17 thoughts on “Circle of Greats 1969 Results: Junior Prom-ptly Inducted”

1. Voomo Zanzibar December 20, 2013 at 12:04 am

   Congratulations to the man they call Junior.

   Mariano falling short of 50% may prove deadly for his cause.
   There seem to be enough voters here who dont seem to believe that a relief pitcher can be one of the top 120 players.
   And the competition is about to get impossibly tough.
   I do not see him getting elected until the weaker elections in the 1920s.
   And without multiple rounds of him getting 4 holdovers (ala Grich), he may be joining Eckersley in purgatory.

   I’m interested to see how Wilhelm does.

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   1. brp December 20, 2013 at 2:58 pm

      Let’s say Justin Tucker of the Ravens hits a few more 61-yard GW field goals in his career and somehow makes like 95% of his kicks the rest of his career. Probably not, just making an argument. He’d be the best kicker of all time, were that to happen. But would he be in the top 112 NFL players? What about Jan Stenerud, the only “pure” kicker in the HOF – is he in anybody’s top 100? 200? 300? What about Adam Vinatieri or Morten Andersen?

      I still may vote for Rivera someday because this isn’t an apples-apples comparison, but I think a field goal kicker is as close as you can get, analogously, to a modern closer… and that’s what makes it tough for people.

      My guess is this is holding back Edgar Martinez and was certainly a point of contention about Frank Thomas, too, though I think a good DH is more valuable than a good closer. I would imagine Boston feels the same way – Big Papi or Papelbon? Not even a tough call, to me.

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      1. birtelcom Post authorDecember 20, 2013 at 3:20 pm

         Interestingly, the last year they both played for the Red Sox, Boston paid them almost identical salaries: $12M for Papelbon and $12.5 for Ortiz. Their salary ranges generally have been pretty comparable.

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      2. Voomo Zanzibar December 20, 2013 at 3:48 pm

         Well, as birtelcom demonstrated in the last thread (with math), the 3.3 WAR that Rivera averaged for 16 years was approx. 2 wins more than the AVERAGE closer over the same time frame.

         That means that every year, for 16 years, the Yankees automatically had a 2-win advantage over (almost) every other club, because of a guy who pitched 70 out of the teams 1450 innings.

         His numbers are so preposterous that I think our minds have a hard time grasping his true value.

         And then there’s the 0.70 era in 141 postseason innings…

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      3. Voomo Zanzibar December 20, 2013 at 4:30 pm

         Regarding the comparison to football kickers…

         Yes, if there was a guy who split the uprights at 95% for 16 years,
         was accurate from 60 yards,
         booted every kickoff out of the back of the endzone,
         and was a contributing part of 5 Super Bowl winners,
         yeah, that guy might crack the top 120.

         But that’s the point.
         That guy has never existed.
         And he never existed in MLB until the fella from Panama.
         Only Wilhelm is even in the same category of player from the relief position.

         But why compare to football?
         The equivalent in baseball would be the Late Inning Defensive Replacement.

         First off, the average closer clocks in at 1.3 WAR
         (I havent charted that – I’m extrapolating from Birtelcom’s data – someone please point out if this is wrong)

         The average Position Player is about 2.0 WAR.

         Not terribly significant, as a counting stat.
         More significant in terms of %.

         So, Mariano is 2 wins better than average.
         Or, 250% better than average.

         Say you have a LIDR, the speedy guy who can’t really hit, and only comes in to tighten up the lines late in the game.

         Imagine that guy averaged 4 – 5 WAR for a decade and a half, playing 100 – 150 innings a year.

         And then performed in the playoffs at a level that I can’t even find words for with this analogy.

         And he taught Roy Halladay his cutter while dicking around before a game.

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      4. Artie Z. December 20, 2013 at 7:39 pm

         I’ve been thinking about Rivera’s case. In looking at the top 70 in career saves (why top 70 – because it’s a round number and I get rid of Smoltz and I already have to deal with Eck no matter how I slice and dice), Rivera is way ahead on a per inning WAR basis. He’s at 4.4 WAR/100 IP, and three closest pitchers have less than half of his innings (Soria, Papelbon, and Bryan Harvey). Then comes Billy Wagner at 3.07 WAR/100 IP. It’s a quick recap for those not following the discussion – everyone following the discussion already knows this.

         Billy Wagner pitched 903 innings to Rivera’s 1283.2, so he’s still behind by 380 innings. That’s a lot of innings – part of Rivera’s career value is tied up in longevity, which I think we miss because he only pitches 70 innings a year, but he basically pitched as many innings as Lee Smith, and more innings than any modern “1 inning closer”.

         Looking at Billy Wagner, if he pitched another 380 innings at the same WAR/100 IP level it would put him up at about 40 career WAR, still well shy of Rivera who is at 56.5 (and this is the 2nd highest WAR of all the top 70 savers, behind Eckersley’s which includes his years as a starter). Basically, just looking at the raw WAR totals and not adjusting for IP differences, Rivera has double the career total of everyone in the top 70 except Eck, Wilhelm, and Gossage (it’s also just shy of doubling Lee Smith who is at 29.5). While part of that is due to his high (relative to the comparison group) IP totals, the question is: What else is driving the difference?

         What is the difference between Billy Wagner and Rivera on a per inning basis? Rivera has a 204 ERA+, but Wagner’s is 187. Was it leverage? Rivera’s is 1.8, Wagner’s 1.7. Trevor Hoffman’s is 1.9, Lee Smith’s is 1.8, though their ERA+ numbers aren’t close to 204 (they are 141 and 132, respectively). Is it the combination of leverage and ERA+? This seems to me to be the crucial question.

         One thing I am curious about is how inherited runners factor into WAR (I really don’t know – if anyone knows I’d like to know – do they factor in through leverage?) Because one thing that Rivera was not out of this world in was stopping inherited runners from scoring. Rivera inherited 367 runners in his career. I looked at everyone with more than 200 career inherited runners (data only goes back to 1916, but given all the complete games back then, I’m guessing not too many pitchers are missing). Rivera allowed 29.16% to score, which ranks 116th out of the 474 pitchers who inherited 200 runners or more in their careers.

         The guys who do the best at stopping inherited runners tend to be LOOGYs. There are 6 pitchers under 22% – Ricardo Rincon, Joe Thatcher, Javier Lopez, Randy Choate, and Scott Eyre are 5 of them. The other one is Trevor Hoffman, who inherited 346 runners but only allowed 20.23% to score (3rd best of everyone with 200+ inherited runners, behind Rincon and Thatcher). When looking at closers, Randy Myers is the only other one under 24% (Foulke is at 24%). Maybe the 20% to 29% doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it’s an extra 37 runs that Rivera allowed relative to Hoffman that are not on Rivera’s record.

         Now maybe Rivera always came in with runners on 3rd and 1 out in a 2 run game and so his situation was more difficult than other pitchers, but wouldn’t that show up in leverage (which, about checking a few random closers from the 90s-10s, seems to always hover between 1.7-1.9 for their careers)?

         While I don’t put all my faith in WAR, it generally does a pretty good job (in my view), but this is one of the places where I don’t quite understand where all of Rivera’s difference in WAR is coming from, and before I start voting for him I’d like to understand it better.

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         1. Voomo Zanzibar December 20, 2013 at 9:47 pm

            Might defense have something to so with it?

            RA9DEF

            Mariano
            -0.17

            Wags
            0.11

            Though, Wagner struck everybody out and Mo rarely induced solid contact. But it still feels good blame it on

            “past a diving Jeter.”

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         2. bstar December 21, 2013 at 7:15 pm

            Artie: Mariano vs. Wagner

            -as Voomo says, about a quarter-run difference per 9 in team defense.

            -another quarter-run difference for Mo as he faced tougher opposition (and he and Wagner’s careers almost perfectly coincided so we can make a direct comparison of their RA9opposition marks). 4.94 for Mo, 4.68 for Wagner. So Mo’s opposition, on a neutral field, would score a quarter-run more per 9.

            -way, way more RAR (runs above replacement) for Mo because of AL superiority and (I guess) facing DHs instead of pitchers.

            -park factors and leverage look really similar

            -Mo’s RA9 edge before these adjustments (2.38 for Mo, 2.61 for Wags).

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            1. birtelcom Post authorDecember 21, 2013 at 11:39 pm

               Closers almost never face pitchers, regardless of whether they are in the NL or AL, though NL closers presumably face more pinch-hitters from far down the bench than AL closers, due to the DH rule. Blly Wagner faced a pitcher at the plate only nine times in his whole career.
            2. bstar December 23, 2013 at 9:03 pm

               Can anyone shed some light on why Mo has so very many more replacement level runs than Billy Wagner?

               Part of it is extra IP for Rivera, so let’s take care of that by equalizing their innings.

               Since Wagner pitched only 903 innings, Mo’s replacement level runs (instead of 482 in almost 1300 IP) would be 482 x (903 IP/1283.2 IP) = 339.

               So assuming equal IP, Rivera would have 339 RAR, while Wagner has 240 for his career. That’s over 40% higher.

               I understand the AL is/was superior, but 40% better? Scrolling to the bottom of this page here (http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml), the table suggests that AL replacement level runs were about 5% higher than the NL for Mo/Wagner’s careers.

               So why is Mo’s RAR 40% higher when the AL is only 5% better than the NL? Anyone?
            3. Voomo Zanzibar December 23, 2013 at 9:53 pm

               I’m pretty sure it’s because Rivera’s replacement player would have been Hideki Irabu.
            4. John Autin December 24, 2013 at 12:26 am

               bstar @14 — I can’t address Mariano’s outsized Rrep edge on Wagner, but for a tangent, here’s my pseudoscientific approach to the value issue as reflected by WAR:

               1. Mariano’s average leverage index during his reliever seasons was 6% higher than Wagner’s, and his competition was somewhat tougher. Let’s say those things alone give him a 10% edge, per inning.

               2. So if we break off a part of Mo’s career equal to Wagner’s IP and runs, Mo should earn about 10% more WAR for that same chunk of innings. So, if Wagner got 27.7 WAR, Mo would get maybe 30.5 WAR.

               3. Now let’s deal with Mo’s excess over Wagner: 381 more career innings, 78 more runs. That’s a 1.84 RA9. What’s that worth, in the AL East, in that era?

               I don’t know, exactly. But Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000 earned 21.4 WAR and totaled 430.1 IP and 100 runs allowed — 22 more runs in 49.1 more IP than Mo’s overage vs. Wagner.

               That feels like a decent ballpark for the value of Mo’s overage. And that would carry our estimate of Mo’s WAR (using Wagner’s base) to about 52. That’s not all the way to the actual number, but it’s close enough to satisfy me.

               Here’s a different approach: Instead of likening Mo’s overage to 2 prime Pedro years, let’s focus on Save conversion rates. The difference between Mo’s 89.1% and Wagner’s 85.9% might not seem big in the abstract, but it means that Mo’s 230-Save edge took only 241 more save opps.

               So if we broke off a piece of Mo’s career equal to Wagner’s IP, runs, saves and BS, then Mo’s overage is 381 IP, 78 runs, 230 saves and 11 BS.

               That’s akin to 6 years of about 64 IP, 13 runs, and 38-for-40 in save conversions.

               Wouldn’t that be worth 20 to 25 WAR? Again, that would bring us into the ballpark of Mo’s actual WAR edge on Wagner — not all the way there, but in the ballpark.

               I know that wasn’t your question, but maybe it was mildly interesting anyway. 🙂
            5. bstar December 24, 2013 at 5:33 pm

               Thanks, John. Let me be clear: I in no way doubt the veracity of Mo’s WAR per inning edge over other closers or his career WAR total. I was merely trying to understand it and explain it.

               But I see my big error: the differing Rrep totals for Mo/Wagner aren’t reflecting the differing strengths of the two leagues. Those adjustments are embedded in B-Ref’s strength of opposition measure.

               I realized late last night that runs above replacement is simply WAR*10 (because 10 runs equals one win) before adding the leverage component for relievers.

               Mo: (480 RAR/10) = 48 WAR. Add 10 WAAadj(the leverage bonus) and that’s 58 WAR. Mo’s career WAR is 57.

               Wagner: (240 RAR/10) = 24 WAR, + 3 WAAadj (leverage) = 27. Wagner’s WAR is 28.

               The rest of Mo’s edge in WAR is because of more innings, a worse defense behind him, tougher opposition, and a better RA9 than Wagner.
2. Hartvig December 20, 2013 at 1:03 pm

   There was a point in this round- I think it was when the 64th ballot was cast- when it was possible to see a scenario where we could have had as many as 10 players with exactly 7 votes apiece.

   Which could conceivably have meant that a 7th ballot could have cost a total of 10 rounds of eligibility and knocked 4 players off of the ballot entirely. That’s probably never going to happen but I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar to this round happen in all but a couple of the next 10 rounds or so.

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   1. birtelcom Post authorDecember 20, 2013 at 3:10 pm

      Actually, a large-scale tie at the under 10% level would only result in a mass reduction in eligibility if there were at least 9 players with vote totals higher than the mass group tied under the 10% level. That’s because the rules provide for no loss of eligibility in the case of players in the top nine, including ties. So if we had ten players all under 10% but tied for the sixth spot, for example, or the seventh or eighth or ninth spot, or indeed any spot higher than tenth, all the tied players would retain their then-existing level of eligibility, with no reduction.

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      1. Hartvig December 20, 2013 at 8:44 pm

         I had forgotten about the top 10 aspect of the voting- I could see something like that coming into play during the 1931 voting fairly easily.

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3. Dan Flan December 22, 2013 at 1:07 pm

   Here’s a great article from The Onion that every Junior fan should read.

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