Joe Gordon is my extra second baseman in my hall of fame. He finished as the 20th best second baseman despite playing only 11 seasons. In 7 of 11 of those seasons he played at an all-star quality. His fielding numbers were always above average and in 9 of his 11 seasons he had 10 or more fielding runs above average, which is outstanding.
He did all this and missed two years during his best seasons due to World War two. When he came back he had an off year. The Yankees traded him to Cleveland for Allie Reynolds. This trade worked out for both teams as Allie Reynolds was one of the big three pitchers that helped the Yankees to six World Series victories in the next seven years.
However, Gordon’s Cleveland Indians won the World Series the other (1948) year. Gordon was back to normal in 1947 and 1948. In 1948 he drove in 124 runs. In 1947 and 1948 he started to slip and retired at age 35.
Joe Gordon is famous for winning the MVP in 1942 while leading the league in strikeouts and hitting into double plays. What often isn’t mentioned still had an outstanding year. It was his best year with the bat. He was as great as ever in the field. He was second in the league in Baseball Reference WAR to Ted Williams. I should also mention Williams was significantly ahead of Williams. However, the Yankees finished 9 games in front of second place Boston, with a lot of that due to Joe Gordon as much as anyone else. It could go either way in my opinion, recognizing that Williams did more to help his team win than anyone else in the league. However, Gordon helped his team win the pennant.
However, even if you take that out of the equation, Joe Gordon was the second best player in the league and his election isn’t as bad on some of the people who write about him leading in two bad categories make it look.
