4/18/22

Remember 1969: I Need Your Help! (I need all the help I can get)

 


I’ll go with this right up front:   We need another player rating measurement, and I need all your help to get one perfected.    

I really dislike the Wins Above Replacement rating system.    A few examples below will begin to tell why, although there are virtually unlimited cases where WAR is just plain head-scratching.   

One thing that seems rather strange to me is lumping all players – pitchers and position players – into a single rating system, but we’ll worry about that later.   The initial focus is on position players. 

I understand WAR tries to take into account more than just hitting statistics, and I think we might be able to get to that, but my initial attempt is generally to build a hitting measurement tool.    I have not spent much time learning the calculation(s), and what little I did look at it, it looks almost impossible to do as a general baseball fan with the stats available to me.   

There are actually two Wins Above Replacement systems generally regarded as relevant today – the Baseball-Reference WAR, or bWAR, and Fangraphs WAR or fWAR.    I typically quote the bWAR numbers for players, because I just got more used to the Baseball-Reference pages.     The two numbers generally track with each number, but there are some differences.   I will not argue with anyone who thinks fWAR is better than bWAR or vice versa.   I like neither of them.

Some background examples before I get into building a better mousetrap. 

Two players:

Player A:

 

Yrs

Games

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

BB

SO

PlayerA

17

2196

8664

1933

383

36

434

1204

1289

152

891

1748

PlayerB

19

2372

9692

2452

498

39

353

1296

1391

195

661

1741

Player A had a lifetime batting average of .263;   Player B had a lifetime batting average of .277

Player A had a lifetime OPS of .839;  Player B had a lifetime OPS of .793. 

A little bit of math:  Player B had 519 more hits in his career;  115 more doubles, but 81 less homers; he also had 92 more runs scored and 102 more RBI (with less homers). 

In the January 2022 Hall of Fame voting Player A received 41.1% of the vote.   Player B received 5.3%. 

Oh yeah,  Player A had 10 career gold gloves, Player B had 9.  

Player A has 62.7 career bWAR;   Player B has 50.7.

Player A has 67.0 career fWAR;  Player B has 43.0 - a massive difference.

I cannot figure out how Andrew Jones, player A gets so much more love and attention than Torii Hunter, player B.  

 

Next, we’ll do a chart for five players who all had the initials “BB”.

Player BB1 is Barry Bonds, the gold standard of modern day WAR.     The other 4 will be revealed after the data is shown.

 

Yrs

Games

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

BB

SO

BB1

22

2986

12606

2935

601

77

762

2227

1996

514

2558

1539

BB2

14

1849

8090

1886

302

66

332

1258

1024

461

914

1757

BB3

22

2517

10037

2715

498

49

174

1077

1208

183

450

453

BB4

17

2213

9545

2375

277

131

54

1359

578

558

1129

907

BB5

16

2113

8257

2010

408

61

287

1084

1173

45

912

1204

 

Now if we eliminate Barry Bonds as ‘other world’ who leads in almost all regular statistical categories, the remaining four are somewhat even in the length of career and other measurements.   Obviously BB4 is a ‘top of the order’ speed guy rather than a power hitter, and BB3 accumulated quite a few more hits and doubles without either the home runs or the walks.  

 BB3 would seemingly be the top of the lot, huh?

 The WAR numbers for the above players: 

 

bWAR

fWAR

Player BB1:  Barry Bonds

162.8

164.4

Player BB2:  Bobby Bonds:

57.8

57.2

Player BB3:  Bill Buckner

15.1

18.8

Player BB4:  Brett Butler

49.7

42.2

Player BB5:  Bobby Bonilla

30.2

32.7

Bobby Bonds and Buckner both began their careers in the late 60’s.  Bonds was done in 1981 while Buckner played until 1990.    Both Butler and Bonilla played primarily in the 80s and 90s.

I cannot figure out how Bobby Bonilla has 2x WAR of Buckner, while Butler has 3X and Bobby Bonds almost 4X.    Buckner leads all of them in games, plate appearances, hits doubles, RBI, and K-rate (by far).    Of the four, only one has a higher career batting average that Buckner, and that is Butler’s .290 to Buckner’s .289.  

So, what do we do?     We create a better system!    And with everybody’s help we can replace WAR with PEACE (yeah, I need some help here, too . . (Player Evaluation And C____   E_______)

I started this off with something that seems to make sense to me, but could probably use some tweaks and polishing.    Hear me out for now on this and then offer up any constructive criticism and improvements.     This system does not try to define a ‘replacement level player’, although there will probably be a value that is arrived at that can be considered just that.    For the purposes of these examples, all are well above replacement players.    

The system will create a score which will range in the hundreds (thousands for this group) to a high of 15045.4 for Barry Bonds.    Nobody can get a negative score - if you make it to the majors, you don't deserve to leave with less than zero!

While Bonds' score is not an absolute limit, it will be difficult to surpass it, although if Mike Trout can stay healthy and highly productive for another 12 or so years, he may have a shot. 

My system:

CATEGORY

Multiplier

Number of Years with at least one plate appearance

Times 100

Games Played

Divided by 10

Plate Appearances

Divided by 20

Hits

Times 1

Doubles

Times 2

Triples

Times 3

Home Runs

Times 4

Runs Scored

Times 1

RBI

Times 1 - # Home Runs

Stolen Bases

Times 1

Caught Stealing

Times -1

Bases on Balls

Times 1

Strikeouts

Times 0.5

Grounded into Double Play

Times -1

Hit by Pitch

Times 1

Sacrifice Hits

Times 1

Sacrifice Flies

Times 1

League MVP                                                

?

Gold Gloves    

?

These are rather arbitrary multipliers which I cannot argue very hard for, but I do want to start out by giving credit for playing time.   This will act as the base for the end result.    At any rate, the calc is the same for everyone.

I originally added a multipier of 100 for each MVP and 50 for each Gold Glove won, but have taken that out now so this is a pure hitting score.   (Put your thoughts on this in the comments if you have them.)

So, how do the players above compare in the new system?

 

 

Barry

Bonds

Barry

Bonds

Bobby Bonds

Bobby Bonds

Bill Buckner

Bill Buckner

Brett Butler

Brett Butler

Bobby Bonilla

Bobby

Bonilla

 

 

Stats

Score

Stats

Score

Stats

Score

Stats

Score

Stats

Score

Yrs

*100

22

2200

14

1400

22

2200

17

1700

16

1600

Games

/10

2986

298.6

1849

184.9

2517

251.7

2213

221.3

2113

211.3

PA

/20

12606

630.3

8090

404.5

10037

501.85

9545

477.25

8257

412.85

Hits

*1

2935

1495

1886

1186

2715

1994

2375

1913

2010

1254

2B

*2

601

1202

302

604

498

996

277

554

408

816

3B

*3

77

231

66

198

49

147

131

393

61

183

HR

*4

762

3048

332

1328

174

696

54

216

287

1148

Runs

*1

2227

2227

1258

1258

1077

1077

1359

1359

1084

1084

RBI

*1– HR

1996

1234

1024

692

1208

1034

578

524

1173

886

SB

*1

514

514

461

461

183

183

558

558

45

45

CS

*-1

141

141

169

169

73

73

257

257

57

57

BB

*1

2558

2558

914

914

450

450

1129

1129

912

912

K

*-0.5

1539

-769.5

1757

-878.5

453

-226.5

907

-453.5

1204

-602

GIDP

*-1

165

-165

107

-107

247

-247

62

-62

169

-169

HBP

*1

106

106

53

53

42

42

38

38

28

28

S

*1

4

4

16

16

47

47

147

147

5

5

SF

*1

91

91

64

64

97

97

51

51

97

97

MVP

?

7

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

GG       

?

8

0

3

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

TOTAL SCORE

 

 

15045.4

 

7946.9

 

9316.1

 

9022.1

 

7968.15

bWAR

 

 

162.7

 

57.8

 

15.1

 

49.7

 

30.2

fWAR

 

 

164.4

 

57.2

 

18.8

 

42.2

 

32.7

 

As a hitter, Buckner’s career WAR falls well short.   I also do not understand the quite inflated WAR of Bobby Bonds.  

Can we do better?

And lastly, for my other personal soapbox to help Mr. Hunter get some more respect, my system comparison to A. Jones: 

 

 

Andrew Jones

Andruw Jones

Torii Hunter

Torii Hunter

 

 

Stats

Score

Stats

Score

Yrs

*100

17

1700

19

1900

Games

/10

2196

219.6

2372

237.2

PA

/20

8664

433.2

9692

484.6

Hits

*1

1933

1080

2452

1562

2B

*2

383

766

498

996

3B

*3

36

108

39

117

HR

*4

434

1736

353

1412

Runs

*1

1204

1204

1296

1296

RBI

*1– HR

1289

855

1391

1038

SB

*1

152

152

195

195

CS

*-1

59

59

99

99

BB

*1

891

891

661

661

K

*-0.5

1748

-874

1741

-870.5

GIDP

*-1

192

-192

262

-262

HBP

*1

97

97

97

97

S

*1

6

6

6

6

SF

*1

71

71

71

71

MVP

?

0

0

0

0

GG

?

10

0

9

0

TOTAL SCORE

 

 

8311.8

 

9039.3

bWAR

 

 

62.7

 

50.7

fWAR

 

 

67.0

 

43.0

 

This is a very small subset of the possible examples - my next look will be to compare Lou Whitaker (75.1 bWAR) to Jeff Kent (55.5 bWAR).  

A couple final notes: First, I do understand that this does not take into account where they play on the field and the fact that outfielders and first basemen should have better power numbers than shortstops.    Once the numbers are calculated, other groupings can be done.   Perhaps there is a “Shortstop Standard” and an “Outfield Standard”.    I have not developed that thinking yet. 

Lastly, I am ignoring (for now) two other factors.   One is what kinds of teams did the player play on (Andruw Jones generally played on better teams than Torii Hunter did), and what ballpark did the player play in?   (The Colorado Rockies vs. Citi Field factors).    Perhaps that can be added in at some point, but for now, neither is a factor in my scoring. 

Please comment with your thoughts.     Also, please keep personal thoughts about each player (and PEDs) out of this discussion.     


6 comments:

Mack Ade said...

There's some serious work here.

Me?

I'm statted out.

Reese Kaplan said...

The problem is that many ballplayers contribute positive attributes in a variety of ways. Vince Coleman was a deadly base stealer, but had no power and wasn't much of a defensive player. Rey Ordonez could field with the best of them but couldn't do much else. Dave Kingman could hit a ball into orbit when he wasn't swinging and missing. He was fairly useless in the field. Some players hit for high average but no run production. Others struggle to get past the replacement level in batting average but are still critical to their team's success. My question is whether a single stat makes sense at all. It would seem to me if we rated every attribute individually, then added up the ratings you would have a composite picture that is fairly accurate. For simplification's sake, on a scale of 1-100, Coleman would get a 98 on base stealing, but then probably a 20 on power and a 55 on batting average. You can fill in the rest on fielding, throwing, etc. Then add all of these numbers together to get a new type of WAR.

Remember1969 said...

Yes,I understand what you are saying.. I'm thinking that while this is primarily an approach from the hitting perspective, adding in some points for # of years played folds in some of the other talents, simply because lesser hitters can add value and stick around longer than those that are true replacement players. It seems that this somewhat 'normalizes' differences between a Brett Butler type of player and a Bill Buckner type of player.

Remember1969 said...

I actually changed my measurement yesterday to use a multiplier of 50 rather than 100 for number of years which seems to make more sense

Remember1969 said...

Using this measurement, Barry Bonds still leads the pack, but Rickey Henderson gets very close.

Tom Brennan said...

I will have to remember to read this when I have access to more than my little I phone. and then comment. Ambitious effort.