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Monday, July 26, 2010
The Perfect Player
In 1985, Tim Raines had an Individualized Won-Loss ("The Indis") record of 11 wins and negative 1 loss. If we include his other 4 big years…
1981 6-0
1985 11+1 (*)
1986 8-1
1987 10+1
1992 9-1
he comes in at a total of 44 Wins and 0 Losses. So, he was a perfect 44-0.
(*) I’m using the Bill James convention that a negative loss is represented by a + sign, since the traditional W-L records have a dash (ostensibly a negative sign) preceding the L.
This could essentially be characterized as the mountain cap of a player’s peak years. His cap years, if you like. Raines’ 44 wins in his cap years puts him at #106 among non-pitchers. (Andre Dawson was 45-0 in his cap years.)
In 1st place is Barry Bonds, with 237 Indi Wins in his cap years. Indeed, since his career is 237+42, Bonds’ cap years is his entire career. The same applies for all the top players, with cap years matching their entire careers:
Wins Player
237 Bonds
232 Cobb
227 Ruth
211 Mays
207 Aaron
199 Ho Wagner
How many wins would we need to say “This player’s cap years were so perfect, I think he’s one of the best players ever”? That is, at what point does someone have an Albert Pujols peak, that, had he done nothing afterwards, that he’s an automatic for immortality?
Among players from the last couple of decades, we find these players and their cap wins:
156 Schmidt (-8 Losses)
156 Rickey (-2)
136 ARod (-3)
108 Boggs (-2)
103 Brett (-1)
97 Pujols (-9) (Through 2008)
89 Junior (-3)
85 Edmonds (-1), 39th all-time
82 Bagwell (-2)
81 Piazza (0)
80 Carter Gary (0)
79 Ripken (-1)
It seems to me that when we talk about a player’s cap years, Jim Edmonds has reached immortality status. His peak is so high that it’s almost irrelevant what else he may have done.
If that is not the case, if the line to be drawn is somewhere below Junior but above Edmonds, such that we’re talking about less than 39 players in MLB history, then we are pretty much ignoring the peak argument, and we’re simply settling on a career argument. That compiling a long career is just about the only compelling case one can make.
Patriot has suggested that the next sabermetric darling for HOF support (after Blyleven and Raines) is Jeff Bagwell. But I think Jim Edmonds is the one player that will take a beating from the BBWAA, especially since Junior will likely appear on the same ballot.
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