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Another look at the greatest players ever
dallasactuary
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in Sports Talk
From 1900 through 2001, there are 93 overlapping 10-year periods. Measured by Win Shares, I wondered who were the best players over each of those periods. I figured, if you can be the best player in baseball for a 10-year period, then you're awfully damn good, and at least deserve consideration as one of the best players ever. Some disclaimers:
1. I ignored pitchers
2. I ignored cheaters
3. There's nothing magical about 10 years, it was just convenient
4. By requiring the years to be consecutive I screwed Williams; he's still in here, but his two stretches of military service limit his 10-year totals. DiMaggio, too.
In all there were 19 players who were the best for any 10-year period. In order by the number of winning periods:
11 - Babe Ruth
9 - Stan Musial
7 - Mike Schmidt
6 - Lou Gehrig, Rickey Henderson, Mickey Mantle, Mell Ott, Honus Wagner
5 - Ty Cobb, Joe Morgan
4 - Hank Aaron, Willie Mays
3 - Craig Biggio, Will Clark, Pete Rose, Tris Speaker, Ted Williams
1 - Richie Allen, Stan Hack, Frank Thomas
Now, someone had to win the WWII period and it turned out to be Stan Hack. Hack was a very good player - he led the league in hits in the two years before the war - but he wasn't a great player.
Everyone else here was a great player, and one of the best ever, at least by this reckoning.
1. I ignored pitchers
2. I ignored cheaters
3. There's nothing magical about 10 years, it was just convenient
4. By requiring the years to be consecutive I screwed Williams; he's still in here, but his two stretches of military service limit his 10-year totals. DiMaggio, too.
In all there were 19 players who were the best for any 10-year period. In order by the number of winning periods:
11 - Babe Ruth
9 - Stan Musial
7 - Mike Schmidt
6 - Lou Gehrig, Rickey Henderson, Mickey Mantle, Mell Ott, Honus Wagner
5 - Ty Cobb, Joe Morgan
4 - Hank Aaron, Willie Mays
3 - Craig Biggio, Will Clark, Pete Rose, Tris Speaker, Ted Williams
1 - Richie Allen, Stan Hack, Frank Thomas
Now, someone had to win the WWII period and it turned out to be Stan Hack. Hack was a very good player - he led the league in hits in the two years before the war - but he wasn't a great player.
Everyone else here was a great player, and one of the best ever, at least by this reckoning.
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Interesting reading, although slightly deceptive in the analysis. I'm assuming the total number of win shares in a given ten year span is how the best player argument was made, but if one player had enough win shares from a few dominant seasons, it could be used to cover up years in which he was just good, not great.
Yes, that's exactly what I did. But I don't see how that's deceptive. You're saying that a player who gets 30 Win Shares two years in a row is better than a player who got 45 followed by 15; i.e., that there is extra value in being consistent.
What Wins Shares represent is how many of his team's games a player is responsible for winning. Why is it better to win a consistent number of games each year vs. winning more some years than others? What I think my list shows is, in any given year, which player would you most want on your team for the next 10 years. You don't know what the pattern of his contributions will be, but why would you care?
There is value in consistency. To put no value in it is superficial by its omission.
OK, you've stated that twice now. What I'm asking is why. And part of your answer needs to state how much value to give it, or else it's not possible to apply it. Show me two patterns of Win Shares for a 10 year period where Player A beats Player B in total, but Player B is better than Player A, and tell me how much better Player B is than Player A.
I too am a fan of consistency. I would rather have a player be great every year than have an out of this world year followed by an average or even slightly above average year.
Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter because you end up looking at a players averages. This is exactly why I like to look BEYOND stats and also rely on year to year observation, backed up by stats.
One of the things I liked about Killebrew; from 1959-1970 if he got 500 AB he responded consistently with between 39-49 home runs and at 96-140 RBI. There were no 60 HR years followed by a 20 HR year for a 40 HR average.
It's nice to look at things as if you were a manager...........knowing you could count on on a key player to perform at a consistently high level. Yastrzemski would go from 16 and 80 (1966) to 44 and 121 (1967) even though he had the exact same number of AB. Businesses now seem to want level, predictable profit performances, why not ballplayers performance as well?
To "prove" consistency, you could chart performance, and the more level it was, the greater value it would be given. Of course you would have to believe consistency had value.
Of course if the rest of the team performs better when you are having a big year, as Boston did in '67, a legend is born and 1966 is forgotten. Koufax's peak happened when the Dodgers also had a great team. In the end, his first seven years get ignored because of his incredible next five when the team was winning.
Even BETTER is a consistent player (like Killebrew) who has his best years when the team is contending or winning (1966, 1967, 1969 and 1970 in Harmon's case).
Great discussion guys.
No, I stated that once, but never mind that. Let's take Craig Biggio as an example. I'm assuming in your analysis that the ten year blocks for his career were 1993-2002, 1994-2003, and 1995-2004, am I correct? If that's the case, then five of the ten years in the first block Biggio had 16 or fewer homers and in three of those years failed to reach 150 hits. As you move to the second and third blocks, his power numbers improve, but his stolen base numbers take a nosedive. In contrast, from 1998-2007, Vlad Guerrero averaged over 100 runs scored, 35.3 homers and close to 120 rbi's per year, and doesn't even make the list. Vlad was very consistent, being within 10% of his yearly home run average for all but two of those seasons, an injury shortened 2003 and in 2007 when he was adjusting to AL pitching. You can draw your own conclusions, but a player that can be counted on year after year to put up consistently big numbers is, in my opinion, better than a player that has several great years mixed in with good, but not great numbers.
Well, no, those aren't the periods where Biggio won, but that's not really important.
What's important, and what I asked, is WHY is consistency important, and HOW MUCH value it should be given. And you didn't answer either question, or provide the example I asked for.
I'll provide the example:
Player A: 40 40 40 40 20 20 20 40 40 40 - total 340
Player B: 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 - total 300
Now, is Player B better than Player A? Why? How much better? If I change the 3 20s for Player A to 10s, so that his total drops to 310, does that change your answer? Why? How much better is Player A than Player B over the 10-year period in that case?
There was a similar discussion here awhile back about why people value peak performance more than average performance. Most everyone agreed that a player who is really great some years and average in the other years was better than a player who was above average each and every year. The reasoning was that the player who was really great sometimes would be more likely to contribute to a championship in those years, and in the other years it wasn't likely that the difference between being average or above average would matter much. I respect that position, although I disagreed with it. I think every year ought to count equally. But the position that you're arguing - that above average years ought to count MORE than the average of great and average years was a position nobody took, and one that wouldn't have even occurred to me if you hadn't mentioned it.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, but you also have to understand that if you can't answer these questions that there's no way to include a "consistency factor" in any list that I, or anyone else, might make. Even if I don't agree with you, I'd still be interested in revising this list to include a consistency factor; but you have to give me some idea what it is. What it needs to avoid - and it isn't clear to me how it can be avoided - is the situation where a player is deemed "better" if he sits out the last month rather than playing well to avoid losing more consistency points than he gains in Win Shares.
There is a serious flaw in the formula for Win Shares if Will Clark is deemed the best player for a ten year period three times. Can you explain this flaw?
I take it that this is your way of saying that you have no idea what you're talking about and you want to drop the whole "consistency" thing. Fine, I'll stop asking.
The only serious flaw in Win Shares that I'm aware of is that it was finagled so that relief pitchers looked like they were much better than they really were. I don't know why James did that, but he disclosed what he did so it's a transparent flaw.
There is no "flaw" in Win Shares that puts Clark at the top. If you want to apply your imaginary "consistency factor", he might fall behind Boggs, Henderson or Biggio in one or more of those three years, but the fact is that Clark was so insanely great in 1988 and 1989 that his 10-year totals are the highest for several years. Tell me how much to take off for Clark's lack of consistency and we'll see what that does to the list. Oh wait, sorry, we already agreed that you didn't want to talk about that anymore.
I don't need to explain why consistency is a valued attribute. You either believe it or you don't. Apparently, you don't put much stock in it, so that's fine. Btw, why do you think Clark was "insanely good" in 1988 and 1989?
To believe that consistency is a valued attribute, and then to complain that my list is "deceptive" because it doesn't take consistency into account, and then say that there is no way to take it into account makes absolutely no sense. Yet that's what you've done and somehow you're offended that I can't make sense of it. Believe whatever the hell you want to believe, just don't criticize anyone else for not believing it, too, if you can't even explain why you believe it.
I believe that Clark was insanely good in 1988 and 1989 because he was insanely good in 1988 and 1989. His 1989 season was the best season by anyone in the decade or, barring cheaters, the next decade. He was in the top 10 in the league in virtually everything, and he led the league in everything that matters (stats you probably haven't heard of). He hit .333 that year, which was great, but he hit .389 with runners in scoring position. With 2 outs and runners in scoring position he hit an un-freaking-believable .435. And he did all that he did in a ballpark that cost him roughly 10% of his offensive production compared to everywhere else. And while the actual award went - perhaps as a joke - to a pretty bad first baseman, Clark actually deserved the Gold Glove that year. They gave the MVP to his teammate - Kevin Mitchell - because sportswriters are mesmerized by HR and RBI, but Clark deserved that, too. It was a year for the ages - the best baseball fans saw for a generation. I'm sorry you missed it.
(See, isn't that a better answer than "I just believe it"?)
To believe that consistency is a valued attribute, and then to complain that my list is "deceptive" because it doesn't take consistency into account, and then say that there is no way to take it into account makes absolutely no sense. Yet that's what you've done and somehow you're offended that I can't make sense of it. Believe whatever the hell you want to believe, just don't criticize anyone else for not believing it, too, if you can't even explain why you believe it.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt someone's feelings? If this is the way you respond to simple questions about how you arrive at conclusions on a baseball card board, of which I have never seen you actually post anything related to the collecting of the aforementioned baseball cards, then maybe a course in anger management is what you need.
And Dallas, please stop posting Clarks' batting avg, BA with runners in scoring position, and so on. Remember you're on record
as saying batting average is not important at all.
But if you do want to talk BA, Brett .390, Clark .333, OBP Brett .454, Clark .407, Slugging Brett .664 Clark .546, OPS Brett 1.118, Clark .953.
Plus Brett only played 117 games and had 118 RBI's, which was more than Clark.
And on and on and on, was there any stat Clark actually beat Brett?
You are on record as saying Slug pct. is very important, and Bretts' was over 100 points higher than Clarks.
Used to have some respect for your analysis, but saying Clark had the best year of the decade is ludicrious.
To believe that consistency is a valued attribute, and then to complain that my list is "deceptive" because it doesn't take consistency into account, and then say that there is no way to take it into account makes absolutely no sense. Yet that's what you've done and somehow you're offended that I can't make sense of it. Believe whatever the hell you want to believe, just don't criticize anyone else for not believing it, too, if you can't even explain why you believe it.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt someone's feelings? If this is the way you respond to simple questions about how you arrive at conclusions on a baseball card board, of which I have never seen you actually post anything related to the collecting of the aforementioned baseball cards, then maybe a course in anger management is what you need.
Hurt my feelings? Of course not. Caused me to bang my head on my keyboard in response to your galactic ignorance? Bingo!
I have responded in tremendous detail to every question that you have asked. You have either avoided every question I've asked, or responded with nonsense. If that's the way you respond to simple questions, then why are you here? Seriously, why are you here? There must be something in this world that you know something about and where you could contribute to a conversation. Baseball is very obviously not that thing, and you look so foolish when you talk about it.
Better than Ruth, Williams, Musial or anyone, including Will Clark, ever did.
Also, Brett had a better season in 1985 than Clark in 89,
and Mattingly had a couple seasons which were better, just to name a few.
Won't go into the numbers as I think Dallas now realizes he was wrong.
I'm here because I enjoy collecting cards. What do you collect?
In 1980 George Brett hit .469 with runners in scoring position, which is the best all time for a single season.
Better than Ruth, Williams, Musial or anyone, including Will Clark, ever did.
Also, Brett had a better season in 1985 than Clark in 89,
and Mattingly had a couple seasons which were better, just to name a few.
Won't go into the numbers as I think Dallas now realizes he was wrong.
There's always going to be some element of opinion with regard to anything like who is "better" than another. That said, I'm a long way from realizing that I'm wrong, and based on what you posted I don't think I understand why you think I am. You're entitled to your opinion that Brett in '85 was better than Clark in '89, but it would be helpful if you would explain why you think so before proclaiming me wrong.
Comparing Clark '89 to Brett '85 we have:
Win Shares: Clark 44, Brett 37 (Clark led the majors; Brett was second to Henderson)
Win Probability Added: Clark 8.3, Brett 5.5 (Clark led, Brett second to Murray)
And while Brett was playing in conditions that reduced offense 2% compared to an historic average, Clark was playing in conditions that reduced offense by 12%.
It really wasn't even all that close. Clark in '89 was much better than Brett in '85.
You don't mention what seasons of Mattingly's that you think were better, but it doesn't matter. Mattingly's best showing in WPA was 4.7, about 60% of Clark in '89, and his best season in Win Shares was 34 (not the same season as his top WPA), when he was second to Boggs and about 75% of Clark in '89. Again not even close. And if you're relying on more basic stats in reaching your conclusion, Mattingly was facing a 2% offensive reduction due to the conditions he played under to Clark's 12%.
The only two seasons where a reasonable argument can be made for a season better than Clark's are Brett in 1980 and Schmidt in 1981. In both cases, though, these seasons were far less than a full season, Brett because of injury and Schmidt due to the strike. That creates a sort of apples to oranges situation, and I therefore won't tell anyone who claims that one of those two "seasons" was the best is wrong. Pick any other season by any other player, though, and you're wrong.
Edit to add: Sorry, Darin, I missed your first post when I responded to your next one. Hopefully, this post is enough to respond to what you posted in both. I do mention batting average, slugging, and so on from time to time when I think they add something or they make my point clearer. In every case, though, Win Shares and WPA are better stats; RISP batting average just helps explain how a player with lower standard stats can be better than a player with better standard stats. Clark has the highest WPA and Win Shares for the decade of the 1980's, and by comfortable margins. His 1989 season was the best full season of the decade, certainly better, much better, than any season Mattingly ever had. He also accomplished more in 1989 than Brett did in 1980, but per game Brett was better. If you think having Brett for 117 games and his 6.2 WPA and 36 Win Shares is better than having Clark for 159 games and his 8.3 WPA and 44 Win Shares, then you're not wrong. I still think Clark deserves the "best season" title, but I see the argument for Brett.
Edit again to add: I think Brett's '80 season is actually moot. If you throw out the full season requirement and just look at what a player did in the games available to him, then I think Schmidt in '81 beats Brett in '80. It's close, and Schmidt's defense plays a part, but I'd pick Schmidt.
The two players War were very close for those years, Clark 8.6 and Brett 8.3, so if you want to
go with Clark I can't argue. However, I still remember the last 2 weeks of the 85 regular season
when Brett put the Royals on his back and carried them to a division title over the Angels. I think
the Royals were behind 2 or 3 games and maybe won it on the last or second to last game.
Check out Bretts' stats for about those last two weeks, when everything was on the line, if you want some
impressive stats. I still have newspaper articles from some of those games.
Then he had one of the best LCS series of all time against the Blue Jays, but I guess we're not counting postseason.
I mentioned Mattingly because it might have been that same year, 1985, he had 145 RBI's.
When your team can count on you for 1 RBI per game, that is huge.
I know you would say his teammates are responsible for getting on base so he had those opportunities,
but Mattingly was just amazing that year.
I still think Brett should have been MVP in 85 however.
Brett or Henderson would have been better picks for MVP in 1985; Mattingly wasn't an awful pick, as MVP picks go, but not the best.
And Brett certainly had a great postseason, which I didn't count, but Clark was NLCS MVP in 1989 with an average of .650 and an OPS of 1.882. If we do count postseason, Clark's lead will just get bigger.
I believe that Clark was insanely good in 1988 and 1989 because he was insanely good in 1988 and 1989. His 1989 season was the best season by anyone in the decade or, barring cheaters, the next decade. He was in the top 10 in the league in virtually everything, and he led the league in everything that matters (stats you probably haven't heard of). He hit .333 that year, which was great, but he hit .389 with runners in scoring position. With 2 outs and runners in scoring position he hit an un-freaking-believable .435.
*Tiny sample size alert*
It's really not that noteworthy. He only had 20 hits in that situation. For his career, he hit .290 in that situation, which shows that his 1989 number was really just a fluke (along with the tiny sample size).
Sure he over-performed in THAT specific situation in 1989, but he also under-performed in "late & close" situations, with about double the sample size. Overall though, yes, his 1989 season was very good.
It's really not that noteworthy. He only had 20 hits in that situation. For his career, he hit .290 in that situation, which shows that his 1989 number was really just a fluke (along with the tiny sample size).
Sure he over-performed in THAT specific situation in 1989, but he also under-performed in "late & close" situations, with about double the sample size. Overall though, yes, his 1989 season was very good.
I won't argue with your math - you're right that Clark overperformed in 1989. The thing is, the Giants didn't have to give back any of the games that Clark won for them because it could be chalked up to overperformance. What we can agree was overperformance in a statistical sense is simply called "performance" on the field. That Clark hit .435 with 2 outs and RISP was noteworthy, even if it was a fluke, because it won ballgames for the Giants. And I picked 2 outs/RISP because it was the most dramatic, but you also picked late/close because it was the least dramatic. Overall, in "high leverage" situations, Clark hit .387, in medium leverage situations .352, and in low leverage situations .300. The point being that, on average, the more the at bat mattered to winning the game, the better Clark got. Contrast that with Brett in 1985 where he was pretty much the same in low/medium/high leverage situations.
Which is all to say - the stats are what they are, and Will Clark was responsible for winning the games he was responsible for winning, whether 1989 was a fluke or not. And in 1989 Will Clark was responsible for winning more baseball games than any other position player who didn't cheat was responsible for winning for any other team in any other year in the 1980's (or 1990's, or most of the 1970's). It would have been a "very good" season had he retired on September 1st. It was the best season of a generation as it actually turned out.
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Interesting article on the value of consistency as it applies to baseball. The author suggests that it is important for winning teams to score runs in a consistent manner, but less important for them to give up runs in a predictable way.
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Interesting article. You do understand, don't you, that a team scoring runs consistently from game to game within a season is in no way related to an individual player producing runs consistently from year to year? It's not apples and oranges, it's watermelons and Chevrolets.
If you bothered to read the article, the author points out that one of the unanswered questions is how does individual consistency scale to team consistency, a link that has yet to be determined, but worthy of more research.
I did read the article; found it interesting. I was just checking to see if you had read it, and understood it, since by posting it here you appeared to be implying that the position you had taken on consistency in this thread was somehow validated by this unrelated article.
I won't argue with your math - you're right that Clark overperformed in 1989. The thing is, the Giants didn't have to give back any of the games that Clark won for them because it could be chalked up to overperformance.
I didn't do any math. I just posted his stats.
I didn't say he over-performed in 1989 - I said he over-performed with RISP w/2 outs in 1989. It would be like a player hitting .300 in a season, and .500 on Wednesdays, or .500 in the 4th inning on the road. Crazy numbers like that can happen with small sample sizes.
Of course no one can take away that Clark had 20 hits in that situation, but one also shouldn't come to any conclusions about it either. He showed no ability to be "clutch" in that situation for his *career*.
Which is all to say - the stats are what they are, and Will Clark was responsible for winning the games he was responsible for winning, whether 1989 was a fluke or not.
Again, I never said 1989 was a fluke. I just said that one stat in 1989 was a fluke. A fluke isn't necessarily a negative - it's just what happened.
Really, are you so obtuse that you cannot connect the dots? Well then, let me walk you through it. A hypothetical team wants to build a consistent offense, which means they need players who can produce runs on a fairly predictable basis. Given the choice between player A and player B, who both have the same number of wins shares after each has played, to pick an arbitrary number, ten seasons. The difference between the players being that player A's win shares vary 20% from year to year whereas player B's win shares stay within a 5-10% range. I'm guessing that the author of the article would say that player B is more valuable to the team, it's just that he hasn't done the research to numerically state what that value is.
You are reaching a conclusion - that the author will be able to connect team runs within a season to individual runs produced from season to season - that they author does not claim, and which he couldn't claim because what he researched is unrelated. I don't think you're being obtuse about it, either; I think you just don't understand it.
And don't ever say "let me walk you through it" when you're taking about statistics to an actuary in person unless you enjoy having your face laughed in. But thanks, it made me laugh anyway. Not as much as putting Carney Lansford in a top 10 list, but close.
Stick to mortality rates and bean counting, you have never played nor know anything about the actual game of baseball. It is strictly fantasy for you. Dungeons and dragons is more up your alley.
You could have just moved on with a shred of dignity intact, but you chose to channel a 12-year-old instead. OH GOD! You're 12 years old, aren't you?!?! I've been arguing with a 12-year-old.
To PSASAP's parents - if you're reading this, I didn't mean to make your son cry. I swear I had no idea he was only 12. I'm very, very sorry and it will not happen again.
This is a baseball card website, where everybody is 12 again. I ask you again, what do you collect? Haven't seen your handle on any registry sets, either your collection sucks, or you're just a bored troll. Or just a troll with a crap collection.
Someday, son, you're going to be older than 12. You're still going to interact with people who know a lot more than you do about certain things, but you're going to have learned by then to accept that and either ask questions so you can learn, listen politely, or just walk away if it gets this frustrating for you. I guarantee you that you won't still be using words like "crap" and "sucks" as personal insults; no adult does that. Sadly, there are some adults who when they've lost an argument will revert to insults - some even run for President - but you don't want to be one of those people. No other adults want to be around those people. I know adolescence can be a time of great frustration, but you'll be much happier if you work on coping with your frustrations in more productive ways than tantrums, and other people will want to be around you more.
"Dallas, you know you don't have time for such nonsense. Now go upstairs and study your actuarial tables. Think of how much fun it is to know the likelihood that someone will die as they reach their birthday. Better than those dumb baseball cards with statistics that don't measure their true value."
"Okay mommy. I was just trying to fit in with the other kids. They don't like it when I tell them they have a 30% chance of dying at age 60, given their occupation, ethnicity, genetic history and other factors. They say go away Grim Reaper!"
Player A: 40 40 40 40 20 20 20 40 40 40 - total 340
Player B: 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 - total 300
Now, is Player B better than Player A? Why? How much better? If I change the 3 20s for Player A to 10s, so that his total drops to 310, does that change your answer? Why? How much better is Player A than Player B over the 10-year period?
Player A is better..........but not by much. If you change the 3 20s for player A to 10s it does change my answer to player B.....but not by much, based on the information given, which is insufficient. In the end both players are too close to call unless other factors are included.
For example; if in year 5 player A produces a 10 and his team finishes a close 2nd place in it's division, I am going to say "player A was a big factor in not winning the division because he was expected to come up with a 40 (his average up to that point) a 30 like player B achieved might have been enough to win the division".
On the other hand in the years player A totals 40 and B 30, if Bs team finishes just behind the first place team A will be considered better.
P.S. you guys should relax a little bit.
Dallas I have a question that maybe you wouldn't mind answering. Back when me and my buddy were heavy into MLB stats ( Non geek stats mind you ) we used to talk about Larry Walkers 1997 season as being one of the best in recent memory back around 1999. How good was his season according to your dissection? Thanks in advance if you take a peek
I'll add; how about his entire career, basing it on OPS+ which is supposed to take the ballpark into consideration?
I have gone on record that I agree that Babe Ruth's extreme greatness over his peers stems partly from the league being filled with less than physically capable human beings as there is now, and that the league itself was filled with dead ball style hitters, thus allowing Ruth to out home run entire teams. The reality is, there is no way any player could out homer an entire team in the modern age. That doesn't mean that Ruth is that much better than those players, but rather that he simply played in a league that was conducive for such feats.
Currently, even the advance stats do not take this into account, and that is why you see a domination of the best seasons(relative to their peers), coming mostly from the 20's and 30's. I could go on and on about that, and have. The reality is, it was far easier for the elite to dominate in that game, than it was for the elite to dominate in a more 'normal' era such as the 60's-80's. That doesn't mean Ruth is head and shoulders above the more modern elite, but that the current measurements don't know how to take into account the overall dearth of talent due to a lesser population, nor does it know how to account that Ruth was 'competing' against a bunch of Rich Dauer contact type hitters.
Imagine how great Reggie Jackson would be viewed if he were competing against a league of Rich Dauer/Willie Wilson type hitters? He would be outhomering each team in the league too. That is a long topic, and I have provided much in the past about.
On the other side of the coin, people often dismiss Ruth and other players from that era a little too easily. It was still baseball, and still with the same fields, rules, and overall was pretty similar except for some nuances(like the dead ball type hitters playing vs Ruth).
If you chain the players, you can see that they competed equally against some players, who went on to compete equally against future players, and on and on and on.
For example, using batting average(yeah the stat sucks, but it is simple, and gets the point easily).
1932 Ruth .341
1932 Ott....318
1936 Ott...328
1936 Dimagio .323
1940 Dimaggio .352
1940 Williams...344
1949 Williams .343
1949 Musial.....338
1957 Musial.....351
1957 Mantle...365
1962 Mantle....321
1962 Aaron.....323
1971 Aaron...327
1971 Rose....304
1979 Rose.....331
1979 Brett.....329
That .341 that Ruth put up in 1932 wasn't really a whole lot different than the .329 that Brett put up in 1979. They basically competed against the same caliber player each years, as evidenced by the overlapping competitors, and similar batting average production.
Obviously averages fluctuate, and if I picked 1941 instead of 1940, we would be looking at a .406 average from Williams. But I could do the reverse for many players in other years too. The bottom line is that they showed they competed pretty equally throughout.
Of course, there is a lot more to hitting than a batting average, but this is long enough already.
Dallas I have a question that maybe you wouldn't mind answering. Back when me and my buddy were heavy into MLB stats ( Non geek stats mind you ) we used to talk about Larry Walkers 1997 season as being one of the best in recent memory back around 1999. How good was his season according to your dissection? Thanks in advance if you take a peek
Walker was excellent in 1997, but nothing historic. The leader in Win Shares and WPA that year in the NL, and majors, was Tony Gwynn. The difference, mostly, is that Gwynn did his best hitting in high leverage situations, while Walker was relatively putrid in those same situations. They both won Gold Gloves, but I don't see why either one deserved it, so defense doesn't really factor into it. Mike Piazza led the league in OPS+ but he, too, was worse in the at bats that really mattered than in the ones that didn't matter much.
Overall, I think Gwynn was the best in the league that year, and Piazza and Frank Thomas probably second and third (with Piazza getting a bump for playing catcher). Ignoring the cheaters, I'd then give fourth to Craig Biggio - he won and deserved to win the Gold Glove at second base - and then put Walker in fifth. If you ignore fielding contributions entirely, then Gwynn still wins and second would go to Walker or Thomas.
For example; if in year 5 player A produces a 10 and his team finishes a close 2nd place in it's division, I am going to say "player A was a big factor in not winning the division because he was expected to come up with a 40 (his average up to that point) a 30 like player B achieved might have been enough to win the division".
On the other hand in the years player A totals 40 and B 30, if Bs team finishes just behind the first place team A will be considered better.
P.S. you guys should relax a little bit.
I understand what you're saying, but you've thrown in a lot of "if"s. What about all the other possibilities for where their teams finish? What I'm asking is, presented with the opportunity to draft either Player A or Player B, and having no idea how anyone else on your team will do, or whether your team will compete for a postseason spot in any year, which player would you take? If we assume that Win Shares "works" - and that's pretty much the premise of the entire thread - then why would you draft the player that will win you fewer games? Sure, there's a chance that Player A's few down years will happen to match up with your only postseason tries, but it's more likely that several of his up years will put your team in contention or take you to a title when Player B's consistent seasons wouldn't have.
Hey Skin! I wondered if you were still around. Good to see you.
Hey Skin! I wondered if you were still around. Good to see you.
Always good to see Skin! And thanks for answering my post
I wil leave the age factor to those that want to consider how age figures into the numbers...
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Of course, there is a lot more to hitting than a batting average, but this is long enough already.
No, not much more. Hit .350 and that will take care of all your other numbers.
Therefore a high BA is extremely important.
Of course, there is a lot more to hitting than a batting average, but this is long enough already.
No, not much more. Hit .350 and that will take care of all your other numbers.
Therefore a high BA is extremely important.
Sure, if the BA gets as high as .350 then it's been a good season. But plenty of below average hitters have hit .300; if you hit an empty .300 (nothing but singles, and few walks) then you haven't "taken care of" anything else at all. The two basic stats that matter the most are on-base percentage and slugging average. If you have those two then batting average adds precisely nothing to the conversation. And, through the magic of the internet, we always have on-base percentage and slugging average.
A player with a BA of .350 will have a good OBP regardless of how often he walks. And he's close to guaranteed to have at least a respectable slugging average. If the people who like to claim that batting average is meaningful would confine it to players who hit at least .350 I'd keep my mouth shut about it. But the list of players who have hit .300 who were barely better than average is legion. Willie Wilson hit .315 in 1979 and was not nearly as valuable on offense as Ron Cey (.281), Dave Kingman (.288), Davey Lopes (.265) or Gene Tenace (.263). Which you can see immediately if you look at all of their OBP and SA. By looking at BA you don't add anything to what you already know and in this case, and many others, knowing their batting averages will actually make your evaluation of their seasons worse than if you hadn't known it. It's not merely a worthless statistic, it's worse than that because it's misleading. That is, if you ignore batting average, you will make a more accurate evaluation of any player's season than if you look at it.
Hey Skin! I wondered if you were still around. Good to see you.
HI.
I read periodically. Just don't feel like debating much.
Hey Skin! I wondered if you were still around. Good to see you.
Always good to see Skin! And thanks for answering my post
Thanks Perk, likewise.
I've been keeping pretty busy with the fun parts of life, so just browse once in a while...don't have much time to dive into things.
You can't compare Willie Wilson to Ron Cey straight up like that,
they both had extremely different roles as hitters.
Wilson did his job in 1979 to perfection, scoring 113 runs and stealing 83 bases.
Cey had an okay year for the Dodgers that year, as his job was
driving in runs, and he didn't do very well at it.
Wilson was much more valuable in his role for the Royals that year
than Cey was with his team.
Here's what you need to do a study of.
How many times did a player you like, Ron Cey for instance, score after he walked.
Probably not a very high percentage, since if he had anyone decent hitting behind him
he wouldn't be walking so often in the first place. He was probably stranded at first the majority
of the time, making all those walks you so highly value completely meaningless.
A walk for Wilson was probably 3-4 times as valuable for the Royals as a walk for Cey was to the Dodgers.
The Royals had Brett, McRae, and Otis to drive him in. That's also why he didn't walk much.
Would you walk Willie Wilson when a .469 hitter with RISP was hitting behind him?
So his .315 avg. is much more important than you give it credit for, as every pitcher in the league
was told by his manager, 'hey, whatever you do don't walk this guy'.
And don't bring up Rickey with all his walks, with his crouch it was like pitching to a little leaguer.
Wilson was 6' 3", and much harder for him to draw a walk than Rickey.