60 thoughts on “Pop Quiz: Spot the HOFers by Standard Batting Ranks”

1. Doug January 16, 2014 at 2:13 am

   Interesting stuff, John.

   Trammell’s line says it all: nothing higher than 3rd and only one lower than 4th. Really good at everything but not outstanding in any one thing.

   Whitaker was good at something – scoring runs and driving them in. Except he wasn’t a slugger … because he never hit 30 HR and only hit 20 four times … and he wasn’t a speed guy … because he didn’t steal bases … so if he’s not a slugger and not a speed guy, look at the BA … oh, .276, that’s okay … but not for a HOFer.

   I’m afraid some voters probably evaluated Whitaker pretty much along those lines.

   Without advanced stats, players had to look good through the lenses of different types of players (the power guy, the speed guy, the average guy, the strong fielder, or whatever). If they don’t stand out evaluated against any of those models, no HOF.

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   1. Hartvig January 16, 2014 at 11:51 am

      “players had to look good through the lenses of different types of players (the power guy, the speed guy, the average guy, the strong fielder, or whatever”

      I think there’s still a lot of truth to that still today.

      I know when I first started following baseball Maury Wills was “the speed guy” for a few years and looked like a pretty sure bet for the HOF. But he started late and was soon replaced by Lou Brock in the roll. And in the late 60’s & early 70’s when you talked about Mays and Aaron and Robinson, Brock’s name was right there with them. Not as good as Mays certainly or maybe even quite Aaron or Robinson but right there with Kaline and Clemente.

      Then came Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers and you had the cool nickname and the ‘stache and all those World Series and the biggest free agent signing and next thing you know they’re in. And of course once Fingers was in Eckersley had to go and when Eckersley was in Bruce Sutter and that devastating cutter had to be. And Tony Perez was part of the Big Red Machine and drove in all those runs and Jim Rice was feared and Jack Morris won more games than anybody in the 80’s…

      It wouldn’t annoy me so much that Sweet Lou got no love at all from the BBWAA or that Alan Trammell alternates between being the last groomsman or one of the ushers if they only selected the absolute top of the line A listers. And yes, they do get virtually all of those right. But they also select plenty of guys who are no better than Trammell or Whitaker because they fit one of those category standouts and they select a fair number of guys who are all hell of a lot worse than Trammell and Whitaker for that same reason.

      For my money if you took your AVERAGE shortstop and second baseman already in the Hall of Fame Trammell and Whitaker are at least as good and possibly better. I just don’t see how it makes any sense or is in anyway fair for them not to be as well.

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      1. Artie Z. January 16, 2014 at 1:02 pm

         I agree (as does JAWS) that they are as good as the average HOFer, but the average HOFer includes a bunch of questionable players at the bottom.

         For second baseman, Whitaker is just a shade under the average, 56.3 JAWS to 57 for the average 2B (note – this only includes the players who were elected as players, so Miller Huggins isn’t included in the calculation – I was worried about that driving down the average but it’s not the case). However, Whitaker really isn’t the average 2B elected by BBWAA standards.

         From recollection and a little checking, Hornsby, Collins, Lajoie, Morgan, Gehringer, Carew, Frisch, Sandberg, Jackie, and Alomar were BBWAA selections.

         Gordon, Herman, Doerr, Lazzeri, McPhee, Evers, Schoendienst, and Maz were selected by some other committee (veteran’s or old-timers or whatever – non-BBWAA).

         The only player that Whitaker outranks on JAWS from the BBWAA list is Alomar – and Alomar did have better seasons than Whitaker (WAR7 looks at the 7 best seasons, not necessarily in a row).

         Now, Whitaker is better than the non-BBWAA selections, and not out of line with the other BBWAA selections, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable that Whitaker wasn’t elected by the BBWAA (not staying on the ballot a little longer is another issue). Grich has the same basic story, except he’s slightly on the above average side of the HOFers on JAWS (58.6 to 57). Those are the only 2 2B in the top 12 in JAWS not elected by the BBWAA (Chase Utley is currently 13th and Biggio is 14th).

         The guy the BBWAA ALMOST elected who falls outside of the top 12 is Nellie Fox, who currently ranks 21st in JAWS. But … Carew, Grich, Sandberg, Whitaker, Alomar, Utley, Biggio, Randolph, Kent, and Cano had not started playing when Fox retired, and Joe Morgan had just started playing. Looking at this from the lens of a 1970 voter JAWS would look like:

         Hornsby
         Collins
         Lajoie
         Gehringer
         Frisch
         Jackie
         Joe Gordon
         Herman
         Doerr
         Fox

         The top 6 were BBWAA selections, Herman went in via VC while Fox was still on the ballot, Doerr went in via VC the year after Fox left the ballot and so really it only left Joe Gordon inside the top 10 who was not in some way or the other (and who eventually made it in via VC in 2009).

         So I think Whitaker will get there eventually, but it will be through the VC (which is obvious at this point unless they do what they did for Santo and put him back on the ballot – I think people forget that this was done in the past and easily could be done in the future given the current situation with the voting process – really, Bernie Williams could show back up on a BBWAA ballot), which is not unsurprising given where he ranks and the BBWAAs typical standards.

         Trammell’s case is stronger given past BBWAA voting on shortstops, but that’s likely also why Trammell is still on the ballot.

         At other positions there have been some recent questionable selections that you mention (Perez, Rice, their love for Morris) but they’ve been pretty consistent on middle infielders and catchers, with Trammell and Whitaker being around the marginal BBWAA selection for their positions. Now if Omar Vizquel hits the ballot and rushes in … well, that would be ridiculous.

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         1. Lawrence Azrin January 16, 2014 at 1:38 pm

            @7/Artie Z,

            Sorry for duplicating in my #8 what you said so much better here. I was still typing when you posted it.

            One thing I noticed looking at his B-R page is that he was still hitting fairly well when he retired – his OPS+ his last three years was:
            133 (119 G), 122 (92 G), 129 (84 G) – career OPS+ of 116

            Was he being platooned extensively/rested on day games after night games? It seems odd that he retired when he could still hit faily well. Another couple years might’ve gotten him over 2500 hits, and close to 1500 runs scored.

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            1. Artie Z. January 16, 2014 at 4:31 pm

               Well, I don’t know if I said it better, just more long-winded 😉

               In 1995 Whitaker was pretty much used against RHP – 257 PAs against RHP, 28 against LHP. He looks to have missed the first two weeks of the season, and then played sporadically in September.

               In 1994 it was more of the same, 326 to 46, and I don’t see him missing any extended period of time as the Tigers only played 115 games due to the strike.

               In 1993 it was 414 to 62. Again, looks like a 15-day DL stint in July and he missed a week later in the season, but no other major injuries.

               It seems like he was being sat against lefties. In 1993 Whitaker’s RHP/LHP ratio is ~6.5:1, whereas Travis Fryman, who played 151 games, is at about 2.5:1.

               I often wonder how the HOF chances of some of these “borderline” HOF candidates from the 1980s, where “borderline” means “having a tough time getting elected by the BBWAA,” were impacted by the labor strife in the time period. Raines, Whitaker, and Trammell all lost parts of productive seasons in 1981, 1994, and 1995. There were HOFers who played through those years (Henderson, Murray, Molitor, and, to a lesser extent, Winfield come to mind) but those players were all able to amass he milestone numbers of 3000 hits which probably helped them a little (not that there’s anything wrong with any of them as HOFers).
   2. Lawrence Azrin January 16, 2014 at 1:08 pm

      @4/Hartvig,

      “…if you took your AVERAGE shortstop and second baseman already in the Hall of Fame Trammell and Whitaker are at least as good and possibly better.”

      JAWS (the HOF evaluator on B-R) confirms that –

      Whitaker: 56.3 // average for HOF 2Bmen: 57.0
      Trammell: 57.5 // average for HOF SS: 54.7

      Whitaker by JAWS ranks behind 9 HOF second baseman, but ahead of 10 (but only one was elected by the BBWAA – Alomar).

      Trammell by JAWS ranks behind 8 HOF shortstops, but ahead of 15 (but only 5 were elected by the BBWAA).

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2. Mike L January 16, 2014 at 9:09 am

   I think it’s interesting how our own voting seems to resemble HOF voting. Trammell got in with somewhat lighter competition among a much more Trammell-friendly crowd. Whittaker got his ten rounds of protection fairly early, he has his diehards, but year after year, there are always people better. Doug is on to something when he says, in effect, that neither was, through conventional lenses, exceptional at anything, just very very good. And then they were followed by several players who seemed to redefine what was possible for the position. In the 1950s and 60’s, pretty much the best you could hope for in a middle infielder was a speedy, slick fielder who could do the little things. Trammell and Whitaker raised the bar, but the didn’t appear to be the type of game-breaking offensive forces that emerged so close in time. So, the comparisons weren’t to Rabbit Maranville and Joe Sewell.

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3. mosc January 16, 2014 at 9:15 am

   I think Trammel’s got a legitimate shot of getting in the 2016 vote and Whitaker will be voted in by the veterans committee nearly as soon as he’s able.

   If you asked me to give an over/under on that 2016 ballot for Trammel, I’d say 60%

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   1. Hartvig January 16, 2014 at 12:22 pm

      I wish I could be as optimistic as you are. I’m just afraid the ballots are still going to be too crowded. I think he’ll get a little love because it’s his last shot but I just don’t think it will be enough to get in.

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   2. Michael Sullivan January 16, 2014 at 12:31 pm

      I’ll take the under on that.

      Trammell’s vote went down this year, and there are another 2 slam dunks plus a deserving candidate and a couple borderliners coming on the ballot next year, then griffey and another couple borderliners in 2016.

      He’ll get a push, since it will be his last opportunity, but I think it will take a sustained campaign to get him over 50%. There are just so many other deserving guys to vote for right now. He’d have a much better chance if they’d elected who they should have last year, and if there weren’t innumerate idiots failing to vote for more than 5-6 players when they find 10 deserving because they don’t want a hall class of 8+, as if that could *ever* happen.

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4. oneblankspace January 16, 2014 at 1:26 pm

   Trammell’s biggest problem was Ripken… Ripken won the World Series in 1983 playing every inning of every game, and Trammmelll only won the Series the year the Cubs almost made it.

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   1. Lawrence Azrin January 16, 2014 at 1:57 pm

      @9/obs,

      …Also that Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter AND Nomar Garciaparra AND Miguel Tejeda had established a new standard of offense excellence for shortstops, by the time Trammell first hit the HOF ballot in early 2002.

      Of course their numbers were inflated quite a bit by the offensive explosion starting in 1994, but first impressions are quite hard to shake. Fred McGriff also suffers from this problem – most of his best years were pre-1994, so he also appears to come up short against Thome/ Delgado/ Helton/ Giambi/ Pujols etc… Trammell’s a better candidate than McGriff though.

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      1. Michael Sullivan January 16, 2014 at 2:55 pm

         One thing to note is that Trammell in his prime was definitely considered a future HOFer. Things turned largely because of the raw numbers some shortstops were putting up in the late 90s.

         What the writers didn’t seem to notice is that those new guys were exceptional. ARod and Jeter are slam dunkers, and Garciaparra was on the same track before his injury.

         Also, the gap between them and Trammell wasn’t nearly as big as the raw numbers made it look. Trammell was a feared batter in his time, and that is highly unusual from the shortstop position, especially from a guy who was also excellent defensively. Comparing to Tejada, Trammell was the superior batter with rBat of 129 to 100 and OPS+ of 110 to 108.

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5. BryanM January 16, 2014 at 7:00 pm

   Nice piece , John , but I’m afraid we’re expelling liquid into the wind. I think now, and thought when they played, that Lou Whitaker was a better 2B than Ryne Sandberg. I know many accept a peak value argument, (JAWS) certainly does, and if you pick out only peak years, then you can make an argument that Sandberg was better. To me, it’s at least as valid to argue that when choosing between high peak and consistency, all else being equal, that consistency more often leads to winning baseball.
   The advanced stats that have been developed over the last 30 years have basically been designed to answer the question – what , exactly ,leads to winning baseball — and they do a pretty good job. this is not to say that WAR is the be all and end all, we will no doubt continue to see advances in metrics, particularly on defense. But those advanced stats say that Lou ,over the sum of his career , was 10% more valuable than Ryne. I’m not claiming that he was, mind you, but Sandberg’s superiority in our community’s opinion shows how little career wins matter even in a stat-oriented community.

   Those advanced stats are not, and never will be , the thing that leads to FAME in a narrative oroeinted community (the rest of the world) . For fame you need drama, a story , that can easily be retained in the mind, something that commands attention – that is why excellence in one area will always outvote overall competence, even when the competence is more valuable.

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   1. bstar January 17, 2014 at 9:37 pm

      Bryan, Whitaker has 10 years of eligibility built up on the holdover ballot while Ryno’s cheese is hanging in the wind for I believe the ?third? straight year.

      Judging by that, it seems to me this community favors Whitaker over Ryno.

      Or maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment?

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      1. BryanM January 18, 2014 at 3:15 am

         My error — in editing I conflated two sentences and created a nonsense remark — it appears that we do indeed favor Lou. thanks for spotting. As a practical matter, with the stacked votes coming up , i don’t like either’s chances

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6. Tubbs January 17, 2014 at 8:43 am

   There’s been a lot of articles pertaining to Whitaker and/or Trammell on this site and I hope to see that continue. In my opinion, both are worthy HOFers. However, after seeing the less than saber-friendly ballot the Screening Committee put together for the Expansion Era, I am worried Whitaker may not even make the ballot. Even if he does his fate may be similar to Ted Simmons’, who according to Exp Era voter Whitey Herzog, lost some support since voters questioned how HOF-worthy he could be if he fell off the BBWAA ballot after one year. (Simmons failed to draw 50% in two tries on the Exp Era ballot)

   The Screening Committee thus far has shown a preference to include players who did well in BBWAA voting over much more saber-friendly candidates that did not fare well in BBWAA voting: Concepcion, Garvey, Parker over Dwight Evans, Hernandez, Grich, Nettles

   Whitaker is eligible on the next ballot in 2016, Trammell in 2019. Retiring one year apart hurt their HOF candidacies in my opinion and could hinder it again on the Exp Era vote

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7. Paul E January 17, 2014 at 4:16 pm

   FWIW, in the BJHBA, Bill James has Sandberg ahead of Whitaker and Larkin ahead of Trammell. Alomar was about to hit the decline phase of his career. With James our inspiration and the father of all SABR-metric thought, I figured I’d give this a try:

   WAR/162
   5.22 Larkin
   5.07 Whitaker
   5.06 Sandberg
   4.97 Trammell
   4.55 Alomar

   WAR-3 best seasons
   23.4 Sandberg
   21.5 Trammell
   21.3 Alomar
   20.3 Larkin
   18.9 Whitaker

   WAR-5 consec. seasons
   32.6 Sandberg
   30.8 Trammell
   28.1 Larkin
   27.5 Alomar
   25.3 Whitaker

   SB % Success Rate
   83 % Larkin
   80 % Alomar
   76 % Sandberg
   69 % Trammell
   65 % Whitaker

   ISO
   .167 Sandberg
   .150 Whitaker
   .149 Larkin
   .143 Alomar
   .130 Trammell

   I don’t even know how to interpret this information. I believe it proves Sandberg the greater “talent” of the five, then perhaps Larkin Trammell Alomar
   and Whitaker (or …Whitaker, Alomar); however, not with the greatest degree of certainty 🙁

   When James did the Win Shares tome you probably noticed a lot of subjective rating, at times, almost even random rating of positions. These guys are from the same era and it’s difficult enough….Perhaps that might explain the BBWAA and Veterans Committee voting? Either that, or WAR ain’t what it’s cracked up to be

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   1. John Autin Post authorJanuary 18, 2014 at 4:00 pm

      Sandberg had the higher peak and the better prime, for sure. I’m not sure that means I’d rather my team have his career than Whitaker’s. Consider these splits:

      First 11 years as a regular:
      — Sandberg 59.5 WAR, Whitaker 46.2 WAR … Sandberg +13.3 WAR
      — Sandberg 35.5 WAA, Whitaker 25.7 WAA … Sandberg +9.8 WAA
      (I didn’t bother projecting Whitaker’s 1981 to a full season.)

      Next 5 years as a regular:
      — Sandberg 8.2 WAR, Whitaker 24.6 WAR … Whitaker +16.4 WAR
      — Sandberg 2.7 WAA, Whitaker 15.1 WAA … Whitaker +12.4 WAA
      (Sandberg didn’t play in ’95, but that was his choice — it sure screwed his team, as 2B Rey Sanchez tallied 0.8 WAR.)

      Those “next 5 years” for Whitaker weren’t hang-around years; he was easily the AL’s best 2B from 1989-93. Virtually any contender would have been thrilled to have that production.

      And then, Lou tacked on two more solid years of part-time play that are pure gravy in the Sandberg comparison; he totaled 4.0 WAR and 1.7 WAA in about 650 PAs.

      So, in the big picture, who contributed more to his teams’ pennant efforts? To me, it’s an open question, despite Sandberg’s edge in big years.

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8. mosc January 17, 2014 at 5:06 pm

   Sandberg v whitaker

   Errors:
   109 v 189
   Steals:
   344 v 143
   walks:
   761 v 1197
   putouts
   3807 v 4771

   I think those are the main two differentiators voters see and shouldn’t followed by the two they should but don’t.

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   1. BryanM January 18, 2014 at 3:36 am

      Possibly, mosc — the career stats of the two are otherwise pretty similar, My impression is that fielding reputation comes from great plays rather than either errors or RF – but you’re sure right about walks. Both players were top-of-order, where walks have extra value

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9. tag January 18, 2014 at 1:15 pm

   I don’t like the Hall of Fame and don’t give it much thought, but if the concept is to mean anything, I think it should mean that the players being inducted are truly superior, and not just superior in their consistency. What that means to me is that they have to show they are capable of leading (a quaint, unfashionable concept, I know) their teams to division titles. (The postseason is pretty much a crapshoot in my book.) Over the course of a season they should stand out as the best player on their team (or, if there is a Ruthian presence on it, they are relatively Gehrigian in comparison).

   Personally, I can’t see the logic for inducting very good, consistent players. In any Hall of Fame I could care about, you’d need to be truly superior, my definition of which, to put it into numbers bandied about here, translates into amassing around 35 WAR in five seasons and something like 55 in 10. Any more is gravy (though appreciated). Any less and you aren’t HoF timber. (I like to see one 8.5ish WAR season in the mix, and a monster double-digiter can excuse other shortcomings, though it isn’t mandatory.)

   But those five great seasons are, to me, mandatory. Why five? It seems a reasonable, sufficient number. Even if your team doesn’t win a title during them, you showed that, given a few more decent everyday players alongside you or a little better pitching, it could have. You did everything you could have done during that half-decade to get your team there and more. And you were always very good for a full decade.

   Not to offend John, but I don’t see Lou Whitaker as anywhere close to this, and to my way of thinking he simply can’t compare to Ryne Sandberg. In the two division titles the Cubs won with Sandberg, he was by far the best player on his team – and it was largely because of Ryno the Cubs won. That’s being superior.

   I think Trammell has a much better claim but still doesn’t quite make it. People mention Ripken but Trammell to my thinking also doesn’t stack up to Robin Yount. (I prorate Yount’s – and every other player’s – strike-shortened ’81 season so he makes the grade, and he also gets kudos for recording his five best seasons in a row. Not that anyone cares.)

   I definitely think there are different ways to look at careers, but I am struck by what’s too often ignored: the context of a player within his team. Having had to be the best player on my team in a different sport, on a different (much, much lower pro) level, I can tell you that it’s very hard. Living up to is a big part of what makes a player superior.

   (Which is why Larry Bird leading Indiana f’ing State to the NCAA title game is the greatest WAR season ever. It isn’t even close. He was schemed against the entire season, got his team into the final game by hitting a dozen turnaround 18-20 footers against a great defensive team in Arkansas, and only came up short to Magic Johnson and a bunch of other talented Michigan Staters.)

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   1. John Autin Post authorJanuary 18, 2014 at 2:45 pm

      tag, I respect your view of what a HOFer should be. But I think part of your definition — capable of leading a team to a division title — falls apart on close inspection. No baseball player, no matter how great, can do that without several other above-average players. So, unless you define the level of those secondary contributors, you can’t define the requisite level of the top player.

      Is it 7 WAR? I’d venture that a majority of division winners had no 7-WAR player. The last 18 division winners totaled seven 7-WAR players.

      Last year’s champion Red Sox got 6.5 and 6.1 WAR from their top two position players — figures that are typical of Trammell & Whitaker’s better years.

      This is all anecdotal, and that’s the point. Most people have a gut-level definition of a “championship-caliber” individual season, but matching that up systematically with actual team results is devilishly hard. We’re left with mere opinions.

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      1. Voomo Zanzibar January 18, 2014 at 3:11 pm

         JA,

         This is the pitcher’s follow-up to the WAR analysis you did a few weeks ago…

         I’ve been wondering,
         if you had to choose when building a 5-man rotation,
         and you could have a staff that gave you 20 WAR,
         would you choose 5 pitchers with

         7 WAR
         7
         2
         2
         2

         or

         4
         4
         4
         4
         4

         Two aces and three league average pitchers,
         or five guys who will give you 2 WAA with consistency?

         Which equates to more wins?
         Or is it a toss up?

         (not taking potential post-season matchups
         into consideration at all)

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      2. tag January 19, 2014 at 1:21 pm

         John,

         I’m curious. What’s considered above-average for a position player in WAR? And for a pitcher for that matter?

         I think 2 WAR is expected of a starter, correct? Is that considered average?

         The 1984 Cubs got 2.1 WAR from Jody Davis, 3.7 from Bull Durham, -1 from Bowa, 1.6 from Cey, 3.2 from Sarge, 3.1 from Dernier and 0.5 from Moreland among the everyday starters. Durham is definitely above-average, but Sarge and Dernier not so much, and the others definitely not. Bowa and Moreland are well below average. None of the pitchers accounted for 4 WAR, but Sutcliffe was close and Trout and Sanderson were also over 3, with Eck at 2.5, Ruthven at -0.1 and Smith out of the bullpen at 1.4.

         Sure, this is anecdotal, but it’s pretty strong evidence of what Sandberg brought to the table for the Cubs, and how much he “led” his team. His 8.5 WAR lifts this mediocre bunch with consistent, if hardly awesome, pitching to a title and within a game of facing your Tigers. And 1989 is similar, if not quite as stark since he didn’t post such high numbers (though no one in the league other than the two Giants Clark and Mitchell did).

         During his career, the Cubs really only had a shot at the hardware if Sandberg had a big year. That was not sufficient condition for a title, but it was a necessary one. He demonstrably led them.

         I have no idea if this can be shown for other players, but I think Ryno is at least one data point in favor of peak over consistency.

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         1. John Autin Post authorJanuary 19, 2014 at 1:59 pm

            tag, the typical WAR of a “starter” varies by league, by year, and by where you set the cutoff for playing time.

            FWIW, I took the NL’s top 96 in total PAs for 1984-85 — an average of 8 per team, with a cutoff of 600+ PAs:

            — Avg. 2.9 WAR per 650 PAs
            — Avg. 2.8 WAR per 162 G
            — Median 1.9 WAR per year

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   2. no statistician but January 18, 2014 at 2:59 pm

      tag:

      My thinking runs parallel to yours in a way. I’ve given up on the HOF because, if they ever did, the voters for many years haven’t sent a clear message about what various possible criteria make for a HOFer; because the voting system is so severely flawed that it produces idiocy, etc.

      Where I disagree with your reasoning is where I disagree with all “small Hall” arguments: that there is a cut-off of one kind or another, or a narrow set of criteria, or a clear appearance to the true HOFer that shines like a holy aura, and only those chosen few should be anointed, those falling short, if even by a small measure, being condemned to an eternal purgatory of second-fiddledom.

      The advent of WAR as a shorthand means of evaluation has at once simplified and complicated these sorts of judgments. For you it has simplified the issue, and you have explained how and why, although I find your praise of Sandburg unconvincing, having followed the Cubs closely during his career myself and taken a different reading. Nevertheless, your argument is forceful for the peak career viewpoint.

      WAR, however, also raises the issue of the value of longterm productivity, and that is where the complication arises. The debate on Sandy Koufax currently going on elsewhere at HHS takes your point of view to task, at least from the doubting side. How much credence do we give to a career WAR defined by handful of superior years, when the balance is journeyman level or little better? Especially when matched against the WAR of a
      player whose performance year after year for thrice as long never falls below the level of very good, even if it touches greatness only once or twice? The real debate isn’t about Ruth versus Trammell; it’s about Koufax versus Whitaker and how we are to evaluate differing career patterns.

      Accepting the Whitaker pattern as a valid display of career excellence is to me as easy a decision as accepting the Koufax pattern. You don’t have to agree.

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      1. bstar January 18, 2014 at 4:45 pm

         Actually, Sandy Koufax wouldn’t make tag’s definition of a Hall-caliber player either because he doesn’t fit the 55 WAR in 10 years criterion.

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         1. no statistician but January 18, 2014 at 7:05 pm

            Picked any good nits lately, bstar?

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      2. tag January 19, 2014 at 5:42 am

         nsb,

         I don’t think there is any holy aura either. There are always only made-up criteria and judgments. I have mine; you have yours. The current Hall of Fame has none :-).

         Just to clarify, as I said below to John, I’m not defending Ryne Sandberg’s bona fides for being in the real HoF, which I couldn’t care less about, nor my own HoF, which doesn’t exist and never will. All I said is that I think Ryno is superior to Sweet Lou, and I think he demonstrated championship caliber play in five seasons, and in fact lifted otherwise mediocre Cub sides to titles twice. I detailed in a previous post to John a couple weeks ago how much better he was than any other regular position Cubbie during the two Cubs’ 1980s division titles. That means a lot in my book. Yes, he played for losers most of his career. Um, well, he played for the Cubs for Chrissakes. What else can you expect? 🙂

         Also, to me there isn’t any question that Koufax was superior. The 55 WAR in 10 seasons is a ballpark figure I use. But this figure is only good for getting the thought processes started. I view the players as flesh and blood human beings who played a game in a variety of contexts, not as collections of statistics. Players take the field for numerous reasons, but a chief one is to win titles. I’d argue that Koufax enabled you to do that in five seasons better than even some of his fellow superior players did in 15. Someone a few days ago mentioned the victories he notched down the stretch and in the World Series pitching on two-days’ rest. That’s waaaay superior.

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   3. John Autin Post authorJanuary 18, 2014 at 3:14 pm

      In the last 5 years, 19 teams won 95 games or more.
      — 8 of 19 had a 7-WAR player. (One team had two.)
      — 6 of 19 had no player with 6+ WAR.
      — Average of teams’ #1 in WAR/pos was 6.8 WAR.

      Here are those teams and their top position players, by WAR (listing top
      2 for each team and any others with 5+ WAR):

      2009 Yankees, 103 wins — Jeter 6.6, Teixeira 5.3
      2011 Phillies, 102 wins — Utley 5.4 WAR, Victorino 3.7 WAR
      2012 Nationals, 98 wins — Harper 5.2, LaRoche 4.2
      2009 Angels, 97 wins — Figgins 7.7, Hunter 5.3
      2010 Phillies, 97 wins — Utley 5.8, Werth 4.6
      2011 Yankees, 97 wins — Cano 5.4, Granderson 5.4
      2012 Reds, 97 wins — Votto 5.8, Philllips 3.7
      2013 Red Sox, 97 wins — Pedroia 6.8, Victorino 6.1, Ellsbury 5.8
      2013 Cardinals, 97 wins — Carpenter 6.6, Molina 5.7
      2010 Rays, 96 wins — Zobrist 8.1, Crawford 6.9
      2011 Brewers, 96 wins — Braun 7.8, Fielder 4.6
      2011 Rangers, 96 wins — Kinsler 7.0, Beltre 5.8, Napoli 5.3
      2013 Braves, 96 wins — Simmons 6.8, Freeman 5.4
      2013 Athletics, 96 wins — Donaldson 8.0, Crisp 4.3
      2009 Dodgers, 95 wins — Kemp 4.8, Blake 4.6
      2009 Red Sox, 95 wins — Youkilis 6.5, Pedroia 5.6, Bay 5.2
      2010 Yankees, 95 wins — Cano 8.2, Gardner 7.4
      2012 Yankees, 95 wins — Cano 8.5, Teixeira 3.9
      2011 Tigers, 95 wins — Cabrera 7.6, Avila 5.2, Jackson 5.0

      Can you pull a definition of “championship-caliber season” out of that list?

      Reply ↓
      1. tag January 19, 2014 at 5:14 am

         John,

         I think you’re misreading (or I’m miswriting, entirely possible) what I meant. I used phrases like “around 35 WAR in five seasons” and “something like 55 in 10” for a reason. I’d never rest a case for greatness on a single number like WAR, but I think it’s useful for focusing thought. And though I’ve never examined it in detail, I would guess that league WAR totals fluctuate from year to year. In some seasons, 6.2 or whatever WAR might constitute a championship-caliber season; other seasons might require more. Context always matters.

         Even so, individual seasons are not the key to determining superiority in my book. One great year (or even three great years) doesn’t cut it. It’s putting up those (at least) five great seasons in which you are the best player on your team, such that the team, with you as the best player, could win a championship. If you’re a 3 WAR player surrounded by a bunch of mediocres on a 90-loss team, I’m pretty sure you’re not superior. At 5-7 WAR, it’s gonna take some looking into – and judgment, obviously. Above 7 WAR, it usually becomes clear, unless you’re playing alongside a 9 WAR player season after season. I always wanna consider you in the context of the team you’re playing on and the seasons you played in.

         Of course you need other contributing players to win. But could the team be built around you? Could you bat third on it if you had to, even if you don’t normally? (This is clearly unfair to pure leadoff guys, for whom I would substitute other criteria, though Rickey could’ve pulled it off.) There are a few other things I consider, a couple of which stray dangerously close to those intangibles that stats people (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) love to mock.

         I don’t have the time to go down your list and evaluate everyone (first off, I’d need to watch a lot more of their games), and even if I did there would be some borderline calls where you and I would disagree. But I certainly think, for the most part, it’s possible to determine who the championship-caliber players are on it (or it will be: these kind of things have to shake out). Before that 5.8 WAR for Chase Utley you mention, he put up 7.2, 7.3, 7.8, 9.0 and 8.2. Yes, this guy demonstrated that he was championship caliber. Ryan Howard got the ink and the contract; Utley did the work. He was a stud.

         For Cano it’s less clear and premature; he’s played with and benefited from a lot of other talented guys around him. There are seasons of 6.7, 8.2, 8.5, and 7.6 WAR along with that 5.4. I wouldn’t pay him the gazillion dollars Seattle decided to but I think he has a good chance of going down as superior. Both these guys can hit a homer for you, steal a base, play good defense. Their best is enough to build around.

         As your list suggests, a lot of winning teams don’t necessarily have what I consider superior players. They have a lot of very good players. Their front offices are probably what are superior about them, assembling complementary pieces that capture titles. This would not surprise me one bit given baseball’s economics today, especially in the case of teams like the Rays.

         By the way, just to be clear, I liked Whitaker and Trammel. A lot. I think, as a composite, as you’ve shown, Trammaker is superior. I just don’t see it for them individually. Are my criteria arbitrary? Sure. But only as arbitrary as baseball itself. It’s a made-up game. I’ve made up my own criteria for what I consider the superior players in it.

         Also, I’d like to go on the record as saying I’m not defending Ryne Sandberg’s bona fides for being in the real HoF, which I couldn’t care less about, nor my own HoF, which doesn’t exist and never will. All I said is that I think Ryno is superior to Sweet Lou, and I think he demonstrated championship caliber play in five seasons, in fact lifting otherwise mediocre Cub sides to titles. It’s his other seasons that leave me doubtful about him. Now I might be inclined to penalize him only if those relatively poor seasons prevented the Cubs from having a chance at another title, which I don’t think is the case. It requires superhuman effort to take the field and go balls to the wall year after year surrounded by the likes of Shawon Dunston, Luis Salazar and all those awful CFs the Cubs trotted out .

         Reply ↓
   4. John Autin Post authorJanuary 18, 2014 at 3:34 pm

      tag, re: “best player on team” angle — The fact is that during Trammell & Whitaker’s best 11-year run (1981-91), one of them led the team in WAR/pos in 10 of 11 years. In 4 of 11 years, they ranked #1-2.

      I’m not sure if that rebuts your point or confirms it. But consider two more facts:

      (1) From 1981-91, only Toronto won more games than Detroit.
      (2) In those years, the count of Tigers’ 5-WAR/pos seasons reads:
      — Trammell 7
      — Whitaker 5
      — All others combined, 9

      Trammell & Whitaker had 7 of Detroit’s top 8 WAR seasons in that span, and 10 of the top 14.

      On the pitching side, Detroit’s top WAR seasons in that span were two 5.1’s by Morris.

      (I have projected 1981 to a full season.)

      Reply ↓
      1. tag January 19, 2014 at 7:20 am

         John, honestly, I hope both are elected for your sake. You’ve presented the best case imaginable for both of them, and they were excellent players. I kinda feel bad for expressing my position, but I just don’t consider them great.

         Those Detroit teams were defined to me by having lots of very good players: Trammell and Whitaker, obviously, along with Parrish, Chet, Gibby, Morris, Willie Hernandez, and later Fielder and Tettleton. Plus I loved Senor Smoke and Barbero Garbey.

         Reply ↓
         1. John Autin Post authorJanuary 19, 2014 at 1:14 pm

            tag, I reiterate that I respect your positions, both on the very existence of a HOF in this form, and on whether Trammell & Whitaker meet the de facto criteria for election.

            I hope it’s clear that my point in these posts is only partly to advocate for them. I’m also using them to explore the general idea that high-peak stars have more impact on pennant races. And while I’m less sold on that idea than most people, my position is evolving, and I’m open to seeing evidence of a peak/pennant link.

            It could certainly be argued that the Tigers of Trammaker’s era are evidence of a peak/pennant link. As you said, they often had several good players; and for the years 1979-91, they won more games than anyone else. Yet they only won the division twice in that span (and had but one other year when they were very close), whereas a handful of teams won 3 or more divisions.

            When we see that no Tiger but Trammell had a 7-WAR year in that span — and that, although Alan & Lou’s best years rarely approached MVP caliber, they nevertheless had 7 of Detroit’s top 8 WAR seasons in that span — we might conclude that a more irregular distribution of individual Detroit performances in that span could have led to more October trips.

            For example, Kirk Gibson from 1984-87 averaged a pretty steady 5.4 WAR per 162 games. In ’88 he went to L.A. and had a career year, 7.0 WAR/162 — head and torso above all other position players on that squad — and they won the division and more.

            So I’m still looking and thinking. But in the meantime, I still think Trammell & Whitaker deserve enshrinement. 🙂

            Reply ↓
            1. tag January 19, 2014 at 1:44 pm

               I agree with you that it’s an interesting subject, and well worth investigation. I wrote again above about the Cub titles with Sandberg, not because I especially like him but because I see a real peak/pennant link with him, and I saw him/the team play. I didn’t know Gibby’s great year with the Dodgers also exhibited it.
   5. Hartvig January 18, 2014 at 4:10 pm

      “but if the concept is to mean anything, I think it should mean that the players being inducted are truly superior, and not just superior in their consistency”

      I do respect the opinions of people who advocate for a small Hall and I understand where they are coming from. And IF that was how the Hall of Fame was construed, then I could (almost) accept the fact that the voters don’t see Alan Trammell as a Hall of Famer. It would mean a Hall Of Fame with less than 100 players in it however.

      The problem, of course, is that almost from the get-go that’s not how it’s been. With all of the immortals they had to choose from and even with the poorly designed voting system that they had in place that made it nearly impossible for anyone, no matter how deserving, to get in for the first several years after the initial ballot they still found a way to select Wee Willie Keeler, George Sisler and Candy Cummings within 5 years of the initial vote. Within the first decade they were joined by the likes of Tommy McCarthy and Johnny Evers and Roger Bresnahan and so as not to put all the blame on the Veterans Committee within a decade of that the BBWAA were selecting Rabbit Maranville, Dizzy Dean and Bill Terry. And, of course, there was plenty more to come in the years ahead.

      I could even almost forgive the BBWAA for adhering to that standard if that was actually what they did. Instead what they do is snub guys like Arky Vaughn, Johnny Mize, Ron Santo and Trammell while finding room for Early Wynn, Lou Brock, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Jim Rice and more who are clearly not as deserving as dozens who had to either rely on the Veterans Committee to correct the injustice or hope that will happen sometime in the future.

      I understand that you’re NOT trying to defend the HOF’s abysmal track record but after almost 80 years I don’t know of any way of fixing the mistakes of the past and I don’t see how it’s fair to hold current players to standards higher than the average Hall of Famer had to meet.

      Reply ↓
      1. bstar January 18, 2014 at 6:08 pm

         “I don’t see how it’s fair to hold current players to standards higher than the average Hall of Famer had to meet.”

         Even holding current players to a standard where they must be equal to an average Hall of Famer at their position presents problems. If you only admit those at or above the average line, the average will continue to rise over time and the standard will get higher and higher because there’s no below-average players making it to offset those who far exceed the average. The Hall will get more and more exclusionary over time.

         This is exactly what has happened!

         Reply ↓
         1. Tubbs January 18, 2014 at 6:47 pm

            Great comments by bstar and that’s why I’m not a fan of JAWS. I enjoy Jay Jaffe’s writing, I just don’t agree with the quick and dirty use of JAWS to say someone’s not a HOFer. Even some obvious HOFers barely cross their positions’ JAWS line. I feel like JAWS & the way many voters use it hurts the borderline guys (though not necessarily Whitaker & Trammell).

            I prefer having a line that I consider HOF/not quite HOF rather than a median degree like JAWS. For example, Graig Nettles & Reggie Smith are just below my HOF-line while Minnie Minoso & Luis Tiant are just above it

            Reply ↓
            1. bstar January 18, 2014 at 7:17 pm

               Agreed fully, Tubbs. I also think a standard slightly below average is a better way to go, but even then we’re leaving out all the players below that line and unfortunately the same effect will be seen, although to a lesser degree.

               So **maybe** you and I are actually advocating for a set line in the sand that never moves instead of one that gradually goes up over time.

               Maybe. Just like career WAR, though, this should probably just be the starting point for the discussion and not the final say.
            2. Tubbs January 18, 2014 at 9:06 pm

               Well said, bstar.
         2. Artie Z. January 18, 2014 at 7:06 pm

            Median would probably be better than average, just to remove the influence of the outliers. Except they haven’t been electing only players above the average.

            Recent (meaning guys I saw play in the 80s and 90s) BBWAA inductees below “average” JAWS score for their positions:

            C – none below average

            1B – Murray (just a slight tick below average, he is the 9th highest rated of 18 HOF 1B) and Tony Perez (26th in JAWS overall)

            2B – Alomar (just a tick below average, he is the median HOF 2B)

            3B – none below average

            SS- none below average (there aren’t really any viable below average candidates – Nomar is probably the best and I see his case going nowhere, and Trammell is above average)

            LF – Stargell (OK, so I didn’t really see him play but I remember him being inducted – 11th of 19 HOFers, just around the median), Jim Rice (27th)

            CF – Dawson (below average but above median for CF – CF is a rough spot with only 7 players in history “above average HOF CF” with 6 who sailed into the HOF and Junior will likely join them there soon – Dawson’s probably not as bad a pick as people think); Puckett (at 22nd overall in JAWS)

            RF – Gwynn and Winfield (14th and 20th respectively in JAWS, Gwynn is the median HOF RF while Winfield is below – it’s another rough position with everyone “above average” already in except Larry Walker, but Ruth, Aaron, Ott, and Robinson are really driving that average up – I have no idea why Musial is listed as a RF, but Paul Waner is “below average RF HOF”)

            SP – Talk about rough – Jim Palmer, Bob Feller, Juan Marichal, and Carl Hubbell are all “below average HOF SP”; They almost elected Jack Morris, who would have single-handedly dropped the average JAWS score from 61.4 to 61.

            RP – there are only 5 HOFers listed as RP, and two of those are Fingers and Sutter who drive the average way down, but still there are only 4 RP with “above average HOF RP JAWS scores” and 3 of those are in (Eck, Goose, and Wilhelm) and Mo will likely join them in a few years

            So the BBWAA has been electing some players below average (and to be fair plenty above – Henderson, Ripken, Boggs, Maddux, Joe Carter … oops I mean Gary, etc.), though in some cases it’s just a tick below average and right around the median (when Biggio is elected he will be a little below the median) but in other cases they are players who are way below average HOF for their position. Granted, this still doesn’t help in some cases (particularly CF) because the inner circle guys are so good that the average is still high, but I think the frustrating part is the “Why Tony Perez or Kirby Puckett or 60% for Jack Morris rather than Alan Trammell or Tim Raines or Kenny Lofton?” Of course the easy answer is “There is a better woven story for the elected players.”

            Reply ↓
            1. Hartvig January 18, 2014 at 9:15 pm

               “Median would probably be better than average, just to remove the influence of the outliers. ?

               And you’re right, of course. I sometimes forget this site has so many math wizards and should have been more judicious in my choice of words, since median is what I was getting at more than average since, as you pointed out, some positions are notoriously top heavy.
      2. Artie Z. January 18, 2014 at 10:00 pm

         I forgot to add this before:

         It’s easy to fix mistakes,
         Create your own Circle of Greats!

         I’m guessing George Kelly, George Kell, Travis Jackson, Chick Hafey, Rube Marquard, Jesse Haines, Ross Youngs, and Jim Bottomley (did I miss anyone?) won’t make it in the COG, though if we see someone with the ID “The Ghost of Frankie Frisch” start voting in the rounds when those players are eligible I might be a little suspicious.

         Reply ↓
         1. David Horwich January 19, 2014 at 3:53 pm

            Lloyd Waner, Freddie Lindstrom, Ray Schalk, Rick Ferrell…I doubt Pie Traynor is going to do too well…Hack Wilson. Not an exhaustive list.

            Reply ↓
   6. Hartvig January 18, 2014 at 10:39 pm

      tag- I feel I should apologize for taking your comment off on a bit of a tangent.

      I do understand that there’s a difference between someone who is consistently very good- like Whitaker or Eddie Murray or Willie Randolph (although I would disagree about classifying Trammell like that)- for a long period of time and someone who is really great but only for a limited period of time (Koufax, Sisler, Dean) and I can see your point about a player needing to reach a certain level of “greatness” to belong in the Hall.

      I’m a big Hall guy so I happen to think that there’s room for some of both.

      Reply ↓
      1. tag January 19, 2014 at 6:17 am

         Hartvig,

         No need to apologize. Tangents are what make this place great, in fact.

         I’m actually a non-Hall guy, and think baseball would be better served by just having a great museum and forgetting the about enshrining individuals. It’s just when I start thinking about “greatness,” I tend to narrow things down. To my mind, you have to really stand out to warrant the term.

         Reply ↓
   7. BryanM January 19, 2014 at 2:26 am

      Tag – I guess some folks like fish and some folks like pork chops — but to me , consistency trumps Peak every time in terms of actual baseball value; we can agree to differ, but just to revert to the Whitaker-Sandberg comparison, Sandberg played on teams with winning records precisely 3 times in a 16 year record with the Cubs — he was a fine second baseman , and I’m glad for him that he’s in the HoF , but I don’t think he was the equal of Lou Whitaker. You of course are free to differ- but I don’t see that an argument from the success of the Cub teams from 1981-1996 adds to Ryne’s case
      Or to take a contemporary example, in 2013 , the 63 win White Sox were led by a young star , Chris Sale (6.9) WAR while over in the NL , the Division-winning Braves had a great year out of Andrelton Simmons (6.8 WAR)
      when we look back on their careers, should we be giving extra credit to Simmons for being the best player on a division winner?

      Reply ↓
      1. tag January 19, 2014 at 6:31 am

         BryanM,

         Gee, Ryno played on bad Cub teams. Ya think? Forgive the snark and lemme just say it’s the fact that the Cubs won two titles during his career that is amazing. The Cubs, as we all know, have never won consistently. It generally takes superhuman heroics, whether legit or steroid aided, for them to get anywhere near a title.

         Also, it’s not whether a team actually wins titles that I judge a player’s greatness by. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that. At root though, it’s whether that player’s performance could form the basis of, i.e. he could play a dominant role on, a title team, and whether he can do that for multiple seasons. From early indications, Chris Sale looks like that kind of player. But it’s waaaay early in his career.

         Reply ↓
         1. BryanM January 19, 2014 at 1:38 pm

            OK no problem with the snark – and I may finally be understanding your point , on rereading your @40 above — If i do, sticking with the position, Matt Carpenter had one such season for the Cards last year, whether he turns out to be great is of course for the future to decide.
            Lou had 3 , maybe 4 such seasons for the tigers , over the course of a long career – whether that makes him subjectively “great” of course will be different for different people. I’m with you in not caring about the HoF, and I have difficulty using WAR to compare players who play different positions ( position adjustments are arbitrary fudges which change every few years) – So I tend to make mental lists of ” great 2B,” ” great SS ” etc. , and Lou is in my all-time top 15 at 2B which makes him clearly Great IMHO , but obviously not in the opinion of the BBWAA – I just happen to think they’re wrong .

            Reply ↓
            1. tag January 19, 2014 at 2:14 pm

               Yes, I consider superior or championship-caliber players to be ones who can drag along a bunch of average/above-average players to a title. There are not a whole lot of them in the history of the game. They often in fact haven’t won titles because they can only drag along so much mediocrity so far. Sometimes they’re paired with a fellow superior player or several above-average players, in which case they often win a title. Sometimes they take the field with only a few barely above-average players and much mediocrity (or worse), and then they rarely if ever win a title.

               I’d venture that most winning teams today don’t have any. I can’t speak for history.

               I was never in the BBWA but I did cover Triple-A baseball (the affiliate of the Tigers in fact) for a couple seasons. I will say this for my fellow scribes. I don’t think they doing such a bad job in connection to Cooperstown. They’re a lot better than Oscar voters (okay, that’s setting the bar pretty low), but they’re also leagues above, for instance, the committee that chooses the Nobel Prize for Literature. That august body is wrong about 90% of the time. (As a side thought, I just hope that the Nobels being given out for the sciences are a lot more accurate than those for Lit and Peace. If they aren’t, we could find out 50 years from now or so that Einstein and Bohr and Murray Gell-Man and all these guys were just making this quantum shit up.)
10. bstar January 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm

    This is a big tangent but I’ve got to get it off my chest.

    tag, sorry about this but I don’t think your characterization of the 1984 Cubs as a one-man show is that accurate.

    First off, that team won 96 games. You can’t be a one-man show and win 96. Let me point out some of the contributors to that team:

    -Leadoff man Bob Dernier was basically a 0-1 WAR player for his career, pretty much a replacement-level guy. But in ’84, he put up a 3-WAR season. I remember Harry Caray talking about how good Dernier was leading off the game, and he was right: Dernier hit .356 with an OPS over .900 as the first batter in the contest.

    -Leon Durham put up a fine offensive season that year, with a 136 OPS+ and 3.7 WAR. He was easily the second-best first baseman in the NL that year, surpassed only by Keith Hernandez’s 6+ WAR season with the Mets. (Bull Durham: career OPS+ of 125, wow!)

    -Gary Matthews had the best season, by far, of the last half of his career. He led the National League in walks and OBP that year and was yet another contributing piece of that team to produce a 3-WAR season.

    -Here’s where it gets really interesting. The Cubs had 4 above-average starting pitchers that year. Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Trout, Dennis Eckersley, and Scott Sanderson all put up 3+ WAR years. Why don’t we remember that as a very good staff? It’s because none of those guys pitched 200 innings!

    The ’84 Cubs are only the second team in MLB history to have four starters produce 3+ WAR with not a one of them pitching 200 innings. (Ironically, the 2009 Cubs are the other team).

    tag, just add up the contributions of the players I mentioned: it’s over 24 WAR. That’s basically triple the value of Ryno that year. If we’re going to dole out credit for winning the division that year, sure Ryno deserves more credit than anyone else. But to point to him as the only reason that team was successful isn’t really an accurate re-telling of what went down in the Friendly Confines that magical summer.

    Also, you mentioned the BBWAA in a comment above. Let’s give them credit here. Of course Ryno won the MVP that year but six other Cubbies got MVP votes that season (is that a record?). So the writers didn’t really see this as one guy leading a bunch of scrubs either.

    It was indeed a true team effort. Sorry for the tone of this one.

    Reply ↓
    1. tag January 19, 2014 at 5:23 pm

       Well, Ryno had more than double the WAR of any other player. According to John, the average WAR of starting everyday players for 1984-85 — an average of 8 per team, with a cutoff of 600+ PAs – was 2.9 WAR per 650 PAs / 2.8 WAR per 162 G. So who beyond Durham of the everyday players was really above average?

       From the stats I’ve seen, Eck put up 2.5 WAR. The three top starters indeed all recorded over 3 WAR, as I mentioned above, but nobody put up 4. So the Cubs had three starters above average, but not by a great deal. They had no real ace by advanced stats, only according to Sutcliffe’s record. To me Ryno was the real difference.

       Reply ↓
       1. bstar January 19, 2014 at 7:42 pm

          Dennis Eckersley had 3.9 WAR, not 2.5, in 160 innings and Rick Sutcliffe had 3.9 in 150.

          You’re judging these guys as if they played an entire season. Both came over from the AL before the break. But if you want a true measure of how effective they were, use a rate stat. It looks like 250 innings was about the average for a pitcher who made all his starts in the NL in ’84. Prorating their stats to a full season, both of these guys would have been over 6 WAR.

          If Sutcliffe wasn’t the ace of the National League (after coming over from Cleveland), I don’t know who was. For the last four months of the season, Eck and Sut absolutely were the two best pitchers in the NL. Shouldn’t that matter?

          tag, I don’t know what to make of JA’s numbers above. If we’re going to judge starters by 650 PA and 162 games, should we prorate the Cubbie starters to those marks? We probably should if we’re going to do that. But does it seem right to compare all starters to 650 PA and 162 game rate stats? No, because 1 regular NL’er in ’84 played 162 games and only 12 passed 650 PA.

          So, to me, we should just use the definition of 2.0 WAR as the standard (that’s how average is defined for a full season). Or, better yet, just use WAA (wins above average).

          Here’s the Cubs regulars with positive WAA: Ryno, Durham, Dernier, Sarge, Jody Davis. Here’s the starters: Eck, Sut, Trout, Scott Sanderson. That’s 5 regulars and 4 starters, not to mention the bench players and relievers with positive WAA. It just doesn’t seem right to call this a one-man show with so many players having above-average years.

          The ’84 Cubs cranked out 41 WAR. Which option seems fairer when doling out credit for the Cubbies’ division title that year?

          a) Ryno 100%, rest of team 0%
          b) Ryno (8.5 WAR/41 teamWAR)= 21%, Sut 10.5%, Eck 8.5%, Durham 9%, rest of team 51%

          If you pick (b), you still get to say Ryno did twice as much as anyone else and we can dispense with the hyperbole that Sandberg did it all himself.

          Ryno had 8.5 WAR and Sutcliffe, including his value with the bat, was worth 4.3. That’s ~13 WAR from your top two. Would it have made any difference if the top two had gone (6.5/6.5) instead of (8.5/4.5)?

          JA has tried but can’t find evidence that it does. Sorry, but it seems like common sense to me that it would make no difference at all.

          Reply ↓
          1. tag January 20, 2014 at 6:23 am

             Boy, I don’t know how I dig myself these holes. I’m not even that big a fan of Sandberg.

             But bstar, I think my argument was a lot subtler than you’re making it out to be. I was actually trying to confine my argument to the everyday Cub regulars in relation to Sandberg’s contribution. What I wrote to John was: “His 8.5 WAR lifts this mediocre bunch with consistent, if hardly awesome, pitching to a title and within a game of facing [John’s] Tigers.”

             You’re right on the pitching figures and maybe the moundsmen edge closer to awesome than I give them credit for. They definitely are above average, with Sutcliffe and Eck well above (but we can’t prorate their figures because they weren’t with the Cubs; I didn’t forget that they came over from the AL, it didn’t matter; they only helped the Cubs for those four months). I don’t think the staff is in the same class (I haven’t looked up the figures but I’m assuming) as those great Braves’ ones, or the recent Giants’, or Arizona’s or several others I’m no doubt forgetting, but it was very good.

             However, I still contend that the Cub regulars, outside of Sandberg and as a group, were mediocre, i.e. average, so-so, ordinary. I did say Bull Durham was above average, and that Sarge and Dernier were slightly so. I mean, why did Sarge and Dernier receive MVP votes? Because they played in Chicago and the Cubs hadn’t won anything in donkey years, not because they were burning up the NL. In LF alone you had Jose Cruz (6.1), Carmelo Martinez (4.1) and Jeffrey Leonard (3.4) outWARring Sarge. In CF it was worse: Tim Raines (6.4), Dale Murphy (5.4), Kevin McReynolds (5.4), Chili Davis (5.1) and Von Hayes (4.0, who was subbing in CF often, if I remember correctly, for an injured and aging, Garry Maddox, who still put up 1.2 WAR in less than half a season) all outdistanced Dernier (and Sarge and Durham too of course). Jerry Mumphrey for Chrissakes put up 2.7 WAR there. Maybe both Sarge and Dernier can be characterized as a bit more than “slightly” above average, but not by all that much I don’t think.

             Catcher Jody Davis, at 2.1 WAR, probably also comes off a little better than I gave him credit for. Of the backstops of the day that I can remember, Carter, Tony Pena, Bob Brenley, Scoscia were all clearly better than Davis. Terry Kennedy of the Padres seems to have had a down year despite their pennant and Darryl Porter was aging and nearing the end of his career, but the latter wasn’t much worse.

             Cey at 3B was definitely below average and Bowa was -1 WAR so I’m assuming below average at SS. Moreland at 0.5 WAR was obviously well below average in right and, I’m guessing, egregiously so in a league with Gwynn, the young Strawberry, Terry Puhl, the former Brewer Sixto Lezcano of the guys I can name off the top of my head.

             All the Cub regulars, including Davis, played the vast majority of the games at their position and took a vast majority of the team’s at-bats. Mel Hall, before he was traded to Cleveland, provided a little lift in RF but only batted 164 times and was good for only 0.6 WAR. Owen at SS was as bad as Bowa.

             Even including the pitchers, as you note, Sandberg put up 21% of team WAR: i.e., one-twenty-fifth of the team recorded one-fifth of its WAR. Strip out the pitchers and confine the comparison to his fellow regulars, as I was doing, and his contribution becomes monster: one-eighth (12.5%) of the everyday starting lineup contributed more than 64% of its WAR. I could be wrong but, historically, I’d imagine that’s a lot for an everyday player on a squad that makes the playoffs. Among the greatest proportions ever? (I don’t know, I’m asking.)

             That was my argument, not that he was the entire team.

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             1. tag January 20, 2014 at 7:44 am

                The paragraph on the pitching got screwed up a bit. Here’s what I wanted to say:

                You’re right on the pitching figures and maybe the moundsmen edge a little closer to awesome than I gave them credit for. They definitely are above average, with Sutcliffe and Eck well above for the time they pitched. That’s the thing, though. I did not forget that they came over from the AL and didn’t mean to knock them personally. But for the purposes of what Sandberg played with, they were 4 WAR pitchers blended with whoever the Cubs trotted out before they arrived. You can’t pro- or backrate or whatever their contribution because the Cubs and Sandberg only benefited from their work for the time they were on the team. So when considering the Cubs staff, I think you have to mix in the 206 innings (more than any of the good starters accumulated) of awful (around 80 ERA+) Ruthven and Rainey and down Reuschel work. The staff is still very good but definitely blemished.
11. jeff hill January 19, 2014 at 3:46 pm

    Chase Utley 5yr peak Vs. Jeff Kent 9 yr peak years…

    754 games/151 avg vs. 1,324 games/147 avg
    3,374 PA’s/675 avg vs. 5,678 PA’s/633 avg
    2,909 AB/582 avg vs. 5,032 AB/559 avg
    553 runs/111 avg vs. 843 runs/94 avg
    875 hits/175 avg vs. 1,487 hits/165 avg
    196 2B/39 avg vs. 356 2B/40 avg
    23 3B/4.6 avg vs. 31 3B/3.4 avg
    146 HR/29 avg vs. 253 HR/28 avg
    507 RBI/101 avg vs. 994 RBI/110 avg
    .300/.387/.534 vs. .295/.365/.523
    77 SB/15 avg vs. 77 SB/13 avg
    334 BB/67 avg vs. 524 BB/58 avg
    544 K’s/109 avg. 925 K’s/103 avg
    135OPS+ vs. 132OPS+
    1,555 TB/311 avg vs. 2,634 TB/293 avg
    39.5 WAR/7.9 avg vs. 41.9 WAR/ 4.7 avg
    11.9 DWAR/2.38 avg vs. 2.3 DWAR/ 0.25 avg(how Utley gets his WAR differential)

    Kent was an average defender, Utley was superior…easily. Utley had a HOF worthy 5 year peak but tailed off after years of consistent injuries plauged him which made him half of what he was. Kent was always on the field and had a 9 year peak with vary similar numbers to Utley offensively. Does Utley’s defensive prowess make him more valuable in a shorter span than the equally hefty hitting Kent did for twice as long?

    Thoughts…opinions? Who’s better overall?

    Reply ↓
12. BryanM January 19, 2014 at 5:33 pm

    tag@50 – again – trying to agree where we can , I think the BBWAA is pretty good at identifying the best players, with some obvious errors, but what committee doesn’t make errors? With the best of intentions , however, I cannot find any content in your definition of superior or championship-caliber . You say @43 that the players team doesn’t have to win to qualify – so I’m left wondering how good is good enough? Zobrist (2011,2009? ), Trout (last 2 years) – of course neither of these guys has put together championship caliber careers yet, but they can only do so ,if I understand you, by having 5 or so championship seasons,and but I’m at a loss to know what one of those is, If , as you seem to imply ,it’s something more than their actual performance on the field and something less than actually winning championships.

    Reply ↓
    1. tag January 20, 2014 at 8:17 am

       Superior or championship-caliber seasons are those, measured in WAR, that compensate for a lot of mediocrity by a player’s teammates. They are around 7 WAR and above but with many caveats, and WAR just starts the discussion. Maybe I should have said MVP-caliber, though I didn’t want to cloud the issue with MVP talk.

       Reply ↓
13. BryanM January 19, 2014 at 7:34 pm

    Others have probably lost interest in the Peak vs Consistency issue by now , although it has given this thread some life as we have used some individual players as poster children for the argument . Basically , though we have been using individual data points to argue positions , while the issue can only be advanced by someone with some serious statistical chops. Whether my intuition that consistency leads to championships or that of some others that high peak
    is more important is true can only be resolved by some serious data analysis.
    To illustrate if we assembled two groups of teams one with 86-90 wins , the other with 92-96 wins , the expectation of division championships would go up say ,from .2 to .7 . Call this a half championship. How many WAR more would the higher group have for their 6 more wins? Pure guess , about 5 since higher win teams also have on average more luck. Using the heuristic Wins = 52+ team WAR , we can expect maybe 35 team WAR from the first group and 40 from the second – is there a pattern to the difference that would throw light on the issue?

    Reply ↓