The Daily Something

Written by Bill

Monday, 08 February 2010 09:48

One of the other baseball sites in the wonderful Bloguin network, Around the Horn Baseball, was soliciting guest writers to participate in weekly "great baseball debates" leading up to the season opener. I took up the challenge and ended up as part of the inaugural debate, up against Gene Zarnick from the excellently-named site Favre Dollar Footlongs.

The topic: "Should Albert Belle be in the Hall of Fame?"

I was prepared to argue either side, but luckily, so was Gene, so I got to go to town on the side I actually believe in (no, no, no, a million times no).

I had fun. You can read Gene's pro-Belle piece, and my much longer anti-Belle response, here.

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O-Dog

Written by Bill

Friday, 05 February 2010 09:00

Every offseason, Twins fans, and Twins bloggers, and bloggers who are Twins fans, make their little wish lists. We don't ask for too much; there's really no point in pretending the Twins are going to go out and sign Matt Holliday, you know. Just little things: a shrewd trade here, a below-market free agent signing there.

It never happens, though. Want Frank Thomas? You get Rondell White. Want a decent third baseman? You get Tony Batista. Want nothing? You get Livan Hernandez. And so on.

So...this is different.

We wanted a shortstop like J.J. Hardy, and the Twins went out and got J.J. Hardy. We wanted one more middle-of-the-rotation starter, and they brought Carl Pavano back. We wanted to see at least a little bit less of Delmon Young, and they went out and got Jim Thome. We wanted a second baseman, and they got (according to reports as of Thursday night) 2009 All-Star and Gold Glove winner Orlando Hudson, on a one-year, $5 million deal.

I gotta be honest: I'm just not sure how to deal with it. Sure, I might do some things differently here and there, but they're doing something, and it makes sense! How can you complain about that, after all the Whites and Batistas and Ponsons and Livans?

Well, I'm not complaining. But let's look at Hudson anyway.

Last year, Twins second basemen hit .209/.309/.267. Hudson hit .283/.357/.417, right about where he's been for the last three years. So that's good. Given that Gardenhire was never going to do the sensible thing and bat Joe Mauer second, it's nice to have a hitter he will bat second whose production actually comes close to justifying that many plate appearances.

On the other hand, about a third of the Twins' execrable second base corps last year was Nick Punto...who now becomes your de facto third baseman, possibly platooning with Brendan Harris. I've said before that I want Punto to start (and more on this a week from today, on Nick Punto Day), and actually I'd rather see Punto (a switch hitter with no discernible splits and great defense at third) play full time and have Harris (a righty who hits lefties pretty hard but can't play defense anywhere) serve as a pinch hitter, occasional DH against lefties, and an emergency backup at basically every position. The main benefit to Hudson is that, barring injury, he takes .202-hitting, rangeless 2B Alexi Casilla out of the Twins' plans for the year.

Defensively, Hudson is kind of a question mark. It's clear that he didn't actually deserve his Gold Glove this year -- Chase Utley's the man -- but it's not clear to me whether Hudson is a bit below average, average, or above average. UZR says below (but really, it's close enough that he could just be average); plus/minus says he's still comfortably above average. He got very solid ratings in last year's Fan's Scouting Report. By Total Zone, he's a little bit above average.

As much as I tend to rely on UZR, given all that, I'd say the odds are he's still a little bit better than average on defense. Again, though, the most important thing is that he's much, much better than Alexi Casilla (and for that matter, Hudson + Punto is better than Punto + Harris).

Per FanGraphs, Hudson has been worth more than $5 million in every year since 2004...and you can't treat those numbers as a measure of what they should get on the open market, but still, $5 million is pretty clearly a good deal.

So if the story is true, then for $5 million -- the same amount they were reportedly willing to spend in order to permit Jarrod Washburn (now evidently on the verge of retirement, or so his agent would have teams believe) to do absolutely nothing for them -- the Twins improved both offensively and defensively at what had been their weakest position on the diamond. Yeah, I'll take it.

I've been one of Bill Smiths' biggest critics since he took over the GM job in the winter of 2007, but I have to admit, so far this offseason, he gets an A, the offer to Washburn notwithstanding. Unfortunately for him, the final in this class is about 95% of the grade. Whatever happens, though, this is shaping up to be a fun team to watch in 2010.

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Playing Baseball for a Quarter Century or So

Written by Bill
Thursday, 04 February 2010 09:00
Here's something I didn't know until recently (and have been repeatedly forgetting about since): Baseball Reference has all sorts of random lists at the bottom of their leaders page. Most popular players and teams, most World Series rings, most All-Star games. And: most seasons played. Very little about the list would really surprise anyone here, but it's interesting nonetheless. The all-time leaders are Cap Anson and Nolan Ryan, both of whom played 27 years almost exactly 100 years apart. Five of Anson's years came before the National League even existed; the other 22 were all with the Cubbies. It looks like he was a part-timer until age 31, but no, the teams really did just play 50-80 games in most of those years. He's still 46th on the all-time games played list, despite topping out at 146 in a season. Cap's career started at age 19, during Grant's presidency, smack in the middle of the Reconstruction Era. It ended at age 45 (kind of abruptly--he was still putting up a .370-plus OBP). Bill McKinley was president, Henry Ford had built his first gas-powered moving carriage, and legendary radio personality Walter Winchell was born. Great American novelist Stephen Crane was born in 1871, Anson's first year (actually, Crane was born after that first season had ended). By Anson's retirement in 1897, Crane had written The Red Badge of Courage and a number of other acclaimed novels and short stories. He passed away in the middle of 1900, not yet 29. Crane lived an entire, celebrated life in about 18 months longer than Anson's baseball career. Ryan's career, of course, is familiar to just about everybody. He premiered in 1966, also 19, but appeared in only two games, and none in '67. Starting in his first real year of 1968, then, his career stretched from "Hey, Jude" to "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)." It was time for him to leave by then, at age 46, but he went 12-6 and threw his 7th no-hitter at age 44 and in that season had the best ERA+, second-best ERA, and most strikeouts anyone that age or older has ever had. Deacon McGuire's 26 seasons (for eleven franchises) probably shouldn't count. He played semi-regularly from age 20 to age 42 (1884 to 1906), but then played seven games in 1907, two in 1908, one in 1910 and one in 1912. He did, however, hold the all-time record for games caught until 1925. Charlie Hough, one of five to play in 25 seasons, has one of the most interesting pitching careers of all time. He didn't get a Major League decision until his fourth "season" (he'd pitched 24 innings in the first three combined). He didn't start his first game until his eighth season, and had a total of 23 starts entering his age-34 season. It's good to be the knuckleballer, though; he became a full-time starter for the first time in that season, and pitched long enough and durably enough to end up with 440 career starts, two more than Whitey Ford. Hough's fellow knuckler Phil Niekro, one of nine to play in 24 seasons, didn't even play in the Major Leagues until age 25, didn't get his second Major League start until age 28, and still made 716 of them, fifth all time. Not counting one novelty game by Satchel Paige, he's one of only five to pitch at age 48 or older, and the only one to make a start in that season (he made 26 of them). Finally, Carlton Fisk and Rick Dempsey. It's a hell of a thing for a catcher to last more than 20 years. Fisk, of course, was a very good hitter, very durable, a Hall of Famer. Dempsey didn't become a starting catcher until age 28, despite having been in the league (for at least some time each year, that is) since age 19. He remained a starter until 36, then hung on as a backup until age 42. He never led the league in anything, made an All-Star team or won any regular-season awards. He did win a World Series MVP in 1983, with a 5-for-13, all five for extra bases (four doubles and a homer). Add comment (1)

In the Year 2000 (In the Year 2000!)

Written by Mike
Wednesday, 03 February 2010 13:46
The world is a funny and small place. On December 1, 2008, in just his 9^th post, friend of the blog Lar at Wezenball.com wrote about a funny article he discovered in his recently arrived Sporting News 1981 Baseball Yearbook (the mail came a couple decades late at Lar's house). A little over a year later,I was at the Metrodome, digging through a large pile of magazines, when I saw the exact same thing. What will baseball look like in 2000? So like the recently vanquished Conan O’Brien, The Common Man prepared to look into the future (the future, TCM?), all the way to the year 2000. By this time, I had forgotten about Lar’s terrific article, and was giddy at the prospect of learning and sharing what baseball was going to be like ten years ago. Fifty cents later, I had slipped it into my goody bag of souvenirs and trifles and moved on to the next booth of baseball cards and memorabilia. Well, it wouldn’t do much good to recap the whole article for you, would it? After all, Lar captures the tone and the content well. That said, Lar leaves out The Common Man’s favorite contributor to this fortune telling venture. Joseph Durso appropriately shows deference when he introduces the predictions of MLB labor leader Marvin Miller, “who caused more changes in baseball in this century than anybody as the executive director of the Players’ Association and the leader of the revolution.” As you would expect from someone so sharp, Miller comes across as remarkably reasonable and prescient. Miller explains, "Basically, I'm optimistic. The growth by the players in the 15 years I've been here has been upward, and is continuing." Like others quoted in the article, Miller predicts exansion, the rise of cable television, and higher player salaries driven by inflation and richer TV contracts. All of this, of course has come to pass. Miller's insight, however, is particularly astute when he talks about the evolution of the labor front, "I think it's a fairly safe prediction that there will be more harmony than polarization in the year 2000. Why? Self-interest. The owners will understand that it's in their interest not to try to get by, skinning a player here and there." Indeed, following the contentious labor problems of 1981 and 1994-1995, and the owners' collusion against players in the mid-Eighties, the past 15 years has been notable for its labor peace. While individual teams (like the Marlins) are still in the crosshairs of the MLB Players' Association, the steady influx of money has kept both players and owners happy. While player salaries have slowed their rise in the last two offseasons, there is relatively little talk about collusion and disturbing the labor peace. Perhaps the incentives for peace that Miller predicted have indeed been put into place. It's an instructive lesson on avoiding conflict using reasonable incentives and emphasizing long-term collective and individual goals in place of short-term individual profits. It also, presumably, helps that relatively few owners make their primary livings from their teams, like Charlie Finley, Tom Yawkey, and Bill Veeck did. As such, the pressure to maintain a certain lifestyle through the team's fortunes is presumably less (though the desire for actual solvency is presumably no less strong). Other gems from the magazine after the jump: Read more Add comment (1)

TwinsFest in Photos

Written by Bill
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 09:00
Mike / The Common Man put an excellent, if unconventional, recap of TwinsFest up at his own site. This will pretty much just be photos. I forgot my camera on Saturday and can't figure out how to get pictures off my phone, so this is Sunday only. Not pictured, then: Jim Thome, Michael Cuddyer, Scott Baker, Aaron Hicks, crazy over-made-up girl with unbelievably huge hair, thousands of poor souls who thought Joe Mauer might be able to sign thousands of autographs in half an hour, Bob Feller, Denny McLain. Alas. It was more crowded on Saturday. I'd like my front page to load in less than ten minutes, so the rest will be after the jump. Read more Add comment (2)

Things I'm Thinking About Today

Written by Bill

Monday, 01 February 2010 13:11

Five of them:

There's a somewhat interesting discussion of my 1985 AL MVP piece over on Baseball Think Factory. (Always very grateful to Repoz for the pub.) Others there, like Lar did in the comments here, brought up Wade Boggs, and he certainly belongs in the discussion (more than Mattingly did), but I'd definitely still give it to Henderson.
Mike and I drove up to TwinsFest this weekend -- two days of it, Saturday and Sunday, and we were there for basically the full allotted time both days -- and it was awesome. I'll have some pictures, probably tomorrow. Unlike most bloggers who attend these things, I am (and am not at all ashamed to admit I am) an autograph collector -- mostly baseballs, I just like the way a clean baseball with a signature on the sweet spot looks, got a couple display cases on my wall...and it's fun having those few seconds to directly interact with the players -- and it was certainly a good weekend for that, but also just to wander around, see the sights, chat a bit with other fans. If your team has one of those, you should check it out.
I was a bit taken aback to get home and find out that the Mariners had signed Eric Byrnes. At first blush, it just doesn't seem like the Zduriencik way. But because he was DFA'ed by the Diamondbacks, they're on the hook for his crazy $11 million salary, and he becomes the Mariners' for just the league minimum. Byrnes is one of those fairly rare righties who has a huge platoon split; he's a career .284/.345/.511 hitter against lefties (though that's down, as is his career generally, over the last couple years), yielding an OPS almost 140 points higher than vs. righties. As Dave Cameron points out, this move gives the M's what could be a very good defensive and passable offensive platoon (between Byrnes and Ryan Longerhans) for a total cost of $900,000. What this proves, yet again, is that Jack Zduriencik is smarter than I am.
Speaking of the Mariners and the amazing Jack Z., I'm a little concerned. Every move he's made has been somewhere between "very good" and "brilliant." There are really no two ways about it. Yet you've already got some bloggers (I won't link because they're otherwise excellent and I think they have just a bit of GM envy) who are questioning whether he's really all he's cracked up to be, or if it's an "emperor's new clothes" type of situation. What I'm concerned about is this: the Mariners won 85 games last year, but were very lucky to do so; their pythagorean record, based on runs scored and allowed, was 75-87 (which still would've been a 14-W improvement over 2008). It's possible, then, that they could be a vastly improved team (in fact, it's almost hard to imagine that they won't be) and still struggle to even match their 85 wins from 2009. Jack Z will have succeeded, but luck will have made him look like a failure. If that happens, what kind of backlash will we see among the fans and blogosphere?
It's obvious that any team that signs Orlando Cabrera to play shortstop doesn't have a front office with a metrics department. But do the Reds just not have scouts, either? Any engaged observer who watched him with the Twins last year would be able to tell you that his going from a +14 UZR in 2008 to a -15.3 in 2009 wasn't a fluke or a flaw in the stat; he just got old fast. He now plays shortstop like Adam Dunn plays first base. I don't often give fantasy advice (nor am I remotely qualified to do so), but if you're holding on to any Reds pitchers right now -- especially Bronson Arroyo, whose moderate success the last two years has depended on getting a lot of ground balls -- a trade inquiry might be in order.

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Your 1985 AL MVP

Written by Bill

Friday, 29 January 2010 11:21

Got into a discussion the other day about this award. There was some pretty strenuous arguing over whether the winner should've been Don Mattingly (who actually won it in a landslide, with 23 first-place votes) or George Brett (who got the other five).

It's a pretty interesting discussion on a lot of levels. Both played corner infield positions (though Brett played the more challenging and more valuable one) and were given Gold Gloves. The numbers:

Player	Avg.	OBP	SLG	R	HR	RBI	OPS+	wOBA	RC/27
Mattingly	.324	.371	.567	107	35	145	156	.399	7.7
Brett	.335	.436	.585	108	30	112	178	.433	10.1

I say it's interesting mostly because of how our perceptions have changed. It's easy to see why Mattingly would have won in 1985. He led the league in doubles and RBI, way ahead of Brett and 21 ahead of second place Eddie Murray. The only category Brett led the league in that actually existed back then was slugging percentage, and I doubt anybody even looked at that. The Royals did go on to win the Series while the Yanks missed the playoffs, but the Yanks still won 97 games, thanks in large part to Donnie Baseball.

But you can guess where I'd come out as between these two guys. The advanced metrics* show Brett as a much, much better hitter. Driven mostly by the OBP advantage (Brett walked a career-high 103 times in '85, almost twice Mattingly's total, though 30 of Brett's were intentional), Brett blows Mattingly out of the water across the board in all but the 2B, HR, R and RBI categories. Throw in that Total Zone wasn't as impressed with Mattingly's fielding this year as most observers were, and the positional adjustment for Mattingly's playing the easiest position on the diamond, and the Wins Above Replacement is a rout too: Brett 8.0, Donnie 6.4.

*wOBA is weighted on base average, discussed briefly by me here and detailed here, and RC/27 is Bill James' runs created formula per 27 outs made by the batter, or in other words an approximation of how many runs a team would score per game if they had nine copies of that player.

Even Mattingly's huge edge in RBI is largely an illusion; per Baseball Prospectus, Mattingly drove in 22.4% of the runners who got on base for him, which is great...but Brett was right behind him at 21.2%. The difference was that the Yankees' lineup could get on base, with a .344 OBP to the Royals' .313 (just think what it would be without Brett's .436!). The Yankees had Mattingly, Winfield, Randolph and Rickey; the Royals had Brett and a lot of pitching and defense. The difference was opportunity, not quality. When it comes down to quality, Brett beats Mattingly going away.

But Brett isn't my MVP either. This guy is:

(click here to read why)

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Fun with PECOTA

Written by Bill

Thursday, 28 January 2010 16:54

Since I didn't get time to write anything for today until just now, I thought I'd take a quick little stroll around the oven-fresh PECOTA forecasts, Baseball Prospectus' system for projecting the coming season. I won't get too into the specific numbers (that would be stealing), but the standings page I linked to is free to everybody, and there's some interesting stuff to talk about.

Every year, PECOTA does one thing that gets people riled up. In 2007, it projected the White Sox, coming off 99- and 90-win seasons, to go 70-92, and this guy made fun of them for it (original article curiously no longer available). They went 70-92. In 2008, it projected the perennial cellar-dwelling Rays to win 89 games, which everyone thought was ridiculous. They won 97. In 2009, it projected Matt Wieters to hit something like .800/.850/3million. That one didn't work quite so well.

This year, it's pretty easy to see what all the fuss is going to be about. The defending champs finishing third is big news, to be sure. But, c'mon; you're talking two games behind the Red Sox and three behind the Rays, and six games ahead of everyone else in the American League. If this puts the odds against the Yanks making the playoffs, their chances are still something like 49.999999%.

It's a bigger story that PECOTA likes the Rays to improve by twelve games (and ten over their 2009 Pythagorean record), considering they managed to win only 84 last year despite a huge offensive year by Jason Bartlett and an all-around MVP-quality year by Ben Zobrist that most people will assume is a fluke. But even with regressions from those two, PECOTA likes a big bounceback year for BJ Upton and a slightly smaller one for Pat Burrell, and breakouts by Evan Longoria and David Price, along with strong performances by starting pitchers James Shields and Matt Garza. It's awfully hard to win 96 games, and if you're going to pick a team to do it, it's pretty surprising that it's the Rays, but I can see where they're coming from.

There's no Wieters 2.0 this year. Uberprospect Jason Heyward is expected to put up roughly league-average numbers (which, for his age-19 season, would give him a pretty solid chance to turn into a Hall of Famer eventually...but it's certainly no Wieters projection). Stephen Strasburg isn't expected to pitch a ton in the majors this year (these projections will evolve as the season draws near), but it's not a bad debut, with around a 4.00 ERA in around a hundred innings, and better than a strikeout an inning (but too many walks).

The bane of Nate Silver's existence for years has been Ichiro!; he's such a unique player that PECOTA just doesn't know how to handle him, and usually predicts a drastic crash-n-burn every season. That may have been fixed this year, or maybe his 2009 was just too good to ignore. His 2010 projection is 30 points in AVG and OBP and over 50 points in SLG better than what they had him pegged for in 2009.

His Mariners are at 86-76, which represents just a one-game improvement last year...which is shocking, considering all the improvements they've made, until you realize that the M's pythagorean record was just 75-87. Last year they were lucky; this year they're really that good. If they get the same luck (or whatever intangible quality you want to ascribe to it) again this year, they'll run away with the West.

Reigning (should be back-to-back and three-time-overall) MVP Joe Mauer? His projection is awesome, way up from last year, but there's no pretense that the HR power he showed in '09 might be real (they've got him at just 15 homers, 6 up from their '09 projection). They're pretty rosy on the Twins as a whole, yet it all adds up to just 82 wins (which is still enough to lead the Central). A quality second or third baseman would ratchet that up quite a bit.

Interestingly, no team outside the AL East is picked to win even 90 games. That obviously won't hold -- not even close -- but it generally takes a number of lucky breaks to get up above 90 wins, so it's hard to project any one team to do it. It's a testament to how good (PECOTA thinks that) the Yanks, Sox and Rays are.

On the other hand, it's just as hard for most teams to lose 90...which portends a very long 2010, yet again, for fans of the Pirates (70-92) and Royals (66-96! Oy).

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I Love the 80's: Baseball Edition

Written by Bill

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 10:40

This is no longer (completely) a one-man operation! As explained below, my old friend Mike, who you may know as The Common Man, will be stepping in about once a week. Next week he'll have his own handle and everything, but I thought I should give a little introduction. For his first piece, naturally, he tears my last offering to shreds (and deservedly so). Enjoy!

My good friend Bill has been kind enough to encourage my foray back into the blogosphere, especially as it coincides with a busy time for him personally and professionally. I offered to give him a break once a week or so, and he graciously accepted. It’s especially convenient because yesterday, when Bill finished fisking the Prime 9 list of “best players of the 1980s,” he offered up his own replacement list that, while better than Prime 9’s, still has a couple problems.

As a quick review, here’s are the two lists side-by-side:

Position	Prime 9	Bill
P	Jack Morris	Dave Stieb
C	Gary Carter	Carter
1B	Don Mattingly	Eddie Murray
2B	Ryne Sandberg	Sandberg
3B	Mike Schmidt	Schmidt
SS	Cal Ripken	Ripken
LF	Rickey Henderson	Henderson
CF	Dale Murphy	Murphy
RF	Dwight Evans	Evans

First, let’s talk about second base, where both Bill and the MLB Network have mirrored the BBWAA’s inattention to one of baseball’s criminally underrated players. Check out the following table (ooh, I feel like a circa ’97 Rob Neyer!), all statistics are from 1980-1989:

	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+	WAR
Player A	.275	.353	.420	113	39.4
Player B	.276	.377	.351	105	34.3
Player C	.285	.341	.439	112	33.3

As you’ve probably guessed, Player A is Lou Whitaker and Player C is Ryne Sandberg. Player B is Willie Randolph. It’s true that Sandberg played a season and a half less than Whitaker and Randolph, but since we’re only considering a player’s contributions during this decade, it’s pretty clear that Sweet Lou has them both beat, isn’t it? If intangibles are important, all three played got into two postseasons during the decade, and played fairly well. Whitaker is the only one to win a title. Of the three, Whitaker has the most plate appearances, most hits, most doubles, most homers, most RBI, and most runs scored. Sandberg, however, played for a higher profile team, was the acknowledged leader of the club (while Whitaker was always paired with Trammell), and had bigger seasons. Lou was more consistent, never reaching the highs of Sandberg, but also never ebbing as low, which reduced his profile even further.

At third base, it appears that both Bill and Prime 9 have substituted “career value” for “’80s value” in choosing Mike Schmidt over Wade Boggs. Schmidt is, without a doubt, the greatest 3B of all time, and his contributions in the 1970s make him the 16^th most valuable hitter of all time, according to WAR. However, while Schmidt was hot in the early part of the ‘80s, he progressively slowed down as the decade wore on. For the full decade, Schmidt’s WAR is 57.1. If we don’t give him credit for 1985, when he started more than 100 games at 1B, Schmidt fares even worse, at 51.8. Boggs, on the other hand, despite getting a late start in ’82, quickly established himself as one of the game’s great hitters and dominated the late part of the decade. From 1985-1989, Boggs’ WAR never dipped below 8.2 in a season, peaking at 9.1 in 1987. For the decade, Boggs wound up with 60.5 WAR, which would have topped Schmidt’s decade even if we included ’85. Boggs’ dominance of the ‘80s actually make him, as far as I can tell, the second most valuable player of the ‘80s, behind only Rickey Henderson.

I have to give credit where credit’s due, both of Bill’s additions to the list are right on. Stieb dominated the 1980s . Looking at cumulative WAR for the decade, here are some relevant names:

Name	WAR in 1980s
Stieb	45.2
Bob Welch	35.1
Fernando Valenzuela	34.8
Bert Blyleven	34
Orel Hershiser	32.8
John Tudor	32.8
Roger Clemens	32.3
Nolan Ryan	30.8
Dwight Gooden	30.2
Bret Saberhagen	29
Charlie Hough	28.7
Morris	27.9
Teddy Higuera	27.3

I don’t pretend that WAR is a perfect tool to analyze pitchers, but it’s readily available and is easy to add up, and when we do we find not only that Stieb outclasses the rest of the league by leaps and bounds, but that apparently Charlie Hough and Teddy Higuera have a hell of a Hall of Fame case, to say nothing about Bob Welch and John Tudor. According to WAR, Gooden and Saberhagen added more value to their teams in the 80s than Morris, despite playing just six seasons each.

According to WAR, Murray just ekes out Keith Hernandez for 1B of the 80s as well (45.0 to 43.4), probably because WAR vastly overvalues the defensive contributions of a 1B. Other prominent 1B from the ‘80s fall short (Will Clark 37, Mattingly 33.1, Hrbek 27.9). By the way, Bill’s contention that Mattingly and Hrbek are about even is ridiculous to me, and I have the same retro-‘80s-hetero-mancrush on old T-Rex just like Bill does. They are almost exact contemporaries (Mattingly: ’82-’95, Hrbek: ’81-’94), so there’s no difference in era. As you can see above, Donnie Ballgame definitively has the higher WAR for the decade, and wins for career value as well 39.8 to 35.4. It’s closer than you’d expect, and Hrbek was a very good player for the decade, but Mattingly’s better, particularly when you take into account Hrbek’s more pronounced platoon split. Also, I would give Mattingly extra credit in this comparison, since his back injury wrecked his career but wasn’t his fault. Hrbek basically ate, fished, and lazied his way out of the league.

Other interesting ‘80s WAR tidbits:

Go ahead, guess who the 2^nd most valuable centerfielder is for the 1980s, according to WAR. You won’t guess. You’ll never guess. I’ll just tell you. Murphy leads the way with 35.5 WAR for seasons in which he was primarily a CF. Coming in third for the decade is Chet Lemon (a highly underrated player), with 32. Coming in second, just ahead of Lemon is, perhaps, the most underrated player of all time, Dwayne Murphy. Murphy patrolled CF for the A’s from 1978-1987, then stuck it out for two years as a reserve with the Tigers and Phillies. So his career is nicely encapsulated within the decade itself. Murphy was a great Three True Outcomes talent, drawing as many as 102 walks in a season, and striking out 123 times at his peak. He had good mid-range power and fluked into a 33 HR season in ’84. He also was an unparalleled defender, winning six consecutive Gold Gloves to start the decade before his bat started to slow and power began to wane, and he was forced onto the bench. Murphy’s 32.5 WAR during the decade is one of baseball’s great forgotten performances, and made all the more remarkable as Murphy spent all of ’88 and ’89 on the bench, and was a part-timer in ’86 and ’87.

Finally, while I’m on the fence about him as a Hall of Famer, Andre Dawson gets royally screwed by the Prime 9 system. Dawson was primarily a CF from ’80-’84, and posted a 29.3 mark in those five seasons. Upon moving to rightfield, the positional adjustment hurts him, but he still manages to put together 12.9 for the rest of the decade. If we chose three outfielders, instead of choosing a LF, CF, and RF, Dawson’s 42.2 allows him to slide into the third outfield spot behind Rickey and Dale Murphy.

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Nine for the Eighties

Written by Bill

Tuesday, 26 January 2010 09:00

I think my favorite baseball-themed show -- and the only one I can consistently stand to watch -- is "Prime 9" on MLB Network. If you haven't seen it, it's just a straight-up, half-hour countdown of the top nine...somethings in baseball history. I like it because the old clips are great, they get just enough of each old reporter or player talking about a guy without letting him ramble on, and because they have a balanced way of looking at things: they never say who comes up with the nine (they just say "us"), but whoever it is, there are obviously people who understand statistics along with your old traditional seat-of-the-pants types. Their Top 9 centerfielders, for instance, was pretty much dead on. Jim Edmonds made the list, for instance, and Tris Speaker made the list (ahead of DiMaggio, no less). It's refreshing.

They seem to do a mini-marathon of Prime 9s on Monday nights, and last night one of the topics was the nine best players of the 1980s.*

*The one after that was the nine best managers. I don't even want to get into how they rated Earl Weaver 7th, three spots behind Tony LaRussa.

The list:

9. Dwight Evans
8. Dale Murphy
7. Rickey Henderson
6. Cal Ripken Jr.
5. Mike Schmidt
4. Ryne Sandberg
3. Don Mattingly
2. Gary Carter
1. Jack Morris

I have to admit, I joined the program too late to hear the setup, and it took me until about #2 before I realized that they were numbering them by position rather than by quality. For just a minute, I really thought they were saying Don Mattingly was better than Mike Schmidt.

It's really a pretty good list...but not as good as the centerfielders one. Some notes:

One guy is going into the Hall of Fame this season, and each of that guy's seven best seasons happened in the 1980s. Yet, the two positions he played -- center and right -- are filled on the all-eighties team by guys who are not in the Hall and may never be (and I think they're both clearly the right calls for the list). You might argue, I suppose, that if Dawson had played one position or the other for the whole decade, he'd be on the team. But I don't think he measures up, taking the decade only (he probably moves ahead of Murphy given his work in the 70s and 90s), and he wasn't even mentioned in the show. I thought that was interesting.
Don Mattingly had 4422 plate appearances in the 1980s, putting up a 144 OPS+ and hitting 164 home runs. Eddie Murray had almost exactly 2000 more PA than Mattingly, put up a 141 and hit 274 homers. I'm sure Mattingly played at least slightly better defense than Murray during that time, but enough to make up for more than three seasons worth of playing time? WAR says no: Donnie was worth 33.1 wins above replacement in the eighties, Murray 45.2. Murray is in the Hall of Fame primarily due to his accomplishments in the 1980s; Mattingly essentially played only in the eighties, and hasn't gotten particularly close to the Hall. Strange decision there...and Murray wasn't even mentioned at the end of the program as one of their tough omissions (they mentioned Boggs and Brett at third and Ozzie and Yount at short). For what it's worth, I'd also rank Keith Hernandez well ahead of Mattingly, and Kent Hrbek about even.
You know I've got to mention Morris. They were so smart and gutsy in leaving Dawson off in favor of Evans/Murray...so why get lame and silly and fall for that win total thing with Morris? Morris' ERA+ was 27th best among pitchers who threw 1000 innings or more in the eighties. And of course they played that "Jack didn't care about ERA, just winning" card...but it's been proven that that pitching to the score thing didn't happen. Morris was just a pretty good pitcher who happened to be a pretty good pitcher all ten years of the decade. Dave Stieb threw 100 fewer innings in the decade than Morris and absolutely crushed him in quality, putting up a 127 ERA+ to Morris' 109, and even had almost as high of a winning percentage despite generally pitching on poorer teams. So Stieb (who was actually interviewed for the episode, and I think was even shown praising Morris) is your runaway pitcher of the 1980s. Morris moves up several slots becuase he pitched so many more innings (2444) than most everyone on that list, but it's hard to see an argument for even putting him second. I think I'd rather have had the six years of Clemens, for instance (1285 innings, 134 ERA+) than ten of Morris. Ditto Doc Gooden (1291, 133) and seven seasons of Orel Hershiser (1457, 132). Bob Welch, Bert Blyleven, Charlie Hough, Nolan Ryan, and Fernando Valenzuela all pitched slightly fewer innings than Morris at (at least) a slightly higher quality, so you could certainly argue for any of them over Morris. In all, Morris has a real tough fight for fourth or fifth on that list, and way behind your leader, David Andrew Steib.

So, good for them for picking Evans. Boo for bowing to public perception and going with Mattingly and Morris. At the end of the program, the announcer always says "So that's our Prime 9. What's yours?" Well, it's probably clear already, but here's mine:

9 Dewey
8 Murphy
7 Rickey
6 Cal
5 Schmidt
4 Ryno
3 Eddie Murray
2 Carter
1 Dave Stieb

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