We need a quick runoff vote to resolve the tie at the top in the 1974 part 3 voting. Voting closes next Wednesday night, so vote early. More after the jump.
This is our first 4-way runoff, but it’s the second runoff in as many years for Manny Ramirez, after losing to Mordecai Brown in last year’s COG elections. Here are the career stats for our four candidates.
| Player | WAR | OPS+ | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | Pos | Tm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manny Ramirez | 69.4 | 154 | 2302 | 9774 | 8244 | 1544 | 2574 | 547 | 20 | 555 | 1831 | 1329 | 1813 | 38 | .312 | .411 | .585 | .996 | 79D/H | CLE-BOS-LAD-CHW-TBR |
| Dick Allen | 58.7 | 156 | 1749 | 7315 | 6332 | 1099 | 1848 | 320 | 79 | 351 | 1119 | 894 | 1556 | 133 | .292 | .378 | .534 | .912 | 357/H46D8 | STL-LAD-CHW-PHI-OAK |
| Player | WAR | G | GS | CG | SHO | GF | W | L | W-L% | SV | IP | BB | SO | ERA | FIP | ERA+ | WHIP | K% | BB% | BF | Tm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin Brown | 68.4 | 486 | 476 | 72 | 17 | 1 | 211 | 144 | .594 | 0 | 3256.1 | 901 | 2397 | 3.28 | 3.33 | 127 | 1.222 | 17.7% | 6.7% | 13542 | TEX-BAL-FLA-SDP-LAD-NYY |
| Ted Lyons | 67.6 | 594 | 484 | 356 | 27 | 91 | 260 | 230 | .531 | 25 | 4161.0 | 1121 | 1073 | 3.67 | 4.01 | 118 | 1.348 | 6.0% | 6.3% | 17797 | CHW |
Our candidates’ top 50 career rankings (5000 PA or 2500 IP) in the live ball era look like this.
- Ramirez: BA 47th, OBP 19th, SLG 9th, OPS 8th, OPS+ 19th, HR 15th, XBH 15th, RBI 17th, Runs 30th
- Allen: SLG 40th, OPS 43rd, OPS+ 14th
- Brown: WAR 21st, WAA 16th, ERA 34th, FIP 31st, ERA+ 12th, WHIP 31st, GS 45th, SO 43rd, K% 26th, Losses 42nd, W-L% 30th
- Lyons: WAR 24th, WAA 46th, ERA+ 40th, BB% 37th, IP 19th, BF 18th, GS 38th, CG 2nd, CG% 1st, Wins 24th
So, the choice is yours. However you decide, your ballot in this runoff round, unlike the usual three-name ballot, should identify only the one candidate you prefer (you will also need to add at least a little bit of extra verbiage though, because the WordPress engine that supports the site won’t accept comments of only one or two words).
All votes must be in by 11:59PM EST on Wednesday night, March 6th, with vote changes allowed until 11:59PM EST on Monday night, March 4th. If the result of this runoff is still a tie, a tie-breaker process will be followed to discard the last votes cast until a winner is determined. So, vote early to ensure your vote counts! If you would like to keep track of the vote tally for the runoff, you can check this tally spreadsheet: COG 1974 Part 3 Runoff Vote Tally.
Ted Lyons… one of three players to play 20+ years for the White Sox and no other teams.
Wow- thanks all the late voters for making that really interesting. Doug has said it above – it’s our first four-way tie. Heck, it’s the first that’s more than a two-way tie.
I’d be happy to see any of these four in the CoG:
-Lyons- great (complete games, war service + still darn good into his 40s);
-Brown (overshadowed by having to compete with a ridiculous amount of no doubt HoFers; PEDs)
-Manny (great hitting talent, famously unreliable teammate although a big part of two World Series; PEDs)
-Dick Allen (as good a hitter as Manny in a different era, shorter career with several superlative seasons, probably hindered by racism + reserve clause, would make a great HoF-er)
I vote for Dick Allen.
Manny Ramirez….of the 4, most representative of the elite player in his time. Qualifies as great to me, and even with late career PED’s, his exploits make him part of baseball’s recent story. I believe he fits in the COG at this point. If this were just for the HOF (230+), any of these candidates would fit, but which one generated the most excitement and interest among fans in his day?
To supplment Doug’s stat line:
pWAR (Tot bWAR)…Peak5..Top5…WAR/162IP…..ERA+…Career length
68.5 (68.3)……………37.0…..37.0….….3.4…………127……..1.0…………Kevin Brown
67.2 (71.6)……………24.2…..29.0……..2.9…………118……..1.3…………Ted Lyons
WAR(fWAR)…………Peak5…Top5…WAR/500PA….OPS+…Career length
58.7 (61.3)……….…..31.5……36.7…….4.0…….……156………1.0……….Dick Allen
69.2 (66.3)……………28.7……29.9…….3.6…….……154………1.3……….Manny Ramirez
A few comments on stats: Doug’s and the ones I just posted.
On Allen and Ramirez, OPS+ seems particularly important, since Allen played in baseball’s second Dead Ball Era, while Ramirez played in its second hitting explosion.
On Brown and Lyons, again, eras make a difference: Lyons pitched in a low-SO/high-CG era, Brown in the opposite.
On Brown, his career has an unusual pattern: ages 23-29, ~1270 IP, ERA+ 108; ages 30-36, ~1500 IP, ERA+ 158.
On Lyons, his career too has an unusual pattern: ages 24-31 ~1980 IP, ERA+ 121; ages 34-41 ~1460 IP, ERA+ 131.
Both became more effective as they aged. Lyons’ pattern is explained by his “Sunday pitcher” role.
Although WAR rates don’t reinforce a comparison of W-L Pct. differentials, I’ll note them anyway (counting only seasons with 100+ IP) because the coincidence of numbers is interesting:
….W-L………..Pct……..Team W-L Pct…….+/-differential
211-144…… .594…………. .525………………. +.069………..Brown
260-230…… .531…………. .460………………. +.071………..Lyons
There is, of course, a dead horse lying in the middle of each of these comparisons; I’ll just mention it and pass by without further beating (for the moment, at least).
This is unexpectedly difficult. I have a hard rule about known PED use that I’ve applied since the beginning. I’m not wowed by either Allen (too short a career) or Lyons (Allen was a victim, BTW–different era, MLB was not ready for his type of personality and could be more open about it). I have voted for Allen as part of a 3 man choice, but I have to think about whether he’s really a #1 when this election is strictly about that. But if I don’t vote, I’m giving a leg up to Brown and Manny–and I’m not really convinced that, even on the numbers, they are all that much better than either Allen or Lyons, and especially not with a PDD-adjusted manner. Grapple, grapple. I’ll be back. Interested in the thoughts of others as they make their final choices.
Oh man. I feel like I have to put 11:50 on my calendar for wednesday night. I guess I’m voting AGAINST people this round. In order of most opposed…
Manny: Roids + fenway + offensive era = lots and lots of out of context numbers. Manny was a train-wreck defensively in other non-hitting related ways. Please don’t be blinded by gaudy hit, HR, and RBI numbers. His WAR is not nearly as good as you think it is. If you dock him at all for his blatant cheating (he was suspended multiple times), he’s not one of history’s finest.
Brown: Maybe he’s a victim of his era and for Doom’s sanity alone I won’t exclude him. That said, he’s not heads and tails above a lot of pitchers we consider. Any adjustment for PED’s crushes him from above the borderline to below.
Allen: He really didn’t have that long a career. After age 30, he averaged 92 games a year before calling it after an unproductive and short age 35 season. I understand philly in the 60’s and 70’s wasn’t that nice a place to play but I think the injuries and wear were obvious. Basically though, it’s because he was awful with the glove. I’d take oWAR Allen over guys like Murray but Murray was actually pretty good with the glove. First base defense does matter. Would I pick Allen over Killebrew? Yes, but we don’t get to un-ring that bell.
Lyons: I don’t think he’s much of a slam dunk either. He pitched exclusively in a segregated system where he didn’t have to face hitters like Bell and Irvin. That said, he served his country rather than his career in an era when that was especially important. He only pitched for 42 innings after the war but they re-affirmed that his reduced workload brought a renewed dominance, even well into his 40s.
There are 10 guys on the dual ballots I’d rather have than these four but that doesn’t mean I don’t have preferences.
Mosc, just curious, when you say Manny’s WAR is “not nearly as good as you think it is,” what exactly do you mean? Are you skeptical of WAR in general, or is there something specific to Manny’s case that makes you say his particular WAR is off somehow?
I’m saying his triple slash line, his HR total, his hit total, and his OPS all lie more than usual due to era and fenway. Look at his WAR, or at least his OPS+. Even that you should look at in the context of steroids and a guy who’s peak value wasn’t has high as you think it was. Manny’s got 2 seasons above a 5.5 WAR. Two.
I’m voting for Lyons.
Although Allen entering the CoG would lower the bWAR threshold (for players without “bonus” consideration) beneath Killebrew’s standard, I think he is exceptional is other ways and ultimately belongs in the Circle.
What bonus consideration did Sisler get? The “he was a big name in the 30s” bonus?
I think some people gave Sisler some special consideration for the sinus infection that caused him to miss ’23, the consequences of which changed his career drastically from that point forward (or so the story goes). I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, but there were some in the electorate at the time who felt that his case deserved special consideration.
Yeah, that’s the case, and it was very much a borderline call. However, without that special consideration it was clear he would not have made it in.
I think it’s a bit prejudicial to be throwing up all those raw number placements for Allen and Ramirez, when one played a big chunk of his career in a context which was a LOT closer to the deadball era (including 2-3 years that were comparable to all but the most dead deadball years) than anything Ramirez (or Lyons or Brown) ever saw.
Witness the massive difference between rankings in OPS — Ramirez 8th, Allen 43rd — vs. OPS+ — Allen 14th, Ramirez 19th.
In terms of batting prowess in context, the *latter* number is what we should be looking at, and the first one is just prejudicial towards players in high offense eras.
OK, everyone. You know that I’m voting for Kevin Brown. For anyone who’s been around here for years, it may well be the thing you MOST associate with me as a poster: Kevin Brown COG advocacy. (Second, I would guess that I’m the “WAR defender,” and third is probably my Brewers fandom.) I believe I’ve cast something like 10-15% of the votes Kevin Brown has ever received in this process. So you can guess that I’m pretty giddy for this: this is the closest Kevin Brown has come to election. I believe he’s now the #1 vote recipient in this history of the COG. He’s been close a couple of other times before, but he could actually DO it. That said, I’m guessing he’s probably the biggest underdog of the group, so I’m going to lay out my advocacy here in ten points, in what I’m hoping is the final post I ever have to do advocating for Brown:
1. Let’s hit up some of the old-school basics about Kevin Brown, because while looking at WAR is fun and ultimately a better tool, there’s a lot to be told in the “old stats,” too. Brown led the league in W once, ERA twice, WHIP twice, and SO:BB ratio once. He struck out 200+ batters four years running (none of which led the league, but then Brown made the “stupid decision” to be active in one of the richest pitchers’ eras in history; were he 15 years older, he would’ve utterly dominated the pitching-starved 1980s). His SO:BB crowns, by the way, were not the result of a fireballer who just blew people away; they were the result of a controlled pitcher who limited walks like crazy, but who was ALSO able to strike some people out. He was really doing it BOTH ways, not just with a ludicrously high numerator nor stupid-tiny denominator. He was a workhorse, regularly among the league leaders in Starts and Innings. Also, and this is rarely mentioned, but Brown was a VERY good defender. In spite of playing in a league with annual Gold Glove-winner Greg Maddux, Brown led his league in putouts 7 times in nine years (finishing second the other two); he also is second ALL-TIME in putouts by a pitcher – behind only Maddux. He was regularly in the top-5 in assists (seven times), as well. He defended his position REALLY well, which is important for a ground-ball pitcher.
2. Brown also was well-regarded in awards voting, so it’s not like this is a total after-the-fact case. Brown weirdly was only a six-time All-Star (1992, 1996-98, 2000, 2003), but he shows up better in end-of-season awards. He finished in the top-6 in Cy Young voting five times: a second, a third, and three sixths, totaling 1.21 Cy Young award shares. He was named Pitcher of the Year by the Sporting News in 1998, in spite of coming up short to Tom Glavine the voting. In fact, in both 1996 and 1998, Brown lost out to Braves pitchers with flashier W-L records. Had either of those elections been held today, Brown would’ve certainly won the 1996 vote, and may have done so in ’98, as well – that kind of depends on some other factors, including a very strange 2nd-place finish for Trevor Hoffman.
3. Before going further, I would ask that you read my post from the last round about Brown vs. Ramirez. I think he’s the better candidate. I don’t want to say “clearly” the better candidate, because I don’t think we’re dealing with “clear” distinctions at this point in the process. That said, they were nearly contemporaries, and if you told me that their careers would play out exactly as-is, and I could have one player for his whole career, I’d take Brown.
4. In that comparison on the other post, I noted the players’ best 5-year peaks. I noted that the vast majority of COG players have, at some point in their career, a five-year stretch with 30+ WAR. Some of the inner-circle get to 40, but most players, even most COG players, never get to that level. Kevin Brown’s best stretch of 36.7 WAR is good… very good. Better than the best stretch of Chipper Jones, or Mike Piazza, or Jeff Bagwell, or Mike Mussina, or Tom Glavine, or John Smoltz, or Barry Larkin… the list goes on and on. The most similar player from the same era is Curt Schilling (36.5) – that’s peak Schilling, with the D-Backs. The biggest hindrance to the memory of just how dominant Brown was in that era is that said 5-year peak was played for three different franchises: Florida, San Diego, and LA. He made it to two World Series as the ace of the staff in that time, though, and that’s not nothing.
5. Here’s a quote from Bill James yesterday: “Brown was a singular pitcher. I think he was the only pitcher of my lifetime who threw hard and got ground balls and had a long career. The other guys I have seen who threw hard and got ground balls all burned out after a couple of good years (Chien-Ming Wang, Brandon Webb, Roger Erickson.) Tommy John threw pretty hard when he came up; people remember him as a 40-year old, plus he came out of the Cleveland system at the same time as Sam McDowell and Luis Tiant, who threw REALLY hard, but TJ had a very good fastball when he was 25. Spahn did too, I guess; he was a high fastball pitcher when he was young.” It’s not really much of a case, but hey – The Godfather said it, and YESTERDAY, too, so I figured, “Why not include it?”
6. Why do I yammer about Brown’s peak all the time? Is it because I happened to be coming-of-age as a baseball fan during that era? Well, partly, I suppose. But I don’t think it’s just because I want a dominant player from “my” era elected; rather, I think it’s because I simply remember the scale of his dominance better BECAUSE we best remember “our” guys better. It’s always a pleasure when people talk about watching the players of their youth that the rest of us don’t remember; I’d ask that the same courtesy be extended someone who watched the same era the rest of you did, but with a perspective that was a little different – since the guys you watch from age 10-14 are pretty much “THE” guys forever for you.
7. Anyway, on to peak. Why always talk about peak? Well, first of all, if we’re talking about total WAR here, there’s not a TON of difference among all these guys. But the thing is, Lou Whitaker, great as he was, is not really the difference between making the playoffs and not. If you’re an 81-win team and you swap your 2B for Lou Whitaker, congratulations: you’re now an 84-win team. Enjoy watching the playoffs at home, same as you would’ve been without him. This is my argument against Ted Lyons, too: even at his best, you weren’t going to become a winner just because you had Ted Lyons. But take an otherwise average team and add peak Kevin Brown, you’ve got a playoff team; take a 90-win team and add peak Kevin Brown, and you’ve got a division/pennant winner. That’s what really matters to me, particularly when we’re talking about these marginal COG candidates: were they the kinds of guys who would help you win pennants? Kevin Brown is an obvious “yes,” because… well… the Marlins and Padres added Brown, and they DID win pennants. The proof is in the pudding… not that you even need it.
In my remaining three points, I want to address some of the less pleasant aspects of Kevin Brown here, because they may be a reason some are holding off voting for him, including his attitude/personality. Well, that’s a knock on THREE of these four players in this run-off. For all I know, Ted Lyons was a saint. I don’t think that’s a reason to pick him, but if that’s why you’re doing it, good for you. But Kevin Brown’s personality cannot possibly be a reason to vote for Manny nor for Dick Allen. Plus, once you’ve elected Schilling (far and away Brown’s most similar player, btw)… well, all bets are kind of off, aren’t they? But I digress… back to the argument!
8. The playoffs are a huge knock on Brown. A lot of people point to his poor Yankees showings – one AGAINST the Yanks, and one FOR them. His last two postseason starts were for the 2004 Yankees in their ill-fated ALCS with the Red Sox. Brown made two starts totaling 3.1 innings, allowing 9 runs (8 earned). That’s an absolutely miserable 21.60 ERA. That’s horrible, and there are Yankees fans out there who want to blame that whole collapse on Brown. Fine. But let’s get some things straight. One of those two starts, they Yankees won anyway, 19-8. So that’s nothing. The other… yeah, that was Game 7, and they lost. But Brown sure didn’t lost them games 4, 5, or 6, so it’s not like you can blame him for those. In ’98, against the GREATEST BASEBALL TEAM OF ALL-TIME, Brown made two starts in four games, giving up four runs in 6.1 in game 1 and losing a 3-0 shutout in Game 4 with 8 solid innings of 3-run ball. Yes, in ’97, he also struggled against the Indians (who, while not as good a TEAM as the ’98 Yankees, may have had as good an offense… or better!), but I think there’s a bit of an excuse there, too, in that he allowed 10 runs (all earned) in 11 innings… but he was also given a total of 2 runs of support in two games, so it’s not like it really mattered. If he had held them to 4 runs in those 11 innings, the result would’ve been the same. But anyway, I’m not trying to apologize for Brown’s bad performance in some key games. Instead, I’d like to point out that A.) those teams wouldn’t have BEEN THERE were it not for Brown, and B.) Brown was stellar in his OTHER postseason starts. He’s actually a little Jack Morris in his Jeckyl/Hyde playoff performance. He outdueled Tom Glavine in a complete game in the deciding Game 6 of the ’97 NLCS; he won not one, not two, but THREE different NLDS games by 2-1 scores, including twice against the ’98 Astros, a 102-win team that was BETTER than their record, due to their midseason acquisition of Randy Johnson, whom Brown beat in 8-innings of shutout ball in Game 1 (Hoffman allowed the Astros’ lone run in the ninth). The playoffs are not the brightest light in Brown’s cap, and in some ways, I think his performance in the postseason is what gives me MOST pause over him. But even then, it’s only a handful of games, and he DOES have postseason success, as well. Factor in how well he had to pitch to GET his teams in those situations, and it’s not enough of a knock on an otherwise-stellar career that it’s anything to worry about.
9. Another knock on Brown, maybe less so here, but perhaps lingering around people’s subconscious, is “The Contract.” As many/most of you will remember, Kevin Brown received, in the 1998-99 offseason, the largest contract in the history of MLB: 7 years, $105M. This was seen as crazy at the time, though, really, it was AFTER even bigger contracts in the NBA (Kevin Garnett and Shaq), and it would precipitate a windfall for $100M contracts thereafter. But one of the things that happened was the Brown was seen as a failure to live up to that contract. A couple of things, though let’s keep in mind that the contract in question was signed between his age-33 and -34 seasons! It’s not HIS fault that the Dodgers didn’t understand aging curves, is it? He was worth 22.8 WAR over the life of that contract: that’s $4.6M/WAR. Supposedly, the going rate is now $10M/WAR. Yes, inflation… but overall, Brown was actually a GOOD free-agent bet, even for that era. Going rate, as I recall, was around $5M from the mid-90s until a decade or so ago. So Brown was NOT a disappointment. Additionally, the Dodgers were actually pretty decent most of the first five years (Brown was a Yankee for the last two). They finished second or third each year, and had 86, 86, 92, and 85 wins over the final four years of the contract. Brown had a pretty bad ’01 and was hurt in ’02, so maybe those cost them the playoffs, but injuries happen; I don’t think you can really BLAME Brown that they didn’t win; and besides, per WAR, he was the best player on the team the OTHER three (of the five) years he was a Dodger. In short, Kevin Brown’s 7-yr/$105M contract was NOT a disappointment. So you can scrub that memory from your database.
10. Yes, there’s the steroid thing. Look, I’m not going to convince anyone who doesn’t like steroids that they’re going to vote for a PED-associated player. But we have other guys in, anyway. I know some of you will say that the difference is that we don’t know what Brown would’ve been WITHOUT PEDs, while we do know with Clemens and Bonds. That’s true… but we also don’t know that everyone else we’ve elected is “clean.” We also know that Brown was a dominant pitcher IN HIS ERA, and that’s, to me, what we CAN judge. Would Brown have used PEDs if he’d been born 50 years earlier? Probably not. Would he, were he active today? We can’t know. But we DO know that he was active when use was rampant, and he probably did use, as well. To me, you can’t really punish people for making average moral choices… and if half the league or more was using, that’s a pretty average moral choice.
In summary, Brown was one of the top pitchers in an era full of ’em. He met and exceeded every statistical bar for the Hall of Fame, and nearly all of those for the COG – though perhaps in a career that just reads as a little too short to some. He was well-regarded as a pitcher in his own time, with awards voting and a big fat contract to match his reputation among the elite, AND his numbers, both traditional and analytical back up that assertion. Look, we can’t go back and replay all those games with no PEDs, as awesome as that would be. Instead, we’re stuck with the historical record as-is. Kevin Brown was not only very good, but elite in the game as it was. Brown put up deadball-era ERA numbers in a Selig-ball game. He helped teams win a World Series championship and another pennant (plus an ALCS with the ’04 Yankees). He was a positive overall contributor in the regular season, in the postseason, and was one of the best all-time fielders at his position. At the end of the day, baseball is about winning games so you can win championships. I believe that Kevin Brown was one of the best 130 players in history at winning games. For that, I believe he deserves to be enshrined in the Circle of Greats.
I think I’ve become Doom’s particular adversary on Brown, but after reading this post all I want to say is that Brown’s candidacy is fortunate to have such an articulate advocate!
Bob, I’m drafting behind you on Brown, letting you do the work. I just don’t see it unless you completely ignore PEDS. And even with that, it’s not that he’s a stand out amongst pitchers. 48th SP according to JAWS. Very good. Lyons, without the juice, is 50th.
He was regarded by many as a jerk, wasn’t he? I understand your statistical argument but not your passion for his character.
Interesting, modulo a couple of disagreements we seem to have very similar views, Doom. Both relative hard saber/math, and seem to have a similar era focus, even though I think you’re a good 15 years younger. But then I all that big a baseball fan in my teens, much more focused on roundball. I got more interested in my 30s after playing softball.
In any case, you’ve actually turned me around a bit on peak vs. longevity, but…
Stop maligning Lou Whitaker. He had 10 years over 4 WAR, and 2 over 6 WAR. 4 WAR is a LOT. The difference between an 85 and 89 win team is a probable playoff berth. The difference between a 90 and 94 win team is real contention in the playoffs.
It’s not everything, but it’s not nothing, and he did that for 10 years. There are *plenty* of people we’ve put in the COG with nary a whimper whose best seasons aren’t much better than Sweet Lou’s two 6+ WAR campaigns.
His broad peak of 42.8 WAA is really solid, higher than Brown’s and a lot better than any borderline candidate. I think there’s a lot of value to a shorter dominant spans as well, but long peak matters, much more than lots of average years.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses so far, electorate. Let me respond:
1. Bob: Thank you!
2. Mike L.: I do, generally ignore PEDs. But you point out that he’s 48th in JAWS. True… but misleading. First of all, there are 39 pitchers in the COG, so that seems like he’d be out. However, your analysis omits that, of the 47 in front of Brown: A.) 14 are ineligible, 19th-century players; B.) one is the still-active Clayton Kershaw; C.) another is the retired-but-yet-to-be-eligible Roy Halladay; and D.) literally every other player in front of him is ALREADY IN THE COG. Therefore, rather than comparing to 47, we should more accurately be comparing him to the 31 ELIGIBLE players ahead of him… and they’re all in. If elected, Brown would be the 32nd best pitcher, by JAWS, of 40 in the COG. No shame in that.
3. mosc: No passion for his character. But no character clause in the COG. And, as I said in my post, I have no love for his personality… but I could say the same of Curt Schilling. I enthusiastically vote for both based on their playing record, and am happy to malign their personalities.
4. Michael Sullivan: I intend no offense regarding Whitaker. I never voted for him, and wouldn’t have when the COG voting pool was a lot deeper than it is now. I might vote for him if we were holding elections now. But I don’t really mean to malign him… I was just trying to think of a COG player who was consistent for a very long time, if never spectacular. Whitaker is kind of the poster child for that type of career. Maybe Killebrew. Either way, I’d put both in the bottom 10-15 of the electorate, and would vote for Brown before either. But I still think Whitaker certainly belongs in the top 150 players, and probably in the COG… though I haven’t checked the statistical case for already-inducted members since I made some changes to my method. My overall point is that, if I could have a choice between two guys, I’d rather take one with, say, 25 WAA in 5 seasons and 0 WAA in 10 than a player with 30 WAA spread evenly among 15 seasons. The 5-WAA seasons give you real shots… 2 WAA seasons don’t do as much for your ability to contend. That’s the argument for me, I guess. No problem with Sweet Lou’s induction, and I wouldn’t advocate to remove him… but I do think Brown’s peak merits his induction.
Doom, thanks for the very closely reasoned response, as well as the research. Your point about JAWS is a good one, but it actually makes me want to for Lyon because he was 50, separated from Brown by Greinke (who could go either way) and Lyons wasn’t a PED user. So, assuming I could modify my aversion to PED users sufficiently to consider them with a discount, I’d have Lyons ahead of Brown.
Which, I may do now that you’ve made such a compelling argument (in that area) for Brown. Still making up my mind.
You’re welcome, Mike!
I understand that Brown and Lyons were separated only by an active player, and therefore (for our purposes) right next to one another.
The only point I would make in separating them would be the one that Doug makes: the WAA difference. Here are their WAR, WAR7, and WAA numbers:
Player……..WAR……WAR7….WAA
Lyons……..71.5…….41.2……..28.1
Brown…….68.0…….45.2……..40.4
So Lyons has more career WAR, though not by very much in a longer career. And his top seven years are quite good; nearly as good as Brown’s, though definitely worse. But the really disturbing part for Lyons’ case is in the ratio of WAA to WAR. For Brown, 59.4% of his value comes from being above-average. For Lyons, only 39.3% of his WAR comes from being above average. In other words, MOST of Ted Lyons’ value to his teams came from being a BELOW-AVERAGE pitcher.
You can have whatever objections to PEDs you’d like, and if that prevents you from voting for Brown, so be it. But please note that, if one of the two of them is getting their value from “Great”ness, it’s Brown, not Lyons. For the Circle of Very Goods, I think Lyons would definitely be in; but I’m not sure how much we should be rewarding below-average performance when the other three players in the runoff all had similar WAR, and all received MOST of it for being above-average. That’s my thought, anyway.
———————-
One more thing: excepting the relievers and Satchel Paige, here are the starters I could remember who rank below Brown and Lyons in JAWS, along with what percentage of their value comes from WAA:
Dazzy Vance – 62.0%
Rube Waddell – 57.1%
John Smoltz – 57.1%
Sandy Koufax – 57.7%
Whitey Ford – 53.5%
In other words, even for the lesser lights of the COG, what generally makes them worthy is their value coming from above-average performance, rather than value between replacement and average. I don’t know if that will have any effect on how you think of Lyons, but perhaps it’s something else to consider.
Doom, the way I think about it is this: Let’s assume you’re getting a random sample from a given player’s overall peak years. By this I mean the years in which, barring injury, ex-ante, they were capable of, and would reasonably hope to produce seasons comparable to their career average.
In the case of Whitaker, you get an outside shot at a 4-5 WAA season, but a damn near guaranteed 2 WAA season.
In the case of Brown, you get a much better shot at a 4-5, 2 6 WAA seasons, but a much higher chance of a relative bust (average+ to poor), rather than ~2 WAA or better.
As far as building my team, which random pool of seasons do I want to pick from if I’m handing out a likely 7+ year contract? With Brown, I get a couple extra 4-5 seasons, and my 2 outlier highs are even higher, but we’ve still got around a 15-20% shot of a mediocre to bad season. With Whitaker, I can pretty much write a 2 WAA in the books and I’ll get lucky a few times too.
Which one I want, I think will depend on what kind of team I have or am trying to build. If I’m a big market big revenue team that wants to be a consistent contender, I think I might prefer Whitaker. From a ~90 win pythagorean baseline, he gets you into contender range every year. And while getting an extra 2-3 WAR does increase your chances of winning a world series, just the fact that you’re consistently a top contender gets you extra chances.
If I’m a smaller market team that’s not going to spend, then I have to catch lightning in a bottle to with the WS, and a fair bit of luck just to get to the playoffs. We’re not going to be spending on everybody but the star in question with an intention to have our avg pyth W-L be in the 90win range, more like low 80s, and we hope that once in a while, we get some combination of overperforming players and some pyth luck to get us into contention. Now, I’m picking Brown for sure, because to win a WS, we need to just hope that one of his big seasons aligns with a year where everything else is going pretty good for us.
On average, I can maybe see a slight preference for Brown’s profile, but I don’t think it’s really big and clear except in the second case.
This is very different from comparing to a guy like Sutton — for instance, since he was on the ballot and almost tied our current guys — who has a couple season close to Whitaker’s best, but nowhere near the quantity of 2+ WAA seasons, and half the total WAA. He really is a good example of a guy that built up a high WAR total mostly through just above average play, and doesn’t have a peak worth banking on to speak of. Lyons is closer to a Whitaker style career if you give him credit for 3 good seasons in wartime. If you think that playing pre-segregation counteracts a certain amount of that wartime credit (as I do), then he’s still better than Sutton, but not really in the conversation with Brown or Whitaker, even though WAR level is basically even with Brown.
Now, you can also focus hard on 5 year peak, but I think there’s a big element of luck that Brown’s top 5 seasons happen to be all in a row. Extend to a 7 or 8 year peak, and he still looks great but no longer like the inner-circle guys, because he’s got mediocre years right around his top 5. Bear in mind that one reason he looks like them is that most of the top guys don’t have 5 year runs of looking like best version of themselves every single year. Brown does. How much value does that really add if you’re picking him ex-ante? I don’t know for sure but I think not nearly as much as *just* looking at 5 year peak implies. What are the chances he comes up for free agency right before that peak? And if he did, do you have any idea that kind of peak is coming from he’s shown you the 3-4 years before? I sure wouldn’t.
Anyway, I’m giving a lot of negative arguments about Brown’s peak here, when in fact, it’s really impressive, and your basic idea that peak really matters, and maybe more than JAWS and HR imply is a good one.
I’m not voting yet, but on balance, I’m inclined to vote for Brown of these 4, and Allen a close second, primarily *because* of the peak argument over Lyons and Manny in both cases. That’s the main reason I tried to finagle a 4-way rather than just putting Lyons in, although I do prefer him to Ramirez.
Just a couple points:
1. It’s definitely preferable for a player to have his best 2, 3, 5, 8, whatever, years consecutively, because it gives you a better chance to know when your window is. Luis Tiant, for example, has the knock against him that you really don’t know when you’re competitive.
2. In regard to higher peak vs. consistency, Bill James did a study a bunch of years ago (I can’t remember – might’ve been in the Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?/The Politics of Glory, but I can’t remember for sure) that a single great season drastically increases your overall chances of winning. It’s kind of intuitive, too; a World Series is played in a single year, not a succession of seasons. If MLB worked like European soccer, with promotions and relegations for teams, there might be an argument for greater consistency. But, as things are, the bigger peak is just going to be worth more.
I vote for Ted Lyons. I like pitchers who can complete games.
i feel like there’s some list of guys who pitched like they were in the previous era than they were. Lyons pitched like he was a guy from the 1910s or 1920s with complete games. I’d also point to Blyleven who pitched like he was a 1950s/1960s guy. Today maybe Verlander pitches like he’s a 1980s/1990s guy. They have their own charm for that alone.
If Lyons pitched like he was a guy from the 1920s, maybe it’s because he was a guy from the 1920s? 🙂
VOTE:
Dick Allen.
ADHD moment:
Does anybody else wish that Bryce Harper would have signed with the Rockies and broke Bonds’ single season and career home run marks during the course of a 13 year deal? He has 184 career homers and would only need 44 HR/season…….
Intriguing idea, Paul. I’ll say one other thing about Harper. But for that one insane year, and the hype coming out of school, Harper doesn’t look that extraordinary. The irony is that he could end up looking more like Norm Cash than Barry Bonds.
Harper is an exceptionally well marketed product.
To your point, among players with 1000 PA over the past three seasons, 47 recorded more oWAR per PA than Harper.
I think Brown and Ramirez have a leg up on the other candidates. Allen’s career was just too short, and Lyons’ value is too much for his longevity and not enough for his peak (best 5 years only 24.5 WAR), with his WAR concentrated below average performance rather than above.
People criticize Manny’s offensive numbers for coming in an offensive era, but I don’t think there’s much doubt that he was among the top 5 hitters of his era, averaging almost 5 oWAR over an extended 12 year peak (1995-2006). But, on the flip side are defense, distraction and PEDs which knock him out of the elite company he enjoys on the offensive side.
So, that leaves Brown, with a huge 5-year peak (36.7 WAR, 27.3 WAA), and a really good 10-year run as well (54.6 WAR, 36.2 WAA). Particularly impressive is that most of Brown’s WAR is above average performance rather than below. Negatives are a taciturn personality and less impressive post-season numbers (but, don’t tell that to the Braves).
So, my vote goes to Brown.
Here is how Manny and Richie match up through roughly 7000 PA.
I’ve omitted Allen’s final season of 200 PA.
And this is Ramirez through 2005.
(note that he still had 2 exceptional seasons, 2 above average seasons, and one average season left in the tank)
55.1 WAR / 30.0 WAA / 240.0 PaWaa
58.5 WAR / 33.4 WAA / 213.0 PaWaa
.314 / .409 / .599 / 1.008 / 156
.293 / .379 / .539 / .918 / 158
_______________________
Leaders in OPS+ since 1946:
190 … Ted WIlliams
182 … Bonds
172 … Mantle
163 … McG
157 … Musial
156 … Mays
156 … Frank Thomas
156 … DICK ALLEN
155 … Aaron
155 … Votto
154 … Frank Robinson
154 …MANNY
151 … Miguel Cabrera
149 … Kiner
149 … Bagwell
149 … Pujols
________________________
The same group, through 7000 PA:
192 … Williams
176 … Mantle
172 … Musial
172 … Pujols
168 … Frank Thomas
164 … McG
161 … Bonds
160 … Mays
157 … Bagwell
157 … Aaron
156 … DICK ALLEN
156 … MANNY
155 … Votto
154 … Cabrera
154 … Frank Robinson
149 … Kiner
________________________
I dont have a point to make.
Just presenting numbers.
I have no idea at this point who Im going to vote for.
Im inclined to dismiss Allen, simply due to his shorter career.
However, I was one of the most vocal boosters of both Larry Walker and Lou Boudreau, so…
Of course, those guys excelled at every aspect of the game (Lou taking it a step further being player/manager/shortstop/MVP on a WS Champ).
Perhaps a pitcher…
Those ops+ leaders are for 5000+ PA.
Trout is sitting on 4673 and 175
There has been plenty of discussion of PEDs, but I think it would be good to restate some points. As everyone here surely knows, I don’t believe that the stats of any player for whom there is hard evidence of PED use should be regarded as accurate. But at least four robust arguments in favor of accepting PED-involved player stats as is have been offered on this site (there may have been more; these made the greatest impression on me becsuse they’re hard thought). Let me try to restate them (I’m obviously simplifying according to my understanding, and certainly open to correction):
(1) Voomo has argued several times that steroid use in MLB in the 1990s and early 2000s was broadly enabled by management, the press, and fans. It is wrong and hypocritical to scapegoat and penalize individual players whose actions simply reflected the values and implicit messaging of society.
(2) Josh Davis has stressed that cheating has been endemic to MLB all along, and it is unfair to single out one particular type of cheating (PED use) while tolerating without significant penalty other forms, such as spitballers and bat-corkers.
(3) Doom has argued that it has always been normal for players to seek a playing edge by artificial means, such as greenies in their day (he even referenced some patent medicine that Honus Wagner used; a tale I’d never encountered). So it was a normal and not an unusually unethical response by players of the 1990s to use the drugs of their times, steroids, and they were in no way different from widely respected players of earlier eras, who did not use steroids only because they were not around.
(4) Doom has also argued that steroid use was so pervasive, that we cannot know the identities of PED users, and should not assume that those for whom there is strong evidence are uniquely guilty while those for whom there is no evidence are not.
Every one of these arguments has merit, but I disagree with them and I’ve offered various responses, sometimes involving limited counter-arguments (that may distinguish, for example, between spitballs, greenies and PEDs, or that invoke standards of evidence that are universally used in making best judgments about facts), but mostly just focusing on one point: the issue is not the character or morality of the players; the issue is simply the integrity of their stats (basically, Kenny Lofton’s argument). Players who used steroids played with an unfair advantage over players who were not users, and we see clearly in a case like Barry Bonds that the effects of PEDs could both dramatically raise performance – altering WAR rate – and increase career longevity – inflating total WAR. Players who did not use PEDs did not get these benefits, and their stats suffered relative to those of PED users (including stats like ERA+ and OPS+), both because they were disadvantaged on field and because they could not compile WAR at the rates and to the degrees of users. (Of course, for some users PEDs did not work and their careers ended early or poorly in spite of their usage; they are not in the CoG discussions.)
In this runoff election, when we compare Brown to Lyons or Allen to Ramirez, if an assessment of PED impact is not made for the recent players then the meaning of “Great,” as in the “Circle of,” loses its integrity. Measures like OPS+ and ERA+ are our guides to leveling the playing field with regard to era, but there is no available stat that can level the playing field with regard to PEDs: we have to assess that on our own. We all know full well that our judgment can only be subjective, as guided by evidence. However, not to make an assessment and judgment is to ignore the fact that Lyons and Allen are competing with a handicap; our votes become based on numbers that are not meaningful for comparative work.
I wrote at length about this issue with regard to Ramirez during Round 3 – I don’t know how to link to my specific comment, as Doom did his earlier, since I put no hypertext anchor in it, but it’s about halfway down, a response to my own “Interim vote report” comment. I don’t want to weight this comment down with a repeat. We all know Manny was caught twice late in his career, and this opens up distressingly broad but justifiable suspicions, prompted by a combination of irrefutable evidence and minimal inference, about the possible impact of PEDs earlier in his career.
In the case of Kevin Brown, the Mitchell Report (pp. 214-17) has a detailed case file on him. There is strong evidence, including direct testimony and documents, that he used PEDs during the period 2001-4, and the man who supplied him with steroids in 2001 testified that upon their initial discussions in 2000, “Brown was ‘very knowledgeable’ about human growth hormone.” Just the period 2001-4 involved recovery from an injury and 520+ IP with 130 ERA+. At the very least, that is one-sixth of Brown’s career stats that lack integrity, and the testimony that he was familiar with human growth hormone before that period, together with the very strong evidence of usage over those four seasons (you can read the pages to see) opens up justified suspicion of his earlier career.
It is not necessary to say that Brown and Ramirez were bad people, or even that they did something bad, to recognize that Lyons and Allen are unfairly disadvantaged in any statistical comparisons with their runoff opponents. Lyons and Allen should not suffer a penalty because society in the late ‘90s and early 2000s tolerated PED usage; they should not suffer penalties because Gaylord Perry threw a spitball or Graig Nettles corked his bat; they should not be penalized because they had no access to steroids; they should not be penalized because we can’t be sure who cheated with PEDs decades after they retired. We should not be saying of them that they may have been Greats, but if they could not accomplish without PEDs as much or more than others were able to accomplish with the help of PEDs, theirs was a lesser Greatness.
Before I respond to the comment, I want to try to be helpful about linking back to a comment. If you’re looking on the non-mobile version of the site, each comment has two little logos in the upper right-hand corner – one with a “Share” logo and one with a “Link” logo. I just click the chains for the link logo and copy-paste it into the new comment. I believe you were talking, in your post, about this comment. Hope that was the right one. Now my three-year-old is very jealous of me using the computer and wants to write his name, so I’m going to let him do that. I’ll be back later to respond to your comment itself.
Wow! It works. I always thought those doo-dads were simply decorations. Thank you, Doom. I’ll look for your response later on, after your son has completed his own commentary.
Bravo, Bob. You said it all.
If I were to venture a guess, the anti-PEDs faction is over 45 years of age. But, it has been universally agreed across sport (except for American team sports) that if you’re caught cheating, a la Ben Johnson or Tim Montgomery, your records are expunged and your medals surrendered. No one is hankering to remove the Super Bowl Steelers of the 70s from the record book despite strong evidence (in hindsight) of steroid use nor deny Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds surpassed Maris. This aspect of American culture to me is almost as jive as the CIA overthrowing governments in Central American banana republics….almost. By the same token, maybe it’s just me and some sort of obsession with statistics and accurately measuring sports performance?
Yes, the NCAA does the same thing, Paul. I’d oppose it for baseball. It’s an all-or-nothing zero-tolerance approach that I think errs on the other side as much as ignoring PED’s effect on statistics. And it would deeply undermine what makes MLB special to create empty gaps in its almost 150-year-old statistical record. After all, who on this site doesn’t share your obsession with baseball statistics? Unfortunately, I think the best MLB can do with its records is to leave them as they are. It’s up to us to deal with the imprecision and ambiguities that remain, and I think that’s what all of us here are doing as best we can, according to our lights.
But…. the asterisk!! They put in an asterisk!
Well Paul, being 45.9 years old, I definitely straddle two worlds.
Still the revolutionary youthful agitator, but also a fully embodied curmudgeon.
What those two personas share is a zero-tolerance for phonies.
And our whole danged society feels like a banana republic.
Numbers, however, are true.
And baseball stats are beautiful.
And I hate that the whole collection of delicious numbers has been compromised.
Paul E. I am part of the anti-Peds faction, I am well past 45 years old (not sure how that happened that fast, but it did). I never mind old records being broken–it’s part of the magic of baseball that historic marks are chased every few years–someone measuring themselves up to Ruth, DiMaggio, Ted Williams, etc. When I was growing up, Walter Johnson’s career record for K’s was almost considered beyond reach–3509 seemed crazy–who could imagine pitching 17 years of 200K per year (many seasons no pitchers reached 200) and still being short? Johnson held the record from 1921 to 1983. My problem with PEDS may very well be an old man’s problem–seeing players obliterate golden accomplishments while cheating. Doesn’t sit right with me.
To illustrate your point, Walter Johnson broke his own record.
When we were growing up he only had 3508.
Mike L.
It’s not so much that Sosa Mc Gwire and Bonds surpassed Maris – it’s more like everybody and a ham sandwich hitting 40 homers or knocking in 125+ runs. Sosa hit 60 THREE times…. It just didn’t feel ‘authentic’ as it was happening. And all the pitching around batters (even in the 7 and 8 slots in the order) and the numerous pitching changes and 4+ hour games – it was ugly. The offensive explosion was new and it was a novelty at one point. But, it got old and ugly. I can’t say when the steroids started in MLB, but by the mid-90’s, I believe, it was rampant. I believe the 1993 Phillies went from last to first and won a National league pennant with all their ‘career” years simultaneously/mysteriously concurring under the influence of team “chemistry” . But, it happened and we can’t ignore it. And, who, at age 25 and piles of money and peer pressure abundant, would say, “No, I’m above this…the game is bigger than me”?
Two thumbs up for that “ham sandwich” comment. It’s what I should have said. I sometimes have more sympathy for the marginal guy who juiced just to stay in the game….but then I think about the minor leaguers who didn’t, and maybe lost the call-up. I just can’t reconcile the use of it. I also don’t understand why MLB stands aside with A-Rod in the TV booth (and Ortiz as some sore of “ambassador”
Bob, perhaps this falls under the file of beating a dead horse, but I am struck by this statement from your post:
“Players who used steroids played with an unfair advantage over players who were not users, and we see clearly in a case like Barry Bonds that the effects of PEDs could both dramatically raise performance – altering WAR rate – and increase career longevity – inflating total WAR. Players who did not use PEDs did not get these benefits, and their stats suffered relative to those of PED users (including stats like ERA+ and OPS+), both because they were disadvantaged on field..”
I can’t help but think, couldn’t we tweak that a bit and find Gaylord Perry?
Players who used spitballs played with an unfair advantage over players who did not use spitballs and we see clearly in a case like Gaylord Perry that the effects of using spitballs could both dramatically raise performance, and increase career longevity – inflating total WAR. Players who did not use spitballs did not get those benefits and their stats suffered relative to those of spitball users, because they were disadvantaged on the field.
P.S. I’m honored to have received a note in your post alongside such HHS luminaries like Voomo and Dr. Doom.
Actually, Josh, I believe the way you frame your position on PEDs is the most challenging one to respond to — not that Voomo and Doom don’t offer strong arguments, but the force of yours seems the greatest to me. It isn’t just a baseball issue. There are endless cases where society treats differently rule-breaking activities that may appear to be the same in some key respect, and it is often hard to find clear reasons why we do so. And once we have found the reasons, it may be unclear whether we should endorse them as adequate or argue that society needs to change.
If spitballs are cheating and PEDs are cheating, why treat one as a minor infraction and the other as a federal case? For my basic response to this general argument, I’m going to stick with the reply I gave you a year ago (which, thanks to Doom’s guidance, I can now link to directly). I don’t think I have anything more I can add to it.
While I think your general argument is relly challenging to respond to, I think applying it to this specific context is actually not as difficult. So far as I know, Ted Lyons and Dick Allen did not cheat. Following your line of reasoning, if the CoG contest were between a Perry-like pitcher and a Lyons-like one with comparable statistical qualifications (just to stick with pitchers), Lyons should get the nod because Perry cheated. And if you made that argument in that context I’d probably agree. I don’t see the spitball as particularly comparable to PEDs, for reasons explained in that earlier comment, but as a near-tie-breaker issue I think it has force. For me, because of the nature and magnitude of PED rule violation, the force is far greater in scale.
Moreover, I think you are making some erroneous assumptions about the way Perry’s CoG case was handled. I’ve gone back to look at some of the strings when Perry was a CoG candidate. Perry was a candidate with 93.4 pWAR, and so not a borderline case. But some HHS posters did hold his cheating against him. Mike L, for example, said that for him it was disqualifying. A more moderate reaction was hartvig’s: “Not a huge Gaylord Perry fan but the only way he’s not the best player on the ballot is if I penalize him more than I do say Palmeiro or McGwire for cheating.” In the end, Perry had to wait till his fifth ballot, and then his 93.4 pWAR prevailed over runner-up Ron Santo’s 70.5 bWAR. The round before, Brooks Robinson (78.4 WAR) had prevailed. (He had previously lost to Phil Niekro, 97.2 pWAR, Mariano Rivera, 56.3 pWAR, and Ken Griffey Jr., 83.8 bWAR.)
I was taking a break from HHS that year, but I think I’d have agreed with hartvig. I liked Perry and felt his cat-and-mouse form of cheating was part of a long baseball tradition that was, in a sense, outlawry within bounds. But in a head-to-head match with someone like Phil Niekro, whose WAR was comparable, I’d have thought Perry needed to wait (as did HHS voters when that choice was available). Only once I saw Perry as clearly the best candidate on the ballot after I docked him for his outlawry would he have gotten my vote. Judging by the CoG voting results, that’s the way many voters saw it. But resistance to Perry’s spitball advantage lasted only a few rounds and was weaker (in terms of comments) than resistance to PED advantage has been, clearly because cheating with PEDs is seen by many HHS voters as of far greater magnitude.
So it seems to me that the thrust of your argument in this context actually suggests that we should be docking Ramirez and Brown and waiting until they are unquestionably the best candidates after their stats have been adjusted. Unlike Perry, they are in competition with a cluster of players with roughly comparable WAR value, and more are waiting back on the Primary and Secondary ballots. Even if we grant your argument that all cheating is equally cheating, why should we treat Ramirez and Brown better than we treated Perry?
Thanks for look back at previous voting — I wasn’t around for that and didn’t know about those conversations. As for “we” treating players differently, I’m not sure how that works since each individual voter has their own standards. Personally, I lean towards a more all or nothing approach, and in that view the cat is already out of the bag with Perry in.
Another way of looking at it: You say many voters penalize or discount the career totals of proven cheaters. OK, but should we also take into account the fact that Ramirez actually did serve suspensions, whereas Perry didn’t? One could argue, if we want to be fair, you’d have to add 2-3 WAR to Manny’s total before you dock him since he was forced to miss games that others did not.
It’s very close, but to me it’s Lyons, especially since he lose seasons due to WW II
WAR by best seasons.
Brown/Lyons/Allen/Manny
8.6 … 7.4 … 8.8 … 7.3
7.9 … 6.0 … 8.6 … 6.0
7.1 … 5.4 … 7.5 … 6.0
7.0 … 5.4 … 6.4 … 5.4
6.2 … 5.3 … 5.4 … 5.3
4.8 … 4.8 … 5.3 … 5.2
4.5 … 4.7 … 3.8 … 4.8
4.3 … 4.7 … 3.7 … 4.6
4.0 … 4.4 … 3.5 … 4.5
3.6 … 3.8 … 2.9 … 4.4
3.1 … 3.3 … 2.3 … 4.2
2.8 … 2.5 … 0.7 … 4.1
2.1 … 2.0 … 0.0 … 3.0
1.6 … 1.9 … -0.5 .. 2.2
1.6 … 1.9 … ……… 1.6
0.2 … 1.9 … ……… 1.1
-0.2 .. 1.5 … ……… 0.8
-0.4 .. 0.5 … ……… -0.3
-0.4 .. 0.4 … ……… -0.8
………. 0.3 … ……..
………. -0.5
Allen
Allen
Allen
Brown
Brown
Allen
Manny
Lyons
Manny
Manny
Manny
Manny
Manny
Lyons
Lyons
Lyons
Lyons
Lyons
Lyons
Sorry for the above typo. Lyons lost three seasons due to WW II. In his final season before the war he led the AL in ERA with a 2.10, and won 14 games. He then missed the next three seasons; but for the war he may well have finished with 300 wins. His 71.4 WAR would also have likely moved up into the high 70’s.
Just to reinforce your point, Bruce, when Lyons returned from the War in 1946 he completed all of his five starts with a 148 ERA+ before retiring in order to become manager.
And I might add that Lyons volunteered for the military.
Most of the years are pretty close. The only significant gaps between 1st place and 2nd place are Manny in years 10 through 13.
That either speaks to conditioning, genetics, talent, and greatness.
Or that he did something we don’t yet approve of to maintain his excellence into a 2nd decade.
Or both.
If i look at the Hall of Fame Statistics from BR, Manny Ramirez is clearly my choice.
He is not very far behind in
Black Ink and Gray Ink, which favor players from the past and he leads the 3 others in the Hall of Fame Monitor and Hall of Fame Standards.
And his JAWS is also the best of the four.
He is 10th alltime in Left Field JAWS, with the 9 players in front of him beeing 7 HOFers, Barry Bonds and Pete Rose;-)
And only 652 of Rose’s
3435 starts were in LF.
I think the concept of being that he had more value there then at first base, where he appeared in more games. Rose is his own category, having played five positions.
Of course, if you’re looking at the Bill James Hall monitor and standards, that implies you’re aiming to act like a 1980s-90s BBWAA voter (what James was trying to predict with those stats, *NOT* player greatness or value).
And if you’re doing that, one might wonder why you care about the COG or alternate halls at all.
We *already have* the hall that the HOM/HOFS decision making process implies. It’s in Cooperstown, and even for those of us who disagree with a lot of their decisions, it’s a really cool place to visit. You should totally go see it!
My vote is for Manny Ramirez.
Thanks!
Compelling arguments for all run-off candidates, but here is my ranking of the 4:
1. Brown
2. Ramirez
3. Lyons
4. Allen
So Kevin Brown has my vote.
Interesting article advocating mandated reductions in the size of pitching staffs as a way to speed up the game and reduce strikeouts.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/relievers-have-broken-baseball-we-have-a-plan-to-fix-it/
A terrific analysis and very good proposal until he starts talking about emergency pitchers, then it enters the realm of fantasy.
Agreed. Complexity can be the enemy of good policy. I also don’t see the need to limit positional players getting on the mound. What I’d rather see is a 3 batter minimum through six innings, if we are going down this road. Once you get to the seventh, i don’t have a problem with situational changes. I also like the idea of a 10-person max pitching staff. I’d like to see more creativity with roster use in game and you can’t do that right now when you have virtually no bench.
I think what Silver’s worrying about is not position players on the mound, but relief pitchers classified as position players to evade the minimum.
Maybe I should sleep more before commenting…
Good article. More rules than ideal, but perhaps there’s no alternative: obviously Nate Silver has given this a lot of thought.
It’s an interesting thing, related but tangential, that the main driver of all this is simple physiology: A pitcher can put enormous stress on his arm for a dozen pitches every couple of days without damage, and this can turn an ordinary starter into a fearsome reliever (in Silver’s terms, an “Oh My God!”). It’s not new knowledge; it’s surprising it took a century after the lively ball was introduced for teams to start drawing the logical conclusion. (It’s also interesting that the opposite applies to pinch-hitting, which, I suppose for psychological reasons, is less effective than batting as a regular.)
To add a tangent to a tangent and bring the thought to bear on this runoff: Ted Lyons told a story about how early in his career, he developed a sore arm. One day, playing Washington, he was walking with his other hand across his body, massaging his arm, and passed Walter Johnson, who was out of action with a sore arm and doing the same thing. They agreed that an old adage about “pitching with your head” was bunk: that you had to have your arm at full strength. Johnson was then about done, but his SO rate was still 4.0 (amazingly, it was never as high as twice that); it’s easy to see how arm strength was essential to his pitching. But even then, Lyons was a finesse pitcher with a SO rate of about 2.0, and it’s interesting that he would have been the one to say that pitching with your head was nonsense. After Lyons turned into a Sunday pitcher late in his career, his SO rates rose. The only times he ever broke 3.0 were his ages 38-40 seasons, and, of course, he was completing virtually all his games. Silver’s Oh My Gods! are one-inning power pitchers, devoting arm strength to speed, but skilled finesse pitchers like Lyons may be devoting comparable muscle effort to pinpoint control.
Since tomorrow’s the last day for vote changes in this runoff, I though it might be helpful to post an update of the vote so far. This is what my tally shows after 12 votes:
4 – Lyons
3 – Brown, Ramirez
2 – Allen
Voters: oneblankspace, Hub Kid, Dave H, epm, Doom, Richard C, Paul E, Doug, Bruce G, koma, opal611, Andy
I should have specified that “tomorrow” means Monday (which is, at the moment, “today”).
Something occurred to me today: I started thinking about Ted Lyons. Bruce Gilbert mentioned that he could’ve gotten to 300 wins, without WWII. That’s true; but you know what? Don Sutton did get to 300 wins. Don Sutton, in fact, pitched 1150 more innings than Ted Lyons (5282-4161), with a much lower ERA (3.26 to 3.67). Some of that is the epoch in which they played (don’t you find the word era confusing when people are talking about ERAs, as well? I always do); Sutton has a lower ERA+ (118-108). That said, it’s only 10% lower, while he pitched 20% more innings. Baseball-Reference has Sutton 1 WAR ahead, which means tied; Fangraphs, for what it’s worth, has Sutton 30 WAR ahead of Lyons. Lyons made one All-Star team, Sutton made four. Lyons’ White Sox never finished higher than 3rd, while Sutton pitched for six pennant-winners (the ’66, ’74, ’77, ’78, and ’88 Dodgers, plus the ’82 Brewers) and two other playoff teams (’81 Astros and ’86 Angels). Sure, a lot of that is being in the right place at the right time… but Sutton was 6-4 with a 3.68 for teams that mostly LOST in the postseason. I honestly don’t see how you can vote for Lyons but not for Sutton… so I look forward to Sutton’s election next round if Lyons is elected this round.
In preparing a response to Doom’s comment, I discovered a significant error that I have made repeatedly in posting Ted Lyons’ stats. When I began to use the measure of WAR/162IP a few rounds ago, I miscalculated Lyons’ figure and exaggerated his value. His career figure should be 2.6 WAR/162IP, rather than 2.9. I apologize. It’s quite an embarrassing miscalculation, seeing that I have relied on the higher figure in arguing Lyons’ case.
With the wind out of my sails, I will nevertheless attempt to respond to Doom’s comparison of Lyons and Sutton.
Here are the corrected (I hope) figures for the two.
pWAR (Tot bWAR)…Peak5..Top5…WAR/162IP…..ERA+…Career length
67.2 (71.6)………………24.2…..29.0……..2.6…………..118……..1.3…………Ted Lyons
68.7 (67.4)………………22.5…..27.3….….2.1…………..108……..1.6…………Don Sutton
In addition to a higher ERA+ (which measures across eras, and which is not an insignificant +10% for Lyons), Lyons had a higher peak and, most significantly, even after my error is accounted for, generated over 24% more pWAR per inning (and +35% bWAR if we consider batting).
fWAR thinks Sutton is far better for two reasons. (1) lots more IP, (2) lots more strike outs. It is not measuring game success, it is telling us that Lyons was a finesse pitcher and Sutton a power pitcher, which is certainly true.
As for Sutton’s postseason performances, his teams won four series and lost five. Since the opponents were different, we should disaggregate those nine series. Sutton went 4-1 in series that his teams won and 2-3 in series which his team lost. That 2-3 record was all in World Series; his ERA was 5.26. Sutton’s team’s overall postseason record was 23-25, so, aggregated, Sutton was one win above projections.
Rather than argue that Sutton’s postseason record in 15 games shows how much better than his teams he was, it would be more reliable to compare Sutton and Lyons when it comes to how much better than their teams they were over the course of many hundreds of regular games.
….W-L………..Pct……Team W-L Pct.…….Pct. Differential
260-230…… .531 …… .460 ……………………..+.071…………Ted Lyons
324-256…… .559 …… .533 ……………………..+.026…………Don Sutton
It is more likely that a good pitcher will outperform a poor supporting team than a good one, but the gap between Lyons and Sutton here is pretty significant. Pitching for consistently strong teams, Sutton was able to compile a winning record only moderately higher than Lyons, who pitched for a consistently awful team.
So I think Doom’s comparison is, after all, quite misleading, and not at all up to his usual standards of argument. However, frankly, I’m feeling more concerned about my data error, which is a much larger misstep.
Oh. One more detail concerning Doom’s argument. He notes that Sutton was in four All-Star games and Lyons only one. Lyons’ five best seasons were all within the period 1925-32. The first All-Star game was in 1933.
The argument was ever-so-slightly cheeky and facetious, Bob. Im perfectly aware of when the All-Star Game started. I just don’t think Lyons is a very strong candidate, and I don’t think he’s a markedly better candidate than Sutton. They’re similar, more than your argument lets on. But still, I think it’s funny to speculate about 300 wins for one guy as a qualification while ignoring a guy who actually HAS 300 wins.
Sorry, Doom. I saw the edgy humor, but I didn’t spot the tongue in cheek.
I suppose the reason some of us don’t see anything odd about pointing out that with his three War seasons Lyons would probably have reached 300 games is because 300+ wins is the heart of Sutton’s case: the thing he’s got that Lyons doesn’t (along with a lot of average innings and higher K-rates, much of which reflects the eras). 300 wins is a very good thing, a major accomplishment, but is not, in itself, a CoG ticket, per Early Wynn, and in peak and rate measures, Sutton looks a lot more like Wynn than Lyons.
pWAR (Tot bWAR)…Peak5..Top5…WAR/162IP…..ERA+…Career length
67.2 (71.6)………………24.2…..29.0……..2.6…………..118……..1.3…………Ted Lyons
68.7 (67.4)………………22.5…..27.3….….2.1…………..108……..1.6…………Don Sutton
52.0 (61.1)………………23.8…..28.1……..1.8…………..107……..1.4….……..Early Wynn
I have to step in here with a fairly old and boring argument that always has bothered me.
“fWAR thinks Sutton is far better for two reasons. (1) lots more IP, (2) lots more strike outs.
Bob then points out, correctly, “It is not measuring game success, it is telling us that Lyons was a finesse pitcher and Sutton a power pitcher, which is certainly true.”
I certainly grant that in today’s game, a power pitcher is generally to be preferred. But, go back to Lyon’s era, and not only was the pitching game was played differently, with an emphasis on pitching later into games, but batters approached the plate with a different philosophy. More of them worried about making contact, more choked up, especially with 2 strikes, more true sacrifice attempts, and more hitting the balls behind the runner—sacrifices all but in name. In 1939, Ted Williams, then in his rookie year, was tied for tenth in MLB in K’s. With 64. He had 709 in his career. Paul Goldschmidt, who I think everyone would agree is a very good hitter and a model of consistency, averages a K per game. I don’t have any doubt Sutton, if you walked him back several decades, wouldn’t have K’d more than Lyons. But how much more?
If you start with the first full season for each, Lyons and Sutton, look at league K-rates at 5-year intervals (fudging a little for Lyons to dodge his war years), this is what you get:
SO/9….League SO/9….Differential
2.3…………3.2…………….. – 0.9…………Lyons
6.1…………5.4…………….. +0.7………..Sutton
So Sutton’s significantly stronger in Ks relative to his era, but the situation isn’t like, say, Sandy Koufax or Randy Johnson, whose K-rate differentials were about +4.0.
Thanks Bob. OK, so for argument’s sake, let’s bore down a little. Sutton was 13% better than league. So, if he was playing in Lyon’s time, he’d be averaging about 3.7 K per nine? He pitched 5282 innings, translating to a projected cumulative K total of 2,171. About 100 per season. Eh. I know he likely would have done better, being bigger, but eh
Well, Sutton was never a high-K pitcher in the context of his league — his best showing was 4th twice, and it was much the same with his SO/9 story. It’s only when you think about fWAR across eras that he becomes a high-K guy, mostly because he reflects his era. I think Sutton’s strength is really SO/W, and if I’d been in a fairer mood earlier, I’d have said that fWAR liked him relative to Lyons because of that figure. Their BB/9 figures are very close, but Lyons’ SO/W ratio suffers from low-K, while Sutton’s looks better in terms of his own era than his SO/9 figure looks.
You know, I’ve wound up a Sutton-basher because I think CoG candidacy is currently above his quality level, but I really admired the guy. He began as a third-starter type and rose to a second-starter type, pitching on some teams without a real ace, and he kept that higher-than-expected profile for a long time because he was the Energizer bunny and pitched solid games, allowing limited number of baserunners. I would not have thought in 1966 that Sutton would win even 200 games, but he pulled off an elite number and my hat’s off to him (and I wear hats). But his two best seasons were in the 6-WAR range, and only three others were above 3.5 (a level Lyons exceeded in his tenth-best season). I just think the CoG threshold is going to have to get a good deal lower before it’s his time to step in, while Lyons (and Allen) are at the gate now.
Are we sure that fWAR for pitchers doesn’t context adjust these things accurately so that even if pure FIP would favor pitchers in low-scoring contexts, fWAR would not?
I don’t actually know, but I’d say if it doesn’t, we should basically throw fWAR out completely.
If it *does* adjust for context reasonably, then it *might* tell us something useful about Sutton’s value v. Lyons or power vs. finesse pitchers generally, or at least about the reliability of their RA9 based numbers as a pitcher value gauge. And it would also mean that this argument is largely irrelevant because the difference is already covered.
I don’t know which is the case, but I already don’t trust fWAR for pitchers very much.
The debates have been very thoughtful in this runoff, with positions well fought….
Finding that it is getting harder to pass on Brown the more slots open up. He was no ray of sunshine, and PED suspicion is there. But his on field numbers are there with his contemporaries already in, and his case has been ardently supported since early on. Manny was no angel either, but despite his dominance, his PED violations obviously make him a tough call for this electorate. I just can’t get excited about Lyons in comparison, and Allen needs a significant credit as well.
Let’s make this interesting. I will change my vote from Ramirez to Brown. There are plenty of voters out there who have not weighed in, so this shouldn’t stay a tie for long….
Allen and Ramirez, their stats adjusted to a 2018 American league neutral Park
.302 / .390 / .552 / .942
.297 / .393 / .555 / .948
Time for me to vote. I appreciated everyone’s careful analysis. I eliminated Manny and Brown not just for consistency’s sake (no PEDS as a rule) but also because of what Paul E noted it below-the extreme unlikelihood of Sosa hitting over 60 HRs in 3 separate seasons. That over-performance against a historic standard tells me either Sosa was some sort of freak of nature, or that PEDS made the man. Inevitably, it brings you back not just to cheating, but to quantifying the value of the cheating. In Sosa’s case, it’s completely reasonable to assume it was huge. So, when I say I’m not voting for either Manny or Brown, I’m not just arguing about cheating, but just acknowledging that if we are judging people on numbers, you have to have some confidence that the numbers are even close to accurate–and I don’t. I don’t doubt Manny would have been a very fine hitter, or Brown a good pitcher, without PEDS. But, let’s face it. If their “true talent” was 50 WAR (a level most players never get near) we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Thanks for letting me have my last rant on this thread.
Anyway, Lyons is my choice.
Okay, I am going to try to settle on a vote today.
Allen vs Manny?
I see them as essentially the same hitter.
Except Manny came to the plate nearly 2500 more times.
Personalities?
Dont care. If anything, Im more inclined to like difficult people.
PEDs? Do we know that Manny used during his peak? No.
So, if Im picking between those two, I’ll go with Manny.
_____
Brown vs Lyons?
Brown was dominant when he was dominant.
‘Only’ 3rd or 4th best pitcher in his own league? Yes. But in an era of truly great pitchers.
Did he use the bad drugs? Looks like it.
Did he use them during his peak? Maybe.
Was Lyons one of the very best pitchers in his era?
Not really.
What he did do was defy the clock, in part because of his team’s strategic use of his talent.
But pitching well in the late 30’s and beyond was unusual in the old days.
Here are the pitching WAR leaders for ages 37-41, before 1946:
36.3 … Cy
26.6 … Dazzy
24.6 … Lefty
21.8 … Babe Adams
19.7 … Alexander
19.6 … LYONS
18.6 … Quinn
17.9 … Plank
17.4 … Niggeling
The fact that he elected to go to war while still accumulating WAR is something to consider.
Voom,
Never heard of “Niggeling” and thought you were making some reference to “Nig” Cuppy. Anyway, thanks for the list since that was a pretty ineteresting career for Niggeling
Doug’s right. Lyons has no peak and Allen’s career was just too short.
So, with love to our most evil Dr.
Kevin Brown
Oh man that felt horrible to type.
Ive mentally changed my vote from Manny to Lyons to Brown in the last 90 seconds.
As a 40-something in an obstinate stare-down with time and injury, Im gonna give it to the guy who got it done late and gave it up with something left in the tank:
Vote:
Ted Lyons
Yeah, I IMMEDIATELY wanted to edit my post and change it. This is a nerve wracking runoff for sure.
I’ll vote for Kevin Brown.
Jose LeClerc just signed an extension with Texas.
Last year he had the lowest H/9 of all time in a season of at least 55 IP.
Here are the leaders for 50+ IP:
3.50 … Aroldis (54 IP)
3.75 … LeClerc (58)
3.88 … Kimbrel (63)
3.93 … Carl Edwards (66)
3.98 … Hader (81)
4.00 … Uehara (74)
4.04 … Gagne (82)
4.12 … Marmol (87)
4.13 … Jeff Nelson (65)
4.21 … Aroldis (51)
4.22 … Wagner (75)
4.29 … Valverde (50)
4.30 … Kimbrel (69)
4.32 … Aroldis (50)
4.32 … Balfour (58)
4.34 … Bastardo (58)
4.35 … Kuo (60)
4.37 … Betances (60)
4.38 … Kimbrel (62)
4.40 … Aroldis (72)
____________________
Chapman and Kimbrel have 7 of the top 20.
Only 5 of the top 20 before 2010.
Only one from last century being BIlly Wagner in ’99.
Here are the leaders until 1999:
4.22 … Wagner (75)
4.50 … Percival (74)
4.60 … Mike Naymick (63)
4.62 … Percival (74)
4.62 … Benitez (78)
4.65 … Rob Murphy (50)
4.70 … Vincente Romo (84)
4.71 … Jim Brewer (78)
4.76 … Ryne Duren (76)
Those were the first two seasons of Percival’s career. Identical IP, H/9 off by one.
Romo was a Cleveland rookie in 1968.
Brewer was in ’72 with the Dodgers, and he had a 1.26 ERA.
Duren placed 2nd in the ROY that year (though he had pitched 44.2 innings over parts of two previous seasons).
He also pitched 9.1 innings in the World Series , striking out 14.
Naymick was in 1943.
The military rejected him because he was six foot eight.
That 4.6 H/9 was coupled with a 6.8 BB/9.
He would only throw 15 more MLB innings in one more season.
Interesting that Rivera isn’t on this list, and his lowest season mark isn’t that close at around 5.2. It was one of his best seasons, highest ERA+, and one of the lower FIP, and trailing only his 107IP 1996 season (before they made him a “closer”) in WAR and WAA.
Rivera was never an ultra-high strikeout pitcher. He was over 9.8 K/9 only once. He managed two decades of consistent brilliance by consistently keeping the total number of baserunners down. His lifetime WHIP is 3rd.
Three things:
I read recently that Bill James has entered the “You kids get off of my lawn” phase of his career; that’s not untrue. He’s often unkind to ideas that aren’t his own. But he has a REALLY interesting take on Baseball-Reference pitcher WAR. The finale of the series is available here. The series began on February 14, and you can read the whole set of posts in the archive here (though you’ll actually have to go to page two for the first article, but the rest are on that first page). He makes a great argument, I think, about how Baseball-Reference WAR does it’s pitcher adjusting. On the one hand, I think he overstates some of his claims, and he seems to have a PARTICULAR problem with how pitchers from the mid-1950s to about 1980 are handled. That said, the mathematical argument that pitcher defensive support is, for some weird reason, NOT individualized, is spot-on. Basically, Tango has the right idea in his rebuttal here.
The James series is really good and entertainingly written, with some looks back at pitchers you might remember or learn about for the first time. It was a pretty good time reading it over the last three weeks, and I think you’d all appreciate it.
—————
As to the Ted Lyons strikeout pitcher discussion, Lyons had a career 0.96 SO:BB ratio in a league with a 1.20 SO:BB ratio, 80% as effective as an average pitcher. Don Sutton had a 2.66 SO:BB ratio in leagues with a 1.76 SO:BB ratio, about 50% MORE effective than an average pitcher (150% of average). I just have a hard time seeing Lyons as super electable and Sutton as unelectable. And, frankly, I’d rather have Drysdale than either of them, but what do I know?
—————
My current vote count (which I will readily admit could be incorrect) shows this round as follows:
Lyons – 6
Brown – 6
Allen – 2
Ramirez – 2
(I have Allen above Ramirez because, of the two, Ramirez received the more recent vote, and that’s the tiebreaker in this round. Likewise, JEV’s vote for Brown was the most recent, so Lyons would take the round as of right now.) A vote today for Brown or Lyons could absolutely seal it. I look forward to seeing what any late voters might do.
Three voters from the 131st round have yet to cast ballots, so there may be some interesting action today.
It is unquestionably true that Sutton’s greatest strength lies in his SO/W ratio, and that Lyons is unusually weak in that stat, entirely because of his low K-rate. Sutton is also strong in WHIP. I’d need more time than I have today to match up Sutton & Lyons in era contexts, but Lyons did not often make the leaderboard. I think no one has claimed that Lyons is super electable — it’s not true. I voted for him here but he was my third pick on my regular ballot (I do think Dahlen and Wallace are super electable). The argument is that Lyons is over the threshold for electability and that the threshold has to get lower for Sutton to be there.
I just skimmed the last part of the James series — thank you, Doom! We’ll be into the next round before I have time to do more, but it looks like excellent work, and I’m sure Tango’s response will be at that level. I’ll be interested to see how we learn and pursue these ideas in the context of future CoG discussions.
Tango posted another reply article today. Bob will hate it, because it make heavy use of the dreaded term “random variation,” but people might find it interesting.
If Tango or anyone else would acknowledge that “random” is just a convenient but misleading term for “indeterminately caused” I’d shrug and say fine, use the term. The fact that we don’t have fine enough data to determine the causes of an event doesn’t make the event or data about it random. When Tango speaks of “random variation” he means variation caused by factors presently unknowable to us, but we do know that, in almost all cases, those factors are entirely exhausted by two phrases: what the pitcher did with the ball in applying skill to intent / what the batter did with the bat in applying skill to intent. (If a puff of wind made the difference between a hit or an out, that’s “random” from the point of view of the game — uncaused by the agency of the actors.)
That said (and, obviously, I like saying it) Tango is writing about assigning accountability for events whose causative factors are too indeterminate for us to be able to parse credit among the actors. His use of (what I see as) a poor term is harmless and his reply is, indeed, interesting, even to a monomaniac.
I’ve been thinking about your monomania regarding the use of the word “random.” I think, perhaps, a test can be put to you that might help clarify your preferred use of the word. Is a coin flip or a dice roll random?
My thought is this: if you say “Yes,” then you should have no problem with the way Tango, I, or others use the term.
If you say, “No,” fine; there ARE things that cause it to happen; what Tango, I, and others would argue is that those causative factors are so incalculable as to best be considered random.
That’s basically the gist of it, as I can see, in a non-baseball context. So, serious question: is a flip of a coin or a dice roll random?
Maybe
Doom, I used to be good at flipping a coin so it would come up on the same side that was up when I flipped it (had to do with catching it at the same height I flipped it at, and practice — these were coin flip where you caught the coin and slapped it onto the back of your other hand). That was not random because skill was involved. When I missed it was because I didn’t do it quite right, and I’d usually (but not always) know before I caught it that I’d probably bungled it. So I’d say that was not random. I’d say other cases (let the coin land on the floor; roll the dice) were random, like dipping your hand into a bowl of balls with numbers when blindfolded. The question was whether skill had bearing on the outcome: effective agency was the issue, with the degree of effectiveness a variable. Blindfold the pitcher and batter and they become as much random event generators as the wind.
Here’s an analogy, which, like all analogies, is imperfect. A BiP can be analogized to a steelyard scale with two trays. If the goal is to come as near as possible to balancing, then a random BiP would be analogous to two people picking weights blindfolded and putting them on the trays. Neither one has any control over her portion of the task. A real BiP would be analogous to two people placing their thumbs on the trays simultaneously, trying to anticipate how much weight the other will apply. The outcome is under the control of neither, but is a product of their skilled efforts as agents with varying degrees of control. (To make the analogy better, you’d need one that accommodated different outcome goals for each actor.)
Obviously, I do not see actual pitchers and batters as behaving randomly, so I do not see the product of their variously effective agencies as random in the manner of coin flips and dice rolls. That is why I’d dispute your assertion: “. . . if you say ‘Yes,’ then you should have no problem with the way Tango, I, or others use the term.” All events have causes — or so the theory goes, though I suppose Brownian motion and electron orbit leaps may challenge that theory. An AB takes place within a highly controlled framework with the variables vastly reduced in scale from the range of factors that bear on even simple events without such framing. I see such a huge difference between the nature and outcome of a BiP and the path a falling leaf may take in the swirl of the breeze that to classify the two as generically identical seems to me very wrongheaded.
Bob, I wrote a very long post, but chose to delete it. You and I will never agree on this, because I see literally dozens of factors that are random – or at least are random from the point of view of the pitcher, so I think “random variation” is a VERY good explanation for a lot of phenomena on the field. “Random variation” does not mean, “There’s no skill involved,” which is, I think, what you believe it to mean. Rather, its meaning is that the distribution of results are random. Such and such a pitcher will give up three hits out of ten balls in play. That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that if he gives up five out of ten one day, that he’s having a bad day; likewise, if he gives up NO hits out of ten, it doesn’t mean he’s having a BAD day. Those samples simply aren’t big enough to know. That’s what random variation is; it means that, if you flip a die onto a carpet (not with your catching method), SOMETIMES you’ll get heads 7-8 times in a row. That doesn’t imply skill; it just implies randomness. I believe the same holds true for results – much of the time, anyway* – in baseball.
*Of course, there ARE bad days in baseball; the reason we have managers and pitching coaches is to look THROUGH the noise and figure out if those three bloop singles in the second inning were the result of a bad day or tough luck. So often it’s non-random; but often, it just is. You will never convince me that Francisco Liriano “had it” on the day of this no-hitter. But he got good results, that’s for sure. Randomness working in his favor, I would say. Edwin Jackson was as good, if not better, that day.
Doom, I’m not a statistician, as you well know. We are using “random” in the context of different frameworks. My particular peeve for years has been the use of the terms “chance” and “luck.” I’ve written that I think “chance” has no place in discussions of baseball ( beyond wind gusts, etc.), but that “luck” could legitimately be used if the perspective of the batter, pitcher, fielder was used. (There it means that a set of circumstances outside a player’s control made an outcome that was good or bad for him more likely — e.g., “It was his bad luck that Babe Ruth was up next,” but there is no luck involved in batting orders; it’s just a manner of speaking: rhetoric, not theory.)
As I understand it, “random” in stats denotes a pattern that doesn’t conform to expectations for relevant variables or distribution curves, meaning unknown factors contributed to the result in highly germane ways. I’d rather call that “indeterminate” because it does not suggest that a force actually exists in the world that can be called “Randomness,” “Chance,” “Luck” “Fortune,” “Fate” or whatever explanatory fiction you want. I don’t think you believe in the existence of these explanatory fictions or that Tango does, so I’m happy to treat “randomness” as a relative term of art: the state of being indeterminate from our point of view. We don’t know, and often the pitcher and batter don’t know, what caused the batter to connect well or poorly, or send the ball in the direction, at the angle, or at the speed he did. The answer is always the product of the pitcher’s effort and the batter’s — I can’t imagine that either you or Tango would dispute that — but what that product is in a specific case may surprise us and be different from what we might predict for a certain pitcher and batter. If the sample is small statisticians may want to call it “random” because of the unpredictability of the variation, but the word “random” has meaning outside stats and using it instead of “unpredictable” implies for the non-statisticians among us an invalid theory of the world and of baseball.
As I said, I’m happy to translate “random” into “indeterminate,” which I believe is what you’re talking about outside the world of stats-talk. I’m not happy to do that with “chance” and “luck” because they are not terms of art and they invariably imply invalid theories of the world.
My suspicion is that we actually agree. I think you are quibbling when you decline to accept my common language interpretation of “random” as “indeterminate,” and I’m sure you think I am utterly ignorant of stats. Unfortunately for me, only you are certainly correct.
I think that my quibble is that, while you see your interpretation as “common sense interpretation,” we’re not in the realm of common sense. We are, to use the Wittgenstein framework, placing in the “baseball statistics” language game. I and others are using the language as it is commonly used within the discipline. When you choose to reject the language of the discipline, we are, for all intents speaking different languages. It becomes difficult to talk about things. A similar thing happens if you talk about pitcher wins, and someone decides to make the argument about the fact that a pitcher doesn’t “win” by himself. True though that may be, that is simply the terminology that is used. It may be less accurate to use it; it may create biases in our thinking. But so does all language, yet it becomes necessary to communicate somehow. We can always reject terminology, but if we want to talk, we can’t pedantically use long phrases where simple words would do. That’s how it reads to me, anyway. And I’m not exactly a statistician, either. I’m a humanities guy who happens to like numbers. So that’s how I see it.
Fair enough, Doom. As I said, I translate the language of statistics in this case because of the confusion among concepts that bear family resemblances for most people, and “random” is a crossover term in that context. (I’m not sure we need to drag Ludwig in; “term of art” covered what you’re calling “language game.”) I can’t play the statistics language game, because, like some others, my interest in baseball statistics does not arise from a statistics background or competence in that language. When you signaled that I would not like Tango’s argument because it used a “dreaded term,” my intent was to signal that I don’t dread it because I translate it and don’t mistake “random” for random. You seem to be insisting that I not do that (and perhaps that there are too many syllables in “indeterminate”), but my feeling is that if we don’t on sites like this, it won’t be long before some are speaking again of chance and luck . . . and, in fact, I see those terms used to describe BiP regularly, without correction, in comments on sites like Tango’s. In any case, I didn’t bring up my problem with the term “random.”
Doom, I know I mentioned this, but in the 1980’s I wrote Bill James a letter–which he did answer (postmark, Lawrence, Kansas) and even then he was a little rough in dismissing my point (hindsight tells me he was right) but he wasn’t entirely ungenerous to anyone actually interested in something other than traditional stats. Still have the letter. Haven’t sold it to pay for child’s grad school….
It’s hard to dispute that defense isn’t, to some degree, dependent on the pitcher. The question is to what degree, something awfully hard to answer with a large degree of confidence, which is likely the reason that WAR doesn’t make these adjustments.
But, it certainly stands to reason that pitchers who work quickly and don’t throw a lot of pitches will get the most from their defenders. I approached this issue several years ago in a couple of posts on unearned runs, identifying pitchers who had the best and worst records in allowing unearned runs compared to their teammates. Those posts are below.
Part 1
Part 2
Here are Kevin Brown, Ted Lyons, and Don Sutton.
Actual stats.
And then, neutralized to a 2018 NL neutral ballpark:
211-144 / 3.28 / 127+ / 1.222
260-230 / 3.67 / 118+ / 1.348
324-256 / 3.26 / 108+ / 1.142
211-161 / 3.36 / 1.215
272-216 / 3.56 / 1.265
321-274 / 3.64 / 1.208
One stat missing from Voomo’s post just above is the number of seasons lost due to service in an American war. Brown—zero; Sutton—zero; Lyons—three seasons (and those three seasons came immediately after he won the AL ERA title).
I agree, but remember 1942 ERA title is partly jaded by the war already. And in ’46 he was hardly pitching a huge number of innings so how many did he really miss? He was well into his 40s remember.
VOTE: Kevin Brown
My vote is for Kevin Brown
Brown now has a lead of two votes with 20 ballots in, and with the tie-breaker rule, Lyons would need three to overcome lead. I believe there will be corks popping in the Doom household tonight!
Midnight has passed. Kevin Brown is now in the Circle. Congratulations to his most steadfast advocate, Dr. Doom.
Manny Ramirez is my vote