THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wow, that’s a lot of similarity.

But come on now: it takes a true Hall of Fame talent to be able to happen to be a full-time starter for an entire numerical decade, to play for a team that scores a lot of runs throughout that time, and to happen to have almost all your good years and none of your bad ones fall in that same period between years ending in 0. Let’s stop pretending like Morris is just a product of numerological chance--he chose to be born in the year in which he chose to be born, just like you, me, Moyer and everybody else.

For all the “Morris doesn’t deserve it” talk, it’s not like he’s been inducted. He only got ~45% of the vote this year and ~43% the year before.

Do you want to know where Steib, Martinez, Hershiser et al topped off at?

Until he eventually gets to 75% nobody will remember who topped out at what.

It is a very good comparison though.  They are in the same ballpark in my WAR ratings (Moyer ahead).  As for peak value, Morris’s best 3 year stretch was 85-87 (15.4) while Moyer was 14.6 in 97-99.  Neither compares to high peak candidates like these:

Dizzy Dean (34-36) 21.5
Ron Guidry (77-79) 19.1
Sandy Koufax (64-66) 26.8

Rally: I object that we have to hear about Morris for 15 years, while the rest of his peers had 1 or 2 years of consideration.  In no way does Morris deserve this level of discussion.

This is just like Rice/Evans.  Evans was considered the better player in 1990, in terms of chances for the HOF!  Somehow, BBWAA has rewritten history.  This is yet another example of the media creating news instead of reporting it.

It’s true that if Morris is not eventually selected, no one will remember what his percentage was. 

But just being in the mix in HOF discussions can do a lot for a player’s reputation.  Jack Morris is remembered every year for a month or two.  Dave Stieb, David Cone, Rick Reuschel, Jerry Koosman not so much.

And whether Morris ever makes it or not, the fact that he is getting 45% and other comparable pitchers get <10% is telling about how the voters think.  Ryan Howard didn’t win the MVP award last year, but the fact that he finished second still impacts my perception of the award (or would if it wasn’t in the toilet to begin with).

Bill/1: heh

How about Morris vs Moyer in

WAR and FIP?

vr, Xei

Geesh, not only do you not think Stieb merits serious contention for the Hall of Hame, you can’t even spell his name right....

What about the Game 7 of the ‘91 World Series?  If I’m evaluating his talent as a pitcher, that only changes my opinion of him a little bit since it’s just one game.  But if I’m evaluating his Hall worthiness, I’d consider that to be a much bigger deal.

Yes, I hear that game is worth something like 40 wins for Morris.

And what do you do with his Jays 1992 World Series performance?  Pretend it didn’t happen?

I like to look at baseball-reference similarity score and see how many of his top 10 are in the HOF - It;s a quick look if similar guys to him are in the HOF

Morris’s top 10 has 6 HOFers - with Moyer his 2nd (Dennis Martinez is 1st)

Moyer and Martinez are most similar to each other, but only have 3 and 2 comps in HOF

So, somehow Morris gets in the company of Feller, Gibson, etc. which makes him “look” more like a HOFer.

When did I say he doesn’t merit serious consideration?  Being in the Hall of Very Good means that you are in the discussion.

And are you seriously taking me for task for misspelling Steib/Stieb in a blog post?  Or am I just missing the dry humor?

For the record, I did not intend my post to be interpreted as an exhaustive list of all factors that should be considered when evaluating his HOF chances.  So, I was not intending to suggest we pretend ‘92 didn’t happen.  It should count as a negative, just as his ‘84 postseason counts as a positive.

But neither is as big a deal as the Game 7 in ‘91.  If his career records and WAR put him in the same category as Moyer, Tanana, etc, I would still see him as standing above those guys in terms of HOF worthiness.  (Though I doubt I’d go so far as to say he should be in).

I’d be fine with Morris getting into the Hall of Fame… as long as all those other guys got in too (Stieb, Cone, Saberhagen, Martinez, etc.). Right now there’s a dearth of pitchers in the HOF who debuted in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They’re underrepresented IMHO compared to the hitters.

Was Dave Winfield really a more dominant outfielder than Dave Stieb was a pitcher (sustained quality but light on awards and “black ink")? Robin Yount vs. Orel Hershiser (a couple brilliant seasons and a lot of average ones)? Jim Rice vs. Frank Tanana (big peak, quick fade, though Tanana was able to add a second act)? Tony Perez vs. Dennis Martinez (key roles on good teams while never really ascending to true stardom)? Kirby Puckett vs. Bret Saberhagen (short career packed with highlights)? [Heck, J.R. Richard would be a better comp for Puckett.]

Point being, the bar for the last generation of starting pitchers has been set unnecessarily high. Morris going in by himself would look pretty bad—he’d be a big outlier—but if it was Morris +5 or even +10 others, and Morris was the worst, the “diluted” group of HOF pitchers would still be approximately as good as the recent crop of hitters (Rice, Perez, Carter, Puckett, Molitor).

Let me try one.

Now batting for the Toronto Blue Jays: Tim Raines!

Tim Raines hit 170 home runs and Kevin Millar has hit 167 home runs. They’re almost the same guy! Anybody who liked Tim Raines should be ASHAMED of themselves!

I agree that there is a dearth.  Between when Nolan Ryan was born (1947) and Roger Clemens (1962), minimum 2000 IP, here are the best ERA+:

http://www.bb-ref.com/play-index/shareit/3dZ9

122 Stieb
122 Key, Jimmy
119 Guidry
119 Blyleven (4970 IP)
116 Eck (includes relief)
116 Rogers, Steve
114 Candeleria, John (3548 IP)
114 Matlack
114 Reuschel
112 Viola
112 Hershiser (3130 IP)

After that, it’s at 108 and below.

Excluding Eck, that’s only 10 pitchers of any notable quality.  And of those, only 3 pitched more than 3000 innings.  Note that Jack Morris doesn’t even make this list, since his career ERA is only 5% better than the league average.

The reason that there is a dearth is that pitchers from the Jack Morris era simply did not stand out, other than Blyleven.

Therefore, I don’t agree that they are unduly under-represented.  Blyleven has an extremely strong claim.  Eck was simply the writers having no idea how to value relievers.

Normally, in a 10-yr time period, you should be able to get 7-10 quality pitchers as HOF picks.  In this (cherry-picked) 14 year period, you have really only one (Bert).

Compare this to the 1962 (Clemens) to 1971 (Pedro) era:
http://www.bb-ref.com/play-index/shareit/tkPB
154 Pedro (2783 IP)
143 Clemens (4917)
136 RJ (4131)
132 Maddux (5008)
127 Schilling (3261)
127 Brown, Ke (3256)
127 Smoltz (3415)
126 Saberhagen
123 Mussina (3563)
121 Appier
120 Cone
118 Glavine (4413)
115 Finley (3197)
113 Gordon, Flash
112 Leiter

111 Gooden
109 Gubicza
108 Wakefield, Wells, Hentgen, Ke Rogers

That’s an enormous talent level.  Not only do you have 9 guys with a higher ERA+ than Stieb’s era-leading ERA+, but they did it with more IP than Stieb.

"Eck was simply the writers having no idea how to value relievers.”

They may have no clue, but they got the call right on Eck.  I have him just under 60 WAR for his career.

Here’s one I don’t get, since their numbers are almost identical (60.1 WAR, 114 ERA+, in the 220 wins range):  Jim Bunning and Luis Tiant.  The only difference I can see is that Tiant had more big years (you’d think peak value should mean something).  That and Tiant didn’t go into politics.

Eck is a borderline case, as 59 WAR would suggest.  Other contemporaries of Eck, using Rally’s WAR:

http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/top500p.htm

58 Cone
59 Koosman
59 John, To
60 Tiant

64 Palmer, Ji
65 Smoltz
65 Brown, Ke
66 Reuschel (!)

He’s not that far below some guys who seem like no-brainers, Marichal, Palmer, and Hubbell.

There are 67 pitchers in the HOF, Eckersley has the 46th best WAR number. 

But there are several others pitchers in the same range who are not considered HOF material.  Not to mention the ridiculous situation where Blyleven keeps falling short.

Bunning was a Vets pick, FWIW (no one said otherwise, I’d just thought I’d mention it).

The real pitching head-scratcher is Catfish.  Waltzed right in on his third ballot despite a record inferior to Tiant, Vida Blue, Reuschel, Koosman, Blyleven, and other contemporaries or near-contemporaries. Obviously he benefited from pitching for six World Series teams, and I’d guess the perfect game and phony nickname didn’t hurt either.

The only BBWAA starter choice I’d even consider advocating Catfish over is Pennock.

Rally: it would be super great if you can add a “HOF, not eligible, Not HOF” in your list.

That aside, of the pitchers within 5 WAR of Eck, what percentage are in the HOF?

Good idea.  I was planning on adding a column showing everyone’s first and last year as well.

It is done.

http://www.baseballprojection.com/war/top500p.htm

Rally- awesome stuff, I didn’t know you had the entire leaderboards set up.

I wonder how many wins Morris would have had if he pitched for the Tigers between 1994-2005.  I think we would have seen a lot of 14-17 and 15-16 seasons
and a lot whining from the affable Morris about lack of support, lack of commitment to winning from management, etc.

The real crime is that Lou Whitaker got eliminated on the first ballot while many writers try to push Morris into the Hall of Fame.  Trammell is a better choice than Morris too. 

Lee

Consider for a moment that, even on a site dedicated to baseball statistics, it is true that players, not statistics, get into the HOF. The only statistic that matters is 75%—the percentage of ballots a player needs to appear on. Suitable criteria are whatever the individual voter decides to base his/her vote upon.

Who ever proclaimed that players would be elected strictly on the basis of statistics? If any of you think think that’s the way it should be, just be aware that this is a “rule” which you have pulled from thin air.

Perfect games, great postseason performances, dramatic home runs—these things certainly figure greatly in a players’ “fame”. Character and personality count, too. Otherwise, they would call it the the Hall of Statistically Exceptional Baseball Players.

Sure, statistics matter. But they aren’t all that matter. I love stats, but despite the fact that you can reduce baseball to a huge database of numbers, those numbers only attempt to quantify reality. The reality of baseball is that it’s an entertainment, a drama populated by personalities. Stats can make the game more interesting for some fans, but it’s equally valid to love the game without loving stats. The game doesn’t belong only to the stat-obsessed. We all need to accept that.

I know that just about every montage of baseball clips I’ve ever seen includes Kirk Gibson limping ‘round the bases pumping his fist. Surely that’s one of the greatest moments in baseball history, no? I’m not saying it should put Gibby in the Hall, but if he were a borderline case, who is to say that shouldn’t weigh in the decision for some voters?

What it comes down to is that all objective AND SUBJECTIVE data is being quantified, so that you end up with the ONE NUMBER.

I hear the absurd conversations at my old job about employee compensation.  One manager has a spreadsheet, he puts in his numbers, and compensation is based on that.  Some employees objected, that it should be on a case-by-case basis, that some things are not quantifiable.

EXCEPT: your salary is the quantifiable result of that process!  So, even if you don’t think that everything is quantifiable, everything must somehow be quantified!  Otherwise, that thing that is so hard to quantify would be tossed aside.  If “good humor” at work is something positive, the manager has to quantify it somehow in order to translate that into your salary.

Same thing here.  What makes a HOFer?  Well, there are alot of objective and subjective considerations.  And you need to quantify those things, weight those things, in a systematic manner, so that two equivalents end up with the same result.  If you want to give Morris huge credit for 1991 World Series, and no negative credit for his 1992 World Series, then you need to say so, so that the other players with a huge post-season one year and poor post-season another year is equally credited.

Whatever happens, whatever you do, you are always quantifying things.  Should I cross the street if I see a fast approaching car two blocks away?  Well, you may not be doing the exact math calculations, and you are relying on your instincts and experience, but in the end, you have quantified these qualitative judgements so that you make a yes/no decision.

This is true in every single action you perform.  If it is not quantified (explicitly or implicitly), then the action you take is based purely on random chance.

I agree that he deserves credit for that World Series game. I think the key point here is that Morris is no more borderline than Gibson is—you see all the comps above, and any remotely comparable player to him that IS in the Hall is an inexplicable mistake (like Hunter). If you think all that’s separating Steve Rogers from the Hall of Fame is one good game in the World Series, you have a very different view than I do of what the Hall of Fame is.

Orel Hershiser doesn’t get any HOF support, but his career was better than Morris and while he doesn’t have that one game to point to, his run through the 1988 postseason may be just as important.

Hershiser’s 1988 playoff run (including his hitting!) was far more powerful than Morris’ 1991 game. 

I lived through both, and I don’t think it was particularly close.  Are others of the same opinion?