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Bill James' Win Shares' lists
jaxxr
Posts: 1,258 ✭✭
in Sports Talk
Bill James is a baseball guru, idolized by some, respected by most, and interesting to just about all baseball fans.
His most famous concept, is that of Win Shares, a good process with a few subjective parameters.
Even Win Shares itself, has some alternate calculations.
There are five popular verions or ways to calculate WS; Objective function, Modified objective, Wins above average, Wins above replacement, Combination/average of Wins above average and replacement
Ruth or Cobb are the all time leaders in each of the five ways. Here are the top six in each method.
O= Ruth, Wagner, Mantle, Bonds, Williams, Cobb
MO= Ruth, Bonds, Wagner, Mantle, Cobb, Williams
WAA= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Bonds, Speaker, Mays
WAR= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Speaker, Mays, Bonds
CWA= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Bonds, Speaker, Mays
I believe defense plays only a minor role, though it is included, also no durability is directly factored into the value as an outside item.
Regardless of any possible shortcomings, real or percieved, very interesting indeed.
My own mis-guided, poorly referenced, love-filled, no-proof opinion;
JAX= Ruth, Cobb, Mays, Williams, Wagner, Bonds
.
His most famous concept, is that of Win Shares, a good process with a few subjective parameters.
Even Win Shares itself, has some alternate calculations.
There are five popular verions or ways to calculate WS; Objective function, Modified objective, Wins above average, Wins above replacement, Combination/average of Wins above average and replacement
Ruth or Cobb are the all time leaders in each of the five ways. Here are the top six in each method.
O= Ruth, Wagner, Mantle, Bonds, Williams, Cobb
MO= Ruth, Bonds, Wagner, Mantle, Cobb, Williams
WAA= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Bonds, Speaker, Mays
WAR= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Speaker, Mays, Bonds
CWA= Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Bonds, Speaker, Mays
I believe defense plays only a minor role, though it is included, also no durability is directly factored into the value as an outside item.
Regardless of any possible shortcomings, real or percieved, very interesting indeed.
My own mis-guided, poorly referenced, love-filled, no-proof opinion;
JAX= Ruth, Cobb, Mays, Williams, Wagner, Bonds
.
This aint no party,... this aint no disco,.. this aint no fooling around.
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Comments
You lost me at 'objective function' though.
Steve
while modified objctive is merely an additional factor being involved/added into the initial calculation, which was called "objective", perhaps "standard" might be more proper a term to use....it is probably not 100% objective in the true meaning of the word.
List is based on Win Shares but also includes other elements.
Ruth
Wagner
Mays
Charleston
Cobb
Mantle (if you discount Charleston for only playing in the Negro Leagues)
Post the top 100 winshares list. I want to see how top heavy it is for pre war guys. You mentioned earlier that James did a good job of recognizing why stars of the WWI and 20's era had it easier to dominate. I just want to see how well he used that with his results.
Without recognizing the FACT that the stars of back then had it easier to dominate their peers(compared to the 70's/80's), we must all go on believing that there were 35 pitchers in the 1900 era that were better than Tom Seaver.
<< <i>I believe defense plays only a minor role, >>
Defense is where James spent the majority of his effort in devising the WinShares system and what truly separates his system from all of the others, IMO. It is true that it plays only a minor role when you are evaluating first basemen or left/right fielders because having a good vs. bad fielder at those positions has only a very minor impact on how many games a team wins, assuming that whoever you put there is a major leaguer.
But defense plays an enormous role for the other infield positions; over half of many players total Win Shares are for defense.
Hoopster, here is James' list, circa 2001.
Position Players
1900's 9
1910's 2
1920's 10
1930's 6
1940's 10
1950's 10
1960's 10
1970's 10
1980's 10
1990's 3
Pitchers Top 30 of all-time
1900's 6
1910's 1
1920's 2
1930's 2
1940's 2
1950's 5
1960's 8
1970's
1980's 2
1990's 2
That is not his over-all top 100 but rather using top 10 at each position. For over-all top 100 he included the Negro Leagues but he does not in the rankings by position.
He did end up with a pretty good spread. His overall 100 is a little top heavy with pre war guys though.
He downgraded some modern guys since then too(McGwire, Bagwell), I believe.
1. The players career Win Share total.
2. The player's average win shares in his three best seasons
3. The player's average win shares in his five best consecutive seasons
4. The player's career Win Shares per 162 games
5. An "era adjustment" based on the player's year of birth
6. A subjective component, intended to enable us to deal with factors not accurately reflected in the statistics
For the subjective element:
1. Statistically undocumented portions of a player's career - in other words when Ted Williams misses seasons due to the war in his prime that must be factored in. If a player suffers a career ending injury it is not factored in.
2. Inequalities in the calibre of competition. war years, expansion years etc.
3. World Series Performance - it is small but it enhances the value of Reggie or Eddie Collins
4. Leadership or Disruptive Behaviour
5. Clutch Performance - before this point gets misinterpreted the examples he uses are Drysdale 0-13 in pennant race games against the Dodgers top opponent. He pitched poorly most of the time in these games. He does say it is random and not a character flaw but it should be given some wait - just like Bob Gibson on the other end of the spectrum who has an impeccible record in big games including World Series - 7-2 1.89 e.r.a 81 innings 92 K's + two homers.
6. Special contributions of the player undefined by statistics - Jackie Robinson
7. Defensive value beyond that accounted for in the win shares system.
hoopster - To quote James - "If I didn't introduce a small time-line adjustment I'd have 75 or 85 players from the first half of the century in the top 100. I just don't believe that's right or logical."
Ruth 756
Cobb 722
Aaron 643
W. Mays 642
Speaker 630
Musial 604
H. Wagner 598
Collins 574
Mantle 565
W. Johnson 560
T. Williams 555
Rose 547
Henderson 530
Ott 528
Ba. Bonds 523
F. Robinson 519
Morgan 512
Hornsby 502
Gehrig 489
Yaz 488
Alexander 476
Schmidt 467
Mathews 450
R. Jackson 444
Kaline 443
Crawford 442
Murray 437
Foxx 435
Brett 432
Ripken 427
Mathewson 426
Lajoie 425
Yount 423
P. Waner 423
Winfield 415
Molitor 414
Spahn 412
McCovey 408
This is essentially how James would rank players on "career value", but James weights "peak value " more in his list. And you really have to do that to have a meaningful list, otherwise Rusty Staub ranks higher than Johnny Bench and Rabbit Maranville ranks higher than Joe Jackson.
400 or above WS seem to be all HOF except Rose. I wonder where sheffield fits in with the all-time greats.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
A few quick alternates;
SABR
1 Ruth, 2 Gehrig, 3 T Williams
BB Evolutuion
1 Ruth, 2 Cobb, 3 T Willaims
Sporting News
1 Ruth, 2 Mays, 3 Cobb
There are plenty of others, all based on factors which are often subjective, and vary in the amount of importance given to each component used in them.
It is quite difficult to quantify a ballplayer's overall quality, with perfect or exact results, however, most of us will enjoy ranking systems more, if they are similar to our own opinions, on what factors are most significant.
400 Win Shares does pretty much guarantee that a player is a HOFer. 300-400 and it starts getting a little gray, but if you want a good start on a list of people who ought ot be in line to the HOF ahead of Jim Rice, it's a good start:
Gwynn 398
Boggs 394
Grove 391
Seaver 388
DiMaggio 387
Raines 387
Carew 384
Gehringer 383
Wheat 380
Appling 378
Clemente 377
P. Niekro 375
Berra 375
A. Simmons 375
B. Williams 374
Killebrew 371
Stargell 369
G. Perry 367
Carlton 367
Fisk 367
Frisch 366
Da. Evans 364
Plank 361
Staub 357
B Robinson 356
Vaughan 356
Heilmann 356
Bench 355
Goslin 355
Magee 354
Snider 352
Clemens 352
Whitaker 351
Carey 351
Brock 349
Perez 346
Dw. Evans 346
Sandberg 346
Alomar 345
McGwire 342
Biggio 342
Dawson 341
Allen 340
Blyleven 339
Roberts 339
G. Carter 338
Mize 337
Ryan 334
Palmeiro 334
Banks 333
Cronin 333
W. Clark 331
Grich 329
Ashburn 329
Parker 326
Hartnett 326
S. Rice 326
Reg. Smith 325
O. Smith 325
Santo 324
Jenkins 323
Slaughter 323
Ruffing 322
Nettles 321
W. Davis 321
Pinson 321
Hooper 321
Larkin 320
Sutton 318
Trammell 318
Bagwell 318
B. Gibson 317
Maddux 317
J. Clark 316
Hack 316
McGriff 316
Cash 315
Reese 315
Rixey 315
Leach 315
T. Simmons 314
Dickey 314
Roush 314
Griffey jr. 313
Palmer 312
Torre 312
Medwick 312
Lyons 312
Hernandez 311
Cepeda 310
Cruz 309
E. Wynn 309
Thomas 308
J. Wynn 307
Randolph 307
Baines 306
Hubbell 305
Oliver 304
Fox 304
Sheckard 303
Young 303
Bo. Bonds 302
Singleton 302
Maranville 302
B. Bell 301
HR Baker 301
Eckersley 300
The list(s) you have posted "proves", via the opinions of stat importance and factors actually chosen as evaluators,
That, Paul Waner was a better baseball player than;
McCovey, DiMaggio, Gwynn, Clemente, Al Simmons, or Killebrew among others, not including pitchers like Spahn, Grove, or Plank.
In my view, that would lessen the quality of using it to somehow discredit Jim Rice's HOF worth, which seems truly an unhealthy obsession.
Dallas, my plea to you is to eliminate, IMO from your posts. Don't cater to all the people who throw around the word 'opinion' when they are trying to validate their bias or fandome. That is their knee jerk reaction when someobody comes around with better info, so instead of looking bad, they just pull the opinion card.
Waner does have a higher numerical rate or rank of WS, than the players I mentioned.
You are quite the paradox, Hoop,
In a very recent other post, you just criticized me for the use of "facts" within.
Now you you state not to use "opinions"
No facts, no opinions,... really could make for an intresting discusssion,
However it just my "assumption" that discussion is what most herein, are really interested in. Perhaps a forum where one might merely make a speech, where no one could or would dare to debate any part of it, might be more appropriate for some.
That place you speak of about speech's would be a good place for DrJ to visit.
Jaxxr, I will add that your ability and knowledge of evaluation is seemingly growing day by day. A tip of the hat to you for doing some research, and using some good material.
I joined SABR in 1987, have known about Bill James back when he was making some radical, incorrect postulates about MLB, currently belong to about a half dozen groups who enjoy baseball research, and certainly hope I am open minded enough to learn more, and may be able to keep growing in that respect.
It is a bit of "fun" for me to admit I just recently learned that Chuck Klien was also among the elite, who led the league in both Steals and HRs, in addition to Cobb and Mays, whom I mistakenly assumed were the only ones. I am sure I have made other mistakes, and some poor or overly biased evaluations along the way, as well.
One key thing I have grasped, is that, in life, and baseball evaluation, there are very few absolutes. The broader the question, like who is most valuable, the broader the scope of possible and reasonable evaluations. A narrow query, who hit the most HRs in MLB for 2008, has only one correct response and it is not an opinion in any sense. It is very hard to "prove" almost any rank or worth, when more than one factor is involved, although, I do find "almost all" alternate views to be interesting and perhaps research provoking.
<< <i>The list(s) you have posted "proves", via the opinions of stat importance and factors actually chosen as evaluators,
That, Paul Waner was a better baseball player than;
McCovey, DiMaggio, Gwynn, Clemente, Al Simmons, or Killebrew among others, not including pitchers like Spahn, Grove, or Plank.
In my view, that would lessen the quality of using it to somehow discredit Jim Rice's HOF worth, which seems truly an unhealthy obsession.
>>
aro13 addressed this a bit, but just to make it perfectly clear; you can split semantic hairs if you like and refer to the career win shares list as a ranking, but that does not mean that you can then change the meaning entirely and substitute "better", as you did here. Bill James has never, and would never, refer to Paul Waner as "better" than DiMaggio or any of the others. He ranks higher on one list; the significance of that is one part - a relatively small part - of determining who is "better".
And I did not mean to imply that Jim Rice was worse than all of those players because he ranks lower on that list, just that he happened to be worse than all of them. And obsessing about the HOF being fouled with the stench of Jim Rice is my official duty, although I appreciate your concern about my health.