Grove started the following number of games against each team:
Tigers 79
Yankees 69
Indians 65
White Sox 64
Senators 63
Browns 59
Red Sox 40
Athletics 18
Excluding the two teams for which Grove pitched, he faced the others roughly the same number of times but faced the Yankees more than the average. It does look like the rotation may have been manipulated to get him extra starts against the Tigers, who he absolutely owned (60-19).
Interestingly, looking at Spahn it does look like he's missing a lot of starts against the Dodgers, and the Dodgers were the team against whom he did the worst (24-37 in 66 starts). For comparison, Spahn started an average of 81 games against the other teams and as many as 115 against the Cardinals.
To complete the picture, Ford appears to have "missed" about half his starts in Fenway.
He didn't need it, but Grove does get whatever boost one might want to give him for not dodging starts against tough opponents, at least relative to Spahn and Ford.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
What do you think of Total Bases or Total Bases plus Walks as a (better) way of showing how well a batter has performed?
I think these are very good indicators.
I thought so too.
I will make more of an attempt to offer more solutions and less crying from now on!
Well. maybe. ;-)
If you're going to use a single "regular" stat to evaluate a hitter, total bases is by far the best one you can use. It's cumulative, so it takes into account the number of games played, and it weights extra base hits appropriately relative to singles. Walks is a crappy stat by itself, but added to total bases the combination is probably the best twofer you could find.
What it's missing, because all regular stats miss it, is context. Bobby Murcer, in 1971, had 287 total bases and 91 walks for a Dimeman stat of 378; Jim Rice in 1978 had 406 total bases and 58 walks for a Dimeman stat of 464, nearly 25% higher than Murcer. And Murcer had the better season. And Dick Allen, in 1972 with a Dimeman stat of 404, absolutely dwarfed both of them.
George Sisler in 1924 had a Dimeman stat of 299 (hitting .305); he had about the same season as Tom Tresh in 1968, who had a Dimeman stat of .232 (and hit .195).
While TB + BB will get you as far as you can get with two normal stats, they don't get you nearly as far as OPS+ and PA. Since we all go to bb-ref to look these things up, and all these stats are right next to each other, I don't understand the resistance to using stats that provide more information.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Please explain your "context" in saying Murcer's 1971 is better than Rices 1978. Your hatred of Rice is pretty legendary, so please try not to get mad at me for asking.
As far as I can remember PA rarely gets mentioned by anyone. Maybe I am guilty of selective reading.
In the three years in question, I see Rice's PA of 464 number was accomplished while playing in 100% of his teams games.
Murcer missed 10% and Allen missed about 4% of their teams games. PA's were; Rice 746, Murcer 624, Allen 609. I am assuming they all batted 4th?
The way I see it, most people assume the player who misses games would have performed at the exact same level in the missed games as he would in the games he appeared in. But that is not what happens.
Missing 16 games is not horrible but it is about 10% of the season.
I tried REALLY hard to make Murcer's 1971 a "better" year than Rice's '78 and just could not. I factored in that Felipe Alou replaced Murcer and his OPS was about .225 lower for those 16 games.
Murcer's advantage was OB% while Rice out slugged Murcer by a pretty big margin.
I really like Allen's 1972, I can agree that it was maybe better than Rice's 1978, but Rice did have 137 more PA. My math has them accounting for almost exactly the same 2.84 TB+BB average per game.
When Allen was on the bench, his replacement, Tony Muser (I think) was not too good with an OPS about .300 lower. Allen did have the fewest PA in this comparison.
I did not factor in fielding.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
I didn't either, and it would favor Murcer if I did. But my point is that I factored in the ballparks and you didn't. Even though my three examples were close in time, their ballparks created wildly different contexts. Not as dramatic a difference as Sisler/Tresh, though.
Jim Rice beat Murcer by .001 in OPS in their respective best seasons, .970 to .969. But the league average OPS in Fenway in 1978 was .746, while it was .687 in Yankee Stadium in 1971. Even factoring in that Rice played more games, he was still less productive than Murcer for the season (and that holds true whichever measure you use: batter runs, offensive WAR, Win Shares, WPA, etc.) Factor in the handful of games where Alou played instead of Murcer and the gaps just get a little bigger across the board because Alou was an above average hitter.
Rice's standard numbers were bigger than Murcer's for two reasons: it was easier to score in Fenway in 1978 than in Yankee Stadium in 1971, and Rice's teammates were better than Murcer's (giving Rice more PA per game, more runners on base, etc.) But Murcer was the better hitter.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
I still like Rice's 78 better than Murcer's 71 but you have a good argument.
Rice getting on base so many times resulted in him scoring a LOT more runs. He should not get "punished" because he had better guys hitting behind him imo.
Yankees were not a great hitting team, that's for sure. Entire league was down hitting wise.
Rice simply dominated the offensive categories in 1978. In a year with more good hitters Rice was in the top spot in a lot of offensive categories and in the top three in most of the rest.
In a down year for hitting, Murcer wasn't the best hitter in most categories, in some he was barely in the top 10 where Rice was the best (HR and 3B).
Murcer hit better at home, so he wasn't hurt by Yankee Stadium at all. A singles type hitter (.349 at home) hitting into that big outfield doesn't get hurt by that ballpark, he gets helped. One triple on the road five at home, home runs about the same. No advantage here yet park factor (I'm guessing) gives him points for playing in his home park.
Rice was a lot better at home, that's for sure. Doubling his away numbers he is still better than Murcer in quite a few areas HR, R, 3B, TB, RBI.
Without bringing in fielding, I'll stick with Rice, but not by a mile. Bring in defense and Murcer is prolly more valuable.
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
Rice simply dominated the offensive categories in 1978. In a year with more good hitters Rice was in the top spot in a lot of offensive categories and in the top three in most of the rest.
That's partly Rice, partly Fenway, and partly Fisk, Lynn, Evans and Yaz. Without any adjustment, you will vastly overrate how well Rice played that year.
In a down year for hitting, Murcer wasn't the best hitter in most categories, in some he was barely in the top 10 where Rice was the best (HR and 3B).
That's partly Murcer, partly Yankee Stadium, partly 1971, and partly Ellis, Clarke, Michael and Cater. Without any adjustment, you will vastly underrate how well Murcer played that year.
Murcer hit better at home, so he wasn't hurt by Yankee Stadium at all. A singles type hitter (.349 at home) hitting into that big outfield doesn't get hurt by that ballpark, he gets helped. One triple on the road five at home, home runs about the same. No advantage here yet park factor (I'm guessing) gives him points for playing in his home park.
Murcer did hit better at home that year, as also many (most?) players in history. But park adjustments don't measure how well one player hit in a stadium, they measure how well every player hit in that stadium. That Murcer was able to hit well in Yankee Stadium when few others could was of enormous value to the Yankees, and won them a lot of games.
Your argument appears to be - and correct me if I'm wrong - that if a park is rated as a pitcher's park, then any player who hits better in that park than in other parks gets no extra credit for doing so. Now, if that's the entire argument then we have a problem: add up all the adjusted stats and they no longer add up to the actual stats. We've taken away credit for runs that were scored and pretended they didn't score.
So what is the balancing item? If Murcer doesn't get credit for the runs he produced, who does get the credit? Do we find somebody on the team who hit really poorly at home, conclude that the ballpark hurt him even more, and give him those runs? Moving runs around from the better players to the worse players will make the math work, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
The logic of park adjustments is not that each and every player will certainly hit X% better or worse in each park. The logic is that everyone, on average, hits better or worse in each park, and as a result it takes X runs to win a game in park A and Y runs to win a game in park B. A run produced in park A is therefore worth 1/Xth of a win and in park B 1/yth of a win. The point of playing the games is to win, and what Bobby Murcer contributed in 1971 won more games for the Yankees than what Jim Rice contributed in 1978 won for the Red Sox.
Take a look at Tommy Tucker and his 1894 season. He hit .330, drove in 100, and scored 112 in 123 games. And he was a bad hitter that year. An average player on that team, given his 123 games played, would drive 105 and score 128 with a batting average of .339. If you don't make any kind of adjustment, then your evaluation of Tucker's season would not just be wrong it would be comically wrong. I can hear you saying, "of course some kind of adjustment is needed in that case, but that's extreme". And it is an extreme case, calling for an extreme adjustment. But the need for any adjustment doesn't end at any point on the spectrum; extreme cases call for extreme adjustments, and minor cases call for minor adjustments. The case for not adjusting at only applies to players on the same team in the same year and nowhere else.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
Rice simply dominated the offensive categories in 1978. In a year with more good hitters Rice was in the top spot in a lot of offensive categories and in the top three in most of the rest.
That's partly Rice, partly Fenway, and partly Fisk, Lynn, Evans and Yaz. Without any adjustment, you will vastly overrate how well Rice played that year.
In a down year for hitting, Murcer wasn't the best hitter in most categories, in some he was barely in the top 10 where Rice was the best (HR and 3B).
That's partly Murcer, partly Yankee Stadium, partly 1971, and partly Ellis, Clarke, Michael and Cater. Without any adjustment, you will vastly underrate how well Murcer played that year.
Murcer hit better at home, so he wasn't hurt by Yankee Stadium at all. A singles type hitter (.349 at home) hitting into that big outfield doesn't get hurt by that ballpark, he gets helped. One triple on the road five at home, home runs about the same. No advantage here yet park factor (I'm guessing) gives him points for playing in his home park.
Murcer did hit better at home that year, as also many (most?) players in history. But park adjustments don't measure how well one player hit in a stadium, they measure how well every player hit in that stadium. That Murcer was able to hit well in Yankee Stadium when few others could was of enormous value to the Yankees, and won them a lot of games.
Your argument appears to be - and correct me if I'm wrong - that if a park is rated as a pitcher's park, then any player who hits better in that park than in other parks gets no extra credit for doing so. Now, if that's the entire argument then we have a problem: add up all the adjusted stats and they no longer add up to the actual stats. We've taken away credit for runs that were scored and pretended they didn't score.
No, I don't think like you do. I don't believe adding up everyone's numbers and averaging them out proves it's harder for one guy being compared to another, what it proves is how it works for all the guys. Especially when your database is full of crappy players (80% average or below average) and we are usually picking two VERY good players to compare.
I have always thought that for MOST hitters, Yankee Stadium should be easier to hit in because it's so big. More area to cover should mean more places the ball can land before a fielder can get to it. Not for guys who hit for power and can't "pull" the ball.
Perfect example was DiMaggio hit mostly to left center/center, had a great BA but the general line of thinking is it cost him HR. Murcer was not really a "slugger" even though he had good power. Yankee stadium helped Murcer more than it hurt him.
Fenway of course is a wonderful but ridiculous place to play ball. If you can get the ball up in the air consistently you can hit HR very easily. If you are a "line drive" hitter, or have "warning track" power you can bang balls off the monster all day long,,,,,,,,,for singles and doubles.
Rice didn't hit like that every year, in fact how many guys have EVER hit like that there? NONE.
I know you can't stand him but give Jim ONE good year. He wasn't THAT bad. Since 1937 400 TB has only been done (I think) 9 times. Three (or four?) of those times by juicers.
So what is the balancing item? If Murcer doesn't get credit for the runs he produced, who does get the credit? Do we find somebody on the team who hit really poorly at home, conclude that the ballpark hurt him even more, and give him those runs? Moving runs around from the better players to the worse players will make the math work, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't get that statement.
Rice is the one we're taking "credit from" not Murcer. OPS+ is giving him extra credit and taking it away from Rice.
Rice did everything MUCH better than Murcer except hit doubles (both had 25) and walk. Where Murcer had the advantage was BA=singles in this case and not even that many more because he missed games.
Murcers walks were (obviously) not worth as much with him being the only good hitter on the team, like you said he didn't have as good of team mates. I am assuming he was hitting fourth so the next couple of guys were probably worse than the guys hitting before him.
The logic of park adjustments is not that each and every player will certainly hit X% better or worse in each park. The logic is that everyone, on average, hits better or worse in each park, and as a result it takes X runs to win a game in park A and Y runs to win a game in park B. A run produced in park A is therefore worth 1/Xth of a win and in park B 1/yth of a win. The point of playing the games is to win, and what Bobby Murcer contributed in 1971 won more games for the Yankees than what Jim Rice contributed in 1978 won for the Red Sox.
What I came to conclude is Rice played in an easy park to hit in, his numbers that year were too high to fall because of the ballpark factor to "diminish" what he did so that Murcer's year was better. Both players played better at home, Something you said was normal. When a guy gets 464 TB+BB plays in every game and another guy gets 378 and misses 10% of his teams games, I don't see how the guy with the lower number in this example can possibly be "helping" his team more.
Take a look at Tommy Tucker and his 1894 season. He hit .330, drove in 100, and scored 112 in 123 games. And he was a bad hitter that year. An average player on that team, given his 123 games played, would drive 105 and score 128 with a batting average of .339. If you don't make any kind of adjustment, then your evaluation of Tucker's season would not just be wrong it would be comically wrong. I can hear you saying, "of course some kind of adjustment is needed in that case, but that's extreme". And it is an extreme case, calling for an extreme adjustment. But the need for any adjustment doesn't end at any point on the spectrum; extreme cases call for extreme adjustments, and minor cases call for minor adjustments. The case for not adjusting at only applies to players on the same team in the same year and nowhere else.
No, I am not going to look at Tommy Tucker, I waste too much time looking at players I'm interested in.
What I can't believe is that I am up this late!
good night!
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
When a guy gets 464 TB+BB plays in every game and another guy gets 378 and misses 10% of his teams games, I don't see how the guy with the lower number in this example can possibly be "helping" his team more.
And I gather from the rest of your post that you aren't really interested in looking in the right places so that you can see it. I'll stop trying, with you in this thread anyway.
And while I don't want it to obscure the larger point that Murcer's season was better, Jim Rice did have a great season in 1978. And I'll leave you with this - Murcer's second best season - 1972 - was also better than Rice's great 1978 season.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
@JoeBanzai said:
When a guy gets 464 TB+BB plays in every game and another guy gets 378 and misses 10% of his teams games, I don't see how the guy with the lower number in this example can possibly be "helping" his team more.
And I gather from the rest of your post that you aren't really interested in looking in the right places so that you can see it. I'll stop trying, with you in this thread anyway.
And while I don't want it to obscure the larger point that Murcer's season was better, Jim Rice did have a great season in 1978. And I'll leave you with this - Murcer's second best season - 1972 - was also better than Rice's great 1978 season.
What ""right" places. I sure don't think park factor does it here. I agree Rice played with some better hitters, but that shouldn't diminish the fact that he was the best of them.
Anything else you want to put forward?
2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
@JoeBanzai said:
What ""right" places. I sure don't think park factor does it here. I agree Rice played with some better hitters, but that shouldn't diminish the fact that he was the best of them.
Anything else you want to put forward?
Nope, I've put more than enough forward already. If you want to look at all of it, you will; if you don't, you won't.
And I can tell you're not looking at all of it because you've boiled it all down to "park factor". Someday, take a look at Tommy Tucker and tell me whether he was a good or bad hitter in 1894. If you say he was good, I'll know you're still not looking. If you say he was bad, then I'll know you are looking and we can revisit Rice and Murcer.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
Comments
I think these are very good indicators.
Grove started the following number of games against each team:
Tigers 79
Yankees 69
Indians 65
White Sox 64
Senators 63
Browns 59
Red Sox 40
Athletics 18
Excluding the two teams for which Grove pitched, he faced the others roughly the same number of times but faced the Yankees more than the average. It does look like the rotation may have been manipulated to get him extra starts against the Tigers, who he absolutely owned (60-19).
Interestingly, looking at Spahn it does look like he's missing a lot of starts against the Dodgers, and the Dodgers were the team against whom he did the worst (24-37 in 66 starts). For comparison, Spahn started an average of 81 games against the other teams and as many as 115 against the Cardinals.
To complete the picture, Ford appears to have "missed" about half his starts in Fenway.
He didn't need it, but Grove does get whatever boost one might want to give him for not dodging starts against tough opponents, at least relative to Spahn and Ford.
I thought so too.
I will make more of an attempt to offer more solutions and less crying from now on!
Well. maybe. ;-)
If you're going to use a single "regular" stat to evaluate a hitter, total bases is by far the best one you can use. It's cumulative, so it takes into account the number of games played, and it weights extra base hits appropriately relative to singles. Walks is a crappy stat by itself, but added to total bases the combination is probably the best twofer you could find.
What it's missing, because all regular stats miss it, is context. Bobby Murcer, in 1971, had 287 total bases and 91 walks for a Dimeman stat of 378; Jim Rice in 1978 had 406 total bases and 58 walks for a Dimeman stat of 464, nearly 25% higher than Murcer. And Murcer had the better season. And Dick Allen, in 1972 with a Dimeman stat of 404, absolutely dwarfed both of them.
George Sisler in 1924 had a Dimeman stat of 299 (hitting .305); he had about the same season as Tom Tresh in 1968, who had a Dimeman stat of .232 (and hit .195).
While TB + BB will get you as far as you can get with two normal stats, they don't get you nearly as far as OPS+ and PA. Since we all go to bb-ref to look these things up, and all these stats are right next to each other, I don't understand the resistance to using stats that provide more information.
Dimeman stat?
Please explain your "context" in saying Murcer's 1971 is better than Rices 1978. Your hatred of Rice is pretty legendary, so please try not to get mad at me for asking.
As far as I can remember PA rarely gets mentioned by anyone. Maybe I am guilty of selective reading.
In the three years in question, I see Rice's PA of 464 number was accomplished while playing in 100% of his teams games.
Murcer missed 10% and Allen missed about 4% of their teams games. PA's were; Rice 746, Murcer 624, Allen 609. I am assuming they all batted 4th?
The way I see it, most people assume the player who misses games would have performed at the exact same level in the missed games as he would in the games he appeared in. But that is not what happens.
Missing 16 games is not horrible but it is about 10% of the season.
I tried REALLY hard to make Murcer's 1971 a "better" year than Rice's '78 and just could not. I factored in that Felipe Alou replaced Murcer and his OPS was about .225 lower for those 16 games.
Murcer's advantage was OB% while Rice out slugged Murcer by a pretty big margin.
I really like Allen's 1972, I can agree that it was maybe better than Rice's 1978, but Rice did have 137 more PA. My math has them accounting for almost exactly the same 2.84 TB+BB average per game.
When Allen was on the bench, his replacement, Tony Muser (I think) was not too good with an OPS about .300 lower. Allen did have the fewest PA in this comparison.
I did not factor in fielding.
That's just what I'm calling TB + BB
I didn't either, and it would favor Murcer if I did. But my point is that I factored in the ballparks and you didn't. Even though my three examples were close in time, their ballparks created wildly different contexts. Not as dramatic a difference as Sisler/Tresh, though.
Jim Rice beat Murcer by .001 in OPS in their respective best seasons, .970 to .969. But the league average OPS in Fenway in 1978 was .746, while it was .687 in Yankee Stadium in 1971. Even factoring in that Rice played more games, he was still less productive than Murcer for the season (and that holds true whichever measure you use: batter runs, offensive WAR, Win Shares, WPA, etc.) Factor in the handful of games where Alou played instead of Murcer and the gaps just get a little bigger across the board because Alou was an above average hitter.
Rice's standard numbers were bigger than Murcer's for two reasons: it was easier to score in Fenway in 1978 than in Yankee Stadium in 1971, and Rice's teammates were better than Murcer's (giving Rice more PA per game, more runners on base, etc.) But Murcer was the better hitter.
Thanks for the explanation.
I still like Rice's 78 better than Murcer's 71 but you have a good argument.
Rice getting on base so many times resulted in him scoring a LOT more runs. He should not get "punished" because he had better guys hitting behind him imo.
Yankees were not a great hitting team, that's for sure. Entire league was down hitting wise.
Rice simply dominated the offensive categories in 1978. In a year with more good hitters Rice was in the top spot in a lot of offensive categories and in the top three in most of the rest.
In a down year for hitting, Murcer wasn't the best hitter in most categories, in some he was barely in the top 10 where Rice was the best (HR and 3B).
Murcer hit better at home, so he wasn't hurt by Yankee Stadium at all. A singles type hitter (.349 at home) hitting into that big outfield doesn't get hurt by that ballpark, he gets helped. One triple on the road five at home, home runs about the same. No advantage here yet park factor (I'm guessing) gives him points for playing in his home park.
Rice was a lot better at home, that's for sure. Doubling his away numbers he is still better than Murcer in quite a few areas HR, R, 3B, TB, RBI.
Without bringing in fielding, I'll stick with Rice, but not by a mile. Bring in defense and Murcer is prolly more valuable.
That's partly Rice, partly Fenway, and partly Fisk, Lynn, Evans and Yaz. Without any adjustment, you will vastly overrate how well Rice played that year.
That's partly Murcer, partly Yankee Stadium, partly 1971, and partly Ellis, Clarke, Michael and Cater. Without any adjustment, you will vastly underrate how well Murcer played that year.
Murcer did hit better at home that year, as also many (most?) players in history. But park adjustments don't measure how well one player hit in a stadium, they measure how well every player hit in that stadium. That Murcer was able to hit well in Yankee Stadium when few others could was of enormous value to the Yankees, and won them a lot of games.
Your argument appears to be - and correct me if I'm wrong - that if a park is rated as a pitcher's park, then any player who hits better in that park than in other parks gets no extra credit for doing so. Now, if that's the entire argument then we have a problem: add up all the adjusted stats and they no longer add up to the actual stats. We've taken away credit for runs that were scored and pretended they didn't score.
So what is the balancing item? If Murcer doesn't get credit for the runs he produced, who does get the credit? Do we find somebody on the team who hit really poorly at home, conclude that the ballpark hurt him even more, and give him those runs? Moving runs around from the better players to the worse players will make the math work, but it doesn't make any sense to me.
The logic of park adjustments is not that each and every player will certainly hit X% better or worse in each park. The logic is that everyone, on average, hits better or worse in each park, and as a result it takes X runs to win a game in park A and Y runs to win a game in park B. A run produced in park A is therefore worth 1/Xth of a win and in park B 1/yth of a win. The point of playing the games is to win, and what Bobby Murcer contributed in 1971 won more games for the Yankees than what Jim Rice contributed in 1978 won for the Red Sox.
Take a look at Tommy Tucker and his 1894 season. He hit .330, drove in 100, and scored 112 in 123 games. And he was a bad hitter that year. An average player on that team, given his 123 games played, would drive 105 and score 128 with a batting average of .339. If you don't make any kind of adjustment, then your evaluation of Tucker's season would not just be wrong it would be comically wrong. I can hear you saying, "of course some kind of adjustment is needed in that case, but that's extreme". And it is an extreme case, calling for an extreme adjustment. But the need for any adjustment doesn't end at any point on the spectrum; extreme cases call for extreme adjustments, and minor cases call for minor adjustments. The case for not adjusting at only applies to players on the same team in the same year and nowhere else.
No, I don't think like you do. I don't believe adding up everyone's numbers and averaging them out proves it's harder for one guy being compared to another, what it proves is how it works for all the guys. Especially when your database is full of crappy players (80% average or below average) and we are usually picking two VERY good players to compare.
I have always thought that for MOST hitters, Yankee Stadium should be easier to hit in because it's so big. More area to cover should mean more places the ball can land before a fielder can get to it. Not for guys who hit for power and can't "pull" the ball.
Perfect example was DiMaggio hit mostly to left center/center, had a great BA but the general line of thinking is it cost him HR. Murcer was not really a "slugger" even though he had good power. Yankee stadium helped Murcer more than it hurt him.
Fenway of course is a wonderful but ridiculous place to play ball. If you can get the ball up in the air consistently you can hit HR very easily. If you are a "line drive" hitter, or have "warning track" power you can bang balls off the monster all day long,,,,,,,,,for singles and doubles.
Rice didn't hit like that every year, in fact how many guys have EVER hit like that there? NONE.
I know you can't stand him but give Jim ONE good year. He wasn't THAT bad. Since 1937 400 TB has only been done (I think) 9 times. Three (or four?) of those times by juicers.
I don't get that statement.
Rice is the one we're taking "credit from" not Murcer. OPS+ is giving him extra credit and taking it away from Rice.
Rice did everything MUCH better than Murcer except hit doubles (both had 25) and walk. Where Murcer had the advantage was BA=singles in this case and not even that many more because he missed games.
Murcers walks were (obviously) not worth as much with him being the only good hitter on the team, like you said he didn't have as good of team mates. I am assuming he was hitting fourth so the next couple of guys were probably worse than the guys hitting before him.
What I came to conclude is Rice played in an easy park to hit in, his numbers that year were too high to fall because of the ballpark factor to "diminish" what he did so that Murcer's year was better. Both players played better at home, Something you said was normal. When a guy gets 464 TB+BB plays in every game and another guy gets 378 and misses 10% of his teams games, I don't see how the guy with the lower number in this example can possibly be "helping" his team more.
No, I am not going to look at Tommy Tucker, I waste too much time looking at players I'm interested in.
What I can't believe is that I am up this late!
good night!
And I gather from the rest of your post that you aren't really interested in looking in the right places so that you can see it. I'll stop trying, with you in this thread anyway.
And while I don't want it to obscure the larger point that Murcer's season was better, Jim Rice did have a great season in 1978. And I'll leave you with this - Murcer's second best season - 1972 - was also better than Rice's great 1978 season.
What ""right" places. I sure don't think park factor does it here. I agree Rice played with some better hitters, but that shouldn't diminish the fact that he was the best of them.
Anything else you want to put forward?
Nope, I've put more than enough forward already. If you want to look at all of it, you will; if you don't, you won't.
And I can tell you're not looking at all of it because you've boiled it all down to "park factor". Someday, take a look at Tommy Tucker and tell me whether he was a good or bad hitter in 1894. If you say he was good, I'll know you're still not looking. If you say he was bad, then I'll know you are looking and we can revisit Rice and Murcer.
Fine, we've spent enough time on these two "left handed pitchers" already! ;-)
You are quite intelligent sir! ;-)