THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Monday, April 27, 2009

Historical pitcher WAR

Rally does all the hard work to give us the pitcher WAR in the Retro years.  Rally uses my definition for leverage impact, which is halfway between his LI and 1.0 (as a way to deal with chaining). As you can see in the link, Mo has a WAR of +47 wins.  Kevin Brown and Curt Schilling are in the gray area of +65 to +70 wins.

I always trot out these 9 starters, as they were born between 1962-1971, and clearly represent the best starters of this generation:

+128 Clemens
+97 Maddux
+92 Randy

+75 Pedro
+75 Mussina

+70 Schilling
+67 Glavine
+65 Brown
+65 Smoltz

As I said, Mo is at +47, when you depress his leverage.  Otherwise, he’d be around +65 if you give him credit for the full LI.  Trevor Hoffman comes in even lower at under +30, as does Billy Wagner.  Relievers simply get killed in these metrics.  Quiz is +24.  Goose is +40.

Of course, none of this considers the post-season.  Clearly the post-season should count for more than zero.  I’d probably count it as at least double, if not more.

Among those of the previous generation (born after Nolan Ryan, but before our big 9), 1948-1961, as their names pop into my head:
+90 Blyleven

+66 Rick Reuschel
+59 Eck
+58 David Cone
+55 Saberhagen
+55 Tanana
+53 Stieb
+52 Hershiser
+47 Dennis Martinez
+46 Steve Rogers

+42 Bob Welch
+39 Jack Morris

Jack Morris = Jim Rice.  We’re going to have to put up with this until his 15th year.