NRO: The 2016 Cubs: One Of The Best Defensive Teams Since 1900
Category: Baseball Studies
The 400 Win Club And Then Some
I have a new baseball essay over at The Federalist looking at baseball’s winningest pitchers if you combine their Major League, postseason, Minor League, and in some cases Japanese and Negro League wins. I looked at every pitcher who won 150 or more games in the majors plus every known minor league 300 game winner, plus anybody else I ran across who made the list, so it’s possible there’s a few people here and there I missed but unlikely that any of them (aside from people who spent their whole careers in Japan or the Negro Leagues) would crack 300. All numbers are through the 2013 postseason (in which Bartolo Colon went 0-1 and Freddy Garcia pitched without a decision). The charts in the article go down through 250 wins, but since I have extra space here, I’ll run the rest of what I have here:
The 225-249 Win Club
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1883 | 1898 | Adonis Terry | 197 | 196 | 3 | 4 | 49 | 22 | 249 | 222 | 0.529 | 27 |
1981 | 2003 | David Cone | 194 | 126 | 8 | 3 | 47 | 40 | 249 | 169 | 0.596 | 80 |
1929 | 1950 | Tommy Bridges | 194 | 138 | 4 | 1 | 50 | 36 | 248 | 175 | 0.586 | 73 |
1913 | 1932 | Lee Meadows | 188 | 180 | 0 | 2 | 60 | 56 | 248 | 238 | 0.510 | 10 |
1959 | 1979 | Mickey Lolich | 217 | 191 | 3 | 1 | 27 | 44 | 247 | 236 | 0.511 | 11 |
1995 | 2013 | Roy Halladay | 203 | 105 | 3 | 2 | 41 | 35 | 247 | 142 | 0.635 | 105 |
1913 | 1928 | Urban Shocker | 187 | 117 | 0 | 1 | 60 | 28 | 247 | 146 | 0.628 | 101 |
1889 | 1901 | Amos Rusie* | 246 | 174 | 246 | 174 | 0.586 | 72 | ||||
1914 | 1940 | Sad Sam Jones | 229 | 217 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 10 | 245 | 229 | 0.517 | 16 |
1966 | 1988 | Joe Niekro | 221 | 204 | 0 | 0 | 24 | 17 | 245 | 221 | 0.526 | 24 |
1891 | 1908 | Brickyard Kennedy | 187 | 159 | 0 | 1 | 58 | 49 | 245 | 209 | 0.540 | 36 |
1930 | 1947 | Bill Lee (I) | 169 | 157 | 0 | 2 | 76 | 33 | 245 | 192 | 0.561 | 53 |
1930 | 1951 | Harry Gumbert | 143 | 113 | 0 | 0 | 101 | 84 | 244 | 197 | 0.553 | 47 |
1911 | 1935 | Dutch Ruether | 137 | 95 | 1 | 1 | 106 | 84 | 244 | 180 | 0.575 | 64 |
1938 | 1959 | Virgil Trucks (2) | 177 | 135 | 1 | 0 | 65 | 40 | 243 | 175 | 0.581 | 68 |
1884 | 1895 | Bob Caruthers | 218 | 99 | 7 | 8 | 17 | 16 | 242 | 123 | 0.663 | 119 |
1982 | 2008 | Kenny Rogers | 219 | 156 | 3 | 3 | 19 | 39 | 241 | 198 | 0.549 | 43 |
1967 | 1986 | Vida Blue | 209 | 161 | 1 | 5 | 31 | 18 | 241 | 184 | 0.567 | 57 |
1895 | 1909 | Jack Chesbro | 198 | 132 | 43 | 34 | 241 | 166 | 0.592 | 75 | ||
1911 | 1934 | Bob Shawkey | 195 | 150 | 1 | 3 | 45 | 50 | 241 | 203 | 0.543 | 38 |
1957 | 1975 | Claude Osteen | 196 | 195 | 1 | 2 | 43 | 32 | 240 | 229 | 0.512 | 11 |
1939 | 1954 | Allie Reynolds | 182 | 107 | 7 | 2 | 51 | 32 | 240 | 141 | 0.630 | 99 |
1912 | 1930 | Jesse Barnes (1) | 152 | 150 | 2 | 0 | 84 | 58 | 238 | 208 | 0.534 | 30 |
1975 | 1995 | Dave Stewart | 168 | 129 | 10 | 6 | 59 | 46 | 237 | 181 | 0.567 | 56 |
1874 | 1885 | Tommy Bond | 234 | 163 | 2 | 1 | 236 | 164 | 0.590 | 72 | ||
1877 | 1889 | Will White | 229 | 166 | 7 | 13 | 236 | 179 | 0.569 | 57 | ||
1895 | 1910 | Al Orth | 204 | 189 | 32 | 19 | 236 | 208 | 0.532 | 28 | ||
1945 | 1964 | Billy Pierce | 211 | 169 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 19 | 234 | 189 | 0.553 | 45 |
1898 | 1923 | Wild Bill Donovan | 185 | 139 | 1 | 4 | 48 | 23 | 234 | 166 | 0.585 | 68 |
1882 | 1892 | Charlie Buffinton* | 233 | 152 | 0 | 0 | 233 | 152 | 0.605 | 81 | ||
1965 | 1979 | Catfish Hunter | 224 | 166 | 9 | 6 | 233 | 172 | 0.575 | 61 | ||
1997 | 2013 | Tim Hudson | 205 | 111 | 1 | 3 | 27 | 13 | 233 | 127 | 0.647 | 106 |
1928 | 1947 | Lefty Gomez | 189 | 102 | 6 | 0 | 38 | 30 | 233 | 132 | 0.638 | 101 |
1912 | 1931 | Bullet Joe Bush | 196 | 184 | 2 | 5 | 34 | 21 | 232 | 210 | 0.525 | 22 |
1903 | 1923 | Red Ames | 183 | 167 | 0 | 1 | 49 | 47 | 232 | 215 | 0.519 | 17 |
1991 | 2013 | Derek Lowe | 176 | 157 | 5 | 7 | 51 | 47 | 232 | 211 | 0.524 | 21 |
1921 | 1945 | Red Lucas | 157 | 135 | 75 | 54 | 232 | 189 | 0.551 | 43 | ||
1909 | 1925 | Fred Toney | 139 | 102 | 0 | 0 | 93 | 62 | 232 | 164 | 0.586 | 68 |
1921 | 1938 | Pat Malone | 134 | 92 | 0 | 3 | 98 | 113 | 232 | 208 | 0.527 | 24 |
1954 | 1969 | Don Drysdale | 209 | 166 | 3 | 3 | 19 | 16 | 231 | 185 | 0.555 | 46 |
1968 | 1989 | Doyle Alexander | 194 | 174 | 0 | 5 | 37 | 38 | 231 | 217 | 0.516 | 14 |
1983 | 2003 | John Burkett | 166 | 136 | 2 | 1 | 63 | 59 | 231 | 196 | 0.541 | 35 |
1986 | 2005 | Kevin Brown | 211 | 144 | 5 | 5 | 14 | 23 | 230 | 172 | 0.572 | 58 |
1907 | 1921 | Hippo Vaughn | 178 | 137 | 1 | 2 | 51 | 46 | 230 | 185 | 0.554 | 45 |
1972 | 1998 | Dennis Eckersley | 197 | 171 | 1 | 3 | 31 | 16 | 229 | 190 | 0.547 | 39 |
1965 | 1985 | Mike Torrez | 185 | 160 | 2 | 1 | 42 | 46 | 229 | 207 | 0.525 | 22 |
1935 | 1957 | Dizzy Trout | 170 | 161 | 1 | 2 | 58 | 42 | 229 | 205 | 0.528 | 24 |
1926 | 1948 | Willis Hudlin | 158 | 156 | 71 | 49 | 229 | 205 | 0.528 | 24 | ||
1926 | 1942 | Larry French (*3) | 197 | 171 | 0 | 2 | 31 | 36 | 228 | 209 | 0.522 | 19 |
1994 | 2013 | Bartolo Colon | 189 | 128 | 2 | 4 | 37 | 14 | 228 | 146 | 0.610 | 82 |
1960 | 1978 | Wilbur Wood | 164 | 156 | 64 | 46 | 228 | 202 | 0.530 | 26 | ||
1998 | 2013 | CC Sabathia | 205 | 115 | 9 | 5 | 13 | 13 | 227 | 133 | 0.631 | 94 |
1982 | 2000 | Dwight Gooden | 194 | 112 | 0 | 4 | 33 | 13 | 227 | 129 | 0.638 | 98 |
1922 | 1941 | Firpo Marberry | 148 | 88 | 0 | 1 | 78 | 66 | 226 | 155 | 0.593 | 71 |
1902 | 1920 | Ed Walsh | 195 | 126 | 2 | 0 | 28 | 13 | 225 | 139 | 0.618 | 86 |
1928 | 1945 | Lon Warneke (2) | 192 | 121 | 2 | 1 | 31 | 36 | 225 | 158 | 0.587 | 67 |
The 200-224 Win Club
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1905 | 1922 | Slim Sallee | 174 | 143 | 1 | 3 | 49 | 32 | 224 | 178 | 0.557 | 46 |
1890 | 1903 | Frank Killen | 164 | 131 | 60 | 48 | 224 | 179 | 0.556 | 45 | ||
1977 | 1994 | Bob Welch | 211 | 146 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 6 | 223 | 155 | 0.590 | 68 |
1894 | 1912 | Chick Fraser | 175 | 212 | 48 | 53 | 223 | 265 | 0.457 | -42 | ||
1939 | 1955 | Hal Newhouser | 207 | 150 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 18 | 222 | 169 | 0.568 | 53 |
1897 | 1911 | Sam Leever | 194 | 100 | 0 | 2 | 28 | 22 | 222 | 124 | 0.642 | 98 |
1954 | 1972 | Mudcat Grant | 145 | 119 | 2 | 1 | 75 | 33 | 222 | 153 | 0.592 | 69 |
1897 | 1911 | Deacon Phillippe | 189 | 109 | 3 | 2 | 29 | 30 | 221 | 141 | 0.610 | 80 |
1948 | 1967 | Jack Sanford (1) | 137 | 101 | 1 | 2 | 83 | 74 | 221 | 177 | 0.555 | 44 |
1887 | 1906 | Red Ehret | 139 | 167 | 2 | 0 | 79 | 90 | 220 | 257 | 0.461 | -37 |
1913 | 1929 | Art Nehf | 184 | 120 | 4 | 4 | 31 | 19 | 219 | 143 | 0.605 | 76 |
1922 | 1937 | General Crowder | 167 | 115 | 1 | 2 | 51 | 38 | 219 | 155 | 0.586 | 64 |
1932 | 1948 | Claude Passeau | 162 | 150 | 1 | 0 | 56 | 41 | 219 | 191 | 0.534 | 28 |
1897 | 1911 | Jack Taylor | 152 | 139 | 67 | 43 | 219 | 182 | 0.546 | 37 | ||
1911 | 1927 | George Mogridge | 132 | 133 | 1 | 0 | 86 | 51 | 219 | 184 | 0.543 | 35 |
1974 | 1994 | Rick Sutcliffe | 171 | 139 | 1 | 1 | 45 | 51 | 217 | 191 | 0.532 | 26 |
1910 | 1929 | Bill Doak | 169 | 157 | 48 | 51 | 217 | 208 | 0.511 | 9 | ||
1931 | 1950 | Rip Sewell | 143 | 97 | 74 | 85 | 217 | 182 | 0.544 | 35 | ||
1915 | 1932 | Bill Sherdel | 165 | 146 | 0 | 4 | 51 | 35 | 216 | 185 | 0.539 | 31 |
1910 | 1942 | Clarence Mitchell | 125 | 139 | 0 | 0 | 91 | 70 | 216 | 209 | 0.508 | 7 |
1938 | 1956 | Sal Maglie (2) | 119 | 62 | 1 | 2 | 96 | 81 | 216 | 145 | 0.598 | 71 |
1887 | 1899 | Jack Stivetts | 203 | 132 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 6 | 214 | 138 | 0.608 | 76 |
1982 | 1998 | Jimmy Key | 186 | 117 | 5 | 3 | 23 | 16 | 214 | 136 | 0.611 | 78 |
1961 | 1975 | Dave McNally | 184 | 119 | 7 | 4 | 23 | 24 | 214 | 147 | 0.593 | 67 |
1981 | 1999 | Mark Langston | 179 | 158 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 22 | 212 | 180 | 0.541 | 32 |
1918 | 1935 | Eddie Rommel | 171 | 119 | 1 | 0 | 40 | 32 | 212 | 151 | 0.584 | 61 |
1970 | 1989 | Bob Forsch | 168 | 136 | 3 | 4 | 41 | 37 | 212 | 177 | 0.545 | 35 |
1947 | 1967 | Bob Buhl (2) | 166 | 132 | 0 | 1 | 46 | 44 | 212 | 177 | 0.545 | 35 |
1903 | 1915 | Howie Camnitz | 133 | 106 | 0 | 1 | 79 | 46 | 212 | 153 | 0.581 | 59 |
1938 | 1958 | Bob Lemon (3) | 207 | 128 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 211 | 136 | 0.608 | 75 |
1950 | 1966 | Bob Friend | 197 | 230 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 13 | 211 | 245 | 0.463 | -34 |
1961 | 1974 | Mel Stottlemyre | 164 | 139 | 1 | 1 | 46 | 23 | 211 | 163 | 0.564 | 48 |
1997 | 2013 | Roy Oswalt | 163 | 102 | 5 | 2 | 43 | 28 | 211 | 132 | 0.615 | 79 |
1930 | 1947 | Dizzy Dean | 150 | 83 | 2 | 2 | 59 | 29 | 211 | 114 | 0.649 | 97 |
1972 | 1990 | Bob Knepper | 146 | 155 | 0 | 1 | 65 | 45 | 211 | 201 | 0.512 | 10 |
1928 | 1945 | Johnny Allen | 142 | 75 | 0 | 0 | 69 | 50 | 211 | 125 | 0.628 | 86 |
1947 | 1967 | Curt Simmons (1) | 193 | 183 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 6 | 210 | 190 | 0.525 | 20 |
1914 | 1930 | Howard Ehmke (1) | 166 | 166 | 1 | 0 | 43 | 18 | 210 | 184 | 0.533 | 26 |
1946 | 1961 | Don Newcombe (2) | 149 | 90 | 0 | 4 | 61 | 26 | 210 | 120 | 0.636 | 90 |
1942 | 1961 | Mike Garcia (3) | 142 | 97 | 0 | 1 | 68 | 45 | 210 | 143 | 0.595 | 67 |
1957 | 1973 | Milt Pappas | 209 | 164 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 209 | 165 | 0.559 | 44 |
1901 | 1917 | Doc White | 189 | 156 | 1 | 1 | 19 | 16 | 209 | 173 | 0.547 | 36 |
1924 | 1936 | George Earnshaw | 127 | 93 | 4 | 3 | 78 | 48 | 209 | 144 | 0.592 | 65 |
1973 | 1993 | John Candelaria | 177 | 122 | 2 | 2 | 29 | 11 | 208 | 135 | 0.606 | 73 |
1963 | 1982 | Rick Wise | 188 | 181 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 20 | 207 | 201 | 0.507 | 6 |
1932 | 1951 | Schoolboy Rowe (2) | 158 | 101 | 2 | 5 | 47 | 20 | 207 | 126 | 0.622 | 81 |
1985 | 2002 | Chuck Finley | 200 | 173 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 206 | 177 | 0.538 | 29 |
1993 | 2012 | Kevin Millwood | 169 | 152 | 3 | 3 | 34 | 35 | 206 | 190 | 0.520 | 16 |
1990 | 2008 | Hideo Nomo | 123 | 109 | 0 | 2 | 83 | 52 | 206 | 163 | 0.558 | 43 |
1886 | 1897 | Silver King* | 203 | 152 | 2 | 6 | 205 | 158 | 0.565 | 47 | ||
1929 | 1950 | Bucky Walters | 198 | 160 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 205 | 168 | 0.550 | 37 |
1973 | 1992 | Mike Flanagan | 167 | 143 | 3 | 2 | 35 | 16 | 205 | 161 | 0.560 | 44 |
1968 | 1984 | Paul Splitorff | 166 | 143 | 2 | 0 | 37 | 32 | 205 | 175 | 0.539 | 30 |
1994 | 2011 | Javier Vazquez | 165 | 160 | 1 | 1 | 39 | 16 | 205 | 177 | 0.537 | 28 |
1976 | 1998 | Danny Darwin | 171 | 182 | 33 | 22 | 204 | 204 | 0.500 | 0 | ||
1900 | 1910 | Addie Joss | 160 | 97 | 44 | 34 | 204 | 131 | 0.609 | 73 | ||
1919 | 1939 | George Uhle | 200 | 166 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 203 | 170 | 0.544 | 33 |
1999 | 2013 | Mark Buehrle | 186 | 142 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 8 | 203 | 151 | 0.573 | 52 |
1895 | 1909 | Bill Dinneen | 170 | 177 | 3 | 1 | 30 | 24 | 203 | 202 | 0.501 | 1 |
1995 | 2013 | Freddy Garcia | 156 | 108 | 6 | 3 | 41 | 30 | 203 | 141 | 0.590 | 62 |
1881 | 1890 | Jim Whitney | 191 | 204 | 11 | 11 | 202 | 215 | 0.484 | -13 | ||
1996 | 2012 | Livan Hernandez* | 178 | 177 | 7 | 3 | 16 | 9 | 201 | 189 | 0.515 | 12 |
1978 | 1998 | Dave Stieb | 176 | 137 | 1 | 3 | 24 | 12 | 201 | 152 | 0.569 | 49 |
1971 | 1989 | Ron Guidry | 170 | 91 | 5 | 2 | 26 | 27 | 201 | 120 | 0.626 | 81 |
1900 | 1914 | Earl Moore | 163 | 154 | 38 | 29 | 201 | 183 | 0.523 | 18 | ||
1987 | 2006 | Kevin Appier | 169 | 137 | 0 | 2 | 31 | 25 | 200 | 164 | 0.549 | 36 |
1948 | 1966 | Bob Purkey (2) | 129 | 115 | 0 | 1 | 71 | 51 | 200 | 167 | 0.545 | 33 |
Honorable Mention
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1909 | 1920 | Tom Seaton | 92 | 65 | 108 | 84 | 200 | 149 | 0.573 | 51 |
The 150-199 Win Club
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1923 | 1945 | Guy Bush | 176 | 136 | 1 | 1 | 22 | 11 | 199 | 148 | 0.573 | 51 |
1936 | 1955 | Johnny Sain (3) | 139 | 116 | 2 | 2 | 58 | 41 | 199 | 159 | 0.556 | 40 |
1902 | 1915 | Frank Smith | 139 | 111 | 60 | 53 | 199 | 164 | 0.548 | 35 | ||
1947 | 1965 | Harvey Haddix (1) | 136 | 113 | 2 | 0 | 61 | 33 | 199 | 146 | 0.577 | 53 |
1979 | 1997 | Fernando Valenzuela* | 173 | 153 | 5 | 1 | 20 | 16 | 198 | 170 | 0.538 | 28 |
1963 | 1983 | Rudy May | 152 | 156 | 0 | 1 | 46 | 29 | 198 | 186 | 0.516 | 12 |
1979 | 1999 | Tom Candiotti | 151 | 164 | 0 | 1 | 47 | 40 | 198 | 205 | 0.491 | -7 |
1951 | 1971 | Camilo Pascual | 174 | 170 | 0 | 1 | 23 | 16 | 197 | 187 | 0.513 | 10 |
1977 | 1994 | Bill Gullickson | 162 | 136 | 1 | 2 | 34 | 24 | 197 | 162 | 0.549 | 35 |
1976 | 1994 | Bruce Hurst | 145 | 113 | 3 | 2 | 49 | 31 | 197 | 146 | 0.574 | 51 |
1941 | 1962 | Gerry Staley (3) | 134 | 111 | 0 | 1 | 63 | 35 | 197 | 147 | 0.573 | 50 |
1888 | 1899 | Frank Dwyer | 177 | 151 | 19 | 16 | 196 | 167 | 0.540 | 29 | ||
1903 | 1917 | Ed Reulbach* | 182 | 106 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 5 | 194 | 111 | 0.636 | 83 |
1944 | 1966 | Joe Nuxhall | 135 | 117 | 59 | 67 | 194 | 184 | 0.513 | 10 | ||
1893 | 1906 | Red Donahue | 164 | 175 | 28 | 22 | 192 | 197 | 0.494 | -5 | ||
1983 | 1998 | Doug Drabek | 155 | 134 | 2 | 5 | 34 | 25 | 191 | 164 | 0.538 | 27 |
1984 | 2005 | Al Leiter | 162 | 132 | 2 | 3 | 26 | 46 | 190 | 181 | 0.512 | 9 |
1885 | 1896 | Ice Box Chamberlain | 157 | 120 | 2 | 3 | 31 | 28 | 190 | 151 | 0.557 | 39 |
1918 | 1936 | Tom Zachary | 186 | 191 | 3 | 0 | 189 | 191 | 0.497 | -2 | ||
1981 | 1996 | Frank Viola | 176 | 150 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 189 | 162 | 0.538 | 27 |
1999 | 2013 | Barry Zito | 165 | 143 | 6 | 3 | 18 | 7 | 189 | 153 | 0.553 | 36 |
1965 | 1979 | Ken Holtzman | 174 | 150 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 3 | 188 | 157 | 0.545 | 31 |
1971 | 1989 | Rick Rhoden | 151 | 125 | 0 | 1 | 37 | 34 | 188 | 160 | 0.540 | 28 |
1883 | 1890 | Ed Morris | 171 | 122 | 16 | 6 | 187 | 128 | 0.594 | 59 | ||
1984 | 2000 | Tim Belcher | 146 | 140 | 4 | 2 | 37 | 35 | 187 | 177 | 0.514 | 10 |
1983 | 2001 | Bret Saberhagen | 167 | 117 | 2 | 4 | 17 | 10 | 186 | 131 | 0.587 | 55 |
1939 | 1956 | Howie Pollet (2) | 131 | 116 | 0 | 1 | 55 | 16 | 186 | 133 | 0.583 | 53 |
1948 | 1967 | Vernon Law (2) | 162 | 147 | 2 | 0 | 21 | 20 | 185 | 167 | 0.526 | 18 |
1933 | 1949 | Mort Cooper | 128 | 75 | 2 | 3 | 54 | 55 | 184 | 133 | 0.580 | 51 |
1891 | 1901 | Nig Cuppy | 162 | 98 | 0 | 1 | 21 | 14 | 183 | 113 | 0.618 | 70 |
1922 | 1937 | Rube Walberg (*1) | 155 | 141 | 1 | 1 | 27 | 27 | 183 | 169 | 0.520 | 14 |
1886 | 1895 | Mark Baldwin* | 154 | 165 | 29 | 25 | 183 | 190 | 0.491 | -7 | ||
1990 | 2010 | Mike Hampton | 148 | 115 | 2 | 4 | 33 | 25 | 183 | 144 | 0.560 | 39 |
1892 | 1908 | Pink Hawley* | 167 | 179 | 15 | 15 | 182 | 194 | 0.484 | -12 | ||
1880 | 1888 | Larry Corcoran* | 177 | 89 | 3 | 4 | 180 | 93 | 0.659 | 87 | ||
1991 | 2006 | Brad Radke | 148 | 139 | 2 | 3 | 30 | 35 | 180 | 177 | 0.504 | 3 |
1977 | 1996 | Scott Sanderson | 163 | 143 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 8 | 179 | 151 | 0.542 | 28 |
1991 | 2007 | Aaron Sele | 148 | 112 | 0 | 6 | 31 | 18 | 179 | 136 | 0.568 | 43 |
1951 | 1969 | Johnny Podres | 148 | 116 | 4 | 1 | 26 | 16 | 178 | 133 | 0.572 | 45 |
1926 | 1941 | Bump Hadley | 161 | 165 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 177 | 173 | 0.506 | 4 |
1994 | 2013 | Chris Carpenter | 144 | 94 | 10 | 4 | 23 | 41 | 177 | 139 | 0.560 | 38 |
1950 | 1965 | Frank Lary (2) | 128 | 116 | 48 | 26 | 176 | 142 | 0.553 | 34 | ||
1928 | 1949 | Thornton Lee* | 117 | 124 | 59 | 66 | 176 | 190 | 0.481 | -14 | ||
1882 | 1890 | Guy Hecker* | 175 | 146 | 175 | 146 | 0.545 | 29 | ||||
1981 | 1995 | Mike Moore | 161 | 176 | 4 | 3 | 10 | 9 | 175 | 188 | 0.482 | -13 |
1971 | 1985 | Steve Rogers | 158 | 152 | 3 | 1 | 14 | 26 | 175 | 179 | 0.494 | -4 |
1964 | 1979 | Jim Lonborg | 157 | 137 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 12 | 175 | 152 | 0.535 | 23 |
1969 | 1986 | Jim Slaton | 151 | 158 | 1 | 0 | 23 | 8 | 175 | 166 | 0.513 | 9 |
1889 | 1903 | Sadie McMahon* | 173 | 127 | 1 | 0 | 174 | 127 | 0.578 | 47 | ||
1875 | 1889 | George Bradley* | 171 | 151 | 3 | 3 | 174 | 154 | 0.530 | 20 | ||
1938 | 1954 | Preacher Roe | 127 | 84 | 2 | 1 | 44 | 39 | 173 | 124 | 0.582 | 49 |
1889 | 1902 | Jouett Meekin | 152 | 133 | 20 | 24 | 172 | 157 | 0.523 | 15 | ||
1941 | 1955 | Vic Raschi (3) | 132 | 66 | 5 | 3 | 33 | 30 | 170 | 99 | 0.632 | 71 |
1955 | 1966 | Sandy Koufax | 165 | 87 | 4 | 3 | 169 | 90 | 0.653 | 79 | ||
1989 | 2002 | Andy Benes | 155 | 139 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 6 | 168 | 146 | 0.535 | 22 |
1884 | 1896 | Dave Foutz? | 147 | 66 | 3 | 6 | 18 | 4 | 168 | 76 | 0.689 | 92 |
1877 | 1894 | Monte Ward* | 164 | 103 | 0 | 0 | 164 | 103 | 0.614 | 61 | ||
1931 | 1946 | Hal Schumaker (3) | 158 | 121 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 164 | 125 | 0.567 | 39 |
1971 | 1985 | Burt Hooton | 151 | 136 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 4 | 164 | 143 | 0.534 | 21 |
1906 | 1920 | Jack Coombs | 158 | 110 | 5 | 0 | 163 | 110 | 0.597 | 53 | ||
1932 | 1955 | Spud Chandler* (2) | 109 | 43 | 2 | 2 | 47 | 41 | 158 | 86 | 0.648 | 72 |
Honorable Mention
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1997 | 2013 | Hiroki Kuroda | 68 | 70 | 2 | 2 | 103 | 89 | 173 | 161 | 0.518 | 12 |
1999 | 2013 | Daisuke Matsuzaka | 53 | 40 | 3 | 1 | 117 | 74 | 173 | 115 | 0.601 | 58 |
The Rest
1st | Last | Pitcher | W-MLB | L-MLB | W-Post | L-Post | W-Min | L-min | W(All) | L(All) | W% | G+.500 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1871 | 1876 | Dick McBride | 149 | 78 | 149 | 78 | 0.656 | 71 | ||||
1872 | 1877 | Candy Cummings* | 145 | 94 | 1 | 7 | 146 | 101 | 0.591 | 45 | ||
1914 | 1935 | Babe Ruth | 94 | 46 | 3 | 0 | 22 | 9 | 119 | 55 | 0.684 | 64 |
Matt Harvey: Man Without A Decision
After the Mets’ 20-inning, 2-1 loss on Saturday to the mightless Marlins, Matt Harvey has 8 no-decisions in his last 9 starts. Harvey is now 5-0 in 13 starts; if he continued at his current season’s pace, he would finish the season 14-0 with 22 no-decisions in 36 starts. That would set a major league record for no-decisions in a single season. How unusual a year is Harvey having?
Harvey opened 2013 as the one shining bright spot in a dismal Mets season, a season that got even more dismal with Monday’s demotion to AAA of Ike Davis, who led the team in homers by a double-digit margin last season. The Mets’ increasingly punchless offense (even with the stalwart presence of David Wright) is 11th in the NL in scoring and batting an anemic .226/.294/.369 entering Tuesday’s action, and it has caught up to Harvey with a vengeance. After scoring 6 runs a game and going 5-0 in Harvey’s first five starts, the Mets have scored just 2.75 runs a game in his last 8 starts, going 3-5.
Some of those no-decisions have been especially agonizing. On May 28, Harvey went 8 innings against the Yankees, allowed one run, struck out 10 and walked nobody. He threw 114 pitches and got a goose egg; the team ended up winning 2-1 for Scott Rice. On May 7, he went the full 9 innings against the White Sox, striking out 12, walking nobody and allowing only an infield single to Alex Rios in the seventh inning. The 10th inning win went to Bobby Parnell. Saturday, the Mets scored in the second inning and were blanked for the next 18 innings, Harvey leaving after 7 innings once again having struck out 6 and walked nobody, and complaining of a sore back to boot. (The game was the fifth 20-inning game in Mets history; only 42 other games that long have been played in MLB history without the Mets’ involvement). Harvey has yet to allow more than 4 runs in a start this season, and has never gone less than 5 innings in a start in his brief Major League career.
Overall, over the last 9 starts, Harvey has a 2.66 ERA, has thrown 6.78 innings and 105 pitches per start, and has not allowed a single unearned run. In the 8 no-decisions, he has a 2.68 ERA, has cracked 100 pitches six times, and averaged 6.71 innings per start. This ought to be the stat line of a winning streak – good pitching, going deep into game after game – yet Harvey has come up empty. While this string of no-decisions is not totally historically unique, it is very unusual.
Bill James recently looked at the odds of a pitcher winning a game if you measure by “Game Score,” his quick formula for measuring how well a pitcher pitched, taking account of things like walks and strikeouts as well as innings and runs. Looking at a sample of all starts between 1952 and 2011, he found that a Game Score of 51 or above is more likely to mean a win than a loss, and a pitcher with a Game Score of 66 or above will generally have a winning percentage of .800 or above in his decisions. James didn’t separately break out rates of no-decision, but using his numbers, a pitcher is likely to get a decision 93% of the time with a Game Score over 80, 88% of the time with a Game Score over 68; Game Scores in the 50s yield a decision around two-thirds of the time. But not for Matt Harvey: he already has no-decisions this season with Game Scores of 97, 76, 67, 58, and 55.
According to the Play Index at Baseball-Reference.com – which currently only goes back to 1916, but no-decisions were rare before then – the Game Score of 97 on May 7 tied a record previously held by Randy Johnson (twice, in a 15-strikeout outing in 1992 and a 20-strikeout outing in 2001) for the highest ever in a 9-inning no-decision, although I would argue that perhaps the best 9-inning no-decision of all time was Francisco Cordova’s 9 no-hit scoreless innings, 2 walks and 10 strikeouts in 1997, for a Game Score of 95). In fact, Baseball-Reference.com lists only 19 starts in baseball history where a pitcher posted a Game Score of 90 or better in 9 innings or less and got a no-decision (there are many no-decisions with Game Scores above 100, from the earlier years when starters would go deep into extra innings, the extreme example being Joe Oeschger and Leon Cadore on May 1, 1920 pitching to a 26-inning complete game 1-1 tie for Game Scores of 153 for Oeschger and 140 for Cadore. You think your team is having a rough patch? Following the 26-inning game, the Dodgers lost in 13 innings on May 2, lost in 19 innings on May 3, then went on in the succeeding weeks to lose in 11 innings on May 7, win in 10 on May 9, win in 14 on May 14, lose in 11 on May 27 and win the second game of a double-header – with Cadore going the distance again – in 10 on May 29. Somehow, they survived this to go on to win the NL Pennant).
Since 1916, the single-season record for no-decisions is 20, by Bert Blyleven for the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. Blyleven is a particularly odd person to hold this particular record: he got a decision in 80% of his starts over the rest of his career, including a 4-year stretch from 1971-74 when he averaged 34 decisions and 5 no-decisions a year. (In 1973, Blyleven had 37 decisions in 40 starts, going 20-17 with a 2.52 ERA). As late as the 1985-86 seasons, he had 64 decisions and only 9 no-decisions, and in 1985 was the last pitcher to throw more than 20 complete games in a season. But in 1979, pitching for a World Championship team with a deep bullpen (Kent Tekulve, Enrique Romo and Grant Jackson between them averaged 83 appearances and 115 innings apiece and a 2.89 ERA), Blyleven was kept on a short leash by Chuck Tanner. In his 20 no-decisions that season, Blyleven averaged just 5.87 innings per start (going more than 7 innings only twice), posting a 4.76 ERA in those starts, in which the Pirates went 11-9. And he didn’t pitch much differently in the ones they won – in the 11 no-decisions the Pirates won, Blyleven averaged 5.76 innings per start with a 4.69 ERA.
Only five other pitchers have managed as many as 17 no-decisions in a season, and only 15 in total have had 16 no-decisions; here’s how they stack up to Harvey (I’ve listed Runs Allowed rather than ERA so you can see the full effect of Harvey not allowing any unearned runs):
Year | Pitcher | No-Decisions | Starts | ND% | RA | IP/ND |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | Matt Harvey | 8 | 13 | 61.5% | 2.68 | 6.7 |
1979 | Bert Blyleven | 20 | 37 | 54.1% | 5.14 | 5.9 |
2004 | Odalis Perez | 18 | 31 | 58.1% | 3.65 | 6.3 |
1986 | Andy Hawkins | 18 | 35 | 51.4% | 5.69 | 5.4 |
1999 | Kenny Rogers | 17 | 31 | 54.8% | 5.91 | 5.6 |
2008 | Oliver Perez | 17 | 34 | 50.0% | 4.70 | 5.7 |
1987 | Mike Krukow | 17 | 28 | 60.7% | 6.89 | 4.6 |
2009 | Randy Wolf | 16 | 34 | 47.1% | 3.43 | 6.2 |
2009 | Roy Oswalt | 16 | 30 | 53.3% | 4.48 | 5.4 |
1978 | John Montefusco | 16 | 36 | 44.4% | 4.39 | 6.0 |
1999 | Eric Milton | 16 | 34 | 47.1% | 6.14 | 5.5 |
1917 | Lee Meadows | 16 | 36 | 44.4% | 5.06 | 4.7 |
1980 | Dennis Lamp | 16 | 37 | 43.2% | 6.08 | 5.0 |
1979 | Randy Jones | 16 | 39 | 41.0% | 4.19 | 6.3 |
1993 | Juan Guzman | 16 | 33 | 48.5% | 5.72 | 6.0 |
2009 | Joba Chamberlain | 16 | 31 | 51.6% | 6.20 | 4.4 |
As you can see – after we pause briefly while all the Mets fans still reading this stab their eyes out upon seeing Harvey on a chart next to Oliver Perez and Kenny Rogers – Harvey sticks out like a sore thumb on this list, both in terms of how well and how far he pitched into games and the high ratio of no-decisions to decisions. Many of these guys were beneficiaries of winning teams – Guzman went 14-3 for the World Champion 1993 Blue Jays, Krukow was bailed out in games the division champion Giants went on to win on 13 occasions (13 no-decisions in games his team won is the most on record, and he had a 6.51 ERA in those 13 starts). Maybe the most extreme example of a guy who got bailed out constantly by his offense was Dwight Gooden in 1999: Gooden, by then running on fumes, was 3-4 with 15 no-decisions in 22 starts and an 8.25 ERA in his no-decisions. The Indians went 12-3 in those starts anyway, and in the 12 the Indians won, Gooden had a 9.13 ERA and averaged 3.94 innings per start. But that Indians team scored over 1,000 runs; the Mets are on pace to score fewer than 650.
You have to get further down the list to find anybody who had a full season that looks like what Harvey has done so far:
-Cliff Lee in 2012: 3.21 ERA and 7.11 IP/start in 15 no-decisions (half of his 30 starts), going at least 6 innings every time.
-Brad Radke in 2004: 2.52 ERA and 6.66 IP/start in 15 no-decisions out of 34 starts; like Harvey, Radke threw at least 5 innings and allowed no more than 4 earned runs in any of his no-decisions. Amazingly, Radke voluntarily re-signed with the Twins after that season.
-Joey Hamilton in 1995: 2.87 ERA, 6.69 IP/start in 15 no-decisions out of 30 starts, going at least 5 innings every time. However, Hamilton allowed 9 unearned runs, so his Runs Allowed average was a less stellar 3.68.
-Jim Deshaeis in 1990: 2.32 ERA, 6.73 IP/start in 15 no-decisions out of 34 starts, going at least 5 innings each time and never allowing more than 4 runs.
-Pedro Astacio in 1996: 3.16 ERA, 6.64 IP/start in 15 no-decisions out of 32 starts. This 2011 SABR presentation argued that Astacio, followed by Deshaies and Montefusco, had the most effective no-decisions based on where they left their team when they exited the game: Astacio left with a lead 7 times and a tie 7 more, meaning he was bailed out when losing only once in his 15 no-decisions. In Harvey’s case, he left two of his no-decisions with a lead (scores of 6-4 and 2-1), three tied (scores of 2-2, 1-1 and 1-1) and three trailing (by scores of 1-0, 3-2 and 3-2).
-Perhaps the best pitching in a significant number of no-decisions in one season (and a hopeful case for Harvey) was Clayton Kershaw in 2009. Kershaw got 14 no-decisions in 30 starts, and partly that was because he hadn’t yet learned to imitate Greg Maddux’s pitch efficiency: Kershaw averaged 5.9 innings per start in his no-decisions, and lasted a full 7 innings in only 5 of them. But his ERA in those starts was a measly 1.42; Kershaw’s 10 no-decisions with a Game Score of 60 or better in a season is the most on record, edging out Tom Candiotti in 1993 and Roger Clemens in 2005.
-Candiotti in 1993 (yet another Dodger on this list, thank you Chavez Ravine): 14 no-decisions in 32 starts, a 1.97 ERA and 6.86 IP per no-decision.
The list of consecutive starts without a decision is even more dominated by pitchers who were not in Harvey’s league: three pitchers went 10 straight starts without a decision, and they were all terrible over that stretch: Dick Stigman in 1965 (5.48 ERA, 4.26 IP/start), Randy Lerch in 1977 (6.70 ERA, 4.96 IP/start) and John D’Acquisto in 1977 (8.39 ERA, 2.46 IP/start, which makes you wonder why the Padres even bothered with a starting pitcher when it was D’Acquisto’s turn). The longest stretch of pitching well without a decision is Al Downing in 8 spot starts from 1974-76, a 2.17 ERA in 6 innings a start for a Dodger team with tireless workhorses Mike Marshall and Charlie Hough in the bullpen.
Historically, the guys who got the most no-decisions, and most well-pitched no-decisions, in their careers were just the guys who started the most games. Tommy John leads the pack with 188 no-decisions followed by Don Sutton with 182, but John started 700 games, Sutton 756. The most no-decisions with a Game Score of 60 or better is Nolan Ryan with 41, followed by Roger Clemens (34), Greg Maddux (31) and Don Sutton (30), and all four of those guys won more than 320 games.
But in today’s game, Harvey has something more like company. Among pitchers with 67 or more career no-decisions, three have career ERAs below 3.10 in their no-decisions: Felix Hernandez (2.76), Matt Cain (2.95) and Jake Peavy (3.01). (Greg Maddux had a 3.14 ERA in his 159 no-decisions, to go with a 1.83 ERA in his 355 career wins. The lesson, as always: Greg Maddux was awesome.).
The most logical conclusion from looking at history is that Harvey either won’t keep pitching like this or will sooner or later start getting some wins again. Eventually, as Mets fans will remember, hard luck can turn. In 1987, pitching for the defending World Champion Mets (who would lead the league in runs scored), Ron Darling went an agonizing 14 starts without a win from April 26 to July 3 – 0-6 with 8 no-decisions – at a time when he was the team’s only healthy starter. Darling’s 4.76 ERA over that stretch attests that he was often ineffective, but he also had 5 starts in there with a Game Score of 60 or better; the Mets scored just 3.7 runs a game in those starts. But things turned around, Darling went 10-2 in his next 14 starts…until he tore his thumb diving for a bunt that broke up his no-hitter in the sixth inning on September 11, ending his season and leading to Terry Pendleton’s famous home run to ice the division race later that night.
So yes, Mets fans. It will probably get better. But it can always get worse.
Has Mike Trout Peaked Already? Maybe.
David Schoenfield asks a provocative question: is Mike Trout’s Rookie of the Year and MVP runner-up season in 2012 as good as he will get? After all, he’s unlikely to improve much as a fielder or base thief. Schoenfield thinks Trout can still get better as a hitter – for most 20-year-olds, that’s not even a question mark, but most have more room for improvement:
I think it’s possible. He has a walk rate of 10.5 percent — while above the AL average of 8.0 percent — could improve, boosting his on-base percentages over .400, even if he’s more .300 hitter than .330…
What about power? Trout wasn’t projected as more of 20-homer guy coming up, so the 30 home runs was a big surprise, especially in a tough home run park. According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, eight of Trout’s 30 home runs were “just enough” — a figure that wasn’t near the league-leading figures of Miguel Cabrera (16) and Adrian Beltre (15). Trout’s home run percentage on fly balls was 21.6 percent, which ranked 15th in the majors among those hitters with 300 plate appearances. Remember, as fast as is he, Trout isn’t a small guy, at 6-1 and over 200 pounds. He’s bigger than Mays or Hank Aaron.
Let’s look at some history. Trout’s headline-grabbing number is 10.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) at age 20. You can’t really study a player like that systematically, because he’s essentially a sample size of one. Counting only non-pitchers, only 2 other players have cleared 8 WAR at age 20 – Alex Rodriguez and Al Kaline, a list that grows to 5 if you include 21 year olds (Rogers Hornsby, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Mathews). If you compare Trout to players with 10-WAR seasons, the youngest comps are Ted Williams at age 22, and Willie Mays, Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins at age 23. Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle and A-Rod all did it at 24, Hornsby and Babe Ruth at 25 (Ruth only really put in his first full-time season as an outfielder at 24). And of those, if you look at players with 10.5 or more WAR ate age 25 or younger, the only guys on the list with Trout are Mantle (twice) and Ruth, Gehrig, Cobb, and Hornsby once each, all of them at 24 or 25. Rare air to be listed with any of these guys, let alone atop a club exclusive to those names.
But to at least get some historical perspective, let’s loosen the criteria.
Of the ten previous players to clear 10 WAR in a season for the first time by age 25, four never topped that season again, and three of those never topped 10 WAR again; only three (Ruth, Hornsby and Mays) cracked 10 WAR more than two more times (the “10+Yrs” column refers only to subsequent seasons):
Player | Age | WAR | Career High | Age | 10+ Yrs | dWAR | HoF? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mike Trout** | 20 | 10.7 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 2.1 | Active |
Ted Williams# | 22 | 10.1 | 10.7 | 27 | 2 | -0.9 | YES |
Willie Mays# | 23 | 10.3 | 10.9 | 34 | 5 | 2.0 | YES |
Ty Cobb | 23 | 10.1 | 11.1 | 30 | 2 | 0.4 | YES |
Eddie Collins | 23 | 10.1 | 23 | 0 | 2.8 | YES | |
Lou Gehrig | 24 | 11.5 | 24 | 1 | -0.2 | YES | |
Mickey Mantle | 24 | 11.0 | 11.1 | 25 | 2 | 0.5 | YES |
Jimmie Foxx | 24 | 10.2 | 24 | 0 | -0.1 | YES | |
Alex Rodriguez** | 24 | 10.1 | 24 | 0 | 2.3 | Active | |
Babe Ruth | 25 | 11.6 | 13.7 | 28 | 7 | -0.5 | YES |
Rogers Hornsby | 25 | 10.6 | 12.0 | 28 | 4 | 1.3 | YES |
**-Active
#-Lost seasons to military service
If you expand the field to players who reached 9 WAR for the first time by age 25, you get 19 players. 7 of the 19 never topped that season, although besides Arky Vaughan all of those were the 24 and 25 year olds. 9 of the 19 went on to have at least 3 more seasons of 9 or more WAR:
Player | Age | WAR | Career High | Age | 9+ Yrs | dWAR | HoF? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mike Trout** | 20 | 10.7 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 2.1 | Active |
Alex Rodriguez** | 20 | 9.2 | 10.1 | 24 | 3 | 1.7 | Active |
Rogers Hornsby | 21 | 9.7 | 12.0 | 28 | 7 | 3.5 | YES |
Ted Williams | 22 | 10.1 | 10.7 | 27 | 6 | -0.9 | YES |
Ty Cobb | 22 | 9.5 | 11.1 | 30 | 4 | -0.7 | YES |
Eddie Collins | 22 | 9.4 | 10.1 | 23 | 2 | 1.3 | YES |
Stan Musial*# | 22 | 9.3 | 10.8 | 27 | 1 | 0.7 | YES |
Willie Mays# | 23 | 10.3 | 10.9 | 34 | 6 | 2.0 | YES |
Cal Ripken | 23 | 9.8 | 11.3 | 30 | 1 | 3.5 | YES |
Mickey Mantle | 23 | 9.2 | 11.1 | 25 | 3 | 1.1 | YES |
Arky Vaughan | 23 | 9.1 | 23 | 0 | 0.6 | YES | |
Shoeless Joe Jackson$ | 23 | 9.0 | 9.3 | 24 | 1 | -0.1 | Ineligible |
Lou Gehrig | 24 | 11.5 | 24 | 4 | -0.2 | YES | |
Jimmie Foxx | 24 | 10.2 | 24 | 1 | -0.1 | YES | |
Tris Speaker | 24 | 9.8 | 24 | 1 | 0.4 | YES | |
Babe Ruth | 24 | 9.7 | 13.7 | 28 | 9 | 0.2 | YES |
Barry Bonds | 25 | 9.5 | 11.6 | 36 | 5 | 2.5 | Not Yet |
Adrian Beltre** | 25 | 9.3 | 25 | 0 | 2.5 | Active | |
Terry Turner | 25 | 9.2 | 25 | 0 | 5.4 | No |
**-Active
#-Lost seasons to military service
*-1st 9-WAR season vs war-depleted competition
$-Banned from baseball in mid-career
As you can see, I included here as well, under the heading dWAR, the player’s defensive Wins Above Replacement, to see if players whose defensive value was a big part of scaling these heights were more or less likely to repeat. At the extreme end you have Terry Turner, who made this list on a fluke defensive season for the 1906 Indians (the defensive stats of Nap Lajoie’s Indians are a whole separate historical controversy). That said, the guys with some significant defensive value, like Trout, do seem to have been more likely to re-appear on the list, even guys like Hornsby and Bonds who were no longer valuable defensive players by the time of their best offensive seasons.
Stretching this to players who reached 8 WAR before age 25, you get a total set of 40 players, and almost half of them never matched the first season when they reached that level:
Player | Age | WAR | Career High | Age | 8+ Yrs | dWAR | HoF? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mike Trout** | 20 | 10.7 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 2.1 | Active |
Alex Rodriguez** | 20 | 9.2 | 10.1 | 24 | 7 | 1.7 | Active |
Al Kaline | 20 | 8.0 | 8.2 | 26 | 1 | 0.4 | YES |
Rogers Hornsby | 21 | 9.7 | 12.0 | 28 | 8 | 3.5 | YES |
Rickey Henderson | 21 | 8.7 | 9.8 | 26 | 2 | 1.3 | YES |
Eddie Mathews | 21 | 8.0 | 21 | 1 | 0.3 | YES | |
Ted Williams | 22 | 10.1 | 10.7 | 27 | 7 | -0.9 | YES |
Ty Cobb | 22 | 9.5 | 11.1 | 30 | 5 | -0.7 | YES |
Eddie Collins | 22 | 9.4 | 10.1 | 23 | 5 | 1.3 | YES |
Stan Musial*# | 22 | 9.3 | 10.8 | 27 | 5 | 0.7 | YES |
Dick Allen | 22 | 8.5 | 22 | 1 | 0.3 | No | |
Cal Ripken | 22 | 8.0 | 11.3 | 30 | 2 | 2.2 | YES |
Joe DiMaggio# | 22 | 8.0 | 8.6 | 26 | 1 | 0.4 | YES |
Willie Mays# | 23 | 10.3 | 10.9 | 34 | 10 | 2.0 | YES |
Mickey Mantle | 23 | 9.2 | 11.1 | 25 | 4 | 1.1 | YES |
Arky Vaughan | 23 | 9.1 | 23 | 1 | 0.6 | YES | |
Shoeless Joe Jackson$ | 23 | 9.0 | 9.3 | 24 | 1 | -0.1 | Ineligible |
Reggie Jackson | 23 | 8.8 | 23 | 0 | 0.1 | YES | |
Ken Griffey jr. | 23 | 8.5 | 9.5 | 26 | 2 | 0.9 | Not Yet |
Albert Pujols** | 23 | 8.4 | 9.4 | 29 | 6 | -0.8 | Active |
Joe Cronin | 23 | 8.0 | 23 | 0 | 2.7 | YES | |
Andruw Jones** | 23 | 8.0 | 23 | 0 | 2.7 | Active | |
Lou Gehrig | 24 | 11.5 | 24 | 6 | -0.2 | YES | |
Jimmie Foxx | 24 | 10.2 | 24 | 3 | -0.1 | YES | |
Tris Speaker | 24 | 9.8 | 24 | 5 | 0.4 | YES | |
Babe Ruth | 24 | 9.7 | 13.7 | 28 | 10 | 0.2 | YES |
Ron Santo | 24 | 8.6 | 9.6 | 27 | 2 | 0.8 | YES |
Johnny Bench | 24 | 8.5 | 24 | 0 | 2.4 | YES | |
Willie Wilson | 24 | 8.3 | 24 | 0 | 2.2 | No | |
Ralph Kiner | 24 | 8.1 | 24 | 0 | -0.1 | YES | |
David Wright** | 24 | 8.1 | 24 | 0 | 1.4 | Active | |
Bobby Grich | 24 | 8.0 | 24 | 0 | 3.9 | No | |
Ryne Sandberg | 24 | 8.0 | 24 | 0 | 2.0 | YES | |
Barry Bonds | 25 | 9.5 | 11.6 | 36 | 8 | 2.5 | Not Yet |
Adrian Beltre** | 25 | 9.3 | 25 | 0 | 2.5 | Active | |
Terry Turner | 25 | 9.2 | 25 | 0 | 5.4 | No | |
Will Clark | 25 | 8.5 | 25 | 0 | -0.1 | No | |
Hank Aaron | 25 | 8.4 | 9.1 | 27 | 5 | -1.1 | YES |
Snuffy Stirnweiss* | 25 | 8.1 | 8.2 | 26 | 1 | 2.5 | No |
Joe Medwick | 25 | 8.1 | 25 | 0 | -0.5 | YES |
**-Active
#-Lost seasons to military service
*-1st 9-WAR season vs war-depleted competition
$-Banned from baseball in mid-career
Stirnweiss was a dominant player in 1944-45 who was merely ordinary when the real ballplayers returned from the war. Grich and Andruw Jones, like lesser versions of Turner (though better players over their careers), were pushed to these heights by unusually valuable glovework.
Mike Trout is a highly unusual player; we just don’t have much precedent for a guy this good, this young, with this broad a base of skills and some of them (like his defense and base stealing) so well-polished already. You can compare him to Mays, Mantle and Cobb, but almost by definition you can’t project a player to have that kind of career. What we can say is that players who have MVP-caliber seasons at age 25 or younger (1) tend, more often than not, to go on to great careers but (2) tend, as often as not, to never have a better season simply because it’s hard to put it all together like this at any age.
Dickey Rises Above
RA Dickey this season finished 20-6 for a 74-88 team: 14 over .500 for a team that was 14 under. How unusual is that accomplishment? I ran through the past century looking for examples, focusing on pitchers who (1) won 15 or more games and (2) finished 5 or more games over .500 (3) for a team that was below .500 when they didn’t pitch. I came up with 73 75 examples; I’m sure there are more I missed, but I think I got the major ones. The chart below is ranked by multiplying the pitcher’s number of games above .500 by the team’s number of games below .500 the rest of the time (“x”); the “TOT” column adds the two:
Mike Trout Scores
Mike Trout recently played his 162nd major league game, in which time he scored 136 runs. How unusual is that? Pretty unusual, at least in modern baseball. Baseball-Reference.com has game logs going back to 1918, and while I can’t run a systematic search, I’m pretty sure this is a complete list of the players since 1918 to score 120 or more runs in their first 162 major league games – 8 Hall of Famers out of 26 (plus at least one, Ichiro, who is sure to be a 9th, plus others who still could and a handful of guys who would have made it if they’d stayed healthier or out of World War II). Ages and years are listed by the age the player was in the season when he played his 162nd game:
Player | Runs | Age | Year |
---|---|---|---|
Joe DiMaggio | 154 | 22 | 1937 |
Ted Williams | 146 | 21 | 1940 |
Lloyd Waner | 142 | 22 | 1928 |
Johnny Frederick | 142 | 28 | 1930 |
Mike Trout | 136 | 20 | 2012 |
Vada Pinson | 136 | 20 | 1959 |
Barney McCoskey | 135 | 23 | 1940 |
Roy Johnson | 133 | 27 | 1930 |
Jackie Robinson | 132 | 29 | 1948 |
Jim Gilliam | 132 | 25 | 1954 |
Dom DiMaggio | 131 | 24 | 1941 |
Ichiro Suzuki | 130 | 28 | 2002 |
Kiki Cuyler | 130 | 26 | 1925 |
Frank Robinson | 128 | 21 | 1957 |
Charlie Keller | 127 | 23 | 1940 |
Nomar Garciaparra | 126 | 23 | 1997 |
Hanley Ramirez | 124 | 23 | 2007 |
Bobby Bonds | 123 | 23 | 1969 |
Pete Reiser | 123 | 22 | 1941 |
Chuck Klein | 122 | 24 | 1929 |
Hal Trosky | 121 | 21 | 1934 |
Augie Galan | 121 | 23 | 1935 |
Carlos Beltran | 120 | 22 | 1999 |
Johnny Pesky | 120 | 26 | 1946 |
Lou Boudreau | 120 | 22 | 1940 |
George Watkins | 120 | 31 | 1931 |
As you can see, the list includes a number of guys (Ichiro, Jackie Robinson, Johnny Frederick, Roy Johnson, George Watkins) who arrived in the majors as seasoned veterans in mid-career. (This is not the case for Johnny Pesky, who scored 105 runs in 147 games as a 23 year old rookie, then spent 3 years at war before scoring 115 runs in 1946 when he returned). It’s also heavily dominated by the high-scoring 1925-41 period. The number of players who compiled a scoring record like Trout’s at such a young age is short and dominated by immortals.
I won’t chart them, but others of note: Lloyd Waner’s better brother Paul 113, Roy Johnson’s better brother Bob 118, Joe DiMaggio & Charlie Keller’s outfield-mate Tommy Henrich 116 and their teammate Lyn Lary 116, Albert Pujols 115, A-Rod 117, Ryan Braun 116, Dick Allen 119, Frank Thomas 110, Julio Lugo 111, Denard Span 115, Terrence Long 115, Steve Henderson 112, Wally Moses 116, the ill-fated Len Koenecke 110, Earl Averill 111, Earle Combs 115, Vince Coleman 115, Minnie Minoso 117, Bobby Thomson 115, Dan Uggla 111, Gary Redus 112, Al Smith 112, Fred Lynn 108, Lu Blue 109, Jose Reyes 103, Adam Dunn 108, Richie Ashburn 107, Pee Wee Reese 107, Dan Gladden 108, Andrew McCutchen 108, Bob Meusel 101, Jim Bottomley 101, Walt Dropo 106, Chick Fullis 108, Juan Samuel 109.
You can go back and find a few more in the 1900-17 period – Federal League star Benny Kauff scored 124 runs in his first 159 games, Roy Thomas 137 runs in his first 150 games, Lefty Davis scored 150 runs in his first 171 games in 1901-02. The 19th century is different, of course – Willie Keeler scored 191 runs in his first 170 games, Billy Hamilton 165 runs in his first 172 games, Hugh Duffy 204 runs in his first 207 games, and going all the way back to the beginning in 1871, in the days before gloves, groundskeeping or even fixed fielding positions, Ross Barnes scored 272 runs in his first 136 National Association games and 197 runs in his first 165 National League games.
But if you have to go back that far, it should tell you what a special player Trout really is.
1968: Year of the Injured Hitter?
Why was 1968 the Year of the Pitcher? Let me present to you an unorthodox theory that has been percolating in my brain since I noticed a pattern leafing through the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract a quarter century ago: the dominance of pitching that season was exacerbated by an unusual run of injuries to a number of the game’s best hitters, combined to some extent with an unusual run of good health by the game’s best pitchers.
Lest we get too carried away with the theory, let me step back a bit. The offensive/defensive conditions of the game change every year, sometimes due to years-long structural factors, sometimes due to weather, chance or other one-year factors. Scoring dropped throughout the 1960s due to a number of the former: a bigger strike zone, more pitcher-friendly parks, higher mounds, more night games, a reduction in the stigma against strikeouts without a corresponding emphasis on plate patience. Those factors affected the game from 1963-68, and some of them continued to linger into the late 1970s. 1968 was simply the most extreme example of its era. Scoring was down from 3.77 runs per team per game to 3.42 (a drop of almost 10%), rising back in 1969 to 4.07.
But I have wondered for years if there was something specific at work that made 1968 stand out from the years around it, and if you look one by one at the injuries to major offensive stars that season, a pattern suggests itself. I do not promise a systematic comparison of 1968 to other seasons in this regard, but take a look at the anecdotal evidence with me and see if you agree.
The Walking Wounded
Let’s start with the core group of players, most of them major offensive stars, who were hampered by injury in 1968. I’ll list each player’s age as of 1968 in parentheses, and a chart showing each player’s plate appearances and Offensive Wins Above Replacement (OWAR) for the 1967-1968-1969 seasons (source: baseball-reference.com).
Joe Morgan (24)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
580 | 5.6 | 27 | 0.3 | 657 | 4.7 |
Morgan wasn’t the biggest star KO’d by injury in 1968, but he was the most total loss. While he wasn’t recognized as a major star until he escaped the Astrodome in 1972, Morgan had been second in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1965, an All-Star in 1966, batted .276/.385/.408 and averaged 20 steals a year from 1965-67, and .253/.366/.392 with 44 steals a year from 1969-71, plus another All-Star appearance in 1970. But 10 games into the 1968 season, with Morgan’s OBP at .444, he tore up his knee when Tommie Agee ran into him at second base, ending his season.
Harmon Killebrew (32)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
689 | 6.9 | 371 | 2.1 | 709 | 7.5 |
The biggest home run threat of the 1960s, Killebrew hit .266/.379/.546 from 1959-67, including 44 homers, 131 walks and a second-place MVP finish in 1967. He hit .267/.409/.534 from 1969-71, including 49 homers, 145 walks, 140 RBI and an MVP Award in 1969. In 1968, Killebrew was off his game but still productive (.210/.361/.420, OPS+ of 131); he was batting .204/.347/.392 when he tore a hamstring stretching for a throw in the All-Star Game, and didn’t return until September, when he batted .257/.458/.629 but started only 10 games and managed just 48 plate appearances.
Roberto Clemente (33)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
632 | 8.0 | 557 | 4.7 | 570 | 6.0 |
Clemente won the 1966 NL MVP and won his third batting title in four years in 1967, batting .357/.400/.554 and driving in 110 runs. Overall, he batted .332/.375/.503 from 1961-67, and .346/.395/.532 from 1969-71. But in 1968, Clemente was hampered by a nasty shoulder injury he suffered in the offseason at his home in Puerto Rico when a steel railing he was climbing on collapsed on his patio, sending him hurtling down a hill. Clemente tried to play through it, but later admitted that he should have at least skipped spring training; he hit .211/.237/.368 through May 24 before returning to something like his usual form, ending the season at .291/.355/.482.
Frank Robinson (32)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
563 | 6.5 | 508 | 4.3 | 643 | 6.4 |
Robinson, the 1966 Triple Crown winner, was slowed slightly in 1967 by vision problems from a violent collision, which may have lingered the following year; in 1968 he added mumps and a sore arm. He batted .314/.407/.609 in 1966-67 and .299/.400/.524 in 1969-71, but missed 32 games and hit .268/.390/.444 in 1968.
Al Kaline (33)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
550 | 6.3 | 389 | 2.7 | 518 | 2.5 |
Kaline batted .307/.385/.509 from 1955-67, and had arguably his best season as a hitter in 1967, batting .308/.411/.541 (OPS+ of 176). He was still a productive hitter in 1968, batting .287/.392/.428 (OPS+ of 146), and despite an off year in 1969, his batting line from 1969-72 was a robust .286/.378/.456. But Kaline missed six weeks in 1968 after his arm was broken when he was hit by a pitch from Lew Krausse on May 25.
Willie Stargell (28)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
536 | 2.8 | 496 | 2.2 | 594 | 5.6 |
Stargell battled injuries in both 1967 and 1968 before getting healthy and returning to form in 1969:
Willie’s production fell off in 1967. With Mota continuing to hit .300, Stargell found himself often benched against lefthanders. He suffered through injuries as well that year, crashing into the wall twice in a span of three days and experienced tendonitis in his shoulder. His weight remained and issue and inactivity did not help it. In 1968, Stargell first injured a knee and later suffered a concussion and face lacerations making a spectacular catch while crashing into the Forbes Field scoreboard and ended up hitting .237, the lowest of his career as a regular player as he battled headaches for the rest of the season.
On the whole, Stargell declined from .315/.381/.581 with 102 RBI in 1966 (his second straight 100 RBI year and third straight slugging .500) to .271/.365/.465 with 73 RBI in 1967 and .237/.315/.441 with 67 RBI in just 128 games in 1968. Stargell would bat .307/.382 /556 in 1969 and .289/.375/.555 from 1969-79.
Joe Torre (27)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
534 | 3.9 | 464 | 2.5 | 678 | 3.2 |
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s six Hall of Fame hitters between the ages of 24 and 33. Torre might be a seventh, although he’s likely to be inducted as a manager. Torre batted .301/.364/.487 from 1963-67 and .326/.394/.501 from 1969-71, but in 1968 he missed 47 games with injuries including a fractured cheekbone that caused him to miss a month after being beaned on April 18 by Chuck Hartenstein and a fractured hand in September, batting .271/.332/.377 on the season. As Torre describes the beaning these days:
Hank Aaron was on first base, trying to steal, and as Torre tried to sneak a peak back at the catcher and didn’t pick up the pitch in time before it hit him. The pitch broke his palate, and Torre said the toughest part was staying in bed for a long period of time.
Tony Conigliaro (23)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
389 | 3.1 | 0 | – | 566 | 0.4 |
I retold Tony C’s familar and sad story recently; he was one of baseball’s major rising star sluggers when he suffered a horrific beaning in August 1967, and missed the entire 1968 season.
Rico Carty (28)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
496 | 1.1 | 0 | – | 339 | 3.2 |
A devastating hitter when healthy, Rico Carty batted .330/.388/.554 as a rookie in 1964, .324/.382/.505 from 1964-66 before struggling to hit .255/.329/.401 in 1967 while playing with a separated shoulder. Carty then missed the entire 1968 season with tuberculosis. He would return to bat .357/.434/.570 in 1969-70 before his next big injury, to his knee.
Rico Petrocelli (25)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
556 | 3.0 | 451 | 1.8 | 643 | 7.9 |
Like a few others listed above, Petrocelli had injury problems in 1967 that worsened in 1968 before bouncing back healthy in 1969. In Petrocelli’s case, it was a bad elbow that cost him 39 games. He had batted .259/.330/.420 as a 24 year old in 1967 (OPS+ of 113) and would enjoy a monster breakout 40-homer .297/.403/.589 season in 1969, hitting .269/.363/.506 from 1969-71 (OPS+ of 134). But hampered by the elbow injury, Petrocelli hit just .234/.292/.374 (OPS+ of 92) in 1968.
Don Mincher (30)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
563 | 4.3 | 457 | 0.5 | 514 | 2.1 |
Yet another beaning victim. Mincher, a productive if unspectacular slugger, batted .255/.348/.488 (OPS+ 134) from 1962-67, including .273/.367/.487 (OPS+ 156) in 1967. He would go on to bat .257/.359/.448 (OPS+ 129) from 1969-71. But 1968 was a significant off year, as he batted .236/.312/.368 (OPS+ 111) and missed 42 games, including 10 games in April and the last 20 games of the season. The main cause was a horrific April 11 beaning by a 90+ mph Sam McDowell fastball to the jaw, which knocked out teeth and caused Mincher permanent hearing loss in one ear and “gave me equilibrium problems.”
Tommie Agee (25)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
584 | 2.3 | 391 | -0.2 | 635 | 3.7 |
The April collision with Morgan wasn’t Agee’s first bruising of 1968; he was hospitalized after being beaned by Bob Gibson on the first pitch of spring training, and things didn’t get better from there: the 1966 AL Rookie of the Year had batted .256/.315/.412 (OPS+ 117) in 1966-67 and would bat .280/.348/.456 (OPS+ 121) from 1969-71, but in 1968 he was helpless, batting .217/.255/.307 (OPS+ 69) and doing even that well only with a strong September; Agee was hitting .109 in mid-May, .165 in mid-July and .181/.222/.265 on August 26 before regaining his bearings to hit .371/.397/.486 in his last 25 games.
Tony Oliva (29)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
615 | 3.4 | 528 | 3.4 | 692 | 3.6 |
Another outstanding talent (he was feared enough to lead the AL in intentional walks in 1968) whose career was degraded by injuries, the 1964 Rookie of the Year and 1965 Al MVP runner-up batted .317/.363/.518 from 1964-66 (OPS+ 143), .322/.362/.517 (OPS+ 140) from 1969-71. He had had a mild off year (.289/.347/.463, OPS+ 129) in 1967, and in that context his 1968 season (.289/.357/.477, OPS+ 145) looks like the same old Oliva, just hitting under more difficult conditions. But Oliva averaged 664 plate appearances a year from 1964-67 and 683 a year in 1969-70, whereas he missed 34 games in 1968 including the entire month of September with a separated shoulder, and finished the season with just 68 RBI.
Dick Allen (26)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
540 | 6.8 | 605 | 5.3 | 506 | 4.9 |
Allen, a better hitter than a good many Hall of Fame sluggers, was still a dangerous hitter in 1968 and had injury problems that season that were not unusual for him, but he may still deserve mention here; he suffered a groin injury and may have been suffering some aftereffects from the injury that ended his 1967 season (he tore up his hand pushing it through a car headlight on August 24); Allen started slowly, batting .257/.330/.396 through May 17, and while he caught fire after missing 8 games in early June, he ended up tailing off, batting .240/.334/.498 in the season’s second half (this being Dick Allen, that could also have been the results of a bruised ego, as he was feuding with his manager at the time). On the whole, Allen hit .312/.400/.601 in 1966-67 (OPS +178) – only Frank Robinson was better over that period – and .297/.390/.557 from 1969-74 (OPS+ 166). In that context, 1968 counts as a mild off year for Allen, .263/.352/.520 (OPS+ 160) with a career-high 161 strikeouts.
Adding Up The Damage
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
7827 | 64.0 | 5244 | 29.6 | 8264 | 61.7 |
I don’t want to overstate the effect of this rash of injuries to productive hitters, but the numbers do suggest that injuries to these 14 hitters alone were enough to have some effect at the margins. Combined, they accounted for 6.4% of all Major League plate appearances in 1967, 4.3% in 1968, and – with expansion – 5.6% in 1969. But not just any plate appearances – almost all of these guys were stationed at the top or middle of their teams’ batting orders, and the combined loss of 30-35 offensive WAR in a 24-team league is a lot of holes to fill.
In doing any sort of comparison, of course, we also have to consider that the 1969 bounce-back is inflated by expansion, which not only dilutes talent levels but tends to dilute them asymmetrically in favor of more scoring (marginal pitchers trapped in the minors are mostly there because they can’t pitch, whereas many marginal non-pitchers are trapped in the minors because they can hit but can’t field; adding more bad pitchers and a mix of bad hitters with good hitters who can’t field will, on balance, bring more scoring).
More Off Years
Of course, those 14 hitters were not the only ones to have a tough time in 1968, even relative to the league. To complete the picture, I’ll run here through a number of other players who had off years, some of them obviously not injury-related and others perhaps caused by unknown or minor injuries. But absent some reason to classify some of them as injury problems, I would not consider them as part of the analysis.
Carl Yastrzemski (28)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
680 | 9.5 | 664 | 7.1 | 707 | 3.8 |
Yaz was healthy and one of the three best hitters in baseball in 1968, but his 1967 Triple Crown season was not something he could repeat. Nobody had a year like it in 1968.
Orlando Cepeda (30)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
644 | 6.0 | 656 | 1.4 | 636 | 1.8 |
The unanimous 1967 NL MVP had back-to-back off years in 1968-69 (dropping from .314/.381/.500, OPS+ 148 to .252/.316/.402 OPS+ 108) before a big bounce back in 1970 (.305/.365/.543, OPS+ 136). I suspect his chronically bad knees may have had something to do with that, but that’s just guesswork.
Tim McCarver (26)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
540 | 4.5 | 467 | 1.8 | 576 | 1.8 |
Injuries for catchers can just accumulate. McCarver’s reduced playing time and production suggest he was banged up.
Paul Blair (24)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
619 | 3.9 | 467 | 0.0 | 685 | 3.9 |
I don’t know of any injuries – Blair’s famous beaning by Ken Tatum came in 1970 – but 1968 was a total loss for him with the bat, .211/.277/.318 (OPS+ 81), compared to .288/.338/.435 (OPS+ 126) in 1966-67 and .277/.335/.460 (OPS+ 119) in 1969-70.
Tommy Davis (29)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
621 | 2.5 | 482 | -1.2 | 492 | -1.0 |
Again, I don’t know of specific injuries, but Davis had many knee problems in his career and fell off dramatically relative to the league in 1968.
George Scott (24)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
641 | 3.5 | 387 | -3.3 | 617 | 1.6 |
The Boomer had his usual spats with management over his weight, but seems to have just lost his batting eye in 1968, dropping from .303/.373/.465 to .171/.236/.237; he would go on to a long, productive career as a slugger.
Curt Blefary (24)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
645 | 2.7 | 535 | 0.3 | 632 | 1.5 |
I’m not aware of any injury problems; the 1965 AL Rookie of the Year, who batted .252/.361/.447 (OPS+ 133) just fell apart, .200/.301/.322 (OPS+ 89) despite improving his K/BB ratio significantly. He would hit .253/.347/.393 (OPS+ 109) in the Astrodome the following year, his last as a productive hitter.
Rod Carew (22)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
561 | 2.8 | 492 | 1.8 | 504 | 4.7 |
Carew was healthy and still just a young hitter coming into his own; his playing time was held back by his military commitments, which included 19 games away from the team in June 1968 to attend a summer training camp.
Tony Gonzalez (31)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
568 | 4.1 | 471 | 1.4 | 561 | -0.4 |
Gonzalez, a good hitter earlier in the decade, had a fluke year in 1967, hitting .339/.396/.472, but was never really a major offensive threat after that.
Wes Parker (28)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
496 | 1.5 | 534 | 0.7 | 541 | 3.4 |
Parker missed 3 weeks in August, but this doesn’t seem all that unusual for him, and he was ordinarily not a major offensive star. But he did drop off from .250/.355/.367 (OPS+ 112) in 1966-67 and .301/.375/.444 (OPS+ 129) in 1969-70 to .239/.312/.314 (OPS+ 96) in 1968.
Jim Ray Hart (26)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
665 | 6.5 | 535 | 3.5 | 271 | 1.0 |
A dangerous hitter from 1964-67 (.290/.352/.501, OPS+ 136) Hart’s career was ended prematurely by injuries including shoulder problems, supposedly stemming from being hit in the shoulder by Bob Gibson. He batted .258/.323/.444 (OPS+128) in 1968 and missed 26 games, including a week in May and another in August, compared to the 664 plate appearances he averaged the prior four years, and never played a full season again. It appears that he was never hit by Gibson in a regular season game, so unless Gibson’s just making up the story, it may have happened in a spring game, like Gibson’s beaning of Agee, but the year would be unclear.
Ron Santo (28)
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
697 | 7.3 | 682 | 5.2 | 687 | 5.0 |
Yeah, I didn’t realize Santo and Yaz were the same age, either, which is the main reason I bothered listing him here. He, too, was coming off a big 1967, and was healthy as a horse.
If you just include Parker, who was definitely injured, and Carew, who was definitely unavailable for reasons unrelated to the offensive conditions, the chart I ran above now looks like this:
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
8884 | 68.3 | 6270 | 32.1 | 9309 | 69.8 |
If you then add in Cepeda, McCarver and Tommy Davis, you get this:
1967 PA | OWAR | 1968 PA | OWAR | 1969 PA | OWAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
10689 | 81.3 | 7857 | 34.1 | 11013 | 72.4 |
Without running the full numbers, there were a few other players who busted out of 2-3 year funks in 1969: Boog Powell (who’d been injured in 1966-67 but was healthy in 1968), Ron Fairly, Willie Davis (Bill James in the 1988 Abstract identified Davis as a guy who lost a lot to the expanded strike zone of 1963-68; he had no injury issues). Hank Aaron’s OWAR for 1967-69 read 8.1-5.2-7.1, but he was healthy. 1968 also saw a couple of long-productive sluggers hit the wall with age: Bob Allison, Leon Wagner. Mickey Mantle was at the end, but was more productive than his numbers looked at first glance, and Mickey had been in gradual decline for a few years.
1969 also saw a bunch of guys bust out big compared to their 1967-68 OWAR. Some were productive hitters in 1968 who blossomed even further with expansion, better hitting conditions and marginally better health: Willie McCovey (who missed 14 games in 1968), Pete Rose (who uncharacteristically missed 2 weeks in July 1968 but still managed 692 plate appearances), Frank Howard, Jimmie Wynn, Reggie Smith, Rusty Staub, Cleon Jones, Tony Perez. There were also a crop of young players who established themselves offensive stars for the first time in 1969, in many cases 1968 rookies or guys who got their first full seasons in 1969: Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench, Sal Bando, Bobby Bonds, Bobby Tolan, Alex Johnson, Mike Epstein. A passel of young talent can contribute to changing the balance of power between hitters and pitchers, but then 1968’s crop of rookie pitchers included guys like Jerry Koosman and Stan Bahnsen who enjoyed immediate success; it’s probably an effect rather than a cause of the offensive environment that many of the rookie hitters that season needed more time to adjust.
Finally, despite the offensive conditions or in some cases perhaps because of them, there were a handful of major hitters who had better years (measured by OWAR) in 1968 than in 1967 or 1969. Some just had career years (Willie Horton, Ken Harrelson) or at least happened to be right at their peak (Bill Freehan) or enjoying an up year in a series of ups and downs (Felipe Alou, Matty Alou, Roy White). Others just gave up less ground than the rest of the league (Willie Mays, Billy Williams, Lou Brock, Brooks Robinson, Ernie Banks).
The Pitchers
I have thus far addressed the hitters and their problems. But there’s a dog that didn’t bark much in 1968: pitching injuries, normally the bane of every baseball team. For example, contrasted to the number of injured, in-their-prime Hall of Fame hitters in 1968, there were 14 Hall of Fame pitchers active that season. Two were relievers: Hoyt Wilhelm made 72 appearances, Rollie Fingers was 21 and made his Major League debut on September 15. Of the 12 starters, 9 started at least 31 games and threw at least 232 innings, plus Don Sutton, who started 27 games and threw 207 innings, plus 21 year old rookie Nolan Ryan, who started 18 games. And that includes a number of guys who were right at the top of their game – Gibson, Marichal, Seaver, Drysdale, Jenkins. Only Jim Bunning was hurt: Bunning was perhaps the best pitcher in baseball in 1967, but he was 36 and broke down in 1968, starting 26 games and throwing 160 innings on the way to a 4-14 season. Of course, there were two other major injuries: Jim Palmer started only 9 games in 1967 and missed all of 1968 at age 22, and Sandy Koufax, still just 32, had retired after 1966 (Whitey Ford’s career was also ended by injury in early 1967). The Hall of Famers hit 1968 like a bullseye: Bob Gibson, who had the great 1.12 ERA, had missed two months with a broken leg the year before, while Don Drysdale, who set the scoreless innings record that would stand for two decades, blew his arm out the next year. 1968 AL ERA champ Luis Tiant (1.60 ERA) would struggle in 1969 before missing large chunks of 1970-71 with arm woes, and 31 game winner Denny McLain would be effectively finished as a star by arm trouble in 1970, as would longtime AL star Dean Chance in 1969.
Looking more broadly around the league, there were a few other pitching injuries. Tommy John and of course Gary Nolan missed about 10 starts each. Jim Perry pitched well with a reduced workload, but it’s not clear if he had arm trouble or was just in a 2-year state of exile as a swing man. Overall, 67 pitchers started 27 or more games, an average of 2.8 per team – not bad for a league that mostly used four-man rotations. 56 pitchers cleared 200 innings. These were not especially shocking figures for the era, but they do support the view that there were a lot of healthy arms around.
In short, there were a lot of reasons why 1968 became the Year of the Pitcher – but the fact that a lot of the game’s elite hitters were hampered by significant injuries, while most of the game’s best pitchers were healthy, surely had at least some role at the margins in tipping the scales towards the men on the mound.
Weak D
In a 2-part study in 2011 here and here, I looked at the best and worst team defenses, measured by their Defensive Efficiency Rating (percentage of balls in play turned into outs) relative to the league average. (This is not a park-adjusted measurement, so park effects do play into this).
Let’s look at this year’s contenders, as well as updating the 2011 charts, which were based on early season results. As I explained in the longer article, it is extremely rare for teams to finish 5% or more above or below the league average – the 2007 Tampa Bay Devil Rays, at 95.32%, were the least effective defensive team in the postwar era (they led the AL the following year, which accounted for almost the entirety of their improvement to a pennant-winning team), while only three teams in that era cracked 105%: the 2001 Mariners (tops at 105.52%), 1999 Reds, and 1975 Dodgers (yes, that’s two teams with Mike Cameron in center field). The last team below 95% was the epically awful 1930 Phillies, the last below 94% was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders, who finished 20-134. The 1930 Phillies were also the only team since 1915 to convert fewer than 65% of all balls in play into outs.
Here’s the decade in progress, through June 22, 2012:
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 69.7% | 689 | SFG | 707 | 102.61% | PIT | 671 | 97.39% |
2011 | 70.4% | 694 | CIN | 705 | 101.59% | CHC | 678 | 97.69% |
2012 | 69.3% | 690 | WSN | 718 | 104.06% | COL | 646 | 93.62% |
A couple of things jump out when looking at the NL. First, balls in play are way down this year; the NL in 2010 was the first league ever below 70%, and this season’s average would be a historic low. But team defense is also off from 2011.
As far as team defense, the Nationals’ surge this year may owe a lot to the “K Street” pitching staff that is averaging 8.4 K/9, but the team has also featured the NL’s best defense since the 1999 Reds, beating every NL defense of the past decade by a full percentage point (if they can sustain this pace). At the opposite end of the scale, the Rockies are currently threatening to be the first team since the 1899 Spiders to run below 94% of the league average and the first since the 1930 Phillies to post a DER below 650 (the team opposing batting average on balls in play – BABIP – is an eye-popping .343; there are a few accounting reasons, such as double plays, why DER and BABIP are not precise mirror images). Two of the team’s top relievers, Esmil Rogers and Rex Brothers, have been pounded to the tune of BABIPs above .400, although Brothers has survived this by striking out 35 batters in 24 innings and allowing only one home run.
Regression to the mean is likely for both the Nats and the Rockies, and Colorado in particular is likely to tinker with its lineup to fix the problem (this is what the Astros did after a similarly horrific defensive start in 2011).
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 71.4% | 694 | OAK | 711 | 102.45% | KCR | 679 | 97.84% |
2011 | 71.3% | 694 | TBR | 724 | 104.32% | MIN | 677 | 97.55% |
2012 | 70.0% | 697 | CHW | 715 | 102.58% | DET | 669 | 95.98% |
In the AL, the league DER dropped off sharply from early June 2011 – when I wrote last year’s post and the league average was 702 – to season’s end at 694, leaving the Rays (who slightly improved their DER) with the best defense relative to the league (and in absolute terms) since 2001. Meanwhile, the Twins’ defense collapsed, moving the White Sox out of last.
Turn to 2012, and the White Sox are now atop the AL, and Tampa at 696 is just a hair below the league average. But it’s the Tigers who horrify, with an Opening Day infield of Prince Fielder at first, converted outfielder Ryan Raburn at second, lead-footed Jhonny Peralta at short and Miguel Cabrera – who is not significantly thinner than Fielder – at third. Even the spectacular center field defense of Austin Jackson can’t salvage this D. Raburn, hitting just .165/.225/.245, has largely been supplanted now by Ramon Santiago, but Cabrera, Fielder and Peralta aren’t going anywhere. This presents a real problem. The highest BABIP ever recorded (since such things have been tracked; at present the records go back to 1948) against a pitcher to qualify for the ERA title was .358 vs Kevin Millwood 2008 (four of the ten worst were Texas Rangers – besides (Millwood, you can find Kevin Brown, Aaron Sele, and John Burkett on the list). THis season, you have Max Scherzer at .383 BABIP, Josh Johnson of the Marlins at.365, and Rick Porcello at .350 (no Rockies qualify). Even with some expectation of a regression to the mean, the BABIP vs the whole Tigers staff is .318, so Scherzer and Porcello can expect to struggle with this all year. This is a major reason why Scherzer has a 5.17 ERA despite striking out 11.5 men per 9 innings and a K/BB ratio of 3.45 to 1 (Scherzer has also had home run problems), and Porcello a 4.95 ERA despite allowing just 2.3 walks and 0.9 HR/9 and a 2.3 to 1 K/BB ratio. The 1983 Phillies were the first team ever to finish in first place with the league’s worst DER; it’s been done twice again since (the 1998 Rangers and 2001 Indians), but for a team that was projected as the division leaders based on their offense (which, granted, is 7th in the league in runs) and pitching, that may prove too heavy a burden to carry.
Doubled Up
Looking through the baseball-reference.com Play Indexes, which have this data back to 1948, yields some interesting nuggets.
Highest opposing BABIP, 100 or more innings: Glendon Rusch in 2003 (.381). You can beat the balls in play if you’re good enough: BABIP vs Pedro Martinez in 1999: .325.
Most 2B allowed in a season since 1948: 68 by Rick Helling in 2001. Tied for second: 66 by Helling in 2000.
Most 3B allowed in a season since 1948 is a 4-way tie at 17, but Larry Christenson managed it in 1976 in just 168.2 IP. That 1976 Phillies team frequently had Greg Luzinski in LF, Ollie Brown or Jay Johnstone in RF, Garry Maddox in CF.
Most steals allowed in a season: 60 by Dwight Gooden in 1990. Tied for second: Gooden with 56 in 1988. Fewest: 200 innings in a season without allowing a steal has been done 10 times, four of them by Whitey Ford; Kenny Rogers in 2002 is the only one since 1968. Most career steals allowed: 757 off Nolan Ryan, and it’s not even close, Greg Maddux is second at 547. Gooden allowed 452 steals in just 2800.2 innings.
Then there’s the things besides steals that get buried in a pitcher’s line, even looking at BABIP numbers, most of all double plays, doubles and triples. Tommy John induced 605 double plays in his career. Since 1948, Jim Kaat is second with 462, a huge gap. For the 61 pitchers to throw 3000 or more innings over that period – admittedly an elite group – I broke out their GIDP, steals, doubles, triples, and total bases allowed on doubles and triples (23B/9, counting triples twice) per 9 innings. The results are obviously heavily influenced by era and park and teammates, but interesting nonetheless – Tommy John and Dennis Eckersley are as dominant in the most- and least-DP business as Ryan and Whitey Ford are in allowing the most and least steals. I sorted the table by GIDP/9, so for the others:
SB/9: Most – Ryan, Tim Wakefield, Joe Niekro, Eckersley; Fewest – Ford, Billy Pierce, Warren Spahn, Rogers.
3B/9: Most – Robin Roberts, Bob Friend, Curt Simmons (Roberts’ longtime teammate). Fewest – Chuck Finley, Randy Johnson, Jamie Moyer (Johnson’s Seattle teammate).
23B/9 (largely the same list as 2B/9): Most – Rogers, David Wells, Livan Hernandez, Wakefield. Fewest – Juan Marichal, Ryan, Bob Gibson, Ford.
All of which went a long way to explaining to me why Whitey Ford was so successful in an era when the truly fielding-independent paths to success (K, BB, HR) were limited – few pitchers in the 50s had especially low BB/9, high K/9 or huge variances in HR/9. Not to say there was no variations, but not nearly enough for a pitcher to really distinguish himself (it’s a study for another day to ask whether BABIP was as pitcher-independent in that era as today). But what’s clear is that, with the help of a superior defense and possibly park effects (see here and here), Ford cut off the running game, induced a lot of double plays, and rarely allowed doubles or triples, which in addition to a fairly low HR rate explains how a guy with a 1.37 K/BB ratio from 1950-60 could be such a dominating pitcher year in and year out.
The table is below the fold.
2012 NL West EWSL Report
Part 6 of my now very belated “preseason” previews is the NL West; this is the last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior: AL Central, AL East, AL West, NL Central, NL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Arizona Diamondbacks
Raw EWSL: 236.50
Adjusted: 246.53
Age-Adj.: 239.48
WS Age: 28.9
2012 W-L: 93-69
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Miguel Montero | 20 | 20 |
1B | 24 | Paul Goldschmidt* | 3 | 8 |
2B | 30 | Aaron Hill | 14 | 13 |
SS | 29 | Stephen Drew | 14 | 14 |
3B | 31 | Ryan Roberts | 11 | 9 |
RF | 24 | Justin Upton | 21 | 27 |
CF | 28 | Chris Young | 18 | 18 |
LF | 30 | Jason Kubel | 14 | 12 |
C2 | 40 | Henry Blanco | 4 | 2 |
INF | 34 | Willie Bloomquist | 6 | 5 |
OF | 25 | Gerardo Parra | 13 | 16 |
12 | 35 | Lyle Overbay | 10 | 7 |
13 | 37 | John McDonald | 5 | 3 |
SP1 | 27 | Ian Kennedy | 14 | 12 |
SP2 | 25 | Daniel Hudson# | 11 | 15 |
SP3 | 24 | Trevor Cahill | 11 | 12 |
SP4 | 31 | Joe Saunders | 10 | 8 |
SP5 | 26 | Josh Collmenter* | 5 | 11 |
RP1 | 35 | JJ Putz | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 27 | David Hernandez | 8 | 7 |
RP3 | 32 | Brad Ziegler | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 31 | Craig Breslow | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 42 | Takashi Saito | 5 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but I expect Goldschmidt to easily surpass 8 Win Shares if healthy.
Also on Hand: Position players – Geoff Blum, Cody Ransom (who has now played 10 years in the majors without once having 100 plate appearances), AJ Pollock.
Pitchers – Joe Paterson, who is off to about the worst possible start imaginable: Paterson allowed as many earned runs (11) in April as he did in 62 appearances all last year. In 2.2 innings he’s faced 26 batters and allowed 18 baserunners (including 2 homers and 4 doubles), and he hasn’t struck out a batter yet. Also Bryan Shaw, Jonathan Albaladejo, Wade Miley, Mike Zagurski, Joe Martinez, Patrick Corbin and Barry Enright.
Analysis: The D-Backs remain the class of this division based on established major league talent, and were the logical preseason favorites. Obviously, the Dodgers’ 4-game lead through May 2 could turn out to be decisive in the long run even if LA comes back to earth. Arizona has also been banged up early, including injuries to Hudson, Drew and Saito. Upton remains a very logical potential MVP candidate.
Henry Blanco is still playing at 40, Matt Treanor at 36, Brian Schneider at 35, Rod Barajas at 36, Dave Ross at 35, Jose Molina at 37. If you know young football players, advise them to consider catching as a career. A little talent, toughness and work ethic will give them a longer, happier career than a lot of NFL stars seem to have.
I haven’t run the numbers, but the Diamondbacks have to have made the most trades involving the largest number of contributing major league players over the past 2 years or so.
San Francisco Giants
Raw EWSL: 209.00
Adjusted: 221.64
Age-Adj.: 213.06
WS Age: 28.9
2012 W-L: 84-78
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Buster Posey# | 11 | 16 |
1B | 24 | Brandon Belt* | 3 | 7 |
2B | 34 | Freddy Sanchez | 11 | 10 |
SS | 25 | Brandon Crawford* | 3 | 6 |
3B | 25 | Pablo Sandoval | 19 | 23 |
RF | 28 | Nate Schierholtz | 10 | 10 |
CF | 30 | Angel Pagan | 17 | 16 |
LF | 27 | Melky Cabrera | 15 | 15 |
C2 | 22 | Hector Sanchez+ | 0 | 4 |
INF | 35 | Aubrey Huff | 17 | 12 |
OF | 28 | Gregor Blanco | 2 | 2 |
12 | 32 | Ryan Theriot | 12 | 9 |
13 | 27 | Emmanuel Burriss | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 28 | Tim Lincecum | 16 | 15 |
SP2 | 27 | Matt Cain | 16 | 14 |
SP3 | 22 | Madison Bumgarner# | 9 | 14 |
SP4 | 34 | Barry Zito | 4 | 3 |
SP5 | 34 | Ryan Vogelsong | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 30 | Brian Wilson | 13 | 11 |
RP2 | 32 | Santiago Casilla | 7 | 5 |
RP3 | 33 | Jeremy Affeldt | 6 | 4 |
RP4 | 34 | Javier Lopez | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 29 | Sergio Romo | 8 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, because I’m trying to avoid biasing the results with events since the season started, but clearly Brian Wilson will not be contributing to the Giants this season, and now Sandoval is out with a busted hand. Freddy Sanchez has also been hurt, and it’s not really clear whether he or Burriss ends up as the second baseman once Sanchez is healthy.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brett Pill, Joaquin Arias, Eli Whiteside.
Pitchers – Clay Hensley, Guillermo Mota, Dan Otero, Eric Hacker.
Analysis: As noted above, San Francisco’s injuries make it a lot harder for the Giants to pick themselves off the mat. They have a lineup only Brian Sabean could love, despite the presence of three talented young bats (Sandoval, Posey and Belt). The outfield seems particularly symptomatic of a failure to learn anything from the Aaron Rowand signing. I needn’t belabor the obvious point that Belt needs to be just stuck in the lineup until he figures things out; he batted .320/.461/.528 in the minors last season after .352/.455/.620 in 2010, but the Giants seem unwilling or unable to live with any growing pains.
As for the rotation, there’s been a huge variation thus far in the batting average on balls in play vs various Giants pitchers, and their early successes and failures should seem a lot less dramatic as these even out over the course of the season; it’s why I’m not so worried about Lincecum in particular, whose peripheral numbers are still solid:
PITCHER | BABIP |
---|---|
Dan Otero | 0.452 |
Jeremy Affeldt | 0.417 |
Guillermo Mota | 0.367 |
Tim Lincecum | 0.351 |
LEAGUE AVERAGE | 0.295 |
Ryan Vogelsong | 0.292 |
TEAM AVERAGE | 0.277 |
Madison Bumgarner | 0.245 |
Santiago Casilla | 0.192 |
Clay Hensley | 0.188 |
Barry Zito | 0.188 |
Matt Cain | 0.158 |
Los Angeles Dodgers
Raw EWSL: 204.67
Adjusted: 215.23
Age-Adj.: 200.51
WS Age: 30.2
2012 W-L: 80-82
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | AJ Ellis# | 3 | 3 |
1B | 28 | James Loney | 17 | 17 |
2B | 35 | Mark Ellis | 13 | 9 |
SS | 24 | Dee Gordon* | 6 | 8 |
3B | 32 | Juan Uribe | 9 | 7 |
RF | 30 | Andre Ethier | 20 | 18 |
CF | 27 | Matt Kemp | 28 | 29 |
LF | 29 | Tony Gwynn jr | 8 | 7 |
C2 | 36 | Matt Treanor | 4 | 3 |
INF | 36 | Adam Kennedy | 8 | 6 |
OF | 33 | Juan Rivera | 11 | 9 |
12 | 36 | Jerry Hairston jr | 11 | 8 |
13 | 26 | Justin Sellers* | 2 | 4 |
SP1 | 24 | Clayton Kershaw | 19 | 21 |
SP2 | 27 | Chad Billingsley | 8 | 7 |
SP3 | 33 | Chris Capuano | 4 | 2 |
SP4 | 36 | Ted Lilly | 10 | 9 |
SP5 | 34 | Aaron Harang | 6 | 4 |
RP1 | 26 | Javy Guerra* | 4 | 9 |
RP2 | 24 | Kenley Jansen# | 5 | 7 |
RP3 | 37 | Jamey Wright | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 35 | Mike MacDougal | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 33 | Matt Guerrier | 6 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but as with Goldschmidt, you can assume a pretty high likelihood that Dee Gordon beats 8 Win Shares if he stays healthy all year.
Also on Hand: Position players – Ivan De Jesus jr, the third of the Dodgers’ junior brigade, and Jerry Sands.
Pitchers – Todd Coffey, Blake Hawkesworth, Josh Lindblom, Scott Elbert, Rubby de la Rosa (on the DL) and Ronald Belisario (same).
Analysis: The frontline talent is strong and in its prime, but the rest of the team is ancient and creaky. Obviously, banking on Matt Kemp to hit .411/.500/.856 all year is not a wager I would take. Kemp has now raised his career April line to .343/.405/.618; his .297/.354/.526 line in June is the only one even close. Color me unpersuaded that this is really a 90+ win team unless significant help is added to the roster.
The Dodgers’ long-term prognosis, of course, is vastly improved by the end of the McCourt Era, in which – ironically – Frank McCourt proved unable to competently manage even the one part of the team he had experience running (parking lots).
Colorado Rockies
Raw EWSL: 181.83
Adjusted: 193.87
Age-Adj.: 177.50
WS Age: 30.6
2012 W-L: 72-90
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 36 | Ramon Hernandez | 11 | 8 |
1B | 38 | Todd Helton | 13 | 9 |
2B | 36 | Marco Scutaro | 14 | 10 |
SS | 27 | Troy Tulowitzki | 25 | 26 |
3B | 26 | Chris Nelson* | 1 | 2 |
RF | 33 | Michael Cuddyer | 16 | 14 |
CF | 26 | Dexter Fowler | 15 | 16 |
LF | 26 | Carlos Gonzalez | 20 | 22 |
C2 | 23 | Wilin Rosario+ | 1 | 4 |
INF | 27 | Jonathan Herrera# | 4 | 4 |
OF | 26 | Tyler Colvin# | 4 | 5 |
12 | 27 | Eric Young | 3 | 3 |
13 | 41 | Jason Giambi | 6 | 3 |
SP1 | 24 | Jhoulys Chacin# | 9 | 13 |
SP2 | 49 | Jamie Moyer | 2 | 1 |
SP3 | 25 | Juan Nicasio* | 2 | 4 |
SP4 | 33 | Jeremy Guthrie | 10 | 7 |
SP5 | 31 | Jorge de la Rosa | 7 | 5 |
RP1 | 37 | Rafael Betancourt | 9 | 7 |
RP2 | 32 | Matt Belisle | 7 | 6 |
RP3 | 27 | Matt Reynolds# | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 29 | Josh Roenicke | 1 | 1 |
RP5 | 24 | Rex Brothers* | 2 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. Jorge de la Rosa is expected back in June and will be welcomed by a tattered rotation, but his numbers reflect his injury last season
Also on Hand: Position players – Jordan Pacheco, Eliezer Alfonzo, Hector Gomez.
Pitchers – Drew Pomeranz, who is presently the third or fourth starter pending the return of de la Rosa and Guthrie (also Chacin, just sent to AAA), Tyler Chatwood, Esmil Rogers, Guillermo Moscoso, Edgmer Escalona, Zach Putnam, Josh Outman.
Analysis: I’ve had a lot of fun on Twitter doing “how old is Jamie Moyer” facts (eg, he was the second-oldest player on the Mariners when he arrived in Seattle in August 1996), but the amazing thing is how dependent the Rockies have been on Moyer. His 3.14 ERA is deceptively low given the unearned runs he’s allowed and a low BABIP, but he’s basically the same old Moyer, which is a valuable thing on a team in Coors Field with terrible pitching.
A further retrospective on the careers of Moyer, Helton and Giambi is something I should return to later.
San Diego Padres
Raw EWSL: 159.67
Adjusted: 178.57
Age-Adj.: 172.33
WS Age: 28.7
2012 W-L: 71-91
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Nick Hundley | 11 | 11 |
1B | 25 | Yonder Alonso* | 2 | 5 |
2B | 34 | Orlando Hudson | 15 | 13 |
SS | 32 | Jason Bartlett | 15 | 12 |
3B | 28 | Chase Headley | 16 | 16 |
RF | 29 | Will Venable | 12 | 12 |
CF | 25 | Cameron Maybin | 12 | 14 |
LF | 29 | Carlos Quentin | 14 | 14 |
C2 | 31 | John Baker | 3 | 2 |
INF | 26 | Andy Parrino+ | 0 | 4 |
OF | 28 | Jesus Guzman* | 7 | 13 |
12 | 31 | Chris Denorfia | 7 | 6 |
13 | 28 | Jeremy Hermida | 4 | 4 |
SP1 | 28 | Ednison Volquez | 1 | 1 |
SP2 | 28 | Clayton Richard | 6 | 5 |
SP3 | 27 | Cory Luebke* | 4 | 6 |
SP4 | 30 | Tim Stauffer | 7 | 6 |
SP5 | 24 | Anthony Bass* | 3 | 6 |
RP1 | 28 | Huston Street | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 26 | Ernesto Frieri# | 3 | 4 |
RP3 | 28 | Luke Gregerson | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 25 | Andrew Cashner# | 1 | 2 |
RP5 | 29 | Micah Owings | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but again, I expect Alonso to step up with full-time playing time.
Also on Hand: Position players – Kyle Blanks (now out for the season), Mark Kotsay, Blake Tekotte, Logan Forsythe.
Pitchers – Joe Thatcher, Joe Wieland (presently in the rotation), Josh Spence, Brad Brach, Dale Thayer, Jeff Suppan (recently exhumed from the minors – he’s now in his 20th professional season. He’s also 13 years younger than Moyer), Dustin Moseley (out for the season).
Analysis: What’s worse – that the Padres are hitting .216/.302/.331 as a team, or that that doesn’t even make them the lowest-scoring team in the league (the Pirates are scoring almost half a run per game less)? Yet, the lineup (partly due to a number of good glove men) isn’t full of untalented guys, so much as it lacks anybody with star-level talent, plus the big bat (Quentin) hasn’t played yet, with Guzman subbing for him. It’s actually the rotation, which the park makes look respectable, that’s really weak, and the bullpen is less impressive as well than it seems.
2012 NL East EWSL Report
Part 5 of my now very belated “preseason” previews is the NL East; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior: AL Central, AL East, AL West, NL Central.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Atlanta Braves
Raw EWSL: 215.17
Adjusted: 248.24
Age-Adj.: 260.94
Subj. Adj.: 257.94
WS Age: 28.6
2012 W-L: 99-63
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Brian McCann | 21 | 21 |
1B | 22 | Freddie Freeman* | 10 | 34 |
2B | 32 | Dan Uggla | 22 | 17 |
SS | 22 | Tyler Pastornicky+ | 0 | 11 |
3B | 40 | Chipper Jones | 17 | 9 |
RF | 22 | Jason Heyward# | 13 | 28 |
CF | 29 | Michael Bourn | 20 | 20 |
LF | 28 | Martin Prado | 15 | 15 |
C2 | 35 | Dave Ross | 7 | 5 |
INF | 34 | Jack Wilson | 6 | 5 |
OF | 34 | Matt Diaz | 6 | 5 |
12 | 34 | Eric Hinske | 6 | 5 |
13 | 28 | Jose Constanza* | 2 | 3 |
SP1 | 25 | Tommy Hanson | 10 | 11 |
SP2 | 25 | Brandon Beachy* | 4 | 8 |
SP3 | 26 | Jair Jurrjens | 10 | 11 |
SP4 | 36 | Tim Hudson | 14 | 13 |
SP5 | 22 | Randall Delgado* | 1 | 3 |
RP1 | 24 | Craig Kimbrel# | 10 | 13 |
RP2 | 27 | Johnny Venters# | 11 | 11 |
RP3 | 27 | Eric O’Flaherty | 8 | 7 |
RP4 | 26 | Kris Medlen | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 24 | Mike Minor# | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: I docked Freddie Freeman 3 Win Shares, down from 34 to 31, and that still seems conservative. Is Freddie Freeman really a reasonable bet to be better than Joey Votto in 2012? That’s where EWSL has him, on grounds of being 22 and coming off a 19 Win Shares season. You have to admit, Freeman’s batting line looks a lot more impressive when you account for his age…but still. Really?
On the other hand, I refuse to adjust Jason Heyward, the team’s other 22-year-old regular, downwards from 28 Win Shares. I can totally see that happening.
Also on Hand: Position players – Juan Francisco, who subbed as the everyday 3B until Chipper was ready to go, and likely will again the next time Chipper gets chipped.
Pitchers – Chad Durbin, Livan Hernandez, and two injured pitchers, Robert Fish and Arodys Vizcaino.
Analysis: EWSL is out on a limb here because 22 year old hitters are its weakness, but the Braves are potentially loaded. They fit the classic profile of a team ready to rip the ears off the division, like the 1986 Mets or the 1984 Tigers: a young team with a few key veretans that had a couple of tough endings and is starting to get written off, but could suddenly gel and hit the stratosphere. The tough part is how cutthroat this division is, but maybe no moreso than the AL East in 1984.
Note that this is the second year in a row that EWSL had the Braves winning the division.
Philadelphia Phillies
Raw EWSL: 285.67
Adjusted: 293.00
Age-Adj.: 247.33
WS Age: 32.0
2012 W-L: 96-66
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 33 | Carlos Ruiz | 18 | 15 |
1B | 32 | Ryan Howard | 22 | 17 |
2B | 33 | Chase Utley | 23 | 19 |
SS | 33 | Jimmy Rollins | 20 | 17 |
3B | 36 | Placido Polanco | 16 | 12 |
RF | 29 | Hunter Pence | 22 | 21 |
CF | 31 | Shane Victorino | 23 | 19 |
LF | 34 | Juan Pierre | 14 | 12 |
C2 | 35 | Brian Schneider | 3 | 2 |
INF | 34 | Ty Wigginton | 5 | 5 |
OF | 31 | Laynce Nix | 6 | 5 |
12 | 28 | John Mayberry | 6 | 6 |
13 | 41 | Jim Thome | 13 | 7 |
SP1 | 35 | Roy Halladay | 23 | 19 |
SP2 | 33 | Cliff Lee | 19 | 13 |
SP3 | 28 | Cole Hamels | 16 | 15 |
SP4 | 24 | Vance Worley* | 6 | 12 |
SP5 | 31 | Joe Blanton | 4 | 3 |
RP1 | 31 | Jonathan Papelbon | 12 | 9 |
RP2 | 33 | Chad Qualls | 4 | 3 |
RP3 | 27 | Kyle Kendrick | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 26 | Antonio Bastardo | 5 | 6 |
RP5 | 25 | Michael Stutes* | 3 | 6 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Pete Orr, Freddy Galvis.
Pitchers – Joe Savery, Jose Contreras, Brian Sanches, David Herndon, Michael Schwimer.
Analysis: After threatening for years, the piper has come to Philadelphia, and he will be paid. 32 year old Ryan Howard, 33 year old Chase Utley, and 33 year old Cliff Lee are all on the DL. Almost as old as the Yankees, this team is: outside of Worley and the bullpen, the “kids” are 28 year old Cole Hamels and 29 year old Hunter Pence. For all of that, this team won’t go down easy: before the age adjustments, this is a 111-win team, so even when you discount them for age, they are still knocking on the door of triple digits. And if you draw a healthy Halladay, Lee and Hamels in a short series, you’re still in deep yogurt; there has maybe never been a more skillful pitching staff assembled.
Miami Marlins
Raw EWSL: 215.50
Adjusted: 226.27
Age-Adj.: 227.44
WS Age: 28.6
2012 W-L: 89-73
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | John Buck | 14 | 11 |
1B | 28 | Gaby Sanchez# | 14 | 17 |
2B | 30 | Omar Infante | 17 | 15 |
SS | 29 | Jose Reyes | 20 | 19 |
3B | 28 | Hanley Ramirez | 18 | 18 |
RF | 22 | Giancarlo Stanton# | 14 | 30 |
CF | 27 | Emilio Bonifacio | 13 | 14 |
LF | 24 | Logan Morrison# | 9 | 13 |
C2 | 28 | Brett Hayes# | 2 | 3 |
INF | 33 | Greg Dobbs | 4 | 4 |
OF | 27 | Chris Coghlan | 8 | 9 |
12 | 29 | Donnie Murphy | 2 | 1 |
13 | 32 | Austin Kearns | 4 | 3 |
SP1 | 28 | Josh Johnson | 12 | 11 |
SP2 | 33 | Mark Buehrle | 14 | 10 |
SP3 | 28 | Anibal Sanchez | 10 | 9 |
SP4 | 29 | Ricky Nolasco | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 31 | Carlos Zambrano | 8 | 7 |
RP1 | 34 | Heath Bell | 13 | 10 |
RP2 | 28 | Edward Mujica | 6 | 6 |
RP3 | 27 | Mike Dunn# | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 26 | Ryan Webb | 4 | 4 |
RP5 | 26 | Steve Cishek* | 3 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: None; I haven’t downgraded Stanton for the same reason as Heyward. This season has a bumper crop of 22-year-olds who will put EWSL’s age adjustment to the test: Heyward, Stanton, Freeman, Eric Hosmer, Brett Lawrie, Starlin Castro, Ruben Tejada, and Jose Altuve. Note that, as usual, that group is split between guys whose playing time is stepping up to full time (Lawrie, Hosmer, Altuve, Tejada) and those who were already everyday for a full season (Heyward, Castro, Stanton, Freeman). It’s the inevitable growth of the former group that tends to artificially over-project the latter. The effect is most pronounced on 22 year olds because guys who are playing everyday at 21 or 22 tend to be really good.
Also on Hand: Position players – Scott Cousins.
Pitchers – Randy Choate, Chad Gaudin, the potentially ineligible Juan Oviedo (f/k/a Leo Nunez), the injured Jose Ceda.
Analysis: If you can buy this as a third-place team, you see how deep this division is now.
Jose Reyes gets more attention, as does the Miami Medusa in center field that goes off when the Marlins hit a home run:
But the most interesting issue to watch is whether Hanley Ramirez, now batting .236/.330/.381 since the start of 2011, can bounce back. Also, whether Giancarlo (don’t call me Mike) Stanton’s prodigious power will be held back by the new stadium’s cavernous dimensions. So far, so good from the team’s perspective – the Marlins have hit 9 homers at home, 9 on the road, compared to allowing 4 at home and 12 on the road, and Stanton’s lone longball this season came at home – but he’s started slowly overall.
Washington Nationals
Raw EWSL: 185.17
Adjusted: 195.33
Age-Adj.: 195.34
WS Age: 28.2
2012 W-L: 78-84
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Wilson Ramos# | 8 | 12 |
1B | 32 | Adam LaRoche | 9 | 7 |
2B | 25 | Danny Espinosa# | 12 | 18 |
SS | 26 | Ian Desmond# | 12 | 15 |
3B | 27 | Ryan Zimmerman | 19 | 20 |
RF | 33 | Jayson Werth | 20 | 17 |
CF | 32 | Rick Ankiel | 6 | 5 |
LF | 33 | Xavier Nady | 4 | 3 |
C2 | 27 | Jesus Flores | 1 | 1 |
INF | 30 | Michael Morse | 16 | 14 |
OF | 28 | Roger Bernadina# | 7 | 8 |
12 | 37 | Mark DeRosa | 4 | 3 |
13 | 32 | Chad Tracy | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 23 | Stephen Strasburg# | 3 | 4 |
SP2 | 26 | Jordan Zimmermann | 6 | 7 |
SP3 | 28 | Edwin Jackson | 12 | 11 |
SP4 | 26 | Gio Gonzalez | 13 | 14 |
SP5 | 26 | Ross Detwiler | 2 | 3 |
RP1 | 35 | Brad Lidge | 4 | 3 |
RP2 | 25 | Henry Rodriguez# | 2 | 3 |
RP3 | 27 | Tyler Clippard | 10 | 9 |
RP4 | 24 | Drew Storen# | 9 | 12 |
RP5 | 29 | Sean Burnett | 6 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Wunderkind Bryce Harper, Mark Teahen, Brett Carroll, Steve Lombardozzi (the younger one), Tyler Moore.
Pitchers – Tom Gorzelanny, Craig Stammen, Ryan Mattheus, Chien-Ming Wang.
Analysis: The “K Street” Nationals’ hot start has brought back memories of Davey Johnson teams of yore; four starters have ERAs in the ones, three relievers have ERAs ranging from 0.00 to 2.00, and the team is averaging 8.7 K/9. And they’re not really kids, either – Strasburg is already a Tommy John surgery veteran, and he and Henry Rodriguez are the only guys on the staff under 26. For a team that in its seven prior years in DC finished 16th in the NL in pitcher strikeouts twice, 15th three times, 13th once and as high as 10th only in its inaugural season, this is revolutionary. For the first time, it will actually be the offense that has to carry the ball.
Bryce Harper may well be a superstar in the making, but he’s closer in age to Justin Bieber than he is to Strasburg. Harper was 8 years old on 9/11. When he was born, Jamie Moyer was mulling a coaching job offer from the Cubs, his MLB pitching career widely considered over. In other words: don’t expect too much too soon. Harper reached the majors without slugging over .400 above A ball. There are 72 players (including a few pitchers and managers) in the Hall of Fame who had 200 or more plate appearances their first season in the majors; only 18 of those 72 slugged above .450, and only 11 of those were 22 or younger, the youngest being age 20; the highest among the teenagers was Mickey Mantle at .443 (Mel Ott is the only Hall of Famer to slug .450 as a teenager – .524 as a 19 year old in 1928 – and Ott wasn’t a rookie, having 241 plate appearances over the prior two seasons). Barry Bonds hit .223/.330/.416 as a rookie.
New York Mets
Raw EWSL: 162.50
Adjusted: 185.94
Age-Adj.: 183.04
WS Age: 29.3
2012 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Josh Thole# | 8 | 10 |
1B | 25 | Ike Davis# | 8 | 12 |
2B | 27 | Daniel Murphy | 9 | 9 |
SS | 22 | Ruben Tejada# | 6 | 13 |
3B | 29 | David Wright | 18 | 18 |
RF | 26 | Lucas Duda* | 6 | 12 |
CF | 34 | Andres Torres | 14 | 12 |
LF | 33 | Jason Bay | 14 | 12 |
C2 | 29 | Mike Nickeas* | 1 | 1 |
INF | 27 | Justin Turner* | 8 | 16 |
OF | 32 | Scott Hairston | 6 | 4 |
12 | 29 | Ronny Cedeno | 9 | 9 |
13 | 24 | Kirk Nieuwenhuis+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 33 | Johan Santana | 7 | 5 |
SP2 | 37 | RA Dickey | 11 | 9 |
SP3 | 25 | Jonathan Niese# | 4 | 5 |
SP4 | 26 | Dillon Gee* | 4 | 6 |
SP5 | 28 | Mike Pelfrey | 6 | 6 |
RP1 | 32 | Frank Francisco | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 27 | Bobby Parnell | 3 | 3 |
RP3 | 33 | Jon Rauch | 6 | 4 |
RP4 | 30 | Ramon Ramirez | 7 | 6 |
RP5 | 38 | Tim Byrdak | 3 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None; I’m trying to keep these limited to preseason rankings, so I did not dock Mike Pelfrey.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mike Baxter (I could have rated him in the same place as Niewenhuis, but Niewenhuis is likely the guy I’ll be rating down the road), Zach Lutz, Jordany Valdespin, Brad Emaus, Freddie Lewis.
Pitchers – Miguel Batista, Manny Acosta, Pedro Beato, DJ Carrasco, Chris Schwinden, Jeremy Hefner.
Analysis: The Mets, realistically, are not aiming for a first place finish this season, but for .500 and respectability. And maybe not last place, which will require one of the other competitors here to have a very disappointing year. The main thing that needs to happen, for that to occur, is to keep the front four of the rotation healthy (Mike Pelfrey is headed for season-ending Tommy John surgery today), as well as Wright and Davis; some of the youngsters also need to step up, as Tejada, Thole and Nieuwenhuis have so far (I admit, I never expected Tejada to be a major league hitter). Santana, of course, has been miraculous, averaging over 10 K/9 for the first time since his first Cy Young season in 2004 and not having yet allowed a home run. The lesson is never bet against great pitchers – but also, be cautious, as I can recall Dwight Gooden having some outstanding stretches in the years after shoulder surgery, but never again sustaining it over a full season.
2012 NL Central EWSL Report
Part 4 of my now very belated “preseason” previews is the NL Central; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior: AL Central, AL East, AL West.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Cincinnati Reds
Raw EWSL: 210.83
Adjusted: 228.84
Age-Adj.: 218.03
WS Age: 29.1
2012 W-L: 86-76
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | Ryan Hanigan | 11 | 9 |
1B | 28 | Joey Votto | 32 | 32 |
2B | 31 | Brandon Phillips | 20 | 17 |
SS | 26 | Zack Cozart+ | 1 | 11 |
3B | 37 | Scott Rolen | 11 | 7 |
RF | 25 | Jay Bruce | 18 | 21 |
CF | 27 | Drew Stubbs | 13 | 14 |
LF | 33 | Ryan Ludwick | 15 | 13 |
C2 | 24 | Devin Mesoraco+ | 1 | 4 |
INF | 34 | Wilson Valdez | 8 | 7 |
OF | 27 | Chris Heisey# | 5 | 7 |
12 | 34 | Willie Harris | 5 | 5 |
13 | 38 | Miguel Cairo | 6 | 4 |
SP1 | 35 | Bronson Arroyo | 8 | 7 |
SP2 | 26 | Johnny Cueto | 11 | 12 |
SP3 | 24 | Mike Leake# | 7 | 9 |
SP4 | 26 | Homer Bailey | 5 | 6 |
SP5 | 24 | Mat Latos | 9 | 10 |
RP1 | 24 | Aroldis Chapman* | 3 | 5 |
RP2 | 29 | Sean Marshall | 10 | 8 |
RP3 | 29 | Bill Bray | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 27 | Logan Ondusek# | 4 | 4 |
RP5 | 30 | Nick Masset | 6 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Paul Janish, Billy Hamilton.
Pitchers – Alfredo Simon, Jose Arredondo, Ryan Madson (out for the season).
Analysis: The NL Central often looks weaker before the season than it does as the year progresses, but times have changed; Tony LaRussa, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder are all gone, leaving the division short on anchors. That gives the Reds, who unlike their rivals managed to retain star 1B Joey Votto, a competitive advantage. Add in a rotation that could be stable if Johnny Cueto stays healthy and the usual Reds young, athletic outfield, and this team should be in any mix that emerges in this division.
Hamilton thus far is batting .381/.470/.583 and has already stolen 28 bases in A ball, although his suspect defense may slow his ascent.
Milwaukee Brewers
Raw EWSL: 227.50
Adjusted: 232.08
Age-Adj.: 212.81
WS Age: 29.9
2012 W-L: 84-78
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Jonathan Lucroy# | 9 | 12 |
1B | 26 | Mat Gamel | 1 | 1 |
2B | 29 | Rickie Weeks | 20 | 19 |
SS | 35 | Alex Gonzalez | 14 | 10 |
3B | 34 | Aramis Ramirez | 19 | 17 |
RF | 30 | Corey Hart | 18 | 16 |
CF | 31 | Nyjer Morgan | 14 | 11 |
LF | 28 | Ryan Braun | 33 | 33 |
C2 | 29 | George Kottaras | 4 | 3 |
INF | 28 | Travis Ishikawa | 3 | 3 |
OF | 26 | Carlos Gomez | 6 | 6 |
12 | 30 | Norichika Aoki+ | 0 | 1 |
13 | 32 | Cesar Izturis | 4 | 3 |
SP1 | 26 | Yovanni Gallardo | 12 | 13 |
SP2 | 28 | Zack Greinke | 13 | 12 |
SP3 | 30 | Shawn Marcum | 11 | 9 |
SP4 | 35 | Randy Wolf | 11 | 9 |
SP5 | 30 | Chris Narveson | 6 | 5 |
RP1 | 29 | John Axford# | 11 | 12 |
RP2 | 30 | Francisco Rodriguez | 10 | 9 |
RP3 | 30 | Kameron Loe | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 29 | Manny Parra | 1 | 1 |
RP5 | 31 | Jose Veras | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position Players – Brooks Conrad.
Pitchers – Marco Estrada, who is off to an excellent start; Tim Dillard.
Analysis: The whiz heard round the world: Ryan Braun missing 50 games would have been a really horrible blow to this team after losing Fielder. With him, the Brewers’ rotation gives them a fighting chance. Note that an unbalanced schedule against this large, weak division, especially the Astros, should make the rest of the NL Central teams look deceptively stronger than they are.
World Champion St. Louis Cardinals
Raw EWSL: 208.67
Adjusted: 223.91
Age-Adj.: 199.17
WS Age: 31.0
2012 W-L: 80-82
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Yadier Molina | 18 | 17 |
1B | 36 | Lance Berkman | 23 | 17 |
2B | 32 | Skip Schumaker | 13 | 11 |
SS | 34 | Rafael Furcal | 13 | 11 |
3B | 29 | David Freese | 9 | 9 |
RF | 35 | Carlos Beltran | 18 | 13 |
CF | 27 | Jon Jay# | 9 | 12 |
LF | 32 | Matt Holliday | 23 | 18 |
C2 | 25 | Tony Cruz* | 1 | 2 |
INF | 25 | Daniel Descalso* | 5 | 12 |
OF | 27 | Allen Craig# | 6 | 7 |
12 | 28 | Tyler Greene | 2 | 2 |
13 | 26 | Matt Carpenter+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 37 | Chris Carpenter | 14 | 11 |
SP2 | 30 | Adam Wainwright | 10 | 9 |
SP3 | 25 | Jaime Garcia# | 8 | 10 |
SP4 | 34 | Jake Westbrook | 5 | 4 |
SP5 | 33 | Kyle Lohse | 5 | 4 |
RP1 | 30 | Jason Motte | 7 | 6 |
RP2 | 28 | Mitchell Boggs | 3 | 3 |
RP3 | 27 | Fernando Salas# | 6 | 7 |
RP4 | 28 | Kyle McClellan | 6 | 6 |
RP5 | 26 | Marc Rzepcynski | 4 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Shane Robinson, Erik Komatsu.
Pitchers – Lance Lynn (I have him here because this was his preseason slot; he’s been a surprising early star in the rotation), JC Romero, Victor Marte, Scott Linebrink (injured).
Analysis: The hulking sinkerballer Lynn has really been a huge help in Carpenter’s early absence and with Wainwright struggling (0-3, 7.32 ERA), and the team’s 14-7 record (16-5 Pythagorean record) suggests that the Cards could yet again pull an upside surprise if the antique trio of Beltran, Furcal and Berkman can stay healthy (Berkman’s already on the DL). Then again, history suggests that a 1.62 ERA from Lohse, a 1.30 ERA from Westbrook and a .620 slugging average from Yadier Molina may be a tall order to sustain.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Raw EWSL: 168.00
Adjusted: 185.37
Age-Adj.: 182.65
WS Age: 28.5
2012 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 36 | Rod Barajas | 10 | 8 |
1B | 31 | Garrett Jones | 12 | 10 |
2B | 26 | Neil Walker# | 15 | 20 |
SS | 33 | Clint Barmes | 11 | 9 |
3B | 29 | Casey McGehee | 16 | 15 |
RF | 23 | Jose Tabata# | 9 | 13 |
CF | 25 | Andrew McCutchen | 24 | 29 |
LF | 26 | Alex Presley* | 4 | 9 |
C2 | 27 | Michael McKendry* | 1 | 2 |
INF | 25 | Pedro Alvarez# | 6 | 9 |
OF | 30 | Nate McLouth | 9 | 8 |
12 | 24 | Josh Harrison* | 3 | 7 |
13 | 26 | Matt Hague+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 33 | Erik Bedard | 4 | 3 |
SP2 | 27 | James McDonald | 5 | 4 |
SP3 | 29 | Jeff Karstens | 6 | 5 |
SP4 | 28 | Charlie Morton | 5 | 4 |
SP5 | 31 | Kevin Corriea | 4 | 3 |
RP1 | 30 | Joel Hanrahan | 10 | 9 |
RP2 | 29 | Chris Resop | 3 | 2 |
RP3 | 29 | Evan Meek | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 33 | Juan Cruz | 2 | 1 |
RP5 | 35 | AJ Burnett | 6 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Yamaico Navarro
Pitchers – Jason Grilli, Jared Hughes, Tony Watson, Daniel McCutchen, Doug Slaten.
Analysis: Things are looking up in Pittsburgh, for a certain value of “up” compared to 19 consecutive losing seasons. Sad as it sounds, the Pirates’ 75 wins in 2003 was their only trip above 72 victories since 1999; this team has a fighting chance to top that. I would hesitate to project more.
Chicago Cubs
Raw EWSL: 156.00
Adjusted: 174.18
Age-Adj.: 175.23
SUbj. Adj.: 169.23
WS Age: 29.6
2012 W-L: 70-92
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Geovany Soto | 11 | 11 |
1B | 29 | Bryan LaHair+ | 1 | 11 |
2B | 26 | Darwin Barney# | 7 | 10 |
SS | 22 | Starlin Castro# | 17 | 35 |
3B | 27 | Ian Stewart | 5 | 5 |
RF | 32 | David DeJesus | 10 | 8 |
CF | 34 | Marlon Byrd | 14 | 12 |
LF | 36 | Alfonso Soriano | 12 | 9 |
C2 | 26 | Steve Clevenger+ | 0 | 4 |
INF | 31 | Jeff Baker | 4 | 3 |
OF | 35 | Reed Johnson | 6 | 4 |
12 | 29 | Joe Mather | 1 | 1 |
13 | 26 | Blake DeWitt | 8 | 8 |
SP1 | 28 | Matt Garza | 10 | 10 |
SP2 | 35 | Ryan Dempster | 9 | 7 |
SP3 | 27 | Jeff Samardzjia | 4 | 3 |
SP4 | 25 | Chris Volstad | 4 | 4 |
SP5 | 30 | Paul Maholm | 6 | 5 |
RP1 | 29 | Carlos Marmol | 11 | 10 |
RP2 | 35 | Kerry Wood | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 36 | Shawn Camp | 5 | 5 |
RP4 | 26 | James Russell# | 1 | 1 |
RP5 | 29 | Randy Wells | 7 | 6 |
Subjective Adjustments: I cut Starlin Castro from 35 Win Shares to 29, for the usual reason that EWSL over-projects 22-year-old everyday shortstops whose value is heavily in their glove.
Also on Hand: Pitchers – Casey Coleman, Rodrigo Lopez, Rafael Davis, Lendy Castillo, Scott Maine.
Analysis: In the optimist’s case, this is probably the season that provides the “how bad they were” backdrop for a later turnaround by Theo Epstein. I’d rather owe $54.5 million to Johan Santana than $54 million to Alfonso Soriano…the interesting question for an aggressive new GM is whether you could get a good package for Castro, or whether you retain him as the core building block. He’s going to be one of the most valuable fantasy players in baseball over the next five years, but the debate is whether he’s actually good enough defensively, and likely to survive his rough plate discipline, to match his perceived value. I don’t know that I’d bet against a 22 year old shortstop with his gifts, though. He’s batting .337 and leading the NL in steals at the moment.
Another guy who looks like he may finally be figuring things out is Jeff Samardzija, with a 25/8 K/BB ratio and just one HR allowed in 24 innings.
Houston Astros
Raw EWSL: 96.17
Adjusted: 113.76
Age-Adj.: 105.61
WS Age: 29.4
2012 W-L: 48-114
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Jason Castro# | 1 | 2 |
1B | 36 | Carlos Lee | 17 | 12 |
2B | 22 | Jose Altuve* | 1 | 4 |
SS | 28 | Jed Lowrie | 5 | 5 |
3B | 27 | Chris Johnson# | 9 | 11 |
RF | 28 | Brian Bogusevic* | 2 | 4 |
CF | 25 | Jordan Schafer | 4 | 5 |
LF | 24 | JD Martinez* | 3 | 8 |
C2 | 31 | Chris Snyder | 6 | 5 |
INF | 23 | Marwin Gonzalez+ | 0 | 4 |
OF | 28 | Travis Buck | 2 | 2 |
12 | 29 | Brian Bixler | 0 | 0 |
13 | 28 | Justin Maxwell | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 33 | Wandy Rodriguez | 11 | 8 |
SP2 | 27 | Bud Norris | 5 | 4 |
SP3 | 29 | JA Happ | 5 | 4 |
SP4 | 27 | Lucas Harrell# | 0 | 0 |
SP5 | 25 | Kyle Weiland+ | 0 | 4 |
RP1 | 31 | Brett Myers | 9 | 7 |
RP2 | 28 | Wilton Lopez | 5 | 5 |
RP3 | 28 | Fernando Rodriguez* | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 26 | David Carpenter* | 1 | 2 |
RP5 | 32 | Brandon Lyon | 7 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brett Wallace, Landon Powell, Angel Sanchez.
Pitchers – Wesley Wright, Fernando Abad, Rhiner Cruz, Enerio del Rosario.
Analysis: No, that 48-114 record is not a typo; measured by ESWL, the Astros enter 2012 as the worst, or at least weakest, team since I started doing this in 2004.
The optimist’s case is that the Astros are this weak, not because they have a collection of players who have proven they can’t play in the majors, but mostly because they have a collection of players who haven’t proven they can play in the majors. That can sometimes yield surprises; the diminutive (5’5″) young (22) Jose Altuve, who hit .276 .297 .357 in Houston after hitting .408/.451/.606 in A ball and .361/.388/.569 in AA last season, is batting .359/.407/.551 so far; with his small stature, youth and compact swing, Altuve could well turn out to be a star, or he could be Jose Lopez, or he could be a little of both, like Carlos Baerga. Other youngsters could emerge as well, given enough playing time, although few of the others in the Houston lineup or rotation have an upside similar to Altuve’s.
But this is guaranteed to be a terrible team, one that will likely get worse before it gets better if the team can find takers for even a portion of Brett Myers’ and Carlos Lee’s contracts (Myers has one more year remaining, Lee’s done after this season).
2012 AL West EWSL Report
Part 3 of my preseason previews is the AL West; this is the third of six division “previews,” using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior: AL Central, AL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
The Anaheim California-Based Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim
Raw EWSL: 273.50
Adjusted: 285.03
Age-Adj.: 252.76
WS Age: 30.9
2012 W-L: 97-65
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Chris Iannetta | 11 | 10 |
1B | 32 | Albert Pujols | 30 | 24 |
2B | 28 | Howie Kendrick | 18 | 18 |
SS | 28 | Erick Aybar | 16 | 16 |
3B | 29 | Alberto Callaspo | 15 | 15 |
RF | 36 | Torii Hunter | 20 | 14 |
CF | 25 | Peter Bourjous# | 9 | 13 |
LF | 33 | Vernon Wells | 13 | 11 |
DH | 29 | Kendry Morales | 7 | 6 |
C2 | 29 | Bobby Wilson# | 2 | 2 |
INF | 26 | Mark Trumbo* | 7 | 15 |
OF | 38 | Bobby Abreu | 18 | 12 |
13 | 31 | Macier Izturis | 12 | 10 |
SP1 | 29 | Jered Weaver | 21 | 18 |
SP2 | 31 | Danny Haren | 17 | 13 |
SP3 | 31 | CJ Wilson | 17 | 13 |
SP4 | 29 | Ervin Santana | 13 | 11 |
SP5 | 30 | Jerome Williams | 2 | 1 |
RP1 | 24 | Jordan Walden# | 6 | 8 |
RP2 | 36 | Scott Downs | 9 | 8 |
RP3 | 37 | Hisanori Takahashi | 7 | 5 |
RP4 | 39 | LaTroy Hawkins | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 27 | Kevin Jepsen | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Hank Conger, Alexi Amarista, Ryan Langerhans, and – arriving sooner or later, and off to a hot start in AAA – outfield super-prospect Mike Trout.
Pitchers – Jason Isringhausen, who despite not being listed here is more or less in the closer mix, given the wobbly Walden.
Analysis: This team is the very picture of depth and balance, with just two really major stars (Pujols and Weaver, although in truth Weaver is only slightly better than Haren) but almost no weaknesses and a mix of young players and seasoned vets jostling for playing time (Trumbo, for example, hit 29 home runs last season and is basically reduced to playing all-purpose backup to Pujols, Callaspo, Morales, Hunter and Wells, while fending off Abreu and Trout). The only two conspicuous weaknesses are Wells, who with any non-insane contract would have been cut by now (fun fact: Vernon Wells made as much money as Mitt Romney in 2009 and 2010), and the uncertain Jerome Williams as the fifth starter.
American League Champion Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 235.50
Adjusted: 250.96
Age-Adj.: 230.02
WS Age: 29.9
2012 W-L: 90-72
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 30 | Mike Napoli | 17 | 16 |
1B | 26 | Mitch Moreland# | 6 | 8 |
2B | 30 | Ian Kinsler | 19 | 18 |
SS | 23 | Elvis Andrus | 19 | 23 |
3B | 33 | Adrian Beltre | 18 | 16 |
RF | 31 | Nelson Cruz | 17 | 14 |
CF | 31 | Josh Hamilton | 19 | 16 |
LF | 30 | David Murphy | 11 | 10 |
DH | 35 | Michael Young | 20 | 15 |
C2 | 33 | Yorvit Torrealba | 9 | 8 |
INF | 29 | Alberto Gonzalez | 4 | 3 |
OF | 28 | Craig Gentry# | 3 | 5 |
13 | 25 | Brandon Snyder+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 32 | Colby Lewis# | 10 | 9 |
SP2 | 25 | Derek Holland | 8 | 9 |
SP3 | 25 | Yu Darvish+ | 0 | 4 |
SP4 | 24 | Neftali Feliz | 12 | 14 |
SP5 | 26 | Matt Harrison | 9 | 10 |
RP1 | 37 | Joe Nathan | 5 | 4 |
RP2 | 33 | Mike Adams | 10 | 7 |
RP3 | 28 | Alexi Ogando# | 9 | 10 |
RP4 | 37 | Koji Uehara | 8 | 6 |
RP5 | 29 | Mark Lowe | 3 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, although as I noted last year with Andrus, EWSL tends to overrate the growth potential of very young players whose value is disproportionately defensive. But by now, the more reasonable reading of the age adjustment is a built-in assumption of offensive improvement.
Also on Hand: Position players – Julio Borbon, Lonys Martin, shortstop prospect Jurickson Profar. I always read his name to myself using the Don Pardo voice: “Juuuuricksonn PrOWfarrr…” Try it once, I guarantee it will stick with you.
Pitchers – Scott Feldman, Robert Ross.
Analysis: It remains to be seen, but right now the difference in the AL West is CJ Wilson pitching for the Angels instead of the Rangers. we’ll get a better fix now on exactly how well the Nolan Ryan-led organization’s pitching strategies work with the move of Neftali Feliz to the rotation and Alexi Ogando back to the pen, as well as Yu Darvish’s adjustment to the majors as the rare non-gimmicky Japanese power pitcher to enter a rotation (the example of the late Hideki Irabu was not encouraging, but Irabu had a variety of issues).
The Rangers lineup is older than you think it is. Guys like Hamilton and Cruz got late starts in the big leagues, so it’s easy to forget they’re on the wrong side of 30 now.
Seattle Mariners
Raw EWSL: 147.50
Adjusted: 186.06
Age-Adj.: 183.55
WS Age: 28.8
2012 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 33 | Miguel Olivo | 10 | 9 |
1B | 25 | Justin Smoak# | 7 | 11 |
2B | 24 | Dustin Ackley* | 7 | 18 |
SS | 30 | Brendan Ryan | 12 | 10 |
3B | 24 | Kyle Seager* | 3 | 4 |
RF | 38 | Ichiro Suzuki | 20 | 13 |
CF | 29 | Franklin Guitierrez | 10 | 10 |
LF | 34 | Chone Figgins | 9 | 7 |
DH | 22 | Jesus Montero+ | 1 | 11 |
C2 | 28 | John Jaso# | 8 | 9 |
INF | 26 | Mike Carp* | 4 | 8 |
OF | 25 | Michael Saunders | 3 | 4 |
13 | 27 | Casper Wells# | 4 | 6 |
SP1 | 26 | Felix Hernandez | 20 | 22 |
SP2 | 29 | Jason Vargas | 8 | 7 |
SP3 | 37 | Kevin Millwood | 6 | 5 |
SP4 | 23 | Blake Beavan* | 3 | 6 |
SP5 | 25 | Hector Noesi* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 29 | Brandon League | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 28 | Tom Wilhelmsen* | 2 | 3 |
RP3 | 25 | Lucas Luetge+ | 0 | 4 |
RP4 | 28 | Steve Delabar+ | 1 | 4 |
RP5 | 35 | George Sherrill | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Muenenori Kawasaki, who has been doing the bulk of the infield backup work, Alex Liddi, Trayvon Robinson.
Pitchers – Shawn Kelley, Erasmo Ramirez, Hisashi Iwakuma (an import who’s still looking to crack the rotation).
Analysis: The Mariners have clipped about 3 years off their WS average age since last season, albeit partly because some of the older guys like Figgins and Ichiro are coming off tough years. But the road back is long, long enough that in the absence of marketable veterans they had to part with Michael Pineda to get a young hitter in Montero (not a bad deal, but a costly one for a rebuilding team). It’s hard to see the Mariners getting rebuilt before King Felix has either gotten injured or left town. This division remains stratified very sharply between the two strong and two weak teams.
Ichiro enters tonight’s action with 2438 hits in the American League to go with 1287 in nine seasons in Japan, dating back to age 18, a total of 3725 hits. It’s almost a certainty that he’d be on the doorstep of 4000 hits by now if he’d been in the majors that whole time: due to the shorter Japanese schedule, he made it to 200 hits only once in Japan, as a 20-year-old hitting .385 in 1994; from age 21-26, Ichiro batted .354 but averaged 172 hits in 486 at bats per season; in the majors from age 27-36, he batted .331 but averaged 224 hits in 678 at bats. Give him an extra 50 hits a year and he’d be over 4000 by now.
Oakland A’s
Raw EWSL: 114.00
Adjusted: 169.35
Age-Adj.: 167.16
WS Age: 28.3
2012 W-L: 69-93
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Kurt Suzuki | 10 | 10 |
1B | 26 | Daric Barton | 10 | 11 |
2B | 25 | Jemile Weeks* | 8 | 18 |
SS | 28 | Cliff Pennington | 17 | 17 |
3B | 26 | Josh Donaldson+ | 0 | 11 |
RF | 25 | Josh Reddick* | 4 | 8 |
CF | 26 | Yoenis Cedpedes+ | 0 | 11 |
LF | 32 | Coco Crisp | 13 | 10 |
DH | 31 | Jonny Gomes | 11 | 9 |
C2 | 28 | Anthony Recker+ | 0 | 4 |
INF | 26 | Eric Sogard+ | 0 | 4 |
OF | 29 | Seth Smith | 12 | 11 |
13 | 28 | Kila Kaiaihue# | 0 | 0 |
SP1 | 28 | Brandon McCarthy | 6 | 6 |
SP2 | 39 | Bartolo Colon | 5 | 4 |
SP3 | 25 | Tyson Ross# | 2 | 2 |
SP4 | 25 | Tom Milone+ | 1 | 4 |
SP5 | 27 | Graham Godfrey+ | 1 | 4 |
RP1 | 34 | Grant Balfour | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 36 | Brian Fuentes | 7 | 6 |
RP3 | 28 | Jerry Blevins | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 25 | Andrew Carignan+ | 0 | 4 |
RP5 | 25 | Ryan Cook+ | 0 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Adam Rosales, Brandon Allen, Jermaine Mitchell, Grant Green, Chris Carter.
Pitchers – Fautino de los Santos, Jordan Norberto, prospect Jarrod Parker and the injured duo of Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden, whose dual absence blows a huge hole in the Oakland rotation.
Analysis: Even for the annually reborn A’s, who almost always exceed their EWSL due to overperforming young starting pitchers and a season-long influx of new discoveries, a non-age-adjusted total of 114 Established Win Shares (38 wins’ worth) is a narrow base upon which to build. The Astros can’t arrive in this division soon enough for Oakland.
You want good news? It’s nice to have a guy who can throw like this.
2012 AL East EWSL Report
Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior: AL Central.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
The Hated Yankees
Raw EWSL: 281.17
Adjusted: 288.33
Age-Adj.: 246.12
WS Age: 32.1
2012 W-L: 95-67
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Russell Martin | 13 | 12 |
1B | 32 | Mark Teixeira | 23 | 19 |
2B | 29 | Robinson Cano | 29 | 28 |
SS | 38 | Derek Jeter | 18 | 12 |
3B | 36 | Alex Rodriguez | 18 | 13 |
RF | 31 | Nick Swisher | 20 | 16 |
CF | 31 | Curtis Granderson | 22 | 18 |
LF | 28 | Brett Gardner | 15 | 15 |
DH | 40 | Raul Ibanez | 15 | 8 |
C2 | 26 | Francisco Cervelli | 5 | 5 |
INF | 25 | Eduardo Nunez# | 5 | 7 |
OF | 35 | Andruw Jones | 8 | 6 |
13 | 34 | Eric Chavez | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 31 | CC Sabathia | 19 | 15 |
SP2 | 23 | Michael Pineda* | 5 | 12 |
SP3 | 37 | Hiroki Kuroda | 11 | 8 |
SP4 | 25 | Ivan Nova# | 6 | 8 |
SP5 | 26 | Phil Hughes | 6 | 6 |
RP1 | 42 | Mariano Rivera | 14 | 10 |
RP2 | 27 | David Robertson | 7 | 6 |
RP3 | 32 | Rafael Soriano | 9 | 7 |
RP4 | 29 | Cory Wade | 3 | 2 |
RP5 | 36 | Freddy Garcia | 9 | 8 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Chris Stewart, Chris Dickerson.
Pitchers – Boone Logan, Andy Pettitte, Clay Rapada, David Aardsma. Joba Chamberlain and Pedro Feliciano almost certainly won’t pitch this year.
Analysis: Once again, the Hated Yankees are the class of the field – albeit not of the whole AL, compared to the Tigers – and once again, they are also (probably – I haven’t finished running all the numbers) the oldest team in the league, maybe in MLB.
The Yankees’ depth is not that impressive behind the front line, but of course the front line is very impressive, at least on offense and in the bullpen. It’s the rotation that remains a big question mark after CC Sabathia (it’s easy to forget that Kuroda is even older than Freddy Garcia). A lot will rest on Pineda.
One has to assume that by the trade deadline, the Yankees will find someone besides Ibanez and Andruw Jones to handle the DH and backup outfielder duties.
Boston Red Sox
Raw EWSL: 251.83
Adjusted: 252.87
Age-Adj.: 227.62
WS Age: 30.0
2012 W-L: 89-73
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | J.Saltalamacchia | 5 | 5 |
1B | 30 | Adrian Gonzalez | 31 | 28 |
2B | 28 | Dustin Pedroia | 22 | 22 |
SS | 31 | Mike Aviles | 6 | 5 |
3B | 33 | Kevin Youkilis | 20 | 17 |
RF | 27 | Ryan Sweeney | 8 | 9 |
CF | 28 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 21 | 21 |
LF | 30 | Carl Crawford | 18 | 16 |
DH | 36 | David Ortiz | 17 | 13 |
C2 | 32 | Kelly Shoppach | 5 | 4 |
INF | 34 | Nick Punto | 8 | 7 |
OF | 31 | Cody Ross | 14 | 12 |
13 | 33 | Darnell McDonald | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 28 | Jon Lester | 16 | 15 |
SP2 | 32 | Josh Beckett | 11 | 9 |
SP3 | 27 | Clay Buchholz | 10 | 9 |
SP4 | 27 | Daniel Bard | 8 | 7 |
SP5 | 24 | Felix Doubront# | 0 | 0 |
RP1 | 28 | Andrew Bailey | 10 | 9 |
RP2 | 29 | Alfredo Aceves | 8 | 7 |
RP3 | 27 | Mark Melancon | 6 | 6 |
RP4 | 34 | Vicente Padilla | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 26 | Franklin Morales | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Ryan Kalish, Ryan Lavarnaway. Pitchers – John Lackey and Daisuke Matsuzaka, neither of whom is likely to pitch. Bobby Jenks, who’s on the shelf for at least about half the season. Aaron Cook, Scott Atchison, Matt Albers, Justin Thomas, Ross Ohlendorf, Michael Bowden. Cook’s the one most likely to have some impact in the near future.
Analysis: Bobby Valentine (who has done nothing so far to dispell my conclusion that he’s the Newt Gingrich of baseball managers) has his work cut out for him – this is still a talented team, but the injuries have piled up (including Bailey being shelved yet again) and age has taken its toll, plus one has to wonder whether Carl Crawford can take over the inspirational leadership void left by JD Drew.
(…yeah, I’m trolling with that last point)
And perhaps worst of all, not only are the Sox likely competing less for the division than for the single-elimination Russian Roulette wild card, they’re doing so in a viciously competitive division, as you can see from how the Rays and Jays rosters look. Maybe Crawford, Youkilis and Buchholz bounce back, but then Ortiz is 36 and there’s nowhere to go but down for Ellsbury, Gonzalez, and Pedroia after 2011. The Sawx will be a good team, but they face a high likelihood of being an odd man out.
Tampa Bay Rays
Raw EWSL: 213.83
Adjusted: 230.16
Age-Adj.: 223.76
WS Age: 29.1
2012 W-L: 88-74
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 37 | Jose Molina | 6 | 3 |
1B | 34 | Carlos Pena | 17 | 15 |
2B | 32 | Jeff Keppinger | 12 | 10 |
SS | 27 | Sean Rodriguez | 8 | 8 |
3B | 26 | Evan Longoria | 26 | 28 |
RF | 27 | Matt Joyce | 13 | 14 |
CF | 27 | BJ Upton | 18 | 19 |
LF | 25 | Desmond Jennings* | 6 | 13 |
DH | 34 | Luke Scott | 9 | 7 |
C2 | 27 | Jose Lobaton+ | 1 | 4 |
INF | 26 | Reid Brignac | 6 | 6 |
OF | 31 | Ben Zobrist | 26 | 21 |
13 | 28 | Elliott Johnson* | 1 | 2 |
SP1 | 26 | David Price | 13 | 15 |
SP2 | 30 | James Shields | 13 | 11 |
SP3 | 25 | Jeremy Hellickson# | 9 | 11 |
SP4 | 23 | Matt Moore+ | 1 | 4 |
SP5 | 29 | Jeff Niemann | 8 | 7 |
RP1 | 36 | Kyle Farnsworth | 8 | 7 |
RP2 | 36 | Joel Peralta | 6 | 5 |
RP3 | 35 | Fernando Rodney | 4 | 3 |
RP4 | 25 | Jacob McGee* | 1 | 2 |
RP5 | 26 | Wade Davis | 6 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Stephen Vogt, Sam Fuld (who is injured).
Pitchers – JP Howell, Brandon Gomes, Josh Lueke, Burke Badenhop.
Analysis: The Rays have their usual assortment of young starting pitchers, prime-age position players, and aging relievers, with weak spots at catcher and much of the non-Longoria infield (depending where Zobrist is on a particular day, which thus far is more often in the outfield). It’s always hard to guess how Hellickson, Moore and Davis (to the extent he gets another shot in the rotation) will progress down the path to David Pricedom.
Despite an early injury, I have a suspicion that his age 27 contract year will be good to BJ Upton, who has definitely followed the Adrian Beltre career path; Upton’s five year average of .257/.346/.425 with 32 doubles, 17 HR, 37 SB & 71 BB is solid, but somehow his individual seasons don’t quite match up to that package.
Toronto Blue Jays
Raw EWSL: 204.17
Adjusted: 227.16
Age-Adj.: 221.26
WS Age: 29.2
2012 W-L: 87-75
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | JP Arencibia* | 7 | 15 |
1B | 28 | Adam Lind | 12 | 12 |
2B | 30 | Kelly Johnson | 16 | 15 |
SS | 29 | Yunel Escobar | 19 | 18 |
3B | 22 | Brett Lawrie* | 5 | 18 |
RF | 31 | Jose Bautista | 30 | 25 |
CF | 25 | Colby Rasmus | 13 | 16 |
LF | 25 | Eric Thames* | 4 | 8 |
DH | 29 | Edwin Encarnacion | 9 | 9 |
C2 | 29 | Jeff Mathis | 4 | 4 |
INF | 45 | Omar Vizquel | 4 | 2 |
OF | 31 | Rajai Davis | 10 | 8 |
13 | 30 | Ben Francisco | 6 | 6 |
SP1 | 27 | Ricky Romero | 16 | 14 |
SP2 | 27 | Brandon Morrow | 7 | 6 |
SP3 | 25 | Brett Cecil | 6 | 6 |
SP4 | 22 | Henderson Alvarez* | 2 | 5 |
SP5 | 25 | Joel Carreno+ | 1 | 4 |
RP1 | 28 | Sergio Santos# | 8 | 9 |
RP2 | 37 | Francisco Cordero | 12 | 10 |
RP3 | 41 | Darren Oliver | 7 | 5 |
RP4 | 27 | Luis Perez* | 1 | 2 |
RP5 | 34 | Jason Frasor | 6 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but Brett Lawrie’s EWSL may be somewhat enthusiastic here, as is sometimes the case for 22 year olds.
Also on Hand: Position players – Travis Snider.
Pitchers – Dustin McGowan (hurt again) and Jesse Litsch.
Analysis: What a difference a year makes for a team I has ranked last entering last season; EWSL has them effectively even with Boston and Tampa, even adjusting for Canadian exchange rates.
Colby Rasmus is to the Jays what Upton and Crawford are to Tampa and Boston, the lineup’s pivotal enigma. The pitching staff is still a crapshoot beyond Romero, but there are a fair number of live arms here.
Baltimore Orioles
Raw EWSL: 176.00
Adjusted: 181.12
Age-Adj.: 176.99
WS Age: 28.6
2012 W-L: 72-90
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Matt Wieters | 17 | 19 |
1B | 26 | Chris Davis | 4 | 4 |
2B | 34 | Brian Roberts | 7 | 6 |
SS | 29 | JJ Hardy | 15 | 15 |
3B | 28 | Mark Reynolds | 17 | 17 |
RF | 28 | Nick Markakis | 20 | 20 |
CF | 26 | Adam Jones | 15 | 17 |
LF | 28 | Nolan Reimold | 7 | 7 |
DH | 30 | Wilson Betemit | 10 | 9 |
C2 | 31 | Ronny Paulino | 6 | 5 |
INF | 28 | Robert Andino | 6 | 6 |
OF | 34 | Endy Chavez | 4 | 3 |
13 | 33 | Nick Johnson | 4 | 3 |
SP1 | 29 | Jason Hammell | 7 | 6 |
SP2 | 26 | Jake Arrieta# | 4 | 6 |
SP3 | 25 | Tommy Hunter | 6 | 7 |
SP4 | 26 | Wei-Yin Chen+ | 0 | 4 |
SP5 | 25 | Brian Matusz | 4 | 4 |
RP1 | 29 | Jim Johnson | 8 | 7 |
RP2 | 32 | Matt Lindstrom | 4 | 3 |
RP3 | 34 | Kevin Gregg | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 29 | Darren O’Day | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 34 | Luis Ayala | 3 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Ryan Flaherty.
Pitchers – Pedro Strop, Troy Patton, Zach Britton, Tsuyoshi Wada, Brad Bergesen.
Analysis: The Orioles aren’t terrible, but this division could easily leave a lot of their players look like Robert Andino.
Wieters, Davis and Jones have basically reached the put up or shut up stage for their hyped potential. Davis now has a career line of .322/.380/.645 in AA, .337/.397/.609 in AAA, but .252/.301/.448 in MLB. In MLB, he’s averaged a .335 BABIP, 24 HR, 39 BB, and 189 K per 600 AB. Between AA and AAA: .395 BABIP, 41 HR, 58 BB, 156 K per 600 AB. In other words, it’s not just the strikeouts, Davis has struggled across the board to translate his skills to the MLB level. He could hit 45 homers, he could hit .210; he could do both. If he and Jones both improve their strike zone judgment just a bit, this lineup looks a lot better. Then you have Hardy, who is liable to do anything in a given season (I sort of half expect him to hit 30 homers because having two good years in a row is the one thing he’s never done), and Markakis, who is battling to avoid the Ben Grieve career path he’s been on for the past few seasons, as well as Reynolds, who will be a terror if he plays every day and strikes out less than 200 times, but is more apt to terrorize his own pitching staff. If ever there was an offense designed for the outside possibility of making its batting coach look like a genius…Jim Presley has his work cut out for him.
We pass in silence and avert our eyes from Baltimore’s pitching beyond noting that Jake Arrieta started Opening Day.
2012 AL Central EWSL Report
Long-time readers know that the timing of my annual division previews has gotten more erratic over the years, but since this is a multi-year project, I can’t drop the ball even if I’m late, late enough that the season’s already underway before the first one. So here we go.
Part 1 of my preseason previews is the AL Central; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Detroit Tigers
Raw EWSL: 250.83
Adjusted: 262.49
Age-Adj.: 254.41
WS Age: 28.5
2012 W-L: 98-64
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Alex Avila | 16 | 20 |
1B | 28 | Prince Fielder | 30 | 30 |
2B | 31 | Ryan Raburn | 10 | 8 |
SS | 30 | Jhonny Peralta | 18 | 16 |
3B | 29 | Miguel Cabrera | 33 | 32 |
RF | 27 | Brennan Boesch# | 10 | 12 |
CF | 25 | Austin Jackson# | 13 | 19 |
LF | 26 | Delmon Young | 14 | 15 |
DH | 26 | Andy Dirks* | 3 | 7 |
C2 | 32 | Gerald Laird | 6 | 5 |
INF | 32 | Ramon Santiago | 7 | 5 |
OF | 32 | Don Kelly# | 4 | 4 |
13 | 26 | Danny Worth# | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 29 | Justin Verlander | 23 | 20 |
SP2 | 27 | Max Scherzer | 11 | 10 |
SP3 | 28 | Doug Fister | 12 | 11 |
SP4 | 23 | Rick Porcello | 8 | 8 |
SP5 | 23 | Drew Smyly+ | 0 | 4 |
RP1 | 32 | Jose Valverde | 13 | 10 |
RP2 | 34 | Joaquin Benoit | 7 | 6 |
RP3 | 38 | Octavio Dotel | 6 | 4 |
RP4 | 29 | Phil Coke | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 26 | Daniel Schlereth | 3 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Clete Thomas, the Ghost of Brandon Inge, the injured and almost certainly out for the season Victor Martinez.
Pitchers – Charlie Furbush, Al Albuquerque (who’s injured), Duane Below, Andrew Oliver, Collin Balester, Brayan Villarreal.
Analysis: As befits a team that went to the ALCS last year and then added Prince Fielder, EWSL rates the Tigers as fairly overwhelming favorites to win the AL Central going away. Verlander’s continuing health and durability is the key assumption there. So far, the Tigers have played as a caricature of themselves, scoring nearly 9 runs per game but with an appalling .654 Defensive Efficiency Rating – that infield’s not going to be pretty. Also, the Tigers’ depth in their everyday lineup is not great, if they have injuries. But these are mostly nits.
As you may have heard, Octavio Dotel has set the all-time record for most teams played for, 13 in 14 seasons. Smyly had a good pro debut last season – 2.07 ERA, 9.3 K, 2.6 BB, 0.1 HR/9 (just 2 homers in 126 IP) – and got stronger in the last third of the season when he moved up to AA, but will be making a big leap to the big leagues.
Cleveland Indians
Raw EWSL: 181.17
Adjusted: 193.77
Age-Adj.: 188.33
WS Age: 28.4
2012 W-L: 76-86
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Carlos Santana# | 13 | 17 |
1B | 29 | Casey Kotchman | 12 | 12 |
2B | 25 | Jason Kipnis* | 3 | 7 |
SS | 26 | Asdrubal Cabrera | 19 | 20 |
3B | 32 | Jack Hannahan | 8 | 6 |
RF | 29 | Shin-Soo Choo | 17 | 16 |
CF | 25 | Michael Brantley | 8 | 9 |
LF | 26 | Aaron Cunningham# | 2 | 2 |
DH | 35 | Travis Hafner | 13 | 9 |
C2 | 26 | Lou Marson# | 4 | 5 |
INF | 27 | Jason Donald# | 4 | 5 |
OF | 32 | Shelley Duncan | 7 | 5 |
13 | 29 | Grady Sizemore | 5 | 5 |
SP1 | 27 | Justin Masterson | 10 | 9 |
SP2 | 28 | Ubaldo Jimenez | 14 | 13 |
SP3 | 27 | Josh Tomlin# | 6 | 6 |
SP4 | 39 | Derek Lowe | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 28 | Kevin Slowey | 4 | 3 |
RP1 | 26 | Chris Perez | 10 | 11 |
RP2 | 28 | Tony Sipp | 5 | 5 |
RP3 | 28 | Joe Smith | 5 | 5 |
RP4 | 27 | Vinnie Pestano* | 4 | 7 |
RP5 | 30 | Rafael Perez | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Lonnie Chisenhall, who may end up the third baseman at some point; Ryan Spilborghs.
Pitchers – Chris Ray.
Analysis: The Indians have the air of optimism about them, but Cabrera will have a hard time topping last season, as will Masterson (I’d bet on Masterson, of the two). There’s room for growth from Santana and a rebound by Choo – and you never know with Sizemore, although he’s on the 60-day DL at this writing – but it’s hard to look up and down this roster and see where they make up the gap to catch the Tigers.
A full season of Ubaldo Jimenez should help stabilize the rotation, but as of now he looks like another data point for the idea that guys who pitch well in Coors end up old before their time from the strain.
Kansas City Royals
Raw EWSL: 135.33
Adjusted: 154.33
Age-Adj.: 166.17
WS Age: 27.3
2012 W-L: 69-93
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 30 | Brayan Pena | 4 | 4 |
1B | 22 | Eric Hosmer* | 7 | 23 |
2B | 30 | Yuniesky Betancourt | 11 | 10 |
SS | 25 | Alcides Escobar | 9 | 10 |
3B | 23 | Mike Moustakas* | 2 | 5 |
RF | 28 | Jeff Francouer | 12 | 12 |
CF | 26 | Lorenzo Cain# | 2 | 3 |
LF | 28 | Alex Gordon | 13 | 13 |
DH | 26 | Billy Butler | 18 | 20 |
C2 | 32 | Humberto Quintero | 3 | 3 |
INF | 28 | Chris Getz | 7 | 7 |
OF | 30 | Mitch Maier | 7 | 6 |
13 | 30 | Jason Bourgeois | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 35 | Bruce Chen | 8 | 6 |
SP2 | 28 | Luke Hochevar | 5 | 5 |
SP3 | 29 | Jonathan Sanchez | 7 | 6 |
SP4 | 28 | Felipe Paulino | 3 | 3 |
SP5 | 23 | Danny Duffy* | 1 | 1 |
RP1 | 28 | Jonathan Broxton | 5 | 4 |
RP2 | 26 | Greg Holland* | 5 | 10 |
RP3 | 25 | Aaron Crow* | 3 | 6 |
RP4 | 22 | Tim Collins* | 2 | 5 |
RP5 | 28 | Luis Mendoza | 1 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Johnny Giovatella, like Getz, will sooner or later challenge again for the second base job.
Pitchers – Joakim Soria, who won’t pitch; Blake Wood.
Analysis: The Royals are back in that familiar position of having optimism derived from young talent in the lineup, but – as of yet – nothing comparable in the rotation. Duffy has the minor league record of a high-end prospect, but he got cuffed around last season and has much to prove to show he’s turned that corner. And of course, this team is still held together by too many players of the Francouer, Chen, Betancourt ilk. The Royals could well post a winning record if Moustakas and Duffy blossom and more help arrives from the minors, but it’s hard to see them actually contending yet.
Minnesota Twins
Raw EWSL: 169.33
Adjusted: 189.37
Age-Adj.: 175.41
WS Age: 29.7
2012 W-L: 72-90
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Joe Mauer | 19 | 19 |
1B | 24 | Chris Parmelee+ | 3 | 11 |
2B | 27 | Alexi Casilla | 6 | 7 |
SS | 37 | Jamey Carroll | 13 | 8 |
3B | 27 | Danny Valencia | 9 | 11 |
RF | 24 | Ben Revere* | 5 | 12 |
CF | 28 | Denard Span | 13 | 13 |
LF | 33 | Josh Willingham | 16 | 13 |
DH | 31 | Justin Morneau | 11 | 9 |
C2 | 31 | Ryan Doumit | 8 | 7 |
INF | 26 | Trevor Plouffe* | 3 | 7 |
OF | 27 | Luke Hughes* | 3 | 6 |
13 | 31 | Sean Burroughs | 1 | 0 |
SP1 | 36 | Carl Pavano | 11 | 10 |
SP2 | 30 | Scott Baker | 10 | 9 |
SP3 | 28 | Francisco Liriano | 7 | 7 |
SP4 | 30 | Nick Blackburn | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 33 | Jason Marquis | 6 | 4 |
RP1 | 28 | Matt Capps | 8 | 8 |
RP2 | 29 | Glen Perkins | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 29 | Brian Duensing | 7 | 6 |
RP4 | 24 | Alex Burnett# | 1 | 1 |
RP5 | 31 | Jared Burton | 1 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position Players – Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Pitchers – Jeff Gray.
Analysis: Few teams have fallen as far as fast as these Twins, with the unraveling of Mauer, Morneau and Liriano dashing any hopes the team could have had of fixing the problems further down the roster (a lesser storyline being the disappointment of Scott Baker and the now-departed Kevin Slowey). 72-90, reflecting some of the residual strength of the fallen stars, may actually be optimistic.
Chicago White Sox
Raw EWSL: 178.50
Adjusted: 195.73
Age-Adj.: 174.21
WS Age: 30.2
2012 W-L: 71-91
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 35 | AJ Pierzynski | 11 | 8 |
1B | 36 | Paul Konerko | 25 | 18 |
2B | 25 | Gordon Beckham | 13 | 15 |
SS | 30 | Alexi Ramirez | 19 | 17 |
3B | 25 | Brent Morel# | 2 | 3 |
RF | 31 | Alex Rios | 10 | 8 |
CF | 28 | Alejandro de Aza | 5 | 5 |
LF | 23 | Dayan Viciedo# | 2 | 3 |
DH | 32 | Adam Dunn | 11 | 8 |
C2 | 26 | Tyler Flowers* | 2 | 3 |
INF | 28 | Brent Lillibridge | 4 | 4 |
OF | 35 | Kosuke Fukudome | 14 | 10 |
13 | 23 | Eduardo Escobar+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 27 | John Danks | 12 | 11 |
SP2 | 29 | Gavin Floyd | 12 | 10 |
SP3 | 31 | Jake Peavy | 6 | 4 |
SP4 | 29 | Phil Humber# | 6 | 6 |
SP5 | 23 | Chris Sale# | 7 | 10 |
RP1 | 24 | Hector Santiago+ | 1 | 4 |
RP2 | 35 | Matt Thornton | 9 | 7 |
RP3 | 23 | Addison Reed+ | 0 | 4 |
RP4 | 30 | Jesse Crain | 8 | 6 |
RP5 | 34 | Will Ohman | 3 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. Santiago has been announced as the closer, but I still expect Reed to take the job by season’s end.
Also on Hand: Position players – Conor Jackson, Osvaldo Martinez.
Pitchers – Zack Stewart.
Analysis: Can these guys really be worse than the hapless Twins? I admit some skepticism, but despite a lot of good arms, this team’s best everyday players have a lot of years on them. It’s more likely that the Twins underperform their EWSL than the White Sox significantly overperform, although of course another about-face by Dunn and Rios would help.
2011 EWSL Wrapup By Team
The second piece of the puzzle (after the below) in preparing my annual Established Win Shares Levels previews is to review the prior year’s team results. I’ll present these without much comment for now; the teams are sorted by how their 2011 pre-season rosters stacked up against their EWSL, with the later columns showing how they plugged the gaps with guys not listed before the season. I’ll go back and update this later with how this affects the cumulative team adjustments.
Team | EWSL | 2011 WS | Plus/Minus | Wins | WS | Rest of Team | Rest-W |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
WAS | 154.41 | 211 | 56.59 | 80 | 240 | 29 | 9.67 |
AZ | 181.35 | 234 | 52.65 | 94 | 282 | 48 | 16.00 |
CLE | 152.39 | 196 | 43.61 | 80 | 240 | 44 | 14.67 |
PHI | 215.86 | 257 | 41.14 | 102 | 306 | 49 | 16.33 |
TB | 202.95 | 240 | 37.05 | 91 | 273 | 33 | 11.00 |
MIL | 223.33 | 259 | 35.67 | 96 | 288 | 29 | 9.67 |
NYY | 233.73 | 264 | 30.27 | 97 | 291 | 27 | 9.00 |
DET | 213.96 | 243 | 29.04 | 95 | 285 | 42 | 14.00 |
STL | 217.52 | 241 | 23.48 | 90 | 270 | 29 | 9.67 |
KC | 139.02 | 159 | 19.98 | 71 | 213 | 54 | 18.00 |
ANA | 211.48 | 231 | 19.52 | 86 | 258 | 27 | 9.00 |
ATL | 224.45 | 237 | 12.55 | 89 | 267 | 30 | 10.00 |
TOR | 191.82 | 199 | 7.18 | 81 | 243 | 44 | 14.67 |
TEX | 248.05 | 247 | -1.05 | 96 | 288 | 41 | 13.67 |
BOS | 246.27 | 245 | -1.27 | 90 | 270 | 25 | 8.33 |
NYM | 192.38 | 191 | -1.38 | 77 | 231 | 40 | 13.33 |
SD | 181.00 | 178 | -3.00 | 71 | 213 | 35 | 11.67 |
FLA | 195.68 | 182 | -13.68 | 72 | 216 | 34 | 11.33 |
PIT | 181.48 | 166 | -15.48 | 72 | 216 | 50 | 16.67 |
CIN | 219.32 | 202 | -17.32 | 79 | 237 | 35 | 11.67 |
CHC | 213.68 | 192 | -21.68 | 71 | 213 | 21 | 7.00 |
BAL | 195.24 | 172 | -23.24 | 69 | 207 | 35 | 11.67 |
SEA | 178.64 | 150 | -28.64 | 67 | 201 | 51 | 17.00 |
LA | 221.49 | 192 | -29.49 | 82 | 246 | 54 | 18.00 |
COL | 207.14 | 175 | -32.14 | 73 | 219 | 44 | 14.67 |
HOU | 172.28 | 138 | -34.28 | 56 | 168 | 30 | 10.00 |
OAK | 211.31 | 176 | -35.31 | 74 | 222 | 46 | 15.33 |
CHW | 230.98 | 192 | -38.98 | 79 | 237 | 45 | 15.00 |
SF | 248.71 | 198 | -50.71 | 86 | 258 | 60 | 20.00 |
MIN | 222.85 | 146 | -76.85 | 63 | 189 | 43 | 14.33 |
TOTAL | 6128.76 | 6113 | -15.76 | 2429 | 7287.00 | 1174.00 | 391.33 |
Average | 204.29 | 203.77 | -0.53 | 80.97 | 242.90 | 39.13 | 13.04 |
UPDATE: As you can see from the above, MLB-wide, teams earned 1174 Win Shares, or 39.13 per team, from the rest of their rosters, the least since 2006. Results year-by-year since I started tracking results at a team level:
2005: 1067 (35.57)
2006: 1143 (38.10)
2007: 1260 (42.00)
2008: 1226 (40.87)
2009: 1221 (40.70)
2010: 1247 (41.57)
2011: 1174 (39.13)
Total: 8338 (39.70)
EWSL 2012 Age and Rookie Baselines
It’s that time of year again – it gets later every year – for my division previews powered by Established Win Shares Levels (originally explained here): before we get to rolling out the 2012 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use each year. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past eight seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful in evaluating the established talent base on hand for each team entering each season. As a reminder: EWSL is not a prediction system. It’s a way of assessing the resources on hand.
To my mind, the age data is actually some of the most interesting stuff from this whole project, arguably more useful than the annual team previews, because it’s a mostly objective (albeit unscientific) dataset that gives us a different look at the aging curve from the perspective of the guys who look like they have roster spots in March and April of each year.
I’ll skip some more of the usual preliminaries (see this post from 2010 explaining more) and get right to the charts:
Non-Pitchers 2011 and 2004-2011:
2011 NP | 04-11 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
21- | 3 | 55 | 48 | 1.146 | 9 | 127 | 107 | 1.187 |
22 | 2 | 26 | 33 | 0.793 | 30 | 462 | 260 | 1.779 |
23 | 4 | 53 | 33 | 1.603 | 71 | 865 | 704 | 1.229 |
24 | 22 | 286 | 205 | 1.393 | 137 | 1788 | 1368 | 1.307 |
25 | 22 | 270 | 238 | 1.137 | 195 | 2292 | 1906 | 1.203 |
26 | 28 | 304 | 246 | 1.235 | 241 | 2718 | 2491 | 1.091 |
27 | 43 | 569 | 495 | 1.149 | 277 | 3174 | 2997 | 1.059 |
28 | 41 | 457 | 481 | 0.950 | 280 | 3255 | 3227 | 1.009 |
29 | 29 | 350 | 350 | 1.000 | 253 | 3010 | 3103 | 0.970 |
30 | 31 | 358 | 361 | 0.992 | 261 | 2939 | 3239 | 0.907 |
31 | 32 | 240 | 378 | 0.636 | 241 | 2436 | 2969 | 0.821 |
32 | 23 | 264 | 308 | 0.857 | 219 | 2167 | 2695 | 0.804 |
33 | 24 | 173 | 247 | 0.701 | 189 | 1901 | 2230 | 0.853 |
34 | 17 | 174 | 183 | 0.953 | 163 | 1672 | 1923 | 0.869 |
35 | 26 | 231 | 314 | 0.735 | 148 | 1256 | 1702 | 0.738 |
36 | 6 | 42 | 63 | 0.665 | 96 | 904 | 1217 | 0.743 |
37 | 11 | 102 | 175 | 0.583 | 75 | 622 | 989 | 0.629 |
38 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 0.476 | 50 | 399 | 587 | 0.680 |
39 | 7 | 49 | 74 | 0.661 | 39 | 358 | 481 | 0.744 |
40+ | 5 | 21 | 40 | 0.525 | 43 | 282 | 523 | 0.540 |
377 | 4029 | 4282 | 0.941 | 3017 | 32627 | 34716 | 0.940 |
The younger age cohorts, as usual, were volatile due to their small sample size. Among the 20somethings, the 28 year olds got hit the hardest (led by Joe Mauer, David Wright, Shin-Soo Choo, Kendry Morales, Casey McGeehee, Stephen Drew and Franklin Gutierrez), while the 26 year olds did the best (led by Matt Kemp, Matt Joyce, Emilio Bonifacio, and Melky Cabrera); the 31 year olds (led by Adam Dunn, Adam LaRoche, Felipe Lopez, Juan Uribe and Ryan Spilborghs) and 33 year olds (led by Chone Figgins, Marlon Byrd, Rafael Furcal, and Luke Scott) also took it on the chin, and as has been the pattern since the end of the steroid/Barry Bonds age, the over-35 crowd did more poorly than the overall results since 2004.
Pitchers 2011 and 2004-2011:
2011 P | 2011 Total | Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % | 21- | 1 | 12 | 8 | 1.500 | 11 | 85 | 64 | 1.328 | 22 | 3 | 29 | 18 | 1.656 | 36 | 294 | 224 | 1.312 | 23 | 14 | 121 | 90 | 1.339 | 76 | 583 | 496 | 1.175 | 24 | 16 | 94 | 93 | 1.016 | 120 | 850 | 754 | 1.127 | 25 | 21 | 144 | 136 | 1.062 | 184 | 1306 | 1172 | 1.114 | 26 | 27 | 238 | 169 | 1.408 | 231 | 1624 | 1459 | 1.113 | 27 | 39 | 244 | 319 | 0.765 | 231 | 1492 | 1692 | 0.882 | 28 | 30 | 218 | 232 | 0.938 | 219 | 1497 | 1595 | 0.939 | 29 | 25 | 152 | 157 | 0.967 | 202 | 1299 | 1498 | 0.867 | 30 | 18 | 137 | 153 | 0.897 | 188 | 1158 | 1373 | 0.843 | 31 | 13 | 74 | 99 | 0.744 | 173 | 1037 | 1326 | 0.782 | 32 | 21 | 123 | 154 | 0.801 | 141 | 865 | 1099 | 0.787 | 33 | 17 | 69 | 106 | 0.654 | 116 | 628 | 892 | 0.704 | 34 | 16 | 100 | 137 | 0.730 | 99 | 562 | 708 | 0.794 | 35 | 9 | 80 | 70 | 1.137 | 70 | 387 | 477 | 0.812 | 36 | 10 | 86 | 85 | 1.016 | 61 | 363 | 400 | 0.908 | 37 | 4 | 11 | 19 | 0.595 | 46 | 274 | 344 | 0.797 | 38 | 2 | 2 | 22 | 0.093 | 44 | 284 | 361 | 0.788 | 39 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 0.364 | 30 | 210 | 247 | 0.851 | 40+ | 5 | 31 | 40 | 0.769 | 73 | 494 | 693 | 0.713 | 284 | 1917 | 2058 | 0.931 | 2343 | 15242 | 16821 | 0.906 |
---|
Besides the youngest arms, the 26 year olds (led by Ian Kennedy, Justin Masterson, Eric O’Flaherty, Fernando Salas and David Robertson) and 35 year olds (led by Kyle Farnsworth, Scott Downs, Freddy Garcia, and Joel Peralta) had the best 2011 showings; the 24 year olds (led by Tommy Hanson, Jaime Garcia, Tommy Hunter and Brian Matusz) and 27 year olds (led by Josh Johnson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Andrew Bailey, Joakim Soria, Jonathan Broxton, and Kevin Slowey) the worst aside from an overall decay above age 30.
We wrap up with the rookie adjustments:
Rookies
Type of Player | # in 2011 | WS in 2011 | # 2004-11 | WS 2004-11 | Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Everyday Players | 9 | 82 | 75 | 793 | 10.57 |
Bench Players (Under 30) | 4 | 16 | 70 | 269 | 3.84 |
Bench Players (Age 30+) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0.75 |
Rotation Starters | 2 | 8 | 34 | 146 | 4.29 |
Relief Pitchers | 6 | 11 | 24 | 107 | 4.46 |
TOTAL | 207 | 1318 | 6.37 |
Pitchers At Their Peaks
Who was the best starting pitcher of all time, at his peak?
I’ve done a few different approaches to this question over the years, and still mean to do a more detailed and systematic look down the road when I have more time to devote to the issue. But here’s one quick take. This is a list of all the starting pitchers I could find – I’m pretty sure I got everyone – to post an ERA+ of 150 or better over a period of 5 or more seasons. I found 25 of them (this excluded Jim Devlin, whose career ERA+ stood at 151 when he was banned from baseball in 1877 after 3 seasons for throwing games, and Al Maul, who posted a 155 ERA+ from 1895-99, but appeared in only 59 games over those 5 seasons and threw 140 innings in only one of them; I may have missed somebody else with a flukey pattern like Maul’s. And I left off Hoyt Wilhelm, who was a full time starter for only a year and a half). ERA+, for those of you not familar with the concept, is baseball-reference.com’s computation of how much better a pitcher’s ERA was than the league average, after adjusting for park effects; a pitcher whose ERA is half the league average is twice as good as the league and thus has an ERA+ of 200. As you can see, an ERA+ that’s 50% better than the league is a pretty hard thing to sustain over a 5 year stretch.
A more systematic approach would examine two additional questions I handle only anecdotally here. The major one is workloads – I’ve listed each pitcher’s average innings per year here, but as you can see from my examination of pitcher workloads between 1920-2004, the average innings thrown by a #1 starter or by an average rotation starter has changed a lot over the years; the changes are even more dramatic as you go through the period from 1871-1910. The other item to consider is how much of pitcher ERAs even over an extended period can be attributable to defense, not only because different pitchers had better or worse defenses behind them but because the pitcher’s share of the load has changed over time – as I demonstrated here and here, the percentage of plate appearances resulting in a ball in play has dropped from a high of 96.7% in the National Association in 1874 to a low of 69.7% in the National League in 2010. Clearly, the modern pitcher has far more responsibility for keeping runs off the board than his distant ancestors. (One could also examine changes in the quality of competition over time, but while I note a few guys here who cleaned up on war-weakened leagues, I generally ignore that issue in these kinds of studies; the best we can ask is who did the most with the competition of their day).
Here’s the chart; as you can see, while for most of these guys the “peak” was easy to identify, in a few cases of guys who peaked over a long period or more than once (or in the case of Greg Marddux and Randy Johnson, were close enough to the top of the list to justify closer examination), I broke out their careers in more groups of seasons than one. QI/Yr is Quality Innings, a quick-and-dirty metric I use to multiply Innings Pitched by ERA+. Helps give some perspective to the quantity vs quality debate.
# | Pitcher | Age | Yrs | IP/Yr | ERA+ | QI/Yr | W | L | W% |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pedro Martinez | 25-31 | 7 | 201 | 213 | 42813 | 17 | 5 | 0.766 |
2 | Greg Maddux | 28-32 | 5 | 228 | 202 | 46056 | 17 | 6 | 0.731 |
3 | Walter Johnson | 22-27 | 6 | 353 | 198 | 69894 | 29 | 13 | 0.685 |
G. Maddux | 26-32 | 7 | 239 | 191 | 45649 | 18 | 8 | 0.706 | |
W. Johnson | 22-31 | 10 | 343 | 184 | 63112 | 26 | 14 | 0.650 | |
4 | Three Finger Brown | 29-33 | 5 | 292 | 182 | 53144 | 25 | 9 | 0.743 |
5 | Randy Johnson | 31-38 | 8 | 220 | 178 | 39160 | 18 | 6 | 0.765 |
6 | Grover Alexander | 26-33 | 6 | 296 | 174 | 51504 | 24 | 10 | 0.691 |
L. Grove | 35-39 | 5 | 229 | 173 | 39617 | 17 | 8 | 0.669 | |
7 | Lefty Grove | 28-32 | 5 | 282 | 172 | 48504 | 26 | 7 | 0.795 |
8 | Christy Mathewson | 27-31 | 5 | 320 | 170 | 54400 | 28 | 10 | 0.730 |
R. Johnson | 29-38 | 10 | 219 | 170 | 37230 | 18 | 6 | 0.751 | |
9 | Sandy Koufax | 26-30 | 5 | 275 | 167 | 45925 | 22 | 7 | 0.766 |
10 | Kevin Brown | 31-35 | 5 | 242 | 165 | 39930 | 16 | 8 | 0.667 |
R. Clemens | 31-35 | 5 | 210 | 162 | 34020 | 14 | 8 | 0.648 | |
11 | Cy Young | 34-38 | 5 | 360 | 161 | 57960 | 27 | 13 | 0.678 |
12 | Hal Newhouser | 23-27 | 5 | 295 | 161 | 47495 | 24 | 11 | 0.678 |
13 | Roger Clemens | 23-29 | 7 | 257 | 160 | 41120 | 19 | 9 | 0.683 |
14 | Ed Walsh | 26-31 | 6 | 375 | 158 | 59250 | 25 | 16 | 0.604 |
L. Grove | 26-39 | 14 | 247 | 158 | 39026 | 20 | 8 | 0.704 | |
W. Johnson | 28-32 | 5 | 291 | 157 | 45687 | 20 | 15 | 0.576 | |
15 | Johan Santana | 25-29 | 5 | 229 | 157 | 35953 | 17 | 8 | 0.688 |
16 | Kid Nichols | 25-29 | 5 | 372 | 156 | 58032 | 28 | 14 | 0.659 |
17 | Smokey Joe Wood | 20-25 | 6 | 205 | 156 | 31980 | 18 | 8 | 0.686 |
18 | Carl Hubbell | 29-33 | 5 | 293 | 155 | 45415 | 22 | 11 | 0.677 |
R. Clemens | 23-35 | 13 | 234 | 155 | 36270 | 17 | 9 | 0.654 | |
19 | Spud Chandler | 34-39 | 6 | 146 | 155 | 22630 | 10 | 4 | 0.739 |
20 | Tom Seaver | 24-28 | 5 | 280 | 154 | 43120 | 21 | 10 | 0.669 |
21 | Bob Gibson | 30-34 | 5 | 274 | 153 | 41922 | 20 | 10 | 0.673 |
C. Mathewson | 22-32 | 11 | 324 | 152 | 49248 | 28 | 11 | 0.716 | |
22 | Addie Joss | 24-29 | 6 | 278 | 152 | 42256 | 20 | 11 | 0.645 |
G. Maddux | 32-36 | 5 | 230 | 152 | 34960 | 18 | 9 | 0.669 | |
23 | Roy Halladay | 28-34 | 7 | 222 | 152 | 33744 | 17 | 8 | 0.695 |
24 | Rube Waddell | 25-29 | 5 | 317 | 151 | 47867 | 22 | 14 | 0.619 |
25 | Ed Reulbach | 22-26 | 5 | 252 | 151 | 38052 | 19 | 8 | 0.713 |
Some thoughts:
Pedro Martinez has clearly earned the distinction of the most effective starting pitcher of all time at his peak, swimming upstream against Fenway Park and an era of sluggers gone wild. Pedro didn’t carry a heavy enough innings load to be considered quite the best ever, even adjusted for his era, but when he was on the hill, there’s never been better. And moreso than anyone on this list except Randy Johnson, Pedro did most of it himself – fewer than 60% of plate appearances against Pedro in those years ended in a ball in play, compared to a little under 75% for Maddux, a little over 75% for Walter Johnson, 77% for Lefty Grove, and 82% for Three Finger Brown. (Randy Johnson was a little under 55%).
Greg Maddux just might be the best ever – he led the league in innings every year from age 25-29, finished second at age 30 and third at age 32. His innings total looks lower here than it might be because of the strike seasons right at his age 28-29 pinnacle. That said, he has to be knocked just a peg for the fact that we don’t know if he would have ground down just a little if he’d had a full schedule to pitch those two years. But no matter how you slice it, Maddux was one of the very best.
Walter Johnson remains my choice for the best starting pitcher of all time, utterly dominating an entire decade from age 22-31, during which he led the AL in innings pitched five times (Johnson’s 1918-19 seasons, age 30-31, were shortened slightly by World War I. One of my favorite factoids is that Johnson allowed just two home runs in 616.1 innings those two seasons, and both of them were hit by Babe Ruth. But he was at his very best in 1912-13, when he averaged 34-10 with an ERA+ of 250 and averaged 358 innings a year.) There’s a significant dropoff after the top three to the next tier.
Three Finger Brown gets a little bit of short shrift in discussions of the very, very best pitchers, in part because his career started late, and he certainly had a lot of help from one of the two best defensive teams of all time. Pitchers in Brown’s era didn’t throw a ton of breaking balls – they had to conserve energy over the high innings workloads of the day, they could afford to save their best stuff for the ‘pinch’ in the absence of home runs (Mathewson supposedly threw his fadeaway only about 10 times a game) and sports medicine was nonexistent, so if you strained your elbow throwing curveballs, you just pitched through it or gave up. But Brown, being missing a chunk of his pitching hand, could throw a breaking ball with a fastball grip (no need to strain the wrist with an unnatural grip), and that made him deadly.
I also think we haven’t fully absorbed the impact of Randy Johnson just yet. Johnson was a Paul Bunyanesque freak of nature and a generally crotchety guy, but in his prime was a super-elite pitcher.
I looked more at Grover Alexander in this 2003 column – Alexander’s prime here includes the 1918 season, in which he appeared in just three games before going off to fight in World War I, and the 1919 season, which played a shortened schedule. That artificially conceals what an amazing workhorse Old Pete was – Alexander averaged 384 innings a year from 1915-17 (age 28-30), often leading the league by enormous margins. By 1920 he’d picked up another monstrous workload, clearing 355 innings for the sixth time in a decade, all of them league-leading totals. Alexander might well have won 400 games, and would have been very close, if not for the war (he won 45 in the minors in addition to 373 after arriving in the NL at age 24). Note that our top six here includes a guy with a mangled hand and three pitchers who regularly threw some sort of sidearm (the two Johnsons and Alexander).
Which brings us to Lefty Grove, who like Walter Johnson (and a young Satchel Paige) broke into the league throwing nearly nothing but fastballs before gradually expanding his repetoire. Grove’s real peak was age 28-32, but his ERA+ is slightly better for his age 35-39 seasons with the Red Sox, when he was gradually scaling back to being a ‘Sunday pitcher’ and no longer doing double duty as his team’s ace reliever. As Bill James has noted, Grove won 300 games in the majors after winning 111 games in the minors, 108 of them for the Baltimore Orioles of a highly competitive International League.
Christy Mathewson probably got more help from his offense than any other great pitcher, with the arguable exceptions of Grove, Kid Nichols and Warren Spahn. But Matty in his prime didn’t really need all that much help. This includes his epic 1908 season, when a 27 year old Mathewson threw 390.2 innings in the heat of the legendary pennant race, only to lose to Brown (pitching in relief) and the Cubs in the replay of the Merkle game on the season’s last day.
Sandy Koufax is considered the gold standard for guys who scaled a really dizzying peak, and he surely is among the best, but when you take the air of Dodger Stadium and the mid-60s out of his numbers, Koufax pulls up short of the guys at the very top. (Another reason Koufax stood out so much at the time: notice there’s nobody on this list between Hal Newhouser in the mid-1940s and Koufax in the first half of the 1960s, Whitey Ford having just missed)
Kevin Brown is not a guy you expect to see quite this high up a list like this, but Brown at his best was really, really good. The last two years of Brown’s peak include the first two of his famous contract; over the first five seasons of that contract, Brown’s ERA+ was 148, although with injuries he averaged just 175 innings, and then he went to the Yankees and unraveled.
Cy Young was relentlessly good and consistent for a very long time – back when I was running translated pitching stats, I noticed that when you adjusted him for the league average, Young’s rate of walks per 9 innings was nearly the same every year for two decades. As I demonstrated in my essay on Baseball’s Most Impressive Records, there was a generational change from the guys in the 1880s-1890s who carried ridiculous 400+ inning a year workloads to pitchers who started having long careers in the 1900s, but Young was really the one and only guy to do both, which is why his career numbers have that oceanic vastness that defies analysis. Note that Young benefits a little from the fact that these were the American League’s first five seasons, the first year or two of which featured a somewhat lower level of competition than the NL of the day.
Hal Newhouser had his best seasons against a war-depleted American League in 1944-45 and a lot of rusty returning veterans in 1946, so he’s probably several notches higher here than he’d otherwise be, but he was a nasty power lefty who was a legitimately great pitcher for a few years.
“Peak value” isn’t exactly the best way to measure Roger Clemens, who is ranked here on his 1986-92 peak with the Red Sox, although like Grove he had an even better ERA+ over his second peak, which spans the strike-shortened 1994-95 seasons and runs through his 1997-98 tenure with the Blue Jays. Clemens also posted an ERA+ of 180 in 180 innings a year from age 41-43 with the Astros (career ERA+ by team: 196 with the Jays, 180 with the Astros, 145 with the Red Sox, 114 with the Yankees). It’s the cumulative effect of those multiple peaks that makes his career one of the inner-circle ones.
Ed Walsh, the big spitballer, threw a staggering 375 innings a year over his six-year prime (including a ridiculous even for the day 464 innings in 1908’s equally insane American League pennant race, which the Tigers won at the expense of Walsh’s White Sox), at the end of which his arm gave out.
I was there with my two older kids for the last game of Johan Santana‘s prime, the epic, arm-weary last win at Shea Stadium. I hope we see even a little of the old Santana again some day, but we’ve now had a few years’ remove to reflect on how great he was in his two Cy Young, three ERA title prime.
Kid Nichols, a contemporary of Cy Young who also might have won 400 games if he hadn’t spent two years in mid-career (age 32-33) as a pitcher-manager in the Western League (a 361 game winner in the majors, he won 47 games in those two seasons – among his 74 career minor league wins – and then picked up where he left off, going 21-13 with a 2.02 ERA at age 34). At his peak from 1895-99, Nichols was the ace of a Boston Braves juggernaut that repeatedly defeated the legendary Baltimore Orioles of the day.
The peak years here for Smokey Joe Wood include a litany of arm injuries following his monster season in 1912, when he went 34-5, threw 35 complete games and pitched 22 innings in the World Series at age 22; Wood averaged just 139 innings the next three seasons. Walter Johnson said it hurt his shoulder just watching Wood’s straight overhand delivery. Then again, Wood had second and third careers as an outfielder and college baseball coach and lived to be 95.
Spud Chandler barely merits this list, as he appeared in just 5 games in 1944-45 and 17 at age 39 in 1947, his last season, and won his MVP award in 1943 against war-weakened competition. But when he was on the mound, he was outstanding.
The peak years for Tom Seaver run 1969-73, the two Mets miracle seasons, when he was truly The Franchise.
The last of these seasons for the great lefty screwballer Carl Hubbell is 1936, when he won his last 16 decisions before being beaten by the Yankees in the World Series, and don’t include the following year when he won his first 8 on his way to a 22-8 season; his peak also includes the 1934 season when he staged his famous All-Star Game strikeout streak. Hubbell was another late starter, debuting at age 25 after an itinerant minor league career.
Bob Gibson is here for 1966-70; note that his ERA+ for 1966-67 was 132, and his ERA+ for 1969-70 was 146, but his 1968 season puts him over the top.
Addie Joss lost the pennant race in 1908 and was dead by April 1911, but for one glorious day in October 1908, the 28 year old Joss was perfect, beating Walsh in what has to be baseball’s greatest pitching duel.
Roy Halladay’s peak here runs through 2011. Appreciate this while it lasts, folks.
Rube Waddell from age 26-28 averaged 313 strikeouts in 345 innings a year, at the time an unheard-of strikeout rate; it may have helped Waddell a bit that batters were just getting acclimated to the new “foul ball counts as a strike” rule, but then again flamethrowing lefties were not that common in 1904; in fact, lefties were still something of a novelty at the time.
Ed Reulbach appears here for his first five seasons, 1905-09; his teammate Three Finger Brown appears for 1906-10. Other than Jim Palmer, there are probably few pitchers in the game’s history who owe more to their defense than Reulbach, who like Brown got a lot of help from the team with the famous Tinker-Evers-Chance infield. Still, the only man ever to throw shutouts in both ends of a doubleheader could use to be remembered a little in his own right; an awful lot of pitchers in baseball history, and even in the Hall of Fame, didn’t make this list.
PS – For obvious reasons, this list is limited to guys who pitched in the major leagues. But for what it’s worth, Satchel Paige‘s ERA+ for his first two seasons in the American league was 146, and that’s at age 41-42, albeit as a reliever and spot starter. It’s pretty safe to say he’d have made this list in his prime.
Hall of Fame 2012: My Ballot
The results of the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot will be announced this afternoon at 2, and expectations are that Barry Larkin will be the sole candidate elected. There being no pitchers on this year’s ballot worth discussing that I haven’t beaten to death in years past (short summary: no on Jack Morris, no on Lee Smith), let us a take a look at the non-pitchers.
I’ve already laid out my case for Tim Raines by comparing him to the other tablesetters in my December 2007 Hardball Times column here and for Barry Larkin and against Alan Trammell in my January 2007 THT column on the middle infielders here. I touched on Javy Lopez, new to this year’s ballot, in my January 2009 column on the catchers. In my first column in the series, in January 2006, I discussed the case for Fred McGriff and sort of for Bernie Williams, and against Tim Salmon, Dale Murphy, and Don Mattingly. To complete the picture you can check out my April 2010 column on the third basemen, which endorses the Veterans Committee’s latest selection, Ron Santo.
Utiliizing the same methodology from those columns – that is, excerpting the “prime” seasons for each hitter and translating them into a common offensive context (you can get the details explained in the THT columns), let’s put the whole lot of them in a chart with a number of of the other sluggers of the past 30 years (I included some but not all of the tablesetters, third basemen, middle infielders and catchers for additional context). They are sorted by the “Rate” metric (using the context-adjusted numbers, I multiplied SLG * OBP * Plate Appearances per 162 scheduled games) – obviously you then have to modify that with the things not included in the Rate (baserunning, double plays, fielding, and team/postseason successes) as well as bear in mind how many seasons each player is rated on and how many other more modestly productive years he had. It’s a rough metric, but the basic concept of rating Hall of Famers mainly on their prime years is one I feel strongly about.
Player | Yrs | Oth | Ages | PA | Avg | SLG | OBP | SB | CS | DP | Rate | Ballot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Frank Thomas | 10 | 2 | 23-32 | 684 | 0.314 | 0.573 | 0.423 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 165.7 | Not Yet |
Jeff Bagwell | 13 | 0 | 23-35 | 685 | 0.294 | 0.541 | 0.396 | 16 | 6 | 16 | 146.8 | YES |
Wade Boggs | 9 | 3 | 25-33 | 705 | 0.338 | 0.481 | 0.425 | 2 | 3 | 16 | 144.1 | IN |
Don Mattingly | 6 | 1 | 23-28 | 684 | 0.329 | 0.550 | 0.372 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 140.2 | YES |
Albert Belle | 9 | 0 | 24-32 | 674 | 0.293 | 0.573 | 0.362 | 10 | 4 | 20 | 140.1 | Off |
Edgar Martinez | 9 | 4 | 32-40 | 618 | 0.313 | 0.537 | 0.422 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 139.9 | YES |
Jim Thome | 10 | 4 | 24-33 | 631 | 0.277 | 0.556 | 0.397 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 139.3 | Not Yet |
Todd Helton | 9 | 1 | 25-33 | 673 | 0.303 | 0.525 | 0.391 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 138.2 | Not Yet |
Manny Ramirez | 14 | 2 | 23-36 | 621 | 0.302 | 0.566 | 0.392 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 137.8 | Not Yet |
Jason Giambi | 9 | 2 | 27-35 | 613 | 0.287 | 0.540 | 0.415 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 137.5 | Not Yet |
Gary Sheffield | 10 | 3 | 27-36 | 632 | 0.298 | 0.537 | 0.404 | 12 | 5 | 12 | 137.2 | Not Yet |
Rafael Palmeiro | 12 | 2 | 26-37 | 698 | 0.283 | 0.532 | 0.363 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 134.9 | YES |
Fred McGriff | 9 | 3 | 24-32 | 658 | 0.283 | 0.544 | 0.375 | 6 | 3 | 15 | 134.1 | YES |
Sammy Sosa | 10 | 1 | 25-34 | 670 | 0.282 | 0.570 | 0.351 | 14 | 6 | 13 | 134.0 | Not Yet |
Ken Griffey jr | 11 | 2 | 20-30 | 643 | 0.290 | 0.567 | 0.366 | 15 | 5 | 11 | 133.7 | Not Yet |
Dale Murphy | 8 | 0 | 24-31 | 681 | 0.276 | 0.535 | 0.361 | 17 | 6 | 12 | 131.7 | YES |
Eddie Murray | 14 | 1 | 21-34 | 671 | 0.296 | 0.519 | 0.374 | 6 | 2 | 15 | 130.0 | IN |
Mark McGwire | 13 | 0 | 23-35 | 549 | 0.266 | 0.601 | 0.389 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 128.3 | YES |
Chipper Jones | 13 | 3 | 24-36 | 621 | 0.303 | 0.529 | 0.390 | 10 | 3 | 15 | 128.1 | Not Yet |
Mike Piazza | 10 | 4 | 24-33 | 590 | 0.319 | 0.572 | 0.379 | 2 | 2 | 18 | 127.9 | Not Yet |
Criag Biggio | 9 | 4 | 25-33 | 720 | 0.299 | 0.459 | 0.385 | 34 | 10 | 6 | 127.3 | Not Yet |
Jim Edmonds | 6 | 4 | 30-35 | 590 | 0.285 | 0.557 | 0.387 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 127.0 | Not Yet |
Bernie Williams | 9 | 1 | 25-33 | 649 | 0.309 | 0.504 | 0.388 | 13 | 7 | 15 | 126.8 | YES |
Dwight Evans | 10 | 5 | 28-37 | 659 | 0.274 | 0.505 | 0.377 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 125.4 | Off |
John Olerud | 10 | 3 | 24-33 | 650 | 0.301 | 0.475 | 0.399 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 123.2 | Off |
Keith Hernandez | 11 | 1 | 23-33 | 666 | 0.301 | 0.473 | 0.388 | 9 | 5 | 12 | 122.5 | Off |
Paul Molitor | 10 | 7 | 30-39 | 667 | 0.316 | 0.484 | 0.379 | 26 | 6 | 12 | 122.3 | IN |
Kirby Puckett | 10 | 0 | 25-34 | 678 | 0.317 | 0.506 | 0.356 | 10 | 6 | 18 | 122.2 | IN |
Rickey Henderson | 14 | 7 | 21-34 | 621 | 0.296 | 0.476 | 0.413 | 78 | 17 | 8 | 122.0 | IN |
Jim Rice | 12 | 0 | 22-33 | 665 | 0.294 | 0.530 | 0.345 | 5 | 3 | 23 | 121.4 | IN |
Robin Yount | 10 | 0 | 24-33 | 658 | 0.306 | 0.507 | 0.364 | 15 | 4 | 12 | 121.4 | IN |
Tim Raines | 9 | 6 | 21-29 | 645 | 0.304 | 0.481 | 0.389 | 67 | 10 | 8 | 120.9 | YES |
Bobby Bonilla | 10 | 1 | 25-34 | 651 | 0.285 | 0.514 | 0.359 | 3 | 4 | 13 | 120.2 | Off |
Will Clark | 12 | 2 | 23-34 | 606 | 0.302 | 0.510 | 0.377 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 116.6 | Off |
Tony Gwynn | 14 | 2 | 24-37 | 624 | 0.342 | 0.480 | 0.389 | 22 | 8 | 16 | 116.2 | IN |
Darryl Strawberry | 9 | 0 | 21-29 | 571 | 0.267 | 0.554 | 0.360 | 22 | 9 | 6 | 114.0 | Off |
Mark Grace | 11 | 3 | 25-35 | 667 | 0.303 | 0.450 | 0.373 | 6 | 4 | 15 | 112.0 | Off |
Tim Salmon | 11 | 0 | 24-34 | 614 | 0.276 | 0.489 | 0.372 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 111.7 | YES |
Al Oliver | 11 | 2 | 25-35 | 626 | 0.312 | 0.503 | 0.348 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 109.8 | Off |
Juan Gonzalez | 11 | 0 | 21-31 | 586 | 0.290 | 0.559 | 0.333 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 109.0 | YES |
Larry Walker | 13 | 0 | 24-36 | 541 | 0.294 | 0.535 | 0.369 | 16 | 5 | 10 | 106.9 | YES |
Jack Clark | 14 | 0 | 22-35 | 534 | 0.271 | 0.522 | 0.383 | 4 | 4 | 12 | 106.7 | Off |
Andre Dawson | 11 | 4 | 25-35 | 607 | 0.285 | 0.530 | 0.330 | 20 | 6 | 12 | 106.2 | IN |
Dave Parker | 12 | 2 | 24-35 | 595 | 0.295 | 0.518 | 0.342 | 12 | 8 | 12 | 105.3 | Off |
Jorge Posada | 8 | 3 | 28-35 | 574 | 0.275 | 0.474 | 0.377 | 2 | 2 | 15 | 102.5 | Not Yet |
Barry Larkin | 9 | 4 | 27-35 | 567 | 0.295 | 0.473 | 0.377 | 28 | 5 | 11 | 101.3 | YES |
Alan Trammell | 11 | 1 | 22-32 | 613 | 0.292 | 0.451 | 0.358 | 17 | 8 | 9 | 99.1 | YES |
Javy Lopez | 10 | 1 | 24-33 | 472 | 0.282 | 0.483 | 0.326 | 1 | 2 | 14 | 74.3 | YES |
For most of these guys, picking the prime years is easy – in a few cases, like Palmeiro, Manny, and Sheffield, you could debate going a year or two more or less, but it doesn’t affect the analysis much. But a couple of the candidates can be sliced in different ways. Raines and McGriff both had the same career pattern: a slightly shorter 8-9 year peak of superstardom, followed by a long tail of being a good but not great everyday player, followed in Raines’ case by a 3-year coda with the Yankees as a successful and productive platoon/role player on a championship team. This has the unfortunate effect, especially since both players’ latter years were much higher-scoring, of people forgetting how dominant they were at their peaks. Bagwell’s career path is a better version of the same, with his best 8-year stretch being out of this world. Then there’s Edgar, who was an absolute offensive monster for 7 years; the two years after that were good enough that I included them above, while the prior 5 included some great work (his 1991 batting title) but also a lot of time lost to injury. I include 3 different cuts on Edgar so you can judge for yourself.
Player | Yrs | Oth | Ages | PA | Avg | SLG | OBP | SB | CS | DP | Rate | Ballot |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jeff Bagwell | 8 | 5 | 26-35 | 695 | 0.297 | 0.567 | 0.409 | 19 | 7 | 15 | 161.1 | YES |
Edgar Martinez | 7 | 6 | 32-38 | 650 | 0.318 | 0.550 | 0.426 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 152.2 | YES |
Fred McGriff | 7 | 2 | 24-30 | 650 | 0.286 | 0.567 | 0.385 | 6 | 3 | 13 | 141.8 | YES |
Edgar Martinez | 14 | 0 | 27-40 | 578 | 0.311 | 0.523 | 0.412 | 3 | 2 | 13 | 124.4 | YES |
Fred McGriff | 15 | 0 | 24-38 | 644 | 0.281 | 0.511 | 0.367 | 5 | 2 | 15 | 120.8 | YES |
Tim Raines | 15 | 0 | 21-35 | 631 | 0.296 | 0.456 | 0.382 | 54 | 10 | 8 | 109.9 | YES |
Fred McGriff | 8 | 7 | 31-38 | 640 | 0.277 | 0.468 | 0.352 | 3 | 2 | 16 | 105.4 | YES |
Tim Raines | 9 | 9 | 30-38 | 507 | 0.285 | 0.416 | 0.370 | 25 | 6 | 7 | 78.0 | YES |
My short answer is that of the 14 or 15 serious candidates (I say 14, discounting Tim Salmon), there are 2 no-brainers: Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines. I realize Raines doesn’t stick out as well on this chart as when you compare him to the other tablesetters, but when you roll in his very high-value base thievery, few GIDP and longetivity, I think he clears the bar easily. There’s one more to me who is a fairly easy call: Fred McGriff. As I’ve said before, among the shortstops I go with Larkin and not Trammell, and among the pre-1994 sluggers I find Mattingly’s and Murphy’s prime years too short, and Dave Parker’s numbers weighed down by the big performance-detracting drug phase in the middle of his prime (Edited: I forgot that Parker’s off the ballot now). Javy Lopez had a season or two of genuine Hall-worthy production, but he doesn’t make the cut; Jorge Posada, who retired this weekend, should but that’s another year’s debate.
Then you get to the PED-era sluggers. Realistically, there’s actually not a huge gulf between a number of the guys on this ballot who make it, and those who don’t. Some just were healthier, more durable, in circumstances more suited to their talents than others. And that’s precisely why the PEDs are such a big issue.
A brief digression, since the issue is unavoidable. I’m sort of in the middle on a lot of steroids debates. I reject the simplistic argument that steroids are of no help to performance in baseball. I find something suspicious in, especially, the unique aging pattern of Barry Bonds, and there is no question that Mark McGwire in particular used PEDs to help him get healthy again in the second half of his career. And while I understand why people expect more of baseball players, I accept the argument that there’s never been a true age of innocence in Major League Baseball. And I’m sick of the agendas on all sides of the debate. In the end, for a variety of reasons, I say we ignore PEDs, put in the guys who got the job done on the field, and let the arguments follow.
Setting that aside, I start with Palmeiro, who was a paragon of consistent productivity for 12-13 years. To me, the fact that his teams could bank on his performance is a huge factor.
At the other end you have Juan Gonzalez and Larry Walker, Gonzalez with Hall of Fame power, Walker with a more complete package of skills. But you see them even below the less glamorous Tim Salmon on the chart because neither had the in-season durability over their primes. So, an easy no on Gonzalez, Walker and Salmon.
That brings us to the three hard cases: McGwire, Edgar and Bernie. I do think setting them next to the other sluggers of that era is helpful – whether we know it or not, we’re already setting the stage for what we will do when Thomas, Thome, Helton, Manny, Giambi, Sheffield, Sosa, Griffey and Edmonds get on the ballot. Poor Albert Belle already got stampeded off the ballot, despite the fact that his offensive prime tops any of those guys but Thomas and Bagwell by this measurement.
Bernie, like Griffey, gets a leg up for being a center fielder (a good one, albeit with a bad arm), and of course for being one of the core players on a legitimate dynasty. I’m inclined to vote yes on Bernie, even though that means a very crowded list of Yankees from that era (Jeter and Rivera will go in, Torre probably will, Raines, Posada and Mussina should, Sheffield should, Clemens and A-Rod will unless the writers are really ridiculous about PEDs, and that’s before you get to Giambi and Pettitte, to say nothing of the not-so-far-off-the-pace guys like O’Neill, Ventura, Strawberry, Knoblauch, Gooden, Cone and Justice). But really all that is on 9 years’ worth of prime production, not an especially long stretch for a guy who was never dominant.
I’m really conflicted on all three. McGwire strikes me as a Hall of Famer due to his amazing power numbers and great OBPs over a 13 year span, and gets some credit for playing for a team that won 3 straight pennants and a championship. But his injuries put him at the back of this pack, although by this measure he still stands ahead of Edgar over their 13/14 year primes.
Edgar is also a very tough call. Elite, Hall-quality hitter, no doubt. But even aside from the negatives we incorporate here (high-scoring offensive context, durability issues), Edgar has everything else going against him: zero defensive value, slow baserunner, played for teams that consistently underacheived despite an amazing talent core, a career mark of .156/.239/.234 in three ALCS (compared, to be fair, to .375/.481/.781 in four ALDS). I certainly would not be offended at including a guy of Edgar’s elite status as a hitter, but the case for him seems much weaker to me than it seems to a lot of sabermetrically-inclined folks who tend to total up his career numbers and ignore the injury-driven holes in his playing time.
The thing that struck me the most is that when you set aside their mystiques and the offsetting virtues of Edgar’s high batting averages vs Big Mac’s homers, what you see is that their cases are quite similar. That doesn’t mean you can’t reach opposite conclusions based on the factors at the margins, as I do with Larkin and Trammell, but it does suggest that just writing one of the two in and the other one out should not be done without a thorough analysis. If forced to vote, I’d pull the lever today for Bernie and McGwire but not Edgar, but I could easily be persuaded to the contrary for any of the three. That leaves us:
YES
Jeff Bagwell
Tim Raines
Fred McGriff
Rafael Palmeiro
Barry Larkin
Mark McGwire
Bernie Williams*
NO
Edgar Martinez
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker
Jack Morris
Lee Smith
Don Mattingly
Dale Murphy
Juan Gonzalez
Tim Salmon*
Javy Lopez*
* – First time candidates. Also no on the rest of the first timers, of which the best is probably Ruben Sierra.
Finally, for what it’s worth, below the fold is another quick set of metrics on the career numbers.
Quality and Quantity
One of my longstanding hobbyhorses in baseball analysis is two related points: (1) durability/quantity of playing time matters and (2) because baseball is played in seasons, it matters to study how much a player contributed by season. For example, one of my points of disagreement with Bill James’ argument in his first Historical Abstract for Lefty Grove over Walter Johnson as the best pitcher in MLB history is the failure to adjust for the fact that Johnson was frequently at or around the league lead in innings; Grove carried a less demanding workload by the standards of his own time, and won two of his ERA titles late in his career (with the Red Sox) as effectively a Sunday pitcher, starting less than 24 games a year.
How often have pitchers been the best in the league (by ERA+, ERA adjusted for park and league) and led the league in innings in the same year? It’s rarer than you might think – there are plenty of guys like Roy Halladay who have led the league in both, but never in the same year. Most likely because those last few innings can sometimes bring diminishing returns.
What’s even more impressive is pulling the feat multiple times. As it turns out, only two pitchers have done it more than twice: Greg Maddux (four years running from 1992-95, including tying Denny Neagle for the league lead in innings in 1995) and Grover Alexander in 1915-16 and 1920 (interrupted by his service in World War I, which cost him most of 1918. I discussed the monumental nature of Alexander’s peak and workload in this 2003 essay. Maddux got his just a bit cheaply (1994-95 were strike-shortened schedules, in which he led the league with just under 210 innings pitched each year), but it’s still a staggering achievement when you consider how far he stood above the league.
Five other pitchers have managed the feat twice. One is Walter Johnson, who led the league in innings five times and ERA+ six times, and synced the two in 1913 (when he had a 1.14 ERA and 259 ERA+) and 1915. The others were Randy Johnson in 1999 & 2002, Roger Clemens in 1991 & 1997 (the latter an IP tie with Pat Hentgen), Steve Carlton in 1972 & 1980, and Bucky Walters in 1939-40. The rest to do it once are below the fold
How to Score Runs, Part II
I cut off my examination of runs scored per times on base at 1920 because of the many ways in which the early game was different. But let’s complete the picture with guys who reached base 3500 or more times and were active before 1920 (I went through the end of their careers this time, so the numbers for Babe Ruth are a little different here; Frankie Frisch’s totals are different but the percentages are the same). The #1 man here, of the 24 guys who qualified, sure does stick out. I ran the numbers both with and without including homers, and ranked by the latter:
Player | R | TOBwe | HR | R/TOB | R/TOB(-HR) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Willie Keeler | 1719 | 3585 | 33 | 47.9% | 47.5% |
Roger Connor | 1620 | 3508 | 138 | 46.2% | 44.0% |
Cap Anson | 1999 | 4451 | 97 | 44.9% | 43.7% |
Fred Clarke | 1622 | 3707 | 67 | 43.8% | 42.7% |
Jesse Burkett | 1720 | 3954 | 75 | 43.5% | 42.4% |
Bill Dahlen | 1590 | 3665 | 84 | 43.4% | 42.1% |
George Davis | 1545 | 3614 | 73 | 42.8% | 41.6% |
Jake Beckley | 1602 | 3733 | 87 | 42.9% | 41.6% |
Frankie Frisch | 1532 | 3639 | 105 | 42.1% | 40.4% |
Sam Rice | 1514 | 3751 | 34 | 40.4% | 39.8% |
Max Carey | 1545 | 3782 | 70 | 40.9% | 39.7% |
Ty Cobb | 2246 | 5532 | 117 | 40.6% | 39.3% |
Harry Hooper | 1429 | 3678 | 75 | 38.9% | 37.6% |
Nap Lajoie | 1504 | 3892 | 82 | 38.6% | 37.3% |
Honus Wagner | 1739 | 4508 | 101 | 38.6% | 37.2% |
Lou Gehrig | 1771 | 3983 | 464 | 44.5% | 37.1% |
Eddie Collins | 1821 | 4891 | 47 | 37.2% | 36.6% |
Tris Speaker | 1882 | 4998 | 117 | 37.7% | 36.2% |
Sam Crawford | 1391 | 3744 | 97 | 37.2% | 35.5% |
Goose Goslin | 1477 | 3722 | 246 | 39.7% | 35.4% |
Rogers Hornsby | 1579 | 4019 | 301 | 39.3% | 34.4% |
Babe Ruth | 2174 | 4978 | 714 | 43.7% | 34.2% |
Zack Wheat | 1289 | 3611 | 132 | 35.7% | 33.3% |
Harry Heilmann | 1291 | 3556 | 183 | 36.3% | 32.8% |
Just out of curiosity, I ran the same numbers over the whole 1871-2011 period for three groups of players with over 2000 plate appearances who seemed likely to score a lot: players who scored at least 60% of their times on base overall, players who scored at least 0.85 runs per game, and players who stole at least 30% as many bases as times on base. It will not surprise you that this list is dominated by guys from the game’s very earliest days; Keeler sticks out a lot less on this list, when compared to contemporaries and teammates like Hamilton, Delahanty, McGraw, Thompson, Duffy and Brouthers. It’s sort of disappointing that the all-time leader here is the obscure Ned Cuthbert, who retired in 1884 with a career .276 OBP, but the #2 man is the game’s very first dominant superstar, and the #3 man one of the founding fathers of organized professional baseball:
How to Score Runs
What does it take to score runs? Well, getting on base is Job #1. But once you’re on base, not everybody scores at the same rate. Among players who reached base (counting errors) at least 3500 times since the dawn of modern offenses in 1920, here’s the 20 guys who scored most often:
Player | R | TOBwe | R/TOB |
---|---|---|---|
Babe Ruth | 1972 | 4438 | 44.4% |
Lou Gehrig | 1888 | 4274 | 44.2% |
Charlie Gehringer | 1774 | 4075 | 43.5% |
Kenny Lofton | 1528 | 3527 | 43.3% |
Alex Rodriguez | 1824 | 4218 | 43.2% |
Jimmie Foxx | 1751 | 4111 | 42.6% |
Johnny Damon | 1643 | 3891 | 42.2% |
Al Simmons | 1507 | 3572 | 42.2% |
Frankie Frisch | 1511 | 3592 | 42.1% |
Sammy Sosa | 1475 | 3512 | 42.0% |
Rickey Henderson | 2295 | 5503 | 41.7% |
Willie Mays | 2062 | 4959 | 41.6% |
Steve Finley | 1443 | 3535 | 40.8% |
Lou Brock | 1610 | 4001 | 40.2% |
Hank Aaron | 2174 | 5404 | 40.2% |
Derek Jeter | 1769 | 4416 | 40.1% |
Mel Ott | 1859 | 4648 | 40.0% |
Goose Goslin | 1483 | 3739 | 39.7% |
Craig Biggio | 1844 | 4679 | 39.4% |
Mickey Mantle | 1676 | 4268 | 39.3% |
There’s no single common thread here. Most of these guys played on good offenses and/or in good offensive times, in particular in lineups with a lot of high OBPs. Many of them were excellent at getting to scoring position on their own, whether by power (Ruth, Gehrig) or speed (Rickey, Brock). Others, like Mickey and A-Rod, had both great power and, in their younger years, excellent speed. (Obviously, you could re-run this with adjustments for HRs and the like to see who scores from where they start).
Now, the bottom ten:
Player | R | TOBwe | R/TOB |
---|---|---|---|
Edgar Martinez | 1219 | 3694 | 33.0% |
Willie McCovey | 1229 | 3735 | 32.9% |
Buddy Bell | 1151 | 3518 | 32.7% |
Luke Appling | 1319 | 4064 | 32.5% |
Mark Grace | 1179 | 3650 | 32.3% |
Ron Santo | 1138 | 3535 | 32.2% |
Harold Baines | 1299 | 4043 | 32.1% |
Brooks Robinson | 1232 | 3916 | 31.5% |
John Olerud | 1139 | 3679 | 31.0% |
Rusty Staub | 1189 | 4165 | 28.5% |
No surprise here: Rusty is the slowest of a slow lot, and only McCovey – who played in a low-scoring era – had great power in this group. This is why Rusty is not in the Hall of Fame, despite being arguably a good enough hitter to be in there, compared to other guys with similar longetivity. Here’s the rest of the list:
A.J. The Wild Man
A.J. Burnett has thrown a league-leading 23 wild pitches this year in 172.1 innings pitched, one of the grislier stats in an increasingly ugly season. How historic is that?
Well, among pitchers who have qualified for the ERA title since 1893 (the dawn of something like modern pitching, when the mound was moved back to 60 feet 6 inches), Burnett’s rate of one wild pitch per 7.493 innings pitched would be the highest by a fairly significant margin:
Pitcher | WP | Year | Age | G | GS | IP | BB | SO | ERA | BF | HBP | IP/WP | BF/WP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A.J. Burnett | 23 | 2011 | 34 | 29 | 29 | 172.3 | 78 | 148 | 5.27 | 761 | 7 | 7.493 | 33.087 |
Jack Hamilton | 22 | 1962 | 23 | 41 | 26 | 182.0 | 107 | 101 | 5.09 | 820 | 5 | 8.273 | 37.273 |
Juan Guzman | 26 | 1993 | 26 | 33 | 33 | 221.0 | 110 | 194 | 3.99 | 963 | 3 | 8.500 | 37.038 |
Red Ames | 30 | 1905 | 22 | 34 | 31 | 262.7 | 105 | 198 | 2.74 | 1064 | 3 | 8.756 | 35.467 |
Matt Clement | 23 | 2000 | 25 | 34 | 34 | 205.0 | 125 | 170 | 5.14 | 940 | 16 | 8.913 | 40.870 |
Tim Leary | 23 | 1990 | 32 | 31 | 31 | 208.0 | 78 | 138 | 4.11 | 881 | 7 | 9.043 | 38.304 |
Nolan Ryan | 16 | 1981 | 34 | 21 | 21 | 149.0 | 68 | 140 | 1.69 | 605 | 1 | 9.313 | 37.813 |
Tony Cloninger | 27 | 1966 | 25 | 39 | 38 | 257.7 | 116 | 178 | 4.12 | 1132 | 6 | 9.543 | 41.926 |
Jaime Navarro | 18 | 1998 | 31 | 37 | 27 | 172.7 | 77 | 71 | 6.36 | 802 | 7 | 9.593 | 44.556 |
Ken Howell | 21 | 1989 | 28 | 33 | 32 | 204.0 | 86 | 164 | 3.44 | 827 | 2 | 9.714 | 39.381 |
Red Ames’ 30 wild pitches qualifies as the post-1893 record. Needless to say, Nolan Ryan in 1981 is the only one of these guys to win the ERA title. (For curiosity – Sandy Koufax in 1958 would have made this list at #9 if he’d thrown just a few more innings). Among pitchers who threw at least 15 wild pitches but didn’t qualify for the ERA title, here’s the top 10; Burnett would rank 12th:
Pitcher | WP | Year | Age | G | GS | IP | BB | SO | ERA | BF | HBP | IP/WP | BF/WP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stu Flythe | 16 | 1936 | 24 | 17 | 3 | 39.3 | 61 | 14 | 13.04 | 229 | 3 | 2.458 | 14.313 |
Scott Williamson | 21 | 2000 | 24 | 48 | 10 | 112.0 | 75 | 136 | 3.29 | 495 | 3 | 5.333 | 23.571 |
Dennis Higgins | 15 | 1969 | 29 | 55 | 0 | 85.3 | 56 | 71 | 3.48 | 383 | 3 | 5.689 | 25.533 |
Hector Carrasco | 15 | 1995 | 25 | 64 | 0 | 87.3 | 46 | 64 | 4.12 | 391 | 2 | 5.822 | 26.067 |
Jason Grimsley | 16 | 2000 | 32 | 63 | 4 | 96.3 | 42 | 53 | 5.04 | 428 | 5 | 6.021 | 26.750 |
John Wetteland | 16 | 1989 | 22 | 31 | 12 | 102.7 | 34 | 96 | 3.77 | 411 | 0 | 6.417 | 25.688 |
Bobby Witt | 22 | 1986 | 22 | 31 | 31 | 157.7 | 143 | 174 | 5.48 | 741 | 3 | 7.167 | 33.682 |
Bo Belinsky | 16 | 1967 | 30 | 27 | 18 | 115.3 | 54 | 80 | 4.68 | 510 | 8 | 7.208 | 31.875 |
Johan Santana | 15 | 2002 | 23 | 27 | 14 | 108.3 | 49 | 137 | 2.99 | 452 | 1 | 7.222 | 30.133 |
Mac Suzuki | 16 | 2001 | 26 | 33 | 19 | 118.3 | 73 | 89 | 5.86 | 542 | 8 | 7.396 | 33.875 |
As you might imagine, this was the only season of Stu Flythe’s major league “pitching” career; he was not one of Connie Mack’s finer discoveries. Bobby Witt’s near-legendary rookie season missed by just a few innings topping Burnett.
It would not be useful to chart the guys with higher rates from the pre-1893 era, when you had guys with no catcher’s mitts or shin guards catching pitches thrown from 50 feet, often from a standing position several feet behind the plate. A few high points: Mark Baldwin threw the MLB-record 83 wild pitches (in 513.2 innings, one per 6.19 innings pitched) in 1889; Jim McElroy in 1884 threw 46 wild pitches in 116 innings, one every 2.52 innings pitched, the worst rate for anybody with 100 or more innings. A 19-year-old pitcher named Dan Collins threw 12 wild pitches in 11 innings in 1884; the only other guy to match that in more than 3 innings pitched was Rich Rodas, who threw 5 wild pitches in 4.2 innings for the Dodgers in 1983.
PS – A look at wild pitches on a per-pitch basis here. Funny fact: I saw a tweet linking to that a few days ago, favorited it (I have trouble clicking through links when reading Twitter from my Blackberry so I tend to favorite things to read later) and completely forgot about it until after I wrote this post and started getting a nagging feeling I’d seen something about Burnett’s historic wildness before.
UPDATED after the season: AJ improved just a bit to finish with 25 wild pitches in 190.1 IP, still easily the record (one every 7.61 IP, or every 33.48 batters faced). In the postseason he added 1 more in 5.2 innings, facing 24 batters.
Citi Field Detailed Home/Road Splits
SNY’s Ted Berg asked this question on Twitter, and it seemed worthy of a detailed response: “Is there any hard evidence that Citi Field plays as an extreme pitcher’s park?”
Well, using the same method as in my “History of Defense” breakdowns, I combined the batting stats for all Mets games 2009-11 thru Sunday’s action, both by and against the Mets. Here’s the home/road splits:
Runs per game:
Home: 8.18
Road: 8.82
Batting Average on Balls in Play:
Home: .311
Road: .322
Doubles per 600 at bats:
Home: 38.72
Road: 41.25
Triples per 600 at bats:
Home: 5.68
Road: 4.21
Home Runs per 600 at bats:
Home: 16.93
Road: 19.41
Walks per 660 plate appearances (I used a PA metric rather than at bats for walks and strikeouts):
Home: 59.10
Road: 57.49
Strikeouts per 660 plate appearances:
Home: 113.53
Road: 110.81
Conclusion: From 2009-11, which now seems a large enough sample size to judge, Citi Field has played as a fairly extreme pitchers’ park, drastically reducing scoring and home runs, depressing batting averages on balls in play, and slightly decreasing doubles and increasing strikeouts. It is, however, a great triples park, undoubtedly due to its spacious power alleys (and a few Mets hitters well-suited to exploit them), and has seen walks increase slightly at home.
UPDATE: So, if the Mets are looking down the road to what kinds of hitters prosper at Citi Field, who should they be looking at? Here’s the 2009-11 home/road splits of Mets hitters with at least 200 plate appearances at Citi Field – home line on the left, road line on the right, and home OPS divided by road OPS in the H/R column:
Player | AB | BA | OBA | Slug% | AB | BA | OBA | Slug% | H/R |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jose Reyes | 494 | 0.324 | 0.378 | 0.506 | 459 | 0.266 | 0.305 | 0.375 | 1.300 |
Jason Bay | 229 | 0.266 | 0.357 | 0.424 | 253 | 0.229 | 0.317 | 0.324 | 1.218 |
Luis Castillo | 364 | 0.313 | 0.402 | 0.354 | 369 | 0.247 | 0.337 | 0.285 | 1.215 |
Angel Pagan | 544 | 0.314 | 0.354 | 0.478 | 487 | 0.261 | 0.321 | 0.382 | 1.183 |
Daniel Murphy | 347 | 0.303 | 0.341 | 0.470 | 339 | 0.251 | 0.313 | 0.386 | 1.160 |
Fernando Tatis | 194 | 0.284 | 0.358 | 0.443 | 211 | 0.251 | 0.294 | 0.403 | 1.149 |
Ike Davis | 317 | 0.271 | 0.366 | 0.470 | 335 | 0.272 | 0.348 | 0.451 | 1.046 |
David Wright | 598 | 0.288 | 0.382 | 0.472 | 670 | 0.285 | 0.353 | 0.464 | 1.045 |
Josh Thole | 208 | 0.269 | 0.335 | 0.356 | 184 | 0.266 | 0.344 | 0.326 | 1.031 |
Alex Cora | 215 | 0.228 | 0.305 | 0.274 | 225 | 0.240 | 0.293 | 0.320 | 0.945 |
Jeff Francoeur | 338 | 0.254 | 0.294 | 0.414 | 352 | 0.281 | 0.327 | 0.432 | 0.933 |
Carlos Beltran | 350 | 0.294 | 0.363 | 0.466 | 379 | 0.290 | 0.394 | 0.501 | 0.926 |
I admit it’s odd to see Bay (and Tatis) that high, but otherwise it’s the people you’d expect: line-drive/gap hitters like Reyes, Castillo, Pagan and Murphy at the top, Beltran at the bottom (Wright hasn’t suffered at Citi nearly as much as Beltran). Reyes this season is batting .395/.453/.645 with 10 triples in 29 games at home, .277/.315/.361 with zero triples on the road.
So, if the Mets go to the free agent market in 2011, they should be looking to sign a player as much like Jose Reyes as possible. Gee, if only such a player was going to be a free agent after this season…
A History of Team Defense (Part I of II)
Part II here.
Who are the best defensive teams of all time? Individual defensive statistics in baseball – as in other team sports – have been crudely kept and poorly understood for years, with the more sophisticated modern methods only being gathered for the past decade or two. As a result, even statistically-oriented baseball fans have tended to answer questions about defense as much by reputation and anecdote as anything. The lack of a statistical framework tends to make defense a bit invisible in our memories; even most knowledgeable fans have no more concrete sense of, say, Ty Cobb as a defensive player than they do of Turkey Stearnes as a hitter. My goal in this essay is to a little bit to remedy that on the team level.
We do have one measurement of team defense that endures over time and thus can be used as a baseline for measuring team defense: Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER). I’d like to walk you through the history of the best and worst teams in each league, and the league average, in DER from the dawn of organized league ball in 1871 down to this season. As usual, I’ll try to explain here what I’m measuring in terms that make sense to readers who may not be all that familiar with the ‘sabermetric’ literature, although I make no claim to be current myself on every study out there, and welcome comments pointing to additional studies.
What is DER?
DER is, put simply, the percentage of balls in play against a team that are turned into outs. The exact formulas used to compute DER can vary a bit, and while Baseball-Reference.com – which I used for this study – computes DERs all the way back to the start of organized baseball in 1871, its description of the formula is a bit vague:
Percentage of balls in play converted into outs
This is an estimate based on team defensive and pitching stats.
We utilize two estimates of plays made.
One using innings pitched, strikeouts, double plays and outfield assists.
And the other with batters faced, strikeouts, hits allowed, walks allowed, hbp, and .71*errors committed (avg percent of errors that result in an ROE)
Total plays available are plays made + hits allowed – home runs + error committed estimate.
All methods for computing DER look at the percentage of balls in play that become hits; it appears that Baseball-Reference.com’s formula also counts the outs that result from double plays or outfield assists, both clear examples of outs created by good defense, as well as counting against the defense the one thing that fielding percentages always recorded – errors – but only where they put a man on base. From what I can tell, essentially the same formula is used over all of the site’s historical DER data, so the data is generally consistent over time.
It’s worth recalling that DER only measures outs vs. men reaching base – it doesn’t deal with extra bases on doubles and triples, or stolen bases and caught stealing, or other baserunning issues. So, it’s only one part of the picture just as on base percentage is just one part of the offensive picture. But like OBP, it’s the single most important part.
What Goes Into Team DER?
One of Bill James’ maxims throughout the 1980s was that “much of what we perceive to be pitching is in fact defense.” As most of my readers will recall, Voros McCracken broke major ground in the field of baseball analysis of pitching and defense in 2001 with a study showing that Major League pitchers, over time, had no effect – or at least, there was no difference among Major League pitchers in the effect they had – on whether balls in play become outs. Strikeouts, walks and home runs (the so-called “Three True Outcomes”) are the pitcher vs. the hitter, mano a mano, but on average, BABIP (batting average on balls in play, the flip side of DER) shows no tendency to be consistent year to year among individual pitchers; other statistical indicators also strongly suggest that a pitcher’s BABIP tends to be mostly a combination of team defense and luck. The simple way of expressing McCracken’s insight is that it’s the defense rather than the pitcher that determines how many balls in play become outs.
As with most groundbreaking insights, further research has added some caveats to McCracken’s theory. The first one, which he observed from the beginning, was that knuckleballers tend as a group to have lower than average BABIP, and thus are something of an exception to the rule. I haven’t absorbed all the further studies, but there are reasons to suspect that other classes of pitchers may have a modest advantage in the battle against BABIP, including elite relievers (Troy Percival, Armando Benitez, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman and Keith Foulke all seemed to have much lower career BABIP than their circumstances would suggest) and possibly pitchers who throw a huge number of breaking balls (we’ll discuss Andy Messersmith a bit below).
Also, McCracken’s research, and most of the following research, looked at the conditions of modern baseball (at the time, Retrosheet and Baseball Prospectus’ database only went back to the mid-1950s). It’s entirely possible that pitchers had greater influence on BABIP/DER in the era before 1920, or further back, when there were pitchers who had consistent success even in the era when most plate appearances resulted in a ball in play and thus the pitcher had little opportunity to set himself apart from his peers by success in the Three True Outcomes. As I explained in this 2001 essay, the playing conditions were greatly different in 19th century baseball in particular, and I’d be hesitant without data on that era to just assume that the pitcher’s effect on balls in play was as minimal then as it is now.
Finally, of course, as with other statistical measures, there are park effects. We all know that different parks are more or less favorable for hitters, and of the components of that, park effects on home runs are significant, and parks can effect walks and strikeouts as well. (Less so for baserunning, in most cases). Balls in play are no exception, and I don’t have data handy on how park effects specifically affect balls in play over time besides the ability to notice some trends (for example, the Polo Grounds for many years was a great home run park but not a great hitters’ park; I assume DER there tended to be high) and a few specific examples where I dug into the numbers we have. So bear in mind that the numbers set out below are not park-adjusted.
Key to the Charts
BIP%: Percentage of plate appearances resulting in a ball in play (i.e.,Plate Appearances minus homers, walks and strikeouts). Since I used league batting rather than pitching data for this, there may be a slight discrepancy for the period since the start of interleague play in 1997.
NL/AL etc.: Under the league name I have the league’s DER for that season.
High/Low: The team with the league’s highest and lowest DERs. I used Baseball-Reference.com’s team abbreviations.
DER: That team’s DER
High%/Low%: Team DER divided by the league average. This is the key number I use to identify the best and worst defensive teams, so we can see who were the best and worst defensive teams relative to the league average. As usual, I’m not using any math here more complicated than simple arithmetic and basic algebra.
Also, where I compute “rough” estimates of BABIP for pre-1950 pitchers I used the basic formula of (H-HR)/((IP*3)+H-HR-K)
The 1870s
Talent levels in the 1870s were especially uneven, as the first organized league – the National Association – began play in 1871 just two years after the debut of the first-ever professional team. Schedules were short (20 games in 1871, in the 60s by decade’s end), fielders didn’t wear gloves, playing surfaces were ungroomed and in some cases effectively without fences, and with nine balls for a walk and longballs unheard of, nearly every plate appearance resulted in a ball in play – the 1872 season’s 96.5% rate is the highest in the game’s history, and 1879 was the last season above 90%.
As you can see, defenses improved dramatically over this period, in part no doubt as professional pitchers and fielders learned their craft and more of the nation’s best ballplayers gathered into the National Association and later the NL. But errors were a big chunk of the poor defense of the era – in each of the NL’s first five seasons, there were more unearned runs than earned runs scored, and it wasn’t until 1906 that the average number of unearned runs would drop below 1 per game.
The most successful defensive team of the era was the 1876 St. Louis “Brown Stockings” team (not precisely the same organization as the Cardinals), the only Major League team ever to be 10% better than its league in DER. Starting pitcher George “Grin” Bradley struck out 1.6 men per 9 innings but led the league with a 1.23 ERA (the team also allowed the league’s fewest runs, although their 2.36 unearned runs per 9 innings was only third-best in the league) while throwing all but four of the team’s innings. A rough estimate of the BABIP against Bradley is .258 in 1875, .224 in 1876, but .285 after he changed teams the next year, when his ERA nearly tripled, and .267 for his career. Which at least seems consistent with the notion that Bradley’s defense was doing most of the work.
Note that the Philadelphia Athletics of 1873-74, featuring Cap Anson and Ezra Sutton in their infield, made the only repeat appearance on the decade’s leaderboard (Anson, in his early 20s, played multiple positions including short and third, while Sutton was beginning a long career as a third baseman and shortstop).
The worst defensive team of all time? I hate to give you such an underwhelming answer, but by a wide margin it’s the 1873 Baltimore Marylands, who folded after just 6 winless games and almost none of whose players appeared in the big leagues again. The hapless Marylands allowed 144 runs in 6 games (24 per game), only 48 of which were earned; in addition to hideous defense their pitchers didn’t strike out a single batter. (The offense was no better, as a team batting average of .156 with only one extra base hit and no walks attest). When you think of the level of competition in those early years, think of the Marylands.
National Association-National League
BIP% | NA | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1871 | 94.5% | 586 | NYU | 608 | 103.75% | TRO | 548 | 93.52% |
1872 | 96.5% | 589 | BOS | 647 | 109.85% | OLY | 510 | 86.59% |
1873 | 96.2% | 578 | ATH | 613 | 106.06% | MAR | 458 | 79.24% |
1874 | 96.7% | 589 | ATH | 629 | 106.79% | BAL | 552 | 93.72% |
1875 | 96.4% | 619 | HAR | 663 | 107.11% | WAS | 538 | 86.91% |
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
1876 | 95.3% | 626 | STL | 698 | 111.50% | CIN | 569 | 90.89% |
1877 | 92.2% | 623 | HAR | 642 | 103.05% | CIN | 561 | 90.05% |
1878 | 89.5% | 628 | CIN | 638 | 101.59% | MLG | 615 | 97.93% |
1879 | 90.2% | 632 | BUF | 659 | 104.27% | TRO | 599 | 94.78% |
The 1880s
The game gradually professionalized in the 1880s, but not without a great many bumps along the way. The Union Association of 1884 was only barely a major league (four teams, including Wilmington, folded after playing less than a quarter of the schedule), but diluted the talent level of the two major leagues. The 4-ball/three-strike count wasn’t standardized until 1889, after a gradual decline in the number of balls for a walk and a one-year experiment in 1887 with four strikes for a strikeout; DERs rose sharply after the three-strike rule was restored. The schedule topped 100 games for the first time in 1884, and had reached 135 by 1888. The color line was established in the wake of the failure of Reconstruction (which effectively ended in 1877), after only a few black players had taken the field. The first gloves were becoming commonly used by decade’s end.
Anson’s 1882 White Stockings (now Cubs) and the 1882 Red Stockings (now Reds) became the first pennant-winning teams to lead the league in DER since the founding of the National League (in the NA, only the 1872 Boston team had done so); four teams would do so in each of the two leagues in ten years, plus the Union Association champs. Bid McPhee, enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 2000 largely for his defense, anchored the Red Stockings teams that led the league three times in their first six seasons in the league, and their 1882 and 1883 DERs were the most dominant of the decade outside the UA, but the mid-decade St. Louis Browns (now Cardinals) juggernaut also emerged as a defensive powerhouse. The woebegotten 1883 Philadelphia Quakers were the decade’s worst defensive team. The NL’s most successful defensive squad? The 1884 Providence Grays, much to the benefit of Old Hoss Radbourn, who had his famous 59-12, 1.38 ERA season. Radbourn also struck out 441 batters in 678.1 innings, so he did his share as well, and by a rough calculation the opposing BABIP of .242 – while a career best – wasn’t hugely out of line with his career .271 mark. Lucky and good is a good combination.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1880 | 88.8% | 649 | PRO | 681 | 104.93% | BUF | 615 | 94.76% |
1881 | 88.6% | 641 | CHC | 664 | 103.59% | BUF | 613 | 95.63% |
1882 | 87.4% | 641 | CHC | 667 | 104.06% | WOR | 590 | 92.04% |
1883 | 86.3% | 617 | CLV | 651 | 105.51% | PHI | 553 | 89.63% |
1884 | 81.2% | 633 | PRO | 678 | 107.11% | DTN | 611 | 96.52% |
1885 | 83.8% | 651 | NYG | 697 | 107.07% | BUF | 613 | 94.16% |
1886 | 81.1% | 644 | PHI | 674 | 104.66% | KCN | 602 | 93.48% |
1887 | 84.7% | 647 | DTN | 663 | 102.47% | WHS | 635 | 98.15% |
1888 | 83.9% | 671 | NYG | 694 | 103.43% | IND | 659 | 98.21% |
1889 | 82.0% | 650 | CLV | 673 | 103.54% | WHS | 622 | 95.69% |
American Association
BIP% | AA | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1882 | 89.3% | 639 | CIN | 692 | 108.29% | BAL | 599 | 93.74% |
1883 | 87.5% | 631 | CIN | 688 | 109.03% | PIT | 591 | 93.66% |
1884 | 83.7% | 640 | LOU | 670 | 104.69% | WAS | 580 | 90.63% |
1885 | 84.5% | 649 | STL | 679 | 104.62% | PHA | 623 | 95.99% |
1886 | 81.0% | 643 | STL | 667 | 103.73% | PHA | 625 | 97.20% |
1887 | 84.5% | 630 | CIN | 658 | 104.44% | NYP | 595 | 94.44% |
1888 | 82.8% | 662 | STL | 702 | 106.04% | LOU | 626 | 94.56% |
1889 | 81.0% | 640 | BRO | 665 | 103.91% | LOU | 604 | 94.38% |
Union Association
BIP% | UA | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1884 | 80.7% | 591 | SLM | 644 | 108.97% | WIL | 539 | 91.20% |
The 1890s
The NL achieved dominance after the Players League war. The modern era of pitching arrived in 1893 when the mound was moved back from 50 feet to its current 60 feet 6 inches; the percentage of balls in play spiked as strikeouts became almost non-existent, while DERs plunged in 1894 and 1895, suggesting more hard-hit balls off pitchers struggling to adjust to the new distance. The 1890 Pirates were the decade’s worst defensive team, the 1895 Baltimore Orioles (with extra balls hidden in the long grass of the outfield among their notorious tricks) the best, although the late-decade Beaneaters (now Braves, featuring Hall of Famers Hugh Duffy and Billy Hamilton in the outfield, Jimmy Collins at third, and Kid Nichols as the staff ace) were consistently dominant and would remain so through 1901. (Collins left in 1901, Duffy the previous year, but Nichols, Hamilton and infield anchors Herman Long, Bobby Lowe and Fred Tenney were there the whole time; Long and Nichols had also been on the 1891 team). Four teams had the NL’s best record while leading the league in DER, three of them Beaneaters teams.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1890 | 81.8% | 663 | CHC | 696 | 104.98% | PIT | 598 | 90.20% |
1891 | 82.1% | 665 | BSN | 677 | 101.80% | CLV | 645 | 96.99% |
1892 | 82.2% | 672 | CLV | 697 | 103.72% | BLN | 625 | 93.01% |
1893 | 84.4% | 654 | PIT | 673 | 102.91% | WHS | 614 | 93.88% |
1894 | 84.9% | 626 | NYG | 651 | 103.99% | WHS | 601 | 96.01% |
1895 | 85.5% | 637 | BLN | 677 | 106.28% | LOU | 606 | 95.13% |
1896 | 85.9% | 649 | CIN | 673 | 103.70% | WHS | 625 | 96.30% |
1897 | 86.0% | 648 | BSN | 679 | 104.78% | STL | 618 | 95.37% |
1898 | 86.2% | 669 | BSN | 708 | 105.83% | WHS | 633 | 94.62% |
1899 | 86.9% | 660 | BSN | 699 | 105.91% | CLV | 610 | 92.42% |
American Association
BIP% | AA | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1890 | 80.2% | 652 | COL | 692 | 106.13% | PHA | 609 | 93.40% |
1891 | 80.4% | 653 | COL | 677 | 103.68% | WAS | 605 | 92.65% |
Players League
BIP% | PL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1890 | 82.6% | 636 | NYI | 655 | 102.99% | BUF | 612 | 96.23% |
The 1900s
The foul-strike rule, adopted in the NL in 1901 and the AL in 1903, brought back the strikeout and contributed, along with better gloves and more “small ball,” to rising DERs, as the NL in 1907 became the first league ever to turn 70% of balls in play into outs, rising to 71.4% in 1908, a level that would not be matched again until 1942. Schedules also started to be standardized in 1904, settling around 154 games after a decade mostly in the high 120s.
Surprisingly, defense was not the essential element for many of the pennant winners of the Dead Ball Era’s first decade – only one AL pennant winner (the 1903 Red Sox, featuring Jimmy Collins yet again) led the league, and only two NL pennant winners. That being said, the Cubs of the Tinker-Evers-Chance era have as good an argument as anyone to be the dominant defensive team of all time. They led the NL in DER eight times in nine years, as well as finishing a close second (at 726, 101.68% of the league) the ninth of those, and second again in 1912. In 1906, on the way to a 116-36 record, they became the first of five post-1900 teams to beat the league average by 5% or more, and their 736 DER bested the second-place Phillies by 29 points and would not be topped (in raw terms) for 62 years, by men using vastly superior equipment. It’s possible there was a park factor at work, although Baseball-Reference.com lists West Side Park (where the Cubs played until Wrigley opened in 1916) as if anything a hitters park until late in the decade; in 1906, the Cubs combined to score and allow 7.24 runs per game at home, 7.03 on the road, with the defense in particular allowing 2.22 runs per game on the road compared to 2.78 at West Side Park. Was it the pitchers? By my rough estimate, the BABIPs against four or the five pitchers on that staff to throw 1000 or more innings as Cubs between 1903 and 1912 -Three Finger Brown, Carl Lundgren, Orval Overall, and Jack Pfiester – varied between .237 and .241 compared to a team average of .241 for all pitchers to throw at least 200 innings on the team over those years, with only one such pitcher above .254. Only Ed Reulbach, at .230, seems to have stood out a bit. That suggests that the team’s defense was the predominant factor. The same BABIP figure for the rival Giants, a good but more normal defensive team, was .259 – the 19-point advantage on balls in play for Brown over Christy Mathewson is almost certainly the main explanation for why Brown’s ERA was better (1.75 to 1.90) over those years, although of course Brown was nonetheless a great pitcher.
Best AL defensive team? The 1901 Red Sox, another Jimmy Collins squad. Worst team of the decade? The unraveling 1902 Baltimore Orioles, who were deserted by John McGraw in mid-season and relocated to New York (now the Yankees) the following spring (like the prior year’s Milwaukee franchise – there’s a long history of teams getting folded or moved after cellar-dwelling DERs, as terrible defense is often a byproduct of organizational failure).
Also, note the atrocious showings by the late-decade Washington Senators, the team on which Walter Johnson broke in, yet another way in which Johnson’s early career was plagued by bad teams. Johnson would bear some closer study – a quick look suggests that his BABIPs may have been better than his teams’ for much of his career, as if he needed more advantages on top of leading the AL in K/BB ratio nine times, K/9 seven times, fewest BB/9 twice and fewest HR/9 three times (a favorite stat: Johnson in 1918-19 threw 616.1 innings and allowed just two home runs, both of them by Babe Ruth). His BABIP seems to have hit a career low of .219 in 1913 at the same time as his career high 6.39 K/BB ratio, another example of perhaps being both lucky and good, or perhaps there being a correlation between the two.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1900 | 86.3% | 661 | BSN | 691 | 104.54% | NYG | 637 | 96.37% |
1901 | 83.3% | 664 | BSN | 685 | 103.16% | CIN | 640 | 96.39% |
1902 | 84.3% | 674 | BRO | 696 | 103.26% | STL | 648 | 96.14% |
1903 | 83.5% | 664 | CHC | 681 | 102.56% | STL | 647 | 97.44% |
1904 | 83.7% | 688 | CHC | 709 | 103.05% | PHI | 658 | 95.64% |
1905 | 82.9% | 683 | CHC | 716 | 104.83% | BRO | 649 | 95.02% |
1906 | 82.0% | 698 | CHC | 736 | 105.44% | BSN | 670 | 95.99% |
1907 | 82.8% | 702 | CHC | 730 | 103.99% | BSN | 685 | 97.58% |
1908 | 83.7% | 714 | PIT | 730 | 102.24% | STL | 698 | 97.76% |
1909 | 82.2% | 698 | CHC | 721 | 103.30% | BSN | 680 | 97.42% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1901 | 86.4% | 658 | BOS | 684 | 103.95% | MLA | 647 | 98.33% |
1902 | 86.2% | 671 | BOS | 686 | 102.24% | BLA | 636 | 94.78% |
1903 | 83.8% | 680 | BOS | 695 | 102.21% | WSH | 668 | 98.24% |
1904 | 82.9% | 693 | CHW | 716 | 103.32% | WSH | 668 | 96.39% |
1905 | 81.8% | 697 | CHW | 721 | 103.44% | NYY | 688 | 98.71% |
1906 | 83.3% | 692 | CLE | 719 | 103.90% | WSH | 672 | 97.11% |
1907 | 83.7% | 693 | BOS | 710 | 102.45% | WSH | 666 | 96.10% |
1908 | 82.7% | 700 | CHW | 719 | 102.71% | NYY | 680 | 97.14% |
1909 | 82.3% | 695 | PHA | 717 | 103.17% | SLB | 676 | 97.27% |
The 1910s
Defense had the upper hand in the teens, with DERs regularly topping 70% leaguewide in the second half of the decade, especially in the NL. If top defensive teams winning the pennant were a rarity in the prior decade, they became routine in the teens – five times in the NL, five in the AL. The Red Sox were the decade’s dominant team in the AL both defensively and overall, and continued to lead the league even after the departure in 1916 of Tris Speaker. (Oddly, the Red Sox went from the best DER in the AL in 1912 to the worst in 1913 and back to the best in 1914; more on that below.) Meanwhile, the NL’s revolving door of pennant winners (and World Series doormats) from 1915-19 were generally whoever handled the balls in play best. Yet most of those NL teams didn’t beat the league average by all that much, and the best single-season showing was the 1919 Yankees. The worst, unsurprisingly, was the post-fire-sale 1915 A’s (with a fossilized 40-year-old Nap Lajoie at second and their best remaining player, catcher Wally Schang, playing out of position at third), although the doormat 1911 Braves weren’t far behind.
The Cubs’ defense stopped being dominant with the 1913 departure of Joe Tinker, who went on to anchor the Federal League’s best defense, while Johnny Evers was part of lifting those Braves out of their 1911-12 defensive funk to a slightly above average defensive team in 1914 (they’d been below average in 1913 – that said, I’d expected the 1914 Miracle Braves to be one of the teams that had a huge year defensively, and even with Evers and Rabbit Maranville, they didn’t).
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1910 | 81.4% | 688 | CHC | 708 | 102.91% | STL | 673 | 97.82% |
1911 | 80.1% | 684 | CHC | 698 | 102.05% | BSN | 649 | 94.88% |
1912 | 81.2% | 679 | PIT | 703 | 103.53% | BSN | 659 | 97.05% |
1913 | 81.8% | 691 | NYG | 702 | 101.59% | CIN | 684 | 98.99% |
1914 | 81.5% | 698 | PIT | 712 | 102.01% | PHI | 666 | 95.42% |
1915 | 82.1% | 704 | PHI | 715 | 101.56% | NYG | 687 | 97.59% |
1916 | 82.3% | 704 | BRO | 719 | 102.13% | STL | 684 | 97.16% |
1917 | 83.2% | 704 | NYG | 723 | 102.70% | CHC | 691 | 98.15% |
1918 | 85.2% | 707 | NYG | 723 | 102.26% | BSN | 695 | 98.30% |
1919 | 85.2% | 705 | CIN | 729 | 103.40% | PHI | 672 | 95.32% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1910 | 81.7% | 692 | PHA | 713 | 103.03% | SLB | 663 | 95.81% |
1911 | 80.6% | 662 | CHW | 675 | 101.96% | WSH | 655 | 98.94% |
1912 | 80.5% | 666 | BOS | 683 | 102.55% | NYY | 640 | 96.10% |
1913 | 81.1% | 685 | PHA | 701 | 102.34% | BOS | 670 | 97.81% |
1914 | 80.2% | 692 | BOS | 709 | 102.46% | CLE | 662 | 95.66% |
1915 | 80.1% | 693 | BOS | 712 | 102.74% | PHA | 654 | 94.37% |
1916 | 80.9% | 698 | BOS | 713 | 102.15% | PHA | 668 | 95.70% |
1917 | 82.4% | 704 | BOS | 724 | 102.84% | PHA | 687 | 97.59% |
1918 | 83.5% | 705 | BOS | 729 | 103.40% | DET | 694 | 98.44% |
1919 | 83.1% | 689 | NYY | 715 | 103.77% | PHA | 661 | 95.94% |
Federal League
BIP% | FL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1914 | 80.7% | 679 | CHI | 711 | 104.71% | SLM | 667 | 98.23% |
1915 | 81.9% | 694 | CHI | 708 | 102.02% | BAL | 660 | 95.10% |
The 1920s
Lower strikeout rates with the lively ball’s arrival were probably the largest factor in the sudden increase in scoring in the Twenties, as even the gradual arrival of home run hitters and a leaguewide rise in walks couldn’t stop the upward march of the percentage of balls in play. But DERs dropped a good 15 points as well.
Defense was slightly more the hallmark of AL than NL pennant winners in the Twenties – six in the AL, four in the NL. Naturally the 1927 Yankees were the best in the league at this, too, their fifth league lead in nine years. And Walter Johnson finally got some real defensive support when the Senators won their two pennants in 1924-25, dropping Johnson’s BABIP from .280 to .248 in 1924.
As discussed in the next decade, you have to figure a significant park effect was at work in the fact that the Phillies were dead last in the NL in DER 14 times in their last 17 full seasons in the Baker Bowl, including the NL’s worst showing of the decade in 1926. Then again, nearly all of those Phillies teams were terrible teams, with a collective .383 winning percentage and only one winning record, in 1932 when their DER was 98.5% of the league average. And the Phillies had led the league in DER behind Grover Alexander in 1915.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1920 | 85.3% | 693 | CIN | 708 | 102.16% | STL | 678 | 97.84% |
1921 | 85.6% | 680 | PIT | 696 | 102.35% | PHI | 658 | 96.76% |
1922 | 84.7% | 677 | NYG | 700 | 103.40% | STL | 663 | 97.93% |
1923 | 84.5% | 681 | CHC | 700 | 102.79% | PHI | 651 | 95.59% |
1924 | 84.8% | 687 | PIT | 704 | 102.47% | PHI | 665 | 96.80% |
1925 | 84.3% | 676 | CIN | 689 | 101.92% | PHI | 659 | 97.49% |
1926 | 84.6% | 689 | STL | 707 | 102.61% | PHI | 656 | 95.21% |
1927 | 84.4% | 687 | PIT | 705 | 102.62% | PHI | 663 | 96.51% |
1928 | 83.6% | 693 | STL | 707 | 102.02% | PHI | 666 | 96.10% |
1929 | 83.1% | 680 | PIT | 692 | 101.76% | PHI | 662 | 97.35% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1920 | 83.7% | 677 | NYY | 689 | 101.77% | PHA | 656 | 96.90% |
1921 | 83.5% | 674 | BOS | 683 | 101.34% | PHA | 666 | 98.81% |
1922 | 83.6% | 687 | NYY | 707 | 102.91% | CLE | 669 | 97.38% |
1923 | 83.1% | 686 | NYY | 709 | 103.35% | WSH | 673 | 98.10% |
1924 | 83.9% | 682 | WSH | 709 | 103.96% | CHW | 666 | 97.65% |
1925 | 83.3% | 679 | WSH | 689 | 101.47% | BOS | 662 | 97.50% |
1926 | 83.2% | 689 | CLE | 702 | 101.89% | DET | 677 | 98.26% |
1927 | 83.6% | 684 | NYY | 701 | 102.49% | SLB | 666 | 97.37% |
1928 | 83.2% | 687 | PHA | 700 | 101.89% | CLE | 665 | 96.80% |
1929 | 83.0% | 687 | PHA | 703 | 102.33% | DET | 664 | 96.65% |
The 1930s
1935 saw the arrival of night baseball, which would eventually be a factor in bringing back strikeout rates, as would the growth of relief pitching, still taking its first baby steps in the Thirties; between those factors and more home runs, the AL in 1937 became the first major league in which less than 80% of plate appearances resulted in a ball in play, after being above 83% in the AL and 84% in the NL for much of the Twenties. Six AL pennant winners had the league’s best DER, compared to just two in the NL.
The 30s were the best and worst of times. The Phillies hit their nadir in 1930, at 631 the worst raw DER since 1900 (the 1911 Braves being the only other team since 1906 to finish below 650), the worst relative to the league since the ill-fated 1899 Cleveland Spiders and the only team lower than 95% of the league average since the 1915 A’s. Not for nothing did they post a modern-record 6.71 team ERA, allow 7.69 runs per game, and lose nearly two-thirds of their games even with Lefty O’Doul batting .383/.453/.604 and scoring 122 runs and Chuck Klein (probably the most park-created of all Hall of Famers) batting .386/.436/.687 with 158 runs scored and 170 RBI. Then again, they also had the league’s worst K/BB ratio and allowed the league’s most homers, so it wasn’t all the defense’s fault. And the Phillies left the Baker Bowl for good at the end of June 1938, and still finished last in DER in 1938 and 1941 plus three more times in the mid-1940s.
In the AL, the late-30s St. Louis Browns, presumably despite Harlond Clift at third, were the league’s worst, hitting bottom in 1939. Also in St. Louis, if you’re curious, the 1934 “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals team was league-average.
On the positive end, we have the 1900s Cubs’ top competition for the title of the best defensive team of all time, the 1939 Yankees, the team that Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein (measuring by runs scored and allowed relative to the league) marked as the greatest team of all time in “Baseball Dynasties,” noting that they led the league in runs scored and fewest runs allowed four years in a row. So it’s not surprising to encounter them here. The Yankees’ DER was the furthest above their league of any team since 1885, and their 730 DER led the league by 35 points. This was part of a string of six straight seasons and 12 in 13 years when they had the league’s most successful defense, starting in Babe Ruth’s last year two years before the arrival of Joe DiMaggio and running clear through World War II. While a number of players appeared on many of those teams (DiMaggio, Tommy Henrich, Frank Crosetti, Red Rolfe, Joe Gordon), the only constants were manager Joe McCarthy and catcher Bill Dickey. (Both had also been on the 1933 team that was last in the AL in DER before cutting back the Babe’s playing time and putting Earle Combs and Joe Sewell, both 34, out to pasture). You have to give McCarthy some of the credit for the Yankees’ consistent defensive excellence, if only in how he chose to distribute playing time.
That said, a significant park effect can’t be discounted here. Yankee Stadium was always a pitcher’s park, and seems to have been a particularly extreme one in 1939: unlike for the Cubs, we have home/road detailed splits for the 1939 Yankees, which show that Yankee hitters had a BABIP of .273 at home, .315 on the road, while Yankee opponents had a BABIP of .248 at home, .267 on the road – combined, .260 at home, .292 on the road. I haven’t had time to run the splits for the Yankees’ whole run in that period – this essay took up quite enough of my time, and it would be a worthwhile project for someone else to carry on further – but even on the basis of the huge split for 1939, as remarkable as the Yankees’ defensive performance was in the McCarthy era, it has to be taken with the same grain of salt as the Baker Bowl era Phillies. (The 1930 Phillies’ Home/Road BABIP splits were .352/.300 for their offense, .365/.341 for their pitching staff, and a combined line of .358/.321 – a 36-point spread)
Speaking of managers, Walter Johnson may not have had great defenses as a pitcher, but as a manager he did better, skippering the Senators to two league-best DERs in four years from 1929-32. And the 1938 Braves became the first Casey Stengel-managed team to lead the league in DER, albeit a squad he inherited from Bill McKechnie with the decade’s best DER in the NL in 1937.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1930 | 82.8% | 669 | BRO | 693 | 103.59% | PHI | 631 | 94.32% |
1931 | 83.4% | 687 | NYG | 706 | 102.77% | PHI | 666 | 96.94% |
1932 | 84.0% | 691 | PIT | 702 | 101.59% | STL | 673 | 97.40% |
1933 | 85.1% | 702 | NYG | 719 | 102.42% | PHI | 682 | 97.15% |
1934 | 82.9% | 685 | NYG | 704 | 102.77% | CIN | 666 | 97.23% |
1935 | 83.2% | 686 | NYG | 707 | 103.06% | PHI | 667 | 97.23% |
1936 | 82.7% | 684 | CHC | 698 | 102.05% | PHI | 666 | 97.37% |
1937 | 81.3% | 689 | BSN | 714 | 103.63% | PHI | 670 | 97.24% |
1938 | 82.1% | 697 | BSN | 711 | 102.01% | PHI | 675 | 96.84% |
1939 | 81.7% | 695 | CIN | 708 | 101.87% | PIT | 682 | 98.13% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1930 | 82.0% | 678 | WSH | 702 | 103.54% | CLE | 661 | 97.49% |
1931 | 82.0% | 683 | PHA | 708 | 103.66% | SLB | 667 | 97.66% |
1932 | 81.2% | 688 | WSH | 703 | 102.18% | CHW | 674 | 97.97% |
1933 | 81.5% | 694 | WSH | 709 | 102.16% | NYY | 682 | 98.27% |
1934 | 80.2% | 684 | NYY | 703 | 102.78% | CHW | 677 | 98.98% |
1935 | 81.2% | 687 | NYY | 713 | 103.78% | WSH | 668 | 97.23% |
1936 | 80.5% | 676 | NYY | 690 | 102.07% | SLB | 657 | 97.19% |
1937 | 79.5% | 683 | NYY | 697 | 102.05% | SLB | 658 | 96.34% |
1938 | 79.2% | 685 | NYY | 694 | 101.31% | SLB | 671 | 97.96% |
1939 | 79.9% | 687 | NYY | 730 | 106.26% | SLB | 660 | 96.07% |
The 1940s
In the 1940s, change was in the winds. The war decimated MLB’s talent level and introduced inferior baseballs (due to wartime shortages) that traveled poorly when hit. DERs rose back above 70% even before the war in the NL, and in 1942 in the AL. After the war, integration followed and the game was off to the races, while night baseball really came into its own.
In the NL, defense was king – seven pennant winners led the league in DER in nine years between 1939-47, plus the 104-win second-place 1942 Dodgers; four pennant winners led the AL, but three of those were the 1941-43 Yankees. The strongest defensive teams of the decade were McKechnie’s 1940 Reds and Lou Boudreau’s 1948 Indians (a team famous for its outstanding infield of Boudreau, Ken Keltner, Joe Gordon and Eddie Robinson), the weakest the 1940 Pirates and 1942 Senators (the difference between the Senators of the mid-40s and the Indians of the 50s explains a lot about Early Wynn’s career). The chicken-egg question remains regarding good defenses and successful managers, as Leo Durocher’s arrival in Brooklyn in 1939 and Billy Southworth’s in St. Louis in 1940 were followed within a few years by the construction of superior defensive teams.
The 1947 Reds were the third and last team to go from first to last in the league in DER in a single season, after the 1913 Red Sox and 1880 Buffalo Bisons:
Team | Years | DER1 | DER2 | Change | Change % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
BUF | 1879-80 | 659 | 615 | -44 | 93.3% |
CIN | 1946-47 | 716 | 693 | -23 | 96.8% |
BOS | 1912-13 | 683 | 670 | -13 | 98.1% |
The Bisons and their ace pitcher, Hall of Famer Pud Galvin, hail from baseball’s ancient past, and the Red Sox were a bit of a fluke, given the small size of their decline and their rapid rebound the following year. What of the 1947 Reds? 1946 was the last season of McKechnie’s career, and McKechnie was notoriously defense-obsessed. The team gave a lot more playing time to 30-year-old shortstop Eddie Miller, outfielder Frank Baumholtz and noodle-armed 35-year-old left fielder Augie Galan. Sidearmer Ewell Blackwell had his big breakthrough season in 1947, improving his K/BB from 1.27 to a league-leading 2.03, but saw his ERA slip slightly from 2.45 to 2.47, while veterans Johnny Vander Meer and Bucky Walters got completely wiped out by the defensive collapse.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1940 | 81.5% | 701 | CIN | 730 | 104.14% | PIT | 676 | 96.43% |
1941 | 80.9% | 704 | BRO | 732 | 103.98% | PHI | 683 | 97.02% |
1942 | 81.2% | 716 | BRO | 734 | 102.51% | CHC | 699 | 97.63% |
1943 | 82.1% | 707 | STL | 719 | 101.70% | NYG | 691 | 97.74% |
1944 | 82.3% | 707 | STL | 733 | 103.68% | CHC | 689 | 97.45% |
1945 | 82.1% | 701 | CHC | 718 | 102.43% | PHI | 674 | 96.15% |
1946 | 80.2% | 709 | CIN | 716 | 100.99% | PHI | 697 | 98.31% |
1947 | 79.3% | 703 | BRO | 720 | 102.42% | CIN | 693 | 98.58% |
1948 | 79.0% | 704 | BSN | 714 | 101.42% | PHI | 694 | 98.58% |
1949 | 79.3% | 707 | NYG | 722 | 102.12% | CHC | 684 | 96.75% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1940 | 79.1% | 691 | CHW | 715 | 103.47% | WSH | 675 | 97.68% |
1941 | 79.7% | 698 | NYY | 714 | 102.29% | WSH | 680 | 97.42% |
1942 | 80.9% | 706 | NYY | 721 | 102.12% | WSH | 676 | 95.75% |
1943 | 80.5% | 714 | NYY | 725 | 101.54% | SLB | 703 | 98.46% |
1944 | 81.9% | 702 | NYY | 712 | 101.42% | WSH | 692 | 98.58% |
1945 | 81.3% | 707 | NYY | 716 | 101.27% | CHW | 692 | 97.88% |
1946 | 78.4% | 703 | NYY | 715 | 101.71% | SLB | 690 | 98.15% |
1947 | 78.9% | 712 | CLE | 734 | 103.09% | WSH | 697 | 97.89% |
1948 | 78.8% | 704 | CLE | 731 | 103.84% | SLB | 685 | 97.30% |
1949 | 77.7% | 707 | CLE | 724 | 102.40% | SLB | 680 | 96.18% |
A History of Team Defense (Part II of II)
Part I here.
The 1950s
Baseball started moving west with the Braves’ move to Milwaukee in 1953, and the resulting shakeup ended the stranglehold of old, mostly smaller ballparks in the East. High walk rates, more power hitters and a few more strikeouts meant that balls in play rates were dropping, while defenses got stingier – the 71.6% of balls in play turned into outs in the NL in 1956 remains the league record.
I’ve written before about the advantage Casey Stengel’s Yankees got from their defense and how it played into the superior performance of pitchers in pinstripes. But it was the Indians who were the true defensive juggernaut of that era, leading the AL seven times in the decade between 1947-56. The AL was truly defensively stratified in those years, with the upper tier of the Yankees, Indians and White Sox at the top and weak sisters like the Browns, Senators, A’s and Tigers at the bottom. Park effects were part of that picture for the Yankees – for example, in 1955 the Yankees and their opponents had a BABIP of .265 at home, .278 on the road, compared to .272 at home, .269 on the road for the 1954 Indians.
The 111-win Indians were the best defensive team of the decade (the 1909 Pirates, who finished one point behind the Cubs, are the only team to win 110 games in a season without leading the league in DER), Durocher’s 1950 Giants the best NL team, the 1955 Pirates and 1950 Browns the worst; the Pirates were perennially hapless. Four pennant-winning teams in each league led the league in DER, although as I’ve noted the Yankees often finished second or third in DER while winning the pennant, and the 1953 Dodgers and 1957 Braves just narrrowly missed the league lead.
I’d expected the Ashburn-era Phillies to lead the league more than once; the strangest league leaders were the 1952 Cubs, an also-ran team that featured one of the more plodding sluggers (Hank Sauer) ever to win the MVP.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | 77.7% | 707 | NYG | 729 | 103.11% | CHC | 693 | 98.02% |
1951 | 78.9% | 711 | NYG | 721 | 101.41% | PIT | 697 | 98.03% |
1952 | 78.1% | 713 | CHC | 723 | 101.40% | PIT | 703 | 98.60% |
1953 | 77.5% | 702 | MIL | 715 | 101.85% | PIT | 687 | 97.86% |
1954 | 77.8% | 707 | NYG | 722 | 102.12% | PIT | 687 | 97.17% |
1955 | 76.8% | 714 | PHI | 728 | 101.96% | PIT | 688 | 96.36% |
1956 | 76.8% | 716 | BRO | 730 | 101.96% | PIT | 702 | 98.04% |
1957 | 76.6% | 706 | BRO | 717 | 101.56% | CHC | 698 | 98.87% |
1958 | 75.8% | 703 | MLN | 721 | 102.56% | LAD | 693 | 98.58% |
1959 | 75.4% | 701 | CHC | 714 | 101.85% | STL | 685 | 97.72% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | 77.6% | 700 | CLE | 721 | 103.00% | SLB | 676 | 96.57% |
1951 | 78.6% | 706 | CLE | 720 | 101.98% | SLB | 686 | 97.17% |
1952 | 77.9% | 713 | CHW | 723 | 101.40% | DET | 700 | 98.18% |
1953 | 78.5% | 706 | CHW | 720 | 101.98% | DET | 682 | 96.60% |
1954 | 77.9% | 711 | CLE | 735 | 103.38% | PHA | 689 | 96.91% |
1955 | 76.7% | 710 | NYY | 733 | 103.24% | WSH | 689 | 97.04% |
1956 | 75.3% | 705 | CLE | 722 | 102.41% | WSH | 683 | 96.88% |
1957 | 76.6% | 713 | NYY | 727 | 101.96% | WSH | 694 | 97.34% |
1958 | 76.2% | 712 | NYY | 726 | 101.97% | WSH | 697 | 97.89% |
1959 | 76.0% | 712 | CLE | 730 | 102.53% | KCA | 691 | 97.05% |
The 1960s
Rising strikeout rates, with the onset of expansion, new pitchers’ parks in LA and Houston, and the expansion of the strike zone in 1963, are a major part of the story of pitching dominance in the Sixties; the AL in 1961, the year of Maris and Mantle, became the first league to see balls in play drop below 75% of plate appearances, and by 1964 it was down to 72.9%, the lowest it would be until 1987. Unsurprisingly, that started to loosen the relationship between defense and success – only three NL pennant winners led the league in DER, four in the AL, and the 1967 Twins came within a game of becoming the first team to finish first while being last in the league in DER.
Meanwhile, the story on balls in play showed a real split between the leagues: DERs actually declined in the NL, while reaching historic highs in the AL. The 724 DER in the AL in 1968 is the highest in Major League history, and the 743 figure by the 1969 Orioles is the highest ever recorded by a team. That Brooks Robinson-Mark Belanger-Davey Johnson infield and Paul Blair-led outfield really was impenetrable, and even adjusted for the league was the best of the decade, powering the O’s to 109 wins. (Home/road split: .275 at home, .278 on the road).
The Dodgers of the Sixties did well on balls in play, even as they dominated the pitcher-controlled aspects of defense (if I recall correctly, the 1966 Dodgers still hold the team K/BB ratio record).
The 1962 Mets, surprisingly, did not have the league’s worst DER (unlike the 1969 Seattle Pilots), finishing a point above the Astros; the 1969 Mets did lead the league (in fact, they led three years in a row from 1968-70), but other surprise teams of the decade did not – the 1967 Red Sox were just below the league average at 715, and the 1960 Pirates were also below average. Probably no team in this sample surprised me more with their poor defensive stats than the Pirates of the 1960s, finishing last in DER in 1961 and 1964 despite a lineup stocked with legendary defensive players like Bill Mazeroski, Roberto Clemente and Bill Virdon as well as other respected glove men like Dick Schofield Sr. The other surprise, more on which later, was the persistent poor performance of the Astros.
The Yankee dynasty’s collapse was reflected defensively, as the Yankees were second in DER in 1964 (at 726), but ninth in 1965 at 707.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1960 | 75.0% | 703 | LAD | 714 | 101.56% | PHI | 694 | 98.72% |
1961 | 75.0% | 699 | MLN | 721 | 103.15% | PIT | 683 | 97.71% |
1962 | 74.7% | 695 | SFG | 710 | 102.16% | HOU | 680 | 97.84% |
1963 | 74.8% | 706 | MLN | 721 | 102.12% | NYM | 694 | 98.30% |
1964 | 75.7% | 698 | LAD | 709 | 101.58% | PIT | 682 | 97.71% |
1965 | 74.5% | 704 | LAD | 727 | 103.27% | PHI | 687 | 97.59% |
1966 | 75.4% | 699 | STL | 712 | 101.86% | HOU | 687 | 98.28% |
1967 | 75.1% | 703 | SFG | 719 | 102.28% | HOU | 683 | 97.16% |
1968 | 75.8% | 707 | NYM | 719 | 101.70% | HOU | 690 | 97.60% |
1969 | 73.6% | 701 | NYM | 729 | 103.99% | HOU | 683 | 97.43% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1960 | 75.8% | 712 | NYY | 732 | 102.81% | BOS | 688 | 96.63% |
1961 | 74.7% | 708 | BAL | 731 | 103.25% | KCA | 689 | 97.32% |
1962 | 74.7% | 710 | NYY | 719 | 101.27% | LAA | 702 | 98.87% |
1963 | 74.4% | 713 | NYY | 725 | 101.68% | WSA | 701 | 98.32% |
1964 | 72.9% | 711 | CHW | 733 | 103.09% | BOS | 683 | 96.06% |
1965 | 73.3% | 715 | CHW | 728 | 101.82% | BOS | 692 | 96.78% |
1966 | 73.9% | 717 | CHW | 728 | 101.53% | BOS | 704 | 98.19% |
1967 | 73.4% | 718 | CHW | 735 | 102.37% | MIN | 704 | 98.05% |
1968 | 74.0% | 724 | BAL | 740 | 102.21% | WSA | 702 | 96.96% |
1969 | 73.7% | 714 | BAL | 743 | 104.06% | SEP | 691 | 96.78% |
The 1970s
In the 1970s, even after the arrival of the DH, AL teams with top defenses tended to finish first in their divisions – 8 times in 11 years from 1969-79. In the NL, it was a different story, as teams like the Big Red Machine and the late-70s Pirates seemed often to lead the league in years other than the years those same teams finished first. The Dodgers led the league in DER four times between 1972 and 1978, and won the division the three years they didn’t.
You’ve met two of the five teams since 1900 to better the league average in DER by 5% or more, the 1906 Cubs and 1939 Yankees, both great teams that left the rest of their league in the dust. But the third team was one left in the dust by another juggernaut: the 1975 Dodgers, who led the league in DER by 20 points over the 108-win Reds, while finishing 20 games behind them (it didn’t help that the Dodgers underperformed their Pythagorean record by 7 games). Oddly, the very best Dodger defense came in a season when Bill Russell missed a good deal of time, but the then-youthful infield of Garvey, Lopes and Cey was otherwise tremendously durable, while 33-year-old Jimmie Wynn anchored the outfield defense (Wynn had also played on those late-60s Astros teams that perennially finished last in DER; go figure). Park effect? The Dodgers and their opponents combined for a .268 BABIP at home, .276 on the road, so the park seems to have had something to do with it. What about a pitching staff effect? Knuckleballer Charlie Hough had the team’s lowest BABIP (.219), but Hough threw only 61 innings. 321 innings were thrown by curveballer Andy Messersmith, and there may be something to that – pitcher BABIP are available since 1950, and Messersmith has the lowest career BABIP of any pitcher with 2000 or more career innings at .243 (rounding out the top 10, he’s followed by Catfish Hunter at .246, Hoyt Wilhelm at .250, Jim Palmer at .251, Hough at .253, Mudcat Grant at .258, Koufax at .259, Early Wynn at .260, and Tom Seaver and Warren Spahn at .262). The fact that that persisted across three teams (Angels, Dodgers and Braves) before he broke down in 1977 and that only Hunter’s even close to him suggests that Messersmith may have had some ability in that area. On the other hand, you have knuckle-curve specialist Burt Hooton, making the case for it being the team: Hooton’s BABIPs with the Cubs from 1972-94 were .278, .303 and .322, and .400 in the early going in 1975; after arriving with the Dodgers it dropped to .236, and was .253 over the next three seasons. Whether that’s the defense or the park, it’s evident that Hooton’s sudden improvement was due to the environment he pitched in.
The best AL defense of the decade was the Orioles again in 1973 (featuring much of the same cast, but this time with Bobby Grich at second); Earl Weaver’s defenses remained outstanding for years, as did Billy Martin’s when he arrived in New York (and brought in Paul Blair, among others). The worst were the 1974 Cubs and 1970 White Sox. Those Cubs featured Bill Madlock at third, 31 year old Don Kessinger at short, and an outfield of three guys who later became professional pinch hitters (Rick Monday, Jose Cardenal and Jerry Morales) and a DH at first (Andre Thornton). That said, BABIPs were higher at home – .312 at home, .296 on the road – so even aside from the home run ball, the park likely exaggerated the Cubs’s defensive failings in that era. Not for nothing did Rick Reuschel retire with a career BABIP of .294.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1970 | 73.3% | 697 | NYM | 721 | 103.44% | STL | 686 | 98.42% |
1971 | 75.6% | 706 | CIN | 727 | 102.97% | STL | 689 | 97.59% |
1972 | 74.7% | 707 | LAD | 721 | 101.98% | HOU | 695 | 98.30% |
1973 | 75.1% | 704 | LAD | 729 | 103.55% | CHC | 687 | 97.59% |
1974 | 75.9% | 702 | ATL | 720 | 102.56% | CHC | 672 | 95.73% |
1975 | 76.3% | 700 | LAD | 737 | 105.29% | CHC | 673 | 96.14% |
1976 | 77.0% | 704 | LAD | 723 | 102.70% | SFG | 691 | 98.15% |
1977 | 75.2% | 698 | PIT | 711 | 101.86% | ATL | 677 | 96.99% |
1978 | 76.2% | 706 | MON | 718 | 101.70% | CIN | 697 | 98.73% |
1979 | 76.3% | 700 | HOU | 719 | 102.71% | CHC | 680 | 97.14% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1970 | 73.7% | 710 | OAK | 728 | 102.54% | CHW | 684 | 96.34% |
1971 | 74.8% | 714 | OAK | 730 | 102.24% | CHW | 701 | 98.18% |
1972 | 75.3% | 718 | BAL | 740 | 103.06% | BOS | 699 | 97.35% |
1973 | 75.7% | 701 | BAL | 731 | 104.28% | TEX | 683 | 97.43% |
1974 | 77.0% | 702 | BAL | 716 | 101.99% | MIN | 691 | 98.43% |
1975 | 76.1% | 703 | BAL | 731 | 103.98% | DET | 683 | 97.16% |
1976 | 77.7% | 705 | NYY | 729 | 103.40% | CHW | 693 | 98.30% |
1977 | 76.3% | 698 | NYY | 714 | 102.29% | CHW | 682 | 97.71% |
1978 | 77.7% | 706 | NYY | 723 | 102.41% | TOR | 690 | 97.73% |
1979 | 77.4% | 700 | BAL | 727 | 103.86% | OAK | 678 | 96.86% |
The 1980s
DERs in the AL finally dropped back in line with the NL by the late 70s, and the two leagues have mostly remained even since then. Balls in play percentages dropped in 1986, perhaps reflecting the rise in strikeouts occasioned by, among other things, the popularity of the split finger fastball and the increasing specialization of bullpens.
Best defensive team of the 80s: the Billyball A’s of 1980. In the NL: the far less remembered 1982 Padres. Worst: the 1981 Indians and 1984 Giants. The Whitaker-Trammell-Chet Lemon Tigers also stand out, although they are not as remembered as a defensive unit (but see the career of Walt Terrell). Their DER was also 713 when they had their big year in 1984, 705 in 1987.
The 1980s might be the decade that defense mattered least. Only two teams, the 1985 Blue Jays and 1989 A’s, finished first while leading the league in DER; the 1982 Giants came within two games of being the first team to finish first while being last in the league in DER, and a year later the “Wheeze Kids” Phillies turned the trick, remaining to this day the only team to be first in the standings and last in DER (the league hit .286 on BABIP against Cy Young winner John Denny, .329 against Steve Carlton). Those two teams had two things in common – an aging lineup (which for the Giants included Darrell Evans and Reggie Smith, the Phillies Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Gary Maddox, Mike Schmidt and Gary Matthews) and specifically, Joe Morgan at second base. I have to wonder about Morgan – it’s not a surprise that he would be found on poor defensive teams as his bat kept a decaying glove in the lineup in his late 30s (don’t forget, these were still good teams), but the Reds’ only league lead in DER in the 70s was in 1971, the year before Morgan’s arrival, and the Astros had routinely finished last during his years as their second baseman in the 60s. Could all be a coincidence, as Morgan’s defensive stats seem to suggest he was a fine glove man in his prime, but it bears closer examination.
The 1989 Yankees became the first Yankees team to finish last in the league in DER since 1933. The Mets finished second in the NL in DER in 1985, third in 1986. The Red Sox at 686 were below average in 1986, but at least not in the cellar as they were in 1985 and 1987.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1980 | 77.0% | 700 | LAD | 715 | 102.14% | CHC | 680 | 97.14% |
1981 | 77.2% | 704 | HOU | 721 | 102.41% | CHC | 686 | 97.44% |
1982 | 76.3% | 701 | SDP | 725 | 103.42% | SFG | 688 | 98.15% |
1983 | 74.9% | 702 | HOU | 718 | 102.28% | PHI | 685 | 97.58% |
1984 | 75.1% | 698 | SDP | 721 | 103.30% | SFG | 676 | 96.85% |
1985 | 75.0% | 706 | STL | 718 | 101.70% | ATL | 691 | 97.88% |
1986 | 73.3% | 700 | HOU | 721 | 103.00% | CHC | 678 | 96.86% |
1987 | 73.1% | 696 | PIT | 711 | 102.16% | CHC | 677 | 97.27% |
1988 | 75.3% | 708 | CIN | 723 | 102.12% | ATL | 692 | 97.74% |
1989 | 74.3% | 709 | SFG | 725 | 102.26% | PHI | 699 | 98.59% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1980 | 77.7% | 698 | OAK | 727 | 104.15% | TEX | 676 | 96.85% |
1981 | 77.6% | 711 | DET | 740 | 104.08% | CLE | 678 | 95.36% |
1982 | 76.6% | 704 | DET | 725 | 102.98% | CHW | 688 | 97.73% |
1983 | 77.0% | 699 | DET | 726 | 103.86% | CAL | 683 | 97.71% |
1984 | 76.1% | 699 | BAL | 715 | 102.29% | SEA | 683 | 97.71% |
1985 | 75.2% | 703 | TOR | 724 | 102.99% | BOS | 690 | 98.15% |
1986 | 73.5% | 699 | DET | 719 | 102.86% | SEA | 670 | 95.85% |
1987 | 72.7% | 697 | CHW | 714 | 102.44% | BOS | 674 | 96.70% |
1988 | 75.1% | 702 | DET | 718 | 102.28% | CLE | 692 | 98.58% |
1989 | 75.3% | 698 | OAK | 715 | 102.44% | NYY | 683 | 97.85% |
The 1990s
DERs dropped sharply in 1993, inaugurating the era of…well, the Steroids Era, if you prefer. Or in the NL, perhaps the Mile High/Coors era. There were also ever fewer balls in play, with more and more homers, strikeouts and walks. Four NL teams finished first in DER and first in their division, three AL teams including the 1998 Yankees (the only Jeter-era Yankees team to finish either first or last in DER).
The worst defensive teams of the decade were the 1999 Rockies and 1997 A’s (the start of the “Moneyball” era – the A’s often fielded Jason Giambi and Matt Stairs in the outfield corners – although the winning A’s teams of a few years later would be above-average defensively, leading the AL in 2005). The Rockies’ home/road splits were so vast – .374 at home, .306 on the road in 1999 – that it’s almost impossible to evaluate their defense as such.
The 1990s also brought us the fourth of the five great defensive teams, the 1999 Reds, who led the league by a margin of 17 points over the Mets on the way to losing a one-game playoff for the wild card when their bats were stifled by Al Leiter. That Reds team is not recalled as widely as a great defense – it was the Mets that year who got the Sports Illustrated cover asking if they had the best infield ever – but with Barry Larkin, Mike Cameron and Pokey Reese, they had an outstanding defensive unit. Their home/road splits – .306 at home, .312 on the road – suggest that they did it without a huge amount of help from their home park.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | 74.4% | 701 | MON | 713 | 101.71% | ATL | 676 | 96.43% |
1991 | 74.0% | 706 | ATL | 714 | 101.13% | NYM | 689 | 97.59% |
1992 | 74.8% | 705 | CHC | 716 | 101.56% | LAD | 685 | 97.16% |
1993 | 74.2% | 692 | ATL | 711 | 102.75% | COL | 664 | 95.95% |
1994 | 72.8% | 688 | SFG | 707 | 102.76% | COL | 664 | 96.51% |
1995 | 71.9% | 688 | CIN | 699 | 101.60% | PIT | 669 | 97.24% |
1996 | 71.5% | 687 | STL | 706 | 102.77% | HOU | 667 | 97.09% |
1997 | 71.2% | 688 | LAD | 706 | 102.62% | COL | 667 | 96.95% |
1998 | 71.3% | 689 | ARI | 704 | 102.18% | FLA | 669 | 97.10% |
1999 | 70.7% | 687 | CIN | 722 | 105.09% | COL | 659 | 95.92% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | 74.4% | 699 | OAK | 732 | 104.72% | CAL | 681 | 97.42% |
1991 | 74.1% | 699 | CHW | 728 | 104.15% | CLE | 678 | 97.00% |
1992 | 75.0% | 702 | MIL | 725 | 103.28% | TEX | 680 | 96.87% |
1993 | 73.7% | 693 | BAL | 704 | 101.59% | MIN | 679 | 97.98% |
1994 | 72.3% | 687 | BAL | 706 | 102.77% | SEA | 669 | 97.38% |
1995 | 72.3% | 690 | BAL | 716 | 103.77% | DET | 672 | 97.39% |
1996 | 71.7% | 683 | MIN | 694 | 101.61% | BOS | 665 | 97.36% |
1997 | 71.6% | 684 | BAL | 699 | 102.19% | OAK | 660 | 96.49% |
1998 | 72.0% | 686 | NYY | 708 | 103.21% | TEX | 668 | 97.38% |
1999 | 71.8% | 683 | ANA | 699 | 102.34% | TBD | 661 | 96.78% |
The 2000s
Is defense the new market inefficiency? Maybe in the National League, as eight first-place teams led the league in DER between 2000 and 2010 compared to three in the AL (plus the 2002 Angels, who didn’t finish first but did win 99 games and the World Series). Even with BIP percentages dropping, marginal advantages in defense can still help make a division winner.
Worst DERs of the decade: the 2007 Rays and Marlins, both scraping just above 650. Best in the NL: the 2009 Dodgers. And the fifth and final team to beat the league by 5% or more – indeed, second only to the 1939 Yankees at 105.52% – the 2001 Mariners, who tied the 1906 Cubs’ record of 116 regular season wins. The Mariners featured Ichiro, John Olerud, Bret Boone, Carlos Guillen, and yes, Mike Cameron in center again. They got some help from Safeco (home/road split of .300/.322), where they led the AL again in 2003 (Cameron’s last year there) and 2004.
Then there’s the 2007-08 Rays. As I noted before the 2008 season, Baseball Prospectus’ optimistic PECOTA projection for the Rays required them to massively improve on their MLB-worst team defense; as I noted that October, they did just that, to the point where nearly the entire turnaround to a pennant-winning team was a function of becoming the MLB’s best defensive team in one year. This made them just the ninth team ever to go worst-to-first in their league in DER in one year (other unsurprising names on that list include the Billyball A’s and the 1991 Braves), and aside from a team from 1878, Tampa’s defensive improvement was the largest leap of any of those teams, a 56-point or 8.6% improvement, which made their pitching staff much better without changing its personnel. The Rays did this returning five regulars – Carl Crawford, BJ Upton, Akinori Iwamura, Carlos Pena and Dioner Navarro – although Upton in 2007 was still learning center field as a new position, and Iwamura moved from third to second in 2008. Adding Evan Longoria and Jason Bartlett, plus clearing out some less mobile players and letting the incumbents settle in, led to a historic turnaround:
Team | Years | DER1 | DER2 | Change | Change % |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
CIN | 1877-78 | 561 | 638 | 77 | 113.7% |
TBR | 2007-08 | 652 | 708 | 56 | 108.6% |
CLV | 1891-92 | 645 | 697 | 52 | 108.1% |
PHI | 1914-15 | 666 | 715 | 49 | 107.4% |
OAK | 1979-80 | 678 | 727 | 49 | 107.2% |
BOS | 1913-14 | 670 | 709 | 39 | 105.8% |
ATL | 1990-91 | 676 | 714 | 38 | 105.6% |
WSH | 1923-24 | 673 | 709 | 36 | 105.3% |
NYY | 1933-34 | 682 | 703 | 21 | 103.1% |
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 70.3% | 689 | CIN | 702 | 101.89% | MON | 672 | 97.53% |
2001 | 70.4% | 693 | ARI | 703 | 101.44% | MON | 682 | 98.41% |
2002 | 71.2% | 695 | LAD | 716 | 103.02% | SDP | 675 | 97.12% |
2003 | 71.6% | 694 | SFG | 710 | 102.31% | COL | 678 | 97.69% |
2004 | 71.2% | 693 | LAD | 711 | 102.60% | COL | 677 | 97.69% |
2005 | 72.0% | 693 | HOU | 705 | 101.73% | COL | 670 | 96.68% |
2006 | 71.2% | 690 | SDP | 710 | 102.90% | PIT | 674 | 97.68% |
2007 | 71.5% | 688 | CHC | 704 | 102.33% | FLA | 659 | 95.78% |
2008 | 70.5% | 689 | CHC | 703 | 102.03% | CIN | 671 | 97.39% |
2009 | 70.2% | 692 | LAD | 713 | 103.03% | HOU | 677 | 97.83% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | 71.7% | 684 | ANA | 699 | 102.19% | TEX | 667 | 97.51% |
2001 | 72.3% | 689 | SEA | 727 | 105.52% | CLE | 670 | 97.24% |
2002 | 72.4% | 695 | ANA | 718 | 103.31% | CLE | 674 | 96.98% |
2003 | 73.2% | 694 | SEA | 721 | 103.89% | TEX | 674 | 97.12% |
2004 | 72.1% | 689 | SEA | 699 | 101.45% | KCR | 674 | 97.82% |
2005 | 73.5% | 694 | OAK | 715 | 103.03% | KCR | 666 | 95.97% |
2006 | 72.6% | 685 | DET | 701 | 102.34% | TBD | 671 | 97.96% |
2007 | 72.1% | 684 | BOS | 704 | 102.92% | TBD | 652 | 95.32% |
2008 | 71.9% | 688 | TBR | 708 | 102.91% | TEX | 666 | 96.80% |
2009 | 70.8% | 688 | SEA | 712 | 103.49% | KCR | 675 | 98.11% |
The 2010s
History continues to march on: the NL in 2010 became the first league in baseball history to have less than 70% of all plate appearances result in a ball put in play.
2011 stats are through May 31, 2011. DERs can be volatile in-season; I noted a few weeks ago that the Astros were at 648, 633 around the beginning of May, which would have set them on pace as the first defensive team since the 1930 Phillies to finish below 650, but since replacing Angel Sanchez with Clint Barmes they’ve been on an upward trajectory, and are no longer even last in their division. As you can see, the Cubs are having a terrible defensive year, while the Braves and those Rays again (even sans Carl Crawford and Jason Bartlett) are flying high. The AL (unlike the NL) is above 700 this season, the first time either league has cracked 700 since 1992.
National League
BIP% | NL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 69.7% | 689 | SFG | 707 | 102.61% | PIT | 671 | 97.39% |
2011 | 70.2% | 695 | ATL | 716 | 103.02% | CHC | 665 | 95.68% |
American League
BIP% | AL | High | DER | High % | Low | DER | Low % | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 71.4% | 694 | OAK | 711 | 102.45% | KCR | 679 | 97.84% |
2011 | 71.6% | 702 | TBR | 723 | 102.99% | CHW | 691 | 98.43% |
2011 NL Central EWSL Report
Part 6 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL Central (last as always); this is the sixth and last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West, NL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Milwaukee Brewers
Raw EWSL: 220.00 (87 W)
Adjusted: 232.93 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 223.33 (88 W)
WS Age: 28.94
2011 W-L: 88-74
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Jonathan Lucroy* | 2 | 5 |
1B | 27 | Prince Fielder | 27 | 28 |
2B | 28 | Rickie Weeks | 20 | 20 |
SS | 29 | Yuniesky Betancourt | 10 | 10 |
3B | 28 | Casey McGehee | 17 | 21 |
RF | 29 | Corey Hart | 15 | 14 |
CF | 25 | Carlos Gomez | 6 | 7 |
LF | 27 | Ryan Braun | 28 | 29 |
C2 | 33 | Wil Nieves | 3 | 3 |
INF | 40 | Craig Counsell | 9 | 5 |
OF | 30 | Nyjer Morgan | 10 | 9 |
12 | 35 | Mark Kotsay | 5 | 4 |
13 | 30 | Jeremy Reed | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 27 | Zack Greinke | 17 | 15 |
SP2 | 25 | Yovanni Gallardo | 9 | 10 |
SP3 | 29 | Shaun Marcum | 9 | 8 |
SP4 | 34 | Randy Wolf | 10 | 8 |
SP5 | 29 | Chris Narveson# | 4 | 4 |
RP1 | 28 | John Axford* | 6 | 10 |
RP2 | 29 | Kameron Loe | 3 | 2 |
RP3 | 41 | Takashi Saito | 6 | 4 |
RP4 | 30 | Sergio Mitre | 2 | 1 |
RP5 | 23 | Zack Braddock* | 2 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. Greinke’s missed some time, but then EWSL probably underrates Gallardo and Marcum due to injury risks.
Also on Hand: Position players – George Kottaras, Brandon Boggs, Erick Almonte.
Pitchers – Brandon Kintzler, Sean Green, Marco Estrada, Mitch Stetter, LaTroy Hawkins.
Analysis: Just look at the ages of the Brewers’ starting lineup to see why EWSL rates them the class of the division – having a whole bunch of guys right in their prime is sometimes more important than having the most talent in the abstract.
Cincinnati Reds
Raw EWSL: 214.17 (85 W)
Adjusted: 230.53 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 219.32 (86 W)
WS Age: 29.42
2011 W-L: 86-76
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 35 | Ramon Hernandez | 12 | 9 |
1B | 27 | Joey Votto | 28 | 29 |
2B | 30 | Brandon Phillips | 19 | 17 |
SS | 28 | Paul Janish# | 6 | 7 |
3B | 36 | Scott Rolen | 17 | 12 |
RF | 24 | Jay Bruce | 12 | 16 |
CF | 26 | Drew Stubbs# | 11 | 14 |
LF | 30 | Jonny Gomes | 13 | 11 |
C2 | 30 | Ryan Hanigan | 10 | 9 |
INF | 37 | Miguel Cairo | 3 | 2 |
OF | 30 | Fred Lewis | 10 | 9 |
12 | 35 | Edgar Renteria | 8 | 6 |
13 | 27 | Jeremy Hermida | 8 | 8 |
SP1 | 34 | Bronson Arroyo | 13 | 11 |
SP2 | 27 | Ednison Volquez | 5 | 4 |
SP3 | 25 | Johnny Cueto | 9 | 10 |
SP4 | 24 | Travis Wood* | 3 | 7 |
SP5 | 25 | Homer Bailey | 4 | 5 |
RP1 | 36 | Francisco Cordero | 11 | 10 |
RP2 | 23 | Aroldis Chapman+ | 1 | 5 |
RP3 | 26 | Logan Ondreysuk* | 3 | 5 |
RP4 | 29 | Nick Masset | 8 | 6 |
RP5 | 23 | Mike Leake* | 4 | 8 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Chris Heisey, Juan Francisco, Yonder Alonso, Chris Valaika.
Pitchers – Jordan Smith, Bill Bray, Matt Maloney, Carlos Fisher.
Analysis: The Reds’ starting rotation remains unsettled, but there’s definitely pitching talent there.
Francisco Cordero is now second on the active saves list – he’s never really been a spectacular closer, but his low HR rate more than anything else, especially in the parks he’s worked in, has kept him steady year in and year out.
St. Louis Cardinals
Raw EWSL: 224.33 (88 W)
Adjusted: 239.50 (93 W)
Age-Adj.: 217.52 (86 W)
WS Age: 30.70
2011 W-L: 86-76
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Yadier Molina | 18 | 18 |
1B | 31 | Albert Pujols | 35 | 29 |
2B | 31 | Skip Schumaker | 16 | 13 |
SS | 31 | Ryan Theriot | 14 | 12 |
3B | 28 | David Freese# | 4 | 5 |
RF | 35 | Lance Berkman | 20 | 15 |
CF | 24 | Colby Rasmus# | 13 | 20 |
LF | 31 | Matt Holliday | 24 | 21 |
C2 | 31 | Gerald Laird | 9 | 8 |
INF | 33 | Nick Punto | 8 | 7 |
OF | 26 | John Jay* | 4 | 9 |
12 | 26 | Allen Craig* | 1 | 2 |
13 | 27 | Tyler Greene# | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 36 | Chris Carpenter | 14 | 12 |
SP2 | 24 | Jaime Garcia* | 6 | 14 |
SP3 | 33 | Jake Westbrook | 5 | 4 |
SP4 | 32 | Kyle Lohse | 3 | 2 |
SP5 | 27 | Kyle McClellan | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 27 | Mitchell Boggs | 3 | 2 |
RP2 | 29 | Jason Motte# | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 26 | Fernando Salas* | 1 | 1 |
RP4 | 40 | Miguel Batista | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 38 | Ryan Franklin | 11 | 9 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Daniel Descalso, Mark Hamilton.
Pitchers – Adam Wainwright (out for the season), Eduardo Sanchez, Brian Tallet, Bryan Augenstein.
Analysis: The current division leaders, still hoping they can outrun the loss of Wainwright. Pujols’ slow start this season is yet another reminder of the pitiless march of age, but Tony LaRussa still always manages to find some veterans – so far, Lance Berkman – who buck that trend long enough to contribute. Meanwhile, Matt Holliday has been worth every penny of his enormous salary. I was high on David Freese before the season, but he’s yet to prove he can make it through a full season.
The weak point, by EWSL, is the bullpen, so if LaRussa and Duncan can work some magic in getting more out of an unimpressive assortment, the Cards could continue overachieve.
Chicago Cubs
Raw EWSL: 204.50 (81 W)
Adjusted: 229.37 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.68 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.91
2011 W-L: 84-78
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Geovany Soto | 14 | 14 |
1B | 33 | Carlos Pena | 17 | 15 |
2B | 25 | Darwin Barney+ | 1 | 11 |
SS | 21 | Starlin Castro* | 6 | 15 |
3B | 33 | Aramis Ramirez | 16 | 14 |
RF | 34 | Kosuke Fukudome | 15 | 13 |
CF | 33 | Marlon Byrd | 18 | 16 |
LF | 35 | Alfonso Soriano | 14 | 10 |
C2 | 30 | Jeff Baker | 6 | 5 |
INF | 25 | Blake DeWitt | 10 | 12 |
OF | 34 | Reed Johnson | 5 | 4 |
12 | 25 | Tyler Colvin* | 5 | 11 |
13 | 32 | Koyie Hill | 4 | 3 |
SP1 | 34 | Ryan Dempster | 13 | 11 |
SP2 | 27 | Matt Garza | 11 | 10 |
SP3 | 30 | Carlos Zambrano | 12 | 10 |
SP4 | 28 | Randy Wells# | 9 | 10 |
SP5 | 24 | Andrew Cashner* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 28 | Carlos Marmol | 13 | 13 |
RP2 | 28 | Sean Marshall | 7 | 7 |
RP3 | 34 | Kerry Wood | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 32 | John Grabow | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 23 | Casey Coleman* | 2 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, although obviously the injuries to Wells and Cashner have been costly.
Also on Hand: Pitchers – Marcos Mateo, Jeff Samardzjia, James Russell, Justin Berg, Jeff Stevens.
Analysis: The Cubs are not a bad team, and they’re good enough to swipe a title in a weak division with a few breaks (a harder thing to swing when the division has six teams) but – not to harp on age again here – they’re a rebuilding team. Seriously: EWSL rates Marlon Byrd as their best player, once you apply the age adjustments. (Byrd may still be a solid glove but compared to the other center fielders in this division he’s in awfully fast company).
Thus far, they’ve been laboring without Wells and Cashner, both injured.
Houston Astros
Raw EWSL: 172.00 (71 W)
Adjusted: 191.31 (77 W)
Age-Adj.: 172.28 (71 W)
WS Age: 30.10
2011 W-L: 71-91
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | Humberto Quintero | 5 | 4 |
1B | 24 | Brett Wallace* | 1 | 1 |
2B | 31 | Bill Hall | 8 | 7 |
SS | 27 | Angel Sanchez* | 4 | 7 |
3B | 26 | Chris Johnson* | 8 | 16 |
RF | 28 | Hunter Pence | 19 | 20 |
CF | 28 | Michael Bourn | 18 | 18 |
LF | 35 | Carlos Lee | 17 | 13 |
C2 | 27 | JR Towles | 1 | 1 |
INF | 32 | Clint Barmes | 11 | 9 |
OF | 35 | Jason Michaels | 5 | 4 |
12 | 31 | Jeff Keppinger | 14 | 12 |
13 | 33 | Joe Inglett | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 30 | Brett Myers | 11 | 9 |
SP2 | 32 | Wandy Rodriguez | 12 | 10 |
SP3 | 28 | JA Happ# | 8 | 9 |
SP4 | 26 | Bud Norris# | 3 | 3 |
SP5 | 37 | Nelson Figueroa | 6 | 5 |
RP1 | 31 | Brandon Lyon | 12 | 9 |
RP2 | 26 | Mark Melancon* | 1 | 2 |
RP3 | 31 | Jeff Fluchino# | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 25 | Enerio Del Rosario+ | 1 | 4 |
RP5 | 25 | Fernando Abad* | 1 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jason Bourgeois, Matt Downs, Brian Bogusovic.
Pitchers – Aneury Rodriguez, Wilton Lopez, Jose Valdez.
Analysis: The Astros’ Defensive Efficiency Rating, at this writing, is .648. No team has finished a full season below .650 since the 1930 Phillies (the 2007 Rays were the closest in recent decades, at .652 – which they followed with a historic one-season improvement to the best in MLB in 2008 – although the Cubs also had some appalling defenses in the 70s). Unless they can fix the infield (Johnson and Sanchez have been horribly error-prone, contributing to the low DER), it’s gonna be a long season for the Houston pitching staff.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Raw EWSL: 136.83 (59 W)
Adjusted: 165.50 (68 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.48 (74 W)
Subj. Adj.: 176.48 (72 W)
WS Age: 27.75
2011 W-L: 72-90
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 30 | Chris Snyder | 8 | 7 |
1B | 34 | Lyle Overbay | 14 | 12 |
2B | 25 | Neil Walker* | 8 | 19 |
SS | 28 | Ronny Cedeno | 8 | 8 |
3B | 24 | Pedro Alvarez* | 7 | 18 |
RF | 30 | Garrett Jones# | 10 | 11 |
CF | 24 | Andrew McCutchen# | 17 | 26 |
LF | 22 | Jose Tabata* | 7 | 27 |
C2 | 30 | Ryan Doumit | 9 | 8 |
INF | 26 | Brandon Wood | 1 | 1 |
OF | 33 | Matt Diaz | 8 | 7 |
12 | 28 | Steven Pearce | 2 | 2 |
13 | 26 | Xavier Paul* | 0 | 0 |
SP1 | 30 | Kevin Corriea | 3 | 3 |
SP2 | 29 | Paul Maholm | 6 | 5 |
SP3 | 27 | Charlie Morton | 1 | 1 |
SP4 | 28 | Ross Ohlendorf | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 28 | Jeff Karstens | 2 | 2 |
RP1 | 29 | Joel Hanrahan | 6 | 5 |
RP2 | 28 | Evan Meek# | 6 | 7 |
RP3 | 30 | Jose Veras | 4 | 3 |
RP4 | 34 | Joe Beimel | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 28 | Daniel McCutchen# | 1 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: I cut Tabata from 27 to 22; the projected leap based solely on his age just looks too steep. Absent that, the Bucs would have ranked ahead of the Astros. No others, although Ohlendorf has been out of action for a while, with James McDonald filling his slot in the rotation.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jason Jaramillo, John Bowker, Josh Rodriguez.
Pitchers – James McDonald, Chris Resop, Michael Crotta, Garrett Olson, Danny Moskos.
Analysis: You know the perennial Pirates storylines; this year, it’s back to letting the kids play and build on their good starts. Optimism will only set in when we see proof the kids will not just develop but develop in Pittsburgh.
And the pitching still stinks, so even a surprise by the offense won’t deliver any glass slippers to PNC Park.
The Leg Man
Jose Reyes has 11 doubles and 6 triples through 34 games this season – totals that, if he kept this pace all season, would leave him with 52 doubles and 29 triples. How unprecedented is that? One way to look at it is that nobody’s ever hit 50 doubles and 25 triples in the same season. Another is that Reyes projects to get – even before you factor in steals (he’s also on pace for 57 of those) – 110 extra bases just from doubles and triples. That would break the (admittedly obscure) record of 96 by Shoeless Joe Jackson going away; only 9 players have notched as many as 90 in a season, and only one of them (Stan Musial in 1946) in post-World War II era baseball. I included Curtis Granderson’s 2007, the closest modern season, for comparison. Note that one of the guys on this list, Tip O’Neill of the old St. Louis Browns of the American Association, managed this in a 138-game schedule; he also batted .435. Relatedly, 1887 was the only year in the history of the majors when it took four strikes to notch a strikeout.
Player | Year | 2B | 3B | PA | ExB |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jose Reyes (proj.) | 2011 | 52 | 29 | 772 | 110 |
Shoeless Joe Jackson | 1912 | 44 | 26 | 653 | 96 |
Kiki Cuyler | 1925 | 43 | 26 | 700 | 95 |
Ty Cobb | 1911 | 47 | 24 | 654 | 95 |
Adam Comorosky | 1930 | 47 | 23 | 685 | 93 |
Ty Cobb | 1917 | 44 | 24 | 669 | 92 |
Chief Wilson | 1912 | 19 | 36 | 643 | 91 |
Stan Musial | 1946 | 50 | 20 | 702 | 90 |
Joe Medwick | 1936 | 64 | 13 | 677 | 90 |
Tip O’Neill | 1887 | 52 | 19 | 572 | 90 |
Curtis Granderson | 2007 | 38 | 23 | 676 | 84 |
Talk about your salary drives. Whatever other complaints Mets fans have this year, lack of a Grade A performance by Reyes hasn’t been one of them.
2011 NL East EWSL Report
Part 5 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL East; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Atlanta Braves
Raw EWSL: 190.33 (77 W)
Adjusted: 232.78 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.45 (88 W)
Subj. Adj.: 221.45 (87 W)
WS Age: 29.18
2011 W-L: 87-75
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Brian McCann | 19 | 20 |
1B | 21 | Freddie Freeman+ | 0 | 11 |
2B | 31 | Dan Uggla | 22 | 19 |
SS | 34 | Alex Gonzalez | 12 | 10 |
3B | 39 | Chipper Jones | 17 | 13 |
RF | 21 | Jason Heyward* | 12 | 28 |
CF | 29 | Nate McLouth | 12 | 12 |
LF | 27 | Martin Prado | 17 | 17 |
C2 | 34 | David Ross | 6 | 5 |
INF | 33 | Eric Hinske | 7 | 6 |
OF | 28 | Matt Young+ | 0 | 4 |
12 | 31 | Brooks Conrad* | 4 | 7 |
13 | 28 | Joe Mather | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 35 | Tim Hudson | 13 | 10 |
SP2 | 24 | Tommy Hanson# | 9 | 13 |
SP3 | 25 | Jair Jurrjens | 10 | 11 |
SP4 | 38 | Derek Lowe | 11 | 9 |
SP5 | 24 | Brandon Beachy | 0 | 4 |
RP1 | 23 | Craig Kimbrel* | 2 | 5 |
RP2 | 26 | Johnny Venters* | 5 | 10 |
RP3 | 26 | Eric O’Flaherty | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 34 | Scott Linebrink | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 34 | George Sherrill | 6 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: I docked Martin Prado 2 Win Shares (dropping him from 17 to 15), which is a very conservative estimate of his reduced defensive value on moving to left field – I’d have docked him further but his ability to slide back into the middle infield remains valuable and could yet be called upon by the Braves. Also docked Freddie Freeman 1 Win Share, as his youth, limited minor league track record and slow start raise at least some questions about his value. But I didn’t want to tinker too much here.
Although Beachy looks for now like he should comfortably exceed 4 WS, you can never count your chickens with rookie starting pitchers.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brandon Hicks, JC Bosan, Jordan Schafer.
Pitchers – Peter Moylan, Kris Medlen, Rodrigo Lopez, Cristhian Martinez (I swear some of these guys’ names are misspelled with malice aforethought), Cory Gearin, Jairo Asencio, Mike Minor.
Analysis: Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are that the Braves rate ahead of the Phillies, especially when you consider that EWSL has the Phillies as a 101-win team before applying the age adjustments. I take it with a grain of salt, though; the margin isn’t large, and it’s not hard to see how, say, Brooks Conrad could contribute less this year or Jason Heyward could fail to take The Leap (even the great ones don’t always move in straight lines), in addition to the issues noted with Prado and Freeman. But as discussed below, the ranking says more about the Phillies than it does about the Braves.
Philadelphia Phillies
Raw EWSL: 264.17 (101 W)
Adjusted: 264.43 (101 W)
Age-Adj.: 215.86 (85 W)
WS Age: 32.48
2011 W-L: 85-77
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 32 | Carlos Ruiz | 15 | 12 |
1B | 31 | Ryan Howard | 23 | 19 |
2B | 32 | Chase Utley | 28 | 22 |
SS | 32 | Jimmy Rollins | 17 | 14 |
3B | 35 | Placido Polanco | 18 | 13 |
RF | 29 | Ben Francisco | 7 | 7 |
CF | 30 | Shane Victorino | 22 | 20 |
LF | 39 | Raul Ibanez | 19 | 14 |
C2 | 34 | Brian Schneider | 5 | 4 |
INF | 33 | Wilson Valdez | 5 | 4 |
OF | 35 | Ross Gload | 5 | 3 |
12 | 32 | Pete Orr | 1 | 1 |
13 | 27 | John Mayberry# | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 34 | Roy Halladay | 23 | 19 |
SP2 | 32 | Cliff Lee | 18 | 14 |
SP3 | 33 | Roy Oswalt | 15 | 10 |
SP4 | 27 | Cole Hamels | 14 | 13 |
SP5 | 30 | Joe Blanton | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 34 | Brad Lidge | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 39 | Jose Contreras | 6 | 5 |
RP3 | 30 | Ryan Madson | 9 | 7 |
RP4 | 33 | Danys Baez | 2 | 1 |
RP5 | 27 | Antonio Bastardo# | 1 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. I might have had some issues regarding how to value Domonic Brown, but for now, since Brown has zero value based on his prior major league experience and isn’t available to play right now, I’m just treating him like any other prospect not yet on the roster.
Also on Hand: Position players – Domonic Brown, Dane Sardinha, Josh Barfield, Brian Bocock.
Pitchers – JC Romero, Kyle Kendrick, David Herndon, Scott Mathieson, Michael Stutts, Mike Zajuski, Vance Worley. Note that the gap with the Braves disappears if you replace Bastardo on the 23-man roster with Romero.
Analysis: It’s not quite “The Devil and Joe Morgan” – Bill James’ memorable essay on how the 1983 “Wheeze Kids” Phillies confronted an aging roster not by rebuilding but by bringing in even more, even older players to squeeze out one last championship – as this Phillies team’s key players aren’t as old as, say, the Hated Yankees’ and the main import, Cliff Lee, is hardly decrepit at 32. But age is everywhere up and down this roster, and its grim companion – injuries – has already taken a toll on Chase Utley and Brad Lidge. Meanwhile, ill fortune has struck in other ways – besides the injury to young Brown, Roy Oswalt has left the team for an indeterminate amount of time to deal with an undisclosed personal issue (which could be anything, whether it’s an issue with Oswalt or his family – we just can’t know how serious it is or how long he’ll be away).
I still see the Phillies as the team to beat in this division, assuming Oswalt’s not out for long; their starting pitching is fearsome, and the offense, if no longer terrifying, remains deep. But aging teams have a way sometimes of falling short of their name-brand value.
Florida Marlins
Raw EWSL: 170.67 (70 W)
Adjusted: 198.16 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 195.68 (78 W)
WS Age: 27.47
2011 W-L: 78-84
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 30 | John Buck | 12 | 11 |
1B | 27 | Gaby Sanchez* | 9 | 18 |
2B | 29 | Omar Infante | 13 | 13 |
SS | 27 | Hanley Ramirez | 28 | 29 |
3B | 26 | Emilio Bonifacio | 5 | 6 |
RF | 21 | Mike Stanton* | 7 | 16 |
CF | 26 | Chris Coghlan | 11 | 14 |
LF | 23 | Logan Morrison* | 5 | 11 |
C2 | 27 | Brett Hayes* | 1 | 2 |
INF | 32 | Greg Dobbs | 3 | 2 |
OF | 26 | Scott Cousins+ | 1 | 4 |
12 | 35 | Wes Helms | 6 | 4 |
13 | 28 | Donnie Murphy | 2 | 2 |
SP1 | 27 | Josh Johnson | 15 | 14 |
SP2 | 27 | Anibal Sanchez | 7 | 7 |
SP3 | 28 | Ricky Nolasco | 8 | 7 |
SP4 | 34 | Javier Vazquez | 10 | 8 |
SP5 | 24 | Chris Volstad | 6 | 6 |
RP1 | 27 | Leo Nunez | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 31 | Clay Hensley | 6 | 4 |
RP3 | 27 | Edward Mujica | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 25 | Ryan Webb# | 2 | 3 |
RP5 | 32 | Brian Sanches# | 5 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Osvaldo Martinez, Bryan Petersen, John Baker (injured).
Pitchers – Randy Choate, Michael Dunn, Burke Badenhop.
Analysis: The Marlins are off to an odd start, 19-10 entering today’s action even with their star, Hanley Ramirez, off to his second straight terrible start, .198/.308/.277, and a few other early problems – Infante’s not hitting, Morrison’s on the DL, and perhaps more predictably, Vazquez and Volstad have been horrible. Does this bode well for them? Maybe. Certainly Josh Johnson just keeps getting better – he’s now 36-12 with a 2.78 ERA since his return in 2008, and in his last 224.2 IP his line is awe-inspiring: 2.04 ERA, 6.9 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 2.4 BB/9, 9.0 K/9. And the development of Sanchez and the young outfield is encouraging – Stanton now has 27 HR and a .511 career slugging average in 126 career games, Sanchez has a career line of .281/.350/.458, Morrison .291/.397/.482 as a doubles-and-walks machine after posting OBPs of .402, .408 and .424 from age 20-22 in the minors. But recent history suggests that this team may have trouble keeping the rotation healthy (and perhaps the outfield as well). That and their perennially questionable defense will be the main question marks.
New York Mets
Raw EWSL: 176.83 (72 W)
Adjusted: 198.93 (80 W)
Age-Adj.: 192.38 (77 W)
WS Age: 29.32
2011 W-L: 77-85
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Josh Thole* | 5 | 10 |
1B | 24 | Ike Davis* | 8 | 21 |
2B | 26 | Daniel Murphy | 4 | 5 |
SS | 28 | Jose Reyes | 15 | 16 |
3B | 28 | David Wright | 23 | 24 |
RF | 34 | Carlos Beltran | 14 | 12 |
CF | 29 | Angel Pagan | 16 | 15 |
LF | 32 | Jason Bay | 19 | 15 |
C2 | 28 | Mike Nickeas+ | 0 | 4 |
INF | 26 | Justin Turner+ | 0 | 4 |
OF | 31 | Scott Hairston | 9 | 7 |
12 | 33 | Willie Harris | 7 | 6 |
13 | 30 | Ronnie Paulino | 7 | 6 |
SP1 | 27 | Mike Pelfrey | 9 | 8 |
SP2 | 36 | RA Dickey | 9 | 8 |
SP3 | 24 | Jonathan Niese* | 3 | 7 |
SP4 | 32 | Chris Young | 3 | 2 |
SP5 | 32 | Chris Capuano | 2 | 1 |
RP1 | 29 | Francisco Rodriguez | 12 | 10 |
RP2 | 26 | Bobby Parnell# | 2 | 3 |
RP3 | 29 | Taylor Buchholz | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 34 | DJ Carrasco | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 37 | Tim Byrdak | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jason Pridie, Lucas Duda, Chin-Lung Hu. Brad Emaus opened the season as the everyday 2B but, being a Rule V pick, left the organization when he was sent down.
Pitchers – Johan Santana, who is unlikely enough to return this season as to not be worth inclusion. Jason Isringhausen, Dillon Gee, Pedro Beato (one of the team’s few effective relievers so far but currently disabled), Pat Misch, Ryota Igarashi.
I’ve rated Parnell with the big club, although after early struggles he got shipped back to AAA. I’ll be surprised if he’s not back soon.
Analysis: I could, and probably should soon separately, write a lot more about these Mets, but I’ll try to be brief here in the interests of getting this post done. In addition to time constraints, one of the sad realities of my blogging life is the number of subjects I can’t really write about due to possible overlaps with my job, and now that has even invaded the core of my baseball blogging, as the Mets’ financial mess is too tied up with the world of Madoff and my practice specialty – securities litigation – for me to address freely except in the most general terms.
I’ve been saying all year that I think this is a .500 team, which in the context of the prevailing mood among Mets fans makes me decidedly bullish. The starting rotation has been the biggest threat to that so far (we already knew the bullpen would be a mess).
The biggest variable, in terms of both upside and downside, is the outfield, which now includes as well Angel Pagan, who got off to a terrible start before getting hurt. Here’s Carlos Beltran, 2001-2010: .283/.366/.509 2011, entering today’s action: .294/.379/.520 – he’s the same hitter (his 148 OPS+ would be the second-best of his career after his 2006 season), just not the same fielder and baserunner he was before the knee injury. With his contract up at season’s end, Beltran could be traded to a contender later in the season if he is willing to go. (Jose Reyes might too, but I can’t really analyze the wisdom of that without getting into the team’s finances).
As for Bay, the Mets spent half as much on him as the Cardinals spent on Matt Holliday, and right now would kill for half of Holliday’s production; his .258/.344/.399 line with 7 homers in 445 plate appearances suggests more than just an adjustment period, after leaving Boston after his age 30 season. The most encouraging sign has been the development of Ike Davis into something like the kind of slugger you need at first base. Unless you count Rico Brogna, the only home-grown power-hitting first baseman in club history is John Milner.
Washington Nationals
Raw EWSL: 154.17 (65 W)
Adjusted: 166.37 (69 W)
Age-Adj.: 154.41 (65 W)
WS Age: 30.05
2011 W-L: 65-97
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 23 | Wilson Ramos* | 2 | 4 |
1B | 31 | Adam LaRoche | 16 | 14 |
2B | 24 | Danny Espinosa* | 2 | 5 |
SS | 25 | Ian Desmond* | 6 | 13 |
3B | 26 | Ryan Zimmerman | 20 | 22 |
RF | 32 | Jayson Werth | 23 | 18 |
CF | 31 | Rick Ankiel | 6 | 5 |
LF | 29 | Mike Morse | 5 | 5 |
C2 | 39 | Ivan Rodriguez | 8 | 6 |
INF | 35 | Jerry Hairston | 11 | 8 |
OF | 30 | Laynce Nix | 4 | 4 |
12 | 43 | Matt Stairs | 4 | 2 |
13 | 35 | Alex Cora | 4 | 3 |
SP1 | 36 | Livan Hernandez | 7 | 6 |
SP2 | 25 | Jordan Zimmerman# | 2 | 2 |
SP3 | 26 | John Lannan | 7 | 7 |
SP4 | 32 | Jason Marquis | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 28 | Tom Gorzelanny | 4 | 4 |
RP1 | 23 | Drew Storen* | 3 | 6 |
RP2 | 26 | Tyler Clippard# | 6 | 8 |
RP3 | 28 | Sean Burnett | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 31 | Doug Slaten | 2 | 1 |
RP5 | 30 | Todd Coffey | 3 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jesus Flores (injured), Roger Bernadina, Brian Bixler.
Pitchers – Steven Strasburg (injured, as you know), Chien-Ming Wang, Chad Gaudin, Brian Broderick, Collin Balester, Henry Rodriguez, Yunieski Maya.
Analysis: If you can explain the Phillies’ decisions as a desperate rage against the dying of the light and the Mets’ as the external symptoms of the team’s financial situation, the Nationals’ behavior seems to manifest a sort of organization-wide post-traumatic stress disorder following Steven Strasburg’s injury, as if the team just said “to hell with having a plan,” let Adam Dunn walk, blew through some money on mid-career mid-market free agents (Adam LaRoche, Jayson Werth), patched holes with slapdash additions like Rick Ankiel and Tom Gorzelanny, and then sat back and declared, “ah, that’ll do” and went out to go on a bender. Another way of putting it is that the Nationals figured there was really no plan that could get them to a successful 2011, and decided to just throw a coat of paint over the team to avoid looking like they were giving up completely. But the real rebuilding will be on hold until 2012.
2011 NL West EWSL Report
Part 4 of my very-belated preseason previews is the NL West; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. Team ages are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East & AL Central.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
World Champion San Francisco Giants
Raw EWSL: 239.17 (96 W)
Adjusted: 264.00 (101 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.71 (96 W)
WS Age: 29.59
2011 W-L: 96-66
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Buster Posey* | 10 | 26 |
1B | 23 | Brandon Belt+ | 0 | 11 |
2B | 33 | Freddy Sanchez | 13 | 11 |
SS | 37 | Miguel Tejada | 19 | 12 |
3B | 24 | Pablo Sandoval | 15 | 19 |
RF | 34 | Aubrey Huff | 20 | 17 |
CF | 33 | Aaron Rowand | 11 | 9 |
LF | 34 | Pat Burrell | 12 | 11 |
C2 | 31 | Eli Whiteside# | 2 | 2 |
INF | 31 | Mike Fontenot | 8 | 7 |
OF | 33 | Andres Torres# | 14 | 12 |
12 | 27 | Nate Schierholtz | 6 | 6 |
13 | 30 | Cody Ross | 15 | 13 |
SP1 | 27 | Tim Lincecum | 19 | 17 |
SP2 | 26 | Matt Cain | 17 | 18 |
SP3 | 28 | Jonathan Sanchez | 10 | 10 |
SP4 | 21 | Madison Bumgarner* | 4 | 10 |
SP5 | 33 | Barry Zito | 8 | 5 |
RP1 | 29 | Brian Wilson | 15 | 13 |
RP2 | 28 | Sergio Romo | 6 | 6 |
RP3 | 37 | Guillermo Mota | 3 | 2 |
RP4 | 32 | Jeremy Affeldt | 6 | 5 |
RP5 | 29 | Ramon Ramirez | 8 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. I could downgrade Brandon Belt, who’s already lost his job and been demoted, and/or cut the points the Giants get for having all those outfielder on the bench, but (1) I still expect Belt to return and contribute a good deal (he’s a tremendous across-the-board talent) and (2) the early stumble of a highly talented rookie is why it comes in handy to have the depth to just slide Huff to first base and give more playing time to the outfielders.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mark DeRosa, Darren Ford.
Pitchers – Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez, Dan Runzler.
Analysis: The Giants as always have an aging lineup, although if Belt returns and Sandoval continues his return to form, they actually for once could have a core of guys under 30 who can hit – and that, plus the sheer number of veterans with some gas left in the tank, makes them formidable. The pitching staff remains their strength.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Raw EWSL: 242.67 (94 W)
Adjusted: 246.93 (96 W)
Age-Adj.: 221.49 (87 W)
WS Age: 30.47
2011 W-L: 87-75
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 35 | Rod Barajas | 12 | 9 |
1B | 27 | James Loney | 17 | 18 |
2B | 31 | Juan Uribe | 14 | 12 |
SS | 36 | Jamey Carroll | 11 | 8 |
3B | 37 | Casey Blake | 16 | 10 |
RF | 29 | Andre Ethier | 22 | 21 |
CF | 26 | Matt Kemp | 19 | 21 |
LF | 28 | Tony Gwynn jr. | 7 | 7 |
C2 | 27 | Dioner Navarro | 6 | 6 |
INF | 34 | Aaron Miles | 4 | 3 |
OF | 34 | Marcus Thames | 6 | 5 |
12 | 33 | Rafael Furcal | 17 | 14 |
13 | 23 | Jerry Sands+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 23 | Clayton Kershaw | 12 | 14 |
SP2 | 26 | Chad Billingsley | 11 | 12 |
SP3 | 36 | Hiroki Kuroda | 9 | 8 |
SP4 | 35 | Ted Lilly | 12 | 9 |
SP5 | 31 | Jon Garland | 11 | 9 |
RP1 | 27 | Jonathan Broxton | 10 | 9 |
RP2 | 32 | Matt Guerrier | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 29 | Hong-Chih Kuo | 10 | 9 |
RP4 | 33 | Vicente Padilla | 7 | 5 |
RP5 | 28 | Blake Hawksworth# | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. I don’t really need a subjective adjustment to reflect the annual recurrence of Rafael Furcal getting hurt.
Also on Hand: Position players – Xavier Paul, AJ Ellis.
Pitchers – Mike MacDougal, who like Jeff Francouer has compiled quite a track record of using good first impressions to sucker a new employer; Kenley Jansen, Ramon Troncoso, Lance Cormier.
Analysis: Kemp (.378/.460/.612), Ethier (.380/.451/.560) and Blake (.321/.446/.509) have been off to a strong start – indeed, two days ago, Kemp & Ethier had identical batting and OBP lines – 108 PA, 95 AB, 36 H, 13 BB, .379/.454. Kemp has slowed a bit on the bases after stealing 8 bases in the season’s first 13 games. And Kershaw has shown flashes of intense brilliance, albeit amidst some of his usual inconsistency, while the defense has been the majors’ best (a .739 DER against balls in play, which is higher than sustainable for a full season). But the Dodgers have yet to pull much together around the front-line talent. Really, this team needs a bust-out year from Kershaw and Kemp supported by big years from Ethier and Billingsley to contend.
Colorado Rockies
Raw EWSL: 204.83 (82 W)
Adjusted: 215.33 (85 W)
Age-Adj.: 207.14 (82 W)
WS Age: 28.68
2011 W-L: 82-80
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Chris Iannetta | 8 | 8 |
1B | 37 | Todd Helton | 13 | 8 |
2B | 26 | Jonathan Herrera* | 3 | 6 |
SS | 26 | Troy Tulowitzki | 22 | 24 |
3B | 27 | Jose Lopez | 11 | 11 |
RF | 28 | Seth Smith | 10 | 10 |
CF | 25 | Dexter Fowler# | 12 | 17 |
LF | 25 | Carlos Gonzalez | 17 | 20 |
C2 | 28 | Jose Morales# | 2 | 2 |
INF | 33 | Ty Wigginton | 8 | 7 |
OF | 31 | Ryan Spilborghs | 8 | 7 |
12 | 26 | Ian Stewart | 9 | 10 |
13 | 40 | Jason Giambi | 8 | 4 |
SP1 | 27 | Ubaldo Jimenez | 19 | 17 |
SP2 | 30 | Jorge De La Rosa | 9 | 7 |
SP3 | 28 | Jason Hammel | 8 | 7 |
SP4 | 23 | Jhoulys Chacin* | 5 | 11 |
SP5 | 32 | Aaron Cook | 8 | 6 |
RP1 | 27 | Huston Street | 11 | 10 |
RP2 | 36 | Rafael Betancourt | 7 | 6 |
RP3 | 31 | Matt Belisle | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 31 | Matt Lindstrom | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 25 | Esmil Rogers* | 0 | 0 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Quite a lot of familiar faces hanging around for what could be a last chance – Alfredo Amezaga, Mike Jacobs, Willy Taveras, Josh Fields.
Pitchers – Franklin Morales, Matt Reynolds, Felipe Paulino, Matt Daley.
Analysis: Historically, as Troy Tulowitzki goes, so go the Rockies, and this season’s been no exception – Carlos Gonzalez is hitting an anemic .214/.269/.286, Ubaldo Jimenez is winless and disabled with a 6.75 ERA, Cook hasn’t pitched yet, and Jose Lopez has been the anti-Babe Ruth, batting .143/.169/.254 (OPS+ of 7, yet his OPS is double Ian Stewart’s), the team batting average is .239, but backed by Tulo’s blistering .326/.416/.674 start, the Rox are an MLB-leading 16-7. Obviously some good hitting from others in the lineup and some great bullpen help has helped. I’d bet on Colorado to exceed EWSL’s 82-win estimate, but there are some real holes to be patched (especially third base and in the starting rotation) if this team is going to make a serious run at the Giants.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Raw EWSL: 164.33 (68 W)
Adjusted: 185.30 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.35 (74 W)
WS Age: 28.82
2011 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Miguel Montero | 10 | 10 |
1B | 28 | Juan Miranda+ | 1 | 11 |
2B | 29 | Kelly Johnson | 16 | 15 |
SS | 28 | Stephen Drew | 19 | 19 |
3B | 30 | Ryan Roberts# | 3 | 3 |
RF | 23 | Justin Upton | 15 | 18 |
CF | 27 | Chris Young | 15 | 16 |
LF | 24 | Gerardo Parra# | 6 | 9 |
C2 | 39 | Henry Blanco | 4 | 3 |
INF | 39 | Melvin Mora | 10 | 7 |
OF | 35 | Russell Branyan | 10 | 7 |
12 | 32 | Xavier Nady | 6 | 5 |
13 | 33 | Willie Bloomquist | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 30 | Joe Saunders | 10 | 8 |
SP2 | 24 | Daniel Hudson* | 5 | 10 |
SP3 | 26 | Ian Kennedy | 6 | 6 |
SP4 | 29 | Armando Galarraga | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 25 | Barry Enright* | 3 | 7 |
RP1 | 34 | JJ Putz | 5 | 4 |
RP2 | 27 | Juan Gutierrez# | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 32 | Aaron Heilman | 4 | 3 |
RP4 | 26 | David Hernandez# | 4 | 5 |
RP5 | 27 | Esmerling Vazquez# | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Josh Wilson, Geoff Blum.
Pitchers – Zach Duke and the “no-names” bullpen – Joe Paterson, Sam Demel, Joshua Collmenter, Kameron Mickolio.
Analysis: I think I’ve internalized for too long the parity of the NL West, so it’s hard to look at the poor condition of Arizona and San Diego without mentally downgrading the whole division. But it’s normal for good divisions to have good teams and bad teams.
Arizona’s hitters have been overrated for a while due to the ballpark, and its pitching has never really recovered from the collapse of Brandon Webb. The team is starting to rebuild a little better, but it may take some time.
This bench has quite a collection of guys you didn’t think would still be playing at this age.
San Diego Padres
Raw EWSL: 189.83 (77 W)
Adjusted: 197.40 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.00 (74 W)
WS Age: 29.49
2011 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Nick Hundley | 9 | 9 |
1B | 32 | Brad Hawpe | 12 | 9 |
2B | 33 | Orlando Hudson | 17 | 14 |
SS | 31 | Jason Bartlett | 18 | 15 |
3B | 27 | Chase Headley | 14 | 14 |
RF | 28 | Will Venable | 11 | 11 |
CF | 24 | Cameron Maybin# | 5 | 7 |
LF | 32 | Ryan Ludwick | 19 | 15 |
C2 | 28 | Rob Johnson# | 5 | 6 |
INF | 29 | Jorge Cantu | 13 | 13 |
OF | 30 | Chris Denorfia | 5 | 5 |
12 | 24 | Kyle Blanks# | 3 | 4 |
13 | 28 | Alberto Gonzalez | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 27 | Clayton Richard | 8 | 7 |
SP2 | 23 | Matt Latos# | 7 | 9 |
SP3 | 33 | Aaron Harang | 4 | 3 |
SP4 | 29 | Tim Stauffer# | 6 | 6 |
SP5 | 29 | Dustin Moseley | 1 | 1 |
RP1 | 33 | Heath Bell | 13 | 9 |
RP2 | 27 | Luke Gregerson# | 6 | 7 |
RP3 | 32 | Mike Adams | 8 | 6 |
RP4 | 25 | Ernesto Frieri* | 2 | 4 |
RP5 | 32 | Chad Qualls | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Eric Patterson, Cedric Hunter. I think it’s safe by now to conclude that Patterson’s .373 OBP in 2009 was a fluke.
Pitchers – Pat Neshek, Cory Luebke, Wade LeBlanc.
Analysis: Here we have a one-man team when the one man leaves. The Pads have stitched together some adequate veterans – the double-play combination should help the pitching staff. But there’s no core here you can build anything around in the foreseeable future.
There’s hardly a more under-heralded player in baseball right now than Ernesto Frieri, who has to make Heath Bell expendable, as good as Bell is. Between them, Bell, Frieri and Adams have a 1.78 ERA since 2009 – 2.24 if you include Gregerson, who has similar numbers except that he’s more homer-prone than the other three. The overall line for the four since 2009: 6.18 H/9, 0.41 HR/9, 3.04 BB/9, and 10.40 K/9. Even considering the pitcher-friendly expanses of Pecto, that’s something else. Frieri currently sports a ridiculous 1.50 career ERA and 11.4 career K/9, and in the early going thus far he’s cut his walks in half from 2010.
2011 AL Central EWSL Report
Part 3 of my preseason “previews” is the AL Central; this is the third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West & AL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Chicago White Sox
Raw EWSL: 238.17 (93 W)
Adjusted: 253.34 (98 W)
Age-Adj.: 230.98 (90 W)
WS Age: 30.05
2011 W-L: 90-72
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 34 | AJ Pierzynski | 11 | 9 |
1B | 35 | Paul Konerko | 22 | 16 |
2B | 24 | Gordon Beckham# | 10 | 15 |
SS | 29 | Alexei Ramirez | 18 | 17 |
3B | 24 | Brent Morel+ | 0 | 11 |
RF | 28 | Carlos Quentin | 14 | 14 |
CF | 30 | Alex Rios | 16 | 14 |
LF | 33 | Juan Pierre | 13 | 11 |
DH | 31 | Adam Dunn | 21 | 17 |
C2 | 35 | Ramon Castro | 5 | 4 |
INF | 29 | Mark Teahen | 6 | 6 |
OF | 26 | Lastings Milledge | 8 | 9 |
13 | 44 | Omar Vizquel | 6 | 3 |
SP1 | 26 | John Danks | 16 | 17 |
SP2 | 32 | Mark Buehrle | 14 | 11 |
SP3 | 28 | Gavin Floyd | 13 | 12 |
SP4 | 27 | Edwin Jackson | 12 | 11 |
SP5 | 30 | Jake Peavy | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 34 | Matt Thornton | 12 | 9 |
RP2 | 22 | Chris Sale* | 3 | 6 |
RP3 | 29 | Jesse Crain | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 29 | Tony Pena | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 33 | Will Ohman | 3 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. As the minimal age adjustments indicate, this is the most established-talent, set-lineup team in the division. Milledge, however, is presently in AAA.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brent Lillibridge, Dayan Vicideo, Tyler Flowers.
Pitchers – Sergio Santos, Jeff Gray, Phil Humber, Gregory Infante.
Analysis: The White Sox are back again with a power-backed lineup and their characteristically stolid starting rotation. If the older guys in the lineup (Konerko, Pierzynski) don’t break down, they should be in the hunt all year, but they’re unlikely to blow the doors off the division.
Minnesota Twins
Raw EWSL: 216.17 (85 W)
Adjusted: 236.87 (92 W)
Age-Adj.: 222.85 (88 W)
Subj. Adj.: 219.85 (87 W)
WS Age: 29.13
2011 W-L: 87-75
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Joe Mauer | 29 | 30 |
1B | 30 | Justin Morneau | 19 | 17 |
2B | 26 | Tsuyoshi Niskioka+ | 0 | 11 |
SS | 26 | Alexi Casilla | 6 | 6 |
3B | 26 | Danny Valencia* | 6 | 13 |
RF | 29 | Jason Kubel | 14 | 14 |
CF | 27 | Denard Span | 20 | 20 |
LF | 25 | Delmon Young | 16 | 19 |
DH | 40 | Jim Thome | 14 | 7 |
C2 | 27 | Drew Butera* | 2 | 3 |
INF | 29 | Matt Tolbert | 4 | 4 |
OF | 32 | Michael Cuddyer | 14 | 11 |
13 | 30 | Jason Repko | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 27 | Francisco Liriano | 8 | 8 |
SP2 | 35 | Carl Pavano | 10 | 8 |
SP3 | 28 | Brian Duensing# | 9 | 10 |
SP4 | 29 | Scott Baker | 10 | 9 |
SP5 | 29 | Nick Blackburn | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 36 | Joe Nathan | 8 | 7 |
RP2 | 27 | Matt Capps | 8 | 8 |
RP3 | 26 | Jose Mijares# | 4 | 5 |
RP4 | 27 | Kevin Slowey | 7 | 7 |
RP5 | 26 | Jeff Manship# | 1 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: I docked Nishioka 3 Win Shares for his early season leg fracture, cutting him down to 8.
Also on Hand: Position players – Ben Revere, Luke Hughes.
Pitchers – Glen Perkins, Anthony Slama, Dusty Hughes.
Analysis: Slowey, Baker and Blackurn have all seen their stock fall, and Liriano’s off to a bad start. Morneau’s healthy but not hitting yet, and Mauer’s not healthy. And I didn’t realize how old Nathan is. And can Thome repeat last year’s rejuvenation? A lot of question marks here.
Detroit Tigers
Raw EWSL: 190.33 (77 W)
Adjusted: 222.86 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.96 (85 W)
WS Age: 28.97
2011 W-L: 85-77
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Alex Avila# | 5 | 7 |
1B | 28 | Miguel Cabrera | 27 | 27 |
2B | 28 | Will Rhymes* | 3 | 6 |
SS | 29 | Jhonny Peralta | 15 | 14 |
3B | 34 | Brandon Inge | 13 | 11 |
RF | 37 | Magglio Ordonez | 13 | 8 |
CF | 24 | Austin Jackson* | 9 | 23 |
LF | 30 | Ryan Raburn | 9 | 8 |
DH | 32 | Victor Martinez | 17 | 13 |
C2 | 26 | Casper Wells* | 2 | 4 |
INF | 31 | Don Kelly* | 3 | 4 |
OF | 26 | Brennan Boesch* | 6 | 12 |
13 | 35 | Carlos Guillen | 7 | 5 |
SP1 | 28 | Justin Verlander | 17 | 16 |
SP2 | 26 | Max Scherzer | 10 | 11 |
SP3 | 22 | Rick Porcello# | 7 | 11 |
SP4 | 33 | Brad Penny | 4 | 3 |
SP5 | 28 | Phil Coke | 5 | 5 |
RP1 | 31 | Jose Valverde | 11 | 9 |
RP2 | 33 | Joaquin Benoit | 5 | 3 |
RP3 | 24 | Brayan Villereal+ | 0 | 5 |
RP4 | 24 | Ryan Perry# | 4 | 5 |
RP5 | 33 | Brad Thomas* | 3 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, although Guillen seems unlikely to contribute much. Casper Wells is obviously not a backup catcher; that’s Victor Martinez, so I just threw Wells into that roster slot. As did the Tigers.
Also on Hand: Position players – Scott Sizemore.
Pitchers – Joel Zumaya, who is facing the dreaded Dr. Andrews. Daniel Schlereth, Enrique Gonzalez.
Analysis: I’m not that high on the Tigers this season. Cabrera seems unlikely to repeat last year’s trouble-free season, Peralta is a serious defensive question mark, and Porcello, the back of the rotation and the bullpen are wobbly. On the upside, maybe this will be the year Scherzer puts it all together.
Cleveland Indians
Raw EWSL: 136.50 (59 W)
Adjusted: 152.40 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 152.39 (64 W)
WS Age: 28.20
2011 W-L: 64-98
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Carlos Santana* | 4 | 8 |
1B | 26 | Matt LaPorta# | 4 | 5 |
2B | 36 | Orlando Cabrera | 12 | 9 |
SS | 25 | Asdrubal Cabrera | 13 | 15 |
3B | 31 | Jack Hannahan | 2 | 2 |
RF | 28 | Shin-Soo Choo | 24 | 24 |
CF | 28 | Grady Sizemore | 9 | 9 |
LF | 24 | Michael Brantley# | 4 | 5 |
DH | 34 | Travis Hafner | 9 | 7 |
C2 | 25 | Lou Marson* | 3 | 6 |
INF | 26 | Jason Donald* | 3 | 6 |
OF | 31 | Austin Kearns | 6 | 5 |
13 | 31 | Shelley Duncan | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 27 | Fausto Carmona | 7 | 6 |
SP2 | 26 | Justin Masterson | 5 | 6 |
SP3 | 24 | Carlos Carrasco# | 2 | 2 |
SP4 | 27 | Mitch Talbot* | 3 | 5 |
SP5 | 26 | Josh Tomlin* | 2 | 4 |
RP1 | 25 | Chris Perez | 8 | 9 |
RP2 | 27 | Tony Sipp# | 3 | 3 |
RP3 | 29 | Rafael Perez | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 33 | Chad Durbin | 5 | 3 |
RP5 | 27 | Joe Smith | 3 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Travis Buck, Trevor Crowe (on the 60-day DL at present), Adam Everett, Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis. Donald is also on the DL.
Pitchers – Vinnie Pestano, Justin Germano, Frank Herrmann, Alex White, Jeanmar Gomez.
Analysis: It’s obviously easier to say this after their 11-4 start, but there are plenty of places for the Indians to improve on their EWSL, from a recovery by Sizemore (I’m skeptical, since he had the Carlos Beltran surgery, but he’s younger than Beltran) to guys like Santana and LaPorta providing a full season’s production to the young pitchers stepping up. But in the early season enthusiasm, don’t lose sight of how far this team has to come from its proven, established major league performance levels if it’s going to have a winning record.
Kansas City Royals
Raw EWSL: 129.83 (57 W)
Adjusted: 139.90 (60 W)
Age-Adj.: 139.02 (60 W)
Subj. Adj: 142.02 (61 W)
WS Age: 27.74
2011 W-L: 61-101
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 37 | Jason Kendall | 10 | 6 |
1B | 27 | Kila Ka’aihue* | 1 | 1 |
2B | 27 | Chris Getz# | 5 | 7 |
SS | 24 | Alcides Escobar# | 7 | 11 |
3B | 29 | Wilson Betemit | 6 | 6 |
RF | 27 | Jeff Francouer | 7 | 8 |
CF | 26 | Melky Cabrera | 10 | 10 |
LF | 27 | Alex Gordon | 5 | 5 |
DH | 25 | Billy Butler | 17 | 21 |
C2 | 35 | Matt Treanor | 2 | 2 |
INF | 30 | Mike Aviles | 9 | 8 |
OF | 29 | Mitch Maier | 9 | 8 |
13 | 29 | Brayan Pena | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 27 | Kyle Davies | 5 | 4 |
SP2 | 30 | Jeff Francis | 3 | 2 |
SP3 | 27 | Luke Hochevar | 3 | 3 |
SP4 | 34 | Bruce Chen | 5 | 4 |
SP5 | 24 | Vin Mazzaro# | 3 | 4 |
RP1 | 27 | Joakim Soria | 14 | 13 |
RP2 | 29 | Robinson Tejeda | 5 | 4 |
RP3 | 23 | Sean O’Sullivan# | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 21 | Tim Collins+ | 0 | 5 |
RP5 | 25 | Blake Wood* | 1 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: I marked up Kila Ka’aihue from 1 to 4 Win Shares, which is probably pretty conservative for a guy who failed miserably last year, but he should get a much longer audition this season.
Also on Hand: Position players – Lorenzo Cain, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas – basically, the next generation of prospects.
Pitchers – Kanekoa Texeira, Jeremy Jeffress, Nathan Adcock, Jesse Chavez, Gregory Holland, Aaron Crow, Mike Montgomery.
Analysis: Like the Indians and the AL East’s weak sisters, the Royals have started well, and combined with the good reputation of the prospects on the way, that suggests that this division may end up more compressed than the EWSL standings suggest. But there’s no better antidote to optimism about the Royals than looking at the people they’re actually counting on for at bats and innings. It’s still a long way out of that hole.
2011 AL East EWSL Report
Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the second of six division “previews,” using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior preview: AL West.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Boston Red Sox
Raw EWSL: 278.00 (106 W)
Adjusted: 280.43 (107 W)
Age-Adj.: 246.27 (95 W)
WS Age: 30.60
2011 W-L: 95-67
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | J.Saltalamacchia | 3 | 3 |
1B | 29 | Adrian Gonzalez | 33 | 32 |
2B | 27 | Dustin Pedroia | 18 | 19 |
SS | 35 | Marco Scutaro | 17 | 13 |
3B | 32 | Kevin Youkilis | 23 | 19 |
RF | 35 | JD Drew | 15 | 11 |
CF | 27 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 10 | 11 |
LF | 29 | Carl Crawford | 24 | 23 |
DH | 35 | David Ortiz | 15 | 11 |
C2 | 39 | Jason Varitek | 5 | 4 |
INF | 27 | Jed Lowrie | 6 | 6 |
OF | 38 | Mike Cameron | 11 | 7 |
13 | 32 | Darnell McDonald# | 5 | 5 |
SP1 | 27 | Jon Lester | 17 | 16 |
SP2 | 26 | Clay Buchholz | 11 | 12 |
SP3 | 31 | Josh Beckett | 8 | 6 |
SP4 | 32 | John Lackey | 12 | 9 |
SP5 | 30 | Daisuke Matsuzaka | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 30 | Jon Papelbon | 13 | 10 |
RP2 | 26 | Daniel Bard* | 7 | 9 |
RP3 | 33 | Dan Wheeler | 6 | 4 |
RP4 | 30 | Bobby Jenks | 8 | 7 |
RP5 | 28 | Alfredo Aceves | 4 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Pitchers – Tim Wakefield, Dennys Reyes, Matt Albers, Hideki Okajima.
Analysis: EWSL is not as insanely bullish on the Red Sox as last season, and there are some warning signs to be had in the number of 35-year-olds in the lineup. That said, I’m not about to hit the panic button on these guys just from a rough start.
The Hated Yankees
Raw EWSL: 263.83 (101 W)
Adjusted: 266.73 (102 W)
Age-Adj.: 233.73 (91 W)
WS Age: 31.55
2011 W-L: 91-71
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Russell Martin | 13 | 13 |
1B | 31 | Mark Teixeira | 25 | 21 |
2B | 28 | Robinson Cano | 25 | 25 |
SS | 37 | Derek Jeter | 22 | 14 |
3B | 35 | Alex Rodriguez | 22 | 16 |
RF | 30 | Nick Swisher | 19 | 17 |
CF | 30 | Curtis Granderson | 18 | 16 |
LF | 27 | Brett Gardner | 12 | 12 |
DH | 39 | Jorge Posada | 12 | 9 |
C2 | 25 | Francisco Cervelli# | 5 | 7 |
INF | 33 | Eric Chavez | 1 | 0 |
OF | 34 | Andruw Jones | 7 | 6 |
13 | 24 | Eduardo Nunez* | 1 | 3 |
SP1 | 30 | CC Sabathia | 19 | 16 |
SP2 | 25 | Phil Hughes | 9 | 10 |
SP3 | 34 | AJ Burnett | 8 | 7 |
SP4 | 24 | Ivan Nova* | 1 | 2 |
SP5 | 35 | Freddy Garcia | 6 | 5 |
RP1 | 41 | Mariano Rivera | 15 | 11 |
RP2 | 31 | Rafael Soriano | 11 | 9 |
RP3 | 26 | David Robertson | 3 | 4 |
RP4 | 25 | Joba Chamberlain | 6 | 7 |
RP5 | 26 | Boone Logan | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Ramiro Pena, Jesus Montero, Gustavo Molina.
Pitchers – Pedro Feliciano, who I pulled out of the lineup at the last minute on the news that he may need surgery; Feliciano averaged 89 appearances a year the past three seasons, so it’s not that shocking that he finally broke. Also Bartolo Colon, Luis Ayala, and David Phelps.
Analysis: Another mark of the AL East leaders’ softening compared to the past few years, the Hated Yankees are sorely lacking in starting pitching depth (are we taking bets on when Joba ends up getting pressed into starting again?) and face the perennial problem of age at key spots in the lineup without real everyday options if the old guys break down (other than subbing Montero or Andruw Jones for Posada). Yet the poor starts by Boston and Tampa and an unaccustomed early awakening by Tex have things looking up for the Bombers. And of course, with the Hated Yankees what matters is frontline talent, because you can never rule out major in-season acquisitions to plug any holes.
Tampa Bay Rays
Raw EWSL: 185.50 (75 W)
Adjusted: 206.20 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 202.95 (81 W)
WS Age: 28.30
2011 W-L: 81-81
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | John Jaso* | 8 | 17 |
1B | 31 | Dan Johnson | 2 | 2 |
2B | 30 | Ben Zobrist | 21 | 19 |
SS | 25 | Reid Brignac# | 6 | 8 |
3B | 25 | Evan Longoria | 25 | 31 |
RF | 26 | Matt Joyce | 6 | 7 |
CF | 26 | BJ Upton | 17 | 18 |
LF | 37 | Johnny Damon | 17 | 11 |
DH | 28 | Casey Kotchman | 9 | 9 |
C2 | 31 | Kelly Shoppach | 7 | 6 |
INF | 26 | Sean Rodriguez | 5 | 5 |
OF | 29 | Sam Fuld# | 2 | 2 |
13 | 31 | Felipe Lopez | 14 | 12 |
SP1 | 25 | David Price# | 11 | 14 |
SP2 | 29 | James Shields | 8 | 7 |
SP3 | 28 | Jeff Niemann# | 8 | 8 |
SP4 | 25 | Wade Davis# | 5 | 6 |
SP5 | 24 | Jeremy Hellickson* | 2 | 3 |
RP1 | 35 | Kyle Farnsworth | 4 | 3 |
RP2 | 24 | Jacob McGee+ | 0 | 5 |
RP3 | 35 | Joel Peralta | 3 | 2 |
RP4 | 28 | Andy Sonnanstine | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 28 | JP Howell | 6 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, although I expect Johnson to contribute a good deal more than 2 WS.
Also on Hand: Position players – Elliott Johnson, Desmond Jennings (Kotchman has been called up in the short term to take Manny Ramirez’ place, but expect Jennings later in the year), Robinson Chirinos.
Pitchers – Juan Cruz, Cesar Ramos, Adam Russell, Mike Ekstrom, Matt Moore.
Analysis: Having sprung directly from perennial doormat status to the heights of contention, mediocrity will be unaccustomed to Rays fans, but welcome to the 1970-72 Mets. I have faith that this organization will get more out of the bullpen than estimated here and make some useful adjustments on the fly, but their poor start and the loss of Manny underlines what already looked like a season of grappling with the loss of Carl Crawford and Matt Garza and figuring out how to get the next generation of youth to market. Alternatively, with both Toronto and Baltimore improved, it would not take a lot of additional bad breaks to drop them back to the cellar.
Hellickson’s a great talent, but remember that Price took a while to develop and Davis is still working on it. Young pitchers will break your heart.
Baltimore Orioles
Raw EWSL: 197.00 (79 W)
Adjusted: 205.60 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 195.24 (78 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2011 W-L: 78-84
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Matt Wieters# | 9 | 13 |
1B | 35 | Derrek Lee | 17 | 13 |
2B | 33 | Brian Roberts | 14 | 12 |
SS | 28 | JJ Hardy | 10 | 11 |
3B | 27 | Mark Reynolds | 18 | 18 |
RF | 27 | Nick Markakis | 20 | 21 |
CF | 25 | Adam Jones | 13 | 16 |
LF | 33 | Luke Scott | 13 | 11 |
DH | 36 | Vladimir Guerrero | 15 | 11 |
C2 | 28 | Jake Fox# | 3 | 3 |
INF | 31 | Cesar Izturis | 7 | 6 |
OF | 26 | Felix Pie | 5 | 5 |
13 | 27 | Robert Andino | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 24 | Brian Matusz# | 6 | 8 |
SP2 | 32 | Jeremy Guthrie | 12 | 9 |
SP3 | 25 | Jake Arrieta* | 3 | 6 |
SP4 | 25 | Brad Bergesen# | 6 | 8 |
SP5 | 23 | Chris Tillman* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 33 | Kevin Gregg | 9 | 6 |
RP2 | 33 | Mike Gonzalez | 5 | 4 |
RP3 | 36 | Koji Uehara* | 6 | 6 |
RP4 | 29 | Jeremy Accardo | 1 | 1 |
RP5 | 28 | Jim Johnson | 5 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Nolan Reimold, Josh Bell, Craig Tatum.
Pitchers – Zachary Britton (currently subbing for Matusz in the rotation), Justin Duchscherer, Jason Berker, Josh Rupe.
Analysis: The Orioles, by contrast, seem to have picked themselves up off the floor, notwithstanding the fact that as of yet they still seem to be building a team that shoots for .500 rather than first place (a big leap forward by Wieters, Jones and/or the young pitchers could change that). Whether Markakis can restart his arc of improvement, Lee can keep up his late-season hitting for the Braves, Guerrero can squeeze out one more solid year and Reynolds can cut his whiffs down enough to hit .230 will be the short-term questions.
Toronto Blue Jays
Raw EWSL: 186.87 (75 W)
Adjusted: 205.91 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 191.82 (77 W)
WS Age: 29.41
2011 W-L: 77-85
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | JP Arencibia+ | 1 | 11 |
1B | 27 | Adam Lind | 13 | 13 |
2B | 29 | Aaron Hill | 15 | 15 |
SS | 28 | Yunel Escobar | 17 | 17 |
3B | 28 | Edwin Encarnacion | 8 | 8 |
RF | 30 | Jose Bautista | 20 | 18 |
CF | 30 | Rajai Davis | 12 | 11 |
LF | 23 | Travis Snider# | 6 | 8 |
DH | 32 | Juan Rivera | 11 | 9 |
C2 | 36 | Jose Molina | 5 | 4 |
INF | 36 | John McDonald | 4 | 3 |
OF | 35 | Scott Podsednik | 13 | 9 |
13 | 28 | Jayson Nix# | 5 | 6 |
SP1 | 26 | Ricky Romero# | 10 | 13 |
SP2 | 26 | Brandon Morrow | 6 | 6 |
SP3 | 24 | Brett Cecil# | 6 | 8 |
SP4 | 23 | Kyle Drabek+ | 0 | 4 |
SP5 | 26 | Jesse Litsch | 2 | 2 |
RP1 | 31 | Frank Francisco | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 32 | Jon Rauch | 8 | 7 |
RP3 | 37 | Octavio Dotel | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 33 | Jason Frasor | 6 | 4 |
RP5 | 35 | Shawn Camp | 6 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Corey Patterson, Brett Lawrie, Mike McCoy.
Pitchers – Carlos Villanueva, Jo-Jo Reyes (who’s currently in Morrow’s spot in the rotation), David Purcey, Marc Rzepcynski.
Analysis: If you were painting a portrait of a team that could potentially take a big leap forward, you’d get something like the Blue Jays: a couple of young-ish players coming off disappointing years (Lind, Hill, Snider, Escobar), a young, power-pitching rotation and a veteran bullpen. How far that takes them is another issue, since third place is usually the Jays’ target at this point.
Through 12 games, Toronto’s pitching staff is on pace for 1363 strikeouts even without having activated Morrow (who struck out 10.9 K/9 last year, better than MLB leader Tim Lincecum, and may be returning soon from an inflamed elbow), which would break the 2001 Yankees’ AL record by a margin of almost 100.
Drilled
Just some numbers for fun. Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings remains the all-time champion in getting hit by pitches – playing his whole career in the days before helmets, Jennings was hit by pitches in 5.1% of his plate appearances, accounting for 13.3% of his times on base (counting hits, walks and HBP). Burt Solomon, in his book Hit Em Where They Ain’t (a good read about the 1890s Orioles) recounts that Jennings was actually terrified to crowd the plate, but trained in the offseason by having John McGraw throw balls at his head constantly until he was able to stand in without flinching.
Among players who lasted long enough to get drilled with 100 pittches, nobody else comes close to that 5.1% figure, but the 1890s were a violent time in the game. Counting only players since 1900 with 100 or more HBP, here’s the top 15 measured by HBP as a percentage of times on base:
Jason LaRue (the modern champ at 11%)
Ron Hunt
Reed Johnson
Fernando Vina
Don Baylor
Jason Kendall
Aaron Rowand
Steve Evans
Chase Utley
Art Fletcher
David Eckstein
Jose Guillen
Frank Chance
Damion Easley
Minnie Minoso
Craig Biggio just misses the list, at #16. I was surprised to see Utley (at 7.6%) that high.
EWSL 2011 Age and Rookie Baselines
Here’s the other necessary preliminary before launching my division previews powered by Established Win Shares Levels (originally explained here): before we get to rolling out the 2011 EWSLs, I have to update the age adjustments and rookie values I use each year. These are based on the data I have gathered over the past seven seasons, and so with each passing year, one would hope they become progressively more stable and useful in evaluating the established talent base on hand for each team entering each season. As a reminder: EWSL is not a prediction system. It’s a way of assessing the resources on hand.
I’ll skip some more of the usual preliminaries (see last year’s post) and get right to the charts:
Non-Pitchers 2010 and 2004-2010:
2010 | Total | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
21- | 1 | 20 | 17 | 1.176 | 6 | 72 | 59.0 | 1.220 |
22 | 2 | 22 | 19 | 1.158 | 28 | 436 | 226.9 | 1.922 |
23 | 12 | 118 | 110 | 1.073 | 67 | 812 | 670.5 | 1.211 |
24 | 16 | 210 | 148 | 1.419 | 115 | 1502 | 1162.3 | 1.292 |
25 | 22 | 178 | 186 | 0.957 | 173 | 2022 | 1668.4 | 1.212 |
26 | 39 | 424 | 465 | 0.912 | 213 | 2414 | 2244.7 | 1.075 |
27 | 43 | 488 | 476 | 1.025 | 234 | 2605 | 2501.8 | 1.041 |
28 | 29 | 342 | 336 | 1.018 | 239 | 2798 | 2745.5 | 1.019 |
29 | 35 | 397 | 360 | 1.103 | 224 | 2660 | 2753.5 | 0.966 |
30 | 32 | 340 | 397 | 0.856 | 230 | 2581 | 2878.2 | 0.897 |
31 | 24 | 296 | 340 | 0.871 | 209 | 2196 | 2591.0 | 0.848 |
32 | 25 | 225 | 287 | 0.784 | 196 | 1903 | 2386.8 | 0.797 |
33 | 18 | 209 | 186 | 1.124 | 165 | 1728 | 1982.8 | 0.872 |
34 | 30 | 323 | 369 | 0.875 | 146 | 1498 | 1740.3 | 0.861 |
35 | 14 | 94 | 147 | 0.639 | 122 | 1025 | 1387.7 | 0.739 |
36 | 14 | 162 | 226 | 0.717 | 90 | 862 | 1153.8 | 0.747 |
37 | 2 | 11 | 25 | 0.440 | 64 | 520 | 814.3 | 0.639 |
38 | 10 | 78 | 123 | 0.634 | 49 | 394 | 576.5 | 0.683 |
39 | 5 | 29 | 45 | 0.644 | 32 | 309 | 406.8 | 0.760 |
40+ | 5 | 19 | 34 | 0.559 | 38 | 261 | 482.7 | 0.541 |
378 | 3985 | 4296 | 0.928 | 2640 | 28598 | 30433.5 | 0.940 |
Pitchers 2010 and 2004-2010:
2010 | Total | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | # | WS | EWSL | % | # | WS | EWSL | % |
21- | 1 | 5 | 13 | 0.385 | 10 | 73 | 56.0 | 1.304 |
22 | 6 | 69 | 33 | 2.091 | 33 | 265 | 206.6 | 1.283 |
23 | 6 | 46 | 32 | 1.438 | 62 | 462 | 405.8 | 1.139 |
24 | 13 | 111 | 89 | 1.247 | 104 | 756 | 661.4 | 1.143 |
25 | 21 | 161 | 126 | 1.278 | 163 | 1162 | 1036.4 | 1.121 |
26 | 40 | 306 | 288 | 1.063 | 204 | 1386 | 1290.2 | 1.074 |
27 | 36 | 210 | 242 | 0.868 | 192 | 1248 | 1373.6 | 0.909 |
28 | 27 | 157 | 184 | 0.853 | 189 | 1279 | 1362.3 | 0.939 |
29 | 22 | 148 | 192 | 0.771 | 177 | 1147 | 1341.3 | 0.855 |
30 | 14 | 71 | 97 | 0.732 | 170 | 1021 | 1220.4 | 0.837 |
31 | 28 | 151 | 243 | 0.621 | 160 | 963 | 1226.5 | 0.785 |
32 | 16 | 93 | 108 | 0.861 | 120 | 742 | 945.5 | 0.785 |
33 | 17 | 125 | 153 | 0.817 | 99 | 559 | 786.3 | 0.711 |
34 | 13 | 89 | 85 | 1.047 | 83 | 462 | 570.6 | 0.810 |
35 | 9 | 72 | 63 | 1.143 | 61 | 307 | 406.2 | 0.756 |
36 | 5 | 13 | 23 | 0.565 | 51 | 277 | 315.2 | 0.879 |
37 | 5 | 23 | 34 | 0.676 | 42 | 263 | 325.3 | 0.808 |
38 | 5 | 35 | 29 | 1.207 | 42 | 282 | 339.0 | 0.832 |
39 | 2 | 11 | 13 | 0.846 | 29 | 208 | 241.3 | 0.862 |
40+ | 6 | 33 | 58 | 0.569 | 68 | 463 | 652.3 | 0.710 |
292 | 1929 | 2105 | 0.916 | 2059 | 13325 | 14762.1 | 0.903 |
A couple of the older-age cohorts did well, which of course is partly attributable to small sample sizes – the 33-year-old hitters had a great year, led by Aubrey Huff, Alex Gonzalez and Mark Ellis as well as better bounce-backs than projected from Travis Hafner, Troy Glaus and AJ Pierzynski. The 34-year-old pitchers were bouyed by Tim Hudson and Carl Pavano, the 35-year-olds by Hiroki Kuroda, Koji Uehara, Livan Hernandez (whose actual age remains indeterminate) and the healthy-again Chris Carpenter, and the 38 year old pitchers were carried single-handedly by Billy Wagner.
On the other hand, it was a brutally tough year for some of the age brackets here, especially the 35-and-over hitters. And as you can see, not every age cohort is uniform – the 35 year old hitters were a fairly weak group, compared to the star-studded 36-year-olds, but both lost a whole bunch of value.
The real patterns can be found in the multi-year results. What has interested me the past few years is whether there is an actual change in aging patterns since baseball started cracking down on steroids – suspensions (full list here) began in 2005 and enforcement began in earnest in 2006, but I didn’t start noticing a change in the trends until after the 2008 season. So I gathered the 2004-07 results against the 2008-10 results…the comparison was somewhat inconclusive on its face, so I won’t bother you with the numbers, but I noticed something that is – on reflection – not that surprising: when comparing the 2004-07 sample to the 2008-10 sample, the proportionally smaller (per-year) group tended to do better. In other words, for example, the 30-year-old hiters held 86.2% of their value in 2004-07 compared to 95.9% in 2008-10, but 30-year-olds made up 9.58% of the hitters in the earlier group and 7.53% in the later group.
When I backed the numbers out, I noticed that (excluding rookies), 23-28 year olds made up 36.88% of the hitters in my preseason depth charts in 2004-07, compared to 42.92% in 2008-10, while the proportion of 35-and-up hitters dropped off from 16.47% to 12.9%. Among the pitchers, the proportion of pitchers age 27 and under rose from 34.97% to 40.46% over the same period, while pitchers age 34 and up dropped from 19.59% to 16.46%. Put simply, as we move away from the steroid age, fewer older players are hanging on at the margins. The results are not so dramatic as to compel me to draw a conclusion, but they certainly suggest that if we’re looking for a shift in aging patterns, it may crop up less in the arc of player performance than in what we don’t see – more guys losing jobs or hanging it up, perhaps due to injury, who might have found ways before to prolong their productive years.
Anyway, we wrap up with the rookie adjustments, which don’t really require much comment:
Rookies
Type of Player | # in 2010 | WS in 2010 | # 2004-10 | WS 2004-10 | Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Everyday Players | 8 | 82 | 66 | 711 | 10.77 |
Bench Players (Under 30) | 4 | 2 | 66 | 253 | 3.83 |
Bench Players (Age 30+) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0.75 |
Rotation Starters | 4 | 25 | 32 | 138 | 4.31 |
Relief Pitchers | 3 | 10 | 18 | 96 | 5.33 |
TOTAL | 19 | 119 | 186 | 1201 | 6.46 |
2010 EWSL Wrapup By Team
My annual division roundups, using Established Win Shares Levels (explained at the beginning and end of this post), are disastrously overdue, part of the general fallout of difficult personal times – between wrapping up my brother’s estate following his sudden death in November and my dad’s severe (and not unrelated) decline in health since the end of 2010, I’ve been up to my eyeballs in everything but time to spend on my job, family and blogging. Naturally, my baseball blog posts take the brunt of that – it’s one thing to write about politics or music, since most of the time that takes is the writing time, but most of my baseball stuff requires a lot more investment of time crunching numbers.
That said, in the next few weeks I intend to get the EWSL “previews” done, maybe more of them than usual after Opening Day, if for no other reason than continuity in what is now a long-running project – the 2010 numbers are all in the spreadsheets now. To kick that off, here is the annual chart breaking down how the 2010 EWSL previews compared to each team’s actual results (see prior charts for 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005).
Key for the chart, by columns:
EWSL: Each team’s “projected” 2010 wins by EWSL.
Wins: Actual 2010 wins.
Team Age: Weighted average age of each team’s preseason 23-man “roster” weighted by raw EWSL.
2010 WS: Win Shares earned in 2010 by those 23 players, expressed in Wins (WS/3).
W +/-: The number of wins by which 2010 WS exceeded – or fell short of – EWSL. Basically, if EWSL is the expected baseline for each player’s performance, this column tells you which teams did better or worse than could be projected from the talent of the 23 players on hand that I included in the preview. Since the main purpose of this exercise is to evaluate how well EWSL fared as a predictor of team performance (as I’ve noted repeatedly, it’s not actually a prediction system, just a fairly rough way of evaluating talent on hand), I’ve ranked the chart by this column.
Rest: The number of wins (WS/3) earned by players on that team who were not in the preseason previews. Basically, this column tells you how much each team got out of players who weren’t on my preseason radar, either because I guessed wrong who would make up the depth chart or because they brought people in by trade, from the minors or elsewhere who ended up being significant contributors. My 2010 EWSL “wins” worked from an assumption that the average team would earn about 13 wins from the rest of the roster, so you have to bear that average in mind when comparing this column to expected results.
Here are the results:
Team | EWSL | Wins | Team Age | 2010 WS | W +/- | Rest |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CIN | 71 | 91 | 30.1 | 93 | 22 | 11 |
TOR | 64 | 85 | 29.4 | 86 | 21 | 12 |
SD | 70 | 90 | 29.1 | 85 | 15 | 18 |
CHW | 81 | 88 | 30.0 | 94 | 13 | 7 |
ATL | 84 | 91 | 29.9 | 93 | 9 | 11 |
STL | 84 | 86 | 29.8 | 89 | 5 | 10 |
NYY | 97 | 95 | 31.9 | 100 | 4 | 8 |
PHI | 96 | 97 | 31.8 | 99 | 3 | 11 |
CHC | 81 | 75 | 30.7 | 84 | 3 | 4 |
TEX | 80 | 90 | 28.3 | 83 | 3 | 20 |
OAK | 79 | 81 | 27.9 | 81 | 3 | 13 |
HOU | 74 | 76 | 31.6 | 76 | 3 | 13 |
TB | 93 | 96 | 28.3 | 94 | 1 | 15 |
SF | 83 | 92 | 29.9 | 82 | 0 | 23 |
ANA | 83 | 80 | 30.1 | 82 | -2 | 11 |
MIN | 94 | 94 | 29.0 | 92 | -2 | 15 |
WAS | 70 | 69 | 29.5 | 66 | -3 | 16 |
CLE | 66 | 69 | 27.5 | 62 | -4 | 20 |
MIL | 81 | 77 | 30.0 | 76 | -5 | 14 |
COL | 88 | 83 | 29.5 | 82 | -5 | 14 |
LA | 90 | 80 | 30.5 | 83 | -6 | 10 |
DET | 81 | 81 | 29.2 | 75 | -6 | 19 |
BAL | 74 | 66 | 29.6 | 67 | -7 | 12 |
KC | 74 | 67 | 28.7 | 66 | -8 | 14 |
FLA | 83 | 80 | 27.3 | 75 | -8 | 18 |
PIT | 61 | 57 | 28.1 | 50 | -11 | 20 |
BOS | 102 | 89 | 31.1 | 89 | -13 | 13 |
NYM | 85 | 79 | 29.8 | 71 | -13 | 21 |
AZ | 89 | 65 | 27.6 | 71 | -18 | 7 |
SEA | 86 | 61 | 29.9 | 58 | -28 | 16 |
A few notes:
-As usual, EWSL did about what you’d expect: it got half the teams within 5 wins of the results for their rosters, was way, way off on a handful at either end, and didn’t really have any way of projecting what teams would add to their preseason depth charts.
-The Reds, Blue Jays, Padres and White Sox easily outstripped every other team in getting more from the players on their preseason depth charts than you’d expect. The Mariners and D-Backs fell the furthest short (EWSL had the Mariners as a first-place team, which is about the largest possible error, and Arizona as a strong second). The Mets, even with some fairly tempered expectations, also fell pretty far short, thanks to getting a lot less than projected from Beltran, Castillo, Francouer and (ugh) Mike Jacobs.
-The Mets were, however, second only to the Giants in finding help from unexpected quarters, in the Mets’ case the youth movement led by Ike Davis and the scrap heap brigade led by RA Dickey. The Giants came in almost exactly where EWSL had the 23 guys on their depth chart; their surprising run to World Champions was driven by additions/promotions like Buster Posey, Pat Burrell, Madison Bumgarner, and Santiago Casilla). The A’s, for once, were not leaders in getting extra help. The Cubs, White Sox, Yankees and D-Backs got almost nothing from anybody but the people on their preseason depth charts (other than Arizona, this was an unsurprising byproduct of having a roster already full of older established players with a firm grip on their jobs and a settled bench and bullpen – the three oldest teams, the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies, all relied heavily on the people who started the season with a job).
-MLB-wide, teams earned 1247 Win Shares, or 41.57 per team, from the rest of their rosters. Results year-by-year since I started tracking results at a team level:
2005: 1067 (35.57)
2006: 1143 (38.10)
2007: 1260 (42.00)
2008: 1226 (40.87)
2009: 1221 (40.70)
2010: 1247 (41.57)
Total: 7164 (39.80)
That may partly reflect that I’ve gotten worse over the years at projecting teams’ core rosters, but on the whole, it does indicate at least some sort of rising trend from 2007 on in teams getting slightly more from second-line players, prospects and trade acquisitions than from their Opening Day rosters.
Late Hits
It seems like the past year or two we suddenly have fewer guys having big years with the bat after age 35. How true is that?
Here’s one back of the envelope look: players age 35 and up having an OPS+ of 140 or higher (minimum 300 plate appearances, which isn’t that much). 140 is a pretty high bar to cover only really outstanding seasons, and of course it’s not the same as looking at who improved after age 35, which I did in this post on Barry Bonds’ unprecedented improvement after 35. But it’s another cut on the data to add to the picture.
Let’s look first by decade at the number of players having such seasons:
1870s: 1
1880s: 7
1890s: 4
1900s: 3
1885 is the only season in the first four decades with more than one player qualifying. Not surprising that it starts out low – seasons were shorter before the mid-1880s, life expectancies were much shorter, and since professional baseball only began in 1869, you’d expect there to be few guys in their late 30s in the 1870s but a few of the founding generation hanging on a decade later.
1910s: 8
1920s: 14
Bill James has noted the spike in veterans in the 1920s and early 1930s as a symptom of the game’s upswing in prosperity motivating more guys to work harder at staying in the game longer. And so we see 3 in 1911, 2 in 1912, only two more in the 1913-21 period, but then 3 in 1923, 3 in 1924, and 5 in 1925 before guys like Cobb and Speaker got too old.
1930s: 10
2 each in 1930, 1931 & 1932. Babe Ruth turned 35 in 1930.
1940s: 11
The war: 3 in 1944, 2 in 1945, then 2 in 1948.
1950s: 15
A steady 2 a year in 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1958. Ted Williams turned 35 in 1954, Stan Musial in 1956.
1960s: 6
You’d expect a bunch more than that with expansion, but the expanded strike zone among other things may have worked against older hitters. Only season with 2 was 1968 (Mays & Mantle).
1970s: 20
Boom. 2 in 1970, 6 in 1971, 2 in 1972, 3 in 1973, 2 each in 1974, 1975 & 1976, then just one between 1977-79. The 6 in 1971 remains the all-time high: Aaron, Mays, Frank Robinson, Clemente, Kaline and Norm Cash. Cash is the only one who looks out of place, but his career OPS+ was 139.
1980s: 16
None in the strike season, but 5 in 1982, 2 each in 1983, 1984, 1987 & 1988.
1990s: 13
2000s: 32
Just one between 1989-92, 5 between 1993 and 1996 (including 2 in 1995), but then we start to see the uptick: 3 in 1998, 4 in 1999, 5 in 2000, 4 in 2001, 3 in 2002, 4 in 2003, 5 in 2004, 1 in 2005, 3 in 2006, 4 in 2007, before petering out to 2 in 2008, 1 in 2009, and just one (Scott Rolen) at last check this year, although the season’s not over yet (Jim Thome, who’s already counted here for 2006 & 2007, is at a 160 OPS+ in 257 plate appearances and is playing pretty regularly).
Do we attribute all that to steroids? Certainly weight training and sports medicine are helping players age better, plus we had waves of expansion in 1993 and 1998, plus historically we seem to get more veteran hitters taking flight during good offensive times than bad. But the sharp uptick in the 1998-2007 period (35 guys in a decade) followed by the recent dropoff doesn’t seem like it can be explained entirely by one or two outlying hitters or those other factors.
I’m not offering this as a systematic study of the issue, just another way of quantifying what we’ve all observed.
High Quality Starts, Part II
Following up on my earlier post on High Quality Starts, here’s the rest of the post: a look at HQS as a percentage of starts, as well as a percentage of wins (unsurprisingly, for good pitchers these constitute an outsize component of wins).
Now, read this chart with caution. First of all, guys who spent a lot of years in relief will have relief wins – Kenny Rogers is last on the list with HQS representing just 37.9% of his wins, and while that accurately reflects that Rogers generally needed help to win, it’s a little exaggerated by his time as a reliever. Then again, Sandy Koufax tops the list with 73.3% of his wins being HQS, despite having worked heavily in relief for much of the late 1950s.
Second, here is where you really see the differences in era – Koufax and Rogers are pretty much at the far poles here, but there’s a very large difference between the Sixties and the 00s, between Dodger Stadium and Arlington.
Third, bear in mind that some guys here – e.g., Pete Alexander – pitched parts of their careers before 1920 (1920 was the last year of Alexander’s prime).
That said, I tip my hat to the guy who topped even Koufax for percentage of his starts that were HQS: Jim Palmer, who came the closest to notching a HQS in half his career starts. And the guy who was the first real surprise among the immortals atop the list, Mel Stottlemyre. Maddux rated lower than I’d expected, but he did start a huge number of games, many of them late in his career after he’d stopped really being Greg Maddux.
Note the list of 200-game winners who turned in a High Quality Start in less than a third of their career starts: Jamie Moyer, Jesse Haines, David Wells, Herb Pennock (not counting the 61 starts Pennock made before 1920), Bobo Newsom, Andy Pettitte, Red Ruffing, Mel Harder, Burleigh Grimes, Ted Lyons, Waite Hoyt, Charlie Hough, Charlie Root, Jim Kaat, Chuck Finley, Joe Niekro and Jerry Reuss. Mostly this is a list of bad Hall of Famers, but other than Kaat (who has no business in a Hall discussion despite a high career win total), Niekro and Reuss, they’re also all from high-scoring eras. I’ll have to revisit later the question of Pettitte as a deserving Hall of Famer.
(Tommy John and Bert Blyleven both come in the 36% area).
Chart below the fold.
High Quality Starts
We all know the definition of a “quality start”: 6 or more innings, 3 earned runs or less. While the run scoring environments and expectations about pitcher workloads have changed over the years, a pitcher who throws a quality start – even the bare minimum 3-in-6 – at least has given his team, in most circumstances, a fighting chance to win.
Baseball-Reference.com now has pitcher-game data going back to 1920, and I thought it would be interesting to raise the bar to high quality starts: games where the starter had earned a win with ordinary offensive and bullpen support. I picked 7 innings, 2 runs (earned or otherwise) or less. Throughout the lively ball era, that’s generally been a good day’s work for a starter, and we assume that a starter who does that will almost always take home a W, or has been the victim of hard luck if he doesn’t.
Through Wednesday’s action, 188 pitchers have thrown 100 or more High Quality Starts since 1920; 22 of those have thrown 200 HQS, 10 have thrown 250, and only two have thrown as many as 300 High Quality Starts. A full chart is below the fold. Some of the breakdowns may surprise you. The two pitchers to throw 300 High Quality Starts? #2 is unsurprising, Roger Clemens with 308. #1? Don Sutton, 310 of them. Sure, he was never dominant, he pitched in an ideal pitcher’s park in a great time for pitchers, and he had a cheesy perm, but 310 times he went to the hill and earned a win, more than any other modern pitcher. If that doesn’t explain for you why he’s in the Hall of Fame, I’m not sure what will.
Only three eligible pitchers have thrown 200 or more HQS and are not in the Hall of Fame: Tommy John (257), Bert Blyleven (248) and Frank Tanana (204); Clemens, Maddux, Randy Johnson, Glavine, and Mussina aren’t eligible yet. Honestly, I had expected the breakdowns here to feature Blyleven more prominently as a hard-luck guy, but he doesn’t especially stick out. Still, 248 HQS is a heckuva credential. I’m marginally more impressed with John’s Hall of Fame case from looking at these breakdowns, but still not sold on him. Dizzy Dean, whose career is sort of the mile marker for the shortest career you can have as a Hall of Fame starting pitcher, notched exactly 100 HQS, winning 91 of them out of his 230 career starts and 150 career wins (12 of Dean’s career wins were in relief).
The largest number of wins from HQS? Warren Spahn, 249. Spahn is, not coincidentally, the only man in that time period to throw 200 complete games in which he allowed 2 runs or less, a staggering 266 of them, in which he went 242-24. You hang on that long in a well-pitched game, sooner or later either Hank Aaron or Eddie Mathews is going to bail you out.
The pitcher with the largest number of High Quality Starts in which he didn’t earn a win? Greg Maddux, with 92, followed by Sutton (89), Nolan Ryan (82), Tom Seaver (78), John (76), and Clemens (74). If you pencil in a W for each of the times Maddux threw a HQS and got jobbed, you get 447 career wins. (Clemens would sit at 428, Sutton at 413, Spahn and Ryan at 406 each. Walter Johnson would have 433 and Grover Alexander 399 just if you added their HQS without a win from 1920 on).
The most losses in HQS? Robin Roberts with 45, followed by Ryan (41), Seaver and Gaylord Perry (40 each).
The pitcher most likely to notch a W when throwing a HQS? Lefty Gomez (93.5%), which makes sense when you have Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey and either Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio hitting behind you; most of the top 10 is from the 1930s. Least likely? Slow-working Steve Trachsel (60.8%), followed by Ron Darling. The average pitcher among this sample won 75.4% of his HQS.
Most likely to lose a HQS? Dolf Luque (28.2%; Luque, the pride of Havana and my high school Spanish teacher’s favorite pitcher, was 76-31 with an 0.98 ERA in 110 HQS); least likely, Tim Hudson (2.8%). The average was 11.9%. Hudson’s record in his HQS? 142 starts, 104 wins, 4 losses, 34 no decisions. Probably the biggest factor for Hudson was just that a lot of his HQS came in the really high scoring early part of the last decade, but also it may help that even at his best, Hudson – when he was surrounded by Zito & Mulder – was rarely a guy that either team would rejigger their rotation around, so I suspect he never faced a disproportionate number of aces the way a Maddux or a Randy Johnson or a Koufax or a Seaver or a Whitey Ford (especially Ford) did. Note that the top 10 least likely to lose a HQS include David Wells, Gomez, Ron Guidry, Mike Mussina, CC Sabathia, and Eddie Lopat. I think you can see a trend. But #3 is Mike Hampton.
Most likely to get a no decision? Darling (24.8%), who of course was famous for this with the Mets (that’s how Roger McDowell won 14 games in 1986 and Jesse Orosco 8). Least likely? Bob Lemon (0.7%), followed by Gomez and his teammate Red Ruffing. Perhaps not coincidentally, Lemon and Ruffing were both excellent hitting pitchers. The average? 12.7%.
The average for the sample is 8.41 IP per HQS, and a complete game in 57.3% of those; the latter in particular has declined sharply over time. Four early pitchers (Bucky Walters, George Uhle, Lefty Grove and Ted Lyons) averaged over 9 innings per HQS, while Johan Santana at 7.49 is the only pitcher below 7.5, and he’d be at 7.5 if you included yesterday. Uhle, a 1920s workhorse, also tops the field by completing 98% of his HQS; Santana at 9% is the only guy below 14%.
The best ERA in his HQS? Juan Marichal, 0.87. Worst? Brad Radke, 1.46. I didn’t run an average but it’s probably around 1.10.
Seven pitchers have thrown 10 or more HQS in the postseason since 1903: John Smoltz (14), Tom Glavine (14), Curt Schilling (13), Greg Maddux (13), Andy Pettitte (12), Orel Hershiser (10), and Whitey Ford (10). It says something about the modern postseason that Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux each have just one World Series ring to show for all those outstanding postseason starts.
I’ll have a followup post looking further at HQS numbers. The full chart is below the fold.
Throwing Zeros
If the season ended today, Ubaldo Jimenez would qualify for the ERA title with an 0.78 ERA. Pitching in Coors Field. Only three men in baseball history have thrown more innings in a season than Jimenez has already thrown (80.1) and finished with an ERA below 1.00: Dutch Leonard (0.96 ERA in 224.2 IP in 1914), Hall of Famer Tim Keefe (0.86 ERA in 105 innings as a rookie in 1880), and the immortal Ferdie Schupp (0.90 ERA in 140.1 innings as a swing man in 1916; more on the 1916 Giants here).
That’s impressive, even with the caveat that one bad outing could double his ERA in a hurry. But even more impressive is the fact that Jimenez hasn’t allowed an unearned run this season. Which puts him on pace for an even more exclusive club: if the season ended today, he’d be the only man ever to qualify for an ERA title allowing less than 1 run per 9 innings. Indeed, Rob Murphy in 1986 (50.1 IP, 0.72 ERA, no unearned runs) holds the current record for most innings in a season with a RA (ERA, but including unearned runs) below 1.00.
Here’s the complete list of guys who qualified for an ERA title with an RA below 2.00, including at present both Jimenez and Jaime Garcia:
Player | Year | Age | ERA | RA | IP | H/9 | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ubaldo Jimenez | 2010 | 26 | 0.78 | 0.78 | 80.3 | 5.15 | 0.11 | 2.91 | 7.84 |
Dutch Leonard | 1914 | 22 | 0.96 | 1.36 | 224.7 | 5.57 | 0.12 | 2.40 | 7.05 |
Bob Gibson | 1968 | 32 | 1.12 | 1.45 | 304.7 | 5.85 | 0.32 | 1.83 | 7.92 |
Walter Johnson | 1913 | 25 | 1.14 | 1.46 | 346.0 | 6.03 | 0.23 | 0.99 | 6.32 |
Dwight Gooden | 1985 | 20 | 1.53 | 1.66 | 276.7 | 6.44 | 0.42 | 2.24 | 8.72 |
Greg Maddux | 1995 | 29 | 1.63 | 1.67 | 209.7 | 6.31 | 0.34 | 0.99 | 7.77 |
Jaime Garcia | 2010 | 23 | 1.32 | 1.76 | 61.3 | 6.75 | 0.15 | 3.96 | 7.48 |
Dean Chance | 1964 | 23 | 1.65 | 1.81 | 278.3 | 6.27 | 0.23 | 2.78 | 6.69 |
Mordecai Brown | 1906 | 29 | 1.04 | 1.82 | 277.3 | 6.43 | 0.03 | 1.98 | 4.67 |
Pedro Martinez | 2000 | 28 | 1.74 | 1.82 | 217.0 | 5.31 | 0.71 | 1.33 | 11.78 |
Carl Lundgren | 1907 | 27 | 1.17 | 1.83 | 207.0 | 5.65 | 0.00 | 4.00 | 3.65 |
Smoky Joe Wood | 1915 | 25 | 1.49 | 1.83 | 157.3 | 6.86 | 0.06 | 2.52 | 3.60 |
Mordecai Brown | 1908 | 31 | 1.47 | 1.84 | 312.3 | 6.17 | 0.03 | 1.41 | 3.54 |
Luis Tiant | 1968 | 27 | 1.60 | 1.85 | 258.3 | 5.30 | 0.56 | 2.54 | 9.20 |
Fred Toney | 1915 | 26 | 1.58 | 1.86 | 222.7 | 6.47 | 0.04 | 2.95 | 4.37 |
Christy Mathewson | 1909 | 28 | 1.14 | 1.86 | 275.3 | 6.28 | 0.07 | 1.18 | 4.87 |
Jack Coombs | 1910 | 27 | 1.30 | 1.89 | 353.0 | 6.32 | 0.00 | 2.93 | 5.71 |
Tom Seaver | 1971 | 26 | 1.76 | 1.92 | 286.3 | 6.60 | 0.57 | 1.92 | 9.08 |
Doc White | 1906 | 27 | 1.52 | 1.93 | 219.3 | 6.57 | 0.08 | 1.56 | 3.90 |
Pete Alexander | 1919 | 32 | 1.72 | 1.95 | 235.0 | 6.89 | 0.11 | 1.46 | 4.63 |
Christy Mathewson | 1908 | 27 | 1.43 | 1.96 | 390.7 | 6.47 | 0.12 | 0.97 | 5.97 |
Walter Johnson | 1918 | 30 | 1.27 | 1.96 | 326.0 | 6.65 | 0.06 | 1.93 | 4.47 |
Greg Maddux | 1994 | 28 | 1.56 | 1.96 | 202.0 | 6.68 | 0.18 | 1.38 | 6.95 |
Sandy Koufax | 1963 | 27 | 1.88 | 1.97 | 311.0 | 6.19 | 0.52 | 1.68 | 8.86 |
Mordecai Brown | 1907 | 30 | 1.39 | 1.97 | 233.0 | 6.95 | 0.08 | 1.55 | 4.13 |
Eddie Cicotte | 1917 | 33 | 1.53 | 1.97 | 346.7 | 6.39 | 0.05 | 1.82 | 3.89 |
Sandy Koufax | 1964 | 28 | 1.74 | 1.98 | 223.0 | 6.22 | 0.52 | 2.14 | 9.00 |
When you look at the RA column, it really underlines how historically amazing Leonard, Gibson and Walter Johnson were in their peak seasons. (Henry Thomas, in his excellent bio of Johnson, notes that Johnson got beat up the last day of the season in what was then a common practice of playing essentially a ‘joke’ game with guys playing out of position and whatnot). Gooden and Maddux, too. And of course, Pedro in 2000 and Maddux in 1994-95 are especially impressive when you consider the context they pitched in. (Fun facts about Pedro in 2000: one, the league allowed 5.28 runs/game; two, he had an 0.99 ERA through June 14; three, he was only 6-5 at home despite a 1.84 home ERA; four, 23 of the 44 runs scored off him were on home runs – he allowed 9.95 runs/9 on homers and 0.87 runs/9 otherwise). But if by some stroke of good fortune Jimenez was able to keep this up all year, he’d go straight to the head of the class for the best-pitched season ever (setting aside the debate over how heavily to weight workloads compared to a guy like Johnson).
The Vanishing 100-Inning Reliever
Tyler Clippard leads the major leagues in innings by a reliever with 25; he’s on a pace to throw 115.2 innings this year, all in relief. Manuel Corpas is #2, and on pace for 111. In the AL, nobody is on pace to crack 100 innings solely in relief – Joel Zumaya is on pace for 98.2 innings in relief.
With deeper bullpens, even in the face of declining innings by starters, the 100-inning reliever has become an ever-rarer species. Looking decade-by-decade just at guys who cracked 100 innings without starting a single game (thus skipping over the guys who pass 100 relief innings plus a few starts), we see the rise and fall of the 100-inning reliever (and why Mike Marshall will almost certainly remain the only man to pass 200 innings in relief in a season):
1930s: 3
1940s: 8
1950s: 15
1960s: 67
1970s: 100
1980s: 115
1990s: 29
2000s: 6
The first guy to do it was Clint Brown in 1937, the last Scott Proctor in 2006 (what’s with guys named Scott? The last before him was Scot Shields, and the last to do it more than once was Scott Sullivan in 1999, 2000 & 2001), so we’ve already passed three straight seasons without a 100-inning reliever. And the guys on pace in mid-May to just clear 100 are usually not great bets to keep that up all year.
As with many pitcher-usage issues, there are good reasons why innings have been declining (see my history of pitcher workloads), but no particular reason to think that managers are currently striking the right balance between avoiding injury risks and handing too many innings to second- and third-tier pitchers. Mariano Rivera and Derek Lowe both survived 100-inning relief seasons without doing any great damage to their arms. But the game continues to move in that direction regardless of whether anybody is analyzing whether it makes sense.
Master Melvin, Home & Away
Speaking of the Baseball-Reference.com splits, one of the more interesting cases is Mel Ott. As is well-known, Ott has the biggest home-field advantage in the 500 home run club, having hit 323 of his career homers at home, just 188 on the road; the short porches in the Polo Grounds, especially in right field, were an inviting enough target to help convert the diminutive (5’9″, 170-lb) Ott into the only man in the first 88 years of National League history to crack the 500 home run barrier (at his retirement, Ott was the NL home run king by a margin of 211 homers over Chuck Klein). But as Bill James has pointed out, while the Polo Grounds was a great home run park, it was actually not a hitter’s park at all, so Ott’s accomplishments aren’t to be devalued by virtue of the park.
We now have the data to back that up, at least for 1926-39, covering Ott from age 17-30, including the bulk of his prime (Ott hit 30 homers in a season only once after age 30). Ott in those years hit 211 homers at the Polo Grounds, 158 on the road (this does mean the split got wider as he aged – 112 more homers at home to 30* on the road). But he batted .297/.418/.553 at home, compared to .331/.421/.563 on the road, thanks in good part to hitting nearly twice as many doubles in the more normal-shaped parks around the league (235 to 124). The extreme example is 1930-31, when Ott hit 41 homers and drew 108 walks at home, compared to 13 homers and 77 walks on the road; yet, his overall line was .297/.419/.588 with 116 Runs and 121 RBI at the Polo Grounds, .345/.422/.537 with 110 Runs and 113 RBI on the road – nearly the same player in terms of value, but a completely differently-shaped batting line.
Let me illustrate this with a chart showing Ott’s percentages, batting average on balls in play, and doubles, triples, homers, walks, strikeouts, runs and RBI per 600 at bats at the Polo Grounds and in each of the other NL parks (I’m leaving out here Shibe Park, where the Phillies moved in 1938, presumably one of the causes for Ott’s homers drying up on the road after age 30):
Park | PA | BA | OBP | SLG | BABIP | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | K | R | RBI |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
NYG-Polo Grounds | 3783 | .297 | .418 | .553 | .272 | 24 | 4 | 41 | 121 | 53 | 124 | 128 |
CIN-Crosley Fld | 571 | .307 | .364 | .458 | .321 | 46 | 8 | 9 | 52 | 46 | 74 | 106 |
PIT-Forbes Fld | 606 | .323 | .434 | .549 | .313 | 43 | 8 | 25 | 113 | 37 | 124 | 141 |
STL-Sportsman Pk | 589 | .305 | .404 | .527 | .300 | 28 | 6 | 31 | 95 | 64 | 117 | 118 |
CHC-Wrigley Fld | 572 | .345 | .423 | .621 | .341 | 35 | 7 | 39 | 77 | 68 | 119 | 132 |
BRO-Ebbets Fld | 554 | .304 | .395 | .518 | .304 | 44 | 6 | 24 | 91 | 55 | 108 | 101 |
PHI-Baker Bowl | 557 | .415 | .508 | .774 | .388 | 48 | 5 | 52 | 108 | 40 | 181 | 209 |
BSN-Braves Fld | 517 | .330 | .426 | .531 | .336 | 46 | 12 | 16 | 96 | 42 | 128 | 86 |
As you can see, Ott was scarcely a home run hitter at all in Boston and Cincinnati, whereas his ability to get hits on balls in play was severely constrained at home. And, like Chuck Klein and pretty much everybody else, he was a holy terror at the Baker Bowl.
Here, just for comparison purposes, is how Ott hit team-by-team against each opponent when batting at home. As you can see, some ‘park’ effects could be the pitching staffs – for example, the Reds’ control-oriented staff was less apt to walk Ott in either venue – while, say, Ott’s home runs against the Braves and Pirates were clearly held down only by their home parks, his ability to get hits on balls in play was the same against the Pirates wherever he played:
Home Opponent | PA | BA | OBP | SLG | BABIP | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | K | R | RBI |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati Reds | 545 | .290 | .387 | .539 | .263 | 20 | 5 | 40 | 96 | 50 | 119 | 134 |
Pittsburgh Pirates | 567 | .340 | .464 | .621 | .310 | 22 | 0 | 49 | 134 | 50 | 141 | 143 |
St. Louis Cardinals | 538 | .300 | .413 | .493 | .286 | 18 | 3 | 31 | 119 | 50 | 109 | 105 |
Chicago Cubs | 563 | .268 | .366 | .509 | .253 | 26 | 6 | 35 | 94 | 68 | 99 | 108 |
Brooklyn Dodgers | 499 | .288 | .411 | .532 | .268 | 31 | 3 | 37 | 127 | 56 | 132 | 121 |
Philadelphia Phillies | 551 | .287 | .430 | .547 | .257 | 29 | 6 | 39 | 146 | 40 | 130 | 145 |
Boston Braves | 520 | .310 | .433 | .636 | .267 | 21 | 4 | 55 | 132 | 55 | 143 | 138 |
Lefty Splits, #42
Baseball-Reference.com has in recent months been expanding the years for which it has data, and I’ve been having some fun with the splits for older ballplayers – the breakdowns are now available for 1952-present and 1920-39. Here’s a few fun ones.
Don’t Get Jackie Mad
Today being Jackie Robinson Day, it’s worth recalling that the Cardinals were tough on Jackie at the beginning of his career, being the most Southern team in the NL. From 1952-56 (the last five years of his career, the only ones for which we have data), Robinson hit .337/.424/.498 against the Cards.
On a related note, my dad dug up some newspaper accounts of the April 15, 1947 Boston Braves-Brooklyn Dodgers game at Ebbets Field that saw Robinson make his debut and score the winning run. The newspapers did not treat Jackie as the big news story, possibly out of a desire to keep his debut low-key, possibly because off-field controversies were not seen in those days as ideal fodder for beat writers, and in some cases possibly because the writers may not all have been on his side. The big story, as you can see from the box score, was a big game by the hoped-for star of that ultimately pennant-winning Dodgers team, Pete Reiser.
Reiser was the same age as Jackie Robinson (28), and both had missed prime years in the military service, but while Robinson was a rookie, Reiser’s best years turned out to be already behind him. He’d hit OK in his return from the service in 1946, batting .277/.361/.428 (122 OPS+; it was a low-scoring season, with fresh pitching arms facing off against rusty hitters as everyone returned from multi-year layoffs and tried to get their timing back) and leading the league in steals with 34, but also missing 32 games and falling far short of his 1941-42 form (.328/.392/.513, 155 OPS+). Reiser ended up having his last really good year in 1947, batting .309/.415/.418 (the Dodgers had three players with OBPs between .414 and .415, and counting their top 3 bench players had 10 players slugging between .410 and Arky Vaughan’s team-leading.444) but missing another 44 games.
Lefty Grove, Closer
I also used the splits to break down Lefty Grove’s performance as a starter and as a reliever over the five years that both he and the A’s were at their peak (1929-33, although there’s some fun stuff in the game logs I could use to revisit my account of the 1928 pennant race, including Grove going 14-0 with a 1.43 ERA and 3 saves between June 29 and September 7, 1928 to get the A’s caught up with the Yankees).
Anyway, here is Grove as a starter and a reliever, 1929-33:
Starter: 157 starts, 116 CG (102 of his 110 wins as a starter were CGs, and 14 of his 26 losses), 1268.1 IP (more than 8 IP/start), 110-26 W-L (.809; Grove won more than 70% of the games he started), 2.80 ERA, 8.7 H/9, 0.3 HR/9, 2.3 BB/9, 5.3 K/9.
Reliever: 65 G, 153.1 IP (2.35 IP/G in relief; these were not short outings), 18-7, 31 SV (86% of his relief appearances were a decision or a save), 1.70 ERA, 7.3 H/9, 0.2 HR/9, 2.8 BB/9, 6.8 K/9 (note – a trend I noticed with a number of pitchers of that era, unsurprisingly – a markedly higher K rate in relief. Besides night baseball, lighter bats, an increased focus on power hitting, reduced stigma from striking out, and an increase in the variety of breaking pitches, the increased use of relievers and fewer tired starters has definitely driven the rising K rates from the 1920s to today)
Chuck Klein, Home Boy
You probably knew that Chuck Klein benefitted from playing in the tiny Baker Bowl in his prime years. But how much? In his five full seasons in his first go-round with the Phillies (also 1929-33), Klein batted a ridiculous .424/.470/.772 at home, .294/.352/.501 on the road. His career line at the Baker Bowl: .395/.448/.705, compared to .253/.319/.386 at the Polo Grounds, .244/.294/.335 at Braves Field, .276/.316/.451 at Crosley Field and even .284/.354/.487 at Wrigley. Klein is perhaps more a creation of his home park even than Dante Bichette or Vinny Castilla.
The Babe’s Hot Hand
We think of Babe Ruth as an immediate success with the Yankees, but he actually had quite a rough start in 1920, given the fanfare that accompanied his arrival, his breaking of the home run record the prior year and continuing controversy at the time over whether it was really advisable for him to stop pitching altogether to play every day. On May 9, 20 games into the season, Ruth was batting .210/.290/.371 with just 2 homers, 8 runs scored, 10 RBI and on a pace to strike out over 100 times, a then-unheard-of figure; the Yankees were 8-10 in games Ruth had appeared in. What followed, of course, was the 25-year-old Ruth putting on the most sustained, ridiculous hitting display in the game’s history, batting .403/.564/.924 the rest of the way; in 124 games he scored 150 runs, hit 52 homers and drew 143 walks, and the Yankees went 80-44 in those games.
2010 NL Central EWSL Report
Part 6 of my preseason previews is the NL Central; this is the sixth and last of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. (As usual, the large and depressing NL Central brings up the rear; I almost never seem to get to the NLC until after Opening Day). Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West, NL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
St. Louis Cardinals
Raw EWSL: 214.50 (85 W)
Adjusted: 231.22 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 212.35 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2010 W-L: 84-78
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Yadier Molina | 17 | 18 |
1B | 30 | Albert Pujols | 36 | 33 |
2B | 30 | Felipe Lopez | 17 | 15 |
SS | 28 | Brendan Ryan | 9 | 9 |
3B | 27 | David Freese* | 1 | 1 |
RF | 31 | Ryan Ludwick | 19 | 16 |
CF | 23 | Colby Rasmus* | 7 | 16 |
LF | 30 | Matt Holliday | 24 | 22 |
C2 | 36 | Jason LaRue | 2 | 2 |
INF | 30 | Skip Schumaker | 16 | 14 |
OF | 27 | Joe Mather# | 1 | 2 |
12 | 25 | Allen Craig+ | 0 | 4 |
13 | 28 | Nick Stvinoha* | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 28 | Adam Wainwright | 16 | 16 |
SP2 | 35 | Chris Carpenter | 11 | 7 |
SP3 | 32 | Brad Penny | 7 | 5 |
SP4 | 31 | Kyle Lohse | 7 | 6 |
SP5 | 23 | Jaime Garcia+ | 0 | 4 |
RP1 | 37 | Ryan Franklin | 11 | 9 |
RP2 | 37 | Trever Miller | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 26 | Kyle McClellan# | 4 | 6 |
RP4 | 28 | Jason Motte* | 2 | 2 |
RP5 | 33 | Dennys Reyes | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but obviously Freese will either exceed 1 Win Share or lose his grip on anything like an everyday job. But bear in mind the eccentric nature of “everyday” under LaRussa, given the flexibility of Lopez and Shumaker in roaming the infield. Rasmus, by contrast, is appropriately projected to take a step forward this season.
Also on Hand: Position players – Tyler Greene.
Pitchers – The perennially rehabbing Rich Hill, Blake Hawksworth.
Analysis: By LaRussa standards, this is a youth movement, as the Cards are still breaking in Rasmus (career .277/.366/.485 in the minors, all at age 21 or younger), Freese (career .308/.384/.532 in the minors, including .304/.363/.542 in 735 plate appearances at AAA) and Craig (career .306/.366/.513 in the minors, including .322/.374/.547 last season in a full year at AAA), while deploying prime talents like Pujols, Holliday, Wainwright, Molina, and Lopez. The Cards remain the class of a weak division but potentially face competition from the Brewers and Cubs.
Pujols should be due for his first career off year somewhere between 2010 and 2012, but thus far this season he’s at .375/.444/.875, so don’t bet the ranch against him just yet.
Milwaukee Brewers
Raw EWSL: 199.83 (80 W)
Adjusted: 211.27 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 203.30 (81 W)
WS Age: 30.00
2010 W-L: 81-81
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 39 | Gregg Zaun | 8 | 6 |
1B | 26 | Prince Fielder | 30 | 34 |
2B | 27 | Rickie Weeks | 11 | 12 |
SS | 23 | Alcides Escobar* | 2 | 5 |
3B | 27 | Casey McGeehee* | 9 | 18 |
RF | 40 | Jim Edmonds | 5 | 3 |
CF | 24 | Carlos Gomez | 8 | 10 |
LF | 26 | Ryan Braun | 29 | 33 |
C2 | 27 | George Kottaros* | 1 | 1 |
INF | 39 | Craig Counsell | 11 | 8 |
OF | 28 | Corey Hart | 13 | 14 |
12 | 32 | Jody Gerut | 5 | 4 |
13 | 32 | Joe Inglett | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 24 | Yovanni Gallardo | 7 | 8 |
SP2 | 33 | Randy Wolf | 10 | 7 |
SP3 | 34 | Doug Davis | 9 | 7 |
SP4 | 30 | Dave Bush | 4 | 3 |
SP5 | 35 | Jeff Suppan | 4 | 3 |
RP1 | 42 | Trevor Hoffman | 10 | 7 |
RP2 | 29 | Todd Coffey | 4 | 3 |
RP3 | 37 | LaTroy Hawkins | 8 | 6 |
RP4 | 29 | Mitch Stetter# | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 26 | Carlos Villanueva | 4 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mat Gamel, Norris Hoppes, Luis Cruz.
Pitchers – David Riske (on the DL), Claudio Vargas, Manny Parra.
Analysis: As with so many teams, the pitching staff is the big question mark for the Brewers, who aside from Gallardo have largely loaded up with the sorts of veteran arms one settles for at small-market prices, which in turn puts a premium on their defense (most of the veteran arms throw a lot of strikes, but few are high-K pitchers), which in turn is one reason why they need Carlos Gomez and have to hope for good glovework from erratic-at-best fielders like Weeks, Braun and McGeehee. I’d be worried about Edmonds running into Gomez, though.
A big offensive key will be getting Hart to avoid a repeat of his underachieving 2009 while getting McGeehee, who had never hit well in the minors (.279/.332/.409 over six seasons and more than 2,800 plate appearances, including three full years trying to master AAA pitching), to repeat his seriously overachieving .301/.360/.499 line.
Alcides Escobar (I do love the Latin American guys with classical-allusion names like Escobar and Asdrubal Cabrera) has thus far lived up to his minor league rep as a high-average, little-else hitter, but he’s young yet; he’s still working on translating his minor league success as a base thief.
Chicago Cubs
Raw EWSL: 215.67 (85 W)
Adjusted: 234.51 (91 W)
Age-Adj.: 202.57 (81 W)
WS Age: 30.74
2010 W-L: 81-81
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Geovany Soto# | 12 | 14 |
1B | 34 | Derek Lee | 21 | 18 |
2B | 30 | Mike Fontenot | 8 | 8 |
SS | 30 | Ryan Theriot | 16 | 14 |
3B | 32 | Aramis Ramirez | 19 | 15 |
RF | 33 | Kusuke Fukudome# | 14 | 14 |
CF | 32 | Marlon Byrd | 16 | 13 |
LF | 34 | Alfonso Soriano | 14 | 12 |
C2 | 31 | Koyie Hill | 4 | 3 |
INF | 29 | Jeff Baker | 6 | 6 |
OF | 31 | Xavier Nady | 8 | 7 |
12 | 30 | Chad Tracy | 4 | 3 |
13 | 24 | Tyler Colvin+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 29 | Carlos Zambrano | 13 | 11 |
SP2 | 33 | Ryan Dempster | 13 | 9 |
SP3 | 34 | Ted Lilly | 14 | 10 |
SP4 | 27 | Tom Gorzelanny | 3 | 3 |
SP5 | 27 | Randy Wells* | 7 | 12 |
RP1 | 27 | Carlos Marmol | 11 | 10 |
RP2 | 27 | Sean Marshall | 5 | 4 |
RP3 | 31 | John Grabow | 6 | 5 |
RP4 | 26 | Esmailin Caridad+ | 2 | 6 |
RP5 | 31 | Carlos Silva | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments:
Also on Hand: Position players – Micah Hoffpauir.
Pitchers – Jeff Samardzjia, Justin Berg, James Russell. Angel Guzman is out for the season.
Analysis: The Cubs, as you can see, are functionally tied in the EWSL analysis with the Brewers. They’re actually the strongest team in the division before applying the age adjustments, so expect people to want more from their roster “on paper” than they can deliver. Even some of the younger guys like Zambrano are showing their mileage. The great disappointment here is Soto, who is batting .091 and already at risk of losing playing time, having lost his power last season to shoulder troubles.
Using the age adjustments I had at the time, when the Cubs signed Soriano in November 2006 for 8 years and $136 million ($17 million/year), I rough-estimated that if he followed a predictable aging pattern, Soriano would be worth 13 Win Shares per year for the life of the deal, which obviously was a pretty grim assessment at the time. Three years in, he’s averaged 15 WS per year so far and age-projects for 12 in 2010; looks like I may have been optimistic.
Wells was something of a low-key pleasant surprise last year, finishing with the 10th-best ERA in the league (6th best if you park-adjust), although he’s had great control records and good K and HR numbers throghout the minors. I’m sure Toronto, which returned him to the Cubs after a Rule V claim in 2008, could use him back.
Houston Astros
Raw EWSL: 190.67 (77 W)
Adjusted: 206.51 (82 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.60 (74 W)
WS Age: 31.58
2010 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | JR Towles | 1 | 1 |
1B | 34 | Lance Berkman | 27 | 23 |
2B | 34 | Kaz Matsui | 14 | 12 |
SS | 27 | Tommy Manzella+ | 0 | 11 |
3B | 35 | Pedro Feliz | 14 | 10 |
RF | 27 | Hunter Pence | 18 | 19 |
CF | 27 | Michael Bourn | 15 | 15 |
LF | 34 | Carlos Lee | 20 | 17 |
C2 | 30 | Humberto Quintero | 3 | 3 |
INF | 30 | Jeff Keppinger | 7 | 7 |
OF | 34 | Jason Michaels | 5 | 4 |
12 | 37 | Geoff Blum | 8 | 5 |
13 | 30 | Cory Sullivan | 3 | 2 |
SP1 | 32 | Roy Oswalt | 13 | 10 |
SP2 | 31 | Wandy Rodriguez | 12 | 10 |
SP3 | 29 | Brett Myers | 5 | 5 |
SP4 | 25 | Bud Norris* | 2 | 3 |
SP5 | 26 | Felipe Paulino* | 0 | 0 |
RP1 | 30 | Matt Lindstrom | 4 | 3 |
RP2 | 30 | Brandon Lyon | 9 | 8 |
RP3 | 30 | Jeff Fulchino* | 4 | 6 |
RP4 | 36 | Tim Byrdak | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 38 | Brian Moehler | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Pitchers – Chris Sampson, Samuel Gervacio, Yorman Bazardo, Wilton Lopez.
Analysis: The Astros may not be as bad as their 0-6 record, but they’re pretty bad. Adding insult to grinding mediocrity, they’re the second-oldest team in the majors by weighted average EWSL, behind only the Yankees. And the Yankees have a reason to be old. In fact, four of the nine teams with an EWSL age of 30 or older are in the NL Central; no other division has more than two (the AL Central has none). If you’re looking for a winning business model for fielding a quality team in small markets in hard times, this division is not where you shoud look. In Houston’s case, the primary culprits are the team’s dependence on Berkman, Lee and Oswalt; this team should probably tear it up, deal the three of them along with Matsui, Feliz, and spare parts like Moehler and Blum if they can (as they did in jettisoning Miguel Tejada), and start over. Older players are harder to keep healthy (Berkman hasn’t played yet in 2010) and harder to keep motivated when they’re playing pointless games. Jeff Bagwell’s not walking through that door, Craig Biggio’s not walking through that door, and if they did, they’d be old and gray.
Paulino earned his zero Win Shares last year by giving up 1.8 HR/9 and getting pounded for 11.6 Hits/9, but 3.4 BB/9 and 8/6 K/9 indicate a sign of a guy who might be able to contribute; he didn’t have longball issues in the minors, but of course he wasn’t pitching in Minute Maid to big-league hitters (then again, look at his home run log and you see a lot of guys like Jay Bruce and Corey Hart and Elvis Andrus, not Pujols and Braun).
It would be hard to fail more completely as a major league hitter than JR Towles, who has batted .299/.390/.473 in the minors and debuted with a 14-game, .375/.432/.575 cup of coffee in 2007, and then went on to faceplant to the tune of .144/.238/.268 in 283 plate appearances since 2008. The Astros, however, really have nothing better to do than wait and see if Towles can come around and recapture the brief glory days of Mitch Meluskey.
Cincinnati Reds
Raw EWSL: 174.00 (71 W)
Adjusted: 189.11 (76 W)
Age-Adj.: 173.02 (71 W)
WS Age: 30.12
2010 W-L: 71-91
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 34 | Ramon Hernandez | 11 | 9 |
1B | 26 | Joey Votto | 19 | 21 |
2B | 29 | Brandon Phillips | 19 | 18 |
SS | 35 | Orlando Cabrera | 18 | 13 |
3B | 35 | Scott Rolen | 14 | 11 |
RF | 23 | Jay Bruce# | 7 | 10 |
CF | 25 | Drew Stubbs* | 3 | 6 |
LF | 29 | Jonny Gomes | 7 | 7 |
C2 | 29 | Ryan Hanigan# | 6 | 6 |
INF | 27 | Paul Janish* | 2 | 4 |
OF | 28 | Chris Dickerson# | 5 | 6 |
12 | 29 | Laynce Nix | 3 | 3 |
13 | 36 | Miguel Cairo | 2 | 2 |
SP1 | 32 | Aaron Harang | 8 | 6 |
SP2 | 33 | Bronson Arroyo | 12 | 8 |
SP3 | 24 | Johnny Cueto# | 6 | 7 |
SP4 | 24 | Homer Bailey | 3 | 3 |
SP5 | 22 | Mike Leake+ | 0 | 4 |
RP1 | 35 | Francisco Cordero | 12 | 8 |
RP2 | 28 | Nick Masset | 6 | 6 |
RP3 | 25 | Danny Herrera* | 3 | 6 |
RP4 | 40 | Arthur Rhodes | 6 | 4 |
RP5 | 27 | Micah Owings | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Wladimir Balentien, Aaron Miles.
Pitchers – Aroldis Chapman, the latest in a long list of hyped Reds prospects. Jared Burton, Mike Lincoln, Travis Wood. Also Jose Arredondo and Ednison Volquez, neither of whom is expected to pitch after Tommy John surgery.
Analysis: The Reds have a stable infield, but everything else is either a crapshoot or just crap. Stubbs seems like a Gary Pettis type player, but maybe with more power in this park. Leake recently became the rare first-round draft pick to debut directly in the majors without minor league seasoning; he had a great college career, but pitching in this bandbox has traumatized plenty of young pitchers. There’s still hope that Cueto and Bailey could become a 1-2 punch, but progress has been slow.
Pittsburgh Pirates
Raw EWSL: 118.67 (53 W)
Adjusted: 144.49 (61 W)
Age-Adj.: 142.55 (61 W)
WS Age: 28.11
2010 W-L: 61-101
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | Ryan Doumit | 10 | 9 |
1B | 26 | Jeff Clement# | 1 | 1 |
2B | 31 | Akinori Iwamura | 12 | 10 |
SS | 27 | Ronny Cedeno | 5 | 6 |
3B | 26 | Andy LaRoche | 7 | 8 |
RF | 29 | Garrett Jones* | 5 | 9 |
CF | 23 | Andrew McCutchen* | 9 | 22 |
LF | 25 | Lastings Milledge | 7 | 8 |
C2 | 27 | Jason Jaramillo* | 1 | 2 |
INF | 30 | Bobby Crosby | 5 | 5 |
OF | 31 | Ryan Church | 10 | 8 |
12 | 28 | Delwyn Young# | 5 | 5 |
13 | 26 | John Raynor+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 27 | Zach Duke | 7 | 7 |
SP2 | 28 | Paul Maholm | 8 | 7 |
SP3 | 27 | Ross Ohlendorf# | 6 | 6 |
SP4 | 26 | Charlie Morton# | 2 | 3 |
SP5 | 27 | Daniel McCutchen+ | 1 | 4 |
RP1 | 36 | Octavio Dotel | 6 | 5 |
RP2 | 28 | Joel Hanrahan | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 38 | Brendan Donnelly | 2 | 2 |
RP4 | 27 | Evan Meek* | 2 | 4 |
RP5 | 33 | DJ Carrasco | 5 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments:
Also on Hand: Position players – Brandon Moss. The Padres didn’t get equal value from Brian Giles when they traded Jason Bay to get him, but of the four teams to deal away Bay, they were the only ones who didn’t get completely ripped off. The sad spectacle of Moss and Craig Hansen giving Pittsburgh essentially nothing from the deal that sent Bay to the Red Sox and Manny to LA has just been the icing on the cake for this franchise.
Pitchers – Hayden Penn, Javier Lopez, Jack Taschner, Hansen (on the DL).
Analysis: Not every major league franchise rates a profile in Failure Magazine, but the Pirates are unique; last season they displaced the 1933-48 Phillies’ record for the most consecutive losing seasons in major professional team sports history by notching their 17th consecutive losing record. Indeed, only twice since Barry Bonds’ departure as a free agent following NL East-winning seasons of 95, 98 and 96 wins in 1990-92 have the Bucs topped 75 wins in a season, topping out at 79 in 1997. Not coincidentally, in terms of both cause and effect, the Pirates’ 11th place finish in the NL in attendance in 2001 – the year they opened PNC Park – is the only time in that period that they finished higher than 12th or drew 2 million fans. 1962, when they still played in Forbes Field, was the last time the Pirates finished in the top 4 in the league in attendance, and they’ve led the league only once, with the 1925 World Champions. Even the 1908 Pirates, finishing a game out of first place in the NL’s most legendary pennant race and with Honus Wagner having his greatest season, finished fifth in attendance.
All of this is a way of saying that the monotony of the Pirates’ condition is such that really any discussion of their present roster is almost pointless; it is long past time to move this franchise. I feel for the Pirates fans; this is a venerable franchise, tracing its Pittsburgh roots back to 1882 and having played continuously in the same city in the National League since 1891. And I don’t buy the idea that the game’s economic structure is fundamentally broken; the Pirates and Royals are the only two teams that plainly can’t be saved. Nor is contraction the answer, since the union won’t allow it and the owners would just turn around and re-expand at the next available opportunity. No, the Pirates have to move on to a better market, and bid a fond, wistful farewell to a city that hasn’t been able to support them for a very long time.
The Path to Cooperstown: Third Base
If you’re wondering what I was working on lately besides the division previews, my fifth annual Hall of Fame column is up today at The Hardball Times, and it’s on the third basemen.
UPDATE: I’ll have to post the full tables here when I get a chance, the plate appearance figures are crucial to the column, and it looks like the editors at THT removed them to save space. They took out the steals, caught stealing and GIDP data, too. Urk.
Charts below the fold:
2010 NL East EWSL Report
Just in time for Opening Day: Part 5 of my preseason previews is the NL East; this is the fifth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central, NL West.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies
Raw EWSL: 285.67 (108 W)
Adjusted: 293.93 (111 W)
Age-Adj.: 248.82 (96 W)
WS Age: 31.17
2010 W-L: 96-66
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | Carlos Ruiz | 11 | 9 |
1B | 30 | Ryan Howard | 25 | 23 |
2B | 31 | Chase Utley | 31 | 26 |
SS | 31 | Jimmy Rollins | 22 | 19 |
3B | 34 | Placido Polanco | 20 | 17 |
RF | 31 | Jayson Werth | 21 | 18 |
CF | 29 | Shane Victorino | 20 | 18 |
LF | 38 | Raul Ibanez | 19 | 13 |
C2 | 33 | Brian Schneider | 7 | 6 |
INF | 31 | Greg Dobbs | 5 | 4 |
OF | 28 | Ben Francisco# | 8 | 10 |
12 | 38 | Juan Castro | 2 | 1 |
13 | 34 | Ross Gload | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 33 | Roy Halladay | 21 | 14 |
SP2 | 26 | Cole Hamels | 14 | 15 |
SP3 | 29 | Joe Blanton | 10 | 9 |
SP4 | 27 | JA Happ* | 15 | 14 |
SP5 | 47 | Jamie Moyer | 9 | 6 |
RP1 | 33 | Brad Lidge | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 29 | Ryan Madson | 9 | 7 |
RP3 | 32 | Chad Durbin | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 38 | Jose Contreras | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 34 | JC Romero | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. As has been the case for a few years now, the Phillies have few players whose value isn’t established. That said, Joe Blanton being out 3-6 weeks and Brad Lidge and JC Romero opening the season on the DL mean that their EWSL may be slightly aggressive.
Also on Hand: Position players – None expected to contribute.
Pitchers – Danys Baez, who should sub early for Lidge and Romero; Antonio Bastardo and Kyle Kendrick.
Analysis: The Phillies, like the Tigers of the 80s, have a core (aside from Hamels) that’s all around the same age, so as I’ve been noting for a few years now their window is limited – but there is a time when you have to take a team with two pennants and a World Championship, ride it as far as it will go and live with the downfall that follows. (Heck, the Yankees are still riding Jeter, Posada and Rivera, who apparently last night became the first trio of teammates in the history of the major pro sports to spend a 16th consecutive season together). For now, the team’s good enough that there’s no point in worrying about the core passing 30.
Aside from the freak abdominal injury, the Halladay for Lee deal remains controversial, but Halladay should benefit from coming to the NL, and he helps balance an overly lefty-heavy rotation. I would not bet against a big bounce-back year for Hamels.
New York Mets
Raw EWSL: 213.67 (84 W)
Adjusted: 230.07 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 214.40 (85 W)
WS Age: 29.79
2010 W-L: 85-77
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 34 | Rod Barajas | 10 | 8 |
1B | 25 | Daniel Murphy# | 7 | 10 |
2B | 34 | Luis Castillo | 13 | 11 |
SS | 27 | Jose Reyes | 16 | 17 |
3B | 27 | David Wright | 25 | 26 |
RF | 26 | Jeff Francouer | 10 | 11 |
CF | 33 | Carlos Beltran | 21 | 18 |
LF | 31 | Jason Bay | 25 | 21 |
C2 | 38 | Henry Blanco | 4 | 3 |
INF | 29 | Mike Jacobs | 8 | 8 |
OF | 28 | Angel Pagan | 8 | 8 |
12 | 35 | Fernando Tatis | 8 | 6 |
13 | 34 | Alex Cora | 5 | 4 |
SP1 | 31 | Johan Santana | 17 | 14 |
SP2 | 26 | Mike Pelfrey | 6 | 7 |
SP3 | 29 | John Maine | 6 | 5 |
SP4 | 28 | Oliver Perez | 5 | 5 |
SP5 | 23 | Jonathon Niese+ | 1 | 4 |
RP1 | 28 | Francisco Rodriguez | 13 | 12 |
RP2 | 33 | Pedro Feliciano | 6 | 4 |
RP3 | 20 | Jennry Mejia+ | 0 | 6 |
RP4 | 35 | Hisanori Takahashi+ | 0 | 6 |
RP5 | 27 | Fernando Nieve | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None; I would have adjusted Beltran and Reyes downward for their injuries, but both are already valued on the basis of missing a huge amount of time last season, and Reyes is expected back early anyway. Murphy joins them on the DL to open the season.
Also on Hand: Position players – A cast of thousands, and they’ll be needed. Gary Matthews jr., Frank Catalanotto, Ike Davis, Nick Evans, Omir Santos, Josh Thole, Ruben Tejada, Wilmer Flores, Fernando Martinez, Russ Adams.
Tejada’s been rushed to the Opening Day roster, but he’s a 20-year-old who hit .289/.351/.381 last year in AA; he’s obviously not ready to hit major league pitching.
Pitchers – Kelvim Escobar, Bobby Parnell, Pat Misch, Sean Green, Kiko Calero, Nelson Figueroa.
Analysis: Mind you, I tried to play it conservative with the Mets, not listing established players like Matthews, Escobar, Calero, and Catalanotto (of whom Matthews and Catalanotto are on the roster, and Matthews in today’s lineup), and they’re still second. That’s a testimony to how much established talent is still on hand here, even with all the injuries, as well as the mediocrity of the Phillies’ competition.
EWSL’s standard rookie-reliever adjustment could be optimistic about the two new guys. Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya are definitely going out on a limb using untested pitchers like Mejia and Takahashi over Green, Parnell and Calero, but it’s not as if Green and Parnell set the world on fire last season. Mejia’s walked almost 4 men per 9 innings in the low minors, which makes me skeptical of him.
Pelfrey, Maine and Perez remain the biggest variables here. Pelfrey needs to have a little better luck on balls in play and keep his walk and homer rates low. Perez needs to get his velocity back. Maine is probably the best bet of the three for quality, but the most dubious in terms of durability; this may be his last chance to establish himself as being able to carry a full rotation starter’s workload, especially given how many pitches he throws per inning.
Murphy’s injury may not be a bad thing, with a Jacobs/Tatis platoon likely to produce some power, at least. Jacobs had a horrific year last season, but his career slugging percentage against right-handed pitching is .505; while that’s the sum total of his value as a major leaguer, if he can put up those kinds of numbers that could be a productive platoon. Murphy, by contrast, has 14 homers and 56 walks in 707 career plate appearances; even with great doubles power (47 career doubles, 7 career triples), Murphy – like Rico Brogna before him – needs to hit over .300 to be of any use as a first baseman with those numbers and glovework that’s not spectacular.
I’ll reiterate quickly my views on the rest. Bay, of course, is a quality acquisition, assuming he has no concealed injury risks. Francouer, I still hope, can have a Joe Guillen-like prime in which he’s briefly able to have his natural talent overcome his impatience for a couple years, but he’s still basically a hacker whose only reliable skill is his throwing arm. Josh Thole should be the starting catcher, and hopefully will be once he establishes himself in AAA. Blanco and Barajas are both decent enough weak-hitting veteran backup catcher types, but combining the two doesn’t accomplish much.
And hopefully, Wright’s first-inning homer today is a good sign. I think he was pressing last year after Beltran went down, and don’t see any reason why his power numbers should continue to lag.
Atlanta Braves
Raw EWSL: 202.67 (81 W)
Adjusted: 226.01 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 213.89 (84 W)
WS Age: 29.89
2010 W-L: 84-78
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Brian McCann | 19 | 20 |
1B | 33 | Troy Glaus | 9 | 8 |
2B | 26 | Martin Prado | 9 | 10 |
SS | 27 | Yunel Escobar | 18 | 19 |
3B | 38 | Chipper Jones | 22 | 15 |
RF | 20 | Jason Heyward+ | 0 | 11 |
CF | 28 | Nate McLouth | 19 | 20 |
LF | 25 | Melky Cabrera | 11 | 13 |
C2 | 33 | Dave Ross | 6 | 5 |
INF | 32 | Eric Hinske | 6 | 5 |
OF | 32 | Matt Diaz | 10 | 8 |
12 | 28 | Omar Infante | 7 | 7 |
13 | 30 | Joe Thurston* | 3 | 5 |
SP1 | 24 | Jair Jurrjens | 13 | 14 |
SP2 | 37 | Derek Lowe | 11 | 9 |
SP3 | 23 | Tommy Hanson* | 5 | 11 |
SP4 | 34 | Tim Hudson | 8 | 6 |
SP5 | 34 | Kenshin Kawakami* | 4 | 5 |
RP1 | 38 | Billy Wagner | 6 | 5 |
RP2 | 40 | Takahasi Saito | 9 | 6 |
RP3 | 31 | Peter Moylan | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 25 | Eric O’Flaherty | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 24 | Kris Medlen* | 2 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jordan Schafer, last year’s failed rookie experiment.
Pitchers – Jo-Jo Reyes, Scott Proctor.
Analysis: 13 Hall of Fame outfielders have had 400 or more plate appearances as rookies at age 22 or younger; their average season was .302/.362/.467 with 85 Runs, 76 RBI, 14 homers and 10 steals. The best modern ones of the bunch – Ted Williams, Frank Robinson and Joe DiMaggio. Not included in that group – Mickey Mantle, who hit .267/.349/.443 in 386 plate appearances as a 19-year-old rookie, Barry Bonds (age 21, .223/.330/.416); Ken Griffey (age 19, .264/.329/.420); Manny Ramirez (age 22, .269/.357/.521 in a strike-shortened season). All of which is to say, keep your expectations in check for Jason Heyward – maybe he’ll be as great at age 20 as Williams, Robinson, Ty Cobb, A-Rod, Mel Ott, Mantle, or Kaline, but Williams and Robinson are the only ones of those guys who were making their first trip around the league. More likely, even if he’s Cooperstown-bound, is something more like Mantle at 19.
The Braves have a regular UN going – Saito and Kawakami from Japan, Jurrjens from Curacao, Moylan from Australia, Escobar from Cuba, Prado and Infante from Venezuela, Melky from the Dominican.
Undoubtedly, the biggest problem Atlanta faces, even with a possibly healthy Hudson, a full season from Hanson, and the veteran imports in the pen, is replacing the productivity of Javier Vazquez (219.1 IP, 2.87 ERA), Rafael Soriano (75.2 IP in 77 games, 2.97 ERA), and Mike Gonzalez (74.1 IP in 80 games, 2.42 ERA); over 369.1 IP those three combined to strike out 430 batters (10.48 per 9 IP), walk 104 (2.53 per 9), allow 33 homers (0.80 per 9) and surrender just 290 hits (7.07 per 9).
Florida Marlins
Raw EWSL: 170.33 (70 W)
Adjusted: 204.11 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 209.92 (83 W)
WS Age: 27.35
2010 W-L: 83-79
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | John Baker# | 10 | 11 |
1B | 26 | Gaby Sanchez+ | 0 | 11 |
2B | 30 | Dan Uggla | 20 | 18 |
SS | 26 | Hanley Ramirez | 32 | 36 |
3B | 28 | Jorge Cantu | 15 | 15 |
RF | 29 | Cody Ross | 15 | 14 |
CF | 23 | Cameron Maybin* | 2 | 2 |
LF | 25 | Chris Coghlan* | 11 | 26 |
C2 | 29 | Ronny Paulino | 7 | 6 |
INF | 25 | Emilio Bonifacio# | 4 | 6 |
OF | 29 | Brian Barden | 1 | 0 |
12 | 34 | Wes Helms | 5 | 4 |
13 | 27 | Brett Carroll* | 3 | 5 |
SP1 | 26 | Josh Johnson | 12 | 12 |
SP2 | 26 | Anibal Sanchez | 3 | 3 |
SP3 | 27 | Ricky Nolasco | 8 | 7 |
SP4 | 23 | Chris Volstad# | 4 | 6 |
SP5 | 32 | Nate Robertson | 3 | 2 |
RP1 | 26 | Leo Nunez | 7 | 7 |
RP2 | 27 | Reynel Pinto | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 28 | Dan Meyer* | 3 | 6 |
RP4 | 31 | Brian Sanches* | 3 | 5 |
RP5 | 27 | Burke Badenhop# | 3 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but I’d bet on Maybin to beat his EWSL, as well as Anibal Sanchez, if healthy. Brian Sanches starts the season on the DL with a hamstring issue.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mike Lamb
Pitchers – Clay Hensley, Rick Vanden Hurk, Andrew Miller, Jose Veras.
Analysis: The youngest team by Win Shares age in the five divisions I’ve reviewed so far, the Marlins are the Brazil of baseball: the team of the future and always will be. Well, except that they do have two World Championship flags with teams that acquired veterans in a timely fashion…but this is not such a team, unless they make some big strikes at the trade deadline – these Marlins are yet another young-talent outfit. And as per usual of late, recent pitching injuries are the main source of uncertainty.
As always, a downside to doing these previews in serial format is having at least one guy every year who shows up twice, in this case Nate Robertson, penciled out of the Detroit rotation and into Florida’s.
Washington Nationals
Raw EWSL: 165.67 (68 W)
Adjusted: 179.84 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 170.07 (70 W)
WS Age: 29.53
2010 W-L: 70-92
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 38 | Ivan Rodriguez | 8 | 6 |
1B | 30 | Adam Dunn | 22 | 20 |
2B | 34 | Adam Kennedy | 12 | 10 |
SS | 24 | Ian Desmond+ | 1 | 11 |
3B | 25 | Ryan Zimmerman | 17 | 21 |
RF | 32 | Willie Harris | 9 | 7 |
CF | 29 | Nyjer Morgan | 9 | 9 |
LF | 31 | Josh Willingham | 13 | 11 |
C2 | 25 | Jesus Flores | 6 | 7 |
INF | 32 | Cristian Guzman | 12 | 10 |
OF | 28 | Willie Taveras | 6 | 6 |
12 | 28 | Mike Morse | 1 | 1 |
13 | 27 | Alberto Gonzalez# | 4 | 4 |
SP1 | 25 | John Lannan | 8 | 9 |
SP2 | 31 | Jason Marquis | 12 | 9 |
SP3 | 35 | Livan Hernandez | 4 | 3 |
SP4 | 26 | Craig Stammen* | 2 | 3 |
SP5 | 27 | Garrett Mock# | 1 | 1 |
RP1 | 26 | Matt Capps | 6 | 6 |
RP2 | 28 | Jason Bergmann | 3 | 2 |
RP3 | 25 | Tyler Clippard* | 3 | 6 |
RP4 | 28 | Brian Bruney | 4 | 4 |
RP5 | 39 | Miguel Batista | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. I take no legal responsibility for the accuracy of Livan Hernandez’ reported age.
Also on Hand: Position players – Justin Maxwell, Wil Nieves, Chris Coste, Eric Bruntlett.
Pitchers – As always, plenty of arms indistinguishable (at least) with the guys being trotted out. Stephen Strasburg is supposed to be the next Dwight Gooden if not the next Walter Johnson; I buy him as the next big thing, but as with Heyward the record of rookie pitchers gives some caution – Strasburg’s unlikely to have a better career than Roger Clemens or Greg Maddux, who had rookie ERAs of 4.32 and 5.61, respectively. Also the rehabbing Jordan Zimmerman and Chien-Ming Wang, Scott Olsen, Tyler Walker, Sean Burnett, Doug Slaten, and Shairon Martis. Ron Villone was cut recently.
Analysis: For a team that’s supposed to be rebuilding, there’s a surprisingly small number of un-established players here until Strasburg descends from the clouds, although with the addition of veterans like Kennedy, the Nats should at least not match last season’s 103-loss fiasco. How sad is the pitching staff? Aside from Strasburg, who will probably be mentioned in almost every sentence written about this team this year, Baseball Prospectus projects Jason Marquis to lead the staff with 90 strikeouts.
Aside from Strasburg, the other rookie on the radar here is Desmond, who looks like a prospect if you look at his 2009: he batted .306/.372/.494 in 189 plate appearances at AA, .354/.428/.461 in 205 PA at AAA, and .280/.318/.561 in 89 PA for the Nats. Unfortunately, even including those numbers, his career minor league line is .259/.326/.388.
As with Mark DeRosa in San Francisco, Willie Harris starting in an outfield corner is diagnostic. Strasburg can’t arrive soon enough.
Ivan Rodriguez is fading fast; at age 38, he’s clearly on hand mainly to provide a veteran to work with Strasburg. He’s batted .278/.304/.418 the last five seasons, and the Nats will be thrilled if he can match even that after last year’s .249/.280/.384. Even Pudge’s legendary arm is not quite what it was; the past three years, he’s caught 31%, 32% and 35% of opposing base thieves, allowing 47, 52 and 41 steals – still good numbers, but down from catching at least 48% of opposing baserunners 9 of the prior 12 years and the first time he’d allowed more than 40 steals in a season since 1996, when he caught a career-high 1223.1 innings. Can he keep an everyday job for three more years? He has 2,711 hits, and two more years of about a hundred hits a year (he’s averaged 108 the past two) would get him close enough to possibly reach 3,000 by hanging on as a backup. How amazing would that be? Ted Simmons, with 2,472 hits, is a distant second among players to spend at least half their career games at catcher, but Pudge has caught 96% of his career games – Jason Kendall, with 2,084 hits, is the only other catcher with 2,000 hits to catch 90% of his career games.
2010 NL West EWSL Report
Part 4 of my preseason previews is the NL West; this is the fourth of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West, AL East, AL Central.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Los Angeles Dodgers
Raw EWSL: 242.67 (94 W)
Adjusted: 250.60 (97 W)
Age-Adj.: 230.19 (90 W)
WS Age: 30.48
2010 W-L: 90-72
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Russell Martin | 18 | 19 |
1B | 26 | James Loney | 16 | 18 |
2B | 24 | Blake DeWitt# | 4 | 6 |
SS | 32 | Rafael Furcal | 14 | 11 |
3B | 36 | Casey Blake | 17 | 13 |
RF | 28 | Andre Ethier | 20 | 21 |
CF | 25 | Matt Kemp | 21 | 26 |
LF | 38 | Manny Ramirez | 22 | 15 |
C2 | 41 | Brad Ausmus | 5 | 3 |
INF | 35 | Ronnie Belliard | 10 | 7 |
OF | 38 | Garret Anderson | 12 | 8 |
12 | 33 | Reed Johnson | 6 | 5 |
13 | 35 | Jamey Carroll | 8 | 6 |
SP1 | 25 | Chad Billingsley | 12 | 13 |
SP2 | 22 | Clayton Kershaw# | 8 | 10 |
SP3 | 32 | Vicente Padilla | 7 | 5 |
SP4 | 35 | Hiroki Kuroda# | 7 | 5 |
SP5 | 37 | Ramon Ortiz | 0 | 0 |
RP1 | 26 | Jonathan Broxton | 13 | 14 |
RP2 | 33 | George Sherrill | 10 | 7 |
RP3 | 27 | Ramon Trancoso# | 5 | 5 |
RP4 | 27 | Ronald Belisario* | 4 | 6 |
RP5 | 28 | Hong-Chih Kuo | 5 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Nick Green. Jason Repko was cut, and Brian Giles retired.
Pitchers – Charlie Haeger is in the long-term mix for fifth starter. Jeff Weaver appears to be on the Opening Day roster. Russ Ortiz joined Ramon in this spring’s Night of the Living Ortiz spectacle. Also James McDonald, Carlos Montaserios, Justin Miller, Luis Ayala, Josh Towers and Cory Wade. Fifth starter candidate Eric Stults was sold to the Hiroshima Carp.
Analysis: The NL West is not baseball’s strongest division, but it remains its most competitive, with no dominant team and four of five primed to battle for first place. That said, the Dodgers should still be the strongest of the five, with a talented outfield, two possible rotation anchors, a good bullpen and the steady leadership of Joe Torre.
Age keeps coming up here, age and what it does and doesn’t mean. EWSL values three Dodgers (Martin, Loney and Billingsley) as improving young players, not the worn-down veterans or they looked to be at times last season. It’s easy to forget that Martin’s still just 27 and Billingsley only 25. Billingsley’s probably the most crucial Dodger – Kershaw continues to improve but may not quite be ready for center stage and a full #1 workload at age 22, so keeping him as the #2 man will be valuable. Martin, by contrast, looks unlikely to recover his past offensive glories. Manny’s age matters too, as he showed it at times last year, batting a most un-Manny-ish .251/.378/.431 from July 24 through the season’s end. At 38, the end of his years as a dominating slugger may be at hand, although he’s likely to remain a dangerous bat. Blake’s age (36) suggests that he’s unlikely to sustain last year’s pace, although his big improvement was in walks, an area where older players tend to retain improvements. And the bench is geriatric even by the standards of Joe Torre benches (assuming Belliard doesn’t end up as the starting 2B; that situation remains unstable).
Kuo starts the year on the DL. It’s anybody’s guess whether the fifth starter will end up being Ortiz, the other Ortiz, Weaver, Haeger, or somebody else (Kuo’s probably not returning to starting).
UPDATE: Haeger wins the 5th starter job. If we add him in for Ortiz, it won’t change the EWSL picture much; he’s 25 but has been kicking around the majors for four years now in small doses. His control remains iffy.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Raw EWSL: 194.50 (78 W)
Adjusted: 212.27 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 226.73 (89 W)
WS Age: 27.63
2010 W-L: 89-73
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Miguel Montero | 8 | 9 |
1B | 30 | Adam LaRoche | 17 | 15 |
2B | 28 | Kelly Johnson | 13 | 13 |
SS | 27 | Stephen Drew | 18 | 18 |
3B | 26 | Mark Reynolds | 18 | 20 |
RF | 22 | Justin Upton# | 12 | 29 |
CF | 26 | Chris Young | 12 | 13 |
LF | 28 | Conor Jackson | 8 | 8 |
C2 | 29 | Chris Snyder | 9 | 9 |
INF | 29 | Ryan Roberts* | 4 | 8 |
OF | 23 | Gerardo Parra* | 5 | 11 |
12 | 35 | Augie Ojeda | 5 | 4 |
13 | 25 | Tony Abreu | 1 | 1 |
SP1 | 29 | Dan Haren | 19 | 17 |
SP2 | 31 | Brandon Webb | 11 | 9 |
SP3 | 26 | Edwin Jackson | 12 | 13 |
SP4 | 25 | Ian Kennedy | 0 | 0 |
SP5 | 26 | Billy Buckner | 1 | 1 |
RP1 | 31 | Chad Qualls | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 26 | Juan Gutierrez* | 4 | 9 |
RP3 | 26 | Clay Zavada* | 2 | 4 |
RP4 | 26 | Esmerling Vasquez* | 2 | 3 |
RP5 | 36 | Bob Howry | 5 | 5 |
Subjective Adjustments: None – obviously Upton’s age adjustment is fairly aggressive, but he batted .300/.366/.532 as a 21-year-old last season, and earned 19 Win Shares in 138 games; 29 this season is not an especially unusual target.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brandon Allen, Cole Gillespie, Drew Macias, Rusty Ryal.
Pitchers – Aaron Heilman, Kris Benson, Kevin Mulvey, as well as some non-ex-Mets: Rodrigo Lopez, Blaine Boyer, Leo Rosales.
Analysis: If Chad Billingsley is the most critical Dodger, Brandon Webb may be the most critical player in the whole NL West. A healthy Webb would give the D-Backs a formidable 1-2 punch, and combined with the solid Edwin Jackson as the third starter, give Arizona’s offense a lot of chances to win. But as of now, Webb hasn’t thrown since early March and is expected to miss at least the season’s first month, which makes you wonder how long he’ll be out and what he’ll be like when he returns. That bumps Jackson to the #2 spot, and he’s miscast as a #2 starter despite a good ERA last season in a less challenging ballpark (albeit in a tougher division), and after Jackson you have the deluge Arizona can’t compete unless it gets at least half a season’s worth of something resembling the old Brandon Webb. I have to figure that Webb’s health was a driving force behind the otherwise inexplicable deal that brought in Jackson in exchange for Max Scherzer – Jackson doesn’t have Scherzer’s A-list talent (granted, that talent only got him a 9-15 career record in Arizona), but he’s started 95 games and tossed 558.1 regular season innings the last three seasons, whereas Scherzer retains a reputation for being brittle. That may have been more risk than this staff could absorb. As for Jackson, his main risk is whether he can retain the improvements in his control that saw his walks per 9 innings drop from 4.9 to 3.8 to 2.9 the past three years.
Of course, a big part of last year’s 92-loss fiasco was the offense managing to finish 8th in the NL in runs scored despite playing in a high-altitude bandbox that inflates everyone’s offensive numbers. LaRoche and the continued development of Upton should help that (Arizona first basemen last year hit an appalling .229/.321/.398, to go with .219/.293/.379 from their center fielders, mainly Young; Upton was their only outfielder with any punch). They’ll also need better years from Young and Drew and a return to the land of the living by Conor Jackson and Kelly Johnson; the latter steps in for Felipe Lopez, one of the team’s few bright spots last year.
Mark Reynolds should be a steady power source after 2009’s breakout, and could be devastating if he could cut his strikeouts to the 160-170 range some year; he’s whiffed 427 times the past two seasons. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it’s the sort of thing he could pull off once.
Colorado Rockies
Raw EWSL: 218.00 (86 W)
Adjusted: 231.77 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 224.05 (88 W)
WS Age: 29.45
2010 W-L: 88-74
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Chris Iannetta | 12 | 12 |
1B | 36 | Todd Helton | 18 | 13 |
2B | 31 | Clint Barmes | 11 | 9 |
SS | 25 | Troy Tulowitzki | 19 | 24 |
3B | 25 | Ian Stewart# | 9 | 13 |
RF | 31 | Brad Hawpe | 18 | 15 |
CF | 24 | Dexter Fowler* | 8 | 19 |
LF | 24 | Carlos Gonzalez# | 7 | 10 |
C2 | 31 | Miguel Olivo | 8 | 7 |
INF | 38 | Melvin Mora | 11 | 8 |
OF | 27 | Seth Smith# | 8 | 10 |
12 | 39 | Jason Giambi | 9 | 7 |
13 | 30 | Ryan Spilborghs | 8 | 7 |
SP1 | 26 | Ubaldo Jimenez | 14 | 15 |
SP2 | 31 | Aaron Cook | 12 | 10 |
SP3 | 29 | Jeff Francis | 4 | 3 |
SP4 | 29 | Jorge De La Rosa | 8 | 7 |
SP5 | 27 | Jason Hammel | 6 | 6 |
RP1 | 26 | Huston Street | 13 | 13 |
RP2 | 35 | Rafael Betancourt | 8 | 5 |
RP3 | 28 | Matt Daley* | 2 | 4 |
RP4 | 24 | Franklin Morales | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 33 | Joe Beimel | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Eric Young and Omar Quintanilla compete with Mora for the reserve infield role.
Pitchers – Manuel Corpas and Taylor Buchholz still fighting to get all the way back. Greg Smith, Matt Belisle, Tim Redding, Randy Flores, Justin Speier.
Analysis: The Rox have their own returning-injured-ace issue with Jeff Francis. Jimenez seems to have taken the ace reins; although I remain skeptical of the long-term prospects of any starter who carries the burden of Coors, he did finish second in club history in ERA and strikeouts last year (his 198 Ks second only to 210 by Pedro Astacio in 1999), and set a club record for fewest hits/9. He’s a quality starter.
I was baffled last season why so many outlets were prematurely burying Huston Street, who rebounded well in 2009 (including a 70/13 K/BB ratio and a 1.71 road ERA), but Street has been shut down repeatedly this spring with shoulder stiffness, which may unsettle the bullpen.
He may not be the question mark that Billingsley or Webb or Francis is, but how critical has Tulowitzki been to the Rockies over his career? Since his arrival in August 2006, Tulowitzki has had an OPS above 750 in a month 10 times, and below 750 (or didn’t play) 10 times. The Rockies’ record in the ten good months? 164-109 (.601), with a winning record in 9 of the 10 months. Their record in his ten bad months? 117-154 (.432), with a losing record in 8 of the 10 months. Last season, the Rockies caught fire on June 4, turning from a 20-32 record, 15 1/2 games out of first place, to go 52-36 and pulling within a game of the Dodgers through October 2 before dropping the last two to LA and settling for the wild card. Tulowitzki’s season went the same way: batting an anemic .216/.306/.377 on June 6, he tore the league up to the tune of .336/.414/.637 with 27 homers in 101 games through October 2, before going 0-for-4 against Kershaw and the Dodgers bullpen on October 3 and sitting out the final game. Still only 25, he’ll have a chance this season to add the missing consistency that is the only thing holding Colorado’s indispenable man back from superstardom.
San Francisco Giants
Raw EWSL: 220.83 (87 W)
Adjusted: 226.57 (89 W)
Age-Adj.: 209.10 (83 W)
WS Age: 29.86
2010 W-L: 83-79
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 35 | Ben Molina | 15 | 11 |
1B | 33 | Aubrey Huff | 13 | 11 |
2B | 32 | Freddy Sanchez | 14 | 11 |
SS | 34 | Edgar Renteria | 12 | 10 |
3B | 23 | Pablo Sandoval# | 16 | 23 |
RF | 26 | Nate Schierholtz | 5 | 6 |
CF | 32 | Aaron Rowand | 16 | 13 |
LF | 35 | Mark DeRosa | 17 | 13 |
C2 | 30 | Eli Whiteside* | 2 | 3 |
INF | 30 | Juan Uribe | 12 | 11 |
OF | 32 | Andres Torres | 4 | 3 |
12 | 25 | Emmanuel Burriss# | 2 | 3 |
13 | 29 | Fred Lewis | 9 | 8 |
SP1 | 26 | Tim Lincecum | 21 | 22 |
SP2 | 25 | Matt Cain | 17 | 18 |
SP3 | 32 | Barry Zito | 8 | 6 |
SP4 | 27 | Jonathan Sanchez | 6 | 5 |
SP5 | 31 | Todd Wellemeyer | 5 | 4 |
RP1 | 28 | Brian Wilson | 11 | 11 |
RP2 | 31 | Jeremy Affeldt | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 30 | Brandon Medders | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 36 | Guillermo Mota | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 27 | Sergio Romo# | 3 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Travis Ishikawa, Buster Posey, Eugenio Velez, John Bowker.
Pitchers – Alex Hinshaw, Danny Bautista, Kevin Cameron, Byung Hyun Kim (who came out of retirement), and Santiago Casilla, who’s been approaching triple digits this spring.
Hot prospect Madison Bumgarner is one of the people on the cover of this year’s Baseball Prospectus, asking if he’s the next Lincecum. The book overall isn’t quite as hyped on Bumgarner, but even so. Obviously Bumgarner’s a talented guy, and at first glance his numbers are eye-popping: 27-5 with a 1.65 ERA in 283 professional innings, an ERA below 2.00 at each of his four stops, including 10 innings in the big leagues. His walk and home run rates are microscopic. You do that at any level as a teenager, you’re a serious prospect. But I also know he’s 20 years old and has pitched a grand total of 117 innings above A ball, in which he has struck out 79 batters, just over 6 per 9 innings. I’m guessing that a guy who’s barely striking out 6 men per 9 in AA isn’t quite ready to take the majors by storm in 2010 (his K/BB was 164/21 in 141.2 innings in the Sally League, so he’s not a low-K pitcher). Adjust your short-term expectations accordingly.
Analysis: One of the joys of looking at your favorite team’s roster before the season is imagining what the team will look like if everything breaks right, if the guys with injuries get healthy, the guys with potential put it all together, the guys who are inconsistent get in a groove. For most teams in a given season, that daydream falls apart once the harsh reality of the season sets in, but there are always a few teams for whom most of the pieces fall into place.
Giants fans can’t do much of that with this team, especially the non-pitchers. What room for growth is there? Who’s going to blossom on this team? Most of the lineup is old (seriously: a 35-year-old second baseman in left field?), the rest aside from Sandoval has little potential, and Sandoval was pretty close to maxed out in 2009. The pitching staff, while much more talented, has mostly put it all together (or in Zito’s case come as far back as he’s gonna come), the main exception being Sanchez, who has struck out more than a batter per inning for his career while allowing less than 1 homer per 9, but has been held back by consistently poor control.
All this is another way of saying that the Giants will be fortunate indeed to match the 88 wins of last season. Their pitching should keep them in the hunt, but they’re the least likely of the four contenders to close the deal.
San Diego Padres
Raw EWSL: 160.50 (67 W)
Adjusted: 179.10 (73 W)
Age-Adj.: 171.49 (70 W)
WS Age: 29.14
2010 W-L: 70-92
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Nick Hundley# | 6 | 8 |
1B | 28 | Adrian Gonzalez | 29 | 30 |
2B | 35 | David Eckstein | 13 | 10 |
SS | 23 | Everth Cabrera* | 7 | 17 |
3B | 26 | Chase Headley# | 9 | 13 |
RF | 27 | Will Venable# | 5 | 6 |
CF | 30 | Scott Hairston | 11 | 10 |
LF | 23 | Kyle Blanks* | 3 | 6 |
C2 | 31 | Yorvit Torrealba | 7 | 6 |
INF | 32 | Oscar Salazar | 5 | 4 |
OF | 34 | Jerry Hairston jr. | 8 | 7 |
12 | 27 | Tony Gwynn jr. | 7 | 7 |
13 | 42 | Matt Stairs | 6 | 3 |
SP1 | 31 | Chris Young | 4 | 3 |
SP2 | 30 | Jon Garland | 10 | 9 |
SP3 | 29 | Kevin Correia | 5 | 5 |
SP4 | 26 | Clayton Richard# | 4 | 5 |
SP5 | 22 | Mat Latos* | 1 | 1 |
RP1 | 32 | Heath Bell | 10 | 8 |
RP2 | 26 | Luke Gregerson* | 3 | 5 |
RP3 | 31 | Mike Adams | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 26 | Edward Mujica# | 2 | 3 |
RP5 | 28 | Joe Thatcher | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Josh Barfield, Eric Munson, Aaron Cunningham.
Pitchers – Sean Gallagher, Adam Russell.
Analysis: The Padres don’t have the Giants’ problem, but they do have a fairly narrow foundation to rebuild upon, at least so far, and it will get a lot narrower if they deal Gonzalez or Bell. (I assume Young will be dealt if he’s able to recapture his 2006-07 form)
The mountainous Kyle Blanks showed some real pop last season (.250/.355/.514 in 172 plate appearances at age 22 after a .304/.393/.505 minor league career); the Pads hope the outfielder, listed at 6’6″ 285, isn’t the next Ken Harvey.
Mike Adams, who basically disappeared off the map due to injuries and ineffectiveness after being penciled in as the Brewers closer entering 2005, throwing just 15.2 big league innings over a three-year stretch, has had an amazing revival in San Diego, a 1.85 ERA and 10.5 K/9 the past two seasons, including an 0.73 ERA and just one home run allowed last season.
2010 AL Central EWSL Report
Part 3 of my preseason previews is the AL Central; this is the third of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior previews: the AL West & AL East.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Minnesota Twins
Raw EWSL: 241.50 (94 W)
Adjusted: 252.03 (97 W)
Age-Adj.: 243.37 (94 W)
WS Age: 29.05
2010 W-L: 94-68
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 27 | Joe Mauer | 30 | 31 |
1B | 29 | Justin Morneau | 21 | 20 |
2B | 32 | Orlando Hudson | 19 | 15 |
SS | 27 | JJ Hardy | 13 | 13 |
3B | 29 | Brendan Harris | 9 | 9 |
RF | 31 | Michael Cuddyer | 14 | 11 |
CF | 26 | Denard Span# | 16 | 21 |
LF | 24 | Delmon Young | 11 | 14 |
DH | 28 | Jason Kubel | 16 | 16 |
C2 | 27 | Jose Morales* | 2 | 4 |
INF | 32 | Nick Punto | 10 | 8 |
OF | 25 | Alexi Casilla | 5 | 6 |
13 | 39 | Jim Thome | 15 | 11 |
SP1 | 28 | Scott Baker | 12 | 11 |
SP2 | 28 | Nick Blackburn# | 9 | 11 |
SP3 | 26 | Kevin Slowey | 6 | 7 |
SP4 | 26 | Francisco Liriano | 2 | 3 |
SP5 | 34 | Carl Pavano | 4 | 3 |
RP1 | 31 | Jon Rauch | 8 | 7 |
RP2 | 31 | Matt Guerrier | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 25 | Jose Mijares* | 4 | 9 |
RP4 | 28 | Jesse Crain | 4 | 3 |
RP5 | 34 | Clay Condrey | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but given Justin Morneau’s usual durability, unless Jason Kubel spends a good deal of time hurt or in the field, Jim Thome’s not going to approach 11 Win Shares.
Also on Hand: Position players – Matt Tolbert, Jacque Jones, Ben Revere. Revere, a 22-year-old center fielder, may not make an appearance for a while, but he’s a career .337/.396/.430 hitter in the minors, where he averaged 70 stolen bases per 162 games. That’s all A ball and lower, so don’t get too excited just yet, but a guy who can hit .379/.433/.497 and steal 44 bases in 83 games at age 20, as Revere did in Class A Beloit in 2008, is one to watch. Revere has hit .325 this spring in big league camp, but is headed for AA to work on his defense, which reading between the lines suggests that he’ll end up as a left fielder.
Pitchers – Pat Neshek, Glen Perkins, Ron Mahay, Brian Duensing, Bobby Keppel, Anthony Swarzak, Rob Delaney. Also Joe Nathan, of course, but Nathan’s having Tommy John surgery today, so Opening Day 2011 is an optimistic timetable.
Analysis: Despite the costly loss of Nathan, which likely leaves the closer job either in Rauch’s hands or a combination of Rauch and Guerrier, the Twins remain the class of the field due mainly to Mauer and a solid infield. I already had Mauer approaching historic levels as a two-way catcher when I wrote my Hall of Fame catchers column in February 2009, and that was before he led the AL in batting, slugging and OBP. Fact: Mauer has now had 600 plate appearances in a season three times, and won the batting title all three. Fact: No other AL catcher has ever won a batting title; Mauer has as many as all NL catchers combined (Deacon White did win the 1875 National Association title as a catcher, and White and King Kelly won batting titles while doing some part-time catching in 1877, 1884 & 1886). But Mauer caught only 26% of opposing baserunners last season, by far a career low; like some of the other great catchers, he may end up with his best offensive and defensive seasons a little mismatched.
Delmon Young’s progress remains agonizingly slow, but guys like him have been known to creep forward with little apparent improvement and then suddenly kick up to another level; he’s still only 24, and I’d wait to see his 2010, 2011 and maybe 2012 before writing him off as a potential star. But the slow pace of Young’s improvement, combined with Denard Span’s success and Revere’s potential, probably contributed to the decision to cut bait on also waiting for Carlos Gomez to progress, even if it meant losing the last tangible tie to the Santana trade. Anyway, adding Hudson and the offensively erratic Hardy should stabilize the infield.
The big question, as is so often true, is the rotation. Liriano has struggled badly enough that there’s been talk of converting him to relief, and don’t be surprised if that possibility is explored with Nathan out; Duensing could end up replacing him in the rotation. Assuming the old Liriano doesn’t resurface, Baker and Slowey should be the anchors. Slowey posted a 5:1 K/BB ratio last season, but coughed up as many homers as walks, and was shut down after July 3 to have surgery on bone chips in his wrist; in Slowey’s last two starts with the injury he surrendered 11 runs and 3 homers in 6 innings, ballooning his ERA from 4.04 to 4.86. Slowey’s 0.56 spring ERA suggests he may be all the way back. Blackburn, like Baker and Slowey, has amazing control – the Twinkies and the Cardinals were the only major league teams to walk fewer than 3 men per 9 innings last year – but with his low K rate will depend more on the defense, and thus should benefit most from the arrival of the O-Dog.
Punto and Harris are still grappling over who gets to give away the third base job to the other; Casilla, who I have listed here as an outfielder solely because there was no room to list him as something else, is competing with Tolbert for the backup infield job.
Rauch currently holds the single-season record for most saves (18) by a pitcher who is taller than 6’10”. Because you needed to know that.
Chicago White Sox
Raw EWSL: 213.17 (84 W)
Adjusted: 224.53 (88 W)
Age-Adj.: 204.31 (81 W)
WS Age: 29.95
2010 W-L: 81-81
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 33 | AJ Pierzynski | 9 | 8 |
1B | 34 | Paul Konerko | 15 | 13 |
2B | 23 | Gordon Beckham* | 6 | 15 |
SS | 28 | Alexei Ramirez# | 14 | 17 |
3B | 28 | Mark Teahen | 11 | 11 |
RF | 27 | Carlos Quentin | 13 | 13 |
CF | 29 | Alex Rios | 16 | 15 |
LF | 32 | Juan Pierre | 11 | 9 |
DH | 33 | Andruw Jones | 6 | 5 |
C2 | 34 | Ramon Castro | 5 | 4 |
INF | 43 | Omar Vizquel | 7 | 4 |
OF | 34 | Mark Kotsay | 6 | 5 |
13 | 27 | Jayson Nix* | 3 | 6 |
SP1 | 29 | Jake Peavy | 11 | 9 |
SP2 | 31 | Mark Buehrle | 16 | 13 |
SP3 | 25 | John Danks | 14 | 16 |
SP4 | 27 | Gavin Floyd | 12 | 11 |
SP5 | 34 | Freddy Garcia | 3 | 2 |
RP1 | 29 | Bobby Jenks | 11 | 10 |
RP2 | 33 | Matt Thornton | 10 | 7 |
RP3 | 33 | Scott Linebrink | 4 | 3 |
RP4 | 28 | Tony Pena | 7 | 7 |
RP5 | 33 | JJ Putz | 6 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Brent Lillibridge, who had a horrible 2009. Alejandro de Aza. 24-year-old catcher Tyler Flowers, who improved his career minor league batting line to .293/.406/.495 last season, handled AAA pitching just fine, and got a quick cup of the big league coffee in September. Kenny Williams seems more concerned with Flowers batting .188 in that 10-game trial…I expect him to take over for Pierzynski at some point, but that could be next year unless Pierzynski gets dealt in July.
Pitchers – Sergio Santos, Greg Aquino, Randy Williams, Daniel Hudson, Carlos Torres, Freddy Dolsi, Scott Elarton.
Analysis: As has been the case for a few years now, I’m a little unclear on what the White Sox think they are doing, other than just muddling through in a weak division. On the upside, the double play combination is young and talented, the power hitters are still sort of in their prime other than Jones, the top 4 in their rotation should – if Peavy’s healthy – stand up well to anybody but the Red Sox, the bullpen’s fairly deep, and as noted there seems to be an orderly succession plan behind the plate. On the downside, Pierre is likely to return to being an offensive millstone and is ill-suited to a power park like whatever they’re calling Comiskey these days, and there are serious perennial questions about the attitudes of Quentin, Rios and Jones – if you could give one of those guys Pierre’s attitude, you’d be in much better shape (I’m not clear on why Rios is seen as the center fielder here over Pierre). The Jones signing is a gamble, but when you acquire a DH who is 33, overweight and has hit .207/.304/.393 the past three seasons, you need a better Plan B than … Mark Kotsay? Please tell me they’re never gonna wake up one morning with Vizquel as the starting DH.
On balance this looks like a team that can make a run at the division if the Twins stumble and things break well with the rotation (including Garcia, who has a lot to prove after three seasons lost to injury) and the outfield.
Detroit Tigers
Raw EWSL: 180.17 (73 W)
Adjusted: 213.91 (84 W)
Age-Adj.: 204.25 (81 W)
Subj. Adj.: 201.25 (80 W)
WS Age: 29.20
2010 W-L: 80-82
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 30 | Gerald Laird | 12 | 11 |
1B | 27 | Miguel Cabrera | 24 | 25 |
2B | 25 | Scott Sizemore+ | 0 | 11 |
SS | 33 | Adam Everett | 5 | 4 |
3B | 33 | Brandon Inge | 12 | 10 |
RF | 36 | Magglio Ordonez | 18 | 13 |
CF | 23 | Austin Jackson+ | 0 | 11 |
LF | 36 | Johnny Damon | 21 | 16 |
DH | 34 | Carlos Guillen | 11 | 9 |
C2 | 23 | Alex Avila* | 2 | 4 |
INF | 30 | Ramon Santiago | 6 | 5 |
OF | 29 | Ryan Raburn | 6 | 6 |
13 | 26 | Clete Thomas# | 5 | 6 |
SP1 | 27 | Justin Verlander | 16 | 15 |
SP2 | 21 | Rick Porcello* | 13 | 21 |
SP3 | 25 | Max Scherzer# | 6 | 8 |
SP4 | 27 | Jeremy Bonderman | 3 | 2 |
SP5 | 32 | Nate Robertson | 3 | 2 |
RP1 | 30 | Jose Valverde | 13 | 11 |
RP2 | 25 | Joel Zumaya | 2 | 2 |
RP3 | 32 | Bobby Seay | 5 | 4 |
RP4 | 28 | Zach Miner | 7 | 6 |
RP5 | 23 | Ryan Perry* | 2 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: The 1.581 multiplier for pitchers age 21 and under is based on a sample of 9 seasons, two of them Felix Hernandez and most of them guys who had not, as Rick Porcello did last year, started 31 games in the majors. Projecting him to leap to 21 Win Shares seemed unrealistic even for optimists about Porcello, who after all struck out only 89 batters last year. I trimmed him down -3 to 18.
Overall, the Tigers are heavily dependent on guys without an established profile; they’re the only team in the AL starting two pure rookies (Scott Sizemore and Austin Jackson).
Also on Hand: Position players – Jeff Larish.
Pitchers – Dontrelle Willis, who’s had a great spring and isn’t out of contention for a rotation slot just yet. Armando Galarraga, deposed from the rotation but still hanging around. Fu-Te Ni, Phil Coke, Daniel Schlereth, Eddie Bonine.
Analysis: The Tigers’ question marks start with replacing Curtis Granderson, especially defensively. Jackson is currently penciled in as the heir, although they could still go with Clete Thomas. Sizemore is actually the better hitter at this stage than Jackson (.308/.389/.500 between AA and AAA last season; Jackson’s career slugging percentage in the minors is .410), but is two years older, and second basemen with questionable gloves are not always the most likely guys to develop as hitters.
Cabrera is reportedly sobered up and slimmed down; we’ll see how much that matters and how long it lasts. My guess is that it’s not going to affect his hitting much, but of course being in shape and not hung over is likely to help his baserunning, defense and long-term durability. In a way, it seems almost quaint to see a player whose issue is alcohol.
Much of the rest of the offense is creaky, nonexistent (Everett) and/or likely to struggle in Detroit (Damon).
The pitching staff could be impressive if Scherzer finally has a healthy season and Zumaya holds up. Bonderman’s ceiling now looks a lot lower than it once did. And getting Dontrelle back on track could help.
Kansas City Royals
Raw EWSL: 179.00 (73 W)
Adjusted: 185.47 (75 W)
Age-Adj.: 182.74 (74 W)
WS Age: 28.74
2010 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 36 | Jason Kendall | 12 | 9 |
1B | 24 | Billy Butler | 13 | 16 |
2B | 26 | Chris Getz* | 5 | 11 |
SS | 28 | Yuniesky Betancourt | 10 | 10 |
3B | 26 | Alex Gordon | 8 | 9 |
RF | 30 | David DeJesus | 18 | 16 |
CF | 30 | Rick Ankiel | 8 | 7 |
LF | 34 | Scott Podsednik | 8 | 7 |
DH | 34 | Jose Guillen | 8 | 7 |
C2 | 28 | Brayan Pena | 1 | 1 |
INF | 27 | Alberto Callaspo | 11 | 11 |
OF | 27 | Josh Fields | 4 | 4 |
13 | 29 | Mike Aviles# | 7 | 8 |
SP1 | 26 | Zack Greinke | 20 | 21 |
SP2 | 31 | Gil Meche | 9 | 8 |
SP3 | 26 | Luke Hochevar# | 2 | 2 |
SP4 | 28 | Robinson Tejeda | 4 | 4 |
SP5 | 29 | Brian Bannister | 6 | 5 |
RP1 | 26 | Joakim Soria | 14 | 15 |
RP2 | 31 | Juan Cruz | 4 | 3 |
RP3 | 34 | Kyle Farnsworth | 3 | 2 |
RP4 | 26 | Kyle Davies | 5 | 5 |
RP5 | 30 | Roman Colon | 2 | 1 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mitch Maier, last year a frequent starter in the outfield. Wilson Betemit, Willie Bloomquist, Brian Anderson, Vance Wilson.
Pitchers – Where to begin? Bruce Chen (yes, that Bruce Chen), Jorge Campillo, Phil Humber, Brad Thompson, Victor Marte, Josh Rupe, Matt Herges, 37-year-old Yasuhiko Yabuta (who actually pitched much better in his second crack at American minor leaguers in 2009), Rule V pickup Edgar Osuna, Bryan Bullington.
Analysis: A little hope, but not much. Donald Zachary Greinke was so good in so many ways last year that he has to be considered an elite pitcher and not a one-year fluke, but even the elite don’t repeat seasons like that. Gordon, once a hyped “next George Brett” by the same people who used the same tag on Hank Blalock, starts the season on the DL, which puts Callaspo at third. Butler is the trendy pick for a breakout, and for good reason: from June 10 to the end of the season he batted .312/.374/.526 with 34 doubles in 101 games, including a blistering stretch of .346/.418/.596 with 45 RBI in 53 games from August 4 to September 30. That may be partly a matter of being a second-half hittter, but it does seem that Butler’s making real progress. He also had ridiculous home/road splits: .362/.415/.612 in KC, .240/.307/.372 on the road. Getz had a .324 OBP last year as a rookie, and should improve enough on that to actually be useful.
Then, there’s the ugly side, the guys who have neither present nor future. The acquisition of Podsednik is like the White Sox acquisition of Pierre: cheered by Roto players but mostly an investment in a season that’s unlikely to be repeated. Both guys remain useful fourth outfiielders miscast as starting corner outfielders. The Royals remain desperate enough for starting pitching that they’ve considered using Kyle Farnsworth in the rotation. Kendall is durable and ends their experiment with sub-.300 OBPs behind the plate, but he’s old, slow, punchless and can’t throw. Betancourt’s only 27 and has been declining for two years now (from a peak when his OBP was .308). Guillen remains a 34-year-old headache who’s been paid $24 million the past two years to bat .257/.305/.415 and block Butler from DHing. Expectations should be limited accordingly.
Maybe they should get Dontrelle; he could probably use some advice in coming back from anxiety problems from Greinke and Ankiel.
Cleveland Indians
Raw EWSL: 133.00 (57 W)
Adjusted: 153.64 (64 W)
Age-Adj.: 158.73 (66 W)
WS Age: 27.48
2010 W-L: 66-96
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Lou Marson+ | 1 | 11 |
1B | 34 | Russell Branyan | 10 | 8 |
2B | 24 | Luis Valbuena* | 3 | 8 |
SS | 24 | Asdrubal Cabrera | 14 | 18 |
3B | 28 | Jhonny Peralta | 15 | 15 |
RF | 27 | Shin-Soo Choo | 17 | 18 |
CF | 27 | Grady Sizemore | 20 | 21 |
LF | 23 | Michael Brantley* | 2 | 4 |
DH | 33 | Travis Hafner | 7 | 6 |
C2 | 39 | Mike Redmond | 3 | 3 |
INF | 25 | Matt LaPorta* | 2 | 4 |
OF | 26 | Trevor Crowe | 1 | 2 |
13 | 26 | Andy Marte | 2 | 2 |
SP1 | 32 | Jake Westbrook | 3 | 2 |
SP2 | 26 | Fausto Carmona | 5 | 5 |
SP3 | 25 | Justin Masterson# | 5 | 6 |
SP4 | 25 | Aaron Laffey | 4 | 5 |
SP5 | 25 | David Huff* | 2 | 3 |
RP1 | 33 | Kerry Wood | 7 | 5 |
RP2 | 28 | Rafael Perez | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 26 | Joe Smith | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 26 | Tony Sipp* | 2 | 3 |
RP5 | 27 | Jeremy Sowers | 2 | 2 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but Brantley and LaPorta should produce more than that with more playing time (LaPorta may be platooned with Branyan).
Also on Hand: Position players – Anderson Hernandez, Austin Kearns, Mark Grudzeilanek, Brian Bixler, Chris Gimenez, and smooth catching prospect Carlos Santana.
Pitchers – Chris Perez, Jensen Lewis, Scott Lewis, Anthony Reyes, Tom Mastny, Hector Rondon, Carlos Carrasco, Mitch Talbot. Carrasco and Talbot are seen as in the rotation mix not far down the road.
Analysis: I see Baseball Prospectus has the Indians at 79-83. I get where some of the difference comes from: BP, as it often is with unproven players, is bullish on Masterson and LaPorta and has Brantley, Hafner and Westbrook valued relatively more than EWSL does. I’m not going to argue methods here – EWSL isn’t a fine-tuned system like PECOTA, but its blunter approach can be summarized as: show me. Because to meet their PECOTA projections, all of those guys will have to do more in the majors than they’ve established as a baseline the past three seasons in the majors.
On a gut level, I’m conflicted. On the one hand, most divisions end up with a doormat, and the Indians have the look of a team with a complete mess of a starting rotation and an uneven offense beyond Sizemore and Choo. On the other hand, this division isn’t overflowing with the kind of tough competition that hangs a 3-15 record on a team in one or more of its head-to-head matchups. Consider: the Indians last year went 4-14 vs Detroit but 16-20 against the Twins and White Sox; the Royals were 6-12 last year against the Twins but 17-19 against the other two. By contrast, the Orioles last year were 15-39 against NY, Boston and Tampa (including 7-29 against the top two) and the Blue Jays were 17-37 against the trio. Cleveland must look at the Blue Jays and think, there but for the grace of God…speaking of which, one major similarity this team has to Toronto is the destructive effects of a huge contract for a declining player in a collapsing economy, although Hafner’s deal is not nearly the long-term millstone that Vernon Wells’ is.
POSTSCRIPT: If you’re wondering, the AL records, with all adjustments factored in, add up to an average of 82 wins per team, which is actually fairly consistent with the AL’s aggregate record in the age of interleague play.
2010 AL East EWSL Report
Part 2 of my preseason previews is the AL East; this is the second of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Prior preview: the AL West.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Boston Red Sox
Raw EWSL: 296.33 (112 W)
Adjusted: 298.90 (113 W)
Age-Adj.: 266.84 (102 W)
WS Age: 31.10
2010 W-L: 102-60
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 31 | Victor Martinez | 18 | 15 |
1B | 31 | Kevin Youkilis | 26 | 22 |
2B | 26 | Dustin Pedroia | 24 | 26 |
SS | 34 | Marco Scutaro | 17 | 14 |
3B | 31 | Adrian Beltre | 12 | 10 |
RF | 34 | JD Drew | 16 | 14 |
CF | 37 | Mike Cameron | 18 | 11 |
LF | 26 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 17 | 19 |
DH | 34 | David Ortiz | 15 | 13 |
C2 | 38 | Jason Varitek | 9 | 6 |
INF | 36 | Mike Lowell | 14 | 11 |
OF | 26 | Jeremy Hermida | 12 | 13 |
13 | 26 | Jed Lowrie# | 3 | 4 |
SP1 | 30 | Josh Beckett | 15 | 12 |
SP2 | 26 | Jon Lester | 15 | 16 |
SP3 | 31 | John Lackey | 14 | 11 |
SP4 | 25 | Clay Buchholz | 4 | 4 |
SP5 | 29 | Daisuke Matsuzaka | 8 | 7 |
RP1 | 29 | Jon Papelbon | 15 | 13 |
RP2 | 34 | Hideki Okajima | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 28 | Ramon Ramirez | 7 | 6 |
RP4 | 25 | Daniel Bard* | 2 | 4 |
RP5 | 43 | Tim Wakefield | 9 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but bear in mind that EWSL is valuing Lowell, Varitek and Hermida based on being everyday players in 2009, Lowrie in light of extensive playing time in 2008. That’s not irrational – teams with that kind of depth often end up needing it, especially Hermida when you consider the injury histories of Drew and Cameron. But in the end, there won’t be at bats enough for all of them.
Also on Hand: Position players – Bill Hall (another recently deposed regular!), Josh Reddick, Tug Hulett.
Pitchers – Manny Delcarmen, Joe Nelson, Boof Bonser, Kason Gabbard, Dustin Richardson, Brian Shouse, Fabio Castro, Michael Bowden.
Analysis: This Red Sox team doesn’t look offensively strong enough to me to be a real 100-win team, but they and the Yankees are doubtless the strongest teams in the game by a healthy margin, in Boston’s case due to their depth, pitching and defense. The rotation has some question marks, especially Matsuzaka and the durability of Lackey, but as with the rest of the roster there are fallbacks. Maybe the biggest vulnerable keystone is Mike Cameron, the oldest guy in the starting lineup and a key to improving Boston’s outfield defense; a Drew-Ellsbury-Hermida outfield is not nearly as solid afield.
EWSL recognizes that Lester is really the star of the pitching staff now, and without the tougher road of pitching in Fenway in the AL East, he might be right there with Lincecum, Greinke, King Felix, Santana and maybe Halladay and Sabathia as the game’s very best pitchers; as it is, he’s at least in the next tier with Verlander, Lee, Wainwright, Haren and Carpenter. But of course Beckett remains the big-game ace.
I remain…I think the proper word is incredulous, rather than skeptical, at Scutaro as a major league everyday shortstop at age 34, but he’s built up to this gradually, he’s a solid enough bat and defensively the Sawx have Beltre and Pedroia to help cover his sides.
The Defending World Champion Hated Yankees
Raw EWSL: 283.67 (108 W)
Adjusted: 289.60 (110 W)
Age-Adj.: 250.32 (97 W)
WS Age: 31.92
2010 W-L: 97-65
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 38 | Jorge Posada | 15 | 11 |
1B | 30 | Mark Teixeira | 27 | 24 |
2B | 27 | Robinson Cano | 17 | 17 |
SS | 36 | Derek Jeter | 24 | 18 |
3B | 34 | Alex Rodriguez | 25 | 22 |
RF | 29 | Nick Swisher | 16 | 15 |
CF | 29 | Curtis Granderson | 21 | 20 |
LF | 26 | Brett Gardner# | 6 | 7 |
DH | 31 | Nick Johnson | 10 | 9 |
C2 | 24 | Francisco Cervelli* | 2 | 4 |
INF | 24 | Ramiro Pena* | 2 | 5 |
OF | 36 | Randy Winn | 17 | 13 |
13 | 33 | Marcus Thames | 5 | 5 |
SP1 | 29 | CC Sabathia | 21 | 18 |
SP2 | 33 | AJ Burnett | 13 | 9 |
SP3 | 38 | Andy Pettitte | 11 | 9 |
SP4 | 33 | Javier Vazquez | 15 | 10 |
SP5 | 24 | Phil Hughes | 6 | 6 |
RP1 | 40 | Mariano Rivera | 16 | 12 |
RP2 | 24 | Joba Chamberlain | 8 | 8 |
RP3 | 35 | Damaso Marte | 3 | 2 |
RP4 | 27 | Alfredo Aceves# | 5 | 5 |
RP5 | 25 | David Robertson# | 2 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. Winn has the same issue as some of the Red Sox bench, but he’s sharing time with Gardner, and while 20 Win Shares seems optimistic for the pair, it’s not crazy. Also, the Yankees will need bench depth (both Winn and Marcus Thames) with Nick Johnson in the starting lineup.
Also on Hand: Position players – Mike Rivera, Kevin Russo, Jamie Hoffman.
Pitchers – Jonathan Albaladejo, Chan Ho Park, Sergio Mitre, Kei Igawa, Boone Logan, Royce Ring. Chad Gaudin was released this morning.
Analysis: At every turn, the Yankees have a stronger offense and more impressive-looking frontline talent than the Sox, but they’re also older (except in center field) and subject to more uncertainties.
Hughes was named the fifth starter today, sending Joba back to the bullpen. Your guess is as good as mine how long either of those assignments will last, although at some point the Yankees need to make a long-term commitment what they’re doing with those two guys. I think the die has been cast now to try Hughes as far as he will go as a rotation starter, but Joba is more enigmatic. He may even need a change of scenery.
A-Rod’s streak of consecutive 100-Run/100-RBI seasons ended last year at 11, second only to Lou Gehrig’s 13. In 14 major league seasons, he’s either driven in 100 runs, scored 100 runs, or (12 times) both, every year.
The re-signing of Joe Mauer in Minnesota, the aging and injuries to A-Rod, and the continuing uncertainty around Joba means that there remains no heir apparent to Rivera, Jeter or Posada. When those guys go, this may be a more different team than anyone now envisions.
Tampa Bay Rays
Raw EWSL: 227.83 (89 W)
Adjusted: 241.67 (94 W)
Age-Adj.: 238.37 (93 W)
WS Age: 28.31
2010 W-L: 93-69
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Dioner Navarro | 9 | 10 |
1B | 32 | Carlos Pena | 21 | 16 |
2B | 29 | Ben Zobrist | 16 | 15 |
SS | 30 | Jason Bartlett | 19 | 17 |
3B | 24 | Evan Longoria# | 18 | 28 |
RF | 25 | Matt Joyce# | 3 | 4 |
CF | 25 | BJ Upton | 18 | 22 |
LF | 28 | Carl Crawford | 17 | 17 |
DH | 33 | Pat Burrell | 13 | 11 |
C2 | 30 | Kelly Shoppach | 9 | 8 |
INF | 27 | Willy Aybar | 6 | 6 |
OF | 34 | Gabe Kapler | 5 | 4 |
13 | 29 | Hank Blalock | 6 | 6 |
SP1 | 28 | James Shields | 13 | 12 |
SP2 | 26 | Matt Garza | 11 | 11 |
SP3 | 27 | Jeff Niemann* | 6 | 11 |
SP4 | 24 | David Price* | 3 | 7 |
SP5 | 24 | Wade Davis* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 30 | Rafael Soriano | 8 | 7 |
RP2 | 32 | Dan Wheeler | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 27 | JP Howell | 9 | 8 |
RP4 | 32 | Grant Balfour | 6 | 5 |
RP5 | 27 | Andy Sonnanstine | 4 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, but Matt Joyce and Wade Davis, if healthy all year, should well exceed their previously established major league performance.
Also on Hand: Position players – Perennial SS prospect Reid Brignac, Desmond Jennings (who is supposed to be Carl Crawford 2.0, although at the same age, Crawford was entering his fourth season as a major league regular), Sean Rodriguez.
Pitchers – Randy Choate, Joaquin Benoit, Lance Cormier, Winston Abreu, Dale Thayer. Abreu’s an interesting “prospect” case: a 33-year-old Dominican who entered the Atlanta system in 1994 (before Chipper Jones’ first season as a regular), he’s crapped out in brief major league trials (7.31 ERA in 44.1 innings for four teams over three seasons), has pitched in Mexico and Japan – but since 2006, he’s thrown 168.2 innings at AAA with a 1.93 ERA and eye-popping peripherals: 5.40 H/9, 0.54 HR/9, 3.00 BB/9, 12.68 K/9.
Analysis: The Brewers had a wonderful collection of talent in the 1978-83 period, but somehow they only put together the one magical pennant (plus a postseason appearance in the scrambled season of 1981). Somehow, they often ended up third. Will that be the fate of these Rays? The good news is, there still seems to be a fair amount of potential upside/bounce-back here. Their Win Shares age marks them as the youngest team in the division (if Baltimore is hoping to rebuild to where the Rays are now, they need to build back in time). BJ Upton, David Price, Pat Burrell, Dioner Navarro and Andy Sonnanstine could hardly have had more disappointing seasons in 2009, and James Shields was off his game as well; Price and Wade Davis could potentially arrive in a hurry. On the other hand, a Navarro-like dropoff could easily plague the three Rays who played massively above expectations last season: Ben Zobrist, Jason Bartlett and Jeff Neimann (Zobrist Win Shares the last three seasons: 1, 8, 27). Check out how Tampa’s infield, powered by Zobrist and Bartlett, stacked up last season against their division rivals:
Average starting infielder, 2009:
Tm | PA | Avg | OBP | Slg | R | RBI | SB | CS | GDP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TB | 602 | 0.282 | 0.377 | 0.524 | 93 | 93 | 15 | 4 | 11 |
NYY | 658 | 0.310 | 0.384 | 0.519 | 98 | 93 | 13 | 4 | 17 |
BOS | 524 | 0.288 | 0.364 | 0.468 | 76 | 69 | 8 | 4 | 16 |
(Poor Nick Green has the honor of dragging down the Red Sox. Note the low GIDP total for the Rays despite Longoria hitting into 27 despite batting third behind Crawford all year, mostly with Upton or Bartlett leading off – that high a total suggests that it’s in the team’s interests for Crawford in particular to run more ahead of him to avoid that this year, although as it is he ran 76 times last season). Niemann is perhaps unfairly lumped in that group, as he had a fine minor league record, and his signature skill (a low HR rate) has persisted at every level; if he can bump up his K rate even a little from 6.2 K/9 last season (it was 9.1 for his minor league career), he could be a star.
Boy, this division has some 24-year-old pitchers, doesn’t it?
Navarro sounds as if he’ll be reasonably ready to start the season despite a horrific spring training collision with Jacque Jones, who’s fighting tooth and nail for a roster spot on the Twins.
Baltimore Orioles
Raw EWSL: 171.50 (70 W)
Adjusted: 193.50 (78 W)
Age-Adj.: 181.93 (74 W)
WS Age: 29.61
2010 W-L: 74-88
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 24 | Matt Wieters* | 5 | 11 |
1B | 30 | Garrett Atkins | 11 | 10 |
2B | 32 | Brian Roberts | 20 | 16 |
SS | 30 | Cesar Izturis | 8 | 7 |
3B | 36 | Miguel Tejada | 18 | 14 |
RF | 26 | Nick Markakis | 19 | 21 |
CF | 24 | Adam Jones# | 10 | 15 |
LF | 26 | Nolan Reimold* | 5 | 11 |
DH | 32 | Luke Scott | 11 | 9 |
C2 | 35 | Chad Moeller | 2 | 1 |
INF | 32 | Ty Wigginton | 9 | 7 |
OF | 25 | Felix Pie | 4 | 5 |
13 | 26 | Robert Andino# | 2 | 2 |
SP1 | 35 | Kevin Millwood | 10 | 7 |
SP2 | 31 | Jeremy Guthrie | 10 | 8 |
SP3 | 24 | Brad Bergesen* | 5 | 10 |
SP4 | 23 | Brian Matusz* | 2 | 3 |
SP5 | 22 | Chris Tillman* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 32 | Mike Gonzalez | 6 | 5 |
RP2 | 27 | Jim Johnson | 6 | 7 |
RP3 | 27 | Cla Meredith | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 35 | Koji Uehara* | 2 | 3 |
RP5 | 36 | Mark Hendrickson | 5 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jeff Salazar, Lou Montanez, Michael Aubrey.
Pitchers – Matt Albers, Dennis Sarfate, Alfredo Simon, Will Ohman.
Analysis: In another division, I’d be guardedly optimistic; the Orioles finally seem to be getting their rotation together, their outfield is reasonably young and talented, Wieters still looks like an eventual superstar if not the immediate one everybody predicted last season, and the infield and bullpen are at least anchored mostly by competent veterans (Gonzalez, like Soriano with the Rays, was heisted from a Braves franchise disproportionately disgusted with its bullpen help). Granted, there are trouble signs: Millwood has been terrible this spring, Markakis could just as easily turn into Ben Grieve rather than Carl Yastrzemski, Reimold may not repeat last season’s pleasant surprise, and any of the trio of Matusz, Bergesen, and Tillman could easily go the way of so many promising young pitchers. But the main problem the Orioles face is 54 games on their schedule with the Beasts of the East.
I swear, I will spend the next several years muttering “e before i spells Greinke, i before e spells Wieters.”
Tejada has averaged 27 GIDP per year the past four seasons, leading the league five times in six years; he hasn’t yet cracked Jim Rice’s surprisingly durable single-season record of 36.
Luke Scott’s Win Shares the past three seasons: 11, 11, 11. That’s an established performance level.
Toronto Blue Jays
Raw EWSL: 150.50 (63 W)
Adjusted: 160.50 (67 W)
Age-Adj.: 153.81 (64 W)
WS Age: 29.39
2010 W-L: 64-98
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 29 | John Buck | 7 | 6 |
1B | 33 | Lyle Overbay | 12 | 10 |
2B | 28 | Aaron Hill | 18 | 18 |
SS | 33 | Alex Gonzalez | 6 | 5 |
3B | 27 | Edwin Encarnacion | 10 | 11 |
RF | 29 | Jose Bautista | 8 | 7 |
CF | 31 | Vernon Wells | 12 | 10 |
LF | 22 | Travis Snider* | 3 | 8 |
DH | 26 | Adam Lind | 14 | 16 |
C2 | 35 | Jose Molina | 6 | 4 |
INF | 35 | John McDonald | 3 | 2 |
OF | 29 | Jeremy Reed | 2 | 2 |
13 | 32 | Randy Ruiz* | 2 | 2 |
SP1 | 25 | Ricky Romero* | 5 | 11 |
SP2 | 28 | Shaun Marcum | 6 | 5 |
SP3 | 30 | Scott Richmond* | 2 | 3 |
SP4 | 25 | Brandon Morrow | 5 | 6 |
SP5 | 24 | Marc Rzepcynski* | 2 | 5 |
RP1 | 32 | Jason Frasor | 6 | 5 |
RP2 | 34 | Scott Downs | 8 | 6 |
RP3 | 28 | Jeremy Accardo | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 32 | Kevin Gregg | 9 | 7 |
RP5 | 34 | Shawn Camp | 4 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: None. This is all there is, folks. But Snider should beat 8 WS if he’s in the lineup all year.
Also on Hand: Position players – Raul Chavez, Joey Gathright, Jorge Padilla, Jarrett Hoffpauir.
Pitchers – Plenty of about the same quality as the guys listed above: Brian Tallet, Brett Cecil, Dana Eveland, David Purcey, Jesse Carlson, Dustin McGowan, Jesse Litsch.
Analysis: 2010 marketing slogan: “Hey, we already paid them.” Marcum, who did not throw a pitch last season, has been named to start Opening Day, replacing the departed (liberated?) Roy Halladay. The Yankees, Sox and Rays may be tough places to break in as a young starting pitcher given the pressures, but Baltimore and Toronto are even less enviable, especially Toronto without Millwood: the youngsters (in Richmond’s case, not even young) have to carry the front of the rotation on top of facing all those tough opponents.
The Jays aren’t so desperately under-talented – there’s at least a plausible gap-filler at most every position, and the bullpen’s deep enough in decent arms that they should eventually be able to figure out which ones are going to pitch well this year – but in this division, with so little front-line talent and an unproven rotation, I’ll be surprised if they avoid 100 losses.
2010 AL West EWSL Report
Part 1 of my preseason previews is the AL West; this is the first of six division previews, using Established Win Shares Levels as a jumping-off point. Notes and reference links on the EWSL method are below the fold; while EWSL is a simple enough method that will be familiar to long-time readers, it takes a little introductory explaining, so I’d suggest you check out the explanations first if you’re new to these previews. I’ve also resurrected for this season the team ages, which are weighted by non-age-adjusted EWSL, so the best players count more towards determining the age of the roster.
Some players are rated based on less than three seasons or given a rookie rating. Key:
+ (Rookie)
* (Based on one season)
# (Based on two seasons)
Seattle Mariners
Raw EWSL: 225.00 (88 W)
Adjusted: 241.34 (94 W)
Age-Adj.: 218.33 (86 W)
Subj. Adj: 216.33 (85 W)
WS Age: 29.94
2010 W-L: 85-77
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Adam Moore+ | 1 | 11 |
1B | 27 | Casey Kotchman | 12 | 13 |
2B | 26 | Jose Lopez | 14 | 15 |
SS | 32 | Jack Wilson | 10 | 8 |
3B | 32 | Chone Figgins | 21 | 16 |
RF | 36 | Ichiro Suzuki | 26 | 19 |
CF | 27 | Franklin Gutierrez | 13 | 14 |
LF | 32 | Milton Bradley | 14 | 11 |
DH | 40 | Ken Griffey jr | 11 | 6 |
C2 | 27 | Rob Johnson* | 5 | 9 |
INF | 29 | Ryan Garko | 13 | 12 |
OF | 30 | Ryan Langerhans | 3 | 3 |
13 | 34 | Eric Byrnes | 6 | 5 |
SP1 | 24 | Felix Hernandez | 20 | 22 |
SP2 | 31 | Cliff Lee | 17 | 14 |
SP3 | 31 | Erik Bedard | 9 | 7 |
SP4 | 28 | Ian Snell | 5 | 5 |
SP5 | 27 | Ryan Rowland-Smith | 7 | 6 |
RP1 | 28 | David Aardsma | 9 | 8 |
RP2 | 27 | Mark Lowe | 4 | 4 |
RP3 | 29 | Sean White | 4 | 4 |
RP4 | 27 | Brandon League | 3 | 3 |
RP5 | 26 | Shawn Kelley* | 2 | 3 |
Subjective Adjustments: As I did last season, I’m trying to be very sparing with introducing purely subjective adjustments into what is intended to be an objective system, but sometimes you have to have a sanity check. I’m docking 2 Win Shares from Adam Moore, the Mariners’ rookie catcher, because I can’t quite value the combination of him and weak-hitting #2 catcher Rob Johnson as being cumulatively worth 20 Win Shares, and given the choice between the two, I prefer to dock the guy who is less proven. That said, Moore’s career line in the minors is .301/.369/.483; even factoring in the very large adjustment from a Class A hitters’ haven like High Desert to Safeco, that suggests a guy who will bring noticeably more pop than the punchless Johnson.
Also on Hand: Position players – Jack Hannahan, Matt Tuiasosopo, Corey Patterson, Mike Sweeney, Mike Carp, Josh Bard, Michael Saunders.
Pitchers – Luke French, Jason Vargas, Yusmiero Petit, Garrett Olson, Kanekoa Texeira, Randy Messenger, Ryan Feierabend. French appears to be the favorite to take Bedard’s rotation slot until when and if Bedard is ever ready to pitch, and with Cliff Lee starting the season shelved with an abdominal strain, the staff may need to dig deeper than that. French put in three very undistinguished seasons in the Tigers’ system before reeling off 13 excellent starts at AAA Toledo last year, posting a 2.98 ERA and improving his K/BB ratio to 3.6 from 1.47, earning him a promotion. He had a 3.38 ERA but weak peripherals with Detroit before arriving in Seattle, where he surrendered a ghastly 2.1 homers per 9 innings in 38 innings of work. So, French should be regarded as a work in progress.
Analysis: Probably no team moved as aggressively or with as clear a plan in mind in the offseason as the Mariners, a franchise adrift for much of the past 6 years despite occasional youth movements and spurts at overachieving contention-like records (last season’s 85 wins exceeded their Pythagorean record – i.e., their record as predicted from runs scored and allowed – by 10 games). The reason was obvious: they saw an opportunity and a limited window to grab it. The opportunity came in the form of the Angels’ free agency losses – John Lackey, Chone Figgins, Vlad Guerrero, on the heels of last year’s losses of Francisco Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Jon Garland and Garret Anderson. It’s cold comfort to Angels fans that many of those guys were declining commodities unlikely to match their prior production in Anaheim; the point was that that prior production will be hard to replace, leaving the team that dominated this division to the tune of five division titles in six years suddenly vulnerable. At the same time, with star Ichiro Suzuki now 36 and Felix Hernandez subject to the usual concerns about how long a very young pitcher can stay on top before he breaks down, the team had a sense of urgency about seizing this opportunity.
The Mariners’ plan wasn’t brilliant, but you can accomplish quite a lot just by knowing what you want to do and sticking with it. They snagged Figgins from the Angels, which killed two birds with one stone, depriving the Angels of his services and importing a slap hitter more suited to Safeco than departing underachieving slugger Adrian Beltre. Even if Figgins can’t sustain his improvement in walks last season, he’ll be a solid addition in the short run. Casey Kotchman was brought in to soften the blow of Russell Branyan’s departure, and while Kotchman is a fairly punchless hitter, he’s just hitting age 27 and he and Milton Bradley are both guys who similarly don’t depend on the home run for their offensive value (Kotchman may end up platooned with Ryan Garko at first). Ditto for stretch-drive acquisition Jack Wilson at short and scrap heap claim Eric Byrnes.
On the pitching side, bringing in Cliff Lee was part of a larger project (along with last season’s addition of Ian Snell) to prop up the Mariners’ low team strikeout rate (only Felix Hernandez notched more than 90 Ks last season), rendering them less dependent on repeating last season’s AL-best-by-a-wide-margin .712 Defensive Efficiency Rate, and enable the team to re-sign the rehabbing Erik Bedard without having to bank on him as the #2 starter.
Not everything fit the pattern, of course; the team re-upped 40-year-old Ken Griffey jr. to DH (assuming Bradley can play left), after Griffey hit .214, albeit with a really freaky home-road split in which he mauled opposing pitchers at Safeco but was utterly helpless on the road. But Griffey is apparently supposed to provide veteran leadership. If he falls on his face in a “Willie Mays, 1973” way, the Mariners don’t have a ton of hitting depth to cover the LF/DH spots, especially if Bradley is, as usual, frequently unavailable. Griffey is the most extreme example of a division-wide trend: the average AL West DH is 36 years old this season.
Clearing 90 wins by more than a hair will be an uphill battle for Seattle unless Lee, Bedard, and Snell suddenly all get healthy and back to top form at once – like the rest of this division, the Mariners are out of the wild card race before the season starts, when you look at the AL East – but this team has definitely made the moves necessary to swipe a division title if one can be had in the high 80s.
The Angels
Raw EWSL: 221.17 (87 W)
Adjusted: 230.68 (90 W)
Age-Adj.: 210.64 (83 W)
WS Age: 30.12
2010 W-L: 83-79
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 28 | Mike Napoli | 10 | 11 |
1B | 27 | Kendry Morales | 12 | 12 |
2B | 26 | Howie Kendrick | 14 | 16 |
SS | 26 | Erick Aybar | 15 | 17 |
3B | 25 | Brandon Wood# | 1 | 1 |
RF | 36 | Bobby Abreu | 22 | 16 |
CF | 34 | Torii Hunter | 21 | 18 |
LF | 31 | Juan Rivera | 10 | 8 |
DH | 36 | Hideki Matsui | 15 | 11 |
C2 | 27 | Jeff Mathis | 5 | 5 |
INF | 29 | Macier Izturis | 15 | 14 |
OF | 29 | Reggie Willits | 3 | 3 |
13 | 27 | Freddy Sandoval+ | 0 | 4 |
SP1 | 27 | Jered Weaver | 14 | 13 |
SP2 | 26 | Scott Kazmir | 9 | 10 |
SP3 | 27 | Ervin Santana | 10 | 9 |
SP4 | 31 | Joel Pineiro | 8 | 7 |
SP5 | 29 | Joe Saunders | 13 | 11 |
RP1 | 34 | Brian Fuentes | 10 | 8 |
RP2 | 33 | Fernando Rodney | 7 | 5 |
RP3 | 30 | Brian Stokes | 3 | 3 |
RP4 | 31 | Jason Bulger* | 4 | 6 |
RP5 | 25 | Kevin Jepsen* | 2 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None, although I expect Brandon Wood to finally establish himself as a reputable major league hitter after cracking 160 home runs in a long minor league career that saw him bat .272/.338/.497, .296/.375/.595, and .293/.353/.557 over the past three full seasons at AAA. Also, one assumes that Kendry Morales will do better than 12 Win Shares, but I don’t argue with EWSL’s bias against guys like Wood and Morales whose recent history still includes flopping in extended trials against big-league competition.
Also on Hand: Position players – Robb Quinlan.
Pitchers – Scot Shields, Sean O’Sullivan. The stability of the Angels, even with all the free agent losses, is reflected in how few battles for roster spots and starting jobs they have this spring; if everybody’s healthy, you’ll know who their players are.
Analysis: Mike Scioscia also knows what he’s doing, though I’m starting to worry he’s suffering from Gene Mauch/Buck Rogers Syndrome, where the ownership assumes he can keep winning without having to supply him with quality players. Notice, as is often the case with the Angels, the focus on prime talent: the roster above includes two 25-year-olds, three 26-year-olds, five 27-year-olds, a 28-year-old, and three 29-year-olds – more than half the roster in that age cohort, and except for the outfield (where Abreu’s age remains a concern) the age is mostly concentrated in the bullpen. That’s a similar distribution to the one I noted in the 2002 World Champs.
That said, the Angels’ fate will rest with the health of their starting rotation, especially the power pitchers. Kazmir needs to rebound, and recent reports are not optimistic about Ervin Santana. And I remain skeptical that Pineiro can keep his walk and home run rates sufficiently microscopic to survive his inability to strike anybody out. If Weaver and Saunders end up as this team’s 1-2 starters, they’re in trouble and could easily sink below .500.
Texas Rangers
Raw EWSL: 181.67 (74 W)
Adjusted: 203.30 (81 W)
Age-Adj.: 201.73 (80 W)
Subj. Adj.: 199.73 (80 W)
WS Age: 28.27
2010 W-L: 79-83
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 25 | Jarrod Saltalamacchia | 6 | 7 |
1B | 24 | Chris Davis# | 6 | 9 |
2B | 28 | Ian Kinsler | 23 | 23 |
SS | 21 | Elvis Andrus* | 9 | 21 |
3B | 33 | Michael Young | 19 | 16 |
RF | 29 | Nelson Cruz | 11 | 10 |
CF | 24 | Julio Borbon* | 3 | 6 |
LF | 29 | Josh Hamilton | 16 | 15 |
DH | 35 | Vladimir Guerrero | 16 | 12 |
C2 | 26 | Taylor Teagarden* | 3 | 3 |
INF | 25 | Joaquin Arias# | 1 | 1 |
OF | 28 | David Murphy | 10 | 10 |
13 | 32 | Endy Chavez | 3 | 3 |
SP1 | 27 | Scott Feldman | 9 | 8 |
SP2 | 28 | Rich Harden | 9 | 9 |
SP3 | 23 | Tommy Hunter* | 4 | 9 |
SP4 | 26 | Brandon McCarthy | 3 | 4 |
SP5 | 23 | Derek Holland* | 1 | 2 |
RP1 | 30 | Frank Francisco | 7 | 6 |
RP2 | 29 | CJ Wilson | 8 | 7 |
RP3 | 27 | Darren O’Day# | 5 | 6 |
RP4 | 39 | Darren Oliver | 8 | 7 |
RP5 | 22 | Naftali Feliz* | 3 | 7 |
Subjective Adjustments: A primary reason why I added subjective adjustments was what I think of as the Khalil Greene problem, since he’s one of the first (but not the last) second-year shortstops to exhibit it: EWSL assesses a very young hitter as having a lot of rapid room for growth, but as a result it tends to overvalue second-year hitters who are (1) under age 25 and (2) have a disproportionate amount of their value in their gloves. Nobody improves that much defensively from a good start in one year. So, rather than 21 Win Shares, I’ve trimmed back Elvis Andrus by 2 Win Shares to 19, which is still +2 from last year’s total of 17.
Also on Hand: Position players – Esteban German, Max Ramirez, Brandon Boggs, Toby Hall. Ramirez is the third of Texas’ troika of hugely hyped young catchers, but he had a .234/.323/.336 train wreck of a season at AAA last year, and with Saltalamacchia and Teagarden scuffling at the major league level, suddenly nobody’s talking about this as the second coming of the Giants’ McCovey vs Cepeda problem.
Pitchers – Colby Lewis (who’s been in Japan and may end up in the rotation), sometime closer Chris Ray, Edwar Ramirez, Matt Harrison, Dustin Nippert, Doug Mathis.
Analysis: The story has been the same for years: the sun is rise, the sun is set, and there’s no pitching in Texas yet. Have we finally turned a corner? Certainly, this team’s pitching doesn’t present the ghastly hue that doomed past Rangers squads to the cellar. Last season’s 4.57 team ERA was actually better than the league average, especially when adjusted for the park. Scott Feldman’s one-season improvement suggests a guy who can serve as an innings-eater (though 0.9 HR, 3.1 BB & 5.4 K/9 are decent numbers, but don’t foretell much more room for growth, esepcially after two seasons of being pounded). Whether he stays in middle relief or becomes a Joba Rules-style starter, Naftali Feliz has an enormous upside as a power pitcher. Young control/groundball starter Tommy Hunter had a good ERA last season, while Derek Holland, who struggled, struck out more than twice as many as he walked (7.0 K, 3.1 BB, but a frightening 1.7 HR/9) following a fairly spectacular tour through the minor leagues (career rates of 0.4 HR, 2.6 BB, 9.9 K, albeit mostly in A ball). Rich Harden – who’s only a year older than Feldman – is on hand, bringing the same gambler’s chance to Texas that Bedard and Snell bring to Seattle, Kazmir and Santana to Anaheim, and Ben Sheets and Justin Duchscherer to Oakland. For once, there’s some hope. But in the short run, the pitching will have an uphill battle to match last season with the departure of staff ace Kevin Millwood, the dependence on young pitchers and potentially erratic setup men and the mercurial Harden.
(UPDATE: It currently looks like the Rangers will be trying CJ Wilson in the rotation and McCarthy in the bullpen, but we’ll see how long that experiment lasts.)
The offense was more unreliable last season. Kinsler’s 30-30 numbers made Roto fans happy, but a .253 batting average just isn’t enough in a park like Texas. Andrus was adequate and promising, but still isn’t an offensive plus. Davis needs to arrest his strike zone problems before his career vanishes. And one of the catchers needs to step up.
Vlad Guerrero was a good gamble – he fell off last season and could be almost done, but guys with his talent and track record have been known to bust out with one last gasp around this age, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to see him notch a season like Andres Galarraga’s first year in Atlanta, Juan Gonzalez’ first year in Cleveland, Frank Thomas’ first year in Oakland, or Gary Gaetti’s 1995 with Kansas City.
Oakland A’s
Raw EWSL: 168.67 (69 W)
Adjusted: 196.13 (79 W)
Age-Adj.: 196.19 (79 W)
WS Age: 27.90
2010 W-L: 79-83
POS | Age | PLAYER | Raw EWSL | Age Adj |
---|---|---|---|---|
C | 26 | Kurt Suzuki | 15 | 17 |
1B | 24 | Daric Barton# | 7 | 9 |
2B | 33 | Mark Ellis | 13 | 11 |
SS | 26 | Cliff Pennington* | 5 | 6 |
3B | 28 | Kevin Kouzmanoff | 15 | 15 |
RF | 25 | Ryan Sweeney# | 10 | 15 |
CF | 30 | Coco Crisp | 8 | 8 |
LF | 29 | Rajai Davis | 9 | 9 |
DH | 31 | Jack Cust | 16 | 13 |
C2 | 28 | Landon Powell* | 3 | 5 |
INF | 27 | Jake Fox* | 3 | 6 |
OF | 30 | Gabe Gross | 8 | 7 |
13 | 27 | Eric Patterson* | 2 | 3 |
SP1 | 31 | Ben Sheets | 7 | 6 |
SP2 | 32 | Justin Duchscherer | 5 | 3 |
SP3 | 22 | Brett Anderson* | 4 | 9 |
SP4 | 26 | Dallas Braden | 5 | 6 |
SP5 | 22 | Trevor Cahill* | 4 | 8 |
RP1 | 26 | Andrew Bailey* | 9 | 18 |
RP2 | 30 | Brad Ziegler# | 8 | 8 |
RP3 | 31 | Michael Wuertz | 7 | 6 |
RP4 | 29 | Craig Breslow | 5 | 4 |
RP5 | 26 | Joey Devine# | 3 | 4 |
Subjective Adjustments: None.
Also on Hand: Position players – Travis Buck, a supposedly healthy Eric Chavez.
Pitchers – Gio Gonzalez, Vin Mazzaro, Lenny DiNardo, Brett Tomko, Jerry Blevins, Clayton Mortenson. Also Josh Outman, the obligatory Tommy John rehab case.
Analysis: Sure, Billy Beane’s vaunted “Moneyball” savvy and bargain-hunting skills are widely revered. Sure, he’s spun silk from a sow’s ear repeatedly with Chad Bradford- and Scott Hatteberg-style scrap heap finds. Sure, every year when I do my post-season EWSL wrapups, the A’s are at or near the top of the list of teams getting the most Win Shares from guys not even on their preseason 23-man lineup, attesting to Beane’s ongoing ability to retool his teams on the fly.
But look back at the glory days of Beane’s A’s and you’ll notice something else: Jason Giambi won the MVP Award in 2000 and was the runnerup the following year, batting .338/.476/.653 over those two seasons; Miguel Tejada won the award in 2002 and averaged 30 HR and 116 RBI from 2000-2003. Barry Zito won the Cy Young Award in 2002, going 23-5. Ben Grieve was Rookie of the Year in 1998, Bobby Crosby in 2004, Huston Street in 2005. Tim Hudson went 20-6 in 2000, and finished 2d, 4th and 6th in the Cy Young balloting over a four-year period. Mark Mulder had 21- and 19-win seasons back to back, finishing second in the Cy Young balloting in 2001. Eric Chavez averaged 100 RBI per year from 2001-2005. In short: the A’s had stars, big ones, most of them homegrown along with star-level seasons from acquisitions like Jermaine Dye, Matt Stairs and John Jaha.
That’s what’s missing now from a team whose best everyday player is…Kevin Kouzmanoff? Kurt Suzuki? Ryan Sweeney? Rajai Davis? Ugh. You can hold together a battleship with duct tape, but you need a battleship first.
The A’s have the usual array of young pitchers, granting that none of the starters are blazing from the minor league gate as Hudson and Zito did, and Sheets and Duchscherer are rolls of the dice. The bullpen could be outstanding, but beware of their various aches and pains: Bailey was a great surprise last season but spring soreness could portend a guy who takes a step back after flying too close to the sun for a year, and Breslow and Devine are also various shades of banged up. I expect Beane to press enough buttons to keep Oakland around .500, but for more than that, they need to wish upon a star.
The Top Ten (Twelve, Actually)
Continuing my warmup posts on Established Win Shares Levels, since I have kept you all waiting for the team previews, here’s how the method, with the updated 2010 age adjustments, values the top 10 players (actually twelve, as I’m listing the guys who are essentially tied at 26 EWSL) in the game in terms of established performance level adjusted by age. EWSL is explained here. Chart below the fold.