tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38351812558910236622024-03-08T10:49:01.734-08:00I'm Not Mad, I'm Just DisappointedDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-91167782073331452722014-10-10T12:33:00.001-07:002014-10-10T12:33:14.864-07:002014 Internet Baseball Awards BallotJust this week, for the fifth year in a row, I voted in the Internet Baseball Awards at Baseball Prospectus. You can read my old ballots from <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2011/10/2011-ibas.html">2011</a>, <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/10/2012-ibas.html">2012</a>, and <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/10/2013-awards-my-picks.html">2013</a> on the site (for some reason, I never posted my 2010 results on the blog; I'm not sure why). Anyone can vote in these, as long as they have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus - including the "free" subscription level, which is what I've been using for four years. Anyway, the whole thing is a lot of fun, and it's definitely the <i>only</i> thing I do with any regularity on this blog, so I figured I might as well pass along whom I voted for this year:<br />
<br />
AL Manager of the Year<br />
1. Lloyd McClendon, Seattle<br />
2. Terry Francona, Cleveland<br />
3. Buck Showalter, Baltimore<br />
<br />
As per usual, I just try to think, "Where did I think each team would finish, and then where did they <b>actually</b> finish?" It's a dumb way to vote for Manager of the Year; I just don't know a better one. And seriously - did anyone have Seattle with the 6th best record in the AL? They were competing for a playoff spot in the final week! The SRS (Simple Rating System) at baseball-reference.com has them tied as the fourth best team in baseball! NO ONE (outside some ridiculously optimistic fans in Seattle) saw that coming. Cleveland was another - I thought they were a year away, and they still might be. But I thought they were a year away from a winning record; they might be a year away from being serious contenders. Kudos to Francona. Likewise, I thought the AL East was terrible and would be a cakewalk for Boston; instead, the AL East was great, and Boston was terrible. That Baltimore waltzed away with the division title is a credit to their manager.<br />
<br />
NL Manager of the Year<br />
1. Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh<br />
2. Ron Roenicke, Milwaukee<br />
3. Mike Matheny, St. Louis<br />
<br />
For the second year in a row, I find Clint Hurdle on top in the NL, and Mike Matheny in my top three. I just keep asking myself, "How are these guys doing it?" Look at those rosters, and tell me that you see two of the best teams in baseball. Likewise, it's a clean sweep for the NL Central on my ballot this year. I saw preseason predictions that the Crew would finish behind the Cubs. Instead, they spent a GOOD chunk of the year with the NL's best record, they were in first in the division for 150 days, and they were in it until the end (16 games over with 36 to play). I don't hold the late-season collapse (11-25 in those final 36) against Roenicke - that was the result everyone was expecting. Instead, I give him credit for staving that off as long as possible.<br />
<br />
AL Rookie of the Year<br />
1. Jose Abreu, Chicago<br />
2. Daniel Santana, Minnesota<br />
3. Masahiro Tanaka, New York<br />
4. Collin McHugh, Houston<br />
5. Dellin Betances, Seattle<br />
<br />
Every year, THIS is the award I feel least prepared for. As an "NL guy," I know those players better. Thankfully, Abreu made it easy this year. Sans injury to Tanaka, it may have actually been a race. So I give Tanaka a little credit for missed time and put him at #3. I wanted to give a shout-out to someone on my adopted AL team, and thankfully Danny Santana finally gave me a Twin worth voting for in my years of IBA voting. (I don't know what I did in 2010; that said, the only other times I've voted for Twins were a #8 for Josh Willingham and #10 for Joe Mauer in the MVP voting in 2012; it hasn't been a good last few years for the Twins.)<br />
<br />
NL Rookie of the Year<br />
1. Ender Inciarte, Arizona<br />
2. Jacob DeGrom, New York<br />
3. Billy Hamilton, Cincinnati<br />
4. Kolten Wong, St. Louis<br />
5. Kris Negron, Cincinnati<br /><br />
Wow. This was a preeeeetty uninspiring cast of characters. Hamilton will likely win the BBWAA award based on name recognition, and it's not a terrible call. But when we've seen ROY candidates like Mike Trout, Jose Fernandez, Yasiel Puig, Bryce Harper, and Craig Kimbrel in the last three years, this NL class is just... blech. I have nothing further to say.<br />
<br />
AL Pitcher of the Year<br />
1. Corey Kluber, Cleveland<br />
2. Felix Hernandez, Seattle<br />
3. Chris Sale, Chicago<br />
4. Max Scherzer, Detroit<br />
5. David Price, Detroit<br /><br />
I had a friend in college, a really good friend, who's and <i>excellent</i> violinist. As a freshman, he was put in the second chair of the top orchestra. Well, the next year, they made a senior the second chair. And the next year, a freshman pseudo-prodigy came in, and took the first chair then next two years. That, it seems to me, is the story of Felix Hernandez. I <i>really</i> wanted to vote Felix. I LOVE Felix Hernandez. I want him to get to 300 wins. I want to see him strike out 4000 batters. I kinda doubt those things will happen, but I WANT to see them. So I WANT him to win some Cy Youngs. But I feel like he's kind of always been the thing that Miguel Cabrera was four about four years there - he's always 2nd best. The guy at the top seems to change every year, but the #2 guy stays the same. What can you say? Detroit has two guys in the top 5? Check; happened for me the last two years, too. Felix and Chris Sale in the top five? Check; make that three years in a row for them. Just throw in a random guy (Kluber this year, who was OUTSTANDING), and you've got a boring, typical, snooze-your-way-through-it AL Pitcher of the Year ballot.<br />
<br />
NL Pitcher of the Year<br />
1. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles<br />
2. Adam Wainwright, St. Louis<br />
3. Cole Hamels, Philadelphia<br />
4. Johnny Cueto, Cincinnati<br />
5. Jordan Zimmermann, Washington<br /><br />
More consistent than Felix has been the position of Cliff Lee on my NL Pitcher of the Year ballots. The last three years, he's been #2 each time, with a different winner each time. Well, this year, that changes. Kershaw, who I've had on my ballot each of the last three years, is on top for the second year in a row. Wainwright is a solid #2. Hamels had a great year, though his W-L record will fool you. Cueto looked like a sure-thing winner before Kershaw came back. But he faded down the stretch, and there were a lot of guys with great years this year. As for Zim? Well, he's a Wisconsin guy, and there were about 50 pitchers who could've taken that #5 spot, so I gave it to a local fave and someone who definitely deserved it (full disclosure: he WAS the #5 player on the ballot, but the difference between 5 and 10 was pretty meaningless).<br />
<br />
AL Player of the Year<br />
1. Mike Trout, Los Angeles<br />
2. Corey Kluber, Cleveland<br />
3. Josh Donaldson, Oakland<br />
4. Michael Brantley, Cleveland<br />
5. Alex Gordon, Kansas City<br />
6. Felix Hernandez, Seattle<br />
7. Adrian Beltre, Texas<br />
8. Jose Bautista, Toronto<br />
9. Chris Sale, Chicago<br />
10. Robinson Cano, Seattle<br />
<br />
Talk about boring! Trout on top, year three in a row. He's the best player in baseball. That's it. I don't even think there's another player in the conversation. I had Donaldson at #2 last year, and he's "all the way down" to #3 this year, although he IS the second position player listed again. A comment on the pitchers: I've never had three in my top-ten before. They were great, and that's why they're here. It's actually really unfortunate that Kluber's not going to get more MVP support. I expect him to finish outside the top ten in the BBWAA vote, and that's absolutely absurd. <br />
The next guys on the list, Brantley and Gordon, are great. Gordon's a familiar face. Brantley REALLY came into his own this year: first All-Star appearance, 154 OPS+, 20 HR, 45 2B, 200 H, and great defense in LF. He's my early dark horse candidate for NEXT year's AL MVP... you know, if Trout is tired of winning it (or if the voters just get sick of giving it to him).<br />
The down-ballot guys (Beltre, Bautista, and Cano) are VERY familiar down-ballot faces. They all had great years - which is to say, what they consider "normal" years. Some thoughts, old-school-baseball-card-style: Seeing Joey Bats come back from two injury-plagued years to still be one of the top hitters in MLB has been satisfying...Cano's last five years in OPS+ (talk about consistent) 142, 147, 148, 133, 141...Beltre has 2604 hits (!!!), and should reach 3000 in 2017, his age-38 season. For those who would look at his age-35 season and suggest that he must be fading, he posted a 147 OPS+ - the SECOND HIGHEST of his career! Plus, he passed 10000 PAs this year. Next year, he'll top 80 WAR, and nothing he does will shock me.<br />
<br />
NL Player of the Year<br />
1. Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles<br />
2. Jonathan Lucroy, Milwaukee<br />
3. Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh<br />
4. Anthony Rendon, Washington<br />
5. Giancarlo Stanton, Miami<br />
6. Jason Heyward, Atlanta<br />
7. Jhonny Peralta, St. Louis<br />
8. Carlos Gomez, Milwaukee<br />
9. Buster Posey, San Francisco<br />
10. Russell Martin, Pittsburgh<br />
<br />
I'll start at the bottom: two catchers, Martin and Posey. Both were great. I stuck Gomez next, because I just think that dude deserves more credit than he gets. Another OUTSTANDING year for him. Not as many homers robbed as last year, but still great D in center, and a mighty bat to boot. Peralta... what a find for the Cards! The would not have made the playoffs without him. Who was expecting the best season of his career from a guy on the wrong side of 30? But, it's probably just that thing where guys go to St. Louis, and inexplicably play out of their minds (see: Walker, Larry; Clark, Will; Berkman, Lance, and ALL THE PITCHERS). Heyward's here because of his defense. Honestly, we were spoiled by his age-20 season, with the 131 OPS+ and the .335 BABIP and a number of walks WAY out of line with the rest of his career. Unfortunately, he'll likely be remembered as a disappointment because he had the audacity to be "too good" his first year. But that's a LONG time from now. Heyward has yet to play his age-25 season, and while he's not hitting as many homers, he's better at stealing bases, he's walking more, and his defense just keeps (somehow) getting better. He's still got a bright future, so don't sleep on him yet! Stanton... what can you say? A guy actually YOUNGER than Heyward, and with such prodigious power, Stanton could've been the MVP this year were it not for 17 missed games (he didn't play from 9/12 on). He still managed to lead the NL in HR and TB (also SLG, but the injury doesn't affect the rate stat so much). The concern with him is that, in his five seasons, he's played 100, 150, 123, 116, and 145 games. If he's really going to miss time like that every year, it's a concern moving forward. Rendon, a first-rounder from 2011 (#6 overall) is young (born June 1990), but already elite. He led the NL in Runs Scored, and managed a 125 OPS+. On Bill James's site, Rendon is listed as the top player in all MLB - ahead even of Trout and Kershaw. Definitely a player to watch in the future.<br />
Finally, we get to the top three. Third, I have Cutch. Last year's MVP has an argument for it again this year, and would be expected to win it, were it not for the unusually incredible season by #1. Led the NL in OBP, OPS, and OPS+. Expect a third-straight top-3 MVP finish from him.<br />
At #2, I have a Brewer. That shouldn't be TOO big a surprise, because I've had a Brewer in my top three four years running (Braun at #2 in 2011, when he won, Braun at #1 in 2012, Gomez at #2 last year, and Lucroy this year - makes you wonder what this team could do if they had all put it together the same year). Luc hit 53 doubles, and did the best catching in baseball. A .301/.373/.465 slash from ANYONE is impressive; from a catcher who caught 136 games (plus 19 at 1B, plus 1 as a DH), it's downright unbelievable. I considered giving him the nod as the top player. It was his (or Cutch's, or Stanton's) for the taking in September, but instead, the nod has to go to...<br />
Kershaw. What can you say that hasn't been said? Fourth-straight ERA title. Third-straight ERA+ title (so you know it wasn't JUST pitching in Chavez Ravine), a 21-3 record (I know, I know... but STILL), and an absolutely ABSURD 7.71 K:BB ratio. 200 Ks for the fifth year running, 6 CG (most in baseball)... and all that while making only 27 starts (previous five years: 31, 32, 33, 33, 33). He AVERAGED 7-and-a-third per start and led in FIP and WHIP. What can you say? This was a better season than Verlander's MVP year, at least on a per-start basis. I generally try to avoid pitchers since they have their own award, but you can't do much about it when someone's as good as Kershaw was, and none of the batters take up the challenge.<br />
<br />
That's it for me. Anyone wanna debate? <br />
<br />
<i>As usual, I started from a base of adding Fangraphs WAR+ Baseball-Reference WAR, and deviated as necessary. Special thanks to Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference, and The Baseball Gauge - the three best sites on the internet!</i>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-56297980288248237002014-09-27T13:36:00.001-07:002014-09-27T13:37:10.729-07:00The 25 Most Influential People in Baseball History<div>
Graham Womack, who runs the annual "50 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame" poll over at his site, Baseball Past & Present, is running a new poll. He's calling it, "The 25 Most Influential People in Baseball History." This is my ballot, which I ranked in order, although that wasn't necessary for the purposes of the "assignment."</div>
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</div>
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1. Jackie Robinson - In my opinion, Robinson is the player who has most transcended baseball. Not the greatest player of all-time, but in the top 50 (higher if you love a good peak). Definitely brave beyond all reason, and a remarkable historical figure. I couldn't have put anyone else here.</div>
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2. Babe Ruth - The only other person one could have reasonably put ahead of Robinson, in my estimation. Again, if "transcends baseball" is the highest compliment a figure can achieve in baseball, Ruth is the only one other than Robinson to do that. "Ruthian" is an adjective normal, non-baseball-loving people use, for goodness sakes! Inarguably the greatest hitter of his time, and probably any other.</div>
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3. Cap Anson - The man who made Jackie Robinson necessary. Yeah, he was a great player. But his legacy, ultimately, is the color barrier. And, though it was a terrible, awful, no-good, very bad thing, it had a HUGE impact, costing the rest of us the joy of seeing a bunch of great players play in the same league.</div>
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4. Henry Chadwick - Inventor of the box score, he shaped how we understand the game. We owe him a debt.</div>
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5. Bill James - He made us re-think how we understand the game. He's a pompous ass, but a delightful one. His writing makes me laugh, makes me think, makes me angry, and is a constant delight. And that's beyond his contributions to baseball statistics, which are unmatched since Chadwick. My personal favorite.</div>
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6. Curt Flood - There are a lot of people who have opinions of what Curt Flood did. Popularly, lately, I think you see more and more people saying that Flood took a bad course of action in challenging the reserve clause. I disagree. His and Marvin Miller's campaign to make baseball's labor laws fairer are the greatest victory in baseball since Jackie Robinson's first game. I only regret I felt I couldn't put both Miller and Flood on the list, and I thought Flood deserved the nod.</div>
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7. Bud Selig - Love him, hate him, whatever. He's done more to shape baseball than any other commissioner, he's overseen the greatest financial growth in the history of the game, and he's brought baseball successfully into the 21st century, in spite of people claiming its death. Any opinion on Selig is valid, but he's DEFINITELY been influential.</div>
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8. Charlie Comiskey - A fantastically divisive owner, maybe more than Charlie Finley or George Steinbrenner. I thought I only had room for one, and Comiskey was my choice.</div>
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9. Hank Aaron - The hero who broke Babe Ruth's home run record with grace. A true American hero, and the man who every Milwaukee boy is brought up to believe was and is the game's greatest ambassador. Thanks for all you've done, Hank!</div>
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10. Buck O'Neil - The man who made the Negro Leagues live. He carried on the legacy when others would not; he made the Negro League museum in Kansas City a reality, and a memorial to all the brilliant and wonderful men who deserve to be honored and remembered. Although he's not remembered in Cooperstown himself, he got a bunch of other men there, too. There's perhaps been no better person in the history of the Greatest Game.</div>
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11. Joe Jackson - Can you tell the story of baseball without Shoeless Joe? The 1919 Black Sox represent a crucial moment in baseball history, and Shoeless Joe makes us think about innocence and guilt. He is perhaps the last American icon who is well-remembered in spite of being illiterate. Less than a hundred years have passed, but Shoeless Joe represents an America of a different millennium. A wonderful ballplayer, and a representative of the one of the great stains on baseball's history.</div>
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12. Cal Ripken, Jr. - The man who saved baseball. Baseball's Iron Man. An icon in Baltimore. Legend. Though he doesn't have the cachet of a Robinson or Ruth, he's perhaps the man next on the list of those who have actually transcended the game and entrenched themselves in the American imagination.</div>
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13. Hank Greenberg - The Jackie Robinson of Jews. He did it in a climate in which antisemitism was growing in America and abroad, and he carried the weight of a whole group of people with aplomb. Like Jackie, a true hero.</div>
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14. Roberto Clemente - Perhaps the Jackie Robinson of Latinos. Though there were certainly great Latin-American players before Clemente, he captured the imagination like no other. The arm, the clutch hitting, the humanitarianism. You can't <i>not</i> love Clemente. Plus, the subject of a <i>great</i> rant in <i>City Slickers</i>, the non-baseball movie with perhaps the most baseball references of any.</div>
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15. Jose Canseco - The man who blew the lid on the "steroid era." A great player in his own right and baseball's first 40-40 man, Canseco became more famous for his book after his career was over. Though no one will mistake him for a great human being, the culture of baseball in 2014 owes more to Jose Canseco than nearly anyone else in history.</div>
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16. Pete Rose - Like Joe Jackson, Rose was a man who left baseball in disgrace. Nonetheless, the story of baseball is impossible to tell without the story of Pete Rose. Like so many others, a flawed man whose flaws proved to be both his salvation on the field, and his downfall at his retirement.</div>
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17. Satchel Paige - Was Satchel Paige the greatest pitcher to ever play the game? I'm inclined to think "yes," but the aforementioned Cap Anson prevented me from answering the question with any certainty. Undoubtedly, Paige was the game's greatest showman, and it's almost certain that no one before or since has pitched <i>nearly</i> as much as he.</div>
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18. Ted Williams - The stories of Williams as a player alone would be enough to get him <i>on</i> this list: the last .400 hitter, the home run in the final at bat, <i>The Science of Hitting</i>. Heck - when I even <i>think</i> of watching him in his wheelchair, sitting and talking hitting with Tony Gwynn at the 1999 All-Star Game, I <i>still</i> get chills (seriously - it happened <i>three times</i> while I typed this sentence). But more than anything else, what gets him to rank this <i>high</i> (and perhaps he should be higher) is that he used his Hall of Fame induction speech not to rip the media that ripped him, not to prop up himself or his accomplishments, but to ensure that there would be Negro League players in the Hallowed Halls of Cooperstown. A great advocate.</div>
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19. Ty Cobb - Once revered as the game's greatest player (and hitter), Cobb was like none other. Still the owner of the game's highest-ever average, he also set hits and steals records in his day. Though the game has changed, and though cultural mores make many of Cobb's views (particularly on race) look wrongheaded, he would've surely been a great ballplayer in any generation.</div>
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20. Cy Young - The only man who truly succeeded in the days of the closer mound, the farther mound, the pre-1900 game and the post-1900 game; and all he got for it was 511 wins and an award named after him.</div>
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21. Lou Gehrig - The Iron Horse. How many baseball players get a biopic that's beloved 50+ years later? Just Gehrig, so far.</div>
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22. Yogi Berra - The most quotable of baseball's legends, Berra has remained as significant a figure in his post-playing life as he was as a player - and his playing legacy was only as a 3-time MVP and the lynchpin to the greatest dynasty the game has ever known.</div>
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23. Joe DiMaggio - 56.</div>
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24. Willie Mays - I thought about putting Barry Bonds here, I really did. But his godfather may deserve it even more. Was there ever a player better than Mays? Many don't think so; I can't say they're wrong.</div>
25. Mike Trout - Yes, this is the controversial choice. He's <i>of course</i> being picked for what I think he <i>will do</i>, but I'm also picking him for the fact that he's represented, for two years, the "advanced stats" vs. "old-time stats" debate. And no matter <i>what</i> stats you love, he's the best player in baseball today. I can't believe I've been spoiled enough to live through Barry Bonds' offensive explosion of the early 2000s, the blissful dominance of Prince Albert, and the rise of young Mike Trout. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-30488181653249097072014-02-03T08:26:00.000-08:002014-02-03T08:26:34.624-08:00"Most Prolific Offense in NFL History"?????????????It was a pretty common sight to see the words "Most Prolific Offense in NFL History" (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in articles references the AFC Champ Broncos in the lead-up to Super Bowl Sunday. There were reasons for this, of course. They led the league in offense in the most offense-heavy year of all-time. They set a record for points scored (and became the first team to ever top 600). Manning set the passing yardage and TD records. But, as their 8-point output in the Big Game showed, perhaps their offense wasn't all it seemed.<br />
<br />
I think it's only fair to measure a team against its own context. So I'm going to use a simple measure to check how great the Broncos' offense <i>really</i> was.<br />
<br />
This is a REALLY fast study you can do with any team, from any era.<br />
<br />
All you do is a quick ratio. The team's number of points scored, divided by the average number of points a team scored that season. This tells you, essentially, how many season's worth of points the team scored in the season in question. Let's look at the 2013 Broncos.<br />
<br />
The Broncos scored 606 points in 2013.<br />
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All 32 teams scored 11987 points.<br />
<br />
Divide the latter by the former (11987/32) and we see that the average team scored 374.59375 points in the season.<br />
<br />
Then we do a simple ratio. 606/374.59375=1.618<br />
<br />
In other words, Denver scored 1.6 season's worth of points this year. But is that really the best figure in the 16-game era?<br />
<br />
I picked 10 teams which I believe represent the best offenses of the era. Truth be told, they're probably NOT the 10 best teams. You could probably find someone better, because some of these may be overrated. Either way, they're the ones I tried, because I'm interested in getting a quick answer, not necessarily the right answer. Here is a list of the teams and how many points they scored:<br />
<br />
2013 Broncos - 606 points<br />
2007 Patriots - 589 points<br />
2011 Packers - 560 points<br />
1998 Vikings - 556 points<br />
1983 Redskins - 541 points<br />
1999 Rams - 526 points<br />
2004 Colts - 522 points<br />
1994 49ers - 505 points<br />
1991 Redskins - 485 points<br />
1981 Chargers - 478 points<br />
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Now here they are, reordered how they rank when we divide their scoring by their scoring context:<br />
<br />
2007 Patriots - 1.703<br />
1998 Vikings - 1.637<br />
2013 Broncos - 1.618<br />
1991 Redskins - 1.602<br />
1999 Rams - 1.582<br />
2011 Packers - 1.578<br />
1994 49ers - 1.559<br />
1983 Redskins - 1.549<br />
2004 Colts - 1.518<br />
1981 Chargers - 1.446<br />
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Well, the 2013 Broncos, the 2011 Packers, even the 1983 Redskins, and (expecially) the 2004 Colts look quite a bit worse this way; the 1991 Redskins look astonishingly good this way. The '91 'Skins are also the top-ranked team to have actually won the Super Bowl. In fact, only three of these teams ('91 Redskins, '94 49ers, and '99 Rams) won the Big One at all.<br />
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Adjusting for context is something that people virtually NEVER do with football stats. I don't know why this is. As someone who's more of a "baseball guy," it's almost laughable, since baseball has been doing this for a LONG time. But it's fun to goof around and see some things in a new light. And, like just about every "study" I've ever done, this one spits back to me yet another reason to consider the 2007 Patriots the greatest team in NFL history (at least in something resembling the modern era). Certainly, I'd have no qualms about saying that they were better at scoring than the 2013 Broncos. The 17-points more that the Broncos is more than made up for by the context in which each team played, even though they seem to be contemporaries.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-5254225928636364102013-12-06T14:43:00.003-08:002013-12-06T14:43:47.971-08:00Overrated and Underrated in MLBOver at <a href="http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/12/on-underrated-and-overrated-players/">HHS today, Bryan O'Connor posted</a> a query about who the most over- and underrated players in MLB were. And specifically, he asked that we (if we were so inclined) devise a method for measuring it. I came up with separate lists for position players and pitchers, and I want to post the comments I wrote as I came up with my method over here on my own blog. Why have something so fun only floating around on OTHER people's sites?<br />
<br />
Here's what I wrote:<br />
<br />
-------------<br />
<br />
To mimic fantasy baseball, I took five categories: HR, R, RBI, SB,
and H (I took H instead of BA, because I wanted them all to be
cumulative). Then I set up a fake fantasy scoring system: 1 pt per hit, 2
pts per RBI or R, 5 pts per HR or SB. This way, everything is (sort of)
scaled to H, such that 200 H=100 RBI=100 R=40 HR=40 SB, and a 200 H,
100 RBI, 100 R, 40 HR, 40 SB season is worth 1000 points (that’s a
pretty awesome season, I think). Then, for one season, I would divide
the number by 2500 – because 1000/2500=.400, which is a batting average
representatively awesome enough that it goes with the stats I posted
earlier.<br />
<br />
Then, I took WAR/25 (in other words, the above season would be seen
as equal to a 10 WAR season). You can quibble with my number sense or
not, but the goal was to come up with a system, right?<br />
Anyway, for a running three year total, I still just added everything
together and divided, but by 7500 and 75, respectively, so the results
were scaled to one another. Then I just subtracted the second column
from the first (I tried dividing; that didn’t work very well because of
negative numbers). I used all players with 1000 PAs in the last 3 years.
This made for 226 hitters Fangraphs gave me in the Custom Report I
generated for this project.<br />
<br />
The Most Overrated Players:<br />
Adam Dunn<br />
Mark Reynolds<br />
Eric Hosmer<br />
Raul Ibanez<br />
Alex Rios<br />
Michael Young<br />
Nelson Cruz<br />
Ichiro Suzuki<br />
Delmon Young<br />
Rajai Davis<br />
<br />
The Most Underrated Players<br />
Buster Posey<br />
Mike Trout<br />
Yadier Molina<br />
Joey Votto<br />
Carlos Ruiz<br />
AJ Ellis<br />
Joe Mauer<br />
Evan Longoria<br />
Matt Carpenter<br />
Ben Zobrist<br />
<br />
Now, if you ask me, that list looks pretty darn close to right, as
far as who sabermetrically-minded folk see as the superstars of
baseball, as opposed to what fantasy-focused folk see. This worked
pretty well. I’m gonna try something with pitchers, and see what I can
do. Be right back…<br />
<br />
-------------<br />
<br />
And my second comment (this one has been corrected, since I made an error when I initially posted it on HHS):<br />
<br />
-------------<br />
<br />
<br />
I’m back!<br />
<br />
I did something similar for pitchers.<br />
<br />
The categories I used were IP, W, S, SO, ER, BB, and H. I shaped them
into five “buckets,” and all had to be cumulative, just like the
hitters. The five categories I used were IP, 10*W+5*SV, SO, IP-ER, and
IP*2-(BB+H). They also had to be scaled to one another. So just as the
hitters were scaled to H, I did the same, but to IP. The “ideal” season
(and worth 1000 points, just like the hitters) is this: 200 IP, 20 W or
40 SV, 200 SO, 50 ER (2.25 ERA), 200 BB+H (1.000 WHIP). That season would
be worth 1000 “points,” just like with the hitters. I used 180 IP
minimum, so that the report was roughly the same size as the hitters (I
had 226 hitters, 239 pitchers).<br />
<br />
I’m not as confident in this method as I am with the hitters;
especially using Fangraphs WAR, rather than some combination of B-R and
Fangraphs, which would be my preference. Nonetheless, the list actually
looks pretty good, I think. So here they are.<br />
<br />
The Most Overrated Pitchers<br />
Bronson Arroyo<br />
Ervin Santana<br />
RA Dickey<br />
Tim Lincecum<br />
Yovani Gallardo<br />
Jeremy Hellickson<br />
James Shields<br />
Ian Kennedy<br />
Jason Vargas<br />
Kyle Lohse<br />
<br />
The Most Underrated Pitchers<br />
Matt Harvey<br />
David Robertson<br />
Phil Coke<br />
Roy Oswalt<br />
Aaron Cook<br />
Kevin Millwood<br />
Javier Vazquez<br />
Chris Carpenter<br />
Matt Belisle<br />
Hyun-Jin Ryu<br />
<br />
There are a lot of relief pitchers on that bottom list. Before you go
about saying I’ve overvalued saves, only three of those guys (Holland
with 67, Papelbon with 98 and Kimbrel with 138) have more than 4 saves
in the last three years. And when I changed the formula to be SV/3
instead of SV/2, it was still the same 10 names – the order only changed
slightly.<br />
<br />
Again, I’m not as confident about this as the position player list. I
don’t know that it’s accurate, but it’s certainly one way of looking at
it.<br />
<br />
------------- <br />
<br />
Specifically, I wanted to post a couple of things here that I thought about as I did this little project.<br />
<br />
First, what are some factors that lead to over- or underrating players?<br />
<br />
1. Park factors - Hitters in hitters' parks are overrated; likewise for pitchers in pitchers' parks.<br />
2. Guys who provide a lot of defensive value - This is obvious; it's not even measured in the former measure.<br />
3. Positional scarcity - Also not taken into account is position. To be fair, I generalized to "fantasy players," and fantasy players are usually VERY aware of positional scarcity, so that's not entirely fair. The mainstream public, though, is not.<br />
4. DIPS theory - Using Fangraphs WAR, this is going to have a huge impact on who's rated well or poorly. RA Dickey's numbers suffer from this in particular. He may actually be a bit overrated (since his performance last year was so bad), but Fangraphs openly acknowledges that FIP-based WAR underrates knuckleballers, so Dickey suffers.<br />
5. Outs used - Leadoff hitters who don't walk a lot can accumulate MANY more at-bats than players who hit lower in the lineup and take the occasional walk. Since all of the stats used in the former calculation are at bat-based (well, technically RBI and R aren't, but RBI in particular come pretty scarcely on BBs), that's a major factor. Plus, if you imagine two guys, each with the same five "basic" stats, wouldn't you prefer one who did all that in 500 ABs, but with 100 BBs and no CS if the other guy also had 600 PA, but no walks and 15 CS? The first would have created 300 outs; the second would have created 415. It's an ENORMOUS difference, and it's often not thought of.<br />
6. Guys who hit lost of doubles - Doubles are the ugly stepsister of hits. They're better than singles, but the "H" and "HR" column tell you nothing about them. Ditto for three-baggers; there are just fewer of those, so they're less of a thing to worry about. Guys who slap a bunch of those hits, though, are tremendously underrated by the "newspaper" stats.<br />
<br />
One last thought I should share is just the formulas for each, in long form.<br />
<br />
For hitters:<br />
<br />
<u>H+2*RBI+2*R+5*HR+5*SB</u><br />
2500<br />
<br />
For pitchers:<br />
<br />
<u>IP*4+SO+10*W+5*SV-ER-H-BB</u><br />
2500<br />
<br />
The idea is that these are equivalent; they're probably not. But it's really just for fun, so don't worry about it too much! Any thoughts?Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-43421983827056159292013-11-30T08:52:00.000-08:002013-11-30T08:53:12.469-08:00WARSCOR 3.1 & the 2014 Hall of Fame BallotI just recently rolled out <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/09/warscor-revisited.html">WARSCOR 3.0</a>, so why would I mention WARSCOR 3.1? Because I made a tweak. The tweak is so minor, in fact, that it would probably be more appropriately be called WARSCOR 3.0.0.1, but I'm not going to make so many updates (I hope) that that will be necessary. So WARSCOR 3.1 it is. The only change between WARSCOR 3.0 and 3.1 is multiplying by a constant at the end. Why? Because I think career WAR numbers have actually developed a sort of currency in the world of baseball stats today. And WARSCORs are always lower than career WAR numbers, so it's hard to tell. What does a "40" mean? Well, instead of leaving it as it is, we're going to multiply everything by 1.618 at the end. Why? Because <i>phi</i> doesn't get as much love as <i>pi</i>, even though it's <i>also</i> a cool irrational number. But also because that worked out really well as the number - it brought everything pretty well in line with what it needed to be. So anyway, I'm now presenting <b>all</b> 36 candidates for the BBWAA Hall of Fame vote, as well as the 6 players on the Veterans Committee ballot (I'll put the VC nominees in italics, so you can tell them apart). I'll post the players WARSCOR, career WAR, HOF monitor and HOF standards. The last two of these were defined by Bill James in <i>The Politics of Glory</i> (also known as <i>What Happened to the Hall of Fame?</i>) as good measures of a candidates qualifications for the Hall of Fame. In HOFm, 100 means (roughly) a Hall of Famer, while 120 signifies a virtual lock. In HOFs, 45-ish is around the average HOF player, so scores around 35 or above merit consideration, while a score in the 60s signifies a virtual lock. Without further ado, here are the candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY, for 2014:<br />
<br />
Barry Bonds: 131.9, 162.6, 340, 76<br />
Roger Clemens: 115.8, 139.2, 332, 73<br />
Greg Maddux: 93.5, 104.8, 254, 70<br />
Curt Schilling: 80.6, 80.7, 171, 46<br />
Jeff Bagwell: 78.3, 79.6, 150, 59<br />
Mike Mussina: 76.0, 82.7, 121, 54<br />
Larry Walker: 72.6, 72.4, 148, 58<br />
Frank Thomas: 71.7, 73.6, 194, 60<br />
Alan Trammell: 70.5, 70.3, 118, 40<br />
Edgar Martinez: 68.8, 68.1, 132, 50<br />
Tom Glavine: 67.6, 74.0, 176, 52<br />
Tim Raines: 67.0, 68.8, 90, 47<br />
Craig Biggio: 66.7, 64.8, 169, 57<br />
Rafael Palmeiro: 66.0, 71.8, 178, 57<br />
Sammy Sosa: 65.0, 58.3, 202, 52<br />
Mark McGwire: 64.6, 62.0, 170, 42<br />
Mike Piazza: 64.6, 59.1, 207, 62<br />
(<i>Joe Torre: 57.6, 57.3, 96, 40</i>)<br />
Jeff Kent: 56.6, 55.0, 122, 51<br />
<i>Tommy John: 55.8, 62.2, 112, 44</i>Fred McGriff: 55.2, 52.4, 100, 48<br />
Kenny Rogers: 54.5, 51.2, 66, 29<br />
<i>Ted Simmons: 53.9, 50.3, 124, 44</i><br />
Luis Gonzalez: 53.4, 51.2, 103, 48<br />
<i>Dave Parker: 50.6, 40.0, 124, 42</i><br />
Don Mattingly: 50.3, 42.2, 134, 34<br />
<i></i>Jack Morris: 48.2, 43.9, 122, 39<br />
<i>Dave Concepcion: 44.0, 40.1, 106, 29</i><br />
Moises Alou: 42.9, 39.8, 80, 44<br />
<i>Steve Garvey: 41.6, 37.5, 130, 32</i><br />
Ray Durham: 37.7, 33.7, 64, 33<br />
Lee Smith: 31.4, 29.3, 135, 13<br />
<i>Dan Quisenberry: 31.2, 24.8, 77, 19</i><br />
Hideo Nomo: 29.4, 21.7, 24, 14<br />
Paul LoDuca: 24.4, 18.0, 21, 26<br />
Richie Sexson: 23.6, 17.8, 46, 21<br />
Armando Benitez: 23.0, 19.2, 73, 14<br />
Sean Casey: 22.2, 16.3, 38, 19<br />
Mike Timlin: 21.0, 19.4, 49, 8<br />
Jacque Jones: 16.8, 11.4, 8, 12<br />
JT Snow: 16.8, 11.7, 16, 16<br />
Eric Gagne: 16.3, 11.7, 46, 17<br />
Todd Jones: 14.6, 10.4, 78, 3<br />
<br />
Some thoughts: WARSCOR 3.1 ranks the candidates (even the ones at the bottom of the list) within two spots of where JAWS ranks them compared to one another, with the exception of Tom Glavine. JAWS is much more bullish on Glavine than I am, but that's only because (in my opinion), JAWS's use of a 7-year peak gives one a more favorable impression of Glavine's peak that is merited. I thought that was kinda neat, though. ... You may have noticed that Joe Torre is included, in spite of not being on the ballot as a player. I thought it would be fun to include him, to see where he shook out. By WARSCOR, he's a better bet <i>as a player</i> than everyone on the Vets ballot! He should have received MUCH more consideration than he did. It's a shame that he didn't; that being said, though, he <i>will</i> get in as a manager, so at least he's got that going for him. ... Can you believe the difference between the HOFs and HOFm for Lee Smith? CRAZY! If you have any familiarity with those metrics, you'll know that HOFs rewards career accomplishments, while HOFm looks at a career on a season-by-season basis. Usually, they're in pretty good agreement - but that's the most extreme difference I've ever seen. That HOFs score is very good - first-ballot-electee kind of good - but that HOFm score is more of an off-the-ballot-with-only-one-vote-in-the-first-year kind of score. Insane difference. No wonder he's hovered around 50% forever - measured one way, he obviously deserves it - measured the other, he's not worth a second look. Interesting. ... There are eighteen (EIGHTEEN) players on the BBWAA ballot who are more qualified via WARSCOR than <b>anyone</b> from the VC ballot. It's been said before, but - can you say "logjam?" ... Did you know that the link between Bonds and steroids starts with 1999, and he played 13 seasons before that? Did you <i></i> know that Roger Clemens' association with steroids starts with his time in Toronto, and that he <i>also</i> played 13 seasons before that? If you took only their first 13 seasons, Bonds would have a WARSCOR of 100.0, Clemens' would be 88.3. They would <i>still</i> be the best- and third-best players on the ballot, respectively. They will eventually get in, because a Hall of Fame without those two is a bit of a farce. ... Did you see how close some of the WARSCOR numbers are to the career WAR numbers of some of these players? For Schilling, Walker, Trammell, and Torre, the number is +/- 3 of their actual career WAR. It seems to break down below 40 WAR and above 80, but when we talk borderline HOF players, we're almost <i>always</i> in the 40-80 range, so that's where it's most important for it to "work." Besides, the 1.618 multiplier is pretty irrelevant - it's just to make things look more "normal" to people who are familiar with WAR, so regardless of the fact that it seems to break down a bit, you know that a player with a WARSCOR<40 a="" and="" candidate="" is="" not="" player="" really="">80 is a shoe-in. And since it's really designed to check HOF candidacy, it's a good measure, I think. ... WARSCOR probably underrates catchers. The catcher-adjustment in WAR does a good job for single seasons. But it's not really designed to compensate for the toll catching takes on a body over the course of a career. It's quite reasonable to argue that Piazza, Torre (if you're counting him), and Simmons (also Lo Duca, but he's really a non-factor in this discussion) should rank higher. I wouldn't quibble with someone who argued that.<!--40--></40><br />
<br />
I think that does it for now. Any thoughts?<br />
<br />
<i>As always, thanks to baseball-reference.com for the stats!</i>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-12568599751944507802013-10-21T05:47:00.002-07:002013-12-19T08:04:55.455-08:00Best NFL Teams Ever, Part III: 1970-2012And here we are: post AFL-NFL merger. Basically, this is the part of history football fans are generally familiar with. Let's get straight to it. Here's the 1970s:<br />
<br />
1973 Los Angeles Rams, .885<br />
1976 Pittsburgh Steelers, .880<br />
1972 Miami Dolphins, .877<br />
1975 Pittsburgh Steelers, .865<br />
1970 Minnesota Vikings, .856<br />
1973 Miami Dolphins, .854<br />
1975 Minnesota Vikings, .841<br />
1971 Dallas Cowboys, .839<br />
1973 Dallas Cowboys, .828<br />
1977 Los Angeles Rams, .824<br />
<br />
Okay, be honest: raise your hand if you thought the 1972 Dolphins were going to be the top team of the decade. It's fine if you didn't. But seriously, I'm SUPER impressed if you had the Rams with TWO of the top-ten teams of the decade. The Rams <i>did</i> make one Super Bowl, but that was in 1979, when they scored only 14 more points than they allowed and went 9-7. Both years, 1973 and 1977, they were upset in the first round of the playoffs. And in 1973, they actually <i>did</i> have the best record in the league: 12-2 - which is the record my system predicts, more or less (12.4-1.6).<br />
<br />
The Vikings also had two great teams this decade, and made the Super Bowl thrice; just not in their best years, appearing in 1973, 1974, and 1976 (they also lost the Big Game in 1969). The stars never seemed to align for the Vikes in the 1970s... or otherwise.<br />
<br />
The 1972 Dolphins went undefeated, but weren't <i>that</i> great of a team. In my opinion, calling them even a top-five all-time team is preposterous, and there's certainly an argument to be made via this model that they're not a top-20 team. They just got lucky enough to win one-and-a-half more than they were expected.<br />
<br />
The 1980s:<br />
<br />
1985 Chicago Bears, .874<br />
1984 San Francisco 49ers, .865<br />
1984 Miami Dolphins, .817<br />
1983 Washington Redskins, .799<br />
1987 San Francisco 49ers, .798<br />
1989 San Francisco 49ers, .786<br />
1988 Minnesota Vikings, .767<br />
1986 Chicago Bears, .751<br />
1980 Philadelphia Eagles, .747<br />
1981 Philadelphia Eagles, .722<br />
<br />
Remember how, in the 1980s, the Raiders won two Super Bowls, and all the rest were won by NFC teams? Well, this nearly-all-NFC top-ten may give an indication why that was. The 1980s had probably the most parity of any decade. It's actually crazy in how many seasons the teams were jammed pretty closely together. In the 1960s, there were more teams with a .900 "record" than there were .800 teams in the 1980s! The reason this is interesting, I think, is that you often hear the 1985 Bears and the 1984 'Niners and the 1989 'Niners in <br />
discussions of greatest ever teams. Only the top two teams of the 1980s would have even made the 1970s top ten. It seems to me that the most dominant teams of the 1980s simply weren't that dominant relative to their peers, at least in the regular season. That being said, the 1985 Bears were a pretty special team. They are a reasonable group to have in a discussion of the best-ever teams, as are the 1984 49ers. But the fact of the matter remains, neither of those teams can stack up to the sheer dominance of earlier teams, like the 1968 Colts or 1962 Packers, or the later dominance of some teams from the 1990s or the 2000s. Actually, the 1980s look a lot like the 2010s. The only difference is, the 2010s aren't even half over, and have <i>plenty</i> of time for a few dominant teams to sneak in.<br />
<br />
The 1990s:<br />
<br />
If I asked you to guess the best team of the 1990s, I can guess that you'd think of a few teams: perhaps the 1992, '93, or '95 Cowboys. Maybe you're sneaky, and you know how great the '94 49ers were. Perhaps you remember 1998: the year of five truly dominant teams, particularly Denver and Minnesota. Maybe you like a team that was basically the 1998 Vikings 2.0: the 1999 Rams, the Greatest Show on Turf. Or maybe you favor the all-around dominance of the 1996 Packers. Do you know which one was best? Take a look:<br />
<br />
1991 Washington Redskins, .929<br />
1999 St. Louis Rams, .926<br />
1998 Minnesota Vikings, .882<br />
1996 Green Bay Packers, .876<br />
1992 San Francisco 49ers, .825<br />
1994 San Francisco 49ers, .822<br />
1993 San Francisco 49ers, .797<br />
1995 San Francisco 49ers, .789<br />
1998 Denver Broncos, .782<br />
1997 Denver Broncos, .779<br />
<br />
The 1991 Washington Redskins are a team that I often worry history will somehow forget. They weren't dynastic. They played a little worse than they're points scored/allowed total should have indicated (I have them at 14.87 wins; basically, they should have gone 15-1). They rolled through the playoffs, thrashing Atlanta 24-7, crushing Detroit 41-10, and very solidly handling a very good Bills team, 37-24. It was an excellent team, but the year before they were 10-6, the year after 9-7. And they were sandwiched in the 49ers-Cowboys era of dominance, which makes them forgettable - even if they were the best team of the bunch.<br />
The four 49ers squad above rank as the #2, 3, 5, and 6 49ers teams of the 1980s-1990s dynasty. It's actually quite possible that, in spite of only winning one Super Bowl, the 49ers were better in the 1990s than they were in the 1980s. That's insane to think about, considering they won four titles in the 1980s.<br />
The 1997 Broncos were supposed to lose the Super Bowl to Green Bay, who was coming off a title in 1996. The AFC hadn't won a Super Bowl since the 1983 season, when the LA Raiders defeated the heavily-favored Redskins. What all the pundits ignored, though, was that the 1997 Broncos were a better team than the Packers. The 1998 Broncos get more press because they started off 13-0; what no one ever tells you is that they were, from a point-differential perspective, more or less the <b>exact</b> same team as the year before - only 3 one-thousandths of a point different.<br />
The 1996 Packers are a team that I have often, in barroom-type arguments, argued were more or less the equal of the 1985 Bears. I used to make this claim in spite of not having done this research. Those Bears outperformed their expected record by a game; the Packers underperformed theirs. But they profile, basically, as exactly the same.<br />
<br />
The 2000s:<br />
<br />
2007 New England Patriots, .954<br />
2001 St. Louis Rams, .856<br />
2005 Indianapolis Colts, .791<br />
2006 San Diego Chargers, .785<br />
2005 Seattle Seahawks, .774<br />
2000 Oakland Raiders, .772<br />
2007 Indianapolis Colts, .771<br />
2006 Chicago Bears, .760<br />
2004 New England Patriots, .757<br />
<br />
If you're surprised by the top team of the 2000s, you weren't paying attention to the teams of the era. I'm quite certain that, even if I included playoffs, I would reach the same conclusion: the 2007 Patriots were the best team of the decade, bar none. And, if you're into making timeline adjustments when ranking teams, there's an extremely reasonable argument that the 2007 Pats are the greatest team ever. The only other team since 1943 to best the Pats' .954 mark is the 1946 Browns of the AAFC. And if you don't want to count them, that's fine. The only team who's particularly close to the Pats is the 1968 Colts, at .949.<br />
Of all the various top-tens I've shown, this one had the best rate of getting to the Super Bowl: half of these teams made the Big Game. They have the worst rate of <i>winning</i> it; only one team did (the 2004 Pats).<br />
The gap between the best team of the decade and the 3rd-best is astronomical, with the #2 team closer to #3 than #1. The near-100-point-gap between 1st and 2nd is also, far and away, the largest of any decade. The 1999 Rams were much closer to the 2007 Pats than the 2001 Rams were.<br />
Much like the 49ers of the 1990s being superior to the 49ers of the 1980s, there's ALREADY an argument that the Patriots teams of the 2010s will have been better than the Patriots teams of the 2000s, even if they go completely without a title.<br />
<br />
The 2010s;<br />
<br />
Admittedly, there's not much to write home about here... yet. We're still waiting for our most dominant teams, which I assume will be coming later. Here's the top-5 so far:<br />
<br />
2010 New England Patriots, .791<br />
2011 Green Bay Packers, .783<br />
2012 Denver Broncos, .764<br />
2011 New England Patriots, .741<br />
2012 Seattle Seahawks, .729<br />
<br />
Yup, Denver and Seattle were the two best teams last year.<br />
I can't help but think that a Green Bay-New England matchup in 2011 would have made for a great Super Bowl. Not that the Giants-Pats game was a bad one. It just would have been interesting.<br />
I think most people would have guessed the 2011 Packers as the top team of the decade so far, since they went 15-1. Of course, they actually profiled to be a 12.5-win team, not a 15-win team.<br />
<br />
So far, the best team of the current season is the Denver Broncos (in spite of their first loss to the Colts yesterday), who are +101 on the season. The undefeated Chiefs are at +88. If I were to do percentages today, before the Monday Night game, I could do that. There have been 106 games this year. There have been 4896 points scored. That's 46.188 per game - the highest scoring season since 1965, if the trend were to continue. The Broncos are +101 through 7 games, which profiles to 5.6867 wins in 7 games, a percentage of .812. The Chiefs are at .772. So it's <i>possible</i> that Denver is headed towards being the best team of the decade so far. Only time will tell.<br />
<br />
WEEK 15 UPDATE:<br />
It's been a couple weeks since I last updated this, which was in week 11. Whoops. We're officially 224 games into the 256-game NFL season, so just two weeks remain. At the moment, there have been 10634 points scored in the NFL this year. That's 47.5 per game (one of the highest numbers of all-time; maybe THE highest number of all-time; I haven't checked for a while). Here are the top seven "winning percentages" as of week 15:<br />
<br />
Seattle Seahawks - .763<br />
Denver Broncos - .745<br />
Kansas City Chiefs - .717<br />
San Francisco 49ers - .682<br />
Carolina Panthers - .681<br />
New Orleans Saints - .634<br />
Cincinnati Bengals - .620<br />
<br />
I should really schedule-adjust these rankings, but I'm not going to do that just yet, as it would be a crapton of work, and I do this all manually. As it stands, Denver is 12 points behind Seattle; we'll see if one of them can manage two blowouts in the last to weeks to go down as the "team of the decade."Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-91594638878936939852013-10-20T20:29:00.001-07:002013-10-20T20:29:12.321-07:00Best NFL Teams Ever, Continued: 1943-1969This era of NFL history is oft forgotten, and it's a shame. Football fans, for some reason, think of history as beginning with the Super Bowl. But it just plain didn't. And it's unfortunate that they think that way. In this era, I'm going to start looking at best teams by decade, because I think that'll be more fun that just lumping everything together. So, the first "decade" will be 1943-1949. But that's only 7 years, you say. Well, keep in mind that we covered 1940-1942 in the last post. But even so, the 1943-1949 "decade" covers 11 seasons, because the AAFC days were four years long, meaning there were two seasons each year from 1946-1949. So we're still covering 11 "years" in this group! Without further ado, the best teams of 1943-1949:<br />
<br />
1946 Cleveland Browns, 1.018<br />
1949 Philadelphia Eagles, .922<br />
1948 Chicago Bears, .896<br />
1948 Philadelphia Eagles, .889<br />
1948 San Francisco 49ers, .887<br />
1947 Cleveland Browns, .879<br />
1949 San Francisco 49ers, .869<br />
1943 Chicago Bears, .868<br />
1945 Philadelphia Eagles, .868<br />
1949 Cleveland Browns, .828<br />
<br />
As I'm sure you noticed, the Browns from three out of the four AAFC years made the list. Also, in the last post, I said that no teams should have "won" more games than they played outside of the 1920-1942 era. Well, obviously I was wrong, because the 1946 Browns so thoroughly dominated the competition that they deserve a spot in that group, as well. Of course, it wasn't actually the<i> NFL</i>, so maybe you'll forgive my mistake. Anyway, the Eagles had probably their best decade ever in the 1940s. Which is why it's a real shame for Eagles fans that NFL fans so quickly forget this era of pro football. You may also have noticed that teams 3-5 all played in the same year: 1948. San Francisco, obviously was in a different league than the other two, so never played them. The 'Niners didn't even make the playoffs in their league; despite having the better point differential, the 'Niners went 12-2, while Cleveland went undefeated, and got to play a Buffalo team that went 7-7 in the regular season for the title. Cleveland won, and that San Francisco team was forgotten. You'll also notice that the 1948 Cleveland team is the only AAFC Cleveland team <i>not</i> to make the top ten. They were #11. In the NFL in 1948, Philadelphia won the championship, but not over Chicago. Much like in the AAFC, the Bears (10-2) didn't even win their division, so the Cardinals (11-1) were the losers to the Eagles. That's just how it goes sometimes.<br />
<br />
The 1950s:<br />
<br />
1953 Cleveland Browns, .860<br />
1951 Cleveland Browns, .840<br />
1954 Cleveland Browns, .831<br />
1958 Baltimore Colts, .828<br />
1950 Cleveland Browns, .801<br />
1956 Chicago Bears, .801<br />
1950 Los Angeles Rams, .785<br />
1952 Detroit Lions, .784<br />
1954 Detroit Lions, .782<br />
1953 Chicago Bears, .765<br />
<br />
Holy Cleveland! Again, much like Philadelphia in the 1940s, Cleveland's Golden Age for pro football was the forgotten 1950s. And that's a shame. Cleveland won NFL titles in 1950, 1954, and 1955, and probably also had the best team in the league in 1951 and 1953. In their first six years in the NFL, only Detroit in 1952 managed to beat them both head-to-head, <i>and</i> in cumulative points. Detroit also won back-to-back titles in 1952 and 1953, and had a team just as good in 1954... but they were crushed 56-10 by the Browns. Even so, this was the Lions' best decade. And it's been forgotten. You'll notice a theme: for these teams who had their best years in these "forgotten" eras of the NFL's past, they haven't won a title since. It's time to start celebrating history; we may not see a title in Cleveland or Detroit for a <i>looooong</i> time otherwise!<br />
<br />
The 1960s:<br />
<br />
Basically, the 1960s gets a break. People kinda start to think of this as the "modern" game, mostly because the Lombardi Packers dominated the decade, both before and after the Super Bowl began. This allows people to think of it as more or less the same game, so you'll sometimes see NFL "historians" reference the 1960s as being part of the "real" history of the NFL... even though there hadn't been any <i>real</i> changes between the game of the 1950s and the game of the 1960s. Anyway, keep in mind that the 1960s includes 10 years of the AFL; therefore, there were 20 "seasons" in the 1960s. So here's the list:<br />
<br />
1968 Baltimore Colts, .949<br />
1962 Green Bay Packers, .927<br />
1968 Dallas Cowboys, .927<br />
1969 Minnesota Vikings, .920<br />
1961 Houston Oilers, .900<br />
1967 Oakland Raiders, .872<br />
1961 New York Giants, .865<br />
1968 Oakland Raiders, .856<br />
1966 Dallas Cowboys, .839<br />
1967 Los Angeles Rams, .830<br />
1964 Baltimore Colts, .829<br />
1968 Kansas City Chiefs, .825<br />
1967 Baltimore Colts, .820<br />
1969 Kansas City Chiefs, .808<br />
1966 Green Bay Packers, .783<br />
1960 Cleveland Browns, .780<br />
1961 Green Bay Packers, .779<br />
1966 Kansas City Chiefs, .774<br />
1963 New York Giants, .773<br />
1963 Green Bay Packers, .765<br />
<br />
I was extremely surprised by two things Packers-related. First, I didn't realize that Lombardi's Packers had so frequently outperformed their point differentials. It may have been luck. It may have been something about the team. I doubt you'd find another team as successful as they who so often outperformed superior teams. Second, I was <i>certain</i> that the 1962 Packers would rank as the best team of the decade. But it was, in fact, the infamous 1968 Colts (who famously lost to the Jets in Super Bowl III) who took the honor of "team of the decade." This puts a whole new spin on the idea on just how big of an upset that game was. The five teams above .900 are the most by any decade since 1943. I wonder if that'll hold.<br />
<br />
Another unfortunate side-effect of people forgetting the pre-Super-Bowl-era is that the great teams of the AFL, like the 1961 Oilers, are basically forgotten. Also, one more Packers-related thing: the team won 5 NFL titles in 7 years. But their 4th best team of that stretch is one that didn't: 1963, the #20 team of the decade.<br />
<br />
Well, that's it for post #2. We'll see if I can fit in everything since 1970 in one post. Catch you later.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-21800062060272015972013-10-20T19:49:00.002-07:002013-10-20T19:52:38.798-07:00Best NFL Teams Ever: A Mathematical SystemI've laid out on this blog before why I think using the Pythagorean formula for NFL team records is stupid. The season's too short, and going with a linear, rather than quadratic, model shows the results pretty perfectly, ESPECIALLY at the extremes (i.e. Pythagorean will never predict winless or undefeated teams, and not even 1-15 or 15-1 teams, yet they happen ALL THE TIME, relatively speaking). So I've devised this simple formula:<br />
<br />
(TeamPointsScored-TeamPointsAllowed)/(AveragePointsInAnNFLGame)<br />
<br />
Then you add that total to a .500 record, however many games that may be.<br />
<br />
For the last variable, you take the average number of TOTAL points of an
NFL game (usually about 44), not just the average for one team. It's
really simple. <br />
<br />
For example, the Pythagorean formula gives the 2007 Pats an expected W/L in the regular season of 13.8-2.2. In my method, the Pats scored 589 and allowed 274, for a differential of 315. In 2007, there were 256 regular season games played and 11104 points scored. That's a total of 43.375 PPG. 315/43.375=7.26. Then we add a half-season's worth of wins (8), and we get an expected W/L record of 15.26-0.74... WAY closer to their actual 16-0.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I was thinking about this again, and thinking how it would be a good way to compare teams over time. Except, of course, for the schedule-length issue. So, I just take the answer and divide by the number of games in a season to get an expected winning percentage. And that's what we'll go with. Totally objectively ask the question: "to what extent did this team dominate their opponents?"<br />
<br />
I was initially going to publish the complete list of teams I did. I took one to five teams from each year in NFL/AFL/APFA/AAFC history. I'm pretty sure each franchise is represented at least once. I wound up with 241 teams on the list. Now, I'm pretty positive they're not the top 241 teams of all-time. I probably missed as many as 50 or 60 that might be better than the worst team on this list. But I'm absolutely CERTAIN that the top teams of all-time <b>are</b> represented.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'm not going to publish the full list because it's long. So I'll start with this post in which I'll look at the early, pre-modern days of the NFL and APFA. For me, the "modern" NFL starts in 1943. That's basically when scoring reaches modern levels, and we stop having teams projected to win more than 100% of their games. Anyway, in this post, I'll have 1920-1942. In my next post, I'll detail 1943-1969, which includes the AFL and AAFC days. And my final post will be about the true "modern" NFL, from 1970 to the present. Here we go.<br />
<br />
Before 1950, there is a problem with estmating winning percentages with my method. That problem is that you <i>will</i> get winning percentages over 1.000. It happens in more or less every single season. Sometimes more than one team will be projected to have gone undefeated. This happens because the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" is too wide. If I had looked for the <i>worst</i> teams of all-time, they would all have been from this era; likewise with the best.<br />
<br />
You have to keep in mind a few things about this era: not every team played the same number of games each year (at least until 1936; that's when every team started playing the same number of games, and there was an actual, organized schedule). Not every team was in the league from year to year. This creates HUGE gaps between the best an the worst. Ties were extremely common. For much of the era, there was no bowl game at the end of the season, so a champion was simply crowned. It was a mess. But I present to you (again, based on regular-season only) the greatest teams of the early days of the NFL (including its days as the APFA in 1920 and '21), from 1920-1942:<br />
<br />
1923 Canton Bulldogs, 1.695<br />
1925 Pottsville Maroons, 1.559<br />
1922 Rock Island Independents, 1.494<br />
1924 Cleveland Bulldogs, 1.407<br />
1920 Buffalo All-Americans, 1.327<br />
1942 Chicago Bears, 1.320<br />
1929 New York Giants, 1.285<br />
1922 Canton Bulldogs, 1.271<br />
1921 Buffalo All-Americans, 1.269<br />
1927 New York Giants<br />
<br />
These ten teams are the greatest ten teams in NFL history, by this method. Again, this is why we need to split everything that happened up to 1942 separately from the rest of NFL history. There are a total of 27 teams in NFL history that were projected to win more games than they actually played; all of them are from this era.<br />
<br />
You may also have noticed that these team names are not familiar. Just because these teams were great in their own times, doesn't mean that they stuck around. Canton/Cleveland, as you can see, was a dynasty. The Bears of 1942 played in what was the closest to the modern NFL of any of these, and not just because they were the most recent of the bunch. In 1942, in the average NFL game, the two teams combined for 32.38 points per game. Scoring was under 30 points per game from 1920 to 1938. Then in 1939, it reached 30, and hung right around there until 1942. Then, in 1943, there was an explosion of offense, leading to a 39.65 points per game total. The lowest it has been since then was in 1977, when it dipped as low as 34.35 points per game. In other words, still higher than every year up to 1942.<br />
<br />
Well, that's all I've got in terms of a history lesson for you tonight. I'm just gonna keep posting until I get bored, so don't be surprised if there's another one up shortly! Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-42762375791085257302013-10-18T09:10:00.001-07:002013-10-20T19:50:23.609-07:002013 Awards: My PicksI made picks at the <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/06/13-of-way-through.html">1/3 mark</a>, and at the <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-little-late-but-close-to-on-time.html">2/3 mark</a>. I couldn't decide when to make my final pick. Should I do it before the BBWAA announced? After? Release my picks on the same days as theirs?<br />
<br />
Well, I don't have the patience necessary to wait that long. But even if I did, I already posted <a href="http://bbp.cx/iba/a8ed">my Internet Baseball Awards ballot</a> over at Baseball Prospectus. So I figured, with that done today, and while I'm clichedly sitting in a coffee shop (actually a Barnes & Noble) on my computer, it's a perfect time for blogging. Especially about baseball, since I just did the awards ballot! Anyway, on to the picks, and the justifications:<br />
<br />
As I did in my last article, I'll list my pick from the 1/3 mark, my pick from the 2/3 mark, and who I predict will actually win the award, when the time comes.<br />
<br />
AL Manager of the Year<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. John Farrell, BOS<br />
2. Terry Francona, CLE<br />
3. Bob Melvin, OAK<br />
1/3 Pick: Joe Girardi, NYY<br />
2/3 Pick: Farrell<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Farrell or Francona<br />
<br />
Personally, I think that Farrell will be the winner. Worst-to-first is basically always a recipe for the MOY award. And Farrell did a great job. The pitching was outstanding, but it was mostly the 'pen. Which means no-name guys. Which means that most people say thing like, "Well, besides Pedroia and Ellsbury and an over-the-hill Ortiz, who d'they got?" And they won anyway. Francona's work in Cleveland is also impressive. Bob Melvin, winning with Josh Donaldson as his best player... wow. He won't get enough credit, because Oakland made the postseason last year. But he should have strong consideration, too. I'm going with Farrell, because... well... I have no idea how to evaluate managers, and his team went worst-to-first. I'm not beyond simplistic analysis when it's called for by the situation.<br />
<br />
NL Manager of the Year<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Clint Hurdle, PIT<br />
2. Mike Matheny, STL<br />
3. Don Mattingly, LAD<br />
1/3 Pick: Hurdle<br />
2/3 Pick: The manager whose team wins the central<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Hurdle<br />
<br />
Pittsburgh didn't end up winning the central. Matheny's Cardinals did, just like they do <i>every</i> year. I'm so sick of the Cardinals. But, credit where credit's due: people thought the end of the LaRussa/Pujols era spelled the end of the Cards. And yet, here they are, in the NLCS <b>again</b>. Still, the story in Pittsburgh is <i>too</i> good. It's not so much that Hurdle deserves the award over Matheny as it is that Pirates fans deserve as many awards as we can send their way. Mattingly gets a vote because of Yasiel Puig. I don't know how else to put that. I guess I have to say that going with the flashy, foreign rookie was an inspired choice with his job on the line. Baseball managers are, by nature, conservative creatures; they don't shake up the status quo unless necessary, and when necessary, they tend to go with "safe" over high-risk, high-reward. And yet, here was Mattingly, with his job on the line, going with an unproven player. And it worked out so well that the Dodgers were the best team in baseball once Puig came up (Kershaw and Greinke sure didn't hurt, though)!<br />
<br />
AL Rookie of the Year<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Wil Myers, CF, TBR<br />
2. Nick Franklin, 2B, SEA<br />
3. David Lough, LF, KCR<br />
4. Jose Iglesias, CF, BOS/DET<br />
5. Brad Miller, SS, SEA<br />
1/3 Pick: None<br />
2/3 Pick: Myers<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Myers<br />
I <b>hated</b> this year's AL rookie class. There's a bit
of promise, but no dominant, no-doubt winner. I went with Myers,
because he was the best prospect of the bunch. There was a lot of
WAR-based voting for this one, because no one made a big enough splash.
That's how a good-not-great-half-season by Miller wound up on my ballot. Iglesias is up there because of the name. Lough did a nice job filling in for Alex Gordon in left for Kansas City.<br />
<br />
NL Rookie of the Year<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Yasiel Puig, RF, LAD<br />
2. Jose Fernandez, SP, MIA<br />
3. Julio Teheran, SP, ATL<br />
4. Hyun-jin Ryu, SP, LAD<br />
5. Shelby Miller, SP, STL<br />
1/3 Pick: Miller<br />
2/3 Pick: Puig<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Fernandez<br />
<br />
Now THIS was a rookie class to remember. The pitching! My oh my! Fernandez, Teheran, Ryu and Miller were all outstanding! And yet, I had them all behind Puig. Obviously, this should be a two-horse race between Fernandez and Puig. Fernandez posted the better overall numbers, but Puig was churning out wins at a faster clip. I voted that way this time, but it's by no means the "right" way to have voted. I expect Fernandez to be the winner, and if/when he does, a deserving player will have won. It's a lot like the last couple of NL MVP votes: lots of players having MVP-type seasons. There aren't "wrong" choices in years like that. Just lots of right ones. When awards season goes wrong, it becomes about calling the "other" side stupid for their choices. When awards season goes right, it's about celebrating the performances of people who brought us a tremendous amount of enjoyment, just by watching them play a beautiful game. This rookie class will be an exciting one for years to come. You just can't help but feel excited. <br />
<br />
AL Cy Young<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Max Scherzer, SP, DET<br />
2. Anibal Sanchez, SP, DET<br />
3. Chris Sale, SP, CWS<br />
4. Felix Hernandez, SP, SEA<br />
5. Hisashi Iwakuma, SP, SEA<br />
1/3 Pick: Hernandez<br />
2/3 Pick: Hernandez<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Scherzer<br />
<br />
It's been close among all these guys all year. Pleasantly, like the NY ROY race, this is just a time to celebrate great performances by great players. The argument for a guy like Iwakuma is easy to make. Even an argument for Yu Darvish, who didn't even make my <i>ballot</i> is easy to make. There were a lot of excellent pitching performances, but nothing like the Verlander and Halladay performances of recent years, such that there was a no-doubt winner. But Scherzer has the best "traditional" stats, and when the sabermetrics are pretty even, I have no problem with looking at the traditionals, so he <i>will</i> win. In fact, I didn't use the "traditional" stats (ERA and W-L record) at all, and I <i>still</i> picked Scherzer as the winner. But it's a lot closer than the W-L record would indicate.<br />
<br />
NL Cy Young<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD<br />
2. Cliff Lee, SP, PHI<br />
3. Adam Wainwright, SP, STL<br />
4. Matt Harvey, SP, NYM<br />
5. Jose Fernandez, SP, MIA<br />
1/3 Pick: Kershaw<br />
2/3 Pick: Kershaw<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Kershaw<br />
<br />
And we have our first (and only!) unanimous, season-long choice! Kershaw led the league in ERA and strikeouts. He led in WAR. He was, quite simply, the best pitcher in the NL this season. Wainwright and Lee seem to be in always-a-bridesmaid mode. That's unfortunate, because they're both outstanding pitchers. Lee, at least, has won a Cy Young. Wainwright may never be so lucky. Speaking of Lee, did you even notice how quietly excellent he was this year? 222 innings, 222 K, a 2.87 ERA in a park that was about 3% higher scoring than average this year. Very quiet, very solid. He won't get much support, but that's a shame. And Harvey may have given Kershaw a run for his money, but his injury prevented that discussion. Fernandez, again, could be considered for the second spot, but in a year like this, it wasn't to be. The field is just too deep.<br />
<br />
AL Most Valuable Player<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Mike Trout, LF, LAA<br />
2. Josh Donaldson, 3B, OAK<br />
3. Miguel Cabrera, 3B, DET<br />
4. Robinson Cano, 2B, NYY<br />
5. Chris Davis, 1B, BAL<br />
6. Max Scherzer, SP, DET<br />
7. Evan Longoria, 3B, TBR<br />
8. Manny Machado, 3B, BAL<br />
9. Anibal Sanchez, SP, DET<br />
10. Dustin Pedroia, 2B, BOS<br />
1/3 Pick: A debate between Cabrera and Trout<br />
2/3 Pick: A debate between Cabrera and Trout<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: Cabrera<br />
<br />
Okay, if you want to count this one as unanimous all way through the year, go ahead. I did mention Trout in each one. And, after all, what more can be said about the Millville Meteor (besides the fact that his is the best nickname in MLB in decades)? He's too incredible.<br />
By the way, if you were going to be impressed by the 3 Tigers on this list, just look at the number of third basemen: 4 of the top 8 players in the American League! It reminds me of the A-Rod-Jeter-Garciaparra days, when the league was just <b>stacked</b> with shortstops. Hopefully, these guys all continue the way they're going now.<br />
Davis, Carbrera, and Trout have gotten the majority of the press. And I don't want to go on too long about any one of these guys. But they're all wonderful. The hardest spot for me was the 10th. I considered a couple of pitchers, but went with Pedroia because at least those pitchers get Cy votes; without this, Pedroia's got nada, and that didn't seem fair to his excellent season.<br />
<br />
NL Most Valuable Player<br />
<br />
My Ballot:<br />
1. Andrew McCutchen, CF, PIT<br />
2. Carlos Gomez, CF, MIL<br />
3. Clayton Kershaw, SP, LAD<br />
4. Matt Carpenter, 2B, STL<br />
5. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B, ARI<br />
6. Cliff Lee, SP, PHI<br />
7. Joey Votto, 1B, CIN<br />
8. Adam Wainwright, SP, STL<br />
9. Yadier Molina, C, STL<br />
10. Troy Tulowitzki, SS, COL<br />
1/3 Pick: Gomez<br />
2/3 Pick: Gomez<br />
Predicted BBWAA Winner: McCutchen<br />
<br />
Just as there were three Tigers in the AL top-9, so too there are three Cardinals in the NL top-9. It's therefore no surprise to see both of those teams in their respective LCSs. A lot of these NL guys flew under the radar: Carpenter, Goldschmidt, and Tulo, in particular. But nice seasons from them all.<br />
Like the AL, I debated some pitchers for the last spot or two. But Molina and Tulo would only get votes here, while the pitchers got something for the Cy, so I went with position players here. <br />
As for the winner, I went with McCutchen. Gomez got hurt shortly after the 2/3 column I wrote. And, ultimately, that's the difference between him and McCutchen for me. By the way, I've been voting in the IBAs for three years now, and I've had a Brewer in the top-2 each year: Braun in 2nd two years ago (to Matt Kemp), Braun as my personal winner last year, and Gomez in 2nd this year, to McCutchen. These aren't just homer picks; the team has actually had players that good. That would have been unthinkable when I was young, growing up watching the terrible, mid-90s and early-00s Brewers. But this has been a fun almost-decade to be a fan of this particular mid-market team. I hope things only improve from here.<br />
<br />
Any agreement or disagreement? Want to tell me why I'm wrong? I'd love to hear from you, so please comment! <br />
<br />
<i>A special thanks in this article to The Baseball Gauge, Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs, and Baseball Prospectus. All were invaluable. And if this column interested you at all, please consider following our RSS. Also, consider joining Baseball Prospectus. Even a free membership there gets you a daily e-mail with free content, as well as a vote in the IBAs.</i>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-75656613593886401402013-09-28T12:59:00.004-07:002013-10-20T19:50:14.916-07:00WARSCOR RevisitedI like tweaking. I've tweaked WARSCOR <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-new-warscor.html">a bit</a> since its <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/01/baseball-hall-of-fame-rankings.html">inception</a>. And I've never really been satisfied. Because while I've done good work with it, and I think it has (in a lot of ways) improved, there's are two things I've been really unhappy with. The first is that each revision of WARSCOR has made it more complex than the previous iterations. As if it weren't bad enough that I'm using a system (Wins Above Replacement) that's controversial, I'm also <i>further</i> complicating it by using averages that aren't just finding the standard mean, which is confusing. And then I'm using Wins Above Average which, although a more intuitive measure than WAR, is still confusing and confounding. The second thing is that the system is a little arbitrary. I mean, there are the two categories of "career" and "peak." And each category has three subcategories: total value, vanishing value (first number times <i>x</i>, second number times <i>x-1</i>, third number times <i>x-2</i>, etc.), and a vanishing value that starts at a higher number, so that the differences between season <i>n</i> and season <i>n+1</i> are closer together. Career, obviously, is not arbitrary; but for peak, I chose 10 years. I claimed this wasn't arbitrary, because it's the minimum requirement for the Hall of Fame. That's just stupid. It's arbitrary. And what's worse, the numbers I chose for the vanishing coefficient (starting at 30 and 45 for career, and 10 and 15 for peak, respectively) are arbitrary, as well. And then I compound the whole thing by doing it <i>again</i> with WAA - and taking yet <i>another</i> odd average! The main point of this whole exercise was to develop a formula in which I had confidence. And while I <i>like</i> the results being put out by the current iteration of WARSCOR, the arbitrariness of the whole system is something I find really irksome. So it's, more or less, back to the drawing board that I went. And I finally came to a solution that I found palatable.<br />
<br />
Let's start with the stuff I got right. Number one, boiling a whole career down to one number that can serve as a quick reference point; that's good - but WAR already does that on its own. So, number two, weighting peak and career differently, and giving them input into the said one number - that's <i>really</i> good. That, we have to keep. Number three, I liked that I sorted a player's career, starting with his best season, leading to his worst. Number four, the idea of the vanishing coefficient is salvageable, and definitely does something for balancing peak and career values. Number five, making sure to remember that <u>any one-number system is, by nature, the <b>start</b> of the conversation, and not the end</u> is the most important lesson of all. We're <b>definitely</b> sticking with that one. But everything else is fair game.<br />
<br />
First of all, I'm scrapping WAA from the formula altogether. There's no reason to include it. I understand why a lot of people (people for whom I have a great deal of respect, as well!) want to use it to derive peak value (Adam Darowski at the <a href="http://www.hallofstats.com/">Hall of Stats</a> and Tom Tango over at <a href="http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/career-accomplishments">his blog</a> are both proponents of this line of thinking). And many of those thinkers (including both of the aforementioned ones) believe in only including WAA for positive seasons. That's not really my boat, because I think you have to account for value if it happened, for good or for ill. Nonetheless, while I respect these other people, I can't help but think that if there's value in being between replacement and average, we must account for that. Anyway, I think WAR will work just fine. Most of all, there's the frustration many people (like me) feel in that, for example, with WAA, a perfectly average pitcher gets 0 WAA for 200 average innings, while a September call-up who throws 4 decent innings could easily have something like a 0.2 WAA. That's just wrong, and I want the Tommy Johns and Jamie Moyers and Craig Counsells of this world to get credit where credit is due. It's <i>hard</i> to be a MLB player, particularly to be one above replacement level!<br />
<br />
Second of all, I never liked that there were six categories getting averaged. That <b>kinda</b> defeats the purpose of the whole "coming up with a system" idea. I mean, you want to <i>simplify</i> things, not make them more convoluted than ever. My thinking at the time went something like the idea of crowdsourcing: get a bunch of different by similar measures together, and ask them to spit out a number; that number will be better for having had many inputs. There's <i>some</i> amount of wisdom in that, but not enough to inspire the level of confidence for which I was hoping. First of all, six isn't nearly enough inputs. I should have had 60 if I wanted any confidence. But 60 is too many, so that wouldn't work. So we're scrapping the idea of six categories, too. We're going down to one category. It <i>must</i> include peak and career, but just one category.<br />
<br />
Finally, we come to the vanishing coefficients. Ah the vanishing coefficients. Actually, they were a good idea. It's a thing that Bill James does a lot in his work. I remember an article in the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract about the great pitching rotations of all time, and he scored them by giving one point for each Win Share by the top starter, two for each WS by the #2 guy, 3 for each for the #3, etc. The idea was that the more balanced the rotation, the higher the score - basically, so you don't end up saying the 1985 Mets were the greatest rotation of their generation because Doc Gooden was <b>so</b> good that, no matter who else was in the rotation, they'd come out on top. Anyway, the vanishing coefficients were designed to mimic that. But I had to pick arbitrary points. And I <i>didn't</i> like that. Not only did I not like it because it was arbitrary, though. For example, one of them for the whole career started like this: <i>45(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span>)+44(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>)+43(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span>)</i>.... This is terrible, because 44/45 is not the same as 43/44 - so the relationships between the terms aren't consistent. So that would have to be fixed.<br />
<br />
And it is! We're keeping the vanishing coefficient idea, because that's how we can be sure to include "peak" in the "one-number" that I'm coming up with. The idea is actually really simple: to keep the coefficients in relationship, I'm going to make the relationship non-linear (by squaring) and use decimals to make sure that the weights start at one. Like this: <i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span>*0.8^0+x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>*0.8^1+x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span>*0.8^3</i>...; which essentially translates to <i>1(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span>)+.8(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span>)+.64(x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span>)...</i>, which I like a lot better. There's still sort of a linear component (because the power is going up by one for each term) and a quadratic one. The only thing left to do was to choose the constant.<br />
<br />
For the constant, I chose 0.9 - and there are at least two reasons for this. Number one, "9" is the great number of baseball numerology: nine innings, nine fielders, nine in the batting order, a forfeit is recorded as 9-0, etc., etc. It's a wonderful thing. But more importantly, I tried some other ones. I tried .8, and it came out WAY overvaluing peak. It basically said that if Mike Trout puts up 7 WAR next year, he'd have a better HOF case than Yogi Berra. That's a little messed up, in my opinion, great as Trout has been and as much as catchers <i>always</i> pose problems for this kind of system. So I tried numbers closer to 1, and 0.99 and 0.95 both kept putting things out that were much, much too close to the order in which players appear, simply based on career WAR. Actually, using 0.9, the resultant order is pretty close to the order that WARSCOR 2.0 put out. But that wasn't the <i>goal</i>, per se - but it was nice to see. So here's what we do for WARSCOR 3.0:<br />
<br />
Take the WAR accumulated by a player in each season of his career. Sort from greatest to least. Number them, starting with 0. We will call this number <i>n</i>. The numerical value for the WAR of each season we will call <i>x</i>, with <i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span></i> representing the best season, <i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></i> the second best (as I have done in the entirety of this post so far). So the formula is simply <i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1</span></i>*0.9^<i>n + </i><i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">2</span></i>*0.9^<i>n + </i><i>x<span style="font-size: xx-small;">3</span></i>*0.9^<i>n . . .</i><br />
<br />
Here's a sample player. Johnny Bench played 17 seasons in the Major Leagues, accumulating 75.2 WAR (baseball-reference version). In order from greatest to least, with the first term being numbered "0," they were as follows:<br />
<br />
0. 8.6<br />
1. 7.8<br />
2. 7.5<br />
3. 6.6<br />
4. 6.1<br />
5. 5.6<br />
6. 5.0<br />
7. 5.0<br />
8. 4.7<br />
9. 4.6<br />
10. 4.5<br />
11. 4.1<br />
12. 3.3<br />
13. 1.1<br />
14. 1.1<br />
15. 0.0<br />
16. -0.5<br />
<br />
For Bench's career, that means we do:<br />
<br />
8.6*0.9^0 + 7.8*0.9^1 + 7.5*0.9^2 + 6.6*0.9^3 + 6.1*0.9^4 + 5.6*0.9^5 + 5.0*0.9^6 + 5.0*0.9^7 + 4.7*0.9^8 + 4.6*0.9^9 + 4.5*0.9^10 + 4.1*0.9^11 + 3.3*0.9^12 + 1.1*0.9^13 + 1.1*0.9^14 + 0*0.9^15+ -.5*0.9^16 = 46.9<br />
<br />
Compare that to Bench's teammate, Pete Rose, who played 24 seasons, accumulating 79.4 WAR - just more than Bench. I'll spare you the list, but suffice it to say that Rose's total was 46.8 - just a hair <i>below</i> Bench, instead of above him. Bench's stronger peak outweighs Rose's longer hangaround value. And if you think Rose's really negative years are dinging him here (his four worst seasons were .4, .9, 1.1, and 2.1 - a total of 3.5 - Wins <i>Below</i> Replacement), those seasons total cost him only -.4 WARSCOR points - not even <i>close</i> to the 3.5 that he's dinged by just using standard WAR - and yet, they're still accounted for. And yes, those <i>are</i> enough to make up the difference between Rose and Bench. So while they <i>do</i> impact how these two rank, it's still an interesting exercise, don't you think?<br />
<br />
It's simple, it's elegant, it does exactly the job that WARSCOR was intended to do. I now firmly believe that WARSCOR is every bit as sensible<i> </i>as <b>any</b> other HOF measure out there: JAWS, CAWS, the Hall of Stats - any of them. I'll take WARSCOR 3.0 as my pick.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-81310038802647919332013-08-18T17:04:00.001-07:002013-10-20T19:50:05.640-07:00A Little Late, but CLOSE to on Time!Remember how I did awards 1/3 of the way through the season? Well, in theory, I was going to do awards 2/3 of the way through the season. However, in the last 7 weeks, I have a) started a new job, b) moved into our first house, and c) had to meet approximately 6 million people, which takes a bit of time. Needless to say, updating this blog, which is often the first thing that falls by the wayside in my life, fell victim yet again. But here we are, about 120 games in - which means we're at (roughly) the 3/4 mark. In my opinion, 75% is close enough to 67% that we're going to call this a win.<br />
<br />
Anyway, without further ado, here are the awards as I see them. I will also place my choice from the <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/06/13-of-way-through.html">previous</a> article, so that you can compare them without having to switch back and forth to the old post. Finally, I'll make my best guess as to who wins each award.<br />
<br />
AL Manager of the Year: John Farrell, BOS<br />
1/3 Choice: Joe Girardi, NYY<br />
Prediction: John Farrell, BOS<br />
<br />
As everyone knows, there are two ways to win the coach/manager of the year in major professional sports. You can either lead a team so dominant that it's impossible <i>not</i> to give you the award, or you can surprise people. As I see it, there is no one dominant enough in the AL to fall into the first category. But in the second, there would be two choices: John Farrell in Boston and Ron Washington in Texas. Washington lost key players in the offseason. You may have heard of the Hamilton fellow. The Angels were going to be on the rise, and the A's had made big strides. The Mariners even spent a good part of the year in the hunt. But they have fallen off, and while the A's are still close, virtually NO ONE expected Texas to compete. But that pales in comparison to the odds faced by Farrell before the season started. A huge but aging payroll. An "ace" in John Lackey who is, at this moment, exactly 1 game over .500 in FOUR YEARS in Boston. A last place finish. A clubhouse that was supposedly embattled. A dump of star-level talent including Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford. It was an impossible situation, particularly for a manager who had a reputation as a guy who just couldn't get a team "over the hump," based on two years of managing an up-and-down Toronto team. So what did he do? Stepped in and brought the team to first place, that's what. And not just first, but the best record in the American League. Sounds like a Manager of the Year to me.<br />
<br />
AL Rookie of the Year: I still have no idea<br />
1/3 Choice: None<br />
Prediction: Probably Wil Myers, OF, TBR<br />
<br />
Good luck with this one. On the one hand, the only person with a sizable sample is probably Jose Iglesias. But it's not too often that you see a guy traded midseason win a major award like that. So I don't think it's going to happen. On the other hand, whom do you vote for? It's wide open, as far as I'm concerned, but Myers is the biggest name, so he'll probably get the win. And when it's all said and done, he'll probably get my vote, too. But there's too much season left and too many things could happen for me to make any sort of choice, much less a prediction.<br />
<br />
AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, SEA<br />
1/3 Choice: Hernandez<br />
Prediction: Max Scherzer, DET<br />
<br />
Last year, I thought that Max Scherzer was probably the best pitcher in the AL. I didn't have the stones to say it publicly, but it's what I thought. He's AGAIN putting up stellar numbers. I may actually change my mind on this one. But midseason, I don't put too much thought into these awards, and Felix has been outstanding. Leading the league in innings, and STILL with an ERA under 2.5? Whew. That's impressive. Like 2010, he doesn't have the gaudy wins number. Unlike 2010, he doesn't have the nasty losses number. Like 2010, he's a workhorse. Unlike 2010, he's not leading the league in ERA (he's second). Hideki Kuroda, Anibal Sanchez, and Chris Sale (this year's Cliff Lee, who was last year the best pitcher in the NL but had a <i>terrible</i> record) would also be inspired choices. It's a year where you can't go wrong. But Scherzer has the best W-L, so he'll win. And that's not necessarily wrong.<br />
<br />
AL MVP: A debate between Miguel Cabrera, 1B, DET and Mike Trout, OF, LAA<br />
1/3 Choice: A debate between Miguel Cabrera, 1B, DET and Mike Trout, OF, LAA<br />
Prediction: Cabrera<br />
<br />
"Here we go again." I'm not the first person to write those words about this debate. I won't be the last. It's certainly a lot "closer" this year than last year, particularly without Cabrera having the Triple Crown. However, Trout hasn't been quite as good, either. Neither has dominated the other. Well, Cabrera did for the first part of the season, but Trout snuck up by consistently outplaying him since June. Either way, the poetically just thing would be for each of them to have an MVP after this astonishing two year stretch. That won't happen, because Cabrera will win. And it will just get filed away in my mind like all of Albert Pujols' if-only-Bonds-had-been-in-the-AL-2nd-place-MVP-finishes.<br />
<br />
NL Manager of the Year: The manager whose team wins the Central<br />
1/3 Choice: Mike Matheny, STL<br />
Prediction: The manager whose team wins the Central<br />
<br />
That's totally a cop-out, I know. But it's the truth. Everyone thought Cinci had it in the bag. They'll make the playoffs, sure. But either St. Louis or Pittsburgh is going to win that division. And the winning manager will have been a shock, and he'll deserve the win. I also wouldn't be surprised if it were Fredi Gonzalez, but I said before the season that the Braves were the most talented team in baseball, so I can't imagine casting a vote for their manager when they have the best record. Don Mattingly will get support here. That's good, and justified. But just remember: people were calling for his head early in the season. That was dumb, because he wasn't that bad. But he's not THIS good either (though Yasiel Puig <i>might</i> be). Any of those choices would be fine, but it's awfully tough to root against Pittsburgh and, by extension, Hurdle (especially because this season, unlike past ones, my Brewers aren't in the hunt).<br />
<br />
NL Rookie of the Year: Yasiel Puig, OF, LAD<br />
1/3 Choice: Shelby Miller, SP, STL<br />
Prediction: Puig<br />
<br />
At the 1/3 marker, I wrote, " It's totally crazy, by the way, that I actually considered Yasmiel
Puig's one week of play to make him the winner in this category. He's
been that scary good." It hasn't let up. He's been a monster. He's obscuring fine seasons by the aforementioned Miller, Jose Fernandez (SP, MIA), Julio Teheran (SP, ATL), Nolan Arenado (3B, COL), among others. It's a much deeper (and better) field than their American League counterparts, and it's a shame that only one of them will walk away with a ROY, while someone in the AL will grudgingly have to get one.<br />
<br />
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, LAD<br />
1/3 Choice: Kershaw<br />
Prediction: Kershaw<br />
<br />
He leads the league in innings. He leads in ERA. He pitched the most, and he's prevented the most runs. I said a lot more at the 1/3 point, but I think that about sums up my thoughts at this juncture. Oh yeah: and he's getting <i>hotter</i> as the season goes on. Scary.<br />
<br />
NL MVP: Carlos Gomez, OF, MIL<br />
1/3 Choice: Gomez<br />
Prediction: Andrew McCutchen, OF, PIT<br />
<br />
McCutchen and Gomez are both great choices. At the moment, Baseball-Reference has each with 6.5 WAR. I'm sticking with Gomez. Not because he's a Brewer (at least I like to THINK it's not because he's a Brewer) but because he's been more consistent. McCutchen has a 24-point advantage in OPS+. If there were a "Def+" metric, I don't doubt Gomez would have a similar one over McCutchen. Gomez has produced in a lineup that has been totally lackluster, with the exception of the outstanding Jean Segura. Unfortunately, Gomez will get no support. However, McCutchen has been great, and has been in this discussion for two years. It will be a pleasure to see him get his due, even though I believe that I would have cast a vote for Gomez, if I had the opportunity.<br />
<br />
Thanks to Baseball-Ref, to Fangraphs, and to The Baseball Gauge. They're the three best sports statistics sites on the web, and they're all devoted to America's Pastime.<br />
<br />
Sound off below on why I'm an idiot for my choices, or my predictions.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-58888883022220911042013-06-10T11:38:00.000-07:002013-06-10T11:38:26.132-07:001/3 of the Way Through...It's been a LOOOONG time since I've updated. Of course, I probably start 80% of my posts here that way. But that's life for you. Anyway, I just noticed today in <a href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9360155/jonah-keri-ranks-mlb-teams">Jonah Keri's power rankings</a> that it's week 10 of 30 in this MLB season. And while others will give you midseason awards, I think 1/3 of the way season awards makes more sense. Baseball's built in threes: three strikes, three outs, nine innings, nine fielders, nine hitters in the order, 162 games (which is 3*3*3*3*2, so there's plenty of threes right there), three, three, three. The All-Star break is three days. There are three divisions in each league. Seriously, this can go on forever. So why celebrate the halfway point when we could celebrate the 1/3 point? Of course, every team has already played more than 1/3 of their games, but who cares? So here are my award winners for 2013, to this point in the season.<br />
<br />
AL Manager of the Year: Joe Girardi, NYY<br />
<br />
You'll see this theme re-tread in the NL comment for this category, but seriously: what are the Yanks doing as contenders? For at least 7 years, I've been hearing that <i>this</i> would be the year the Yankees were done. Not so, it seems. Apparently, it's never to be. Or something. I don't know what Joe Girardi is putting in the water up there (insert 'roids joke here), but they're way outperforming expectations. Tip o' the hat to John Farrell and Ron Gardenhire for inspired jobs, as well.<br />
<br />
AL Rookie of the Year: Hell if I know.<br />
<br />
I
haven't the foggiest idea. Enlighten me in the comments. I don't think
anyone's been good enough at this point in the season to merit the
award. I guess we could just find some way to give it to Mike Trout
again, maybe. If Hisashi Iwakuma is still eligible, it's him in a landslide. Otherwise, I'm just not sure. Thankfully, there are another hundred-or-so games in which someone could separate from the pack.<br />
<br />
AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, RHP, SEA<br />
<br />
Yeesh... this one gets tougher and tougher every year. Could it be Buchholz? Yeah.
Could it be Chris Sale? Maybe. Hisashi Iwakuma? Quite probably. I
think it's one of the guys in Seattle, and so I'm giving it up for
Hernandez here, and letting track record be the tie-breaker when everything else is so hard to separate (as you'll see in the NL section). <br />
<br />
AL MVP: A debate between Miguel Cabrera, 1B, DET and Mike Trout, OF, LAA<br />
<br />
Obviously,
this has been written about already. And I'm not talking about last
year. I mean that this very year, we're talking about the same two
players: one, the greatest hitter in a generation, the other nearly as
good, but with the baserunning and defense to make him a true five-tool
player. Chris Davis is obviously in the mix here, as well, but I'd go
with one of the more proven players at this point. Cabrera's been
better so far, I think, but Trout was better last year and Cabrera won
the award, so perhaps an inversion would be poetic justice.
Nonetheless, at this point, I'm going to just split the award right in
two. And perhaps next season, we can just rename the AL MVP trophy as
the Cabrera/Trout Trophy.<br />
<br />
<br />
NL Manager of the Year: Mike Matheny, STL<br />
<br />
I hate the Cardinals. Unless you're a Cardinals fan, you should, too. They're WAY too good, WAY too often. They've completely overperformed three years running now, and I'm sick of it. But then again, if you looked at their roster on opening day and said, "Well, that's OBVIOUSLY the best team in MLB," you were lying. And yet, against all odds, they ARE the best team. Kirk Gibson deserves strong consideration here, as well. And if you're into rewarding people for doing what you expected, perhaps Fredi Gonzalez deserves the nod. I said before the season started that the Braves were the best team in the NL. I expected Washington wouldn't live up to what they did last year, and I'm glad to say I've been right about that one so far. But Gonzalez has done a good job managing Atlanta, in spite of underwhelming performances from BJ Upton and Jason Heyward.<br />
<br />
NL Rookie of the Year: Shelby Miller, RHP, STL<br />
<br />
Miller's been great. Cardinals are yucky. I have no more to say on this subject.
It's totally crazy, by the way, that I actually considered Yasmiel
Puig's one week of play to make him the winner in this category. He's
been that scary good.<br />
NL Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw, LHP, LAD<br />
<br />
What
more is there to say about Kershaw? He's been outstanding yet again.
The Koufax comparison, which has been noted, is not as outrageous as it
sounds. Kershaw is the best pitcher in the NL for the third year
running. It's not just the run environment in LA, either. He's third
in the league in ERA+. And while there are two players with lower ERAs
than Kershaw's 1.93, he's done in in 93 innings, which is also third in
the league. If you want to give it to Adam Wainwright,
He-Who-Must-Not-Give-Walks, be my guest. If you think that Cliff Lee is
again the league's best pitcher (as I did last year), more power to
you. You could pick wunderkind Matt Harvey. If you think it's my ROY
pick, I begrudge you not. But I'm sticking with Kershaw for now.<br />
<br />
NL MVP: Carlos Gomez, CF, MIL<br />
<br />
Homer pick? No. (As an aside, though, Milwaukee's outfield and the left side of their infield all have legitmate arguments as the best in the NL at their positions; it's just that the rest of the team has been SO dreadful that the Crew are still a last-place team.) Gomez has been the best player in the NL this year. Baseball-Reference has him as MLB's only 4-win player at this point in the year. Fangraphs has him at 3.8, one tenth of a win behind Tulowitzki. As always, Gomez has the glove and baserunning to merit high praise. But unlike before, the bat has been there, too. He leads the Brewers with 11 (yeah - he has more than Braun, Ramirez, Lucroy, or Weeks). He's got 12 SB. He could well have a 30-30 year - the kind of year the Mets expected when they were so desperate to hold onto him that only the greatest pitcher on the planet (Johan Santana) was worth giving him up for. He still doesn't walk, but Gomez is a .300 hitter (thanks to an expectedly-high BABIP). I've gotta think that, finally, at age 27 (no surprise there) that Gomez has finally put it all together and is ready to be the player he was always capable of being: the best one in the National League.<br />
<br />
Thanks, as always, to Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs for data and for awesome leaderboards, which helped in the construction of this post.<br />
<br />
Got a beef with my picks? Sound off below!Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-18065757423727892552013-01-16T19:48:00.003-08:002013-01-16T20:06:37.189-08:00A Simpler Way to WAR (long post)Since discovering Wins Above Replacement, I've had basically two ambitions: one, to create an uber-stat which I could use to combine peak and career weight when having a Hall of Fame discussion. I believe I've already done that with <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/01/baseball-hall-of-fame-rankings.html">WARSCOR</a>, particularly in its <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-new-warscor.html">new revision</a> (though it's admittedly much more convoluted than the Hall of Stats or JAWS methodologies). The second goal I've had is to make calculating WAR a simpler process. In other words, to be able to calculate it myself quickly and efficiently. Well, I'm here to say that, while I haven't quite "done it," I've gotten much, much closer. I now have a very good (and reasonable, I think) way to calculate WAR for offense and for pitching. Defense, not so much, but that's okay (and we'll explore what that <i>might</i> look like, if there ever were such a thing, at the end of this post). This is a start. It doesn't really do that, but it does give you a way to compare offensive players to pitchers by giving them a "won-lost" record which matches up with a pitcher won-lost record - in other words, there are 162 decisions for the pitchers, but also 162 "decisions" for the hitters.<br />
<br />
You may recall my <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2013/01/happy-new-year-and-hall-of-fame.html">last post</a> that I used ERA+ to give relievers a "record." Well, we're not going to worry about Fibonacci wins like I did in that post (though you'd certainly be welcome to play with them, if you feel like it). But the rest of the methodology stays the same, pretty much. Except that now, we're going to be comparing to replacement level. So, what is a reasonable replacement level? How about, just picking something out of the air, .310? If you'd like to use something different, you're welcome to it. Just follow the same steps, only with a different product side of the equation. We have to find out that, if a team's run prevention and run scoring are equally bad (compared to average), what would they be for a .310 winning percentage? The equation looks like this:<br />
<br />
<u> (100-x)^2 </u> - <u>31</u><br />
(100-x)^2 + (100+x)^2 - 100<br />
<br />
100(100-x)^2 = 31(100-x)^2 + 31(100+x)^2<br />
69(100-x)^2 = 31(100+x)^2<br />
69(10000-200x+x^2) = 31(10000+200x+x^2)<br />
690000-13800x+69x^2 = 310000+6200x+31x^2<br />
380000-20000x+38x^2 = 0<br />
<br />
Solve that equation, and you get (roughly) 20. Actually, using 20, you get a winning percentage of .307, but that's good enough for me.<br />
<br />
So, basically, since we have measures that can tell us how to compare players to average (where 100 is average) that are consistent (if not perfectly linearly related) to run scoring, we can actually tease out individual records from this exercise. We want to know what a player would be like if he were on an average team. We could actually do it with a replacement-level team instead, but average will work fine well.<br />
<br />
So now, for pitchers, we figure out the record. It's easy: divide the number of innings pitched by 9. This will be the number of decisions. Then take 10000/(ERA+) [or, alternately, just use ERA-, which needn't be adjusted]. Take this number and insert it for "x" in this formula:<br />
<br />
<u> 100^2 </u><br />
100^2 + x^2<br />
<br />
Now, multiply by the number of decisions. This gives you a number of wins. You can get "losses" by subtracting wins from decisions, if you felt so inclined.<br />
<br />
So, let's look at two pitchers: Justin Verlander in 2011 (251 IP, 172 ERA+) and Justin Verlander in 2012 (238.1 IP, 160 ERA+).<br />
<br />
2011:<br />
10000/172 = 58<br />
100^2/(100^2+58^2)=.748<br />
251/9=27.9<br />
.748*27.9=20.9<br />
2011 Verlander, by this method, "went" 20.9-7.0<br />
<br />
2012:<br />
10000/160 = 63<br />
100^2/(100^2+63^2)=.716<br />
238/9=26.4<br />
.716*26.4=18.9<br />
2012 Verlander, by this method, "went" 18.9-7.5<br />
<br />
So, let's do hitters. They're pretty much the same, except that we use OPS+ or wRC+, and we're adjusting the numerator <i>and</i> denominator. They'll do different things: wRC+ will include SB and some other offensive events (including sacrifices, double plays, etc.); OPS+ will only consider <i>hitting</i> properly. But they're basically the same. Still, I'll show them separately, because they're just different enough to cause a kerfuffle. For OPS+:<br />
<br />
First, we take batting outs (AB-H) and divide by 25.5 to get the number of "decisions." Then, we just plug like we did last time, with OPS+ standing in for x, but this time, it looks like this:<br />
<br />
<u> x^2 </u><br />
x^2 + 100^2<br />
<br />
Then, we multiply by "decisions." Here are two hitters, Miguel Cabrera in 2011 (572 AB, 197 H, 179 OPS+), and Miguel Cabrera in 2012 (622 AB, 205 H, 165 OPS+):<br />
<br />
2011:<br />
572-197=375<br />
375/25.5=14.7<br />
179^2/(179^2+100^2)=.762<br />
.762*14.7=11.2<br />
2011 Cabrera, by this method, "went" 11.2-3.5<br />
<br />
2012:<br />
622-205=417<br />
417/25.5=16.4<br />
165^2/(165^2+100^2)=.731<br />
.731*16.3=12.0<br />
2012 Cabrera, by this method, "went" 12.0-4.4<br />
<br />
-------------------<br />
Aside:<br />
I'm gonna take this opportunity to say a word about replacement level. A replacement level player on an average team will be considerably better than replacement level. That just makes sense, doesn't it? Since we're only comparing offense <i>or</i> defense, and making the other average, we will get the overall to be higher than .307, which is what we used as replacement level. By this method, a replacement level offensive player would be stuck into this formula:<br />
<br />
80*80/(80*80+100*100)=.390<br />
<br />
<i>A pitcher actually has a different replacement level, for this exercise, since:</i><br />
<i>100*100/(100*100+120*120)=.410</i><br />
<i>Personally, I don't see this as any reason to really <b>care</b>, because no one pitches enough innings for this to even make up a full win. If you feel differently, please feel free to do the math to normalize this discrepancy. Otherwise, keep in mind that this is just a fun, silly exercise by a person who only took one math class in college.</i><br />
<br />
As you can see, the result is not .307, but .390. Of course, this means that, comparing, say, 2012 Miguel Cabrera to replacement level, we'd do (replacement level) * (number of "decisions"), and then subtract that number from Cabrera's own wins. In other words:<br />
<br />
.390*16.3=6.4<br />
11.9-6.4=5.5 "Wins Above Replacement"<br />
<br />
Of course, there's another alternative. We could have put Cabrera on a team that gave up runs at a replacement-level rate, and then simply subtracted wins at a rate of .307, our initial rate. Like this:<br />
<br />
165*165/(165*165+120*120)=.654<br />
.654*16.3=10.7<br />
.310*16.3=5.0<br />
10.7-5.0=5.7 "Wins Above Replacement"<br />
<br />
I've been working off the first method, but if you were to work by the second method, I wouldn't begrudge you. It's probably actually a little better. A little cleaner for the comparison to replacement, anyway. But it's up to you.<br />
End of Aside<br />
-------------------<br />
<br />
Finally, we'll look at what it looks like if you use wRC+, instead of the baseball-reference stats. We'll use two players: Ryan Braun in 2011 and Ryan Braun in 2012. In this method, we look at <i>all</i> the outs the offensive player made, instead of just batting outs. So the formula looks like this.<br />
<br />
First, we figure total outs, by taking batting outs (AB-H), like before, and adding GDP, SH, SF, and CS. Then we divide that by 27 to get "decisions." The rest of the formula is identical to the OPS+ version. So here's Brauny.<br />
<br />
2011:<br />
563-187+9+3+0+6=394<br />
394/27=14.6<br />
173^2/(173^2+100^2)=.750<br />
.750*14.6=11.0<br />
2011 Braun, by this method, "went" 11.0-3.6<br />
<br />
2012:<br />
598-191+12+5+0+7=431<br />
431/27=16.0<br />
162^2/(162^2+100^2)=.724<br />
.724*16.0=11.6<br />
2012 Braun, by this method, "went" 11.6-4.4<br />
<br />
So, there you go. You can see that we can, pretty easily, produce a "pitcher-like" record for an offensive player. Obviously, it's not on the same scale <i>quite</i>, since even top players end up with under 20 "decisions," making comparisons difficult. But it's still fun, I think, to look at.<br />
<br />
So now, we get to imagination land. How would I change this, if I could, to make it more like actual WAR? Well, first of all, I would want a defensive system. What we'd need to develop, of course, is a system by which we measured, basically, the number of "plays" that a player made (or perhaps better, runs saved on plays made, or whatever), relative to the expected number for his position, just as we would have for OPS+ or ERA-. Once we have that number relative to 100, just as we do for other parts of the game, we can determine the number of decisions and then the number of wins.<br />
<br />
Of course, it would be silly to have a number of defensive wins and losses that equalled 162, as well as a number of offensive and pitching wins and losses. So what do we do about it? Well, for my money, we would divide the offensive number by two, the defensive number by six, and the pitching number by three. That would give us a much better basis for comparison. We could actually see this already. Take Cabrera in 2011 and Verlander that same year. If we take Cabrera's record in half, we get 5.6-1.8; Verlander's as a third and we get 7.0-2.3. Those are a lot more comparable, and would be even moreso if we were able to add in Cabrera's defensive wins and losses. We'd see something much different from what we're used to seeing.<br />
<br />
There is, of course, one problem that I must address. If one were to implement the system I just suggested with, say a shortstop who was slightly below average fielding and hitting (let's say a 99 in each), he would grade out as a below-average player. However, everyone <b>knows</b> that a shortstop who is basically average defensively and basically average offensively is a HUGE asset. This is why, perhaps, it would be good in creating a defensive system to compare the runs saved, not to position, but to all positions on the field. That would make shortstops automatically very valuable, while it would make first basemen very low in value. But that's just an idea. As far as I know, there's no such stat out there, so maybe that's another project for me. But I doubt it.<br />
<br />
So, that's my big brainstorm. If you made it this far, wow. Just wow. Because I'm really, really impressed. It was a ridiculously long post. But I hope you enjoyed it. Suggestions?<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Thanks to baseball-reference and fangraphs for the stats in today's post!</i></span>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-72503880309262961672013-01-02T07:06:00.000-08:002013-01-02T07:06:28.536-08:00Happy New Year... And Hall of Fame RelieversIt's Baseball Hall of Fame season, which is typically a very active time for me on this blog. Well, it's been a really, REALLY busy few weeks, so I haven't done as much as I'd like. But suffice it to say that I'm disappointed that it's likely no one will get election to the Hall this year. I mean, I'm not the kind of person who says that Jack Morris should make the Hall of Fame. But here's the thing: Jack Morris was better at baseball than most people are at ANYTHING, and yet people scream and shout about how he doesn't belong. Now, if I had a ballot, I would not vote for Morris. I don't think he's good enough to make the Hall. But if he did, I'd be very, very happy for him and for all the Tigers fans out there who have seen so many players who <i>are</i> above the Hall benchmark fail to be elected.<br />
<br />
But anyway, today, Poz posted an <a href="http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/40826138">article</a> that discusses the candidates he didn't vote for, but who merit more consideration. Well, I'm happy to say that one of the sections struck a chord with me: the section on Lee Smith. I thought to myself, <i>would I vote for Lee Smith</i>? Now, with a ballot as crowded as this year's, the answer is "no." But, if there were unlimited slots, would I? I don't know. So, I devised a way to figure it out.<br />
<br />
People (like Poz) talk about how saves are too one-dimensional a stat. I agree. Especially when we're comparing people to starters (as we do in HOF voting). So how do we account for this? I think it's actually pretty easy.<br />
<br />
First, we look at only two statistics for the pitcher: ERA+ and Innings Pitched. Normally, I'm more of a fan of ERA-, but I'll use the more commonly-known baseball-reference stat (speaking of which: all stats courtesy of that wonderful site). And I use Batters Faced for most of the silly little things I do with pitchers, but in this case, IP is necessary.<br />
<br />
Anyway, we first convert ERA+ to ERA-, which is easy, and necessary. ERA+ measures how much higher the league ERA was than the pitcher's (adjusted for ballpark). What we need to know is the <i>inverse</i> (in other words, how much <i>lower</i> was the pitcher's ERA than the league, adjusted for ballpark). Here it is:<br />
10000/ERA+<br />
It's that easy. So we then have that number. And we'll figure out a Pythagorean winning percentage, based on an average offense. It looks like this:<br />100^2/(ERA-^2+100^2)<br />
Now, we have a winning percentage. Let's keep that in our back pockets.<br />
<br />
Next, we take the innings pitched, and we divide by nine. Why? Because, roughly every nine innings, there's a decision. Look at individual pitchers (starters, preferably), if you want. Divide their career innings by nine. Usually, you'll find that they have roughly nine times as many innings pitched as decisions. If that's not good enough proof for you, go ahead and pick a random team in history. Divide their number of Innings Pitched by the number of Games Played. You will usually find that the answer hovers between 8.8 and 9.2 - which is good enough for me to just call it nine.<br />
<br />
So anyway, we now have a number of "decisions" and a "winning percentage." Now, just multiply them together. That gives us a number of "pitcher wins" for these players who usually don't really have those to look at!<br />
<br />
This gives us a nice starting point, actually. But we can go a step further, of course. We simply take the decisions, and subtract the wins. That gives us losses, because that's important to know, too. Then, we use one of my favorite Bill James tools: Fibonacci wins. We take:<br />
Wins*Winning%+(Wins-Losses). This helps us account for both the raw total of winnings, and the percentage of the time the player won.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I did this for eleven relievers, who are considered among the best of all-time. Why eleven? Because these are the eleven relievers who are either in the Hall of Fame, or I have heard an argument for belonging in the Hall of Fame. Here they are, presented with their "record," as well as Fibonacci wins (and ordered by the latter).<br />
<br />
Hoyt Wilhelm: 171.2-79.2; 209.1<br />
Dennis Eckersley: 209.4-155.6; 173.9<br />
Mariano Rivera: 109.7-25.8; 172.6<br />
Goose Gossage: 123.3-77.7; 121.3<br />
Billy Wagner: 78.0-22.3; 116.4<br />
John Franco: 90.8-47.7; 102.6<br />
Rollie Fingers: 111.6-77.5; 99.9<br />
Lee Smith: 91.0-52.2; 96.6<br />
Dan Quisenberry: 78.9-37.0; 95.6<br />
Trevor Hoffman: 80.5-40.5; 93.6<br />
Bruce Sutter: 75.1-40.6; 83.3<br />
<br />
Obviously, this is overly simplistic. It takes a lot to say that you can boil things down to one number (as much as we all try to do it). But at the end of the day, when it comes to the Hall of Fame, there are only two options: in or out. That's a binary decision. Binaries are numbers. So you <i>have</i> to be able to put a number on it. And this is a pretty good place to start, if you ask me.<br />
<br />
As you can tell, innings pitched is skewed for Eckersley because of his years as a starter. But so what? He did that pitching, as well. And when you factor it all in, he's roughly as good as Mariano, which sounds about right to me. Wilhelm's HUGE number of innings keeps him at the top of the group, which sounds about right to me. And frankly, I'm not sure if I could vote for anyone below Mariano - the gap seems to be in roughly the 150 Fibonacci win area.<br />
<br />
But, back to the topic at hand, which is Lee Smith. Fingers' induction has been much-maligned by many people. But seeing Fingers, Wagner, and John Franco atop Lee Smith makes me fairly certain of this much: I don't think I could vote for him. He deserves to be remembered, so, like Jack Morris, I would never begrudge his election. But, also like Morris, I just don't think the Hall of Fame is big enough to include not only Lee Smith, but all of the players who were better or roughly his equal. I just don't think anyone wants a Hall of Fame with 10 relief pitchers - not yet, anyway. Maybe in another 50 years, but not right now. And if Smith is <i>still</i> one of the 10 best relievers of all-time in 50 years, then we can talk about it. But for now, it's a no.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-80008145111191329532012-12-26T11:46:00.000-08:002012-12-26T11:46:16.644-08:00Next in MMASo ESPN is back at it again with its "Next" magazine issue. For those that do not know, ESPN each year likes to make a magazine issue that stars athletes that are the future of their respective sports. For example Cam Newton was the winner last year for being "Next" in football (not sure how that has worked out so far). Typically I always have an issue whenever ESPN tries to create a list or a bracket of any sort. I looked at their nominees for who is next in each sport and in typical ESPN fashion they made some really hair scratching choices just for their nominees. Though I could hammer ESPN for choosing Johnny Football as a nominee for being "Next" in football over Russell Wilson or Breanna Stewart for being "Next" in basketball over Damian Lillard, I decided to take my frustrations out on their list of who is "Next" in fighting.<br />
<br />
As I have gotten older my love for combat sports has grown to the point where the knowledge I use to store about football, basketball, baseball, and hockey have been pushed out to make room for MMA. No longer do I pay close attention to recruiting classes or even care who wins what award in college sports. Now I wonder who will be the next great fighter to enter the 145 pound class in the UFC and whether the 125 pound division is sustainable with a lack of well known fighters? Gone are the days of wondering who will be the next great defensive end to challenge the greatness of Bruce Smith and Reggie White. Now I wonder if anyone can eclipse the standard set by Anderson Silva and GSP. ESPN is clearly the gold standard in sports and is the voice of the sports world, but ESPN has always lacked in its knowledge of combat sports especially in MMA. So when I saw their list of who is "Next" in fighting needless to say I thought the list was extremely underwhelming.<br />
<br />
Of their list of five fighters, two of their fighters were MMA fighters. I was impressed by the fact that they put Michael Chandler on their list. Michael Chandler is a star in the Bellator ranks and is one of the top 10 fighters in arguably the deepest weight class in MMA, the 155 pound division. However after Michael Chandler, ESPN then listed Alexander Gustavsson which is just an okay choice. Alexander Gustavsson has been relevant in the UFC (the biggest organization in MMA) for more then three years now. I'm not sure what ESPN considers for "Next" but in my book Gustavsson is more of a now guy then a next guy. After the two MMA fighters the next three fighters were boxers. Now I'm not a big boxing fan, but the guys they listed (Broner, Canelo, and Price) are all also well established boxers that hold multiple titles (which I understand isn't very difficult. I think you get a title just for turning professional). The fact that ESPN decided to list more boxers then MMA fighters is a clear sign of their ignorance of the popularity of MMA.<br />
<br />
Their ignorance is evident every time the topic of MMA is brought up on one of their shows. The talking heads on ESPN always brush off the topic as if they are asked to discuss an obscure Olympic sport like curling or ribbon dancing. However, UFC alone has gone from being exclusively on Spike TV to having headlining shows of FOX, FX and Fuel TV. The Bellator brand has shows on Spike TV, MTV, and MTV2. UFC fighter Jon Jones has his own line of training gear in Nike. Oh and his line of gear was brought in after Nike dropped Manny Pacquio, (this was before he was left sleeping on the mat by Marquez).
MMA is the biggest growing sport in the world with MMA gyms popping up all over in each country. MMA is the biggest individual sport in Brazil and in Canada. It's also considered the most popular combat sport in all European countries and in Asia. With this being a fact ESPN has to get with the times especially if they are going to try to provide commentary on combat sports. With this in mind I think it's my job to provide the correct insight on who is actually "Next" in fighting, specifically in MMA. So here we go!<br />
<br />
5) Jon Dodson: The five foot three inched 125 pound American could be the face of a struggling division in the UFC. The 125 pound division gets criticized for not having enough heavy hitters. Though the fights are fast paced the masses always like a good knockout artist. Enter Jon Dodson. In his three UFC fights he has two spectacular knockout victories. Also his post-fight celebrations of flips and acrobatics just adds to his appeal. Jon Dodson will be fighting Demetrious "Might Mouse" Johnson on January 26 in Chicago for the championship. This fight will be the headlining bout on a card that will be on FX. This could be the stage that vaults Dodson into mainstream popularity<br />
<br />
4) Anthony "Showtime" Pettis: There is no Milwaukee bias in this choice. Anthony Pettis has been slowed by some injuries, but he could be the most exciting fighter in the deepest weight class in the UFC. The 155 pounder has explosive kicks and amazing grappling. Milwaukee is surprisingly becoming a hotbed for training UFC fighters at the Duke Roufus gym and Anthony Pettis is their best prospect. The 25 year old has a huge fight against Donald Cerrone on the same card as Jon Dodson. A victory in this card should put him in line for a title fight against the current 155 pound king Ben Henderson.<br />
<br />
3) Dustin Porier: The 23 year old Louisiana native has been on a tear ever since he was introduced to the UFC. He had a minor setback against Chan Sung Chung, but his submission defeat to the Korean Zombie happened after he was dominating that fight in the first round with timely strikes. With only two losses under his belt and with a recent bounce back victory over former TUF winner Jonathan Brookins, Porier is on track to be a serious threat to current 145 pound king Jose Aldo. With time, the American Top Team prospect should be fighting for a title sooner rather then later.<br />
<br />
2) Chris Weidman: He could arguably be number one on this list, but the guy in front is just a little bit more dominant. However, this 185 pounder is the most serious threat to the MMA king, Anderson Silva. His dominant performance over Anthony Munoz sent a message to every fighter in the 185 pound division. The 28 year old is yet to lose a fight and has avoided the injury bug for the most part. Another dominant performance against another top 5 contender should put him in line to take on Silva. A victory over Silva would make Weidman the first American to hold the middleweight title since Rich Franklin was relevant in the early 2000s.<br />
<br />
1) Rory McDonald: We thought there would never be another GSP, but here he is. If anything he's the evil GSP. Unlike GSP, this Canadian does not care for fan approval. His robotic post-fight interviews reminds many fans of Ivan Drago. However his skill sets are completely unstoppable. He has ran through every opponent that has been placed in front of him. His lone lost to former #1 contender Carlos Condit came in the very last round when he was knocked out after dominating Condit for the previous two rounds. He will have a chance to revenge that lost at UFC 158. The 23 year old could be the most dominate fighter in the UFC over the next five years. Rory McDonald has all of the striking and wrestling as his mentor GSP and he has time on his side. He's a bigger version of GSP and has way better kicks then GSP ever had. Canada has arguably the most rabid MMA fan base and they also have the next big thing in Rory McDonald.
Jordanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926059000546033220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-44322643585412385652012-12-03T20:17:00.000-08:002012-12-03T20:17:21.169-08:00The New WARSCORSo, you all may remember <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2012/01/baseball-hall-of-fame-rankings.html">WARSCOR</a>, my attempt at a career rating system which could be my version of Adam Darowski's <a href="http://darowski.com/hall-of-wwar/">wWAR</a>. Of course, there's also the fact that Adam has rolled out his newest thing: <a href="http://www.hallofstats.com/">The Hall of Stats</a>. Well, I got jealous. One of my biggest criticisms of wWAR was that it was too arbitrary: it had cutoffs in weird spots, and for no reason. The Hall of Stats has cutoffs at replacement and average.<br />
<br />
WARSCOR has the advantage of being adaptable to be used with Win Shares, rWAR, fWAR, (the now-defunct gWAR, which I miss a whole lot, because it used DRA for defense,) and WARP (although that's my least favorite of the group, because it doesn't have full historical stats). And since I don't actually run a website with it, I am free to just do what I need for a specific project, not sort of figure everything out for every player in history.<br />
<br />
But, of course, Adam had to go and come up with something better. I realized that, perhaps, average is a better comparison than replacement. Hmph. It's tough to say. But here's what I did. I ran the WARSCOR system using replacement level. Then I did the exact same thing with Wins Above Average (baseball-reference-style - let's not get ahead of ourselves TOO much). Then, I took the geometric mean. Easy as that. Here it was for Adam's list of the top 9 3B not in the Hall of Fame, with their WARSCOR, WAASCOR, and the Composite:<br />
<br />
Stan Hack, 38.4; 21.0; 27.1<br />
Heinie Groh, 37.3; 22.8; 28.3<br />
Ron Cey, 39.3; 23.2; 29.2<br />
Robin Ventura, 39.8; 23.6; 29.7<br />
Darrell Evans, 41.4; 23.5; 30.0<br />
Buddy Bell, 44.6; 27.9; 34.4<br />
Sal Bando, 45.5; 28.4; 35.0 (35.954)<br />
Graig Nettles, 46.2; 28.1; 35.0 (34.958)<br />
Ken Boyer, 46.9; 28.0; 35.1<br />
<br />
It's really only when you have a distance of <i>at least</i> 1.0 that you can start to even say there's a <i>remote</i> distinction between the players. Therefore, you can see that Bando, Nettles, and Boyer can't be distinguished between in a meaningful way, although it's probably not outrageous to say that they're significantly better than Bell. But it's <i>also</i> pretty clear that Evans falls into the lower group. There's a rather HUGE gap between Evans and Bell, and one can see that, if we were to say that people were to go into the Hall of Fame, this might be a good place to separate into different factions.<br />
<br />
So, there you have it. A new, even more convoluted system. But one that I'm pretty proud of, and would stand behind.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-9203055153254197522012-11-15T14:43:00.003-08:002012-11-16T17:36:03.373-08:002012 MVPToday is MVP day. Happy last day of the 2012 season!<br />
<br />
Seriously, it's all hot stove from here on out, so let's take a moment to savor this moment. Savor it.<br />
<br />
Aaaaaaaahhhh.<br />
<br />
But just because 2012 is ending doesn't mean we can't have more people discussing the MVP debate, right? Here's a comment I posted over at Seamheads this morning.<br />
<br />
-----------<br />
In my opinion, there is a solid, non-sabermetric argument to be made
for Trout over Cabrera. First, you just have to suggest that the
currency of baseball is runs.<br />
Then, you can look at a good, non-sabermetric stat like Runs Produced
(RBI+R-HR). Trout had 182; Cabrera had 204. Or you can go more simply
and say that you get half-credit for each run, and half-credit for each
RBI. In other words, (R+RBI)/2. 106 for Trout; 118 for Cabrera.
That’s either a difference of 12 runs, or 22. Let’s just hedge our bets
and use the larger, 22 run-advantage for Cabrera. The question
becomes, is it possible that Trout’s baserunning+fielding yielded 22
runs? Well, he pulled back 5 home runs this year. That’s five runs
right there, easy as pie. We’re down to 17 runs. Let’s look at
baserunning. Let’s say that every CS eliminates 2 SB. And let’s count
each SB as 1/4 run. In math, that’s (SB-2CS)/4. That’s not very much.
For Cabrera, that gives us (4-2*1)/4=.5. So the difference is back up
to 17.5 runs. For Trout, we get (49-2*5)/4= 9.75. So the difference is
now down to 7.75 runs. Are you really going to argue that non-stolen
base baserunning and defense (which, keep in mind, we’ve only accounted
for in terms of home runs stolen) is less than 8 runs? Didn’t think so.<br />
This is the best non-saber case I can make for Trout. I think it
holds, as much as any such argument could. It shows Cabrera to be “up”
by 7.75 runs – but that doesn’t account for the slew of extra outs he
made, or the fact that the Angels foolishly left Trout in the minors for
a month, or the fact that the Angels won one more game than the Tigers,
or account for differences in ballpark. Frankly, I don’t see how you
can even make the case for Cabrera in light of this. But that’s my
opinion.<br />
------------<br />
<br />
Now, perhaps it was unfair of me to "double-count" stolen bases; after all, shouldn't those have been counted in Runs Produced already? Probably, so that was a boo-boo by me. Anyway, we're left with a 17-run difference - or, disregarding the homer-robbing exploits of Trout, a 22-run difference.<br />
<br />
Is it possible that Mike Trout saved 22 more defensive runs than Miguel Cabrera? I would say that it's pretty darn possible. 22 is a lot of runs, but it's definitely not inconceivable. And when you take into account that Trout is an <i>electric</i> defender, while Cabrera is adequate-at-best, I don't think it's unrealistic. But let's say that he didn't. What about some of the other points I made?<br />
<br />
For example, who created more outs? That's easy to figure - <i>and</i> this will help fix the issue with playing time. You take batting outs (AB-H), and you add caught stealings and grounding into double plays. The whole thing is : AB-H+CS+GDP<br />
Cabrera: 622-205+1+28=446 outs<br />
Trout: 559-182+5+7=379 outs<br />
So Cabrera created (as we said) 22 extra runs, in 67 extra outs. Is that good or bad?<br />
<br />
Well, the entire AL this year created 17217 runs, using up 59932 outs. In other words, for every out, an average player created .287 runs. Why is this important? Well, what if we credit Trout for some of his missed playing time by giving him only AVERAGE performance for those additional 67 outs? If we do that, we take 17217/59932*67=19 runs. That means, if Trout had played as an <i>average</i> player, instead of as MIKE TROUT for the difference in playing time as Cabrera, we would have expected Trout to be only 3 runs behind Cabrera. <i>Three</i> runs. Remember those 5 homers we talked about earlier? Yeah. Add those in, and we get Trout above Cabrera. And that's <i>still</i> not factoring in the majority of their difference on defense.<br />
<br />
Now, again, I can see someone saying, <i>Well, you can't just "make up" for lost time like that - Trout wasn't playing, and that's that</i>. To an extent, obviously, that's true. So let's look at a ridiculously similar MVP race, involving a part-time outfielder who was a better defender and baserunner, and compare him with... MIGUEL CABRERA.<br />
<br />
In 2010, Josh Hamilton of the Rangers and Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers were in a very similar boat. Cabrera led the league in RBI (batting .328 and hitting 38 HR; this year, he batted .330 with 44 HR - so, basically, the exact same year) and played 150 games (161 this year). Josh Hamilton, on the other hand, played in only 133 games (Trout played 139 this year). In 2010, Miguel Cabrera produced 199 runs, topping the AL. Hamilton produced 163 runs - a difference of 36. Which, if you're scoring at home, gives Hamilton a BIGGER gap, and LESS playing time; and yet, people happily voted him the MVP. And the outs gap was only 44. So basically, Cabrera produced one run for every extra out he created. Giving Hamilton the extra 44 outs at a league-average rate for 2010 gives him only 13 runs, which <i>still</i> leaves him 23 runs behind - bigger than Trout's gap was, even BEFORE we adjusted for playing time! And since Josh Hamilton's 2010 defense is not 20 runs better than Mike Trout's 2012 defense, we have to conclude, I think, that voters in 2012 and voters in 2010 are not applying consistent reasoning.<br />
So why did Hamilton win? Because of the batting title? Because his team made the playoffs? Because of his defense? Well, Trout's D is better, he <i>practically</i> won the batting title, and his team won more games than Cabrera's. So why Hamilton in 2010 but not Trout in 2012?<br />
<br />
All I know is, I can make the argument that the difference between Trout and Cabrera, even <i>before</i> adjusting for defense or ballpark, is closer to 3 runs than 22. And I can <i>also</i> make the argument that we've had a Trout-Cabrera situation before, and resolved it in favor of our "surrogate" Trout. Yet, it seems to be a problem this year.<br />
<br />
By the way, I made this case for Trout without the use of WAR. You don't need it, because it's obvious that Trout had the better year. I used a vastly inferior offensive statistic, which actually makes the gap between Trout and Cabrera <i>look</i> bigger than it really is. I hardly touched on defense. The fact of the matter is, Miguel Cabrera had a wonderful year. He was one of the 5 best players in the AL this year, probably one of the top 3, and maybe even one of the top 2. But he wasn't as good as Mike Trout. As I've said before, he'll win the MVP, and that's fine. But there's no doubt in my mind that it's also incorrect.<br />
<br />
******<br />
Addendum to original post:<br />
Another way to think of this might be the following. What percentage of Miguel Cabrera's value comes from defense? 0%? A negative percentage? Let's be absurdly generous and say that 10% of Miguel Cabrera's value is from defense.<br />
And now, how about Mike Trout. What percentage of Trout's value comes from defense? 30%? Let's say 20, to be conservative.<br />
<br />Well, if we assume those figures to be true, and even if we stick with Runs Produced as the offensive model, we're left with this math:<br />
Cabrera= (11/10) * 204 = 224.4<br />
Trout = (5/4) * 182 = 227.5<br />
<br />
First of all, I swear I picked those numbers out of thin air, and did not specifically engineer them for Trout to come out on top. But really, they probably don't look <i>that</i> unreasonable. So, again, I get Trout as the MVP. In spite of less playing time, he still created, by this "measure" more total runs than Cabrera. Again, I just can't avoid the conclusion that Cabrera did not have as good of a year as Trout did.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-68368414112943923532012-11-02T11:05:00.000-07:002012-11-02T11:05:23.221-07:00How to Make Football a Better GameI can hear you thinking it. "But David - football is already the most popular game in America. How are you going to make it better?"<br />
<br />
What if I said that I could eliminate the most boring play in the game, make football higher-scoring, and make virtually every possession have at least one edge-of-your-seat play? Would you be interested?<br />
<br />
Here's how it works: <br />
<br />
First, in my football dream world, kickoffs and punts would also be
eliminated. Every drive starts from the 20, and you get four downs - if
you don’t convert, sucks to be you. I think the 20 is a good spot to start because it's not SO far back, but it's not so far up that teams can just play conservatively back and forth, gaining one or two first downs and then turning the ball over on downs. If you are facing fourth-and-four from the 26 yard line and you MISS it - you're screwed. The other team starts in GREAT field position. Thus, the game becomes higher scoring. If you can't punt, even when you're in horrible field position, teams have to get more creative and riskier, and that results in more turnovers, more spectacular plays, and a better game overall.<br />
<br />
Second, there's a change in OT. Overtime will still be
sudden-death. Home team has a choice of ball or wind. Why? Because
they're the home team. Whoever starts on offense starts from their own
35. Why the 35? Because if they fail to convert, their opponents start
with the ball less than half a field away. This yardline could be
changed if the 35 is too problematic. Hopefully, though, the field
position and wind disadvantages and the possession advantage even one
another out. If defense stops the offense, good for them.<br />
<br />
Third, the extra point is eliminated. Every TD is worth 7 points. However, if you'd like to get an "extra" point, you can. All you have to do is wager one of your 7 points. In other words, you'd get one down from the three yard-line. If you made it, you'd have 8 points. If you missed it, you'd LOSE one of your 7, and you'd only have 6. It makes a game-tying TD ACTUALLY tie the game, most of the time. And, if you tie on the last play of the game, you can choose to win or lose, right there. No time to think about overtime or not. You either win, or go home.<br />
<br />
Fourth, I wouldn't eliminate the kicking game entirely. The only vestige of the kicking
game I appreciate is the field goal. The rest of it can just go. But I also support progressive field goal scoring (2 points for a
field goal of 20-29 yards, 3 points for a field goal of 30-39 yards,
etc.). It rewards strong-legged, accurate kickers. And it creates some interesting scenarios, like this vignette:<br />
<br />
You're the home team. There's a decent-speed wind with you, for now. It’s four and one from the 39, with your team down by 5 with
two minutes to play, and you have Sebastian Janikowski (or a similarly
strong-legged kicker). Do you:<br />
<br />
a. Go for the conversion, and try to keep moving the ball, trying to score while running out the clock?
<br />
b. Kick a field goal from the standard distance (~17 yards farther than
your yardline), which would be a 5-pointer to tie the game, but leave
time on the clock?
<br />
c. Have your holder line up an extra four yards back and kick a 6-pointer to tie the game while leaving time on the clock?
<br />
<br />
To me, that would all make football a MORE exciting and interesting
game, rather than what it is now. Defense matters more, because there's no onside-kick to fall back on. Another scenario, with the same team: If you're down by two TDs with 3 minutes left, and you score, now you're down by one TD. If your defense creates a four-and-out, they turn the ball over to you <i>inside their own 30</i>! You're in <b>great</b> position to score again. And, if you do, you can choose to go for the extra point, at which point you'll either win the game, or lose. And if you choose to play for overtime, you now have to choose if you want the ball, at which point you'll have to <i>fight</i> the wind even if you're in "normal" range for your strong-legged kicker, or you can give the ball to the other team in the hope that your D can stop them <i>again</i>. It's a boatload more strategy, more second-guessing of coaches, fewer gimmicks, fewer scary special teams plays that cause injuries, more scoring, defense is more important, there's more appreciation for strong-legged kickers, <i>and</i> there's a freed-up roster spot because no team carries a punter anymore. It's pretty much the best of all possible worlds.<br />
<br />
What do you think? Do you have answers for the posited scenarios? Do you think these would be good changes?Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-36674248806587286532012-10-31T20:31:00.000-07:002012-10-31T20:31:00.296-07:00Triple Crown Part IVIt's been a long time since one of my Triple Crown posts. And, now that the season's over (congratulations, Giants), I think it's time for another - especially since we actually saw a Triple Crown this year! Very exciting stuff. As I've mentioned in at least two posts, I support Mike Trout for MVP... but that doesn't mean that Miguel Cabrera shouldn't be celebrated for an outstanding season!<br />
<br />
One of my old sawhorses is looking at alternative <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2010/08/triple-crown-part-iii.html">Triple</a> <a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2010/04/triple-crown-part-ii.html">Crowns</a>. There's an article at the <a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/on-old-school-and-new-school-values/">Hardball Times</a> about the old-school-new-school debate. Frankly, I'm sick of it, because it seems to me that it's mostly settled - but then again, I hang around in "new school" circles on these here internets. And while I understand that it's not true for most people, my guess is that, in 20-30 years, baseball fandom will look quite different from how it looks now. Kids who have grown up with WAR and WPA and REW will not mind those stats. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up at all is that the aforementioned Hardball Times article has an interesting comment from a reader. That reader (TomH) says the following:<br />
<br />
"WAR is too complicated for a stattha most will be able to get a
handle on. We ought to start but getting old-schoolies to acknowledge
that OBP is far batter than AVG, and that scoring is as important as
driving them in. That the ‘triple crown’ (TC) wasn’t drawn up by Moses
(pre-Ruth it was irrelevant), and a better measure of offesnive breadth
(what the TC tries ot capture) would be OBP, R and RBI, or OBP, SLG, and
R+RBI, or OBP, HR, and R+RBI."<br />
<br />
I left it as was, typos and all. So while I <i>think</i> "stattha" means "stat that," one can never be sure. Anyway, He makes a good point that the TC, if it tries to measure <i>anything</i> (my response would be that it's artificially constructed, and doesn't <i>try</i> to do anything at all), it's breadth of offensive statistics. Not to mention the idea that there's one stat which is an "average" and two counting stats - and one of those stats involves power, the other, runs. Anyway, I got really curious about the ideas he mentioned as possibilities as a "replacement" Triple Crown. So lets go through them, one-by-one, since 1893.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>OBP/R/RBI</b><br />
Mike Schmidt (PHI), 1981 - .435/78/91<br />
Carl Yastrzemski (BOS), 1967 - .418/112/121<br />
Frank Robinson (BAL), 1966 - .410/122/122<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1949 - .490/150/159<br />
Stan Musial (STL), 1948 - .450/135/131<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1947 - .499/125/114<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1942 - .499/141/137<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1941 - .553/135/120<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1926 - .516/139/146<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1923 - .545/151/131<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1922 - .459/141/152<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1921 - .512/177/171<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1921 - .458/131/126<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1920 - .532/158/137<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1919 - .456/103/114<br />
Gavvy Cravath (PHI), 1915 - .393/89/115<br />
Sherry Magee (PHI), 1910 - .445/110/123<br />
Ty Cobb (DET), 1909 - .431/116/107<br />
Nap Lajoie (PHA), 1901 - .463/145/125<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>OBP/SLG/R+RBI</b><br />
Albert Pujols (STL), 2009 - .443/.658/259<br />
Todd Helton (COL), 2000 - .463/.698/285<br />
Larry Walker (COL), 1997 - .452/.720/273<br />
Frank Thomas (CHW), 1994 - .487/.729/207<br />
Barry Bonds (SFG), 1993 - .458/.677/252<br />
Barry Bonds (PIT), 1992 - .456/.624/212<br />
Mike Schmidt (PHI), 1981 - .435/.644/159Joe Morgan (CIN), 1976 - .444/.576/228<br />
Dick Allen (CHW), 1972 - .420/.603/203<br />
Carl Yastrzemski (BOS), 1970 - .452/.592/227 <br />
Willie McCovey (SFG), 1969 - .453/.656/227<br />
Carl Yastrzemski (BOS), 1967 - .418/.622/133<br />
Frank Robinson (BAL), 1966 - .410/.637/244<br />
Willie Mays (SFG), 1965 - .398/.645/234<br />
Duke Snider (BRO), 1956 - .399/.598/213<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1951 - .464/.556/235<br />
Ralph Kiner (PIT), 1951 - .452/.627/233<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1949 - .490/.650/309<br />
Stan Musial (STL), 1948 - .450/.702/266<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1947 - .499/.634/239<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1942 - .499/.648/278<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1941 - .553/.735/255<br />
Jimmie Foxx (BOS), 1938 - .462/.704/314<br />
Lou Gehrig (NYY), 1936 - .478/.696/319<br />
Lou Gehrig (NYY), 1934 - .465/.706/293<br />
Chuck Klein (PHI), 1933 - .422/.602/221<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1926 - .516/.737/285<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1925 - .489/.756/276<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1924 - .513/.729/264<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1923 - .545/.764/282<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1922 - .459/.722/293<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1921 - .512/.846/342<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1921 - .458/.639/257<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1920 - .532/.847/295<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1920 - .431/.559/190<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1919 - .456/.637/217<br />
Ty Cobb (DET), 1917 - .444/.570/209<br />
Gavvy Cravath (PHI), 1915 - .393/.510/201<br />
Ty Cobb (DET), 1909 - .431/.517/223<br />
Honus Wagner (PIT), 1909 - .420/.489/192<br />
Honus Wagner (PIT), 1908 - .415/.542/209<br />
Honus Wagner (PIT), 1907 - .408/.513/180<br />
Nap Lajoie (CLE), 1904 - .413/.546/194<br />
Honus Wagner (PIT), 1904 - .423/.520/172<br />
Nap Lajoie, (PHA), 1901 / .463/.643/270<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>OBP/HR/R+RBI</b><br />
Albert Pujols (STL), 2009 - .443/.47/259<br />
Larry Walker (COL), 1997 - .452/49/273<br />
Barry Bonds (SFG), 1993 - .458/46/252<br />
Mike Schmidt (PHI), 1981 - .435/31/159<br />Dick Allen (CHW), 1972 - .420/37/203<br />
Harmon Killebrew (MIN), 1969 - .427/49/226<br />Willie McCovey (SFG), 1969 - .453/45/227<br />
Carl Yastrzemski (BOS), 1967 - .418/44/133<br />
Frank Robinson (BAL), 1966 - .410/49/244<br />
Willie Mays (SFG), 1965 - .398/52/234<br />
Duke Snider (BRO), 1956 - .399/43/213<br />
Ralph Kiner (PIT), 1951 - .452/42/233<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1949 - .490/43/309<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1947 - .499/32/239<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1946 - .497/.667/265 <br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1942 - .499/36/278<br />
Ted Williams (BOS), 1941 - .553/37/255<br />
Mel Ott (NYG), 1938 - .442/36/232<br />
Lou Gehrig (NYY), 1936 - .478/49/319<br />
Lou Gehrig (NYY), 1934 - .465/49/293<br />
Chuck Klein (PHI), 1933 - .422/28/221<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1926 - .516/47/285<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1925 - .489/39/276<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1924 - .513/46/264<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1923 - .545/41/282<br />
Rogers Hornsby (STL), 1922 - .459/42/293<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1921 - .512/59/342<br />
<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1920 - .532/54/295<br />
Babe Ruth (NYY), 1919 - .456/29/217<br />
Gavvy Cravath (PHI), 1915 - .393/24/201<br />
Ty Cobb (DET), 1909 - .431/9/223<br />
Nap Lajoie, (PHA), 1901 - .463/14/270<br />
<br />
Well, that was fun. Hope you liked it. Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-53956041437122780842012-10-22T18:40:00.000-07:002012-10-22T18:40:15.780-07:002012 IBAsHurray! Here we are again, ladies and gentlemen. It's IBA (Internet Baseball Awards) time! That means, for the second straight year, I'll be publishing my ballot (<a href="http://notmadsports.blogspot.com/2011/10/2011-ibas.html">here's</a> last years). So, before I break it all down, here are my award winners:<br />
<br />
AL Manager<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Bob Melvin</div>
<div>
2. Buck Showalter</div>
<div>
3. Robin Ventura</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Three guys who did a great job putting up better years than were expected of their teams. I think Baltimore is more likely a fluke than Oakland, and I think the Oakland job (with all those rookie pitchers) was, in some ways, the more difficult, and it was (turns out) in the more difficult division. So, as long as this is the "who's the manager of the team that overachieved the most?" award, I'm gonna go Melvin. Although I don't fault anyone for the logic that, "If you had said before the season started that the O's would finish with 93 wins and in the postseason, I would have handed my vote to Showalter <b>that day</b>." He's a fine choice, Ventura's a fine choice. Pretty much anyone's a fine choice, so long as he's not Bobby Valentine or Ned Yost.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
NL Manager</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Bud Black</div>
<div>
2. Davey Johnson</div>
<div>
3. Mike Matheny</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Seriously, Manager of the Year is a stupid award. We simply don't know enough about managers to evaluate them well. But the Padres were WAY better than I thought they'd be. Probably because of Chase Headley. But maybe because of Bud (or as baseball-reference.com calls him, "Buddy") Black. Johnson led the Nationals (seriously, the WASHINGTON NATIONALS) to the playoffs behind the best pitchers in baseball. Again, I don't know how much that was him, but maybe some of it. Matheny gets added because, frankly, who saw the Cards being basically <i>exactly</i> the same team as last year, only without any of the players <i>or</i> LaRussa? I'm tempted to put Matheny at #1, but I think this whole award is a crapshoot, so he wound up third. Meh.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
AL Rookie of the Year</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Mike Trout</div>
<div>
2. Yoenis Cespedes</div>
<div>
3. Yu Darvish</div>
<div>
4. Matt Moore</div>
<div>
5. Will Middlebrooks</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The Mike Trout Show begins. Cespedes and Darvish were great. Moore succeeded in spite of high expectations. Middlebrooks was one of the few bright spots for a <i>bad</i> Red Sox team. All good players. And there well could have been a few A's pitchers on here, too.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
NL Rookie of the Year
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Bryce Harper</div>
<div>
2. Wade Miley</div>
<div>
3. Norichika Aoki</div>
<div>
4. Martin Maldonado</div>
<div>
5. Zack Cozart </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Harper or Miley... Harper or Miley. I go with Harper here, because he's more likely to have the better career. Aoki and Cozart are a little bit of a stretch, because they're both "old" rookies. Aoki came out of pretty much <i>nowhere</i> though, and completely made up for Nyjer Morgan's regression to... Nyjer Morgan, <i>and</i> allowed for Corey Hart to move to 1B. Now, were I not a Brewers fan, I wouldn't know that. But I am. So there. Maldonado replaced Jonathan Lucroy well. And he made George Kottaras cuttable (<----not a word). For people who think I'm being a homer, yes. But at least I found a way to keep Mike Fiers off the ballot, even though he may be my favorite of the crop (although I LOVE all three of the Brew Crew rookies).</div>
<div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
AL Cy Young <div>
</div>
<div>
1. Justin Verlander</div>
<div>
2. David Price</div>
<div>
3. Felix Hernandez</div>
<div>
4. Max Scherzer</div>
<div>
5. Chris Sale</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Verlander, with the exception of his W-L record, was EXACTLY the
same pitcher this year as last year. David Price this year was not as
good as Justin Verlander last year. How anyone can vote Price the Cy
winner is beyond my understanding. That said, Price was phenomenal. King Felix was himself. That's pretty much a 3rd-place vote, guaranteed. We'll see how he adjusts to new field dimensions in Seattle next year, when the fences get moved in. My guess? His ERA goes up, but he's basically the same guy. It'll be interesting to watch. Scherzer was great, and underrated, too, for the Tigers this year. Lots
and lots of strikeouts. Chris Sale had a nice year. Don't know if he'll repeat it, but it doesn't matter. There were lots of other great guys (Matt Harrison, Jake Peavy, Hideki Kuroda, Yu Darvish, Jered Weaver, and that whole fleet of A's pitchers). I like these five best.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
NL Cy Young <div>
</div>
<div>
1. RA Dickey</div>
<div>
2. Cliff Lee</div>
<div>
3. Clayton Kershaw</div>
<div>
4. Stephen Strasburg</div>
<div>
5. Craig Kimbrel</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's really no easy answer, and Dickey's the best story. I <b>really</b> wanted to vote for Cliff Lee, because it would have been awesome for a player who was <b>that</b> unlucky to win the award. And Lee <i>was</i>
outstanding - just unlucky. Strasburg is my more "unconventional"
choice. He was great. the 160 inning-thing was not his fault. And
yes, that's throwing Craig Kimbrel a bone at the end. He was too good <i>not</i> to get a vote. I don't think I'm being controversial for leaving off Gio Gonzalez and Johnny Cueto. I just don't think they were as good as the other four starters. They <i>were</i> more valuable than Kimbrel, but it's not his fault how he gets used, and I think he deserves a sympathy vote more than they need one for getting to 20 "wins." Frankly, though, if you were to tell me that I'm a fool for leaving them off because they were both better than Dickey... well... I don't know that you'd be wrong. Unlike last year, which had three deserving winners, this year has no candidate at all who stands out. Also, shout-outs to Kris Medlen and Jordan Zimmerman, whom I also <i>really</i> wanted to vote for. And it would have been nice to toss a vote to Aroldis Chapman, as well. So that's 10 guys, none of whom could really be "wrong." Yup. That's 2012 in the NL.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
*A quick aside, before we get to the MVP votes. No pitchers on my ballots this year, except Verlander. While a lot of guys had great years, there were too many inseparable offensive players, in my opinion, and no compelling reason to give a vote to a pitcher. That's not good logic. I know that. I know it, and I don't care. It's my ballot. Go cast your own. {On second thought, don't. Because voting ends tonight, Monday the 22nd}</div>
<div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
AL Most Valuable Player</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Mike Trout</div>
<div>
2. Miguel Cabrera</div>
<div>
3. Robinson Cano</div>
<div>
4. Adrian Beltre</div>
<div>
5. Alex Gordon</div>
<div>
6. Austin Jackson</div>
<div>
7. Ben Zobrist</div>
<div>
8. Josh Willingham</div>
<div>
9. Justin Verlander</div>
<div>
10. Joe Mauer</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Yeah, I don't really want to have "the talk." You know - the one about whether Trout was better than Cabrera. They both had great seasons. Trout was better. Cabrera won the Triple Crown. Both seasons aren't likely to be forgotten. When (not if) Cabrera wins the BBWAA MVP award, it will be no great injustice. As in many previous years, the best player may not win. As in most previous years, a deserving player is winning. This is not Fingers in '81, or Hernandez in '84, or Eckersley in '92, or even an equally bad choice <i>not</i> involving a relief pitcher. It'll be a great player getting a great award. Miguel Cabrera has probably been the second-best player in the AL for like 4 years in a row... it's just been someone different on top each year. It's no great sin that he'll win. Heck, I'm happy for both guys.</div>
<div>
As for my down-the-ballot choices, what stinks is that this Trout-Cabrera hubbub has distracted from a lot of great seasons by other players. Cano had a wacky year, but I'm willing to file the weird RBI totals as just bad luck this year, because Cano's been (historically) a <i>good</i> clutch hitter, not a bad one. Beltre's always been great. Gordon had a breakout year. Jackson and Zobrist have been themselves: great in the field, solid with the bat. Jackson continues to be a BABIP monster - maybe the greatest player of all time, adjusting for era, at getting on with balls in play. Verlander gets a ninth-place vote. There are two Twins in my top ten. That looks wrong. But then you look at Willingham's and Mauer's years. They were great. Almost any team would be lucky to have them. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
NL Most Valuable Player <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. Ryan Braun</div>
<div>
2. Andrew McCutchen</div>
<div>
3. Buster Posey</div>
<div>
4. Chase Headley</div>
<div>
5. Yadier Molina</div>
<div>
6. David Wright</div>
<div>
7. Jason Heyward</div>
<div>
8. Michael Bourn</div>
<div>
9. Aramis Ramirez</div>
<div>
10. Joey Votto</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Remember how Votto had the award locked up before he got hurt? I honor that with a 10th-place vote. For me, the MVP was Braun. Dealing with all the steroids BS (you don't know what he did or didn't do, no matter what you think), hearing that he'd regress without Fielder, and basically carrying what was a BAD club offensively and keeping them competitive for half the season makes him deserve the award, in my opinion. But really, 1-6 were all the same player. Pick one. You're not wrong. Heyward and Bourn... it's too close to call between the two of them. I like both, but I'm giving Heyward the nod. As for Ramirez, here's a neat little fact for you, going away:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Most XBH (extra-base-hits) in MLB this year:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Miguel Cabrera - 84</div>
<div>
Robinson Cano - 82</div>
<div>
Ryan Braun - 80</div>
<div>
Albert Pujols - 80</div>
<div>
Aramis Ramirez - 80</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Well, I hope you like the ballot. Got any comments? Feel free to post a link to yours - I'd love to read it! </div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-64838512640765700792012-10-06T08:08:00.004-07:002012-10-06T08:08:51.103-07:00Postseason BaseballWho's excited? I know I am. If you're not, watch this. It gave me chills.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="254" src="http://mlb.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?width=400&height=254&content_id=25306127&property=mlb" width="400">Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe><br />Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-37306823575508138352012-10-04T06:32:00.001-07:002012-10-04T06:32:16.472-07:00Win Estimators, or Why Baseball and Football are Different
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
What
would it take for you to believe that a Major League Baseball team
went undefeated? I mean in terms of runs scored and allowed. Like,
if those were the only two pieces of information you had, what would
they need to be (or be like) for you to believe a season was
undefeated? I think, for me, it would take something pretty incredible - like allowing no runs for the entire season (or, like 10). Because, even if a team scored like 4000 runs, but gave up 500... well, don't you think it's possible that they'd lose, I don't know... 2 or 3 games? The basic Pythagorean formula (Runs squared over (runs squared plus runs allowed squared)) says a team like that would go 159.5-2.5 (I guessed two or three games before doing the calculation, by the way, so I'm pretty proud of that guess). And that seems about right, doesn't it? I mean, even with a run differential <b>that</b> big, you'd <i>still</i> expect to lose a game or two. Which, in the scheme of a 162-game season, is nothing. But the point is, the run differential it would take to believe in an undefeated baseball season is astronomical. I mean, this hypothetical team, which averages a 25-3 game, could hypothetically lose 12-11 twice or thrice during the year, right?</div>
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<br /></div>
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But football is fundamentally different, because it takes place in a small sample size. For example, if I told you a team scored 400 points on the season, and gave up only 50, well, you'd assume they went undefeated. And you'd probably be right. The pythagorean formula agrees with this one. Because it predicts this team to go 15.75-.25... so yeah. They'd probably go undefeated.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
But what if we double their points allowed? What if they scored 400, and gave up 100? That's an average score of 25-10... but would they go undefeated? The Pythagorean formula says they'd go 15-1. My guess is, in an NFL where the average team scores 22 points/game (close to the historical average, and in fact just behind the average for 2011 of 22.2), that's probably about right. But, frankly, in a league where an average team scores 22 ppg, 400 points isn't that many (average team would score 352). So we'd expect the offense to fail once in the season, even if the defense is tough.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Anyway, why are we talking about this? I mean, who cares?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Well, I do. Because here are some real numbers. I'm going to list the team, their points scored/allowed, Pythag. record, and then actual record. Here goes:</div>
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2007 Patriots - 589-274; 13.8-2.2; 16-0</div>
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1985 Bears - 456-198; 14.1-1.9; 15-1</div>
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1998 Vikings - 556-296; 13.1-2.9; 15-1</div>
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1972 Dolphins - 385-171; 12.2-1.8; 14-0</div>
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2008 Lions - 268-517; 2.8-13.2; 0-16</div>
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1976 Buccaneers - 125-412; .8-13.2; 0-14</div>
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<br /></div>
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What you see here is that it's basically impossible, by the Pythagorean formula, to ever expect an undefeated season in the NFL . . . or a winless one. The reason is because of a quirk of the Pythagorean formula, in which the PSsq/(PSsq+PAsq) will only yield a 0 if the team scores no points, and will only yield 100 if the team allows no points. But the truth is, teams <i>do</i> go undefeated. So it makes no sense to use a quadratic equation when we know that football doesn't quite work that way.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
So what do I suggest we do about this? Well, it's a pretty easy solution, actually. You go linear. And how does one do that? Like so:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Use the information we already have.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Figure out the number of points/game.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
That's all you need.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Take the team's points <i>differential</i>. Divide by 2*(ppg). Add to half of the number of games in a season. That's it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For example, in 2007, all NFL teams scored 11104 points. If we divide that by 32 (number of teams), by 16 (number of games), and then multiply by two (because two teams play in each game), we get 43.375 as the number of ppg. The Patriots that year had a points differential of (589-274=)315 points. 315/43.375=7.26 wins, plus 8 (a half-season's worth) = 15.26 wins. So, by my formula, we'd expect the 2007 Patriots to have gone 15.3-.7... which is much closer to their actual record of 16-0 than the Pythagorean expectation, which gave them less than 14 wins (13.8).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Here are the expectations for the other teams I mentioned:</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
1985 Bears - 14.0-2.0</div>
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1998 Vikings - 14.1-1.9</div>
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1972 Dolphins - 12.3-1.7</div>
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2008 Lions - 2.3-13.7</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
1972 Bucs - -.4-14.4</div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Yes, that is a negative expectation of wins for the 1972 Buccaneers. They were that bad. In every case, this linear method comes closer to the team's actual record (for the Vikings, it's one full win closer!), except the 1985 Bears, which my method misses by .1 wins more than the classic way of doing it. Frankly, I don't really see how anyone could use the Pythagorean method when one could do this, which is just as easy, works the same for middle-of-the-pack teams, and works significantly better for teams at the periphery.</div>
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</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-8100888981501417432012-09-29T14:45:00.003-07:002012-09-29T14:45:57.623-07:00Fun with Runs CreatedI've been rather prolific lately. It's been fun while it's lasted, though I don't know how much longer that'll be.<br />
<br />
Regardless, when I was looking at all of that Chipper Jones stuff yesterday, I couldn't help but start looking at Runs Created. Why? Well, when I was thinking "What might Chipper Jones have 1500 of?" one of the things that crossed my mind was RC. And, in fact, Chipper <i>does</i> have over 1500 RC.<br />
<br />
For the uninitiated, Runs Created has many versions, but the basic version is this:<br />
<br />
RC=((H+BB)*TB)/(AB-H)<br />
<br />
It's a handy formula, because it only takes four variables. Just for funsies, I checked six teams this year, to see how closely these factors matched with what we'd expect them to be. I tried to get teams from different types of parks, overachievers, underachievers, good teams, and bad. And I didn't want to do all 30 teams. So anyway, you can see how ridiculously accurate RC is. The team is listed, and then actual Runs/RC:<br />
<br />
Milwaukee: 752/748<br />
Pittsburgh: 639/626<br />Los Angeles Dodgers: 616/606<br />
Colorado Rockies: 745/777<br />
New York Mets: 639/640<br />
New York Yankees: 765/789<br />
Boston Red Sox: 721/714<br />
<br />
So you can see that Colorado's been a pretty extreme example... but they've been <b>awful</b>, so it makes sense that they've been underachieving what components would have you believe they'd do.<br />
<br />
Anyway, RC doesn't actually work great for individual hitters. The reason is that the formula assumes that these four factors (AB, H, BB, TB) actually interact with one another. Well, obviously, Chipper Jones doesn't <i>just</i> interact with his own AB/H/BB/TB... he actually interacts with <i>other</i> people's... and those other people weren't as good as Chipper Jones. So RC naturally overestimates the abilities of good hitters. But who cares? It's still fun, and it's a good, summative way to look at basically all parts of hitting while still being easy enough to calculate yourself. So keep this in your pocket, because it's fun to pull out sometimes.<br />
<br />
And on to the crux of this post...<br />
<br />
So, after goofin' around with RC a little, I looked at the leaderboard on <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/">Baseball-Reference</a> (mad shout-out to them... that's where I've gotten the stats for the last few posts I've done, but I <i>completely</i> forgot to credit them - sorry, Sean and Neil!), and realized that they used a more complex version of RC*. No biggy. I just used their top 100 players, and recalculated the "basic" version of RC for each player.<br />
<br />
*<i>Under normal circumstances, the various "technical" versions of RC don't differ <b>that</b> much from one another, but they do for a couple of people. Specifically, they crush the guys who have mad base-stealing skills. Barry Bonds loses 246 Runs using the basic version, and so does Joe Morgan - seriously, both lost 246, on the nose. Rickey Henderson lost - get this - 334 runs. Those are HUGE differences, and I'm sorry to have to not include them. But it <b>does</b> take away from the beautiful simplicity of RC the more you add. And most other players were affected by 40 runs or fewer. That sounds huge, but since we're dealing with guys who, for the most part, had 20-year careers, we're talking 2 R/year, which is pretty insignificant. 74/100 were affected by 60 runs or fewer, and <b>no one</b> had 60 or more runs <b>added</b> by using the less-technical version</i>.<i> Besides, while it does affect the number, it only rarely has a significant effect on the <b>order</b> of players, so I decided to do this as simply as possible.</i><br />
<br />
Anyway, this is really just for fun. So I calc'd it, and looked at the results. Interesting, no doubt. But then I decided to look at it as a rate stat. Actually, as a ratio stat, because I didn't want to estimate PAs, or use ABs, or use AB+BB (which would have been fine, I guess). So I used batting outs (AB-H). My question was, who has "hit" .300, using RC/O (that's runs created/out)?<br />
<br />
Well, of these 100 guys, less than 1/3 of them. Ruth tops the list, with nearly 1 RC for every 2 outs (.495). Hank Aaron "hit" exactly .300 by this calculation. As always, the list was populated by pre-integration guys, and guys who played in the Selig Era. Every one of the 32 guys fits into one of those 3 categories, or is Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, or Mickey Mantle. I was expecting Mike Schmidt, but he finished lower at .273 than (get this) Will Clark (.274). In case you're curious, the worst finisher by rate was Lou Brock, who "hit" .198. Now, I know what you're thinking - "but Brock was a basestealer! So he probably got robbed by using the basic formula!" Nope. Brock lost only 46 runs by using the basic version of RC. Still a hefty load, yes, but only enough to push him up from #100 to #98. So, yeah.<br />
<br />
But then I thought, <i>well, why don't I take the rate, and multiply it by the raw number. That should give a nice compromise</i>. Of course, it <i>does</i> do this. If you're into algebra, write out the equation, look at the cancelling, and be amused. I was. But it doesn't really matter, because it pretty much <i>looks</i> right. Anyway, by this reckoning, here are the top ten hitters of all-time, balancing rate and total. They're presented as Runs Created/RCRate/RC*RCRate, with the third of those being the organizing principle.<br />
<br />
Babe Ruth 2733/.495/1352<br />
Ted Williams 2347/.468/1091<br />
Barry Bonds 2646/.383/1013<br />
Lou Gehrig 2250/.426/959<br />
Stan Musial 2551/.348/887<br />
Ty Cobb 2510/.346/870<br />
Jimmie Foxx 2119/.386/818<br />
Rogers Hornsby 2030/.387/786<br />
Hank Aaron 2576/.300/772<br />
Willie Mays 2333/.307/716<br />
<br />
Something about having Aaron and Mays next to one another feels really right about this.<br />
<br />
In case you're curious, since we've been talking Chipper lately, he ranks #19, for now. I say "for now" not just because he's active, but because he's two spots behind A-Rod, one ahead of Todd Helton, and two ahead of Jim Thome. Actually by B-R RC, RC rate, or RCRate+RC, Thome and Jones end up right next to each other, so I guess they belong together. But anyway, there could still be some movement among those guys, even by the end of the season, so nothing's really set in stone there. Manny Ramirez (#12) is the highest ranking "active" player. Among "active" players who actually <i>are</i> active, Albert Pujols tops the list (#14). The lowest ranking player among these 100 was Steve Finley. At #99 was Lou Brock. Derek Jeter ranks 1 point behind Lance Berkman (432-433). I wouldn't have guessed that. Edgar Martinez ranks at #37 - and people say he's not a HOFer. Milwaukee's own Al Simmons ranks #22. Speaking of Milwaukee, Robin Yount is all over the map. He ranks #55 by RC (behind another Milwaukee connection, Eddie Mathews), by rate he ranks #98 (ahead of Finley and Brock), and by overall, he ranks #90. Frankly, it's not bad for a SS, I think. Molly fairs better, #56 overall; and since I mentioned Mathews, he's one spot ahead of Molitor.<br />
<br />
So, that's pretty much it, I guess.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-82453716490974433132012-09-29T06:32:00.000-07:002012-09-29T06:32:03.826-07:00The Greatness of ChipperWell, Cybermetrics got me thinking again with Cy's post over there <a href="http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2012/09/chipper-jones-is-in-league-all-by.html">today</a>.<br />
<br />
Players with .300 Avg, 1000 XBH, 1500 BB, 150 SB, 1500 RBI:<br />
<br />
Chipper Jones<br />
<br />
That's the whole list. So that's pretty cool. But here are some other exclusive lists of which he's a part.<br />
<br />
.300/.400/.500 career guys:<br />
<br />
Dan Brouthers<br />
Ty Cobb<br />
Jimmie Foxx<br />
Lou Gehrig<br />
Hank Greenberg<br />
Harry Heilmann<br />
Todd Helton<br />
Rogers Hornsby<br />
Shoeless Joe Jackson<br />
Chipper Jones<br />
Edgar Martinez<br />
Stan Musial<br />
Lefty O'Doul<br />
Mel Ott<br />
Albert Pujols<br />
Manny Ramirez<br />
Babe Ruth<br />
Tris Speaker<br />
Frank Thomas<br />
Joey Votto<br />
Larry Walker<br />
Ted Williams<br />
<br />
1500 RBI, 1500 R, 1500 BB (the 1500 Club, as it were)<br />
<br /> <br />
Barry BondsLou Gehrig<br />
Chipper Jones<br />
Mickey Mantle<br />
Stan Musial<br />
Mel Ott<br />Babe Ruth<br />
Mike Schmidt<br />
Jim Thome<br />
Ted Williams<br />
Carl Yastrzemski<br />
And, of course, both groups combined (which gives us totals and rates combined):<br />
<br /> <br />
Lou Gehrig<br />
Chipper Jones<br />
Stan Musial<br />
Mel Ott<br />
Babe Ruth<br />
Ted Williams<br />
<br /> <br />
Honestly, I know all about the "let's make a list fallacy," as Bill James called it, but I nonetheless find it impressive that one can create a group with just these six names on it. I mean, the other five are generally regarded as some of the best pure hitters of all time (although Mel Ott is often left out of such discussions). And only one of them played his entire career post-integration: the great Chipper Jones.<br /> Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3835181255891023662.post-75961136185992087472012-09-28T12:41:00.000-07:002012-09-28T12:41:59.591-07:00Answer to Trivia QuestionOver at Cybermetrics, there's a <a href="http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2012/09/through-1990-who-were-only-3-players.html">post</a> asking two trivia questions. First, who are the only two players with 1200+ RBI, 250+HR, 300+ SB, and 3000+ Hits.<br />
<br />
Easy. Got it on my first guesses. Willie Mays and Derek Jeter.<br />
<br />
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
But that's actually the lesser question. The primary question is, "Through 1990, Who Were The Only 3 Players With 1000+ RBIs, 250+ HRs, 250+ SBs and 2500+ Hits?"</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Answer:</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Willie Mays</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Joe Morgan</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Vada Pinson</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Since 1990 (since it's only seven more guys):</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Craig Biggio</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Barry Bonds</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Andre Dawson</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Steve Finley</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Derek Jeter</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Gary Sheffield</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Robin Yount</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
Actually, both Yount <i>and</i> Paul Molitor narrowly miss on the first question. Yount finished 29 SBs shy... Molly missed by 26 HRs.</div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<br /></div>
<div class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
For the second trivia question, I noticed that including RBI actually has no bearing on the answer to the question. As to the first question, Biggio misses by 25 RBI. I guess Biggio and Jeter are pretty closely tied in my mind. I've watched them both throughout my life, both are middle infielders, both are part of a core "group" of players (Bags and Bigg in Houston, the "Core Four" in New York), both are associated with just one team (though, who knows, Jeter may finish his career elsewhere). It doesn't surprise me to see them this close statistically on such a list. The only real difference is that the media had a positive effect on Jeter's popularity; the media was more or less neutral on Biggio, though it could be argued that they had an averse effect, by not appreciating what he did well. Anyway, that's that.</div>
Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15304178130464809737noreply@blogger.com0