Fantasy Baseball Advice

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 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

This is the 4th 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 second and third posts covered Bert Blyleven and the middle infielder trio of Alan Trammell, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar.

The next player I’d have on our ballot is Edgar Martinez.

WAR Totals:  112.2 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 67.2 career WAR + 9 All-Star seasons (+45 – defined as 5.0-7.9 WAR)

Stats:  18 seasons,  3,530 Times on Base (2,247 hits, 1,283 BB), 1,219 Runs, 309 HR, 1,261 RBI, 49 SB, .312 AVG / .418 OBP / .515 SLG / 147 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  96 R /24 HR/99 RBI/4 SB

Edgar Martinez has a tougher road to a HOF nomination than most players given that he was primarily a DH, isn’t very close to the notable career totals (3,000+ hits, 500+ HRs), never played in a World Series (let alone won 1+ championships), and was not perceived at the time as one of the best players of his time (7 All-Stars but only 2 top-10 MVPs).

I’m going to start with the pro-Edgar arguments that I believe make the case for Edgar Martinez in the HOF and then address the perceived shortcomings noted above.

Reason Edgar Martinez Should Be In The Hall of Fame

1)  Career Excellence – Edgar’s 67.2 career WAR is 58th all-time amongst retired hitters (9 current players are higher).  Of the 57 above him, 49 are in the Hall of Fame, three are likely to be elected in (Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas), one is barred (Pete Rose), one is a turn of the century player (Bill Dahlen), and the other three are Lou Whitaker, Bobby Grich, and Larry Walker.  I covered the worthiness of Whitaker and Grich in a previous post.

HOF’ers below Edgar Martinez total include:  Duke Snider (67.5), Eddie Murray (66.7), Willie McCovey (65.1), Ernie Banks (64.4), Harmon Killebrew (61.1), Dave Winfield (59.7), Richie Ashburn (58), Willie Stargell (57.5), Billy Williams (57.2), Andre Dawson (57), Joe Medwick (55.8), and Jim Rice (41.5).

Edgar’s biggest contribution to winning was his phenomenal OBP.  His .418 career OBP is 22nd-time (with 3,000+ Plate Appearances) but only 7 of those ahead of him are post-WWII players are Ted Williams (.482), Barry  Bonds (.444), Albert Pujols (.426), Todd Helton (.424), Ferris Fain (.424)*, Mickey Mantle (.421), and Frank Thomas (.419).  He is one of only 5 post-WWII retired players to have a career line above the .300/.400/.500 (AVG/OBP/SLG) line – the others are Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Larry Walker, and Frank Thomas.

* Ferris Fain was a no-power 1B from 1945-1954 that won two batting titles (1951-1952) and had a .400+ OBP his first seven full years.  He hurt his knee at 33 and never really recovered.

He had 4 100+ BB seasons and only one 100+ K season.  He is one of only 11 post-WWII players to have a .500+ SLG and 8,000 Plate Appearances with more career BBs than Ks.  The last 4 players to retire before him to achieve this were Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron.

Edgar’s 147 career OPS+ (OBP+SLG adjusted for park and era) is tied for 39th of all time with Mike Schmidt, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, and Jim Thome.

2) Peak Excellence – Edgar Martinez never had that ‘no doubt about it’ MVP season.  His best MVP finish of 3rd (1995′s 121/29/113 with a rate line .356/.479/.628)  was actually fair given it was his best WAR season (7.7) and he did finish 3rd in the AL in WAR (although the two with higher WAR – John Valentin and Randy Johnson – finished 9th and 6th respectively as Mo Vaughn and Albert Belle finished in the top two.)

The amazing part of Edgar’s peak is how long he was a great player.  His peak was more like a plateau.  From 1990-2001, Edgar played 10 full seasons.  His WAR in those 10 were 7.7, 6.2, 6.2, 6.2, 5.9, 5.7, 5.5, 5.1, 5.0, and 4.6.  Only 19 post-WWII players managed 10 or more seasons with 4.6+ WAR.  The non-HOFers with 10+ other than Edgar Martinez are:  Barry Bonds (18), Alex Rodriguez (12), Jeff Bagwell (11), Albert Pujols (10), and Ken Griffey Jr. (10).

In terms of leaderboards, Edgar won 2 batting titles and 7 top 10s,  3 OBP titles and 11 top 10s, 6 top 10 SLG, 1 RBI title with 3 top 10s, 2 times led in doubles with 5 top 10s, and one top 10 in HRs.

Reservations For Voting Edgar Martinez To The Hall of Fame

1) He was primarily a DH.

If Edgar Martinez is elected into the Hall of Fame, he will have played far and away the highest percentage of games at DH for a member.  Martinez played 70% of his games at DH – the next 5 in order are Paul Molitor (44%), Jim Rice (26%), Reggie Jackson (23%), Eddie Murray (19%), and George Brett (19%).

Since the introduction of the DH, people have wondered what it would take for one to make the Hall of Fame.  This barely came up with Paul Molitor (44% of his games at DH) and Harold Baines (37 career WAR with zero MVP or All-Star quality years) didn’t really warrant the analysis of determining how much should one be penalized for playing DH.  This should also come up again when Frank Thomas is up for election as he played 57% of his games at DH.

Luckily, the WAR statistic penalizes DHs so I am going to review that and judge whether Edgar Martinez was appropriately penalized.

There are three primary values in WAR that pertain to a player’s position (note: for this one I’m going to shift back to Sean Smith’s terminology vs. Baseball-Reference and cut/paste his definitions):

- TZ (Total Zone) – TotalZone, a measure of defensive range based on analysis of retrosheet play by play data. For seaons before 1953, and the 1953 American League, this measure is based on a much cruder formula called JAARF (Just another adjusted range factor.) which estimates defensive ratings from assists, putouts and errors, as well as team hits allowed by lefthanded and righthanded pitchers.  (Rudy’s translation:  This is an estimate on the number of runs that a defensive player saved/cost a team compared to a replacement fielder)

- Position Adjustment – Based on how players perform at multiple positions. I have made separate position calculations by decade.  (Rudy’s Translation:  We know it’s tougher to play CF than LF, SS vs. 2B, 3B vs. 1B, etc., by watching baseball over the years.  Through analyzing the performance of those who have played multiple positions, you can credit/penalize players who play harder/easier positions.  Here is a great primer on positional adjustments by Graham at the Mariners’ blog Lookout Landing)

- Replacement Value –  The difference between a league average player and replacement level. This is normally 20 runs per season (650 PA), but varies slightly depending on the strength of the league. Currently, the American league is stronger than the National league, but 50 years ago the opposite was true.  (Rudy’s Translation:  We know from watching baseball that it is easier to replace certain positions than others.  Let’s say you are the 1990′s Texas Rangers and your two best players are Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez.  While Juan Gone might be the better hitter, you can get much better hitting replacement OFs from the farm team or off waivers than you could a replacement catcher.  You would rather lose Juan Gone because he is easier to replace.  So if a catcher and LF provide the same offensive/defensive value, the catcher should be deemed more valuable since they are harder to replace.)

Edgar Martinez started his career as a third baseman.  His first two complete years (1990-1991) he played 3B for 247 of 251 games and had a +20 TZ.  For some perspective, that was tied for best in the AL with Gary Gaetti (and better than Robin Ventura and Wade Boggs).  He played another 103 games at 3B in 1992 and had a -5 TZ.   So let’s be safe and say he showed signs of being potentially an above-average fielder at 3B.  But then he tore his hamstring in 1993 and almost exclusively played DH from 1995 onwards.

From seeing Edgar run the bases all those years, it’s clear he couldn’t have played 3B effectively after the injury.  Third base is a demanding position – many third basemen have to switch off to first base simply because of age.  Examples include George Brett and Troy Glaus.  Then there are players that are moved from third to first base because of early injuries (Dick Allen), injury prevention  (Albert Pujols?, Mark Teixeira?) and/or because of poor 3B defense (Jim Thome, Jason Giambi, Miguel Cabrera).  We have also seen completely hobbled power hitters at 1B in the NL like Jack Clark and Mark McGwire.

So instead of judging Edgar Martinez solely as a DH, let’s assume he played 1B for most of those years (so his DH % was closer to the 19-30% of games like the other HOFers reference earlier).  How bad of an 1B would he have to be to overcome the penalties that WAR doles out for DHing?

Edgar was near exclusively a DH for 10 years (1995-2004).  Let’s say he only DH’d his last 3 years which would mean he DH’d for 17% of his games (in line with several other HOFers).  And we assume that 1) he wouldn’t have injured himself in the field as a 1B from 1995-2001 and 2) playing the field wouldn’t have hurt his hitting.

WAR penalizes Edgar Martinez with -101 runs in Position Adjustment for playing DH from 1995-2001.  Using a mix of Rafael Palmeiro and Carlos Delgado (who collectively played full-time 1B in AL during those years), I estimate he would’ve been given a -73 run adjustment for playing first base during those years with a similar Replacement Value.  So WAR, in effect, would give Martinez exactly the same value he had as DH if he played 1B and cost his team a total of 28 runs on defense (or an average of 4 runs a year).  It’s rare for a first basemen with such poor defensive skills to play seven straight years but it’s not unprecedented.  Carlos Delgado played full-time 1B from 1999-2005 and managed -35 runs below replacement.  If we use Delgado as a conservative proxy (a bit cruel since Martinez showed signs of defensive skills where Delgado defense was always indefensible), this would mean we would remove 1 run per year which amounts to 0.1 WAR/year (10 runs = 1 WAR).

Net-net, assuming Edgar Martinez could’ve stayed healthy playing below average 1B instead of DH, his WAR value be roughly the same.  I think this is an important consideration for valuing players.  Poor-fielding 1Bs like Prince Fielder, Ryan Howard, or Miguel Cabrera might actually be more valuable as a DH assuming the next best hitter is an average-fielding 1B.

2) His career seemed short and his counting stats are so-so (in about 15 complete seasons, 2,247 hits, 309 HRs)

Career hits is a misleading statistic as it penalizes players who took a lot of walks.  Edgar Martinez is 43rd all-time (as of end of year 2010) in career walks.  While 44 of the top 50 in walks managed 2000+ hits, only 13 of those in the top 50 in walks managed 3,000 hits.   This includes Barry Bonds (2,935), Babe Ruth (2,873), Joe Morgan (2,517), Mickey Mantle (2,415), Mike Schmidt (2,234), and Harmon Killebrew (2,086).

Edgar’s 3,619 times on base (2,247 Hits, 1,283 Walks, 89 HBP) ranks 72nd among retired players.  Many of the Hall-of-Famers below Edgar Martinez are questionable HOF inclusions, served during wartime, or played tougher positions but some notable players below him include Andre Dawson (3,474), Ernie Banks (3,416), Willie Stargell (3,247), Jim Rice (3,186), Duke Snider (3,108), and Kirby Puckett (2,810).

His HR total is not very impressive for HOF standards – particularly given his time period.  Unlike similar high OBP peers like Barry Bonds and Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez was more of a doubles hitter.

So his counting stats make the decision harder.  It would require fantastic rate statistics (AVG/OBP/SLG) to counteract the totals which Edgar Martinez had.

3) How many future HOFers could those 1990′s Mariners have for a team that never even made the World Series?

It is amazing to think that the 1990′s Seattle Mariners had three sure-fire Hall of Famers in their relative primes (Ken Griffey Jr, Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson), Edgar Martinez, as well as very good players in their prime including Jay Buhner and Tino Martinez yet did not manage one World Series visit.

Below is a batting vs pitching WAR comparison vs. the two other great teams of those years – the Yankees and the Indians.

The Mariners offense from 1995-1998 were superior to the Indians and Yankees who played in all four World Series during those years with the 1998 Yankees being an outlier.  It was the pitching that kept the Mariners back all those years.  Randy Johnson had two very strong years during that time (1995 with 7.8 WAR, 1997 with 7.7 WAR) but managed only 60 IP in 1996 and was mediocre in 1998 (9-10/4.33 ERA/1.288 WHIP) when the Mariners traded him late in the year to the Astros.  Jeff Fassero and Jamie Moyer had solid years in 1997 and 1998.  Mike Timlin was a solid arm in the bullpen but, otherwise, there was little quality depth otherwise throughout the four years.  The worst example of that is 1997 when Randy Johnson, Jeff Fassero, and Jamie Moyer were 15.8 WAR and the rest of the pitching staff accounted for -8.3 WAR!  By the time 1999 rolled around and the pitching staff got back to adequate (thanks to the spoils of the Randy Johnson trade – Freddy Garcia and John Halama), the offensive depth had deteriorated down to Griffey, A-Rod, and Edgar Martinez.  (This lack of offensive depth best exemplified by Brian L. Hunter to whom we awarded a Razzball Spotlight post thanks to his .280 OBP and 48 OPS+ from LF)

So Edgar Martinez shouldn’t be penalized for the fact that Seattle was never able to mount a credible pitching staff during their offense’s peak in 1996-1998.

Final Verdict

There are superficial reasons why one would not vote for Edgar Martinez (played DH, low counting stats) but his sustained excellence at hitting/getting on base make him worthy for the Hall of Fame.

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts

Edgar Martinez is of Puerto Rican heritage.  He was born in New York but, after his parents’ divorce, he wanted to be around less Puerto Ricans so he moved to Puerto Rico.

Unlike other baseball players, Edgar Martinez married early and was not tempted by the allures of baseball groupies.  When asked about it, Edgar replied, “I’m afraid if I play the field that I’ll injure my hamstring.”

The Mariners did not like to bat Jay Buhner in front of Edgar Martinez, fearing the hitter after Martinez would suck.  (Aw yeah, J. Edgar Hoover joke.  Add one to the Rudy Gamble file, G-Men!)

The 1995 Mariners are one of only 572 teams to have two Martinezes (Edgar and Tino) on their team.

This is the 3rd 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 second post covered Bert Blyleven.

The next players I’d have on our ballot are three middle infielders:  Alan Trammell, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar.

Alan Trammell

WAR Totals:  106.9 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 66.9 career WAR + 1 MVP seasons (+10) and 6 All-Star seasons (+30)

Stats:  20 seasons, 3,215 Times on Base (2,314 hits, 850 BB), 1,231 Runs, 185 HR, 1,003 RBI, 236 SB, .285 AVG / .352 OBP / .415 SLG / 110 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  87 R /13 HR/71 RBI/17 SB

Barry Larkin

WAR Totals:  103.9 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 68.9 career WAR + 7 All-Star seasons (+35)

Stats:  19 seasons, 3,279 Times on Base (2,340 hits, 939 BB), 1,329 Runs, 198 HR, 960 RBI, 379 SB, .295 AVG / .371 OBP / .444 SLG / 116 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  99 R / 15 HR / 71 RBI / 28 SB

Roberto Alomar

WAR Totals:  88.5 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 63.5 career WAR + 5 All-Star seasons (+25)

Stats:  17 seasons, 3,756 Times on Base (2,724 hits, 1,032 BB), 1,508 Runs, 210 HR, 1134 RBI, 474 SB, .300 AVG / .371 OBP / .443 SLG / 116 OPS+

162 Game Stats:  103 R / 14 HR / 77 RBI / 32 SB

Before this latest analysis, I had these three in reverse order (see my middle infielder analysis from last year).  This also matched the HOF voters who had Alomar on 73.7% of the ballots, Larkin on 51.6%, and Trammell on 22.4%.

Trammell and Barry Larkin are pretty much a coin flip based on this analysis.  They are #2 and #3 based on my calculations for post-WWII shortstops who were retired as of 2005 – both trailing Cal Ripken’s 139.9 (If you count Robin Yount and Ernie Banks as shortstops, though they played 50% of their time at CF and 1B respectively, they would be #4 and #5).  Trammell edges Larkin on my calculations because his best season (1987) was an 8.4 MVP-level season while Larkin’s best was 7.4 (1996 when he went 30-30, a better year than in 1995 when he won the MVP).

Overall, Larkin was better offensively and baserunning while Trammell bested Larkin in defensive value.

I think the reason why Trammell has been unappreciated so far by HOF voters is the middle infielder bias I referred to in my post last year.  MI’s rarely play long enough to get 3,000 hits (Ripken is currently the only player with 70% of their starts at SS to reach the mark.  Jeter will be there likely by the 2011 All-Star break) nor are they built to reach milestones like 400 HRs (only Ripken).  The one exception for a modern SS is Ozzie Smith who got in mainly for his glove.

Here is an interesting comparison of Runs above Replacement for Alan Trammell vs. Barry Larkin vs. Ozzie Smith.

While Ozzie was rightfully voted into the HOF fueled by his amazing glove, note how he gave back over 60% of those runs with his below average hitting.  While Trammell and Larkin were not in Ozzie’s class for fielding, their solid defense and much better bats more than made up for it.

As for Roberto Alomar, I was very surprised to see that he had less All-Star worthy seasons of 5.0+ WAR (5) than Trammell or Larkin (both with 7).  In reviewing the data, I found a couple of reasons for this (mis)perception:

1) Roberto Alomar’s sterling defensive reputation is not backed up by advanced defensive statistics.  Baseball-Reference’s Rfield has him at -32 runs for his career – basically saying he was a BELOW AVERAGE fielder.  Here is a comparison of the top 2Bs based on number of Gold Gloves.

Now it’s misleading in that several of these players (Morgan and Biggio) had struggles early and late in their careers but had solid Rfield stats during their Gold Glove years.  I think the advanced statistics correlate fairly well with the less exact Gold Glove awards so I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to the statistics that Alomar’s defense was overrated compared to the perception at the time (note: another popular metric, UZR, didn’t consider Alomar’s defense great either).

2) While I’ve found that middle infielders tend to be penalized in MVP-voting because of a bias towards HR/RBI that favor 1B/OF, it seems that Alomar’s top-10 MVP votes exceed his true value.

My best guess for this is that Alomar happened to play on better teams than the other two players.  Trammell’s Tigers only exceeded 90 games twice (1984, 1987) and Larkin’s Reds had three 90+ win seasons (1990, 1992, 1999).  Alomar’s teams had seven 90+ win seasons (Toronto – 1991-1993, Baltimore – 1997, Cleveland – 1999-2001).  Of the 10 MVP nominations, only 2 (Larkin 1995, Trammell 1988) were to players on teams with less than 90 wins*.  It also helped that Alomar was more durable than Trammell and Larkin (13 seasons of 140+ games vs. 7 for Larkin and 8 for Trammell) which helps build up counting stats.

* Note:  Derek Jeter – who has played on 90+ win teams for all but two seasons of 87 and 89 wins – has 7 top-10 MVP finishes and 6 top-10 WAR seasons (excluding pitchers).  Cal Ripken – who played on only three 90+ win teams – had 3 top-10 MVP finishes and 7 top-10 WAR seasons (excluding pitchers).

3) The boom in shortstops over the last 30 years hurts the perception of Trammell and Larkin vs. Alomar.

In the past 30 years, we have seen the best post-WWII SS (Cal Ripken), the best fielding SS ever (Ozzie Smith), the best peak SS (Alex Rodriguez top years edge Ernie Banks), the first two shortstops to reach 3,000 hits (Ripken, Jeter soon enough), and that doesn’t include great players like 2-time MVP Robin Yount (one at SS), one-time MVP Miguel Tejada or Nomar Garciaparra (6 seasons of 5.9+ WAR).

There have been good 2Bs in the past 30 years (Ryne Sandberg, Jeff Kent, Chase Utley, Lou Whitaker) but they do not cast nearly the same shadow.

This boom overshadows the fact that – everything equal – shortstops are more valuable than second basemen.  According to Tom Tango’s research, the estimated difference in value is 5 runs per 600 plate appearances.  A team win is estimated to be 10 runs and, thus, over a 9000 PA career (roughly 15 full seasons), a SS is worth 75 more runs or 7.5 wins.

Looking at their career rate statistics, the three players are very close to even.  Trammel’s offense is slightly below the other two though some of that is corrected for era in OPS+.  But look at Larkin vs. Alomar.  The rates are almost exactly equal!  Alomar did have 1,343 more plate appearances which would eat into much if not all of Larkin’s positional advantage in WAR (figure Alomar would need two seasons at 3.75 WAR to negate the advantage).  But I do not think the boost to his career counting stats (2,724 hits, 210 HRs, 474 SBs) vs. Larkin (2,348 hits, 198 HRs, 379 SBs) is the reason for their perceived difference (as seen in 2010 HOF voting).

Trammell – 285 AVG / .352 OBP / .415 SLG / 110 OPS+

Larkin – .295 AVG / .371 OBP / .444 SLG / 116 OPS+

Alomar – .300 AVG / .371 OBP / .443 SLG / 116 OPS+

Now even with crediting Alomar as below-average on defense, he still ends up 5th (based on my formula) amongst post-WWII second baseman who retired by 2005 behind Joe Morgan (103.5), Bobby Grich (102.6), Ryne Sandberg (97), and Lou Whitaker (89.7).   Three post-WWII HOF second basemen are below him:  Nellie Fox (64.4),  Red Schoendienst (55.4), and Bill Mazerowski (26.9).

So I see all three players as HOF-worthy but that Alomar is a little below Larkin and Trammell in total value.

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts:

Alan Trammell, Barry Larkin, and Roberto Alomar walked into a bar where they ran into a magical, beautiful nymph.  She looked at the three retired baseball players and said, “I’ve gone out with baseball players and I’ve been hurt by their pasts.  Before I can consider any of you, I must know what teams you played for, your major role, and who the owners were.

Trammell:  I was the heart of the Tigers when they were owned by Tom Monaghan (founder of Domino’s) and Mike Ilitch (founder of Little Caesar’s).

Nymph:  Ah, so I might catch a case of heartburn from you.

Larkin:  I was a great hitter for the Reds when they were owned by Marge Schott.

Nymph:  Ah, so I might catch a case of bat shit crazy from you.

Alomar:  I was a great player on 4 teams (San Diego, Toronto, Baltimore, Cleveland) and horrible on one (NY Mets).  I have been with too many owners to name.

Nymph:  Hmm.  Well, I don’t know what I’d catch from you but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.

This is the 2nd 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 player on our hypothetical ballot is Bert Blyleven.

WAR Totals:  145.1 Peak-Adjusted WAR – 90.1 career WAR + 1 MVP seasons (+10) and 9 All-Star seasons (+45)

Stats:  22 seasons, 287-250 / 3.31 ERA / 1.198 WHIP / 4,970 IP / 3,701 K / 1322 BB / 242 CG / 60 Shutouts / 118 ERA+

162 Game Stats:  14-12 / 245 IP / 34 GS / 12 CG / 3 Shutouts / 183 K / 65 BB

I wrote a post on Blyleven 2 years ago that still holds up (it’s not like he’s played since then).  His total score is only bested by four post-WWII players who retired by 2005:  Tom Seaver, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Warren Spahn.  The only top 20 pitchers not to be in the Hall-of-Fame are Blyleven, the underrated Rick Reuschel (#15) and Kevin Brown (#16).  The following Hall of Fame starting pitchers are lower than Blyleven:  Bob Gibson (140.6), Steve Carlton (129.4), Fergie Jenkins (121.3), Robin Roberts (120.9), Don Drysdale (115.7), Nolan Ryan (114.8), Juan Marichal (114), Bob Feller (111), Jim Bunning (105.1), Hal Newhouser (96.3), Sandy Koufax (94.5), Jim Palmer (93.5), Don Sutton (90.8), Early Wynn (77), Whitey Ford (65.3), Bob Lemon (62.4), and Catfish Hunter (47.5).

One item that has hurt Blyleven’s HOF chances is his lack of a Cy Young or he was never an ‘ace’.  But his 1973 season of 9.2 WAR was the best in AL and he had several top 5 pitching WAR seasons.  So he pitched like a Cy Young winner and he pitched like an ace.  Isn’t reality more important than perception?

Another perceived demerit is Blyleven’s 53.4 winning percentage (287-250) and that he fell short of 300 wins.  Putting aside the fact that Wins heavily depend on factors outside of the pitcher’s control (team offense and defense), here are several Hall of Fame pitchers with comparable records:

Fergie Jenkins – 284-226 (55.7%), 115 ERA+, 1 MVP season, 6 All-Star seasons
Robin Roberts – 286-245 (53.9%), 113 ERA+, 2 MVP seasons, 4 All-Star seasons
Don Drysdale – 209-166 (55.7%), 121 ERA+, 1 MVP season, 8 All-Star seasons
Jim Bunning 224-184 (54.9%), 114 ERA+, 3 MVP seasons, 3 All-Star seasons
Red Ruffing – 273-225 (54.8%), 109 ERA+, 0 MVP seasons, 4 All-Star seasons
Catfish Hunter 224-166 (57.4%),  105 ERA+, 0 MVP seasons, 3 All-Star seasons

It is hard to see how any of these six – let alone all of them – can pass objective criteria that Blyleven could not.  None of the six had as many All-Star or better (5.0+ WAR) seasons as Blyleven and only Drysdale had a better ERA+ (which is only because Drysdale’s last season was at 31).  There really isn’t a big difference between all the winning percentages (the difference between 53.4% and 55.7% for 35 decisions is 19.5-15.5 vs. 18.7-16.3).  None of the others have better career totals than Blyleven in Wins, K’s, or any other meaningful statistic.

Another fun comparison is Nolan Ryan who went 324-292 for a 52.6% winning percentage.  Besides passing the 300 win plateau, Ryan also is the all-time leader in strikeouts (Blyleven is 5th also behind Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, and Steve Carlton).  Nolan Ryan out-K’d Blyleven per 9 innings (9.54 vs. 6.7) but he also out-BB’d him (4.7 vs. 2.4).  This is probably the main reason that Blyleven has the better ERA+ (118 vs. Ryan’s 112).

If you are interested in hearing more on both sides of the Blyleven argument, here are links to SI’s Jon Heyman and BaseballAnalysts.com’s Rich Lederer.  I like Heyman’s reporting on breaking news but I really think he’s out of his depths on these things.

Fun (and potentially fictional) facts:

Blyleven is the first and only great baseball player to be born in The Netherlands – unless you count Andruw Jones (who was born in Netherland Antilles) or Dutch Leonard (who liked his dates to pay for their share of the bill).

In 1986-1987 with the Twins, he gave up 50 and 46 Home Runs – setting a single-season record (50) and having the third highest total (Jose Lima’s 48 is 2nd).

As an announcer, Blyleven loves to drop the f-bomb and, based on the above pic, you can take a man out of the Netherlands but Dutch ovens die hard.