi?
First off, some of the players on the roster above were born in Mississippi but went to high school elsewhere, including:
CF Cool Papa Bell – Missouri
RF Dave Parker – Ohio
CF/RF/LF Ellis Burks – Texas
CF/RF Chet Lemon – California
LF/1B Dmitri Young – California
LF/CF Larry Herndon – Tennessee
CF Sam Jethroe – Illinois
CF Harry Walker – Alabama
2B Frank White – Missouri
If we eliminate those players from the above roster, we lose the defense of White at 2B, but that would give power-hitter Brian Dozier more at-bats. It is the OF that would be really impacted, as we’d be left with just Corey Dickerson in LF and Gee Walker for CF or RF. Fortunately, there have been five recent major league OF who were both born in Mississippi and went to High School there too: Jarrod Dyson, Matt Lawton, Seth Smith, and the still active Hunter Renfroe and Billy Hamilton.
In addition, I found three who were born elsewhere but went to high school in the state of Mississippi and would deserve consideration for such a dream team:
3B Austin Riley – Tennessee
1B Zeke Bonura – Louisiana
C Virgil Davis – Alabama
Current Braves star Riley would take over the top spot at 3B, and so would Virgil Davis at catcher, as he played 16 years for four clubs, with a .308/.369/.430 slash line and 110 OPS+. Zeke Bonura would deserve some at-bats at 1B and DH, as he had four 100+ RBI seasons in a short seven-year career.
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.
