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Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Andre The Hawk Dawson speaks
A nice little interview with Hawk.
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Friday, May 04, 2012
Oil Can Boyd
For those of you who missed out on the 1980s, Oil Can was one of those characters to appreciate. Great job by Bruce!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter?
(All data excludes post-season, which obviously, is not a smart thing to do, but it is a lazy thing to do on my part.)
According to Rally’s version of WAR (rWAR):
70 wins Jeter
56 wins Mariano
Fangraphs (fWAR) says:
76 Jeter
39 Mariano (not credited for low BABIP)
Baseball Pro (WARP) says:
60 Jeter
33 Mariano (not credited for leverage, I don’t think)
Average of the three:
69 Jeter
43 Mariano
How much were they paid in their careers to date?
220MM$ Jeter
144MM$ Mariano
So, the stats say it’s Jeter, and the Yankees says it’s Jeter. But fans I’ll bet would be split evenly.
Interesting aside, this is how much they were paid per win:
3.2MM$ per win Jeter
3.3MM$ per win Mariano
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Ode to Bob Brenly
We tried to appeal to Joe Morgan’s inner-sabre, telling him that he was one of the best players in the history of the game. That didn’t seem to work. Blyleven did listen to Rich, and that turned out pretty good. Now, Bradley is trying it with Brenly.
Round XXX: Hall of Fame and the gatekeeper drunk with power
This time, it’s Dayn Perry’s turn to expose them.
Even though Gomez’s stated reason for suspecting Bagwell of PED use is roundly disproven, he decides to, in essence, stick out his tongue and appeal to his own misplaced authority. (You may recognize this approach to argument from its formal title, “Rhetorical Techniques of the Chastened Pre-Schooler.") As Hall-of-Fame voting privileges go, it’s a dereliction of duties.
...
The Hall of Fame is a wonderful place, but it deserves better gatekeepers than Gomez.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Wins Above Average
Wins Above Average is a component of Wins Above Replacement.
We’ve talked about whether WAA or WAR is better for Hall of Fame, in the past. The best we’ve come up with is to only take those seasons where a player’s WAA was a plus, and add those up. The idea is that a player can’t hurt his chances to making the HOF, by playing too long.
Why is this a DP and not a sac bunt?
The runner reached base safely, the sac bunt was completed. But then the runner decided to let himself get thrown out after the play. Is this one of those “continuous plays” calls that the play isn’t over until.... something else stops the play?
And why in the world is Cliff Lee throwing to 2B there?
Monday, April 02, 2012
“Lack of Necessities of Blacks”: the many layers of Campanis-speak
Fantastic piece on ESPN, regarding Al Campanis. Many under 30 may not appreciate the story, and anyone over 40 will appreciate this behind-the-scenes recap.
It’s interesting that “necessities” is automatically meant to be taken as “necessary intelligence” (as I had taken it at the time), but that the intended meaning as reported by those close to Campanis to mean “necessary experience”. Had Campanis said that management was about the “old boys network”, and so, it’s very hard for a black person or a woman to break through, then the “necessities” may have been self-evident. But, in that limelight, it’s not at all how it came out. And given an opportunity to make himself clearer, Campanis stumbled even more.
The account simply makes it seem like a huge misunderstanding, and that bad things happened to good people.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Most critical at bat in MLB history
Leverage Index continues to find the stories that would otherwise be left for dead.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Bill James Tracers: On Bill James
Bill James had this great thing called Tracers, where he would investigate some claim someone said, based on his memory. Neyer I think did the bulk of those, and then Neyer expanded that into a book. Usually, those claims ended up being false.
Well, now someone decided to do a tracer on Bill James’ claims of events he remembered.
Derek Jeter: greatest career for a player at the SS position?
Rather than saying “greatest shortstop”, I wrote it like I did above. It’s less nuanced, and shows that we’re looking at the total package (offense and fielding), so it knocks out Ozzie probably. Also, the nuance of what to do with ARod goes away as well, as it knocks him out as well. And knocks Ripken down a peg (a little but not enough). And as you know, to me a career is not just “regular season”, which is a silly way to limit a player’s accomplishment, as if Pele winning three World Cups don’t count or something (starting at age 17!!).
And as Neyer, notes, what to do with Honus Wagner. Only in baseball would we consider a player who played over 100 years ago as THE comparison point. But, that’s how myths get created. And Neyer makes the point that by not having a timeline adjustment, you can make a reasonable case that virtually all the greatest players played 50 years ago or later.
Anyway, you can make a very reasonable case that Derek Jeter is indeed the player who has had the greatest career at the SS position.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Hall of “Very Good”
An interesting project.
***
On a related note: Can the Straight Arrow readers propose something better than “Very Good”, because that’s what I see in many different forums. As it stands, that term legitimizes the existing Hall of Fame’s treatment of Hershiser, Saberhagen, Dennis Martinez, et al, and cements them as not great. These guys have legitimate cases for a “Hall of Greats”. Just because the BBWAA hasn’t adorned them with that pin doesn’t mean that we should only talk about them as “very good”.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Moving a young veteran over for an unproven prospect
According to this, Escobar of the Jays may be asked to move over to 2B.
When the Mets acquired Kaz Matsui, they already had Jose Reyes. Reyes had already shown what he could do both hitting and fielding-wise at the MLB level. Matsui didn’t, but, they thought he was the better option at SS. It did not take long for the Mets fans to turn on him. Mets management finally swapped Reyes back to SS and put Matsui at 2B in the next season. This was because Matsui wasn’t as good a fielder.
But, say you have Barry Larkin and Pokey Reese? The case on the fielding side for an aging Larkin and a young Reese is easy: put Reese at SS. But, what if Reese can’t hit? What do you do? Put Larkin back at SS? How long do you wait out Reese? You have Mike Cameron in CF and you acquire Carlos Beltran. Even if Cameron is the better CF, you have a long-term plan with Beltran, so, it’s easier to keep Beltran in CF and move Cameron out.
So, having an established player like Escobar move over for a rookie is showing enormous faith in the rookie.
I’d like to hear of other historical decisions like this, where the incumbent (preferably under 30) was moved over for a rookie. I can’t check right now, but since Ozzie started in the league young and famously played every single inning at SS (that true? I think it is), did he displace an established young veteran?
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Ian Kinsler is divisive?
This is pretty shocking:
The Texas Rangers’ position player who divided the fan base more than any other last season was Ian Kinsler, and there wasn’t a close second.
Too many pop-ups and too low of a batting average, cried fans in e-mails and on Twitter, especially as the leadoff hitter for a team trying to defend its American League championship.
Over the last 4 years, Ian Kinsler is #11 in fWAR and #12 in rWAR. In MLB.
I do see that he’s poor in the clutch, and if you include that, he drops down to around #20. It’s sensational production, no matter how you slice it.
Why are Rangers fans upset with him? This feels like it’s still 1982, as we’re learning about how runs get created, and the value of a glove, and batting average rules the day.
This is yet another example why batting average needs to be eradicated. It’s just too easy to use as a sword against someone.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ode to Pitcher Wins
Bradford gives it his all… and it’s not enough for me.
If seasonal pitcher wins were limited to what they are, to help with the description of a story, then fine. But, it’s peripheral to the story, an exclamation mark. You don’t construct entire paragraphs or even stories centered around a pitcher win, and have that mean anything. Batting average, RBIs, errors, etc, all those things don’t help the analysis, the meaning, of what happened.
It’s quick, it’s dirty, but when you want to clean up the job, you toss those things aside, because those things helped create the mess to begin with.
And that’s why I don’t like seeing those things, because so many people continue to poop out those things in our never-ending quest to scrub a clean story.
How many times are we relegated to push that rock up that hill or pick up our kid’s socks from the floor? That’s what pitcher wins and batting average really are.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Mike Cameron v Jim Rice: context
Poz implores us to consider the context. Love this part:
Take a look at these two sets of numbers:
1. .255/.353/.462 with 203 doubles, 28 triples, 155 homers.
2. .277/.330/.459 with 166 doubles, 35 triples, 166 homers.
Hmm. That’s pretty close despite the batting average difference. Player 1 has more extra base hits in fewer games with a measurably better on-base percentage. Those are, of course, the two players’ road numbers — Player 1 is Mike Cameron, Player 2 is Jim Rice.
Mike Cameron and Kenny Lofton: saber darlings.
***
Mike Cameron’s 5 five seasons has him with an Individualized Won-Loss record of 42-4. Jim Rice’s 5-best seasons has him at 47-9.
(That page ends at 2008, and making a quick estimate for Cameron, I have 6-3 for 2009, 2-1 in 2010, and 1-3 in 2011.)
In all, Mike Cameron’s Indis is 88-36, while Jim Rice is 87-54. This is based on rWAR.
But neither are Kenny Lofton: 46-0 in his 5 best seasons, 112-32 for his career. He’s a Tim Raines clone, who himself comes in at 45-1 or 48-3 in his 5 best, and 113-44 for his career.
Indeed, Kenny Lofton was Ichiro! before Ichiro. But, these great fielding do-everything players are forgotten, because everyone waits for the dust to settle and look at HR in peak years. That where their memories are. People love those singular signature things they can put their hat on. They don’t want the long treatise and the discussions that require penetrating thought. They want the twitter-version. And Jim Rice, who should stand behind Raines, Lofton, and Cameron, instead stands above them, because you can make a case for Rice in 140 characters that you can’t with the others.
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