Fantasy Baseball Advice

In my previous post, I wrote about the 2010 best and worst fantasy baseball draft values.  I thought it would be interesting to analyze the results of last year’s 21 Razzball Commenter Leagues to see how well these rankings lined up with fantasy baseball team success.  The format for all these leagues was:  12 team, MLB, snake draft, 5×5.

For simplicity’s sake, I used draft results for assigning each player to a specific team.  Obviously trades happen, players get added/dropped, etc.  But sifting through the data to credit team A with said player because he had 290 AB vs. 250 AB on Team B is a much larger exercise.  I focused only on players drafted in 50% or more of the leagues and went through the final stats per team to assign the following key free agent pickups:  J. Axford, J. Bautista, T. Cahill, J. Garcia, A. Huff, C. Lewis, B. Myers, A. Pagan, B. Posey, A. Torres, and CJ Wilson.

I created three stats to rank players using the 2^nd and 3^rd only for tiebreakers:

1)  % of Top 3 Finishes – How many times did a team with this player finish in the top 3 of their league?

2)  Median Finish

3)  Average Finish

The full results can be found here.  The top players for 2010 were:

1. Paul Konerko – 61.9% Top 3 Finish (Median=2nd)
2. Dan Uggla – 61.9% (Median=3rd)
3. John Axford – 57.1% (Median=3rd, Avg=3.7)
4. Buster Posey – 57.1% (Median=3rd, Avg=4.2)
5. Carlos Gonzalez – 57.1% (Median=3rd, Avg=4.4)
6. Chris Perez – 52.9% (Median=3rd, Avg=4.8)
7. Raul Ibanez – 52.4% (Median=3rd, Avg=4.4)
8. Robinson Cano – 52.4% (Median=3rd, Avg 4.7)
9. Rickie Weeks – 47.6% (Median=4th, Avg 4.9)
10. Neftali Feliz – 47.6% (Median=4th, Avg 5.0)

Seven of the above players finished in the top 50 of the Best Values with Posey’s 72nd place finish a bit misleading since he started in May.  Cano is 75th overall on the Best Value list but he is 3rd in value amongst top 50 picks (Halladay and Votto are ahead of him).  The only fluke in the bunch is Raul Ibanez.

Here are the bottom 10  players:

1. Brad Hawpe – 0% Top 3 finish (Median=10th)
2. Yadier Molina – 0% (Median=9th)
3. David Ortiz – 4.8% (Median=10th, Avg=8.9)
4. Tim Lincecum – 4.8% (Median=10th, Avg=8.9)
5. Scott Kazmir – 4.8% (Median=9th, Avg=9.0)
6. Huston Street – 4.8% (Median=9th, Avg=8.3)
7. Todd Helton – 4.8% (Median=9th, Avg=8.0)
8. Stephen Drew – 4.8% (Median=8th, Avg=8.1)
9. Adam Lind – 4.8% (Median=8th, Avg=8.0
10. J.A. Happ – 4.8% (Median=7th)

Four of these players finished in the top 50 of Worst Values (of players with ADP<212):  Hawpe, Kazmir, Helton, and Lind.  Ortiz is the only player who finished in the top half of value – I think this may be because several teams who drafted Big Papi dropped him after his awful start so they didn’t benefit from his resurgence.

There are a myriad of theories that can either be created or tested from this data set.  I looked into several that I have detailed below.  Feel free to look at the data yourself and add your thoughts under comments.  (If you own a blog, feel free to provide your post URL in the comments.  Just make sure to add a link to this post and note the data came from Razzball Commenter Leagues.)  Just one word of caution – a sample of 21 leagues is more directionally significant vs. statistically significant.  Anomalies should be expected working with a sample like this (e.g., how could teams that drafted Rollins finish in the top 3 more than teams that drafted Tulo or H-Ram?)

You Can Overcome a Bad Top 3 Pick – It’s definitely possible to overcome a bad pick in your top 3 rounds – but it’s not recommended.  I know it’s statistically anomalous but 8 of the 21 teams that drafted Jimmy Rollins finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.  Only teams with V-Mart, Zimmerman, Mauer, and Pujols had more top 3 finishes among the top 36 picks.  Even teams that drafted Jacoby Ellsbury or Mark Reynolds – the absolute bombs of the top 36 picks – managed 3 top 3 finishes.

You Can Overcome two Bad Top 4 Picks – Of the top 48 picks, one-third (16) were below average for their position based on Point Shares (Granderson, Rollins, Haren, Pedroia, Sizemore, Kinsler, Sandoval, Morneau, Utley, Ellsbury, Youkilis, Reynolds, Upton, Greinke, Bay, Lind).  The average finish of teams that drafted two or more of these picks was 7.2 (average would be 6.5) with 6 first place finishes, 7 second place finishes, and 2 third place finishes.  There were 15 top 3 finishes compared to 28 bottom 3 finishes.  Granderson and Rollins were drafted on 2 winning teams.  The other four combinations were Sandoval-Morneau, Haren-Pedroia, Kinsler-Sandoval, and a Granderson-Youkilis-Kinsler trifecta.  So missing on two of your first four picks isn’t a suggested path but it’s not a death sentence either.

Draft Slot Not Important – The Razzball Commenter Leagues indicate that draft position does not have a major impact on team success.  There were winners coming from all 12 draft positions and only one draft position (1st) managed even 3 winners.  My favorite position of 4th finished worst with a median finish of 9th.  This is despite Ryan Braun being the most common pick at that position which is a lot better than 5th (Utley) or 7th (Kemp).  Below is a ranking of draft picks based on median team finish (with average finish as tiebreaker):

1 – 10th draft position (Median 4th place finish, 2 winners)
2 – 1st draft position (Median 5th place finish, 3 winners)
T-3 – 3rd draft position (Median 6th place finish, 1 winner)
T-3 – 11th draft position (Median 6th place finish, 2 winners)
5 – 6th draft position (Median 6th place finish, 1 winner)
6- 9th draft position (Median 6th place finish, 2 winners)
7 – 8th draft position (Median 7th place finish, 1 winner)
8 – 5th draft position (Median 7th place finish, 2 winners)
9 – 12th draft position (Median 7th place finish, 1 winner)
10 – 2nd draft position (Median 8th place finish, 2 winners)
11 – 7th draft position (Median 8th place finish, 2 winners)
12 – 4th draft position (Median 9th place finish, 2 winners)

Drafting SPs in Top 3 Rounds – As some of you may know, I am a bigger proponent of drafting pitchers in top rounds than most bloggers.  This wasn’t a winning strategy AT ALL in 2010 RCL leagues though – at least for the first 3 rounds.  There were 5 SPs taken in the first 3 rounds of RCL leagues:  Lincecum (13), Halladay (19), F-Her (26), Greinke (28), and Sabathia (30).  Halladay drafters managed 6 top 3s which is slightly above average (21 leagues * 25% of teams finish in top 3 = 5.25 top 3 finishes).  Lincecum, F-Her, Greinke, and Sabathia drafts managed 7 TOTAL top 3 finishes (2 for all except 1 for Lincecum).  The Greinke/Lincecum finishes might make some sense but F-Her?

I dug in deeper and found that, in 8 leagues, one or more teams drafted 2 of these SPs.  These ten teams had the following finishes:  4th (twice), 7th (once), 8th (thrice), 9th (twice), 10th (once), 11th (once).  So it’s certainly clear that you should NEVER draft two SPs in the first 3-4 rounds.  But that doesn’t fully explain why teams that drafted SPs in the first 3 rounds (espec. F-Her teams) finished so poorly.

If someone wants to pore through the 21 leagues to figure out, that would be great.  My hypothesis is that it is harder to draft SPs early and catch up on 1B/OF power than the reverse.  I think it can be the more successful strategy if applied right in the typical league.  But, if you’re going to deploy this strategy, I would suggest doing a number of mock drafts and seeing how well you can draft offense in later rounds.  (For an example of how this could work, I did an expert NL-only snake draft last year and picked Lincecum and Reyes as my top 2.  Obviously, those two players did not meet my expectations yet I still finished 2nd because I found power at a cheaper price later in the draft – Werth, Uggla, LaRoche, Garrett Jones, Cody Ross, Barajas, picked up Stanton as a free agent)

Avoid The SB Specialists In Top Rounds – There were 7 players drafted in the first 6 rounds that were safe bets for less than 20 HRs and more than 20 SBs:  Crawford (16), Ellsbury (23), Reyes (39), Ichiro (43), BJ Upton (44), Roberts (55), Figgins (72).  All of these 7 players finished below average (5 or less) in top 3 finishes.  As you’d expect, Crawford and Ichiro did best (5 top 3s each) while the rest had 3 top 3s except for Figgins with one measly 3rd place finish (the worst success rate of all top 6 round picks).

Drafting 2 MIs In First 6 Rounds – I prefer to not draft more than 1 2B/SS in early rounds so I thought I’d check to see how teams fared that drafted 2+ MIs in the first 6 rounds.  There were on average 3 teams per league that used this draft strategy and the distribution of team finishes is almost completely even between 1st through 12th (so very close to a 6.5 average)

Relief Pitcher strategy – Relief Pitchers represent 7 of the top 20 and 10 of the top 36 players ranked by their drafted teams’ performance.  John Axford (I counted teams who had the most IP for him), Chris Perez, and Neftali Feliz all had 9 or more top 10 finishes.  So is there a way to predict top value closers?  Pretty much, no.  I’d say that closer value is dependent on six variables:  1) Opportunity to Save Games, 2) ERA/WHIP, 3) Strikeouts, 4) Wins, 5) Saves, and 6) Health.  The first three are easier to project than the other three.  Strikeouts and ERA/WHIP are fairly correlated with high BB pitchers being what I’d think is the most likely exception.  So I’d focus on targeting high K closers with some opportunity to save games.  I also advise to overdraft this position in terms of quantity and include any set-up guy with 70+ K potential.  Lastly, I would avoid drafting one of the first 3 closers unless you felt confident of 90+ K.  I’d rather build up in other positions in those early rounds and go for volume vs. quality on closers.

Draft Top Catchers or Punt? – There are always a handful of catchers every year that go in the first 100 picks.  I generally punt catcher until later rounds for a number of reasons, most notably that catchers have higher injury rates.  (This is in snake drafts only.  I don’t mind investing for catchers in auction drafts if I’m getting enough of a discount.).  Last year, there were four catchers picked on average in the top 100 picks within Razzball Commenter Leagues:  Mauer (18), V-Mart (48), McCann (49), and Wieters (92).  While neither Mauer and V-Mart had sensational years, they provided very good value for their draft position and finished on 9 and 10 top-3 teams, respectively (note: one 2nd place team drafted both).  McCann teams fell slightly below average with 4 top-3 teams while Wieters owners had 3 top-3s.  While that seems to average out, just note that only teams that picked up Posey fared better, on average, than teams with Mauer and V-Mart.  I’d argue drafting a top catcher was a good bet for 2010 but still wouldn’t advise it for 2011 unless you get a good discount – a good rule of thumb for one catcher leagues is to take Catcher ADP and multiply it by some multiple of 1.25-1.5 – e.g., if V-Mart is at an ADP of 50th and you think that’s his true value, don’t make a move on him until he drops to 63-75.

High Upside OFs Are Great, Right? - When a player like Carlos Gonzalez has a breakthrough year (2nd on estimated value vs. draft position, 5th place based on team performance in Razzball leagues), the natural reaction is to draft several high-upside players in next year’s drafts.  Just a word of warning, though.  Here are some of the other high-upside OFs coming into 2010 and their RCL team performance rank:  Travis Snider – 96th, Jason Heyward – 108th, Colby Rasmus – 164th, Adam Jones – 237th, Jay Bruce – 239th, and Justin Upton – 269th.  I’m not saying to avoid high-upside plays – just don’t overpay for them with the thought you’re going to get the next CarGo.

Free Agent Strategy – The 1^st/2^nd/3^rd place finishers averaged slightly more than 1 of the top 10 free agents.  But while Jose Bautista was the highest value free agent, he only appeared on 5 top-3 finish teams.  On the other hand, John Axford and Buster Posey each appeared on 12 top-3 teams (including 8 1st place finishes for Axford!).  Why?  Many ‘good’ teams didn’t have room for Bautista at 3B, OF, 1B/3B, or UTIL.  Poorer teams had more holes and were more likely to gamble on what appeared to be a fluke.  Axford and Posey – on the other hand – are in positions where many teams are open to an upgrade.  Starting pitchers seem to finish somewhere in between with Trevor Cahill and Jaime Garcia finishing on 8 and 7 top-3s while CJ Wilson, Colby Lewis, and Brett Myers finished on 4-5 top 3s.  This seems to fit in with typically recommended free agency behavior to:  1) Pick up any closer and 2) Don’t be afraid to drop late draft picks – especially at catcher – if a higher upside play presents itself.

Before I start digging into 2011 fantasy baseball projections, I thought I’d use up some blog space to look back at 2010.

I’ve calculated the total value of each player by taking their total value as measured by my Point Shares metric (a Point Share represents the estimated difference in an average team’s points if they were to substitute a given player for the average player at his position).  I converted each player’s Average Draft Position (ADP) to an ‘Expected Point Share’ metric and subtracted that from their final calculated value in a 12 team mixed league.  So if a player outperformed his draft position, he’s in the positive.

The full results are here.  There are links on the page for 2010 Player Raters for MLB 10, 12, 14, and 16-team leagues.

Below represents the best values across the various roster spots.  I’ve created two ‘All-Star’ teams:  one for players drafted in the top 100 and one for players drafted outside the top 100.  If there were no players who outperformed their draft position, I kept the slot null.   As  you can see below, 2010 was a bad year for ‘Top 100′ catchers and relievers.  Top 100 SPs had a solid year with 12 of the 21 providing positive returns (relative to draft position) and only two complete flameouts (Beckett and Vazquez).

As for the worst values, it was a positively brutal year for Top 100 second basemen as five of the eight picked in the top 50 had disappointing to very disappointing returns (Utley, Kinsler, Pedroia, Roberts, Hill with Uggla, Cano and Phillips the other three).  The same goes for third baseman as Sandoval edged out Beckham, A-Rod, Reynolds, and Figgins for the honor of worst return.  Eleven 3Bs were taken in the top 100 and only Michael Young provided a positive return (Wright was close – with an ADP of 14 and final rank of 19).

Can you believe that the BBWAA gave our blog voting rights for this year’s MLB Hall of Fame ballot?

Just kidding.  They haven’t made a decision that ill-informed since, um, electing Jim Rice and Andre Dawson.  But I’m going to pretend we have a vote this year and explain the decisions on our ballot.

Here is some background on how I analyze players for the HOF:

Much like the Earth and many a good joke, the views on Hall of Fame worthiness have two poles.  The first pole is the traditional view which focuses on seasonal and career ‘baseball card’ stats like AVG/Hits/HR/RBI or Wins/ERA, factors in dominance based on MVP/Cy Young voting + reputation during one’s career, and the post-season success for that individual and their team(s).    The second pole is the sabermetric view which relies on more advanced statistics with the aim of crediting the best players based on objective criteria.

I am much, much closer to the sabermetric pole than the traditionalist pole.  My view on baseball (and life) is to question and adapt my views when presented with compelling information.  I’ve been convinced that OBP & Times on Base are superior to AVG and Hits and that the traditional view of baseball has underestimated the value of walks.  I can’t view HRs or even Slugging percentage as an absolute reflection of power and look for advanced stats to adjust for era and park factors.  Runs and RBIs are clearly important – you need to score runs to win games – but it’s hard to balance these stats against lineup strength, era, park factors, etc.  The same goes for pitching:  I think ERA/WHIP needs to be adjusted per era/park factors/team defense, Wins are a questionable measure given their reliance on team strength, etc.

As advanced statistics have improved, I put less faith in MVPs/Cy Youngs/All-Star voting.  The writers (and fans for All-Star) voting for those awards over the years didn’t either have access to the advanced learnings that sabermetrics has provided and/or don’t believe it.  For instance, let’s look at the 1996 MVP voting.  Juan Gonzalez had a fantastic hitting year (.314/47/144 with a .368 OBP, below average running/defense and favorable park that led him to not even make the AL Top 10 in OPS+) but exactly how could that be considered more valuable than Ken Griffey Jr. (.303/49/140 with a .392 OBP, solid baserunning, and the most valuable defensive player in the league based on Defensive WAR) or Alex Rodriguez (.358/36/123 with a .414 OBP, positive baserunning and above-average SS defense)?  In fact, of the 21 players to get at least one AL MVP vote in 1996, Juan Gonzalez had the worst Wins Above Replacement (WAR).  In addition, there are also some years where a player wins the MVP/Cy Young by default because there really isn’t a player who warrants it and vice versa (see 1996 where Ken Griffey and Alex Rodriguez – as well as Chuck Knoblauch – were worthy MVP candidates).  Does that make their year any less MVP-worthy?

So here are the criteria/stats I’m using for my HOF analysis:

1) Career Excellence - I am measuring this by career WAR (Wins Above Replacement).  This statistic – which was developed by Sean Smith and is available for free on Baseball-Reference.com or Sean’s ownBaseballProjection.com – calculates the value of a hitter’s offense/defense/running or a pitcher’s pitching vs. those of a replacement player (minor leaguer or waiver wire claim).  Many factors such as position, era, park, defense (for pitchers) are accounted for.  (note:  there are slight differences in WAR calculations between Baseball-Reference and BaseballProjection.com – I use those from B-R unless otherwise noted.)

2) Peak Excellence - I think most traditional and sabermetric fans and voters agree that – everything equal – a player who had a dominant peak is more preferable to one who was just very good for a long period of time.  Rather than focus on awards, I’ve taken the B-R (and I assume Sean Smith) suggested breaks of 5.0+ WAR for an All-Star season and 8.0+ WAR for an MVP season.    For reference, between 1901 and 2010, there were 282 hitting seasons and 132 pitching seasons that surpassed 8.0.  That roughly 2.7 hitters and 1.2 pitchers per year which seems fair when you consider there are about 2x the hitters than pitchers who play enough to reach this total.

(Bit of trivia:  The year with the most 8.0+ WAR hitters is 2004 with 6:  Barry Bonds (12.4), Adrian ‘El Senator‘ Beltre (10.1), Albert Pujols (9.4), Scott Rolen (9.2), Jim Edmonds (8.4), and Ichiro (8.1).  The NL MVP vote went exactly in WAR order for the 5 NL’ers.  Vladamir Guerrero (7.4) beat Ichiro for AL MVP who finished 7th.   The year with the most pitchers 8.0+ was 1971 with 6:  Wilbur Wood (10.7), Fergie Jenkins (9.2), Tom Seaver (9.2), Vida Blue (8.8), Mickey Lolich (8.6), and Dave Roberts (8.5).  Vida Blue and Mickey Lolich finished above Wilbur Wood for AL Cy Young while Fergie Jenkins edged out Tom Seaver for NL.)

I’ve combined the above into one stat using the following formula:  Career WAR + 10 * MVP seasons (8.0+ WAR) + 5 * All-Star seasons (5.0-7.9 WAR).  I’ll call this ‘Peak-Adjusted WAR’ for the series of posts.  This is admittedly arbitrary but seems to do a fair job at rewarding those with high peaks vs. long careers.  Case in point:  Carlton Fisk has one more career WAR than Gary Carter (67.3 to 66.3) aided by playing close to 2 more seasons worth of games.  But Gary Carter had 8 seasons of All-Star value (most ever for a catcher amongst retired players as of 2005) while Carlton Fisk only had 4.  This adjustment puts Carter ahead of Fisk 106.3-87.3 (2nd and 3rd behind Johnny Bench).  Sandy Koufax has far less career WAR to Don Sutton (54.5 to 70.8) but his 3 MVP seasons (1963, 1965, 1966) and two All-Star seasons give him 40 extra points where Don Sutton’s 4 All-Star seasons give him 20.  Thus, Koufax scores higher 94.5 to 90.8.  (Click here for access to the spreadsheet on Google Docs).

In looking at the scores across all players, I’d say for me that a peak-adjusted WAR of 100 is a no-brainer selection, anything from 80-100 is in the consideration set (with more bias towards positions with less players who’ve reached that plateau, and anything under 80 isn’t a consideration except for relief pitchers or special cases (e.g., an untimely death, Negro-league players, a player lost peak time to serve in the war, etc.)

3) Hall of Fame Position Representativeness - While WAR takes position into account for single seasons, it cannot adjust for the fact that certain positions (notably Catcher and Middle Infield) are tougher to have long careers than other positions (notably corner OF/1B/DH).  My general POV is that if a player was in the top 10 at his position in the past 60 years (1945-2005), he warrants Hall of Fame consideration even if their stats look lower than average.

Players On The Razzball 2011 Hall of Fame Ballot (see links for posts on each player):

Players Considering For The Future

* Yes, I’m shocked how high John Olerud scores on peak-adjusted WAR.  He had two 8.0+ WAR seasons which is two more than the following 1B/DHs on the ballot Rafael Palmiero, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Edgar Martinez, Harold Baines, and Tino Martinez.  This is because John Olerud had a much better OBP than anyone on this list (other than Edgar Martinez) and was a more valuable glove than anyone else during his peak years (about equal with Palmeiro and Mattingly).   The AVG/OBP/SLG and OPS+ for those 8.0+ WAR years were:  .363/.473/.599 in 1993 with a 186 OPS+ and a .354/.447/.551 with a 163 OPS+ in 1998.   Mattingly never cleared .400 OBP once in his career, Palmeiro did it once (a pot-friendly .420 in 1999), and McGriff did it twice (.403 and .400).  Neither of the three had a higher OPS+ than those two Olerud years.

Players Who Fall Short

This is the 6th post in a series on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot.  My first post on Jeff Bagwell covered the criteria I am using for analyzing HOF players.  The next four posts covered Bert Blyleven, the middle infielder trio of Alan Trammell, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar, Edgar Martinez, and Tim Raines + Mark McGwire.

In this post, I’m going to cover the two best pitchers on the ballot other than Bert Blyleven:  Jack Morris and Kevin Brown.

Jack Morris

WAR Totals:  44.3 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 39.3 career WAR + 1 All-Star seasons (+5 – defined as 5.0-7.9 WAR)

Stats:  18 seasons,  254-186, 3.90 ERA / 1.296 WHIP / 3,824 IP / 2,478 K / 1,390 BB / 175 CG / 28 Shutouts / 105 ERA+

162 Game Stats:  16-12 / 242 IP / 33 GS / 11 CG / 2 Shutouts / 157 K / 88 BB

Career Excellence

Jack Morris was a perfectly good pitcher for a long period of time but – from a WAR perspective – he has absolutely no case for the Hall of Fame.  The 44.3 Peak-Adjusted WAR is 133rd for pitchers.  There are two starting pitchers in the HOF with a worse Peak-Adjusted WAR – Rube Marquard (43.5) who retired in 1925 and Satchel Paige whose WAR would be at least double that of Morris if integration happened earlier.  His 105 ERA+ (adjusted for era and park) is only better than Marquard’s and is tied with Catfish Hunter.  Among post-war HOF SP’s, only Bob Feller and Early Wynn have a higher WHIP.

The case for Jack Morris from writers like Jon Heyman or Bob Ryan generally rests on that he won the most games in the 1980′s and that he was a big-game pitcher.  Dan Symborski of BaseballThinkFactory.org, the creator of ZiPS projections, and occasional ESPN contributor wrote a great article on Morris that address these claims.  Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus did a start-by-start analysis that shows his high ERA cannot just be explained by the fact that he ‘pitched to the score’.

Here are two more logs for the fire….

1) Yes, Jack Morris had the most wins but he wasn’t the best pitcher.  Below are the top 12 most valuable pitchers from 1980-1989 as measured by WAR.  Several of these pitchers (Hershiser, Clemens, Gooden, Saberhagen) didn’t get started until 1983-1984 but still provided more value in 6-7 years than Morris did in 10 years.  You would’ve needed a below average pitcher to throw those other years in order to match the value of Morris.

Wins depend on the team offense and defense.  As Dan pointed out in his post, Morris’s teams averaged 4.9 runs in support for him which was 50% higher than average.  That is how he won 22 games more than Dave Stieb despite having near equal games started, Stieb pitching much better (ERA+ 127 vs. 109), and throwing more quality starts (60.7% vs. 59.9%).  All eleven of these pitchers managed a better ERA+ than Morris and only Blyleven and Hough managed a lower percentage of quality starts.

Top Starting Pitchers – 1980-1989

As for ‘big game pitcher’, here is what I wrote in last year’s post regarding Morris:

“…his career playoff stats are 7-4 with a 3.80 ERA.  Good, yes.  Great, no.  Four of these wins came in the 1991 Twins ALCS and World Series victories – the most famous of course being his 1-0 10 inning shutout against Atlanta in the 7th game.  No doubt this was awesome and extremely memorable.  He was also great for the 1984 Tigers going 3-0 with a sub-2.00 ERA.

Looking at those two playoff runs, you could forgive that he lost his only start for Detroit @ Minnesota in the 1987 ALCS (8 IP / 6 ER).  But how about his 1992 playoff run for the Toronto Blue Jays – a team that gifted him 21 wins with his 4.04 ERA/102 ERA+?  In 4 starts across the ALCS and WS, he went 0-3 with an 8.22 ERA.  Toronto beat Atlanta 4 wins to 2 – Morris lost both of those games.

I’m not saying Jack Morris was a bad playoff pitcher – it is that he is remembered as better because of selective memory.  For comparison sake, Dave Stewart went 10-4 with a 2.69 ERA during his playoff stints with Oakland and Toronto.  John Smoltz went 15-4 with a 2.65 ERA.  David Cone went 8-3 with a 3.80 ERA.  Roger Clemens – who isn’t particularly regarded for playoff dominance – has a 12-8 record with a 3.75 ERA.  Net-net, Morris was good in the postseason but not extraordinary (outside of that one start).”

Peak Excellence

Jack Morris only had one ‘All-Star’ season of 5.0+ WAR.  No starting pitchers in the Hall of Fame have less than two and most modern-day HOF pitchers have at least six (Sutton had 4).

I think Morris fit the ‘workhorse’ pitching archetype the best.  Every year, he’d give 200-270  innings of slightly above average pitching.  If he was on a very good team, he could get to 20 wins (3 times (ERA+ of 127, 117, 102).  If he was on an average team, maybe he’d go 16-11.  If he was on a bad team, he’d be under .500.

This type of pitcher is definitely valuable but they sometimes get too much credit when they are fortunate to play on a run of good-to-great teams.  Aside from Catfish Hunter, these pitchers generally don’t make the Hall of Fame unless they somehow reach 300 wins.  Examples of modern-day ‘workhorses’ include Jack McDowell (average 18 wins from 1990-1993 with the White Sox with an ERA+ around 120), Dave Stewart (4 straight 20 game seasons for the 1987-1990 A’s with only one season having an ERA+ above 120), Bartolo Colon (averaged 18.5 wins from 2002-2005 with an ERA+ around 120), Dennis Leonard (averaged 18.4 wins for the 1976-1980 Royals with an ERA+ of 113, and Andy Pettitte (averaged 17 wins for the 1996-2003 Yankees with an ERA+ of 120).

All of these pitchers managed just one 5.0+ WAR season except Pettitte (3) and Stewart (0).  All of them were good pitchers who were fortunate enough to be on very good teams.

Verdict

A solid, valuable starting pitcher.  Just not a Hall-of-Fame pitcher.  If elected, he’ll arguably be the worst starter in the Hall-of-Fame (with Hunter and Marquard in the discussion).

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts:

1) Fun facts/anecdotes:  Jack Morris was definitely the most feared pitcher in his day…..by females in the media – as evidenced by this Jack Morris 1990 locker room gem to Detroit Free Press writer Jennifer Frey:  “I don’t talk to women when I am naked unless they are on top of me or I am on top of them.”

2) Jack Morris is one of three star players from Minnesota (Paul Molitor, Dave Winfield) to have their last big years for the Toronto Blue Jays and Minnesota Twins.  The teams are working on a free-trade agreement that will eventually include Justin Morneau’s return to Canada and for Toronto to export a crappy Minnesotan middle-infielder to be named later for Ron Gardenhire’s collection.

3) One underrated part of Morris’s resume is the moustache revival he led in the 1980′s that inspired Kirk Gibson, Chet Lemon, and, of course, Magnum P.I.

Kevin Brown

WAR Totals:  99.8 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 64.8 career WAR + 1 MVP season (define as 8.0+ WAR) and 5 All-Star seasons (+25 – defined as 5.0-7.9 WAR)

Stats:  19 seasons,  211-144, 3.28 ERA / 1.222 WHIP / 3,256 IP / 2,397 K / 901 BB / 72 CG / 17 Shutouts / 127 ERA+

162 Game Stats:  15-10 / 230 IP / 34 GS / 11 CG / 1 Shutouts / 169 K / 64 BB

Career Excellence

Another point worth raising is that he wasn’t very good in the postseason.  He was 5-5 with a 4.19 ERA / 1.30 WHIP in 13 career playoff starts.  Even worse, he was 0-3 in 4 World Series starts (2 Florida, 2 SD) with 6.04/1.579 ratios.  And in the infamous 2004 Yankee-Red Sox ALCS Game 7, Kevin Brown didn’t even get out of the 2nd inning.

A last point regarding the 9 pitchers reference above with 200+ wins and ERA+ of 127 or better.  I find it interesting that 5 of the 9 are from the same era as Kevin Brown.  John Smoltz and Mike Mussina aren’t too far behind.  While it’s very possible that the 1990′s/early 2000′s saw an unprecedented glut of exceptional starting pitchers, it seems at least possible that expansion, smaller ballparks, steroids, etc. combined to:  1) Add more MLB mediocre pitchers and 2) Create less margin for error for mediocre pitchers.  Would all of these pitchers have posted ERA+ this high if they pitched in a less offensive era?

Peak Excellence

While Kevin Brown never won a Cy-Young award (finishing 2nd, 3rd, and 6th three times), he had several seasons that were at or near Cy-Young level.  His 1998 season with the Padres (18-7, 164 ERA+, 1.066 WHIP) deserved to win the Cy Young award but his league-leading 8.4 WAR were bested in the voting by Tom Glavine (and his 20 wins) and teammate Trevor Hoffman (53 saves).  His 1996 season with the Marlins (17-11, 1.89 ERA!, 217 ERA+, 0.944 WHIP) also led the led the league with 7.5 WAR but he came up 2nd behind John Smoltz (and his 24 wins).  He also finished 2nd in NL pitching WAR in 2000 and finished 3rd in 1997, 1999, and 2003.

In some ways, his pitching career reminds me of a poor man’s Randy Johnson.  He pitched well in the AL during his 20′s and then became a dominant pitcher in the NL during his 30′s.  His top 6 seasons (measured by WAR) were in the NL (for Randy, it was 5 of his top 7).

Verdict

This is a tough one.  I think I might vote for him eventually (assuming I had a ballot) but I would not do it just yet.  The statistical dominance is there.  The career excellence is on the borderline if you look at wins (211) while his WAR is strong but not a lock (his 64.8 WAR is better than several HOF pitchers like Jim Palmer and Juan Marichal).

The biggest question for me is really how to judge the pitchers in Brown’s era.  Where do you draw the line for the Hall of Fame?  I don’t think there should be caps per se for hitter/pitchers of an era but I’m hoping that someone will do an analysis done that confirms the 1990′s were or were not an advantageous time to be an above-average pitcher.  While the 1980′s arguably saw the peak of only one HOF-worthy pitcher (Roger Clemens), the 1990′s/early 2000′s saw potentially 9:  Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Curt Schilling, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina, and Kevin Brown.  I know the top 4 on this list are indisputed HOFers and Glavine’s 300 wins make him a virtual 5th.  I don’t know just yet where to draw the line on the other four….

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts

1) Kevin Brown nearly missed a perfect game in 1997 while pitching for the Marlins with the only SF Giant baserunner reaching base via hit by pitch.  Brown mistook Marvin Benard for a clubhouse wall.

2) Kevin Brown was mentioned in the Mitchell Report, suspected of taking steroids along with fellow Dodger teammates Paul LoDuca and Eric Gagne.  Long-time friends and colleagues were unable to identify the common ‘roid rage’ symptom since Brown was always prone to tantrums (like this incident with LA where Brown left more than just skidmarks on a toilet).

This is the 5th post in a series on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot.  My first post on Jeff Bagwell covered the criteria I am using for analyzing HOF players.  The next three posts covered Bert Blyleven, the middle infielder trio of Alan Trammell, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar, and Edgar Martinez.

The next two players on my ballot would be Tim Raines and Mark McGwire.

I covered both these players previously – Raines as part of a leadoff hitter review and McGwire as part of a review of power hitters.  I’ll leverage some of that information for this post as well as incorporate the WAR-based analysis like I did in the previous posts.

Tim Raines

WAR Totals:  94.6 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 64.6 career WAR + 6 All-Star seasons (+30 – defined as 5.0-7.9 WAR)

Stats:  23 seasons,  3,977 Times on Base (2,605 hits, 1,330 BB), 1,571 Runs, 170 HR, 980 RBI, 808 SB, .294 AVG / .384 OBP / .425 SLG / 123 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  102 R /11 HR/63 RBI/52 SB

Career Excellence

In my previous post, I focused on how Tim Raines was arguably one of the top 5 leadoff hitters post-WWII (among retired players) given his 1) high OBP for a non-HR threat (.385) and 2) his fantastic baserunning (808 SBs at an amazing 84.7%).

Post-WWII Leadoff-Type Hitters With Greater Peak-Adjusted WAR Than Raines*
Rickey Henderson (198.1 peak-adjusted WAR / 113.1 WAR)
Joe Morgan (178.5 peak-adjusted WAR / 103.5 WAR)
Rod Carew (119.1 peak-adjusted WAR / 79.1 career WAR)
Pete Rose (115.3 peak-adjusted WAR / 75.3 career WAR)
Paul Molitor (109.8 peak-adjusted WAR / 74.8 career WAR)
Tony Gwynn (98.4 peak-adjusted WAR / 68.4 career WAR)
Craig Biggio (96.2 peak-adjusted WAR / 66.2 career WAR)
Tim Raines (94.6 peak-adjusted WAR / 64.6 career WAR)

*Note:  Ichiro certainly will be in this consideration set once he retires.  Johnny Damon (.355 OBP) and Carl Crawford (.337 OBP) fall short.  I’ve excluded Wade Boggs since he isn’t your prototypical leadoff hitter given his speed.

All of the above are either in the Hall of Fame, will be in the HOF (Biggio), or would be if they didn’t gamble on baseball.  Richie Ashburn (93 / 58), Lou Brock (54.1 / 39.1),  and Luis Aparicio (59.9 / 49.9) are Hall of Fame leadoff types that fall below Tim Raines both in peak-adjusted and career WAR.

The best comparison of a recent HOF nominee is Tony Gwynn (elected in his first year on the ballot with 97.6% of the votes)  Tony Gwynn has three apparent superior achievements vs. Tim Raines:  1) he has reached 3,000 hits (3,141 vs. Raines’ 2,605), 2) he has 8 batting titles (15 top 10s) vs. Raines’ 1 batting title (4 top 10s), and 3) his career average is much better (.338 vs. .294).

All of these achievements are minimized or neutralized if we take walks into the equation.  Raines has a big advantage in Walks (1,330 vs. 790) that actually gives him the advantage in times on base over Gwynn (3,977 to 3,955).  While Gwynn was dominant in Batting Average, they are much closer in OBP.  Gwynn edges Raines .388 to .385 in career OBP and has 10 top 10s (1 OBP title) to Raines’ 7 top 10s (1 OBP title).

Gwynn was the more valuable hitter of the two – as evidenced by a higher OPS+ (132 vs. 123) and this is reflecting in his batting WAR of +434 runs vs. Raines’s +306.  Raines made up most of this difference on the basepaths as his baserunning was +121 runs above replacement vs. Gwynn’s +38 runs.  Surprisingly, both players ranked as about average fielders but Gwynn comes up slightly ahead (+5 vs. -8 runs).

In the end, Raines was of near equal value to Gwynn.  The huge difference in HOF support is just a reflection that AVG and Hits are overvalued by voters (vs. OBP and Times on Base).

If we focus on just WAR for outfielders, Tim Raines ranks 24th all-time in peak-adjusted WAR for retired players (14th for post-WWII) just behind Tony Gwynn and ahead of the following post-WWII OFs:  Richie Ashburn (93 / 58), Dave Winfield (89.7 / 59.7), Andre Dawson (77 / 57), Enos Slaughter (74.1 / 54.1), Ralph Kiner (70.9 / 45.9), Jim Rice (61.5 / 41.5), Kirby Puckett (59.8 / 44.8), and Lou Brock (54.1 / 39.1).

Peak Excellence

Tim Raines had 6 All-Star seasons (5.0+ WAR) during his peak years of 1983-1992.  His MVP support was a little lower than he deserved – he had 7 top 10 WAR seasons and only 3 top 10 MVP seasons.  This isn’t surprising since 1) MVP voting skews towards power hitters (Rickey Henderson led the league in WAR 4 times and had 9 top 10s but only 1 MVP and 6 top 10s), 2) MVP voting skews towards bigger markets, and 3) MVP voting skews towards teams that win pennants.

Raines’ six seasons of 5.0+ WAR are greater than Tony Gwynn (5), Dave Winfield (4), Andre Dawson (4), Jim Rice (4), and Kirby Puckett (3).

Verdict

Tim Raines was a more valuable OF than most of the recent OF nominations.  His lack of support to date is more a reflection of the traditional valuing of players via ‘baseball card stats’ vs. more advanced statistics that give credit to other skills like baserunning and OBP.  I think he’ll eventually get in but it will take a couple more years.

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts

1) In 1982, Raines snorted an estimated $40,000 in cocaine.  During the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985, Raines testified that he only slid head first to not break the vial he kept in his back pocket which he didn’t want to risk stashing in his locker.  In a dubiously unrelated note, his nickname was ‘Rock’.  He could become the third player in the HOF to have acknowledged cocaine use joining Paul Molitor and Mordecai ‘One Nostril’ Brown.

2) Tim’s son (Tim Raines Jr.) is one of 29 pairs of Sr./Jr. father/son pairs to both play in the majors.  While Ken Griffey’s kid was by far the best, the list after that is surprising murky (Sandy Alomar, Jose Cruz, and Gary Matthews are in the next three).  Tim Raines Jr. only managed 160 ABs but that was ten times more than Pete Rose Jr. (16 ABs).

3) The Montreal strip club Fleur de Sex named a lap dance after Tim Raines which became a favorite for guests who needed to get home really quick.  This proved much more popular than the ‘Andre Dawson’ (later renamed to ‘Vladimir Guerrero’) table dance where an older dancer would limp around until guests handed them money to stop and become a designated sitter.

Mark McGwire

WAR Totals:  98.1 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 63.1 career WAR + 7 All-Star seasons (+35 – defined as 5.0-7.9 WAR)

Stats:  16 seasons,  2,943 Times on Base (1,626 hits, 1,317 BB), 1,167 Runs, 583 HR, 1,414 RBI, 8 SB, .263 AVG / .394 OBP / .588 SLG / 162 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  101 R /50 HR/122 RBI/1 SB

Career Excellence

There’s not much to say about McGwire that hasn’t been said.  He really only did two things (hit HRs and walk) but he did them very well.

His 98.1 peak-adjusted WAR is 6th among 1Bs retired since 2005 – below Gehrig, Foxx, Bagwell, Mize, and McCovey.  This is all-driven by HRs and walks as he was a below average runner (-19 runs vs. replacement) and fielder (-30 runs vs. replacement) even for a 1B.

He also had a relatively short career (7,660 plate appearances) – the median among HOFers is 8,960 (or approximately 2.5 more seasons).  He falls into a category of players I’d call ‘slugger’ that seem more prone to short careers because they are reliant on ‘old man skills‘ (power and batting eye) and have nothing to fall back on as their bat speed slows.  Below is a list of Hall of Famers who generally only contributed with power and possibly batting eye (i.e., average to below average defense and running).

McGwire’s HR per Plate Appearance is best of this group.  More impressively, his OPS+ is best – normalizing for era and park as some of these players didn’t play in hitter-friendly eras.  His OBP is only bested 3 of the 8 HOFers as McGwire’s good eye helped balance his low AVGs.  In fact, his HR/PA is the highest of all-time – besting Babe Ruth (6.7%) and Barry Bonds (6.0%).  His OPS+ is 11th with the only post-WWII players on the list being Ted Williams (190), Barry Bonds (181), Mickey Mantle (172), and Albert Pujols (172).  Among the players that McGwire’s OPS+ surpasses are: Willie Mays (155), Hank Aaron (155), and Stan Musial (159).  This is more impressive than the fact he is 11th on the all-time HR list since his OPS+ would adjust for the fact he played during the ‘steroid era’ where there were more HRs hit than in most other eras.

Peak Excellence

McGwire had 7 All-Star seasons of 5.0+ WAR.  His highest was his 70 HR / .470 OBP season in 1998 when he reached 7.2 WAR.  Only four first basemen had more (Gehrig, Foxx, Bagwell, Mize).

Verdict

McGwire is definitely not the most well-rounded player ever but he was a phenomenal power hitter whose batting eye led to an above-average OBP.  If steroids are taken out of the equation, he’s a rather easy decision.

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts