Quiz – full of sound and fury, signifying nothing |

Much has been written this season about the exploits of Adam Dunn. But, until now (and with apologies to William Shakespeare), probably not this.

Dunn is among a short list of players with a peculiar “accomplishment”. Though all have played only in the expansion era, these are the only players to make this list among all players to have played their entire careers since 1901.

The quiz has been solved. Congratulations to Richard Chester! He identified that these players all have careers of 5000 PAs or more with career OPS+ of 125, yet career WAR of only 25 or less (or a 5:1 or worse OPS+ to WAR ratio). Thus, despite good offensive numbers, these players’ WAR scores are reduced dramatically due to poor defense.

So, what is the unusual achievement that connects this group? Here`s the list.

Player
Adam Dunn
Alvin Davis
Oscar Gamble
Danny Tartabull
Richie Zisk
Greg Luzinski
Ryan Klesko
Mo Vaughn

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/15/2012.

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Voomo Zanzibar

11 years ago

It must have to do with Defense, as all of those players were spectacularly bad with the mitten.

I’ll guess that they are the only players whose Negative dWar is at least 40% as great as their positive oWar.
________________________________________________

Richie Zisk was the “best” of that list with a -9.6 dWar.

Alvin Davis managed a -1.2 dWar while playing the field in 14 games in 1991.

Dunn was -5.2 in 1999 !
Has that changed recently? Sure I would have noticed that horrific (possibly meaningless) number before now.

Reply to Voomo Zanzibar

Surely total WAR is a factor because that list is ordered by ascending WAR.

None of those players ever had a season of better than 0.3 dWar
(Richie Zisk, 1976)

Author

Doug

Voomo’s definitely on the right track.

nightfly

I also observe that these guys have all had reasonable good early peaks followed by a plummeting season.

Reply to nightfly

Good observation. But, not related to the quiz criteria.

Richard Chester

More than 5000 PA, more than OPS+ = 125 and WAR less than 25.0.

bstar

Doug, is it a career accomplishment or a seasonal one?

Richard, first two criteria are correct. The 3rd criterion is not what I was after though it does involve WAR.

Reply to Doug

More than 160 HR.

WAR fielding runs less than 8.

Bstar, looking for career accomlishment. Richard Chester is close.

I’ll let him take it home, thanks.

Eric

oWAR – dWAR > 30?

Insert Name Here

Is the 3rd criterion oWAR > 20 and negative dWAR?

I ran Richard’s criteria in comment #7 and it yields my list, so I’m going to give it to Richard Chester. What I was looking for was the relationship between OPS+ and WAR. All of these guys have a healthy career OPS+ of 125 or more, but not much WAR to show for it (hence, the title of the quiz). The 8 players in this quiz all played their entire careers since 1901 have a career OPS+ of 125 or more in 5000 or more PAs, and have a 5:1 or higher career OPS+ to WAR ratio. As Voomo Zanzibar… Read more »

Thanks Doug. Voomo deserves credit also.

Can someone answer a question about dWar?
Namely, how is it calculated? And WTF?

For example, in the last 5 years, David Ortiz has played 27 games in the field.
He has committed one error.

His dWar in the last five years?
Negative 6

Last year he played all of 13 INNINGS.
That is 1.4 games.
And his dWar was -1.4

Help.

Paul E

Voom:
We were in a rush to get:
1)atomic bomb (~ 1945)
2)man in space (~ 1962)
3)Commie Pinko’s out of Hollywood (~ 1952)
4)Troops out of Vietnam (~1969)
5)Aspartame/NutraSweet to market (~ 1982)
6)A single statistic to evaluate baseball performance (Bill James era)

I guess you can’t rush this stuff…..

MikeD

Reply to Paul E

Looks like we accomplished all of those, with the exception of #3.

Editor

John Autin

Voomo — I can’t give you a full explanation of dWAR, but basically, B-R (i.e., Sean Foreman) made a big change this year in how dWAR is expressed. It no longer reflects just the value of one’s defensive PERFORMANCE at a given position; it now also contains an adjustment for the inherent value of the position played. I don’t know exactly how that adjustment is scaled, but it’s clear that they’ve pegged the inherent value of a DH at roughly -1.4, because even guys who don’t play the field at all (like Vlad 2011) are assigned -1.4 dWAR. Note that… Read more »

Reply to John Autin

Thank you. I am very glad to know that there is a sensible answer.
Looking at charts of numbers that I know that I can trust (trust to at least make sense, if not actually be accurate) – this is one of the only things left that I can take easy comfort in.

da HOOK

Adam Dunn, Oscar Gamble, Richie Zisk, Greg Luzinski all DHed for the White Sox.

Danny Tartabull, Ryan Klesko, Mo Vaughn, Alvin Davis did not.

Mike Felber

Commie Pinko always was vicious & immature name calling. This Blog is not about politics, but when gratuitous animus & misinformation occurs it should be countered. 1) Folks are allowed ina free nation to be communist. But the McCarthy era is widely & wisely viewed as Senator Joe was, a disgrace. Good folks & some great artists had careers ruined & Fear & Loathing via & Soviet style communist fascism was leveraged by some hateful right wing elements. And because many folks in Hollywood are liberal they should not be derided. Very few are at all Communist. Hateful disdain for… Read more »