San Francisco Giants: Top 30 players of all-time
40. . . . Larry Doyle (47.1 WAR). 12
NY/SF Giants best players all-time: No. 12-Larry Doyle
47.1 WAR
The son of a coal miner, Larry Doyle was born on July 31, 1886 in Illinois.
Larry Doyle’s nickname was “Laughing Larry,” but his career with the Giants was certainly nothing to laugh about.
With the Giants from 1907-1916, he was the National League MVP in 1912 and then joined a list of Hall of Famers like Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner to win a batting title when he won one in 1915.
He is eighth in career WAR among Giants position players after playing in over 1,620 games. With lower strikeout rates than very talented players like Barry Bonds and Willie Mays, he was extremely valuable to the Giants as an infielder.
In five of the seasons he played with the New York Giants, he hit over .300 and led the league in hits in two of the eight seasons. One stat that stood out to me was his on-base percentage was at least .300 in every single season of his career, which is pretty rare (and doesn’t happen much in today’s game).
Doyle, unfortunately, contracted tuberculosis in 1942 and then ended up dying a little over thirty years later at the age of 87.