Most Valuable Player.
For many years baseball writers have tried to define the word “valuable” in the context above and the ensuing discussion yields fascinating results. For the purposes of this post, I’m not going to consider pitchers in this discussion. I believe that they should have a bigger slice of the MVP pie but they do have their own award (Cy Young) so let’s not get too picky.
Is the most valuable guy in the lineup the one who is always on base and is always distracting pitchers with his baserunning ability, thus improving the odds for the subsequent hitters? Is it the hitter the lineup is built around, the one that other teams have to shape their entire game plan around? Is it the clubhouse leader, the one who provides all of those wonderful “intangibles” that you hear about all the time? Or is it the guy who has a good year, and then singlehandedly throws the rest of the team on his back when the calendar changes to September?
In reality, all of that comes into play (or it should) when the writers submit their ballots for the MVP award. What I am going to look at here are some statistical trivialities regarding the MVP awards of 2000-2009. Yes, I could have gone much further back than this but it gives a good snapshot of the way the voters are voting in this era. Truth be told, it was also an easy way to ensure that no pitchers were included in this analysis. If I had gone back to 1990, I would have had to include Dennis Eckersley’s otherworldly 1992 season.
So what have MVP voters valued the most over the past ten years?
Yes, offense with a smattering of defense thrown in. More specifically, MVP winners have shown up atop the rate stats more often than the counting stats, perhaps showing a little sophistication amongst the voters. Perhaps… just a little.
MVP winners of this decade have hit 40 or more home runs 11 times (out of 20 award winners) but have led the league six times. MVP winners have won 4 batting titles and have led the league in RBI only twice. Both times (Ryan Howard in 2006 and Alex Rodriguez in 2007) the winner led their respective leagues in home runs and RBI, the only times that an MVP winner has taken two of the three legs of the hitting Triple Crown.
MVP winners have led the league in on-base percentage 7 times, slugging percentage 10 times, OPS 9 times, and OPS+ 10 times while never playing fewer than 130 games. This certainly implies that in this decade the voters have favored sluggers and middle-of-the-order type hitters to leadoff hitters. In the last ten years only two players have won the MVP award from the leadoff spot of the batting order (even though one of them should have been hitting second) but we’ll revisit them in a minute.
So what was the most important statistical category amongst these players? Well, I’m not sure you can single one out and this becomes blatantly obvious when you look at the average season of these MVP winners. First and foremost, they averaged 154 games played. One of the biggest arguments against pitchers’ (serious) inclusion in MVP discussions is due to the fact that the ones who pitch the most innings (starters) only affect 30-35 games per season and the ones who pitch in late inning, “high leverage” situations may appear in as many as 70 or 80 games but they’ll only pitch 70 or 80 innings.
The next thing to couple with the amount of time they’re on the field is the average slash line; .329/.436/.616. Spreading an average OPS of 1.052 over 3,082 total games played makes it obvious why these players were in the MVP discussion. Having an OPS over 1.000 for a week is hard enough but maintaining it for 6 months, 162 games, and 550 to 778 plate appearances is an entirely different prospect.
So how do the 20 MVP award winners (won by 13 different players) fall into the categories that I listed above? Let’s find out; each player is listed with the category that they led the league in (if any). I’m adding one more category and it’s going to be first.
OTHERWORLDLY CATEGORY
Barry Bonds 2004
BA (.362)
OBP (.609)
SLG (.812)
OPS (1.421)
OPS+ (263)
BB (232)
Barry Bonds 2002
BA (.370)
OBP (.582)
SLG (.799)
OPS (1.381)
OPS+ (268)
BB (198)
Barry Bonds 2001
OBP (.515)
SLG (.863)
OPS (1.378)
OPS+ (259)
BB (177)
HR (73)
Barry Bonds 2003
OBP (.529)
SLG (.749)
OPS (1.278)
OPS+ (231)
BB (148)
Yes, Barry Bonds gets his own category and the reason is simple. Of the MVP winning seasons from 2000-2009, not a single one of them posted an OPS within 100 points of Bonds’ worst season of 2003, when his OPS was 1.278.
TOP OF THE ORDER SPARKPLUGS
Ichiro Suzuki 2001
BA (.350)
PA (738)
AB (692)
H (242)
SB (56)
Dustin Pedroia 2008
H (213)
2B (54)
R (118)
Jimmy Rollins 2007
G (162)
PA (778)
AB (716)
R (139)
3B (20)
These are three of the most suspect MVP’s of the past decade and their good batting lines were all supplemented with other aspects of their game that helped them to this title. Ichiro played Gold Glove defense in right field and gunned down runners right and left on the basepath. Dustin Pedroia was the reliable bat of the Red Sox lineup and he was also the spark plug that kept that engine running, setting the table for the likes of Youkilis and Ortiz and he also played solid defense at second base.
The most suspect in my opinion was Jimmy Rollins in 2007. I am of the opinion that if you lead your league in plate appearances and at-bats, you should also lead in hits and Rollins did not. His batting average of .296 and on-base percentage of .344 were both the lowest marks by MVP winners in the last decade and the only reason his slugging percentage was 4th lowest and not the lowest was due to his 30 home runs and league leading 20 triples. Still, his .875 OPS was the 17th best mark (out of 20) and his OPS+ mark of 119 was the lowest.
Many people said he was the cog that made that lineup as potent as it was but considering they had Ryan Howard (before he had replaced every letter of his name with a “K”) and Chase Utley, I have a hard time saying he was really the most valuable player to this team. My money has been with Chase Utley the past few years and I’m sticking with it. If I have to choose a guy to build a lineup around between Jayson Werth, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Chase Utley, I’ll choose Utley every day of the week.
SEPTEMBER MASHERS
It’s entirely possible that all these players excelled in the month of September and in the case of Barry Bonds, I doubt his September splits look all too different from the rest of the year. However, I do remember one in particular who grabbed onto the award with both hands and carried his team to the playoffs.
Vladimir Guerrero 2004
R (124)
TB (366)
Nothing spectacular; his slash line of .339/.391/.598 was near his career marks (a little higher but not too much) and his 39 home runs and 126 RBI were hardly out of whack with the rest of his career. How he did it earned him the award.
In September of 2004, Guerrero was 41-113 in 30 games with 11 home runs and 25 RBI. His slash line of .363/.424/.726 was his best of the season and his 1.150 OPS was 30% better than the rest of his season and 102% better than the league average that year. To top it all off, he stole five bases without being caught, walked 11 times (the most of any month) and struck out just 6 times (the fewest of any month).
MIDDLE OF THE ORDER THUMPERS
This is by far the biggest block of winners, with 10 of the 20 seasons represented here. These are the guys that you plug into the clean-up spot (or the #3 spot) of the batting order first and then fill everyone else in around them. In case you’re curious, the seasons are in descending order of OPS.
Jason Giambi 2000
BB (137)
OBP (.476)
OPS+ (187)
Albert Pujols 2008
SLG (.653)
OPS (1.115)
OPS+ (190)
TB (342)
Albert Pujols 2009
R (124)
HR (47)
OBP (.443)
SLG (.658)
OPS (1.101)
OPS+ (188)
TB (374)
Ryan Howard 2006
HR (58)
RBI (149)
TB (383)
Alex Rodriguez 2007
R (143)
HR (54)
RBI (156)
SLG (.645)
OPS (1.067)
OPS+ (176)
TB (376)
Alex Rodriguez 2005
G (162)
R (124)
HR (48)
SLG (.610)
OPS (1.031)
OPS+ (173)
Alex Rodriguez 2003
R (124)
HR (47)
SLG (.600)
The astute readers among you will notice that there are only 7 season described above. This is simply because Albert Pujols (2005), Jeff Kent (2000), and Justin Morneau (2006) did not lead the league in any categories despite putting forth OPS’ of 1.039, 1.020, and .934, respectively.
That leaves two MVP winners that haven’t been described by one of the categories above. One of them is Miguel Tejada, who won the MVP award for the Athletics in 2002. He tied for the league lead by playing in 162 games but other than that, his batting line was unimpressive by MVP standards. His slash line of .308/.354/.508 is good for a shortstop until you compare it with some of his contemporaries and then it suffers from the comparison. He did hit 34 home runs and drove in 131 runs for a very good A’s team and he played good defense at shortstop. Add it all up and apparently you get “MVP”.
The last could very well have gone under the “OTHERWORLDLY” category, now that I think about it. This MVP hit only 28 home runs and drove in 96 runs. Good season? Yes. MVP? Not yet. This player also had a slash line of .365/.444/.587, leading the league in all three categories as well as OPS and OPS+. Outstanding season? Absolutely. MVP? Still leaving something to be desired…
Throw in Gold Glove defense as a CATCHER and you have quite possibly one of the most dominant MVP campaigns in the non-Bonds category by none other than Joe Mauer in 2009. He may not ever again exhibit the power stroke of 2009 (he’s only hit more than 10 home runs once in his other 4 full seasons and that was 13 in 2006) but he is becoming a very good major league hitter. He’s already won three batting titles and sports a career average of .327. Unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time until he is switched to either first base or DH but once he does that and his body doesn’t take the continuous beating from catching, his hitting might even reach a new level.
So what does this all mean for this year’s MVP race? Well, considering that there are several NL candidates who are leading their team’s towards potential playoff berths (Albert Pujols, Joey Votto) and considering that there’s still an entire month for Miguel Cabrera to catch Josh Hamilton, not all that much.
If I had to go out on a limb though, Josh Hamilton has been excellent for a Rangers team that shocked the you-know-what out of me and currently holds a 7.5 game lead (largest division lead in baseball) over the second place Athletics. Cabrera has been very good but the Tigers haven’t, in third place with a 65-66 record, 10 games behind the Twins.
The Reds have a five game lead over the Cardinals and if they maintain that edge and win the division, I would say that it has to go to Joey Votto. However, if Albert Pujols has a big September and leads the Cardinals to October, it would have to go to him.
Wouldn’t it?
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Clemens and Bonds
Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are now linked as they never could have been on the baseball diamond. In eight career plate appearances against Clemens, Bonds got none of his 2,935 career hits and none of his 762 career home runs. However, his career on-base percentage against the Rocket is .750. Eight plate appearance, two at-bats, five walks (three intentional) and one hit-by-pitch which, by the way, is one of the more memorable HBP’s of my lifetime.
It was June 9, 2002, and Clemens was on his way to going 13-6 with a 4.35 ERA for the Yankees and at the age of 39, it appeared he was getting close to his swan song. Bonds that year had a slash line of .370/.582/.799 and hit 46 home runs the year after hitting 73. The reason this one at-bat was so memorable is because at that point, Bonds was all over the plate during every trip to the plate. He crushed pitches in on his hands so his right elbow hovered over the plate, daring a pitcher to try to sneak one by him on the inside corner. Bonds also infamously had a pad on his elbow so think that of all the times I saw him get hit by a pitch there, I don’t think I ever saw him flinch; maybe he was that tough, but I think that pad had a lot to do with it. Clemens was never one to take such a perceived affront lying down. In the second pitch of the at-bat, Clemens hit that pad squarely and Bonds gave him a little glare as he went down to first base. Clemens, as always, was practically screaming “bring it on” with his body language.
I have many more memories from the man who won seven Cy Young Awards, 354 games, accumulated 4,672 strikeouts, was voted to be on 11 All-Star teams, and received votes for the MVP award in ten different seasons, including 1986 when he won the award.
I have almost as many memories from watching the greatest hitter of this generation. He won 7 MVP awards and got votes in 8 other seasons; he won 8 Gold Glove Awards and 12 Silver Slugger Awards and in a four year stretch (2001-2004) his slash line over 2,443 plate appearances and 1,642 at-bats was .349/.559/.809. In that run he hit 209 home runs and was walked 755 times, 284 of which were intentional.
Unfortunately, what I will remember about both from here on out is that they both appeared in front of Congress to testify about the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) and, so it seemed, from those moments they both began down a slippery slope which ended with them both being indicted by federal grand juries on charges of perjury.
I personally don’t understand why these titans that made opposing hitters and pitchers quake in their cleats got completely unnerved and unhinged by a bunch of guys wearing very expensive suits. Clemens and Bonds got unhinged to the point where they felt they needed to lie but the list hardly stops there. Rafael Palmeiro had the most famous finger wagging moment in the history of baseball. Sammy Sosa suddenly needed an interpreter (maybe to explain in his native tongue that lying is bad?). Mark McGwire developed a case of amnesia (or at least an unwillingness to talk about the past… “Hey, I’m clean now and will be in the future, let’s talk about that!”).
Why was it so hard to tell the truth? That’s what I really want to know. It cannot be denied that adding the title “Hall of Famer” in front of their names increases their net worth to a very large degree and they were trying their best to protect their chances.
Mark McGwire – $74,688,354
Sammy Sosa – $124,068,000
Rafael Palmeiro – $89,083,996
Barry Bonds – $188,245,322
Roger Clemens – $121,001,000
According to baseball-reference.com, those are the career earnings for those five players, a grand total of $597,086,672. If you’re beginning to feel sorry for them because of lost revenue due to not being inducted in the Hall of Fame, please don’t. I have a very hard time feeling sorry for them in any way but if they somehow managed to squander more money than most Americans see in several lifetimes, I’ll have an even harder time.
LOSS OF INNOCENCE
If the 1995-2003 time frame is going to be dubbed the “Steroid Era” then I propose that from 2003-2010 (and possibly beyond) be dubbed the “Loss of Innocence Era”. A time when young people all over the country realized their childhood heroes were nowhere near the good men they thought they were and when the records that meant so much were cheapened. I remember thinking that a career total of 755 home runs was simply unattainable. If Mark McGwire, the Brawny Paper Towel guy, who with a flick of the wrist could send a ball hurtling into outer space, couldn’t get there, nobody could. What I’m realizing now is that nobody could while clean. If we compare his career arc to none other than Hank Aaron, a few things stand out. What follow is a series of number; the first is games played, next is the slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) and the last number is their home run totals. The first line for each is what they did in their careers up to the age of 35. The second line is everything they did after the season in which they turned 35.
Hank Aaron
2,426 – .313/.374/.563 – 554
872 – .278/.373/.527 – 201
Barry Bonds
2,143 – .289/.412/.567 – 494
843 – .325/.531/.731 – 268
It is quite amazing that Aaron hit 201 home runs and still managed to slug at a .527 rate from age 36 to his retirement at 42. He was one of the best and most consistent performers in major league history, hitting 755 home runs without ever hitting 50 in a season. Also, one of the little known facts about him is that he also ranks third all-time with 3,771 hits.
If you compare his younger days to his elder days, you see a fairly dramatic drop in production. His batting average dipped 35 points, his on-base percentage only dropped a point and because of that, his home run rate actually decreased from 17.03 AB/HR to 14.57. His slugging percentage also dropped 36 points, likely due to the fact that your body can’t necessarily do at 40 what it could do at 26.
Bonds’ transformation didn’t occur at the age of 35 but it was a decent time to make the cutoff between the younger part of the career and the older part. The difference for Bonds was simply astonishing.
Batting average? Up 36 points.
On-base percentage? Up 119 points
Slugging percentage? Up 164 points.
Up to the age 35 season, Bonds had 494 career home runs and a career OPS of .979, an outstanding mark. After that, he hit 268 home runs and his OPS jumped to 1.262, decidedly Ruthian territory. His home run rate went from 15.09 all the way down to 8.92, largely due to the fact that he was walking all the time and when he wasn’t walking, he was taking the one good pitch he saw and hitting it 450 feet.
Roger Clemens career arc isn’t nearly as stark as Bonds and in his later career he didn’t pitch as well as earlier on. However, he went 121-60 with a 3.48 ERA and a 1.231 WHIP after the age of 35 when most pitchers start slowing down.
Maybe we should be widening our gaze though. Randy Johnson’s numbers after his age 35 season are 160-87, 3.23, 1.102, and he struck out 2,546 batters (while Clemens struck out 1,519). I am much more inclined to believe that a 6’10”, 225 pound man who was throwing in triple digits for more than half his career is a freak of nature than a 6’4”, 205 pound man who is much closer to the physical average of American men.
So what should we all take away from this? Well, first of all, don’t lie. Many people don’t believe it when their parents try to grill it into them as children. They say something to the effect of “we’ll be mad if you do something wrong, but we’ll be ten times madder if you lie about it”. Put into adult terms; the cover-up is worse than the crime.
It should be said that I do not have anything personal against Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds. The fact that I had an opportunity to watch two of the greatest players of all-time is a thrill that I will cherish forever. Having said that, I hope that if they did lie under oath to Congress, they are found guilty and are thrown in jail. I think both of them need a serious shot of humility and the public backlash from being indicted isn’t doing it. They are both still proclaiming their innocence and I have a sneaking suspicion that several years in prison may not even change that. If prison won’t change that, nothing ever will.
The other thing that we should realize is that this country has a near infinite capacity to forgive. 236 years ago, we were quite possibly the biggest underdog in the history of armed conflict (with the possible exception of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans). Ever since then, Americans have been suckers for flawed, human, underdog stories. The perfect example of this should be that the movie Rocky won best picture (Rocky loses that fight at the end, by the way).
Americans love a tragic hero straight from the Greek Plots. We love a person who is great but who has a fatal flaw. This flaw leads to a catastrophic downfall but in a Greek Tragedy, the tragic hero finds redemption at the end. We want these guys to come out and tell us their sob story about how they felt the pressure of living up to a contract and felt the need to use PED’s. It may not be 100% true but I promise you that more people have forgiven Alex Rodriguez for that reasoning that will ever forgive Bonds for “not knowing” what was in a cream that he was using (which was given to him by a guy who has been federally indicted for distributing steroids).
Bonds came off as ignorant and arrogant while Rodriguez at least attempted to come off as human. An even better example was Andy Pettitte. How many people actually remember that he sat in a press conference and admitted to steroid use? Probably not too many. He sat at the podium, answered questions about it, asked for forgiveness, and as far as I can tell, meant it. Today Pettitte is being talked about as an important cog in the Yankees playoff rotation, assuming he comes back near 100% from the tweaks and strains commonly associated with 38 year olds attempting to throw a baseball at 90 miles an hour.
I guess what I’m trying to say is the cover-up is indeed worse than the crime. Pete Rose may very well be in the Hall of Fame if he hadn’t lied about his gambling for 15 years. Bonds and Clemens might have been able to get into the Hall someday if they had stood up and said yes, I was human, I did this stuff.
Will it ever happen?
Probably not.
It was June 9, 2002, and Clemens was on his way to going 13-6 with a 4.35 ERA for the Yankees and at the age of 39, it appeared he was getting close to his swan song. Bonds that year had a slash line of .370/.582/.799 and hit 46 home runs the year after hitting 73. The reason this one at-bat was so memorable is because at that point, Bonds was all over the plate during every trip to the plate. He crushed pitches in on his hands so his right elbow hovered over the plate, daring a pitcher to try to sneak one by him on the inside corner. Bonds also infamously had a pad on his elbow so think that of all the times I saw him get hit by a pitch there, I don’t think I ever saw him flinch; maybe he was that tough, but I think that pad had a lot to do with it. Clemens was never one to take such a perceived affront lying down. In the second pitch of the at-bat, Clemens hit that pad squarely and Bonds gave him a little glare as he went down to first base. Clemens, as always, was practically screaming “bring it on” with his body language.
I have many more memories from the man who won seven Cy Young Awards, 354 games, accumulated 4,672 strikeouts, was voted to be on 11 All-Star teams, and received votes for the MVP award in ten different seasons, including 1986 when he won the award.
I have almost as many memories from watching the greatest hitter of this generation. He won 7 MVP awards and got votes in 8 other seasons; he won 8 Gold Glove Awards and 12 Silver Slugger Awards and in a four year stretch (2001-2004) his slash line over 2,443 plate appearances and 1,642 at-bats was .349/.559/.809. In that run he hit 209 home runs and was walked 755 times, 284 of which were intentional.
Unfortunately, what I will remember about both from here on out is that they both appeared in front of Congress to testify about the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED’s) and, so it seemed, from those moments they both began down a slippery slope which ended with them both being indicted by federal grand juries on charges of perjury.
I personally don’t understand why these titans that made opposing hitters and pitchers quake in their cleats got completely unnerved and unhinged by a bunch of guys wearing very expensive suits. Clemens and Bonds got unhinged to the point where they felt they needed to lie but the list hardly stops there. Rafael Palmeiro had the most famous finger wagging moment in the history of baseball. Sammy Sosa suddenly needed an interpreter (maybe to explain in his native tongue that lying is bad?). Mark McGwire developed a case of amnesia (or at least an unwillingness to talk about the past… “Hey, I’m clean now and will be in the future, let’s talk about that!”).
Why was it so hard to tell the truth? That’s what I really want to know. It cannot be denied that adding the title “Hall of Famer” in front of their names increases their net worth to a very large degree and they were trying their best to protect their chances.
Mark McGwire – $74,688,354
Sammy Sosa – $124,068,000
Rafael Palmeiro – $89,083,996
Barry Bonds – $188,245,322
Roger Clemens – $121,001,000
According to baseball-reference.com, those are the career earnings for those five players, a grand total of $597,086,672. If you’re beginning to feel sorry for them because of lost revenue due to not being inducted in the Hall of Fame, please don’t. I have a very hard time feeling sorry for them in any way but if they somehow managed to squander more money than most Americans see in several lifetimes, I’ll have an even harder time.
LOSS OF INNOCENCE
If the 1995-2003 time frame is going to be dubbed the “Steroid Era” then I propose that from 2003-2010 (and possibly beyond) be dubbed the “Loss of Innocence Era”. A time when young people all over the country realized their childhood heroes were nowhere near the good men they thought they were and when the records that meant so much were cheapened. I remember thinking that a career total of 755 home runs was simply unattainable. If Mark McGwire, the Brawny Paper Towel guy, who with a flick of the wrist could send a ball hurtling into outer space, couldn’t get there, nobody could. What I’m realizing now is that nobody could while clean. If we compare his career arc to none other than Hank Aaron, a few things stand out. What follow is a series of number; the first is games played, next is the slash line (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) and the last number is their home run totals. The first line for each is what they did in their careers up to the age of 35. The second line is everything they did after the season in which they turned 35.
Hank Aaron
2,426 – .313/.374/.563 – 554
872 – .278/.373/.527 – 201
Barry Bonds
2,143 – .289/.412/.567 – 494
843 – .325/.531/.731 – 268
It is quite amazing that Aaron hit 201 home runs and still managed to slug at a .527 rate from age 36 to his retirement at 42. He was one of the best and most consistent performers in major league history, hitting 755 home runs without ever hitting 50 in a season. Also, one of the little known facts about him is that he also ranks third all-time with 3,771 hits.
If you compare his younger days to his elder days, you see a fairly dramatic drop in production. His batting average dipped 35 points, his on-base percentage only dropped a point and because of that, his home run rate actually decreased from 17.03 AB/HR to 14.57. His slugging percentage also dropped 36 points, likely due to the fact that your body can’t necessarily do at 40 what it could do at 26.
Bonds’ transformation didn’t occur at the age of 35 but it was a decent time to make the cutoff between the younger part of the career and the older part. The difference for Bonds was simply astonishing.
Batting average? Up 36 points.
On-base percentage? Up 119 points
Slugging percentage? Up 164 points.
Up to the age 35 season, Bonds had 494 career home runs and a career OPS of .979, an outstanding mark. After that, he hit 268 home runs and his OPS jumped to 1.262, decidedly Ruthian territory. His home run rate went from 15.09 all the way down to 8.92, largely due to the fact that he was walking all the time and when he wasn’t walking, he was taking the one good pitch he saw and hitting it 450 feet.
Roger Clemens career arc isn’t nearly as stark as Bonds and in his later career he didn’t pitch as well as earlier on. However, he went 121-60 with a 3.48 ERA and a 1.231 WHIP after the age of 35 when most pitchers start slowing down.
Maybe we should be widening our gaze though. Randy Johnson’s numbers after his age 35 season are 160-87, 3.23, 1.102, and he struck out 2,546 batters (while Clemens struck out 1,519). I am much more inclined to believe that a 6’10”, 225 pound man who was throwing in triple digits for more than half his career is a freak of nature than a 6’4”, 205 pound man who is much closer to the physical average of American men.
So what should we all take away from this? Well, first of all, don’t lie. Many people don’t believe it when their parents try to grill it into them as children. They say something to the effect of “we’ll be mad if you do something wrong, but we’ll be ten times madder if you lie about it”. Put into adult terms; the cover-up is worse than the crime.
It should be said that I do not have anything personal against Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds. The fact that I had an opportunity to watch two of the greatest players of all-time is a thrill that I will cherish forever. Having said that, I hope that if they did lie under oath to Congress, they are found guilty and are thrown in jail. I think both of them need a serious shot of humility and the public backlash from being indicted isn’t doing it. They are both still proclaiming their innocence and I have a sneaking suspicion that several years in prison may not even change that. If prison won’t change that, nothing ever will.
The other thing that we should realize is that this country has a near infinite capacity to forgive. 236 years ago, we were quite possibly the biggest underdog in the history of armed conflict (with the possible exception of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans). Ever since then, Americans have been suckers for flawed, human, underdog stories. The perfect example of this should be that the movie Rocky won best picture (Rocky loses that fight at the end, by the way).
Americans love a tragic hero straight from the Greek Plots. We love a person who is great but who has a fatal flaw. This flaw leads to a catastrophic downfall but in a Greek Tragedy, the tragic hero finds redemption at the end. We want these guys to come out and tell us their sob story about how they felt the pressure of living up to a contract and felt the need to use PED’s. It may not be 100% true but I promise you that more people have forgiven Alex Rodriguez for that reasoning that will ever forgive Bonds for “not knowing” what was in a cream that he was using (which was given to him by a guy who has been federally indicted for distributing steroids).
Bonds came off as ignorant and arrogant while Rodriguez at least attempted to come off as human. An even better example was Andy Pettitte. How many people actually remember that he sat in a press conference and admitted to steroid use? Probably not too many. He sat at the podium, answered questions about it, asked for forgiveness, and as far as I can tell, meant it. Today Pettitte is being talked about as an important cog in the Yankees playoff rotation, assuming he comes back near 100% from the tweaks and strains commonly associated with 38 year olds attempting to throw a baseball at 90 miles an hour.
I guess what I’m trying to say is the cover-up is indeed worse than the crime. Pete Rose may very well be in the Hall of Fame if he hadn’t lied about his gambling for 15 years. Bonds and Clemens might have been able to get into the Hall someday if they had stood up and said yes, I was human, I did this stuff.
Will it ever happen?
Probably not.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
PRESEASON PREDICTIONS REVISITED
Well, the calendar says that we’re halfway through August and most teams have about 45 games left in their 2010 regular season so I thought it was about time that I revisited my preseason predictions to find out just how right (wrong) I was.
Without further ado, let’s just get the worst one out of the way right off the bat. It’s the most painful one so we’ll just rip it off quickly like a Band-Aid.
THE SEATTLE MARINERS WILL WIN THE AL WEST
Their record of 46-71 would be the worst in the American League if it wasn’t for the lowly Baltimore Orioles and the margin between those two teams is a lot closer now than it was a few weeks ago. As a team, their hitting has been absolutely atrocious, putting forth a batting line of .237/.302/.340 for an OPS of .642 and an OPS+ of 77, meaning they have been 23% worse than league average so far this season.
Overall their pitching has not been terrible with an ERA of 3.94 and a WHIP of 1.294, both of which are slightly better than league average. Unfortunately, their pitching staff hasn’t been able to make up for an offense that has hit just 70 home runs, tied with Oakland for the lowest total in the league.
In a nutshell, the Mariners were not as good as their 85-77 record a year ago and they aren’t as bad as their 46-71 record last year. In 2009, everything went right and even if they would lose a game 15-1, they would win the next three games 2-1. Their record in on-run games was astonishing and their clubhouse chemistry was the best in the league. This year, everything that went right last year went wrong. Instead of poor hitting performances getting teamed up with excellent pitching performances, they were teamed up with ok pitching performances, getting losses where last year they got wins.
I firmly believe that the 2009-2010 Mariners are not as good as last year or as bad as this year, but actually are a good average of the two. Their total record the past two years is 131-148 or good enough for about 77 or 78 wins in both seasons. A decent team but not nearly good enough to compete for the AL West title, much less the American League championship.
CLIFF LEE AND FELIX HERNANDEZ WILL BOTH COMPETE FOR THE AL CY YOUNG AWARD
Cliff Lee ended up missing the first month of the season but in a different year, this prediction would be right on the money. Lee is 10-5 with a 2.57 ERA and he leads the AL with 7 complete games. His WHIP is 0.930 (good for the best in the league) and he has struck out 137 batters while walking an absurd 9. If he maintains his pace, he will break the record for the highest strikeout/walk ratio for a single season set by Bret Saberhagen.
Felix Hernandez is just 8-9 this season but his ERA is still very good at 2.71 and his WHIP is also good at 1.12. He has thrown a league high 182.1 innings this year and it appears that the Mariners will reap enormous dividends on the contract that they signed Hernandez to recently.
On a winning team, Lee’s record could very well be 12-3 or 13-2 while Hernandez could have had 12-14 wins by this point in the season. I understand that wins don’t mean everything and if last year’s votes are any indication, the Cy Young voters might be getting smart enough to look past the win-loss record.
When all is said and done I believe that both Hernandez and Lee will be in the discussion and will receive votes for the Cy Young Award but neither will win it. CC Sabathia is having a very good season for a team that is almost sure to win 100 games (15-5, 3.14) and David Price is having an excellent season for another team that has a very good chance to win 100 games (15-5, 2.84).
According to Bill James formula which has predicted the Cy Young winner correctly about 80% of the time over history of the award, neither Lee nor Hernandez rank in the top 10 currently but there’s still a ways to go and the pennant races aren’t over yet.
THE YANKEES WILL WIN THE AL EAST
They are 72-44, leading the AL East by 2 games over the Rays and 6 games ahead of the Red Sox who are currently second in the Wild Card standings. Their OPS is .788, good for second in the league but once that is adjusted for the pitching favorable nature of the new Yankee Stadium, they go up to first in OPS+ at 115 (the Red Sox have a team OPS of .804 but an OPS+ of just 111). The Yankees also lead the league in runs scored and on-base percentage, hallmarks of their teams in the late 90’s.
Their pitching has struggled slightly with an ERA+ of 104 (actual ERA of 3.86) but considering that Sabathia is a Cy Young candidate, Phil Hughes has emerged as a legitimate middle of the rotation starter, Andy Pettitte has pitched well this year, and Mariano Rivera is having one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career, they still might have enough pitching to repeat as World Series champions. The one thing that I left out there is AJ Burnett because as he has shown time and time again, he could go out and throw a shutout or not make it out of the third inning.
They have played well all year and show no signs of slowing down so this is probably the safest prediction I made before the season started.
TIM LINCECUM WILL NOT WIN A THIRD STRAIGHT CY YOUNG AWARD
This one seems prophetic now but when you think about just how hard it is to win three straight Cy Young Awards, it seems pretty obvious. Lincecum has pitched well for the Giants (11-6, 3.41) but considering the amazing performances by pitchers in the National League, that isn’t close to being in the top 10 of Bill James Cy Young Predictor Formula. Josh Johnson has struggled lately but has still had a great season (10-5, 2.27). Ubaldo Jimenez has forgone his Bob Gibson impersonation but still is tied for the league lead with 17 wins (17-3, 2.55). The Phillies have trouble scoring runs for Roy Halladay so he has compensated by throwing a perfect game and several other gems (15-8, 2.24) but none of those pitcher are all that close to what Adam Wainwright is doing right now for the Cardinals.
He is 17-6 with a 1.99 ERA (the only starter under 2.00 in the league right now) and a WHIP of 0.97. At the trading deadline he was 14-6 and his ERA stood at 2.23. Since the calendar turned, he has won all three of his starts and has allowed just one earned run in 23 innings pitched. If he continues to pitch this way through the end of the season and the Cardinals hold their lead in the NL Central, he will win the Cy Young Award and could also get some votes in the MVP race.
All in all, I would say that this is just the sophomore slump for Lincecum and it came a year late. As long as he stays healthy he will win another Cy Young at some point in his career but this is not his year.
ALBERT PUJOLS WILL WIN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE MVP AWARD
If it wasn’t for Joey Votto’s incredible season, this would be another no brainer of a prediction. He is hitting just .315 but he has hit 29 home runs and has driven in 85 runs. Even though those numbers don’t stack up to some of the better years of his career, they currently rank 5th, 2nd, and 1st in the National League. Joey Votto’s numbers have slid off slightly since the All-Star break but his numbers of .322, 28, and 79 rank 1st, 3rd, and 3rd in the NL. Their OPS values are nearly identical (1.015 for Votto and .989 for Pujols) and they both have created 4.5 Wins Above Replacement.
Considering that Adam Wainwright and Roy Halladay has created 5.9 WAR, this could be a year where a position player does not win the MVP award. As has happened several times, this year’s MVP race may very well come down to who plays better in September and who leads their team to the playoffs. This may not be a slam dunk for Pujols, but I still say that he has as good a chance as anyone else in the NL.
JOE MAUER WILL WIN THE AL MVP AWARD
Yeah, this one was a bit off. He is still a great player and if he maintains his current skill set for another 10-15 years, he’ll be a first ballot Hall of Famer. He is hitting .328 this year, a number that was good enough to lead the AL in 2008 but with Josh Hamilton going nuts this year, it isn’t close to leading the league. His home runs are down (28 in 2009 and just 7 this year in 390 at-bats) which has caused his slugging percentage to dip from .587 to .485 but his OPS is still .885 and he is still one of the most important players on one of the best teams in the American League.
The biggest obstacle to Mauer competing for this award, as I mentioned above, is Josh Hamilton. Hamilton’s season got off to a bit of a slow start with slash lines of .265/.351/.494 in April and .294/.322/.505 in May. Since then he has been otherworldly. In June his slash line was .455/.482/.815; in July it was .418/.468/.704 and thus far in August it has been .381/.447/.667.
For the season, his .364 batting average is 26 points ahead of Miguel Cabrera for the best mark in the league, his 26 home runs are good for 4th in the AL, and his 80 RBI are very good but outside the top five in the league. If he is somehow able to maintain the torrent pace that he has had since the beginning of June, he will win the AL MVP award in a walk despite any baserunning or fielding liabilities he may present.
Well, that is all for the regular season predictions that I made. Some were good, some were bad, some (one in particular) were ugly. Before the playoffs start, I’ll be writing a more in depth preview piece at which point I’ll be revisiting the playoff predictions I made before the season. For the record, I said that the Yankees would top the Mariners in the ALCS, the Phillies would win the NLCS, and the Yankees would beat the Phillies again in the World Series.
Overall that doesn’t look too bad but we’ll wait for the season to end first. Truth be told, it looks like this might turn into a last hoorah for the Rays young ballclub before it gets too expensive for the Rays management to keep this team together. Hopefully that won’t be the case but it would be fun to see the Rays play with that sense of urgency, knowing that their time as a team might be limited.
As always, until next time, enjoy the baseball.
Without further ado, let’s just get the worst one out of the way right off the bat. It’s the most painful one so we’ll just rip it off quickly like a Band-Aid.
THE SEATTLE MARINERS WILL WIN THE AL WEST
Their record of 46-71 would be the worst in the American League if it wasn’t for the lowly Baltimore Orioles and the margin between those two teams is a lot closer now than it was a few weeks ago. As a team, their hitting has been absolutely atrocious, putting forth a batting line of .237/.302/.340 for an OPS of .642 and an OPS+ of 77, meaning they have been 23% worse than league average so far this season.
Overall their pitching has not been terrible with an ERA of 3.94 and a WHIP of 1.294, both of which are slightly better than league average. Unfortunately, their pitching staff hasn’t been able to make up for an offense that has hit just 70 home runs, tied with Oakland for the lowest total in the league.
In a nutshell, the Mariners were not as good as their 85-77 record a year ago and they aren’t as bad as their 46-71 record last year. In 2009, everything went right and even if they would lose a game 15-1, they would win the next three games 2-1. Their record in on-run games was astonishing and their clubhouse chemistry was the best in the league. This year, everything that went right last year went wrong. Instead of poor hitting performances getting teamed up with excellent pitching performances, they were teamed up with ok pitching performances, getting losses where last year they got wins.
I firmly believe that the 2009-2010 Mariners are not as good as last year or as bad as this year, but actually are a good average of the two. Their total record the past two years is 131-148 or good enough for about 77 or 78 wins in both seasons. A decent team but not nearly good enough to compete for the AL West title, much less the American League championship.
CLIFF LEE AND FELIX HERNANDEZ WILL BOTH COMPETE FOR THE AL CY YOUNG AWARD
Cliff Lee ended up missing the first month of the season but in a different year, this prediction would be right on the money. Lee is 10-5 with a 2.57 ERA and he leads the AL with 7 complete games. His WHIP is 0.930 (good for the best in the league) and he has struck out 137 batters while walking an absurd 9. If he maintains his pace, he will break the record for the highest strikeout/walk ratio for a single season set by Bret Saberhagen.
Felix Hernandez is just 8-9 this season but his ERA is still very good at 2.71 and his WHIP is also good at 1.12. He has thrown a league high 182.1 innings this year and it appears that the Mariners will reap enormous dividends on the contract that they signed Hernandez to recently.
On a winning team, Lee’s record could very well be 12-3 or 13-2 while Hernandez could have had 12-14 wins by this point in the season. I understand that wins don’t mean everything and if last year’s votes are any indication, the Cy Young voters might be getting smart enough to look past the win-loss record.
When all is said and done I believe that both Hernandez and Lee will be in the discussion and will receive votes for the Cy Young Award but neither will win it. CC Sabathia is having a very good season for a team that is almost sure to win 100 games (15-5, 3.14) and David Price is having an excellent season for another team that has a very good chance to win 100 games (15-5, 2.84).
According to Bill James formula which has predicted the Cy Young winner correctly about 80% of the time over history of the award, neither Lee nor Hernandez rank in the top 10 currently but there’s still a ways to go and the pennant races aren’t over yet.
THE YANKEES WILL WIN THE AL EAST
They are 72-44, leading the AL East by 2 games over the Rays and 6 games ahead of the Red Sox who are currently second in the Wild Card standings. Their OPS is .788, good for second in the league but once that is adjusted for the pitching favorable nature of the new Yankee Stadium, they go up to first in OPS+ at 115 (the Red Sox have a team OPS of .804 but an OPS+ of just 111). The Yankees also lead the league in runs scored and on-base percentage, hallmarks of their teams in the late 90’s.
Their pitching has struggled slightly with an ERA+ of 104 (actual ERA of 3.86) but considering that Sabathia is a Cy Young candidate, Phil Hughes has emerged as a legitimate middle of the rotation starter, Andy Pettitte has pitched well this year, and Mariano Rivera is having one of the best seasons of his Hall of Fame career, they still might have enough pitching to repeat as World Series champions. The one thing that I left out there is AJ Burnett because as he has shown time and time again, he could go out and throw a shutout or not make it out of the third inning.
They have played well all year and show no signs of slowing down so this is probably the safest prediction I made before the season started.
TIM LINCECUM WILL NOT WIN A THIRD STRAIGHT CY YOUNG AWARD
This one seems prophetic now but when you think about just how hard it is to win three straight Cy Young Awards, it seems pretty obvious. Lincecum has pitched well for the Giants (11-6, 3.41) but considering the amazing performances by pitchers in the National League, that isn’t close to being in the top 10 of Bill James Cy Young Predictor Formula. Josh Johnson has struggled lately but has still had a great season (10-5, 2.27). Ubaldo Jimenez has forgone his Bob Gibson impersonation but still is tied for the league lead with 17 wins (17-3, 2.55). The Phillies have trouble scoring runs for Roy Halladay so he has compensated by throwing a perfect game and several other gems (15-8, 2.24) but none of those pitcher are all that close to what Adam Wainwright is doing right now for the Cardinals.
He is 17-6 with a 1.99 ERA (the only starter under 2.00 in the league right now) and a WHIP of 0.97. At the trading deadline he was 14-6 and his ERA stood at 2.23. Since the calendar turned, he has won all three of his starts and has allowed just one earned run in 23 innings pitched. If he continues to pitch this way through the end of the season and the Cardinals hold their lead in the NL Central, he will win the Cy Young Award and could also get some votes in the MVP race.
All in all, I would say that this is just the sophomore slump for Lincecum and it came a year late. As long as he stays healthy he will win another Cy Young at some point in his career but this is not his year.
ALBERT PUJOLS WILL WIN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE MVP AWARD
If it wasn’t for Joey Votto’s incredible season, this would be another no brainer of a prediction. He is hitting just .315 but he has hit 29 home runs and has driven in 85 runs. Even though those numbers don’t stack up to some of the better years of his career, they currently rank 5th, 2nd, and 1st in the National League. Joey Votto’s numbers have slid off slightly since the All-Star break but his numbers of .322, 28, and 79 rank 1st, 3rd, and 3rd in the NL. Their OPS values are nearly identical (1.015 for Votto and .989 for Pujols) and they both have created 4.5 Wins Above Replacement.
Considering that Adam Wainwright and Roy Halladay has created 5.9 WAR, this could be a year where a position player does not win the MVP award. As has happened several times, this year’s MVP race may very well come down to who plays better in September and who leads their team to the playoffs. This may not be a slam dunk for Pujols, but I still say that he has as good a chance as anyone else in the NL.
JOE MAUER WILL WIN THE AL MVP AWARD
Yeah, this one was a bit off. He is still a great player and if he maintains his current skill set for another 10-15 years, he’ll be a first ballot Hall of Famer. He is hitting .328 this year, a number that was good enough to lead the AL in 2008 but with Josh Hamilton going nuts this year, it isn’t close to leading the league. His home runs are down (28 in 2009 and just 7 this year in 390 at-bats) which has caused his slugging percentage to dip from .587 to .485 but his OPS is still .885 and he is still one of the most important players on one of the best teams in the American League.
The biggest obstacle to Mauer competing for this award, as I mentioned above, is Josh Hamilton. Hamilton’s season got off to a bit of a slow start with slash lines of .265/.351/.494 in April and .294/.322/.505 in May. Since then he has been otherworldly. In June his slash line was .455/.482/.815; in July it was .418/.468/.704 and thus far in August it has been .381/.447/.667.
For the season, his .364 batting average is 26 points ahead of Miguel Cabrera for the best mark in the league, his 26 home runs are good for 4th in the AL, and his 80 RBI are very good but outside the top five in the league. If he is somehow able to maintain the torrent pace that he has had since the beginning of June, he will win the AL MVP award in a walk despite any baserunning or fielding liabilities he may present.
Well, that is all for the regular season predictions that I made. Some were good, some were bad, some (one in particular) were ugly. Before the playoffs start, I’ll be writing a more in depth preview piece at which point I’ll be revisiting the playoff predictions I made before the season. For the record, I said that the Yankees would top the Mariners in the ALCS, the Phillies would win the NLCS, and the Yankees would beat the Phillies again in the World Series.
Overall that doesn’t look too bad but we’ll wait for the season to end first. Truth be told, it looks like this might turn into a last hoorah for the Rays young ballclub before it gets too expensive for the Rays management to keep this team together. Hopefully that won’t be the case but it would be fun to see the Rays play with that sense of urgency, knowing that their time as a team might be limited.
As always, until next time, enjoy the baseball.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
300, 500, 3,000 AND BEYOND
NOTE: ALL STATS ARE AS OF AUGUST 4, 2010
I’m sure that many of the baseball fans out there reading this have some inkling about what the numbers in the title of this piece mean. Without attempting to draw out the suspense too much, we’re going to be talking about the most prominent counting stats in baseball; hits, home runs, wins, and strikeouts.
Before I get started, I know the pitfalls of basing someone’s Hall of Fame candidacy on stats as subjective as hits and wins as well as home runs in recent years. Frankly, I don’t care. These are benchmarks that have been used, either consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time in measuring a player’s career. Also, it’s a bit interesting when you start making projections.
Basically what I’m looking at is among the game’s best young (and not so young) players, who are the most likely to reach these milestones, who would be the most helped by achieving these levels in terms of their HOF candidacy.
Let’s go ahead and start with the elephant that’s been in the room for 10 years and get it out of the way…
HOME RUNS
As of August 4th, seven active players had 400 or more home runs and strange as it seems, I would actually say that they number of marquee sluggers with huge career numbers is actually down significantly from a few years ago when we had this current crop (albeit with lower career numbers) as well as guys like Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, and Palmeiro. Quick, what links four of the five previous names and who is the one who doesn’t fit in?
No, this post isn’t about steroids but anyone who said steroids and Ken Griffey Jr. are correct. Anyways, seven different players have 400 home runs, three have 500, and Alex Rodriguez just became the 7th member of the 600 home run club. The question that I’m asking is given their careers and ages, how many of those guys are likely to reach the next milestone?
My guess is three of the seven and at very most four. The seven players are:
Alex Rodriguez – 600
Jim Thome – 577
Manny Ramirez – 554
Chipper Jones – 434
Vladimir Guerrero – 428
Jason Giambi – 412
Andruw Jones – 403
Of those, the most likely to hit the next milestone are Rodriguez, Thome, and Jones.
- Manny Ramirez does have 554 career home runs but he’s also 38, he hasn’t played a full season since 2008 and in the last two years, he’s played 165 games and has hit 27 home runs, well below his career rate of 39.6 home runs per 162 games played. On top of the age, there are all the issues that come along with employing Ramirez and I just find it doubtful that he’ll be able to stick around long enough (without PED’s) to hit another 46 home runs.
- Chipper Jones could go down as one of the best third basemen of all-time and the list of hot corner specialists who have hit 500 or more home runs is quite short: Mike Schmidt (Alex Rodriguez has only 245 career home runs while playing third base). However, Jones is 66 home runs shy of 500 and there have been rumors flying around about his retirement after this year. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer without 500 home runs.
- Vladimir Guerrero is the most interesting case out of these seven because last year after hitting 15 home runs in 100 games, many people gave up on him except for the Texas Rangers. Guerrero is a viable MVP candidate again and has hit 21 home runs in his first 100 games this year, bringing his career total to 428. The real question is whether or not he can continue to play like he did earlier this year, with a slash line of .319/.364/.554 in the first half of the season, or whether he will continue his slow decline which has seen him not post an OPS over .900 since 2007 when the last time he was below .900 before that was 1997. I’m inclined to believe the latter and if he does fall short of 500 home runs, he will make a very interesting candidate for the Hall of Fame because while his defense is suspect, he’s had one of the most feared arms and bats in baseball over the last ten years.
- Jason Giambi is battling against time. He has 412 home runs and is 39 years old. On top of that, last year he managed just 13 home runs in 102 games and this year, he’s played well in 60 games for the Rockies, but he has just 3 home runs. In short, it just ain’t gonna happen.
The big difference between these four and the other three is time. Alex Rodriguez is still only 34 so he could potentially have a few more good home run years ahead of him. Jim Thome is 39, but he’s still hitting the ball out and he’s close enough to get over the hump and hit 600. Andruw Jones has 403 home runs and absolutely can’t hit the ball for average which greatly reduces his playing opportunities, but he’s just 33, the youngest player with more than 400 home runs so if he can get his average back into the .250 range, I would say that he’ll pass 500 home runs.
Lastly, there are a pair of 30 year olds that don’t yet have 400 home runs (though they soon will) and are very intriguing when looking at the future. The first is Adam Dunn who has 342 home runs and is frighteningly consistent in how many home runs he hits. These are his home run totals for the past 6 years: 46, 40, 40, 40, 40, 38. A little simple extrapolation says that if he does that until he’s 35, he’ll be in the range of 550 home runs, well within range of hitting 600. Is he a Hall of Famer if he hits 600 home runs? It will definitely be interesting to see because he will probably retire in the top ten (if not near the top) in home runs, strikeouts, and walks. His defense will certainly hurt him, but his bat has been very good since he came to the big leagues in 2001.
Even more intriguing is Albert Pujols. He has 392 home runs and the fewest he’s ever had in a season is 32. If he averages about 40 home runs a season over the next five years, he could very well be where Alex Rodriguez is right now; 35 years old with 600 home runs. In other words, Pujols could have a very good shot at hitting 700 and possibly more when all is said and done. My prediction is that both Rodriguez and Pujols will end up with more than 700 home runs.
HITS
7 active players have more than 2,000 career hits currently and of those players, two will pass 3,000 hits and one has a very good chance. With all due respect to Ivan Rodriguez (2,783), Omar Vizquel (2,759). Manny Ramirez (2,553), and Johnny Damon (2,524), time is running out and they aren’t going to make it. The fact that the youngest of those four is 36 might have something to do with that.
The one who has a chance is Ichiro Suzuki and the biggest reason for that is despite the fact that he entered the big leagues at the late age of 27, he swings at everything. In ten seasons and 1,536 games, he has walked a grand total of 447 times. By comparison, Albert Pujols has played 1,507 games over ten years and has walked 877 times. Ichiro has accumulated 2,169 hits and could very well pass 3,000 if he plays until he’s 40 which considering his level of fitness and his ability to play the outfield, he’ll be able to if he wants to. Here’s the question though; does he want to?
If you combine his time between Japan and the United States, he is a .339 career hitter with 3,450 hits and 205 home runs. What really matters when answering this question is does he want to win a World Series title or does he care about individual numbers? If he gets to 3,000 hits in the US, he would pass Rose’s mark of 4,256 hits when you added in his playing time in Japan.
My gut tells me that he will play until his physical skills deteriorate too much and that is going to be a while. He will pass 3,000 hits and he will be a first ballot Hall of Famer five years after his retirement.
The two I haven’t mentioned are definitely going to get to 3,000 unless they have a catastrophic injury of some kind. Derek Jeter has 2,872 hits and his pace (measured in hits per 162 games played) has stayed right up near his career mark of 207.4 in recent years so sometime next year, he’ll hit this milestone. Alex Rodriguez has 2,633 and even though he’s slowing down in recent years, at his current paces, he’ll only need two seasons and maybe a little more to pass 3,000 hit and when he does, he will join Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as the only players with 3,000 hits and 600 home runs.
WINS
Now, on to the pitchers. Yes, wins is a terribly overrated statistic that depends much more on the other eight (or nine) guys in the starting lineup than on how well you’re pitching that particular day. Yet, the fact remains that the starting pitcher has more influence over the path of the game than any other single player on the field. One can easily argue that the catcher has this level of influence or more but that depends entirely on whether or not the catcher actually calls the game. If not, they aren’t close to the starting pitcher. Therefore, given this logic, it does make some sense that starting pitchers are often judged by wins since 20 wins has universally been considered a good season for many decades while an ERA of 3.00 might be good today but in 1968, it was worse than average (yes, I understand the pitfalls of ERA as well… back off).
Along with 20 wins in a season, 300 wins in a career has been seen as an automatic ticket to Cooperstown for a very long time and I believe that still applies. I’m not saying that because a pitcher won 300 games, he’s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, I’m saying that if he pitched long enough and well enough to win 300 games, the odds are extremely good that all the more advanced metrics will support his candidacy.
Here’s the problem; are we ever going to see a 300 game winner again? The answer gets murky but of the ten pitchers I looked at, only one is on pace to reach 300 wins before turning 40. Since Jamey Moyer is a freak of nature (103 wins since turning 40) and a Roger Clemens type (61 wins after turning 40) will likely never happen again, it would seem that if you’re going to get to 300 wins, you’ve got to do it before turning 40.
Amongst active players, CC Sabathia stands the best chance. He has 149 wins and is only 29 years old and given the number of games he starts every year and the percentage of starts in which he gets a victory, right now it would be a tenth of the way through the 11th season from now, just before he turns 40, that he will win his 300th game.
The other component that goes into how many games a pitcher may win has to be addressed and that is the team around him. Sabathia stands a good chance to get to 300 wins because through his late 20’s and early 30’s, he’s going to be pitching for the Yankees and the team has a very solid core of position players so they are going to be a good team throughout his current contract. Even if he is remembered as a great pitcher and not just a good pitcher, there is no doubt that Sabathia will benefit greatly from being on playoff caliber teams.
Even if you lower that threshold to 250 wins, only Andy Pettitte joins Sabathia as being on pace for more than 250 wins before age 40 (Pettitte currently stands at 240).
How will the pitchers of today and tomorrow measure up against those of past generations? Well, at first glance, the answer is not well. Even just taking the batch of players that are recently retired, the group includes a 270 game winner (Mike Mussina) and four 300 games winners in Randy Johnson (303), Tom Glavine (305), Roger Clemens (354), and Greg Maddux (355). The answer to the dilemma is we need more advanced metrics such as OPS+ which can measure the career performances of the all-time greats against the great pitchers of today to put them in a proper context. Otherwise, pitchers could become rarer and rarer in the Hall of Fame.
STRIKEOUTS
If there’s a silver lining about starting pitchers getting fewer career wins, it’s that there are more strikeouts for the taking these days. As one scout said when asked about the drop in offensive numbers in recent years, “all the players are clean and they’re still swinging for the fences”.
If we assume that there is no steroid use in baseball today (I know it’s a pipe dream but still, let’s just say…) we can draw several conclusions from that assertion, including the large amount of strikeouts being piled up. One of the uses of performance enhancing drugs isn’t necessarily to get stronger and hit the ball farther but rather to be at the top of your game day in and day out. In the NFL, if you have a really bad Tuesday and you’re only at 50% of your ability, then you have a bad practice and your coach comes up to you and asks if everything is alright. If you have the same bad day in Major League Baseball, you go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. One of the uses of PED’s is to be on the field every day and playing at a high level every day. Without PED’s, you have more off days and the most direct effect of that is batting performance.
Also, knowing that you are clean (where perhaps, at one time, you weren’t) could make you try harder to hit those home runs. This creates longer, slower swings with more holes and more holes can equal more strikeouts.
That would be one theory for why the strikeout rates have climbed so high. Another is that managers are just accepting them more and more because of the good things that a player does. In his career, Adam Dunn has struck out 1,566 times, already good for 33rd all-time. However, he also has 346 home runs and a career .252/.382/.525 slash line, very good numbers considering the relatively low batting average. I can certainly say that if Adam Dunn was available to me, I would put him in the line-up every day despite the strike outs.
So, back to the original query; how many pitchers are on pace for more than 3,000 strikeouts? Out of the 11 pitchers I looked at (assuming the 40 year age limit as with wins), 6 of them are on pace to reach 3,000 strikeouts and two of them are even on pace to reach 3,500. Some of you might ask why this is such a big deal and the answer is simple; while 27 players have accumulated 3,000 hits in their career, just 16 have struck out 3,000 batters. To add as many as six to that list from a generation of pitchers would constitute a large increase.
Those six pitchers are Javier Vazquez (2,342 strikeouts, 34 years old), Johan Santana (1,838, 31), CC Sabathia (1,717, 29), Jake Peavy (1,459, 29), Felix Hernandez (959, 24), and Tim Lincecum (828, 26). I know that it’s really premature to be talking about career projections for 24 and 26 year olds but Hernandez and Lincecum are the two who have the potential to reach 3,500 strikeouts at their current paces, a level that only 9 pitchers have ever gotten to.
HALL OF FAME
So now the obvious question is which of these milestones gives a player their best shot at the Hall of Fame?
In a nutshell, anything that doesn’t have anything to do with home runs. Of the 25 players that have 500 career home runs, only 15 have been enshrined in Cooperstown. However, 3 of those players (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Thome) are still active and five (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, and Gary Sheffield) aren’t eligible for the HOF yet. So actually, 15 of the 17 eligible 500 home run hitters are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, leaving only Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro out in the cold.
Here’s the proverbial rub though. If the Hall of Fame doesn’t vote in anybody that has been linked to steroids (other than playing in the steroid era), then six of the ten mentioned above will not make it to the Hall of Fame. Whether or not that will be the case remains to be seen but so far Mark McGwire hasn’t come close to the 75% needed to get in.
3,000 hits has been a one way ticket to the Hall unless you’ve been linked to steroids or gambling (on baseball). Of the 27 players with 3,000 career hits, only Craig Biggio (not eligible since he retired in 2007), Rafael Palmeiro, and hit king Pete Rose are not in the Hall of Fame. Biggio has a very good chance to get in when his turns comes up in 2012. As for the other two, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
24 pitchers have won 300 games and so far, only four of them are not enshrined in Cooperstown. However, all 20 eligible pitchers with 300 wins are in the Hall of Fame. Only Roger Clemens (retired 2007), Greg Maddux (2008), Tom Glavine (2008), and Randy Johnson (2009) aren’t in yet and with the exception of Clemens (back to the PED’s again), they all stand a very good chance of getting in.
The oddest one seems to be strikeouts. Of those 16 players who have struck out 3,000 batters in their careers, only 10 are currently eligible and of those, 9 are in the Hall of Fame. Only Bert Blyleven remains on the outside looking in. As for the rest, when their turn comes up Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux have very good odds, Curt Schilling has a pretty good shot, and the last is none other than our good friend Roger Clemens.
What this last bit shows is that the Hall of Fame voters have no idea what to do with the steroids era players. Granted, some guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson are locks once they are eligible. However, six of the ten players with 500 or more home runs not in the Hall of Fame have been in some way linked to Performance Enhancing Drugs and the question is how is the Hall of Fame going to deal with them?
I don’t have an answer but I do have an opinion. In a nutshell, one of the greatest pitchers ever (Clemens) and one of the greatest hitters ever (Bonds) are neck deep in steroid questions and accusations. All that says to me is the playing field might just have been somewhat level after all. Who are the biggest culprits in the offensive explosion that cheapened some of America’s most hallowed records? In my opinion, smaller ballparks, better training, expansion of the league, contraction of the strike zone, and the American infatuation with the home run are just as much to blame as steroids.
Well, my ranting is at an end for the day. Until next time…
I’m sure that many of the baseball fans out there reading this have some inkling about what the numbers in the title of this piece mean. Without attempting to draw out the suspense too much, we’re going to be talking about the most prominent counting stats in baseball; hits, home runs, wins, and strikeouts.
Before I get started, I know the pitfalls of basing someone’s Hall of Fame candidacy on stats as subjective as hits and wins as well as home runs in recent years. Frankly, I don’t care. These are benchmarks that have been used, either consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time in measuring a player’s career. Also, it’s a bit interesting when you start making projections.
Basically what I’m looking at is among the game’s best young (and not so young) players, who are the most likely to reach these milestones, who would be the most helped by achieving these levels in terms of their HOF candidacy.
Let’s go ahead and start with the elephant that’s been in the room for 10 years and get it out of the way…
HOME RUNS
As of August 4th, seven active players had 400 or more home runs and strange as it seems, I would actually say that they number of marquee sluggers with huge career numbers is actually down significantly from a few years ago when we had this current crop (albeit with lower career numbers) as well as guys like Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, and Palmeiro. Quick, what links four of the five previous names and who is the one who doesn’t fit in?
No, this post isn’t about steroids but anyone who said steroids and Ken Griffey Jr. are correct. Anyways, seven different players have 400 home runs, three have 500, and Alex Rodriguez just became the 7th member of the 600 home run club. The question that I’m asking is given their careers and ages, how many of those guys are likely to reach the next milestone?
My guess is three of the seven and at very most four. The seven players are:
Alex Rodriguez – 600
Jim Thome – 577
Manny Ramirez – 554
Chipper Jones – 434
Vladimir Guerrero – 428
Jason Giambi – 412
Andruw Jones – 403
Of those, the most likely to hit the next milestone are Rodriguez, Thome, and Jones.
- Manny Ramirez does have 554 career home runs but he’s also 38, he hasn’t played a full season since 2008 and in the last two years, he’s played 165 games and has hit 27 home runs, well below his career rate of 39.6 home runs per 162 games played. On top of the age, there are all the issues that come along with employing Ramirez and I just find it doubtful that he’ll be able to stick around long enough (without PED’s) to hit another 46 home runs.
- Chipper Jones could go down as one of the best third basemen of all-time and the list of hot corner specialists who have hit 500 or more home runs is quite short: Mike Schmidt (Alex Rodriguez has only 245 career home runs while playing third base). However, Jones is 66 home runs shy of 500 and there have been rumors flying around about his retirement after this year. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer without 500 home runs.
- Vladimir Guerrero is the most interesting case out of these seven because last year after hitting 15 home runs in 100 games, many people gave up on him except for the Texas Rangers. Guerrero is a viable MVP candidate again and has hit 21 home runs in his first 100 games this year, bringing his career total to 428. The real question is whether or not he can continue to play like he did earlier this year, with a slash line of .319/.364/.554 in the first half of the season, or whether he will continue his slow decline which has seen him not post an OPS over .900 since 2007 when the last time he was below .900 before that was 1997. I’m inclined to believe the latter and if he does fall short of 500 home runs, he will make a very interesting candidate for the Hall of Fame because while his defense is suspect, he’s had one of the most feared arms and bats in baseball over the last ten years.
- Jason Giambi is battling against time. He has 412 home runs and is 39 years old. On top of that, last year he managed just 13 home runs in 102 games and this year, he’s played well in 60 games for the Rockies, but he has just 3 home runs. In short, it just ain’t gonna happen.
The big difference between these four and the other three is time. Alex Rodriguez is still only 34 so he could potentially have a few more good home run years ahead of him. Jim Thome is 39, but he’s still hitting the ball out and he’s close enough to get over the hump and hit 600. Andruw Jones has 403 home runs and absolutely can’t hit the ball for average which greatly reduces his playing opportunities, but he’s just 33, the youngest player with more than 400 home runs so if he can get his average back into the .250 range, I would say that he’ll pass 500 home runs.
Lastly, there are a pair of 30 year olds that don’t yet have 400 home runs (though they soon will) and are very intriguing when looking at the future. The first is Adam Dunn who has 342 home runs and is frighteningly consistent in how many home runs he hits. These are his home run totals for the past 6 years: 46, 40, 40, 40, 40, 38. A little simple extrapolation says that if he does that until he’s 35, he’ll be in the range of 550 home runs, well within range of hitting 600. Is he a Hall of Famer if he hits 600 home runs? It will definitely be interesting to see because he will probably retire in the top ten (if not near the top) in home runs, strikeouts, and walks. His defense will certainly hurt him, but his bat has been very good since he came to the big leagues in 2001.
Even more intriguing is Albert Pujols. He has 392 home runs and the fewest he’s ever had in a season is 32. If he averages about 40 home runs a season over the next five years, he could very well be where Alex Rodriguez is right now; 35 years old with 600 home runs. In other words, Pujols could have a very good shot at hitting 700 and possibly more when all is said and done. My prediction is that both Rodriguez and Pujols will end up with more than 700 home runs.
HITS
7 active players have more than 2,000 career hits currently and of those players, two will pass 3,000 hits and one has a very good chance. With all due respect to Ivan Rodriguez (2,783), Omar Vizquel (2,759). Manny Ramirez (2,553), and Johnny Damon (2,524), time is running out and they aren’t going to make it. The fact that the youngest of those four is 36 might have something to do with that.
The one who has a chance is Ichiro Suzuki and the biggest reason for that is despite the fact that he entered the big leagues at the late age of 27, he swings at everything. In ten seasons and 1,536 games, he has walked a grand total of 447 times. By comparison, Albert Pujols has played 1,507 games over ten years and has walked 877 times. Ichiro has accumulated 2,169 hits and could very well pass 3,000 if he plays until he’s 40 which considering his level of fitness and his ability to play the outfield, he’ll be able to if he wants to. Here’s the question though; does he want to?
If you combine his time between Japan and the United States, he is a .339 career hitter with 3,450 hits and 205 home runs. What really matters when answering this question is does he want to win a World Series title or does he care about individual numbers? If he gets to 3,000 hits in the US, he would pass Rose’s mark of 4,256 hits when you added in his playing time in Japan.
My gut tells me that he will play until his physical skills deteriorate too much and that is going to be a while. He will pass 3,000 hits and he will be a first ballot Hall of Famer five years after his retirement.
The two I haven’t mentioned are definitely going to get to 3,000 unless they have a catastrophic injury of some kind. Derek Jeter has 2,872 hits and his pace (measured in hits per 162 games played) has stayed right up near his career mark of 207.4 in recent years so sometime next year, he’ll hit this milestone. Alex Rodriguez has 2,633 and even though he’s slowing down in recent years, at his current paces, he’ll only need two seasons and maybe a little more to pass 3,000 hit and when he does, he will join Hank Aaron and Willie Mays as the only players with 3,000 hits and 600 home runs.
WINS
Now, on to the pitchers. Yes, wins is a terribly overrated statistic that depends much more on the other eight (or nine) guys in the starting lineup than on how well you’re pitching that particular day. Yet, the fact remains that the starting pitcher has more influence over the path of the game than any other single player on the field. One can easily argue that the catcher has this level of influence or more but that depends entirely on whether or not the catcher actually calls the game. If not, they aren’t close to the starting pitcher. Therefore, given this logic, it does make some sense that starting pitchers are often judged by wins since 20 wins has universally been considered a good season for many decades while an ERA of 3.00 might be good today but in 1968, it was worse than average (yes, I understand the pitfalls of ERA as well… back off).
Along with 20 wins in a season, 300 wins in a career has been seen as an automatic ticket to Cooperstown for a very long time and I believe that still applies. I’m not saying that because a pitcher won 300 games, he’s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, I’m saying that if he pitched long enough and well enough to win 300 games, the odds are extremely good that all the more advanced metrics will support his candidacy.
Here’s the problem; are we ever going to see a 300 game winner again? The answer gets murky but of the ten pitchers I looked at, only one is on pace to reach 300 wins before turning 40. Since Jamey Moyer is a freak of nature (103 wins since turning 40) and a Roger Clemens type (61 wins after turning 40) will likely never happen again, it would seem that if you’re going to get to 300 wins, you’ve got to do it before turning 40.
Amongst active players, CC Sabathia stands the best chance. He has 149 wins and is only 29 years old and given the number of games he starts every year and the percentage of starts in which he gets a victory, right now it would be a tenth of the way through the 11th season from now, just before he turns 40, that he will win his 300th game.
The other component that goes into how many games a pitcher may win has to be addressed and that is the team around him. Sabathia stands a good chance to get to 300 wins because through his late 20’s and early 30’s, he’s going to be pitching for the Yankees and the team has a very solid core of position players so they are going to be a good team throughout his current contract. Even if he is remembered as a great pitcher and not just a good pitcher, there is no doubt that Sabathia will benefit greatly from being on playoff caliber teams.
Even if you lower that threshold to 250 wins, only Andy Pettitte joins Sabathia as being on pace for more than 250 wins before age 40 (Pettitte currently stands at 240).
How will the pitchers of today and tomorrow measure up against those of past generations? Well, at first glance, the answer is not well. Even just taking the batch of players that are recently retired, the group includes a 270 game winner (Mike Mussina) and four 300 games winners in Randy Johnson (303), Tom Glavine (305), Roger Clemens (354), and Greg Maddux (355). The answer to the dilemma is we need more advanced metrics such as OPS+ which can measure the career performances of the all-time greats against the great pitchers of today to put them in a proper context. Otherwise, pitchers could become rarer and rarer in the Hall of Fame.
STRIKEOUTS
If there’s a silver lining about starting pitchers getting fewer career wins, it’s that there are more strikeouts for the taking these days. As one scout said when asked about the drop in offensive numbers in recent years, “all the players are clean and they’re still swinging for the fences”.
If we assume that there is no steroid use in baseball today (I know it’s a pipe dream but still, let’s just say…) we can draw several conclusions from that assertion, including the large amount of strikeouts being piled up. One of the uses of performance enhancing drugs isn’t necessarily to get stronger and hit the ball farther but rather to be at the top of your game day in and day out. In the NFL, if you have a really bad Tuesday and you’re only at 50% of your ability, then you have a bad practice and your coach comes up to you and asks if everything is alright. If you have the same bad day in Major League Baseball, you go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts. One of the uses of PED’s is to be on the field every day and playing at a high level every day. Without PED’s, you have more off days and the most direct effect of that is batting performance.
Also, knowing that you are clean (where perhaps, at one time, you weren’t) could make you try harder to hit those home runs. This creates longer, slower swings with more holes and more holes can equal more strikeouts.
That would be one theory for why the strikeout rates have climbed so high. Another is that managers are just accepting them more and more because of the good things that a player does. In his career, Adam Dunn has struck out 1,566 times, already good for 33rd all-time. However, he also has 346 home runs and a career .252/.382/.525 slash line, very good numbers considering the relatively low batting average. I can certainly say that if Adam Dunn was available to me, I would put him in the line-up every day despite the strike outs.
So, back to the original query; how many pitchers are on pace for more than 3,000 strikeouts? Out of the 11 pitchers I looked at (assuming the 40 year age limit as with wins), 6 of them are on pace to reach 3,000 strikeouts and two of them are even on pace to reach 3,500. Some of you might ask why this is such a big deal and the answer is simple; while 27 players have accumulated 3,000 hits in their career, just 16 have struck out 3,000 batters. To add as many as six to that list from a generation of pitchers would constitute a large increase.
Those six pitchers are Javier Vazquez (2,342 strikeouts, 34 years old), Johan Santana (1,838, 31), CC Sabathia (1,717, 29), Jake Peavy (1,459, 29), Felix Hernandez (959, 24), and Tim Lincecum (828, 26). I know that it’s really premature to be talking about career projections for 24 and 26 year olds but Hernandez and Lincecum are the two who have the potential to reach 3,500 strikeouts at their current paces, a level that only 9 pitchers have ever gotten to.
HALL OF FAME
So now the obvious question is which of these milestones gives a player their best shot at the Hall of Fame?
In a nutshell, anything that doesn’t have anything to do with home runs. Of the 25 players that have 500 career home runs, only 15 have been enshrined in Cooperstown. However, 3 of those players (Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Thome) are still active and five (Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, and Gary Sheffield) aren’t eligible for the HOF yet. So actually, 15 of the 17 eligible 500 home run hitters are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, leaving only Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro out in the cold.
Here’s the proverbial rub though. If the Hall of Fame doesn’t vote in anybody that has been linked to steroids (other than playing in the steroid era), then six of the ten mentioned above will not make it to the Hall of Fame. Whether or not that will be the case remains to be seen but so far Mark McGwire hasn’t come close to the 75% needed to get in.
3,000 hits has been a one way ticket to the Hall unless you’ve been linked to steroids or gambling (on baseball). Of the 27 players with 3,000 career hits, only Craig Biggio (not eligible since he retired in 2007), Rafael Palmeiro, and hit king Pete Rose are not in the Hall of Fame. Biggio has a very good chance to get in when his turns comes up in 2012. As for the other two, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
24 pitchers have won 300 games and so far, only four of them are not enshrined in Cooperstown. However, all 20 eligible pitchers with 300 wins are in the Hall of Fame. Only Roger Clemens (retired 2007), Greg Maddux (2008), Tom Glavine (2008), and Randy Johnson (2009) aren’t in yet and with the exception of Clemens (back to the PED’s again), they all stand a very good chance of getting in.
The oddest one seems to be strikeouts. Of those 16 players who have struck out 3,000 batters in their careers, only 10 are currently eligible and of those, 9 are in the Hall of Fame. Only Bert Blyleven remains on the outside looking in. As for the rest, when their turn comes up Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux have very good odds, Curt Schilling has a pretty good shot, and the last is none other than our good friend Roger Clemens.
What this last bit shows is that the Hall of Fame voters have no idea what to do with the steroids era players. Granted, some guys like Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson are locks once they are eligible. However, six of the ten players with 500 or more home runs not in the Hall of Fame have been in some way linked to Performance Enhancing Drugs and the question is how is the Hall of Fame going to deal with them?
I don’t have an answer but I do have an opinion. In a nutshell, one of the greatest pitchers ever (Clemens) and one of the greatest hitters ever (Bonds) are neck deep in steroid questions and accusations. All that says to me is the playing field might just have been somewhat level after all. Who are the biggest culprits in the offensive explosion that cheapened some of America’s most hallowed records? In my opinion, smaller ballparks, better training, expansion of the league, contraction of the strike zone, and the American infatuation with the home run are just as much to blame as steroids.
Well, my ranting is at an end for the day. Until next time…
Sunday, August 1, 2010
How Much is a Win Worth?
This is a very interesting question and while there is no concrete answer, I’m basically going to use a piece of analysis that I’ve seen before. I believe it was linked from baseball-reference.com but it’s been so long since I read the article that I can’t remember. I apologize for any infringement upon proprietary information as it is unintentional and I would like to make clear that I did not come up with this all by my onesies…
Anyways…
There is a wonderful metric called Wins Above Replacement (from now on, WAR) that theoretically measures how much more valuable a player is than a major league average player at his position. Please do not ask me how it is derived because I have absolutely no idea. However, considering the list of baseball analysts that routinely use WAR in their analysis, I feel comfortable making assertions based on this metric.
Essentially, the number crunching I’m about to do is very simple. If you take the number of wins a team has and divide by their payroll, you can find out how much value a win has to that franchise. Then, multiplying this number by the WAR value for a player would give you the theoretical salary that he should earn for his performance. Of course, there are some problems with this method and number one on the list is salary disparity. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox put a much higher value on a win than the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Kansas City Royals. This will provide for some interesting analysis further on but we’ll get to that later. The easiest way to account for these differences is instead of using individual teams, use data from all 30 teams and find the averages. So, let’s do it…
From 2000-2009, the thirty major league teams spent approximately $22.22 billion in payroll, or $74.1 million per team per year. Over that time period, teams recorded 24,286 wins, or an average of 81 per team per year. This comes out to an average expenditure of $915,248 spent per win across the majors.
If you were to combine this with the WAR metric, you can find an approximate value for how much a player’s performance was “worth” in a given year.
Let’s use the example of three time MVP Albert Pujols. In 2005, his first MVP year, his WAR was 8.2 and his salary was $11 million. According to this calculation, he was worth “only” $7.5 million that season. Similar numbers can be found for his second and third MVP seasons when he posted WAR numbers of 9.6 and 9.2 respectively. According to this analysis, his salary figures of $14.4 and $14.6 million were well above this metric’s analysis, which placed his worth at $8.8 and $8.4 million.
Obviously, there is a flaw in this system somewhere because any general manager would trip over themselves to sign an MVP candidate for $8.5 million a year and the vast majority of GM’s wouldn’t blink about signing an MVP winner for the $14-15 million price tag of Albert Pujols. So what is wrong with the method? It’s simple; wins are worth more to some teams than they are to others. In 2005, 2008, and 2009, the St. Louis Cardinals paid $921,000, $1.16 million, and $972,000 per win. However, these numbers still peg his value well below his salary.
So why is there such a big disparity? Well, as much as I hate to point fingers, you have to look at the salary disparity between established veterans and all-stars and young players that are up and coming. I’m not asking anyone reading this to feel sorry for the fact that Pujols posted a WAR of 6.9, 5.8, and 10.9 in his first three years in the majors while making only $1.7 million (vs. the estimated $21.6 million value of those wins). $1.7 million is more than the vast majority of Americans make over a three year period and that number shrinks even more when you take into account that he did it from the ages of 21-23.
All I’m saying is that in the current salary structure of baseball, young stud players are drastically underpaid and established veterans are (in some cases) drastically overpaid. The only consolation for rookies is that if they keep their production up, they’ll get that payday as well.
I’d like to shift this analysis from individual players to teams in general because I believe that the numbers match up a bit better. The first thing I did was I devised a method to compare each team’s performance as well as salary level against all the other teams in the sample. To do this, I used the highest and lowest value for both wins and $/win and placed every team on that line and assigned a value from 0-100 based on where they were.
For example, the extremes for wins were 43 (by the 2003 Tigers who went 43-119) and 116 (by the 2001 Mariners who went 116-46). The extremes for $/win were $188,096 (2006 Marlins) and $2,335,919 (2008 Yankees). In 2002, the Angels went 99-63 and spent $623,451 per win on their way to a World Series title. To find their data point, I did the following:
(99-43)/(116-43) = 0.767*100 = 76.7
Their win total in 2002 was 76.7% of the way from the lowest win total to the highest win total.
If we do the same calculation for $/win, we can find their salary data point:
(623,451-188,096)/(2,335,919-188,096) = 0.203*100 = 20.3
Finally, I subtracted the payroll number from the wins number to see how well they line up.
76.7-20.3 = 56.4
Any positive number means their team outperformed their relative expenditure for that season and a negative number means they underperformed for how much they spent on payroll. Before launching into the best and worst the last decade has seen, I want to make it clear that I understand that sometimes, things go wrong over the course of a 6-month, 162-game season and a team ends up paying $10 million to a guy who spends most of the season on the disabled list. I understand that teams (for no apparent reason) can over or underachieve for whatever reason but this analysis does show some trends that can’t be explained away as coincidence.
THE BEST
W-L, $/Win
Wins, $/Win metrics
Difference
2001 Seattle Mariners
116-46, $644,145
100.0, 21.2
78.8
2001 Oakland Athletics
102-60, $331,478
80.8, 6.7
74.1
2002 Oakland Athletics
103-59, $388,390
82.2, 9.3
72.9
2000 Chicago White Sox
95-67, $334,142
71.2, 6.8
64.4
2008 Tampa Bay Rays
97-65, $451,759
74.0, 12.3
61.7
With the exception of the Mariners, all of these teams were put together with enormous amounts of young, cheap talent that went out and performed day in and day out. If you take out the Mariners $74.7 million payroll, the highest in the group is $43.8 million by the 2008 Rays.
This doesn’t mean by any stretch off the imagination that these were the five best teams of the past ten years. I would instead say that they were the five best teams in terms of what you got per dollar spent.
Understandably, when you expand the above list and look at the top ten, only the White Sox of 2000 are considered to be playing in a large market. The others are Seattle (2001), Tampa Bay (2008), Minneapolis-St. Paul (2002), San Francisco (2000), Cleveland (2005), and the only team represented in the top ten more than once, Oakland (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003).
What this says to me is that in the early part of this decade, Billy Beane and his team were the best in the majors at putting together a winning team on a relatively tight budget. They haven’t won a World Series title since 1989 but when you consider that in the past decade, the Athletics have a win-loss record of 890-728 with an average payroll of $52.4 million per season (less than one third that of the Yankees), it speaks volumes about the men making the decisions.
THE WORST
2008 Seattle Mariners
61-101, $1,928,959
24.7, 81.1
-56.4
2009 New York Mets
70-92, $2,133,914
37.0, 90.6
-53.6
2003 Detroit Tigers
43-119, $1,143,442
0.0, 44.5
-44.5
2004 Arizona Diamondbacks
51-111, $1,368,250
11.0, 54.9
-43.9
2003 New York Mets
66-95, $1,775,400
31.5, 73.9
-42.4
Yes, I’m afraid that the Mets have to qualify as the biggest train wreck of the decade and this includes an appearance in the World Series in 2000. Their win-loss record for the decade is 815-803 and their .504 winning percentage is good enough to be 14th best in the majors over that span. However, their payroll sum of $1,091,320,006 for the decade ranks third only to the Red Sox and Yankees.
Interestingly enough, if you expand the bottom five into the bottom ten, it includes both the 2005 and 2008 versions of the New York Yankees but there is one critical difference. If you compare the other 8 teams to the two Yankees teams, you see shocking difference. The other eight teams won between 43 and 74 games with an average record of 62-100. In 2005, the Yankees spent $208.3 million, went 95-67, and won the American League East. In 2008, they went 89-73 with a payroll of $207.9 million and that year, they finished third to the Red Sox and the Rays (see “BEST” teams).
Basically what I’m trying to say is that while this analysis only scratches the surface of money management, it’s relatively easy to see who is mismanaging it. In the Yankees most cost-efficient season (2002), they still rank only 68th this decade in cost-efficiency. Something they can say that nobody else can though is that they played in the postseason 9 times, the World Series 4 times, and won the Series twice while never winning fewer than 89 games. They had a payroll that demanded winning and they won.
To sum up, I’m going to throw just a few more numbers at you and this way, you can see where the thirty teams have fallen for the decade as a whole instead of year by year:
Until next time, enjoy the baseball!!!
Rank. Team Name
W-L, Payroll (in millions)
Cost-Efficiency
1. Oakland Athletics
890-728, $523.6
62.7
2. Minnesota Twins
863-758, $504.7
53.3
3. Florida Marlins
811-807, $353.9
47.6
4. St. Louis Cardinals
913-706
$843.2
44.5
5. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
900-720, $882.2
35.5
6. Atlanta Braves
892-727, $929.6
28.2
7. Chicago White Sox
857-764, $774.5
26.6
8. San Francisco Giants
855-763, $790.3
24.9
9. Philadelphia Phillies
850-769, $795.2
22.1
10. Cleveland Indians
816-804, $651.9
20.9
11. Boston Red Sox
920-699, $1,167.0
20.2
12. Houston Astros
832-788, $766.9
16.9
13. Toronto Blue Jays
805-814, $678.4
14.0
14. San Diego Padres
769-852, $544.5
11.8
15. Los Angeles Dodgers
862-758, $999.8
8.7
16. Arizona Diamondbacks
805-815, $732.8
8.6
17. Seattle Mariners
837-783, $882.7
8.3
18. Colorado Rockies
769-852, $609.1
5.3
19. Milwaukee Brewers
741-879, $529.2
2.0
20. New York Yankees
965-653, $1,670.3
0.0
21. Cincinnati Reds
751-871, $586.1
-0.1
22. Tampa Bay Rays
694-923, $400.0
-2.9
23. Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos
711-908, $463.5
-3.2
24. Texas Rangers
776-844, $752.0
-5.8
25. Chicago Cubs
807-811, $905.7
-6.8
26. Pittsburgh Pirates
681-936, $439.2
-12.6
27. New York Mets
815-803, $1,091.3
-20.8
28. Kansas City Royals
672-948, $475.8
-21.0
29. Detroit Tigers
729-891, $763.4
-27.8
30. Baltimore Orioles
698-922, $720.6
-37.2
Anyways…
There is a wonderful metric called Wins Above Replacement (from now on, WAR) that theoretically measures how much more valuable a player is than a major league average player at his position. Please do not ask me how it is derived because I have absolutely no idea. However, considering the list of baseball analysts that routinely use WAR in their analysis, I feel comfortable making assertions based on this metric.
Essentially, the number crunching I’m about to do is very simple. If you take the number of wins a team has and divide by their payroll, you can find out how much value a win has to that franchise. Then, multiplying this number by the WAR value for a player would give you the theoretical salary that he should earn for his performance. Of course, there are some problems with this method and number one on the list is salary disparity. The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox put a much higher value on a win than the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Kansas City Royals. This will provide for some interesting analysis further on but we’ll get to that later. The easiest way to account for these differences is instead of using individual teams, use data from all 30 teams and find the averages. So, let’s do it…
From 2000-2009, the thirty major league teams spent approximately $22.22 billion in payroll, or $74.1 million per team per year. Over that time period, teams recorded 24,286 wins, or an average of 81 per team per year. This comes out to an average expenditure of $915,248 spent per win across the majors.
If you were to combine this with the WAR metric, you can find an approximate value for how much a player’s performance was “worth” in a given year.
Let’s use the example of three time MVP Albert Pujols. In 2005, his first MVP year, his WAR was 8.2 and his salary was $11 million. According to this calculation, he was worth “only” $7.5 million that season. Similar numbers can be found for his second and third MVP seasons when he posted WAR numbers of 9.6 and 9.2 respectively. According to this analysis, his salary figures of $14.4 and $14.6 million were well above this metric’s analysis, which placed his worth at $8.8 and $8.4 million.
Obviously, there is a flaw in this system somewhere because any general manager would trip over themselves to sign an MVP candidate for $8.5 million a year and the vast majority of GM’s wouldn’t blink about signing an MVP winner for the $14-15 million price tag of Albert Pujols. So what is wrong with the method? It’s simple; wins are worth more to some teams than they are to others. In 2005, 2008, and 2009, the St. Louis Cardinals paid $921,000, $1.16 million, and $972,000 per win. However, these numbers still peg his value well below his salary.
So why is there such a big disparity? Well, as much as I hate to point fingers, you have to look at the salary disparity between established veterans and all-stars and young players that are up and coming. I’m not asking anyone reading this to feel sorry for the fact that Pujols posted a WAR of 6.9, 5.8, and 10.9 in his first three years in the majors while making only $1.7 million (vs. the estimated $21.6 million value of those wins). $1.7 million is more than the vast majority of Americans make over a three year period and that number shrinks even more when you take into account that he did it from the ages of 21-23.
All I’m saying is that in the current salary structure of baseball, young stud players are drastically underpaid and established veterans are (in some cases) drastically overpaid. The only consolation for rookies is that if they keep their production up, they’ll get that payday as well.
I’d like to shift this analysis from individual players to teams in general because I believe that the numbers match up a bit better. The first thing I did was I devised a method to compare each team’s performance as well as salary level against all the other teams in the sample. To do this, I used the highest and lowest value for both wins and $/win and placed every team on that line and assigned a value from 0-100 based on where they were.
For example, the extremes for wins were 43 (by the 2003 Tigers who went 43-119) and 116 (by the 2001 Mariners who went 116-46). The extremes for $/win were $188,096 (2006 Marlins) and $2,335,919 (2008 Yankees). In 2002, the Angels went 99-63 and spent $623,451 per win on their way to a World Series title. To find their data point, I did the following:
(99-43)/(116-43) = 0.767*100 = 76.7
Their win total in 2002 was 76.7% of the way from the lowest win total to the highest win total.
If we do the same calculation for $/win, we can find their salary data point:
(623,451-188,096)/(2,335,919-188,096) = 0.203*100 = 20.3
Finally, I subtracted the payroll number from the wins number to see how well they line up.
76.7-20.3 = 56.4
Any positive number means their team outperformed their relative expenditure for that season and a negative number means they underperformed for how much they spent on payroll. Before launching into the best and worst the last decade has seen, I want to make it clear that I understand that sometimes, things go wrong over the course of a 6-month, 162-game season and a team ends up paying $10 million to a guy who spends most of the season on the disabled list. I understand that teams (for no apparent reason) can over or underachieve for whatever reason but this analysis does show some trends that can’t be explained away as coincidence.
THE BEST
W-L, $/Win
Wins, $/Win metrics
Difference
2001 Seattle Mariners
116-46, $644,145
100.0, 21.2
78.8
2001 Oakland Athletics
102-60, $331,478
80.8, 6.7
74.1
2002 Oakland Athletics
103-59, $388,390
82.2, 9.3
72.9
2000 Chicago White Sox
95-67, $334,142
71.2, 6.8
64.4
2008 Tampa Bay Rays
97-65, $451,759
74.0, 12.3
61.7
With the exception of the Mariners, all of these teams were put together with enormous amounts of young, cheap talent that went out and performed day in and day out. If you take out the Mariners $74.7 million payroll, the highest in the group is $43.8 million by the 2008 Rays.
This doesn’t mean by any stretch off the imagination that these were the five best teams of the past ten years. I would instead say that they were the five best teams in terms of what you got per dollar spent.
Understandably, when you expand the above list and look at the top ten, only the White Sox of 2000 are considered to be playing in a large market. The others are Seattle (2001), Tampa Bay (2008), Minneapolis-St. Paul (2002), San Francisco (2000), Cleveland (2005), and the only team represented in the top ten more than once, Oakland (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003).
What this says to me is that in the early part of this decade, Billy Beane and his team were the best in the majors at putting together a winning team on a relatively tight budget. They haven’t won a World Series title since 1989 but when you consider that in the past decade, the Athletics have a win-loss record of 890-728 with an average payroll of $52.4 million per season (less than one third that of the Yankees), it speaks volumes about the men making the decisions.
THE WORST
2008 Seattle Mariners
61-101, $1,928,959
24.7, 81.1
-56.4
2009 New York Mets
70-92, $2,133,914
37.0, 90.6
-53.6
2003 Detroit Tigers
43-119, $1,143,442
0.0, 44.5
-44.5
2004 Arizona Diamondbacks
51-111, $1,368,250
11.0, 54.9
-43.9
2003 New York Mets
66-95, $1,775,400
31.5, 73.9
-42.4
Yes, I’m afraid that the Mets have to qualify as the biggest train wreck of the decade and this includes an appearance in the World Series in 2000. Their win-loss record for the decade is 815-803 and their .504 winning percentage is good enough to be 14th best in the majors over that span. However, their payroll sum of $1,091,320,006 for the decade ranks third only to the Red Sox and Yankees.
Interestingly enough, if you expand the bottom five into the bottom ten, it includes both the 2005 and 2008 versions of the New York Yankees but there is one critical difference. If you compare the other 8 teams to the two Yankees teams, you see shocking difference. The other eight teams won between 43 and 74 games with an average record of 62-100. In 2005, the Yankees spent $208.3 million, went 95-67, and won the American League East. In 2008, they went 89-73 with a payroll of $207.9 million and that year, they finished third to the Red Sox and the Rays (see “BEST” teams).
Basically what I’m trying to say is that while this analysis only scratches the surface of money management, it’s relatively easy to see who is mismanaging it. In the Yankees most cost-efficient season (2002), they still rank only 68th this decade in cost-efficiency. Something they can say that nobody else can though is that they played in the postseason 9 times, the World Series 4 times, and won the Series twice while never winning fewer than 89 games. They had a payroll that demanded winning and they won.
To sum up, I’m going to throw just a few more numbers at you and this way, you can see where the thirty teams have fallen for the decade as a whole instead of year by year:
Until next time, enjoy the baseball!!!
Rank. Team Name
W-L, Payroll (in millions)
Cost-Efficiency
1. Oakland Athletics
890-728, $523.6
62.7
2. Minnesota Twins
863-758, $504.7
53.3
3. Florida Marlins
811-807, $353.9
47.6
4. St. Louis Cardinals
913-706
$843.2
44.5
5. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
900-720, $882.2
35.5
6. Atlanta Braves
892-727, $929.6
28.2
7. Chicago White Sox
857-764, $774.5
26.6
8. San Francisco Giants
855-763, $790.3
24.9
9. Philadelphia Phillies
850-769, $795.2
22.1
10. Cleveland Indians
816-804, $651.9
20.9
11. Boston Red Sox
920-699, $1,167.0
20.2
12. Houston Astros
832-788, $766.9
16.9
13. Toronto Blue Jays
805-814, $678.4
14.0
14. San Diego Padres
769-852, $544.5
11.8
15. Los Angeles Dodgers
862-758, $999.8
8.7
16. Arizona Diamondbacks
805-815, $732.8
8.6
17. Seattle Mariners
837-783, $882.7
8.3
18. Colorado Rockies
769-852, $609.1
5.3
19. Milwaukee Brewers
741-879, $529.2
2.0
20. New York Yankees
965-653, $1,670.3
0.0
21. Cincinnati Reds
751-871, $586.1
-0.1
22. Tampa Bay Rays
694-923, $400.0
-2.9
23. Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos
711-908, $463.5
-3.2
24. Texas Rangers
776-844, $752.0
-5.8
25. Chicago Cubs
807-811, $905.7
-6.8
26. Pittsburgh Pirates
681-936, $439.2
-12.6
27. New York Mets
815-803, $1,091.3
-20.8
28. Kansas City Royals
672-948, $475.8
-21.0
29. Detroit Tigers
729-891, $763.4
-27.8
30. Baltimore Orioles
698-922, $720.6
-37.2
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