Measuring the Change in League Quality

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The Hardball Times The Hardball Times found this 4/5/2007 on www.hardballtimes.com [flag]
How much better are players today? [link]

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Comments (12)

  • lpm2 lpm2
    +1
    I greatly enjoy reading this statiscal analysis but common sense tells us that today's players, in general, would prevail over yesterday's players. Today's players can work out all year on their conditioning and skills and take advantage of today's healthcare and technology. Yesterday's players were out earning a living. It's more fun to speculate how yesterday's players would fare today in baseball than in other sports because of it's non-contact nature. It's pretty obvious in football that the 1962 Packer's 235- 250 lb. lineman would have trouble moving todays 300+ lb. lineman.
    Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • JinAZ JinAZ
    +2

    Thanks for this.  Believe it or not, I was just reading that chapter in Between the Numbers yesterday.  I had a sense that there was something wrong with their "time machine," though I couldn't quite place my finger on it. 

     The adjustment you show here seems much more reasonable.  Still shows a substantial increase in competitiveness over time, but not so much to make the best of the best hitters of the early 1900's look awful.

    Out of curiosity, I wonder how much the variance of MLB players varies over time.  It would make sense to me that pre-integration leagues would show higher variance than post-integration leagues, since there presumably would still be some outstanding players, but the lower-end would be much worse.  Just curious.

     Thanks, -j

    Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • cephyn cephyn
    +2
    Cool article! Love it. Have you given thought to just looking at all-stars/elite players from the era and just comparing them? It seems the obvious next question - how much better are the stars of today compared to the stars of the past? My guess is that the talent gap will be much smaller. Is it possible using your methods?
    Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
    • constancio constancio
      +1
      That's an interesting question and I think you're likely to be correct. Even though there are more players in MLB today than 80 years ago, the league is also drawing from a much larger pool of players as the game has been integrated, internationalized, etc. I suspect the MLB talent is drawn from a smaller slice at the upper end of the talent distribution these days.
      Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • Redsauce Redsauce
    +1
    Just a question here, but the weights that are used for the wOBA.  I thought they changed over different eras (I could very well be wrong).  I was under the impression that if you did an analysis of how much a HR was worth in the 40's, it would be different than what it's worth in the 90's.  Does assigning a given weight to a HR, then using those given weights to compare across different eras make that comparison slightly biased for whatever eras weight your using?  I'm probably very, very wrong with this, so please be gentle lol.
    Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • David Gassko David Gassko
    +2

    JinAZ,

    Variance has indeed decreased throughout the history of major league baseball. Dan Fox has a nice demonstration of that fact here:

    http://danagonistes.blogspot.com/2004/08/where-have-400-hitters-gone.html

    Cephyn,

    As I wrote in the conclusion to this article, we will look at the effect on individual players in part two, though given all the interesting feedback I have received, that may have to wait for a part three.

    Redsauce,

    The weights should indeed change, but only a little bit. Actually, the home run weight is the most stable of them all. In all, it's not a big deal.

    This is a good page illustrating how linear weights vary by run environment: http://www.tangotiger.net/customlwts.html

    Posted 4/5/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • kingfelix kingfelix
    +3
    Besides international players, I would have to think the quality of American players is from a better stock. Even towns in rural areas of 5,000 people have multiple little league teams these days, I doubt baseball was even close to as widely played 70 years ago, areas in the west and rural areas probably had a tough time getting 18 kids together to play. I would suppose that the exposure to baseball is much higher now than in the past. Are you arguing that Honus Wagner, the exact same Honus Wagner would be an all-star today? I don't know if a lot of these guys get drafted. Lou Gehrig was a 6' 200# First Basemen, perhaps I'm wrong, but that seems pretty small to me. Guys are just bigger, stronger, faster, better coached, and more experienced. Logically it would seem most of those guys don't do much in today's game. 
    Posted 4/6/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • Caspian88 Caspian88
    +2

    I think the idea is that, if we took a time machine back to 1923, kidnapped Lou Gehrig, and brought him to 1993, he would be less than a great player. However, if Lou were to have been born in 1973, and thus been privy to all of the advances of the game today, he'd be just as good, but less dominating due to greater competition.

    I can't buy the argument that players of the past are inferior in quality to today's players (it just seems illogical), but I can buy the argument that they played against inferior competition (which is logical). However, whenever we try to correct for league inequalities, it seems like the players of the past turn into, at best, merely good players, and I can't see that as being correct and logical. If Ruth and Gehrig and Wagner had access to the advancements the sport has gone through, they would still be great, just not quite as dominating, and I don't think I can buy the idea that the best players of the past were less naturally talented than even average players today.

    Where I really think the adjustment would hit would be in the marginal players. Maybe it's like a curve - the top players are adjusted downwards less than the middle players, and then, the marginal players are adjusted downwards even more. That seems like a more logical adjustment to me, and I'm wary of a simple linear adjustment.

    Posted 4/6/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • John Beamer John Beamer
    +1

    A note for the math-inclined types: At first, I believed the correct method was to regress only the first year, but after some experimentation I have realized that is incorrect. The reason is that the player’s plate appearances in year n 1 are not just dependent on his play in the first year, but also the second. For the non-math types, it’s okay to start reading again

    David -- I'm just trying to understand this better. So, if a player had 300 PAs in year 1 and 400 PAs in year 2 and the regression to the mean factor was 300 PA for 300 PA then in year 1 you regress by 50% and in year 2 you regress by 3/7?

     

    Have I got that right? 

    Posted 4/7/2007 [reply] [flag]
  • Daryl Daryl
    +1

    Overall, your analysis seems sound and accurate.

     I wonder, though, whether there's a way to account for the fact that African American athletes are "self selecting" out of the pool of available athletes.  The increase in NBA and NFL opportunities has clearly created a dearth of non-Latino black MLB players.

    Thoughts?

    Posted 4/9/2007 [reply] [flag]

Links (5)

Brewers Hitters Help Drub Cubs To Avoid Sweep
Published 4/9/2007 by gjwaala at Brew Crew News
...   When I think about putting a lot of bench guys into a game, I immediately imagine the final minutes of a basketball game with a really lopsided score.   It ' s refreshing to see that the Brewers ' bench is deep enough that Ned Yost feels comfortable throwing a few bench players into the starting lineup of the same game.     What ' s even better, the Brewers scored 9 runs   Sunday, which surpassed their previous season high of 7 runs   (Opening Day vs. LAD).       Also make sure to scroll down &   check out the little article about what Carlos Zambrano said   regarding the Brewers offense, & what   Johnny Estrada ' s response was.     Priceless!     Just How Good   Were Those Baseball Legends?     Here ' s a fun article by David Gassko, a contributor to the excellent MLB blog The Hardball Times.   Gassko discusses the pros & cons associated with different ways to measure potential changes in baseball league quality from season to season.

NerdFight: League Quality Adjustments
Published 4/13/2007 by Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus: Unfiltered
... David Gassko of the Hardball Times is one of the more readable and reliable statheads out there, so when he published an article last week suggesting that we had vastly overestimated the improvement in league quality over time in

THT: Measuring the Change In League Quality (Part Two)
Published 4/13/2007 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
... Part one Has anyone else read this series? Thoughts? If I read things correctly (always a crapshoot), Gassko takes a middle path between the Davenports and Dials of the world when it comes to timeline adjustments. On a totally unrelated note, there had to have been minor leagues more worthy of a major league label than the Union Association.

Lohse sets career strikeout high against Cubs
Published 4/16/2007 by JinAZ at On Baseball and the Reds

Fisking the Mitchell Report -- Part 2
Published 12/14/2007 by Shyster at ShysterBall
... Hunter taking, and should we care?) as we pass judgment. Page 4, where Mitchell notes the reasons why steroids are bad, mmm-kay: Third, the illegal use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, and similar drugs poses a significant threat to the integrity of the game of baseball. The widespread use of these substances raises questions about the validity of records and their comparability across different eras.Man, if only there was some way to compare numbers across eras to account for changes in playing conditions. ...