Texas' Baseball All-Time Dream Team
What would a dream team roster look like for major league players born in Texas?
Issue #149
This is the 34th 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, New Jersey, and Iowa.
Next up is Texas, which on December 29, 1845 became the 28th 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 Texas towards the end of this article (and vice-versa, those born elsewhere but who went to high school in Texas.)
Here is the all-time dream team I came up with for players born in Texas:
Texas is a very large state, both by land area and by population. And it is a southern state, so kids and teenagers can play and practice baseball outdoors for more months of the year. So clearly the all-time dream team for major league players born in Texas should be pretty loaded—and it is, including 13 Hall of Famers and many other stars who had solid careers. (And as noted, there are some prominent players—such as Roger Clemens—who were born elsewhere, but grew up in Texas, that I’ll discuss later.)
There are four Hall of Famers in roster’s infield, with Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan at 2B, Eddie Mathews at 3B, and Ernie Banks who split his career between SS and 1B. The OF had three Hall of Famers, in CF Tris Speaker, RF/LF Frank Robinson, and RF Ross Youngs, who was a great hitter for ten years before kidney disease took his life at age 30.
At catcher this roster has a Hall of Famer in Negro League star Biz Mackey who played in major leagues in 22 seasons from 1920-1947. According to the numbers available at baseball-reference.com, he retired with a .328/.390/.470 slash line and 131 OPS+. The backup at catcher is two-time All-Star and defensive standout Jerry Grote.
And even the two positions on this dream team roster that lack Hall of Famers still have some solid star names, as 1B has Norm Cash and Cecil Cooper, LF has Ron Gant and Carl Crawford, and Lance Berkman played and mix of 1B, LF, and RF.
Starting lineups for this all-time dream team could look like this:
Against RHP:
Tris Speaker (L) CF
Joe Morgan (L) 2B
Rogers Hornsby (R) DH
Eddie Mathews (L) 3B
Frank Robinson (R) RF
Ernie Banks (R) SS
Norm Cash / Cecil Cooper (L) 1B
Lance Berkman (S) LF
Biz Mackey (S) C
Against LHP:
Tris Speaker (L) CF
Joe Morgan (L) 2B
Rogers Hornsby (R) SS
Frank Robinson (R) RF
Ernie Banks (R) 1B
Eddie Mathews (L) / Anthony Rendon (R) 3B
Ron Gant (R) LF
Biz Mackey (S) C
Chuck Knoblauch (R) DH
Obviously both Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan need to be starters in both of these lineups, so I went with Morgan at 2B and Hornsby as the DH against RHP and the SS against LHP. This means Banks would play a mix of SS and 1B, with Norm Cash and Cecil Cooper—both left-handed hitters—splitting the time at 1B against RHP.
Eddie Mathews was a great 3B and a powerful hitter, but he had extreme R/L splits, slashing .284/.389/.538 against RHP but only .230/.330/.408 against LHP. So I listed both Mathews and the right-handed hitting Anthony Rendon in the lineup against LHP. Similarly, Lance Berkman was a switch hitter but he hit righties much better than lefties, so I platooned him with Ron Gant for the LF spot.
There were many more position players, born in Texas, who had solid careers, and so at least deserve honorable mention, including: LF/2B/3B Don Buford, CF Sam West, RF Hunter Pence, 1B Mike Hargrove, SS/2B Trevor Story, 1B/2B/SS Pete Runnels, 1B Brandon Belt, 3B/1B/2B Matt Carpenter, DH/OF Don Baylor, SS Garry Templeton, 1B Ferris Fain, 3B Pinky Higgins, SS Roy McMillan, CF Michael Bourn, LF Bibb Falk, RF/LF Hurley McNair, CF/RF Charlie Blackmon, RF Jay Bruce, LF/1B Adam Dunn, 1B Edgar Wesley, 1B Chris Davis, OF/P Homer Curry, OF Chaney White, 3B/2B Dewey Creacy, C Frank Snyder, and C Gus Mancuso.
As for the pitching staff, how do you rank such elite all-time greats like Greg Maddux, Nolan Ryan, and Clayton Kershaw? That could be argued, but I went with that order for the 1-2-3 spots in this dream team’s rotation.
I then like two Negro League Hall of Famers, Bill Foster and Hilton Smith, for the next two spots. According to the numbers at baseball-reference.com, Foster pitched in 14 major league seasons from 1923-1937, leading his league in ERA four times and retiring with a 2.63 ERA and a 164 ERA+. Smith pitched in 13 major league seasons from 1932-1948, leading his league in ERA once and retired with a 2.92 ERA and a 141 ERA+.
How you rank the other SP I included could certainly be debated, and you could also make a case for many others, who at least deserve honorable mention, including: Tex Hughson, Pete Donohue, Danny Darwin, Burt Hooton, Doug Drabek, Greg Swindell, Woody Williams, Joe Horlen, Sam Gray, Scott Kazmir, Dave Brown, Ned Garvin, and Danny Jackson.
The bullpen on this dream team is headlined by six-time All-Star Joe Nathan, who pitched 16 years in the majors from 1999-2016 with a 2.87 ERA and 151 ERA+. He had 35+ saves an impressive nine times, with 377 total saves over his career. Nathan is quickly followed by Huston Street, who pitched from 2005-2017 with a 2.95 ERA and 141 ERA+. A two-time All-Star, he recorded 324 saves and was AL Rookie of the Year for Oakland when he posted a 1.72 ERA with 23 saves.
After those two, how you rank all the other relievers I included could again be debated. Some were closers and some were life-long setup men. Firpo Marberry was an early relief specialist (1923-1936), mostly for the Senators, who started 186 games but more often pitched out of the bullpen. Saves didn’t exist as a category during his era, but the data indicates he led the AL in saves six times, with highs of 15, 16, and 22 from 1924-26.
I also included Kerry Wood, though he could have been listed as a starter as well given his early success including winning the 1998 NL Rookie of the Year Award after striking out 233 in only 166.2 IP (including an incredible 20 K against the Astros on May 6th that year). He had 200+ strikeouts in three other seasons, including an NL-leading 266 in 2003. He was an All-Star that year, with his other All-Star season coming in 2008, his last year with the Cubs when he had 34 saves with a 3.24 ERA.
As with the position players and starting pitchers, several other relievers were considered and at least deserve honorable mention, including: Ron Davis, Bill Henry, Donnie Moore, Corey Knebel, Daniel Bard, Mike Gonzalez, Chuck McElroy, Will Harris, and Mike Adams.
What about players who went to High School in Texas?
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 Texas to players who grew up—which we’ll define as going to high school—in the state of Texas?
First off, some of the players on the roster above were born in Texas but went to high school elsewhere, including:
RF/LF Frank Robinson – California
2B Joe Morgan – California
3B Eddie Mathews – California
CF Curt Flood – California
SP Greg Maddux – Nevada
SP Schoolboy Rowe – Arkansas
RP Joe Nathan – New York
RP Greg Minton – California
On the other hand, I also found many who were born elsewhere but went to high school in the state of Texas and would either be deserving of roster spots or at least consideration:
1B Paul Goldschmidt – Delaware
SS Willie Wells – Oklahoma
OF Ellis Burks – Mississippi
CF Vernon Wells – Louisiana
SP Roger Clemens – Ohio
SP Andy Pettitte – Louisiana
SP Corey Kluber – Alabama
SP Jake Arrieta – Missouri
RP Zack Britton – California
RP Keith Foulke – South Dakota
RP Norm Charlton – Louisiana
So if I use this alternate dream team criterion, the offense would suffer from losing Robinson, Morgan, and Mathews, but then gain back a bit especially with Wells and Goldschmidt. One of the most famous major leaguers from Texas is Roger Clemens, so he’d replace Maddux at the top of the dream team’s pitching rotation. Pettitte would replace Rowe, and Kluber and Arrieta would at least be considered. The roster would lose its top reliever in Nathan, as well as the capable Greg Minton, but would gain the very solid closers in Britton, Foulke, and perhaps Charlton.
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.
