The Hardball Times:Ten things I didn’t know last week
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The Hardball Times found this 5/15/2008 on www.hardballtimes.com [flag] |
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MLB
Comments (13)
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studes Cool stuff. Thanks!
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cameronwalcott Wow! Alan Trammell as the 44th best slugger of all time. People forget what a great hitter he was, relative to his position in the 1980's. Trammell for the Hall of Fame! -
ger8ry "On Schell's list, Belle is sandwiched between Wally Berger and Ken Singleton. Rice is lower, between Sammy Sosa and second baseman/outfielder Danny Murphy."
So, Sosa is ranked way below Berger & Singleton? Doesn't that strike you as odd?
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studes Lots of rankings on the list may strike you as odd -- that's the beauty of it. FWIW, this ranking isn't out of line with Sosa's OPS+ rank.
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walshj58 Cool stuff, Dave. I have always wanted to read Schell's books -- I know you're a big fan.
A question: do you know why Connor and McGwire have almost the same CBR, but quite different rankings?
BTW, the WPA graph of that 1984 game does not "even out the karma" of the '78 playoff game. Not even close. Now, if you showed Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, that might help :-)
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studes Thanks, John. Here's my guess as to the ranking diff: The rankings are based on position adjustments by era, and first basemen in the 1800's weren't as dominant at bat as they were in McGwire's time.
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billreynolds Dave -- Great column, as always. Can you post a link to the 1974-88 WPA game charts? I can't find it on the fan graphs website (I'm probably just missing it somewhere). Thanks.-
studes Thanks, Bill. If you go to the "scoreboard" section of Fangraphs, you'll see years listed along the top. Click on a year, and then pick a date.
Here's a link to the Dent game:
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tomrookie Dave--great post, first off. After looking through the greatest/worst batter rankings and seeing Tommy Thevenow at the bottom, I wanted to see for myself how the hell Thevenow got the 4,000 PA needed to qualify for the list. Apparently he came in fourth place in voting for the 1926 NL MVP, with a line of .256/.291/.311, and a grand total of 2 home runs. In fact, the only categories where Thevenow placed in the top-5 were GP (2nd at 156) and Outs Created (5th with 436). What? That same year, his own teammate on the Series-winning Cardinals, HOFer Jim Bottomley hit .299/.364/.506 and didn't garner even a last-place vote for MVP. The 5th place finisher (1 spot behind Thevenow), the legendary Hack Wilson, had a .321/.406/.539 season for the Cubbies. What happened with the voters? Is there something about Thevenow I'm missing here? -
nettles9 Are the batting averages & on-base percentages listed for each player supposed to be their actual career batting average & OBP? If so, I found at least one player with an incorrect avegage-- Graig Nettles. He batted .248 in his career & had an OBP of .329, not .254 & .336 as listed. If not, I apologize. Thanks.
Graig Nettles 3B 68 21 73 5 .254 .336 .425 11.2 352 -
tomrookie The averages and OBPs are "applied to a single season in a neutral park between 1977 and 1992." Nettles' BA and OBP (along with everything else) is adjusted to this time period and stadium settings.
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Wrongo Great article. Not only Trammell for HOF, but also the 66th ranked hitter, Sweet Lou Whitaker. They should go in together just like they way they played. Only question I have about Chipper and the 3B boys is that Arod may end up being the number one at third. In the 2003 numbers he was listed at short and was the 33rd ranked hitter.
Links (3)
THT: Studeman: Ten things I didn’t know last week
Published 5/15/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
THT: Studeman: Ten things I didn’t know last week Lotsa good stuff from Studes...including the Michael Schell Database . So, how do Rice and Belle compare? Here is a reprint of the results you’ll find in our database; the stats represent a “seasonal line” for each batter, based on playing in a neutral park between 1977 and 1992 (the most stable era in baseball history, according to Schell). The stats also reflect each player’s longevity. Player POS Runs HR RBI SB BA OBP SLG CBR Rank Albert Belle OF 74 27 94 12 .286 .356 .522 23.5 126 Jim Rice OF 73 22 83 9 .288 .345 ...
Foul Balls Again
Published 5/15/2008 by David Appelman at FanGraphs Baseball
... Dave Studeman in his excellent Ten Things I didn’t Know Last Week column speculates on the odds of two fans sitting next to each other catching a foul ball. I was asked about the ...
Links The Man Wants You To See
Published 5/16/2008 by The MCD (noreply@blogger.com) at Rumors and Rants
... Absolutely engrossing article on the greatest hitters ever. Wouldn't be a link dump without another solid Hardball Times article - The Hardball Times ...
"If you compare a batter's Runs Created total to his Runs Scored, usually you find a pretty good match. For instance,Rickey Henderson created 2,164 runs and scored 2,295. Leadoff men have an obvious advantage%u2014Vince Colemancreated 688 runs and scored 849, a pretty big difference. Jack Smith, though, created 595 runs but scored 783, a difference of 188 runs. That may be the biggest difference in baseball history."
Sorry, not even close. I don't know what the record is, but Donie Bush scored 1280 and created 766, a difference of 514.
Miller Huggins, 948 - 661 = 287.
Roy Thomas, 1011 - 719 = 292.
Willie Keeler, 1719 - 1378 = 341.
Probably lots more where those came from.