After spending the better part of the past few seasons climbing baseball’s Mount Everest only to run out of steam just shy of the peak, the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers have decided enough is enough. Those 90-95 win seasons and deep playoff runs that don’t quite bear fruit will no longer be tolerated. The time to go for it is now, and no move quite emphasizes that mindset than the Prince Fielder–Ian Kinsler swap.
Detroit’s reasoning behind the deal is fairly obvious. They’ve finally figured out that baseball isn’t all strikeouts, home runs, and long base-clearing doubles; you actually have to catch the ball as well. In fact, this change in mindset may have started back in July, when GM Dave Dombrowski sent big bat/poor glove outfielder Avisail Garcia to the White Sox as part of a 3-team trade that netted defensive wunderkind Jose Iglesias. With the rangy, durable Kinsler now in tow the Tigers finally have the type of double play combo that can provide legitimate support to a pitching staff.
The Fielder swap also allows Miguel Cabrera to hop back across the infield, where he is a more natural fit. After playing passable defense at 3rd base in 2012, Cabrera was a locomotive gone off the rails a season ago. If we look at defensive runs saved Cabrera ranked 80th out of the 80 AL players who spent time at the position thanks to the fact that he was estimated to have cost the Tigers 18 runs. By the time we reached the postseason he was an absolute statue in the field and although that can be blamed on his injuries, Cabrera is not likely to improve defensively with age.
Detroit can now go out and plug-in almost any 3rd baseman on the open market and they would vastly improve a defense which cost the Tigers an estimated 57 runs a year ago. In fact, if the Tigers so choose, they could move their top prospect, Nick Castellanos, back to 3rd base, a position he played for 200 or so games in the minors.
Castellanos projects as a solid middle of the order bat with great gap-to-gap power so this trade may actually increase Detroit’s run scoring capabilities as well. If he can post something around a .275/.330/.450 slash, Detroit should be just fine. Kinsler will be an upgrade offensively over Omar Infante, and the new 2nd baseman should feel right at home in the spacious confines of Comerica Park, where his contact heavy approach should go over perfectly. It’s hard to see this trade as anything but a huge win for the Tigers, who as an added bonus will save a boatload of money down the road in the process.
That doesn’t necessarily lead to the conclusion that Jon Daniels and Texas got taken to school. In fact, Texas may come out of this deal smelling like roses as well. According to Fangraphs, the Rangers accumulated 0.4 wins above replacement out of their 1st basemen a year ago and to make matters worse, they basically broke even at the DH position. Fielder, even in the midst of a career worst season, was still good for 25 homers, 100+ RBI, and walks galore. At the very least the big man should provide the Rangers with an extra 60-70 run scoring opportunities next season thanks to his patience at the plate.
The real risk with Fielder comes down the road. There was a notable drop-off in the rotund 1st baseman’s performance during the 2013 season and his age (30), body shape, and family history (his father Cecil declined badly after he turned 33 and he was out of baseball by the time he was 35) tend to lead to the idea that his best days have already come and gone. Fielder’s contract also runs for another 7 seasons at $24 million a pop, and even though the Tigers are sending a lump sum of $30 million in cash to Texas, that kind of payroll hit probably won’t look very good by 2018 at the latest.
But in the short-term, this move could pay real dividends for Jon Daniels and the Rangers. Prince is markedly better than any other 1st base/DH type on the market and that’s the position that Texas likely needed the most help at a year ago.
Another big plus for the Rangers is that it finally gives them some positional flexibility in the infield. Ron Washington can play Mitch Moreland at 1st with Prince at the DH spot. Even if Fielder plays 1st base, he shouldn’t hurt the Rangers defense too much because they have Adrian Beltre and two rangy shortstops (Elvis Andrus and Jurickson Profar) manning the rest of the positions. That’s pretty good company to keep.
Texas can now spend the rest of their offseason making pursuing a catcher and a lead-off hitter with the knowledge that the rest of their roster is set. Brian McCann would fit in awfully well with the rest of this roster, as would Shin-Soo Choo. Either way, general manager Jon Daniels has options.
———————–
In all honesty, this is one of those trades that makes so much damn sense on paper, but rarely gets made in real life. Texas and Detroit each had their own positional problems, whether they be too many 1st basemen or too many shortstops, and each team was able to come up with a productive solution. Don’t be surprised if we see each of these two AL powerhouses clashing next October.
If I were a Tigers fan, I’d be elated this morning. I agree with the take of Dave Cameron of Fangraphs:
“From the Tigers perspective, this can simply be looked at as swapping Fielder for Kinsler and the right to re-spend $76 million on something else. And there’s just no way that’s not a huge win for the Tigers.”
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tigers-exchange-albatross-for-good-player-get-even-better/
Of course, I’m not a Tigers fan. I’m an Indians fan. So I’m feeling a bit depressed this morning. But hey, at least we signed a 32 year old platoon outfielder coming off a 77 OPS+. Sigh….
Huge trade for the Tigers. The day Fielder was signed, I figured he’d be traded at some point before the end of his contract, just didn’t think it would be after two years.
I love this trade, and hope that it is a harbinger of a reshaping of how things are done going forward. When the Red Sox did their massive salary dump on the over-eager Dodgers last year, everyone (but the Dodgers) thought it was the heist of the century and a one off. But this deal is fundamentally different because of how it fills needs, and how it highlights costs. Contracts aside, from a player perspective, the deal makes sense, as each team gets a player they could use from the surplus of the other team. You can make a very good argument that Kinsler, on his own, might get a better return (some mix of player quality and cost) but subtract Kinsler’s $60M, add $30M from the Tigers, and you have Prince for $78M/7 plus positional flexibility. As for the Tigers, it’s clearly the right move, and a big win, but paying $76M for two years of Prince, and then taking on $60M from an in-his-thirties Kinsler tells you just how much their initial mistake cost them. How many players are worth $76M for two years? Not Prince, for sure. I really wonder if teams are going to rethink duration. I am all for labor making as much as it can. What I don’t want to see is MLB falling into a pattern, like the NBA, where swapping contracts (instead of players) becomes the new norm. Maybe this deal will cause everyone to rethink how they want to structure things.
Really interesting (and good) move overall IMO.
I doubt if Dombrowski ever thought of the Fielder acquisition as anything more than a stopgap or experimental measure when Martinez was lost last year, knowing that he’d probably over-paid at the time, but thinking he’d be able to move Fielder if need be, as long as he was willing to eat the over-payment, which he was (to the tune of $30 million anyway).
I think there might well be more going on here than just this trade, i.e. they may be moving to a different strategic philosophy, one based more on small ball and defense rather than station-to-station and power-based offense that has dominated Tiger offensive strategy apparently ever since Ty Cobb retired. Previous indicators for this include the acquisition of Iglesias (and synchronous departure of Garcia), and the hiring of Vizquel and Joyner as defense and hitting coaches. I’m not sure where Ausmus fits in here, but the hire of an ex-catcher, rookie coach in his mid-40s surely isn’t business-as-usual, and Dombrowski has shown he doesn’t do things without good reason.
With Kinsler, Iglesias, Jackson, Hunter, Dirks, Kelly, and maybe Castellanos you’ve got enough speed to force an aggressive running game if desired, and all are above average defensively. That leaves only one lumbering power hitter on the field, but that one is Miguel Cabrera, and anybody will take that any day.
So this is exactly the kind of thing I want to see as a Tiger fan. Dombrowski deserves much credit for the moves he’s made this fall because they show if nothing else, that he’s not set in his philosophical ways.
Actually, the Tigers were known as a ‘lots of good hitting’/’not quite enough pitching and defense’ type of team even _during most_ of Ty Cobb’s time with the Tigers. They had Crawford/ Veach/ Heilmann/ Lu Blue/ Gehringer and other a number of good hitters, but usually seemed to be a pitcher or two short, the last 2/3rds of Cobb’s Tiger career.
Their runs/G was above league-average during all but one year (1920) of 1912-1926, sometimes by a lot (in 1915, 1916). However, their team ERA was worse than league-average most of those years, though not as dramatically as their R/G. If you go back and read contemporary stories, you’ll find quite a few about AL pitching staffs terrified to face the Tigers formidible lineup.
I love the trade for Detroit, even from a purely “right-now” perspective. Their pieces fit better now. They shifted some of their talent-value from offense (where they were 2nd in AL R/G, despite Fielder’s sub-par season) to defense, where they were weak. A better-balanced team is more adaptable.
One caveat, though — Kinsler’s career road batting splits: .242 BA/.312 OBP/.399 SLG. I hope there’s a bit of a “Coors Effect” in that.
Possibly, Kinsler may feel more invigorated out of the Texas heat. His splits indicate he is hot in April and then cools off quickly.
Of course, he grew up in the Arizona desert, so maybe the heat didn’t bother him at all.
Kinsler has generally performed poorly in AL Central parks:
.627 OPS in Comerica (162 PAs)
.626 OPS in Progressive (114 PAs)
.611 OPS in US Cellular (124 PAs)
.716 OPS in Target (66 PAs)
.756 OPS in Kaufmann (101 PAs)
Admit it John, you’re going to miss Cabrera’s misadventures at 3rd!!! 🙂
That remind me of a Pedro Guerrero story.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor1.shtml
(It’s at the middle of the page).
@24/LG,
I also like the Casey Stengel story:
Casey Stengel sat in the dugout with Bob Cerv. Several moments passed before Stengel spoke. “Nobody knows this, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City.”
I bet Nolan Ryan would not have made this trade.
Prince led the league in Times on Base in 2012 and scored 83 runs.
All those walks he takes are useless unless somebody hits a homer behind him.
Possibly the most overrated player in history.
Kinsler and Prince have both been full timers since 2006.
WAR per season:
4.3
2.9
Texas just committed 140 million dollars to a 300 pound DH who might oneday win a homerun eating contest.
Baserunning.
Extra bases taken:
22% Prince
55% Kinsler
_____________
Of course, all these little things like baserunning and defense, meh, if the Prince swats 50 ding dongs everyone’ll be happy.
And there is something to be said for having “presence” in the middle of the order.
The Tigers have to address that.
Brilliant, they were, to improve their defense at 1B, 2B, and 3B, with one little trade.
But what are they going to do to prevent Miguel Cabrera from walking 233 times?
When Prince launches one it really is a beautiful thing to see.
I would love to trade bodies with Fielder… just long enough to hit one of those homers.
Victor Martinez? Torii Hunter? Still solid players. Not scary, though
And not the homer threat you need to make the other team pay for walking Miggy.
Walk Miggy, Victor hits a double – and Miggy is still standing on third.
They still need to upgrade at LF.
No big FA bats available though.
Matt Diaz. Juan Pierre. Raul Ibanez.
Maybe their next move is to trade Cy Max for Josh Hamilton, J.B. Shuck, and 30 million dollars.
(Okay, my mother-in-law arrives for a weeklong visit in 30 minutes. Gotta go get my game face on. It’s almost 11am, I don’t have to be completely sober for this…)
Voomo, nooooo! Not the “lineup protection” canard!
Check out Detroit’s scoring averages for the 2 years before Prince, and the 2 years with Prince:
2010 — 4.64 R/G
2011 — 4.86 R/G
2012 — 4.48 R/G
2013 — 4.91 R/G
Of course, there are more factors involved than who hits behind Miggy. Still, note that in 2010, when Miggy led the AL with 32 IBBs, and no other Tiger had more than 15 HRs or 70 RBI, Miggy still led the majors with 126 RBI, and Detroit was a tick above AL average in scoring.
Their *worst* scoring year of the four was 2012, the better of Prince’s two years. Their *best* of the four was 2011, when Miggy drew a career-high 108 walks and had only 105 RBI — and V-Mart (hitting 5th behind Miggy) managed 105 RBI with just 12 HRs.
If other teams want to give Miggy a pass, I’ll regret it only in terms of the joy of watching Miggy hit.
Just saying, I watched Barry Bonds walk to first base every day (well, listened on the radio) with Ray Durham and Bengie Molina coming up next.
Look, I’m just speaking to what might be the on-field psychology. If it was up to me I would build an entire lineup of line drive hitting speedsters who make contact and play elite defense. You want homers? Push your home fences back 75 feet and sprint 90 yards with three left turns.
We only get one or two hitters locked-in like Cabrera every decade. I want to see him swing.
The last three seasons have been Miguel Cabrera’s best.
In 2011 he batted 4th, with Victor Martinez behind him.
Walked 108 times.
The next year he moves to 3rd with Prince on deck and the number drops to 66.
Walks back up to 90 with Prince having a less-scary year.
My argument is simply that if the Tigers dont find another scary lefty thumper, Cabrera will get 40-50 less chances to swing the bat. Maybe more, now that the perception of him has elevated.
Through the 1st quarter of the season in 2011, he was on pace for 130 walks.
The first 40 games with Prince behind him in 2012, on pace for 50 walks.
My mother in law cometh any moment.
I think Martinez, barring any other acquisitions, will almost certainly bat behind Cabrera, but there are interesting questions regarding the Tiger order overall. A big issue is that Peralta will no longer there to follow Martinez (or at least, they didn’t tender him a FA offer, AFAIK). I suppose they might put Jackson there as it stands, who just is not cutout for hitting leadoff anyway, and was there by default.
One thing about Cabrera’s baserunning is that he is pretty good at taking the extra base. He’s not fast but he’s very aware. Similar to Pujols in that regard.
If the Tigers feel like they need more power to protect Miggy, Nelson Cruz, Mike Napoli and Mark Reynolds are all (theoretically) available on the FA market. All three make the top 12 in HR per PA since 2009, with a minimum 120 jacks.
Cruz might be the best fit defensively (not that he’s a great defensive player, but at least he can play somewhere other than 1st base). But, you have that nagging PED doubt about how much his stats have been inflated.
If I was Dombrowski, I certainly wouldn’t be entertaining any thoughts of Reynolds at 3rd base. As bad as Cabrera was there last year, dWAR still has him appreciably better (-1.5) than Reynolds (-2.4) in his last season at the hot corner.
And, per Voomo’s comment @21, I’ve left out Mr Granderson who is also in that top 12 and, being a left-handed bat with speed and defense, is almost certainly the best option out there.
@8/VZ,
” …Possibly the most overrated player in history… ” – This may be the biggest bit of hyperbole in HHS history.
Which of course raises a fantastic question … who is the most overrated player in history? I mean, how do you define overratedness?
I was thinking this could generate enormous discussion as a blog post, and then realized we might have a long discussion about Joe Carter.
@20/Artie Z,
” …how do you define overratedness?”
OK, I’ll take a crack at this: “overratedness” is measured by how much an MLB players’ _perceived_ production exceeeds his _actual_ production.
I suppose if I were super-analytical, I could compare the B-R JAWS score of every HOF player to what their aggregate score is from a number of other MLB Top-100 player lists. I am not up to that, so I am doing this more on “feel”.
Let the fun begin!!
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
There are three levels of “overratedness” in evaluating players:
1) A no-doubt, all-time great HOFer is perceived to be an inner-circle HOFer, one of the very best players ever:
Nolan Ryan, Joe Dimaggio, Sandy Koufax, Cal Ripken, Ernie Banks, Roberto Clemente, Ken Griffey Jr.
2) A solid HOFer is perceived to be an all-time great HOFer:
Brooks Robinson, Don Drysdale, Ozzie Smith, Jim Palmer, Dave Winfield, Bill Terry, George Sisler, Dennis Eckersley
3) A borderline HOFer is perceived to be a solid HOFer: Dizzy Dean, Lou Brock, Kirby Puckett, Tony Perez, Catfish Hunter, Luis Aparicio, Lefty Gomez, Chuck Klein, Jim Rice, Pie Traynor
3A) a subset of #3: A player not in the HOF is perceived as deserving to be in the HOF, but somehow they have not been elected yet – BUT, consensus in the advanced-stats community is that they really DON’T belong in the HOF:
Gil Hodges, Steve Garvey, Jack Morris, Roger Maris, Thurman Munson, Tony Oliva, Maury Wills
Undoubtably, if you went to the local fan base of each team, you’d find quite a few more candidates for 3A.
This list is not meant to be totally comprehensive, though I tried to put the most ‘deserving’ candidates at the front of each list. I scanned the B-R listings of HOF players and leading MVP-shares for career.
How to define overrated?
How about 3000+ total bases and less than 3 WAR per 1000 PAs. That gets you this list.
Generated 11/21/2013.
@23/Doug,
Interesting start to quantify ‘ovveratedness’. However, only 4 of the 17 listed above played at all before 1969. That doesn’t seem quite right, unless the start of divisional play somehow led to ‘ovverated’ players :).
Of the players above, I’d say Cramer, Waner, Buckner, Anderson, Sierra, Carter, Bichette are usually ovverated. However, I concentrated on HOFers or HOF-level guys (yes, I know Waner is in the HOF, but he is considered one of the very worst Vets selections) because it’s a lot more interesting to argue about a HOFer than, say, Todd Zeile or Joe Kuhel.
It is interesting about all new guys.
Possibly, the new dWAR calculations are less forgiving than the old ones?
Or, maybe in the past, players who compiled empty counting stats weren’t tolerated for as long as it would take to get to 3000 total bases?
Another way to look at overratedness would be to compare someone’s performance in MVP voting with their overall WAR. For example, Ryan Howard ranks 55th all-time in MVP award shares but his 18.8 career WAR probably doesn’t put him among the top 500 players of all-time. Even Joe Carter (178th all-time in MVP voting along with 19.4 career WAR) is embarrassed for Mr. Howard.
@28/Ed,
I kind of tried to do that by scanning the Top-200 Career MVP-shares ranking, but not quantitatively. I suppose if you ran the B-R P-I for:
{Career MVP-shares ranking} – {Career WAR ranking}
and see who got the highest negative rankings, that would be a start.
PROBLEMS: No MVP votes for some years 1911-1931, none at all before 1911. You’d also have to separate out the pitchers first, due to the whole “pitchers shouldn’t win MVPs” bias of the last 40 or so years.
I’m surprised that no one has actually commented on the names that I listed in my #22 above – surely SOMEONE disagrees with me?
Well … Joe D is probably not overrated. I was looking at this earlier, and he has 78.3 WAR in 13 seasons. More to the point, everyone ahead of him in WAR has at least 800 more career PAs except for Dan Brouthers (who has 3 more PAs and 1.5 more WAR).
DiMaggio missed his age 28, 29, and 30 seasons due to military service. If he had Pujols’ 28, 29, and 30 seasons he would be over 100 WAR for his career. If he had Arky Vaughan’s 28, 29, and 30 seasons (Vaughan is near him in career WAR and PAs – and Vaughan only accumulated about 13 WAR over those seasons) DiMaggio would have over 90 WAR – and the only guys he would pass in PAs would be Brouthers, Pujols, and Roger Connor.
Plus, somehow centerfield has a negative positional adjustment in Joe D’s era, so he actually gets negative runs from being a centerfielder (he has -18 Rpos), whereas a more current player gets positive runs for playing CF (Kenny Lofton has 37 Rpos).
@33/Artie,
Joe D. is overrated, in the sense that he is often ranked one of the best 2/3/4 centerfielders ever. To me, Cobb/ Speaker/ Mantle/ Mays are all clearly better than him, so he is 5th; 6th amongst CFers if you include Negro Leagues great Oscat Charleston.
Now 6th amongst that assembledge of talent is nothing to be ashamed of; he’s certainly amongst the all-time greats, as are all the other players I mentioned in #33, in my first list. It’s just that the combined hagiography of (mostly) NYC writers has boosted him even further into the stratosphere. As great as he is,he’s not as great as Mays or Cobb or Wagner or Aaron, even giving him credit for WWII.
The aura is wearing off, but exceedingly slowly.
You do realize the guy won 9 world series rings, right? I mean, doesn’t that get a footnote? It is the record.
And it’s not like he was along for the Ride. He lead the team in WAR most of those years (’37 his 8.2 beat Gerhig’s 7.7 but not Gome’s 9.4). Best team indeed but he was unquestionably the best player on that best team.
mosc: Yogi has 10 rings.
Mosc: You’re on record multiple times as saying that postseason matters a lot in evaluating players. Dimiggio, quite frankly, played poorly in the World Series, with an OPS over 200 points below his career average. Doesn’t that deserve a mention???
And the last I checked, teams win World Series, not individual players…
The WS was very different in Joe D’s era. You only had 7 games, you would only see the top end pitchers. The bad teams didn’t compete skewing regular season vs post season. Playing 200pts lower in OPS is not unreasonable. You can see that from the average OPS during the year vs during the series over those years. Same thing is seen for the pitchers. Baseball was top heavy in the 40s and 50s.
Forgot Berra was already a 3-time champ before Mantle arrived. Joe D missed a Yankees championship while overseas in ’43, but whatever.
@36,37/mosc,
World Series winning teams played on:
Lazzeri: 6
Pennock: 7
Henrich: 7
Rizzuto: 8
Bauer: 7
Houk: 6 (170 career plate appearances!!)
Joe Coleman: 6
Gil McDougald: 5
Gene Woodling: 5
Joe Collins: 6
Charlie Silvera: 6 (541 career plate appearances!)
Bill Skowron: 5
It’s interesting, but not a metric that really helps you separate out the great from the good, the all-time greats from the greats, etc…
I will repeat again: I am NOT SAYING that Joe Dimaggio is not amongst the all-time greats, ONLY that he is not quite as great as the mainstream press (still) makes him out to be.
Yes, he was awesome from ages 22 to 35, then he was merely “good” at age 36 and retired. A number of all-time greats had more of a career after age 35. That’s what keeps him from being in the Cobb/Speaker/Mays class.
Please Mosc, you’re just making excuses. DiMaggio had plenty of PAs in the WS (220) and he performed poorly. Especially since, as you pointed out, he was often the best player on those Yankees teams during the regular seasons. But in the WS, he was basically average.
You can’t have it both ways – insist that the post season is incredibly important and then downplay it’s importance for a player you like (all the while trying to claim that he should be given extra credit for those WS victories).
Discussing the totality of DiMaggio’s career in light of his postseason performance is not super helpful as far as I’m concerned. He under-performed; to me there’s no question about that. But not by so great a degree that it is a serious blemish. I mean he did hit 8 homers in 200 AB and had a few series where he was excellent. Basically his performance looks like his undistinguished (though not awful) final year in the bigs.
For a postseason performance that actually is wretched one need look no further than Willie Mays. I’ve never seen anyone refer to it as a knock against his greatness, though.
It’s pretty clear to me that DiMaggio is one of the 10 or so best position-players since 1920. Had he played his home games in any place other than Yankee Stadium we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
@44 paget: I attempted to play devil’s advocate on Willie Mays’ postseason performance here: http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/10/lets-talk-about-carlos-beltran/#comment-68073
@44 paget: Just to be clear, I really don’t care that much about postseason performance. Mosc is the one who insists over and over again that it should matter a lot in how we evaluate careers. I was simply calling him out on his inconsistency in how he wants DiMiggio’s performance to be viewed.
And personally, I’m not sure how you can conclude that DiMiggio was “undistinguisged” whereas Mays was “wretched”.
DiMaggio’s postseason OPS was 217 points below his regular season OPS. For Mays it was 281 points below. That’s not a very big difference, particularly when you take into account the factors that RJ cites in his post.
@48 Ed,
We’re not talking about “clutch” postseason performance relative to regular season play. If Babe Ruth had had, by chance, a postseason OPS of .964 you wouldn’t say he played poorly in the WS simply because his OPS happened to be 200 points lower than his regular season OPS. Because .964 is pretty freaking awesome.
That there isn’t that much of a difference between an ops drop of 217 and 281, doesn’t mean that there isn’t quite a big difference between a .760OPS (JD) and a .660OPS (WM). DiMaggio hit 8 home runs in 199AB. Mays hit exactly 1 home run in 89AB.
DiMaggio’s OPS of .760 isn’t great; it’s not even good. But it isn’t by any stretch bad. You take his postseason play and extend it to a season of, say, 600AB you get a reasonably productive, if -and I’ll use the term again- undistinguished season. I repeat: it would look a lot like his 1951 season.
Mays’ .247/.323/.337/.660 line, on the other hand, can’t be salvaged. (Though, RJ @47, I did appreciate your comments.)
@41/mosc –
This is something of a footnote, but I just wanted to point out, in response to this bit –
“The WS was very different in Joe D’s era. You only had 7 games, you would only see the top end pitchers.”
– that Brooklyn’s starting pitcher in game 7 of the 1947 Series was Hal Gregg; whose ERA that season was 5.87. He was relieved in the 4th inning by Hank Behrman, whose ERA that season was 6.25.
@49 Paget You’re trying to make my life difficult aren’t you! 🙂
There’s one obvious thing we haven’t discussed…context. Looking at raw numbers only gets you so far. Unfortunately, we lack things like OPS+ or Rfield that already have context built in.
It seems to me that one easy way to take context into effect is to look at how one’s teammates hit during those postseason series. That way you’re controlling for park effects, quality of pitchers faced, and run scoring environment of that era/season.
When we do, here’s what we get:
DiMaggio put up a .760 OPS in the WS. During those same WS, his teammates put up a .708 OPS. So DiMaggio was 52 points better than his teammates.
Mays put up a .660 OPS in the postseason. During those same postseasons, his teammates put up a .647 OPS. So Mays was 13 points better than his teammates.
At the end of the day, they were both a bit better than their teammates during the postseason. And as RJ has pointed out, Mays was hurt by the fact that almost all of his postseasons occurred outside of his prime. And of course, Mays only has 99 postseasons PAs. Had he only played in one more postseason, and turned in a decent performance, his raw numbers would be a lot more similar to DiMaggio’s.
You can continue to believe that DiMaggio hit a lot better than Mays during the postseason but personally I don’t see it.
I tried to tackle underratedness a few years ago by comparing batting average, homers, and RBI to WAR.
http://replacementlevel.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/the-most-underrated-player-in-baseball/
I’ll try to apply this to all-time players at some point.
Looking at the FA signing list, I see that Philip Humber has landed in Oakland. After two seasons (156 IP) with ERA+ of 60.
What is that? You have to go to the free agent market to get guys to do long relief in blowout games? Thought that was how you introduced your youngsters to the Show in low-pressure situations.
But… the perfect game! In 51 career starts, Humber has thrown one perfect game. That means there’s a 2% chance that any Humber start will be another perfect game. You can’t say that about guys like Kershaw and Felix.
Math, Doug. The A’s know it and you don’t.
So, salary-wise, Detroit saves 24 million on 1B (for 2014).
Add 12 million for 2B (Infante 4m – Kinsler 16m)
That’s 12 million net to spend on LF or 3B.
They need lefty homers.
Curtis Granderson.
Ha ha, no Voomo, we’re not taking him and his 150 strikeouts off your hands that easily. He’s not the same Granderson he once was.
First order of business is getting a quality closer. Looks at this point like Joe Nathan will be the guy.
Valverde is available. Oh, wait…
Well, he’s a free agent.
And he’s got lots of built in Detroit appeal.
And he’s a lefty who can hit 40 homers.
And it is closer to 200 strikeouts.
Pretty sure Granderson will understand that coming off an injury (even a non-chronic fluke) means that teams don’t quite know how fast his skill set is declining. So he’s not going to get 7 years.
He’ll go somewhere friendly for four.
That’s Detroit.
But if not, how bout this?
They sign Robinson Cano, then trade Kinsler for Josh Hamilton.
They might indeed go after Granderson–I mean they gave Bonderman a second chance after all, and he’s nowhere near the quality of Grandy. I don’t put any possibility past Dombrowski.
“But if not, how bout this? They sign Robinson Cano, then trade Kinsler for Josh Hamilton.”
That would cost an enormous amount of money and you’d still have to play Miggy at 3rd, which I’m pretty sure they want to avoid.
There’ tons of speculation but I can’t see how anything other than a standout closer can be priority #1 now, with the possible exception of keeping money freed up to insure that Max re-signs.
Kinsler at end of interview in Freep on his introduction to Detroit fans. Please send a photo to my phone of Ty Cobb placque. Motor City will love this guy!