|
Monthly archives: November 2003
The New Phonebooks, Er, Hall of Fame Ballots Are Here!
2003-11-30 02:02
Major League Baseball announced the new Hall of Fame ballot with 15 new players and 17 returnees. Here they all are (an xindicates a newly eligible player): Bert Blyleven Last year I ran an analysis of the 2003 ballot as it was released, and I want to do something similar this year. First, let's look at the categories that Bill James developed in his multi-titled Hall-of-Fame book. They are: The Grey Ink test: Represents the number of times a player appears among his league's top ten in a major category. The average for Hall of Famer fell from 185 to 144 in the last year. Hall of Fame Standards: Awards points for various career achievements. The average HoFer is a 50 on the scale and the max is 100. Hall of Fame Monitor: Awards points for various career and seasonal achievements and is weighted per position to reflect actual HoF makeup. [For the specifics of each test, check out (Baseball-Reference.com, the source I used for these data.] For each test, I will compare the given player against the Hall average to determine if he is a deserving candidate. Next, I will take a look at each player's most similar batters/pitchers and how many are in the Hall right now. If it's over 50%, one would expect that the player's plaque wouldn't look out of place in the Hall. (I realize that this does not take into account similar players who are active or who are not yet eligible for the Hall, but nothing's perfect. As a very wise bathroom stall once said my freshman year, "Always a critic. Never a cricket.") In addition, I will list the all-time Win Shares ranking for each player. Given that there are now 209 players in the Hall who were elected as players, either by the writers or veterans, if the given player is ranked among the top 209 all-time, one would think that he would fit in at the Hall, Pete Rose notwithstanding. Finally, I will assess each player according to how well he performs in all of these tests. And away we go…
Sorry, had to break up the table:
By this Herculean task list, it appears that the strongest candidates are Molitor, Blyleven, Dawson, Murphy, John, Morris, Parker, Rice, Sandberg, Eckersley, and Trammell. Unfortunately, that does not reflect the writers' voting over the last few years. Here are the 2002 and 2003 voting results for each of the candidates with their all-time high and my assessment of their chances for enshrinement:
Note that of the 17 new names peppering the 2003 ballot, all but four—Sandberg, Smith, Valenzuela, and Eddie Murray, who was elected—were dropped for failing to meet the 5% criterion, i.e., that a player receive 5% of the vote to remain on the ballot for subsequent elections. Next, I would like to run some players who are no longer eligible for the baseball writers' ballot, including Jim Kaat who ran out of options last year. I believe that there are a number of strong candidates that have fallen through the cracks, so I selected a handful among the higher Win Shares ranks:
There are a good number of strong candidates in the list although very few received much attention from the writers:
These are generally speaking players who did many things well but their achievements did not necessarily translate into the countable stats that voters love. I don't think any would be out of place in the Hall—that's not to say that I support all of them being enshrined. Though it appears unlikely that any other than Kaat, Santo, and Allen will be rescued by the veterans—the first two being broadcasters with pretty compelling cases (Rizzuto anyone?) and Allen having superior stats that will eventually overcome his bad rep. I personally have a soft spot for the Evanses, Grich, and Sweet Lou among the rest. Reggie Smith may be the most underrated player of all time. If I had a vote in the writers' election, I would vote for Molitor, Blyleven, Sandberg, Eckesley, and Gossage, probably in that order. Bruce Sutter is probably the single most important reliever in baseball history. That is, if one were telling the story of relieving (which I have) and one had to reduce that story to one pivotal person, then Sutter would be the guy. He was the first modern reliever. If that's not deserving of a plaque, I'm not sure what is. Morgan Bulkeley and Candy Cummings did far less to earn theirs, that's for sure. Both Sutter and Gossage suffer from the constantly changing standards for relievers. Then I would pad out the rest with borderline guys like Dawson, Rice, John, Murphy, Parker, or Trammell. Huh, why do that? Doesn't it cheapen the Hall? I've got news for you folks: the Hall was cheapened within a decade of opening its doors, back in the Forties, thanks to the old Veterans' Committee, then called the Permanent Committee. While greats like Lefty Grove and Jimmie Foxx couldn't get the writers' time of day, the Permanent Committee was Tinkering-to-Evering-to-Chancing with the results to get flotillas full of olde-tyme players in and very often not the best players. I see the austerity of today's voters as a direct reprisal to the elections of such non-greats as Travis Jackson and Ross Youngs. Ideals are all fine and good, but until they start kicking out the riffraff, I'm making sure that the heroes of my youth that fit the de facto Hall standard get in. One last thing—there are a number of candidates floating on the periphery that will have a couple of elections to sell their cases. In 2005, Wade Boggs is a no-brainer but unless you're a big Chili Davis fan there's not much else. In 2006, Will Clark appears to be the best of the lot, though the busted careers of Daryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden will be open to review (I love the Eighties, strikes back). 2007's class features Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire, and Cal Ripken, all of whom should be first-ballot types. Then were back to one candidate for the next two years (Tim Raines in 2008, who may have an unduly hard time, and possibly just Roger Clemens in 2009, though Rickey Henderson could join that class).
Permalink |
No comments.
Errors of Commission-er—Selig at it again
2003-11-30 01:57
This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. —William "Author" Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Hey bud, let's party. —Jeff Spicolli The Red Sox and Curt Schilling came to an agreement on Friday that enabled the ace to waive his no-trade contract and accept a trade to Boston. In turn the Red Sox relinquish two pitching "prospects" they had already given up on (Casey Fossum and Brandon Lyon) and two minor-leaguers (one of whom, LHP Jorge De La Rosa, was an erstwhile Diamondback and has had a great deal of struggles in the minors even at the age of 23). It's a good pickup by the Sox. Really the only downside for them is the value of the contract to Schilling, reportedly $12 to $13 M per year for two years with an option for a third. Schilling is 37, missed one third of the 2003 season, and has missed significant playing time in three of the last five years, so the investment could be ill-advised. However, Schilling is one of the best arms in baseball when healthy, Boston gave up very little to get him, and they desperately need pitching help. It's nothing more than a salary dump for the D-backs combined with a game of ye ol' bobbing for prospects. It's unlikely Arizona got one decent major-league arm among the three pitchers. However, the trade aside, it was disconcerting to see Bud Selig extending the deadline for the trade to Saturday. I know that the trade was completed on Friday, and now Theo Epstein is being heralded as the genius du jour. But it seems that Bud is incapable of going out of his way to help his cronies in Boston. Whether it's laundering a player in baseball-owned Montreal before turning him over to the Sox (Cliff Floyd) or rescuing a player from a contract he's already signed with a professional Japanese team so that the Sox can sign him (Kevin Millar), the commish just has to get involved in John Henry's business. Epstein, who may not be old enough yet to rent from Avis in some states, apparently is a genius who still needs to have the training wheels on his bike. On a totally unrelated front, baseball is now going on the offensive regarding gamecasts. If Bud and his boys get their way, the only place that fans will be able to get up-to-the-minute game reports will be from MLB.com. Baseball went after fan sites a couple of years ago and now this. They won't sit still until every thin dime can be squeezed from the sport and be deposited in their secure coffers. What they don't realize is that the distaste it engenders in the fan as well as the attendant lack of exposure the sport will enjoy will cost them far more than the advertising rights on an ESPN gamecast page. The again this is the organization that gave us the All-Star game as a determiner for homefield advantage in the World Series. Baseball's grab for money will likely fail given the precedent set in basketball. However, if it is successful, where will MLB turn next? What if I post a game score and situation as it is happening? What if you call your friend from your cell phone while at the game and tell him game sich? Will the Bud police ("they live inside of my head") come after us? Well, you would probably answer, "No," given that there would be no money in it. Or to be more fair, that no money exchange hands so there was no violation of the copyright laws. Perhaps that's true. It just seems odd that a sport that was forward-looking enough at the turn of the last century to promote good relations with the Fourth Estate realizing the symbiotic advantages, is now ready to chuck it all for a few Viagra ads.
Permalink |
No comments.
I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together...
2003-11-29 03:12
Rich's Weekend Baseball BEAT interviews the incisive Will Carroll. (Get it? "Under the Knife"..."incision"..."incisive". To quote Dr. Evil, "It's a homonym...").
Permalink |
No comments.
Spahn Song
2003-11-26 13:16
As I'm sure you know Hall-of-Famer Warren Spahn, the winningest lefty of all time and the last man to win 350 games, died on Monday. In the process, he passed the mantle of winningest living pitcher appropriately to another lefty, Steve Carlton (329). Spahn was a truly remarkable pitcher with a remarkable delivery and a remarkable career. For me, someone who was born after Spahn's career was over, he was of those monolithic immortals that one learns from rote in one's baseball nascency. However, his career is much more interesting than the sepia-tinged—or better yet unnaturally kodachromic—pictures from his career, photographs and the raw numbers that have served to ossify our image of the man. However, that's where I'll start. Spahn was sixth all-time in wins. Here is the list of 300-game winners:
He is also the winningest pitcher since World War II, to which Spahn sacrificed about three and one half years of his career. He are the pitchers with the most wins since 1945:
Spahn was also remarkable for his longevity. Stan Musial once said of him, "I don't think Spahn will ever get into the Hall of Fame. He'll never stop pitching." He had already won 20 games four times when he logged arguably his finest season in the Braves' inaugural season in Milwaukee, 1953, at the age of 32. He was 23-7 with a 2.10 ERA (88% better than the adjusted league average) and finished fifth in MVP voting (the Cy Young award did not come about until 1956 and he won the award in its second year with a demonstrably inferior record to 1953). That was when he became "Warren Spahn". From age 32 on, he won 20 games nine times. Actually he won twenty games in nine of the next eleven seasons. He also lead the league in complete games for seven straight seasons, from 1957 at age 36 to 1963 at age 42. Here are the all-time winningest pitchers from age 32 on (i.e., the season in which he was 32 for the majority of the year):
Spahn also leads pitchers all-time for All-Star game appearances with 14:
Spahn also is the NL all-time leader in home runs for a pitcher. Here are is the all-time list for home runs by a pitcher (pitcher being defined as player who pitches in at least three games in the given year). Guess who's first:
All this from a pitcher whose first complete game, of the 382 he would collect in his career, came on September 26, 1942 when a riot at the Polo Grounds started by young cranks who had been admitted in exchange for scrap metal in a war drive caused the Giants to forfeit in the eighth. Spahn was losing 5-2 at the time. Spahn was actually signed by the Boston "Bees" the name that the Braves adopted for five years from 1936-1940, and missed playing for the Braves in all three locations, Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta, by just two years. Warren Spahn was also well known for his incisive and often humorous comments on the game. Spahn's first and last managers in the majors were the same man, Casey Stengel, prompting Spahn to famously quip, "I'm probably the only guy who worked for Stengel before and after he was a genius." He also coined the oft-quoted, "Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." Some others: "A pitcher needs two pitches, one they're looking for and one to cross them up." "What is life, after all, but a challenge? And what better challenge can there be than the one between the pitcher and the hitter." (On Willie May's first home run) "For the first 60 feet it was a hell of a pitch." (And) "He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie forever if I'd only struck him out." "Roger (Clemens) likes to win and he's been a very prolific pitcher. I talked to him earlier this year and last year, and he told me how much he wanted to win 300 games. What pitcher doesn't want to win 300?" "Once Musial timed your fastball, your infielders were in jeopardy." "When I throw a ground ball, I expect it to be an out, maybe two." "You don't just throw the ball - you propel it." "Every time I went out and pitched, I was hoping to maintain my spot in the rotation. You've got to keep winning to maintain your spot." "Did I want to win 400 games? Sure, but age got in the way." LeftyAs I said earlier, Spahn is the all-time winningest lefty. He certainly is one of a handful of the best left-handed pitchers in baseball history though Sandy Koufax's and Lefty Grove's names always seem to top the list whenever the topic is discussed. I thought it would be fun to run a quick comparison of left-handed pitchers. First, here are the 14 left-handed pitchers in the Hall of Fame: Warren Spahn Next, here are the left-handers who have won 200 or more games:
Here's a comparison of various stats with the next 50 winningest lefties of all time (stats through 2002):
Now just to put it in context, here they are again with the same stats as a percentage of the individual's stats as a percentage of their teams' stats:
You can see from this why Spahn usually is listed after Koufax, Grove, and Randy Johnson. Perhaps the most surprising thing is that Spahn didn't strike out as many men per nine innings as his teammates. Spahn did strike out as many as 191 in a season (in 1950 in 293 innings). Spahn is sixth all-time in strikeouts for a left-hander (with 2583), but given that he is first in innings (5243.2), that's not too impressive. Steve Carlton trailed him by 26.1 innings but had over 1500 more strikeouts. Randy Johnson has about 1300 more strikeouts in over 2000 fewer innings. Of course, those pitchers represent different eras, but Spahn was not a strikeout specialist even in his era. It's not that it tarnishes his stellar career, but I think that's the biggest reason that analysts list him below the top two or three. Additionally, it is interesting to note that Koufax, Grove, and Johnson blossomed late and had shorter periods of excellence. However, even though their peaks may have been shorter, they were arguably higher than Spahn's. People tend not to argue for sustained excellence over shorter but greater bursts. I guess it's human nature. Pray for RainThere are only two songs in me and I just wrote the third. —Number Three by They Might Be Giants Perhaps the most famous statement that was said of Spahn, at least indirectly, was "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain", an assessment of the Braves starting rotation in their 1948 pennant drive. From 1946 to 1951, Spahn and Johnny Sain formed a formidable pair of starters and became the archetype for a two-headed staff. In those years each won twenty games four times. They even made their major-league debut in 1942 within one week of each other, Spahn on April 19 and Sain on April 24. The duo was split up on August 28, 1951 when Sain was traded to the Yankees for rookie Lew Burdette and $50 K. Sain eventually became the dean of pitching coaches: if coaches start getting voted into the Hall of Fame, I'm sure his name will be among the first. Burdette went on to fulfill the "And Sain" role longer than Sain himself, winning 20 games twice and 19 games twice as well and pitching 13 years for the Braves. Here is a rundown of the other white meat, the Braves' number three starters during Spahn's tenure (Based on games and innings. Note that one could argue that Spahn himself was the number three pitcher in his first and last seasons with the Braves. For the sake of this study, I gave him his props and assumed he was the staff leader throughout):
The prototypical number three pitcher in this period was Bob Buhl, who had some very good years. Overall, the Braves' number three pitcher in this era appears to have gotten a bum rap. They were on average better than the league average ERA for the given year and over their careers. Even in the year that the saying became immortal, 1948, Bill Voiselle was 6% better than the league average. Spahn himself was only 3% better that year. When one considers that the rest of the rotation was Vern Bickford (ERA 17% better than the league average), Red Barrett (5% better), and Nels Potter (65% better in just seven games) and that Spahn had the highest ERA on the staff for anyone who started more than two games, it's remarkable that the sublime saying ever even came into being. Finally, here is a table of Spahn's Braves teammates who won 10 or more games, listed by wins:
Permalink |
No comments.
Looking for Brew's Clues
2003-11-25 01:28
A beggarly account of empty boxes [i.e., box seats]. —William "Author" Shakespeare, "Eddie" Romeo and "Jorge" Juliet The Brewers seem to be imploding by degrees, a littlemore each day. First, we hear that they will be cutting payroll by 25% down to $30 M from a reported $40.6 M in 2003. According to ESPN, this would be the lowest payroll in baseball. Then president Ulice "We Hardly Knew Yas" Payne Jr. splits with the club over the issue, necessitating an estimated $2.7 M buyout of his five-year contract. Now it appears that the club has been hemorrhaging money and that the owners including alleged non-owner, commissioner Bud "Probity" Selig, have been contributing to keep the Brew Crew afloat. As the supernova that is the Brewers expands, they may even be required to open their books to an unhappy public that wants to know what happened to investing in the team after the community had invested in a new stadium. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel got its hands on some of the Brewers book, but apparently cook books—or rather cooked books—were all that could be found. The Brewers have a lot of 'splainin' to do. Take a look at the numbers for yourself (the bold columns were added by me):
So payroll, which increased only 33.64% compared to 79.24% for other baseball expenses and 76.53% for unlisted expenses, is being named the culprit. However, team payroll as a percentage of the total operating expenses fell from 56.84% in 1998 to 36.31% in 2002. Additionally, the 2004 payroll will be below the 1998 figure; not to mention that 2003 and 1998 had about the same payroll—with the additional $1 M in revenue sharing, they are almost identical. So of all of the expenses, team payroll seems the least worthy of blame and of cutting. Add to this the fact that team revenue has been increasing even with an inferior product on the field. Home gate revenue doubled between 1998 and 2002 with the opening of Miller Park, and over all revenue outstripped payroll increases (42.29%). The only revenue that went done went unreported anyway (and was most likely due to the one-time 1998 expansion fees that Milwaukee and the rest of the pre-existing teams gouged the Diamondbacks and Devil rays for.) Consider that team payroll as a percentage of total operating revenue shrank from 53.77% in 1998 to 42.77% in 2002. And in 2004 without any increased revenue, the reduced team salary would translate into just 28.74% of revenue. The lowly Brewers were a business that increased revenues by almost 50% in five years while increasing salaries by a third. In most industries that would be heralded as a minor miracle. Add to this the fact that the company was handed a state-of-the-art facility, leaks notwithstanding, and you would have many businessmen salivating in these recessionary times. However, the bottom line is much different because of the Milwaukee ownership's inability to shore up debt and limit expenses. If you or I ran such a business, we would lose our jobs. But in baseball the owner gets promoted to commissioner. The admissions that Selig contributed to the team indicate that he is still the owner and therefore, at conflict with the proffered position of the commissioner. Unless we are to believe that Selig contributed out of the goodness of his heart, which would make him all the more incompetent in my book. So Selig, the man who as a minority stock owner tried to block the Braves move from Milwaukee and who decries their leaving at every public opportunity, this man is the putative leader behind the dismantling of an already abjectly poor Brewer club in the last few years, culminating in the planned payroll cut for next year. This is the man who cannot decide the Expos fate and whose victory over the players in last season's labor wars is quickly fading in the rearview mirror. This is the man who was prepared to lop off two teams two seasons ago that have been in a pennant race ever since. It would be interesting to see the Brewers fade into the sunset on his watch.
Permalink |
No comments.
Pinto Beans, er, Beats
2003-11-23 01:39
Rich's Weekend Baseball BEAT interviews my blog sire David Pinto of Baseball Musings fame. Next week Rich will confab with Will Carroll. The week after will be yours truly. I hope Rich has space for a lot of tables.
Permalink |
No comments.
May the Best Man Win…But For the Right Reasons
2003-11-20 01:20
I know I should be happy. The best player from each league won the MVP awards. The writers actually got it "right". When was the last time you could say that? But I have a sneaking suspicion that they only won by default, because of some failing on the part of another player. Albert Pujols had all but won the NL award in the writers' eyes until his Cardinals dropped out of the pennant race. This illustrates how judging a player by the performance of his team cheapens the award. Pujols consistently registered an OPS over 1.000. Pujols' home runs and RBI did fall off in the second half, but the rest of his numbers were consistently high. Is it his fault that the Cardinals were 13-13 in September and just 36-32 in the second half? Don't get me wrong—I thought Bonds should have won in a landslide, but I just think that if your brain tells you to vote for Pujols in August and nothing changes, then it should tell you to vote for him now. Bonds did trail Pujols in Win Shares (41 to 39 and 39 to 36 in hitting Win Shares), but that is due entirely to the time that Bonds missed (32 games). Bonds is still head and shoulders above the rest of the league even after a 100+ point dropoff in OPS. Bonds' 1.278 OPS was the seventh highest all-time, though only his third best since 2001. He was 172 point ahead of second-place Pujols in OPS. There were seven players with 172 points of Pujols in OPS. Bonds was also 42 percentage points ahead of Pujols in league-adjusted OPS (231, 9th best all-time, to 189). I think Bonds must expose some problem with Win Shares' ability to evaluate players. Someone as extreme as Bonds may not be getting evaluated properly. I can't imagine how (other than time lost) he trailed Pujols by three Win Shares in hitting. By the way, Sammy Sosa endorsed Albert Pujols as the NL MVP: "Bonds had good numbers and has a name in the game, but Pujols deserved the award more than anybody." Now take that sentence and swap Sosa for Bonds and McGwire for Pujols. Then change the year to 1998. And I agree completely with Sammy. Finally, many are using Bonds' six MVP awards to argue that he is the greatest player ever. That may be, but for an award that was given to Babe Ruth as often as it was given to Zoilo Versalles, the MVP may not be the ideal tool to determine that. (Ruth only finished in the top ten in MVP voting three times: 1st in 1923, 5th in 1931, and 6th in 1932. Part of that is timing: his 59-homer year in 1921 was before the MVP award was reinstated. He did not receive one vote in his 60-homer 1927 season. The award went to Gehrig that year.) In 1844, the Democrats were split The three nominees for the presidential candidate Were Martin Van Buren, a former president and an abolitionist James Buchanan, a moderate Louis Cass, a general and expansionist From Nashville came a dark horse riding up He was James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump Austere, severe, he held few people dear His oratory filled his foes with fear The factions soon agreed He's just the man we need To bring about victory Fulfill our manifest destiny And annex the land the Mexicans command And when the votes were cast the winner was Mister James K. Polk, Napoleon of the Stump —James K. Polk by They Might Be Giants Alex Rodriguez was the James K. Polk candidate of the AL vote. He did not have any avid supporters but enough general support—mostly because even the writers are not dumb enough to not know that A-Rod is a strong candidate. The cultist candidates (Ortiz, Stewart, and to a lesser degree Tejeda and Wells) split the nut case vote, and let the logic of A-Rod's candidacy come to the fore (just as my friend Murray predicted). By the way, much is being said about A-Rod being on a last-place team and his being just the second MVP from a last-place team. Now, the Rangers were by no means a great team or even a good team, but 71-91 is not a typical record for a last-place team. Their cellar dwelling is more a function of their four-team division—probably the toughest in baseball—than of the general suckiness of the Rangers. When you consider that the Rangers were a fourth-place team, one of their players winning an MVP is not such a rare feat:
Now if they really wanted an argument against Rodriguez's legitimacy as an MVP, they shouldn't couch it in terms of position in the standings but rather in terms of games behind the division/league leader. That's what it's all about anyway, isn't it? Who cares if a team finished in fifth place if it was only 10 games back? Weren't they more involved in a pennant race than a team that finished second but 30 games back? Here's a table of the count of MVPs organized by the number of games back the player's tea, was:
That's A-Rod in the second to last bucket. His Rangers finished 25 games back this past year. He MVP whose team finished more than 30 games behind the league leader was Jake Daubert on the 1913 Brooklyn Dodgers, who finished 34.5 games back. Now, one last criterion actually helps support A-Rod's MVP-ness. That is winning percentage. There have been two other MVPs whose teams had a worse winning percentage than the Rangers (.438). Daubert's Dodgers (.428, 65-84, in 6th place in an 8-team league) is one. The other is the revered Cal Ripken Jr. who edged out Cecil Fielder (a truly awful candidate) in the 1991 AL MVP vote. Ripken's O's were 67-95 for a .414 winning percentage that year, 24 games back, and in sixth place in a seven-team division. But do you ever hear anyone bemoaning the injustice of Ripken winning the award that year? No, that's because 1991 pre-dates this pennant-contender lunacy that has since been invested in the MVP award. So when Jayson Stark asks, "How have all the other voters defined it over the last 70 years?" He fails to mention the parallels to Ripken, another power-hitting shortstop or Ernie Banks' Cubs, who finished below .500 both years he won the MVP. Really what Stark and the rest are employing is bad logic. Let me elucidate: "A-Rod plays for a last-place team" But can Stark or the rest point to a deserving player on a last-place team that has not won the award? Couldn't it just be that the player having the most productive year usually is on a pennant contender? Really, Stark's theory as stated above makes about as much sense as: "Bonds bats left-handed" Modus ponens it aint. By the way, Win Shares supports Ripken as the league co-leader with Frank Thomas in 1991 (34 WS). It also supports A–Rod this year (though only by a fraction of a point above Delgado). It is odd that Alex Rodriguez finally won the award in possibly his fifth best season (1996 and 2000-02 being better). His adjusted OPS (148) was his fifth highest in his eight full-time seasons. His batting average (.298) was the second lowest of his career and the lowest since 1999. His on-base percentage (.396) was his fourth highest. His slugging percentage (.600) was his fifth highest and his lowest since 1999. He had his first sub 1.000 OPS since 1999 (i.e., .995) and his fifth highest overall. His home run total (47) was only his third highest and the lowest in three years. His RBI total (118) was the sixth highest of his career and his lowest since 1999. His run total (124) is again just the fifth highest and his lowest since 1999. Defensively, his range factor as a factor of the league range factor was his all-time low. It was also the first time in the last three seasons that he missed a game. He did, however, set a career high in triples (6) and set an all-time personal high in fielding percentage (.989) in a full season. So A-Rod had, for him, an off season, and yet he was still the best player in the league according to Win Shares. For those of us who have been proponents of A-Rod winning the MVP since he was robbed by that poster boy for RBIs, Juan Gonzalez, in 1996, this is a sweet though long-awaited redemption. The baseball writers should be apologizing for taking so long to recognize A-Rod. Instead they are obsessing of his team's last place finish, while praising Rodriguez as the best player in the AL. To them I say get over it. There have not been that many MVP from teams as poor as the 2003 Rangers, but there haven't been too many shortstops who can consistently lead the league in home runs either. A-Rod is such a unique player that the MVP odds don't matter. Now go back and rectify the '96 award. Just for fun here is a comparison per league of the MVP voting and the Win Shares for each player. For each league I also included the top ranked players in Win Shares who were ignored in the MVP vote. First the AL:
Hudson was the highest ranking pitcher and was on a pennant winner and received zip in the MVP vote. Halladay won the Cy Young but the voters didn't think he deserved an MVP vote. Now the NL:
Scott Rolen was the eleventh player in the NL and did not get one mention. Now here are the most overhyped of those receiving votes, i.e., the players with the greatest disparity between their MVP rank and their Win Shares rank (both leagues listed):
Basically, rookies, relievers, great players having off years, and those two ridiculous picks in the AL, Ortiz and Stewart. Miguel Cabrera looks like a fine player, but he played just 87 games. And it wasn't like he was Kevin Maas or anything: his OPS was just 9% better than the park-adjusted league average. He wasn't even the most valuable player named Cabrera! Now here are the most overlooked, i.e., those who finished lower than expected considering their Win Share ranking (only those receiving votes are listed):
Basically, players that do a lot of things well and a lot were on playoff teams too (huh?). Now let's take a look at the outliers. Here are players whose highest place in the vote is most out of line (high) with his Win Shares:
By the way, Abreu was the only player whose highest place vote (8) was lower than his Win Share ranking (7). Finally, here are the players who received votes the most places below their Win Share ranking:
At first blush I thought that the AL voters did a much worse job than their NL counterparts, but now I'm not sure. Ortiz and Stewart were eccentric picks at best, but at least they didn't vote for rookie players who only played 87 games. With Willis, Cabrera, Smoltz, Russ Ortiz, Guerrero, Pierre, etc. dotting the NL ballots, the NL voters averaged twice the Win Share-MVP rank difference of the AL vote (10.56 to 5.96). Ortiz is still the most ridiculous choice in my opinion because of how high finished (5th). According to Win Shares, he was the ninth best player on his own team! (Behind Ramirez, Garciaparra, Mueller, Martinez, Nixon, Damon, Varitek, and Millar) Lest you think I have a bias against DHs, Ortiz was just the sixth best DH (behind Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Palmeiro, Dmitri Young, and Durazo). Overall, I see a trend towards players who performed well late in the season, no matter what they did early on, on a contending team (Ortiz, Stewart, and Cabrera). Even though A-Rod and Delgado finished in the top two in the AL, this odd interpretation of the award's meaning seems to be taking more and more of a hold on the lemming-like voters. Part of me was hoping that Ortiz would win the AL MVP and we could finally put to rest this anachronistic hanging chad of a voting system.
Permalink |
No comments.
Cy of Relief
2003-11-17 22:07
We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth. —Abraham "Nunez" Lincoln Think not so much of what thou hast not as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best... At the same time, however, take care that thou dost not through being so pleased with them accustom thyself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever thou shouldst not have them. —Marcus "Giles" Aurelius Antoninus from his Meditations He pitched magnificently. In 77 games and 80+ innings he had recorded well over 50 saves and had an ERA well under 2.00. Who cared if his winning percentage was just .400? The Cy Young voters look at his stats and gave the Cy Young to…Bob Welch. Oh, sorry. I wasn't speaking of Eric Gagne, who won the NL Cy Young the other day. It was Bobby Thigpen's great 1990 season that landed him in fourth place in both Win Shares (behind Clemens, Finley and Stewart and fractions ahead of Dennis Eckersley) and the Cy Young vote (behind Welch, Clemens, and Stewart but again ahead of Eckersley). Thigpen and his one great season were the precursor to Gagne. Thigpen never had Gagne's stuff but he was used in a similar fashion and produced similar results. Leading up to Bobby Thigpen's record save year in 1990, baseball was pushing the closer limits as much as possible. In 1988, the major-league average closer recorded 25 saves for the same time. Every non-strike year since then, the average major-league closer has exceeded the 25-save threshold. As the Eighties ended teams used their closers in more and more a similar fashion. The standard deviation for team closers' save totals (6.96) dropped to its lowest since 1976 (not counting the strike year of 1982) and the standard deviation as a percentage of the average saves (27.38) was at an all-time low (just 25.41%). This complacency was broken wide open in 1990 when, even though save totals fell (the average closer had 26.81), the ways that closers were used changed dramatically. The standard deviation of saves per closer nearly doubled and was an all-time high (11.11, which has been exceeded three times since, twice in the last two years). I have already offered my theory on this in my relievers study in the Nineties section. To summarize, the brief offensive onslaught of 1985-87 had subsided and the strategy of using one of your best pitchers as a closer who you hold off on using until late in the game to prevent a late-inning comeback by your opponent fell out of favor. Tony LaRussa started using Dennis Eckersley in what I have termed the post-modern closer mold, i.e., fewer innings, shorter outings, and more saves. Oakland also had a great supporting cast in the bullpen so limiting Eckersley's innings didn't hurt them. This culminated with his 1992 MVP- and Cy Young-winning season, the second 50-save year for a closer. Meanwhile, Thigpen's career feel apart: after his record 57-save season he only recorded 53 total saves for his career. Even though by 1992 Eckersley was used less in the post-modern role than he had been in the previous few (80 innings in 69 appearances), the post-modern closer took root. This was accelerated as most of the next decade were spent in an expansion-induced offensive explosion. Closers were held back until the ninth for fear that a lead would be lost in a final walk-off at-bat. However, as the offensive onslaught slackened, the battle for the preferred usage of the closer role heated up like a debate between Heat Miser and Cold Miser. Since 2000, the varied use of relievers has gone through the roof. The standard deviation of saves hit 11% of the average for the second time since 1990. It's been over 11.25% each of the last two years. Meanwhile, the average number of saves climbed to an all-time high of 32.93 in 2002 only to fall by over four saves (to 28.00) this year. Eric Gagne led all closers with 55 saves, but this year also witnessed a team save leader—dare I say closer—who recorded only 5 saves (Franklyn German and/or Chris Mears of Detroit) and four other AL teams that didn't have a reliever record more than 16 saves (Boston, Seattle, Toronto, and the White Sox). Five saves for a team leader is the least that has been recorded since 1975 in a non-strike year. By the way, here's a quicky comparison of Gagne's 2003 season with Thigpen and Eckersley's 1990 seasons: Name W-L G SV IP H BB K ERA Adj WHIP K:BB K/9IP Win Shares Thigpen 4-6 77 57 88.2 60 32 70 1.83 210 1.04 2.19 7.11 20 Gagne 2-3 77 55 82.1 37 20 137 1.20 335 0.69 6.85 14.98 25 Eck 4-2 63 48 73.1 41 4 73 0.61 606 0.61 18.25 8.96 20 They all had great years, but only Gagne won the Cy Young. OK, so where does that leave us? Oh, yeah, I don't think Gagne deserved the award this year (I would have tabbed Mark Prior or Jason Schmidt myself) and I'll explain why. First, let me explain from an historical point of view. Just as Bill James said in 1991 of Bobby Thigpen's save record, "Obviously, Thigpen's record was brought about in part because of a change in the way that relief pitchers are used-a generalized change, operating th[r]oughout baseball," so too is Gagne's stats brought about by a recent return to that strategy. Baseball took a slight evolutionary detour after the great success of Dennis Eckersley. This Neanderthaloid evolutionary dead end took a decade during perhaps the game's greatest offensive era, the Mets-ozoic Era, which also encompassed two rounds of expansion. Perhaps with all the expansion bullpens got too watered down. It became very difficult to build a bullpen as effective as the Eck-era A's pen. There have been very good pens of late, but they seem to be more capturing lightning in a jar than crafting a pen by design. Perhaps the trend played itself out. I mean, how long can you employ one of your best pitchers for just 50 innings a year? Byung-Hyun Kim moved back to the rotation and then back. Former closer Danny Graves went 4-15 in 2003, his first year as a full-time starter. And of course Derek Lowe successfully moved back to starting last year. Also, teams started to realize that reliance on a player just because he has recorded 30 or o saves in the past is ludicrous. Big name closers like Mike Williams, Jose Mesa, Scott Williamson, Armando Benitez, and Billy Koch lost closer jobs on their teams or were traded to other teams and no longer closed. Journeymen like Rocky Biddle, Joe Borowski, Tom Gordon, Tim Worrell, Lance Carter, and Rod Beck inherited closer jobs and for the most part performed well. Needless to say, the job of closer has gone through a reevaluation period the last couple of seasons. In Gagne, the Dodgers appointed a hard-throwing yet highly unsuccessful young starter as their closer in 2002. It revitalized his career to say the least. However, I see Gagne as a throwback to the Thigpen line. It's not that he hasn't pitched well, very well. I just think that his performance looks all the better for the shamples that closer role has become on many clubs, as well as his calling Dodgers Stadium home (though his 2003 home-road splits show no bias to Dodgers Stadium). He happens to be in the right role at the right time. To illustrate, there have been 87 closers all time with at least 20 saves and an ERA under 2.00, starting with Ellis Kinder in 1953. 53 of them have done it while pitching at least 80 innings. Well, one can argue that 20 saves is not 55. However, I think that the number of saves a closer records to a very large degree depends on his era and his usage. The Reds' Ted Abernathy recorded a 1.27 ERA in 1967 with 28 saves and a 6-3 record in 106.1 innings pitched. I know it was a pitcher's era, but his league-adjusted ERA is about the same as Gagne's (295 to 335) and he did it in so many more innings. In 1967, 28 saves were enough to lead the majors. So of course Abernathy got a ton of CyYoung votes, right? Uh, no. He didn't receive a one. Mike Mccormick, Jim Bunning, and Fergie Jenkins were the only men to receive any votes that year. Abernathy's season was worthy of 24 Win Shares, one fewer than Gagne this year and fractions behind league leader Bunning. You say you want someone more recent. How about John Wetteland's 1993 season with the Expos? He was 9-3 with 43 saves in 85.1 innings over 70 appearances. He struck out 113 and walked just 28. His ERA was 1.37 and his adjusted ERA was 304. That's a pretty close match to Gagne. He was awarded 21 Win Shares, but was fourth behind league-leading Greg Maddux and Jose Rijo. I should also point out that the Dodger bullpen featured two other pitchers with ERAs under 2.00, Paul Quantrill (1.75 ERA in 77.1 innings) and Guillermo Mota (1.97 in 105 innings). I have said that the Dodgers are the anti-Rockies. Pitchers go to the Dodgers and resurrect their careers (e.g. Hideo Nomo's second stint, Wilson Alvarez, Kevin Gross, and Odalis Perez , at least in 2002). Then when they leave they fall flat on their faces (e.g., Hideo Nomo after his first stint, Kevin Gross, Chan Ho Park, Ismael Valdes, Ramon Martinez, and Tim Belcher ). Not that pitching for the Dodgers bars a player from winning a Cy Young, but it should make us a bit leery just like we were of Vinny Castilla's and Dante Bichette's stats in Colorado. Well, what about Gagne's historic 14.98 strikeouts per nine innings figure? Bill Wagner was the man he beat out (14.95 K/9 IP in 1999), and Wagner finished fourth in the Cy Young vote that year. The last stat that people will throw out is Win Shares. Gagne led NL pitchers with 25 Win Shares, three more than Mark Prior, Jason Schmidt, and Livan Hernandez. Did anyone notice that Rheal Cormier finished 19th in the NL in pitching Win Shares, ahead of every other Phillie? Cormier had a very good season (1.70 ERA, 8-0 record, 54 hits and 25 walks in 84.2 innings/65 appearances). However, given that the Phils had four men win 14 games and three pitch over 200 innings, few would pick Cormier as their best pitching asset. The reason is that Win Shares for relief pitchers is inherently problematic. I don't want to take anything away from James: Win Shares is probably the crowning moment of the career of baseball's greatest analyst since Henry Chadwick. However, trying to assign Win Shares to relievers is like trying to hit a moving target. The landscape of relief pitching has changed dramatically since James published Win Shares just two years ago. How can a standard formula be applied to all relievers throughout baseball history, especially when it takes a half dozen just to figure fielding Win Shares for third basemen throughout baseball history? Given that relief pitching Win Shares were derived basically via a compromise in James' formulae, who's to say they are accurate for the 2003 season? Individual pitching Win Shares are derived from assigning claim points to a team's staff via a set of criteria and then meting out Win Shares appropriately. The criteria are runs allowed (the largest factor); wins, losses, and saves; save-equivalent innings; and batting. The claim point formula for wins/losses is ((W*3)-L+Sv) / 3 (p. 35). That seems pretty straightforward. Of course, one could argue that this formula really doesn’t measure anything, but at least it's straightforward enough. My problem is with Save Equivalent or Crucial innings. That formula is to multiply saves by three, cap the result at 90% of actual innings pitched, and finally add one for each hold (Hello, Rheal Cormier). The save-equivalent innings are then multiplied by the pitcher's component ERA added to a constant (.56) minus the team cutoff to get the claim points. OK, why not? But why 90%? Why not 80%? Or perhaps why not an era-specific percentage? Why multiple by three? Why not 2 or 4? Why not 2 in 2003 and 4 in 1967? To say that a save is a save no matter the era is problematic at best. Win Shares is a valuable tool, but it's just that, a tool. Sometimes it proves useful; sometimes not. And given that the formulae for starting pitchers' and relief pitchers' Win Shares differ a great deal, it becomes dangerous to use Win Shares as the be all and end all for ranking all pitchers. I think Win Shares is the shakiest ground from which to build one's argument for Gagne's Cy Young legitimacy. Gagne had a fine season, but I cannot accept an argument that his 82.1 innings were superior to Prior's 211.1 or Schmidt's 207.2 even if they came in save opportunities. And what of save opportunities? James showed in his New Historical Baseball Abstract that a closer is best used in games in which his team leads by one, the score is tied, or possibly if his team trails by one. Only one of those three would even be considered a save opportunity. Using a closer to hold a three-run lead in the ninth is mere overkill. So, next we will take a look at Gagne's game log to determine if his appearances were indeed that crucial to his team's success to merit winning the award. Here is a table of Gagne's appearances and the situation when he entered the game. A Dodger lead is represented by the number of runs they led by at the time. If the Dodgers trailed, then the number of runs they trailed by is represented by a negative number: Situation -3+ -2 -1 Tied 1 2 3+ # Games: 2 0 1 13 24 11 26 Gagne seemed to be used in almost all of the Dodgers extra inning games (16). All of his five decisions came after he entered a tie ballgame. He gave up four runs in a tied game on May 12, one on June 23, and one on July 2, all for losses. He gave a run in a tie game on August 20, but the Dodgers came back to win the game. His second win he garnered when the Dodgers broke a tie ballgame in extra innings that when he was pitching. His other three appearances in which he relinquished a run were a) he gave up two runs when the Dodgers already trailed by more than 3, b) he gave up a run when he was provided a two-run lead, and c) he gave a run with a 3-run lead. Basically, Gagne made 37 or 38 significant appearances out of 77. His 37 appearances when staked to two or more runs (26 with 3 or more) are the 19-yard field goal for closers. A competent one should be able to hold that lead. Yes, he did not blow any and yes, he only gave up two runs in those 37 games. However, if he were an average reliever, how many of those could he have blown? The Dodgers' team ERA was 3.16. An average Dodger pitcher would not have blown more than a handful of those games. So it comes down to 13 tie ballgames, 24 with a one-run Dodger lead, and the one the Dodgers trailed by one run, i.e., the close games in which Gagne pitched. He "blew" four of those 13 tie ballgames, but none of the one-run leads. So basically Gagne was given the award for 33 or 34 ballgames in which he pitched mostly one inning. Prior started 30 games and Schmidt 29 and each went significantly longer than one or two innings in those ballgames. Finally, the Dodgers were 26-23 in one-run ballgames, so how significant was Gagne's performance anyway? Gagne had a stellar year, but the role of the closer is still too marginalized to merit winning a Cy Young award.
Permalink |
No comments.
MoY Macho
2003-11-16 03:12
Idle old man, —William "Author" Shakespeare, King Lear Managing is getting paid for home runs someone else runs. — Casey Stengel, inventor of Stengelese I gave the baseball writers a hard time for the Rookie of the Year results, but I have to agree with their choices for Manger of the Year wholeheartedly (or MoY to save me typing). Tony Pena took a moribund franchise that had divested itself of all its veteran starting pitchers and made it a competitive, if ultimately unsuccessful, team. Jack Mckeon took a team that was 16-22 in fourth place in a five-team division (if you count the Mets as a major-league team) and won the whole shebang. The only argument some had against McKeon was that Dusty Baker took a team, the Cubs, that had been almost 30 games under .500 the previous year and won his division in a tough three-team race. Joe Morgan in a recent chat session opined that Baker was the best candidate and mentioned Felipe Alou and Bobby Cox but failed to mention McKeon. Baker ended up a distant second in the NL vote. That got me to thinking, which is a rare event. Evaluating managers is a quite subjective and highly mercurial task. Look at Grady Little. He ended up fourth in the AL vote, directly ahead of the Yankees' Joe Torre, but is out of a job. (By the way, how did Lou Piniella end up with four second-place votes with a team that logged a 63-99 record? It's true that the D Rays improved by 8 games in 2003 and had their best year since 2000, but if the team were pilot |