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):

Rank	Player	Peak-Adjusted WAR	Career WAR	MVP (8.0+ WAR)	All-Star (5-7.9 WAR)
1	Jeff Bagwell	139.9	79.9	3 (+30)	6 (+30)
2	Bert Blyleven	145.5	90.1	1 (+10)	9 (+45)
3	Alan Trammell	106.9	66.9	1 (+10)	6 (+30)
4	Barry Larkin	103.9	68.9	0 (+0)	7 (+35)
5	Edgar Martinez	112.2	67.2	0 (+0)	9 (+45)
6	Tim Raines	94.6	64.6	0 (+0)	6 (+30)
7	Roberto Alomar	88.5	63.5	0 (+0)	5 (+25)
8	Mark McGwire	98.1	63.1	0 (+0)	7 (+35)

Players Considering For The Future

Rank	Player	Peak-Adjusted WAR	Career WAR	MVP (8.0+ WAR)	All-Star (5-7.9 WAR)
1	Kevin Brown	99.8	64.8	1 (+10)	5 (+25)
2	Rafael Palmeiro	86.0	66.0	0 (+0)	4 (+20)
3	John Olerud*	96.8	56.8	2 (+20)	4 (+20)
4	Larry Walker	92.3	67.3	1 (+10)	3 (+15)

* 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

Player	Peak-Adjusted WAR	Career WAR	MVP (8.0+ WAR)	All-Star (5-7.9 WAR)
Jack Morris	44.3	39.3	0 (+0)	1 (+5)
Dale Murphy	74.2	44.2	0 (+0)	6 (+30)
Fred McGriff	65.5	50.5	0 (+0)	3 (+15)
Don Mattingly	59.8	39.8	0 (+0)	4 (+20)
Dave Parker	57.8	37.8	0 (+0)	4 (+20)
Al Leiter	53.8	38.8	0 (+0)	3 (+15)
Juan Gonzalez	43.5	33.5	0 (+0)	2 (+10)
Harold Baines	37.0	37.0	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Bret Boone	36.4	21.4	1 (+10)	1 (+5)
Marquis Grissom	35.6	25.6	0 (+0)	2 (+10)
B.J. Surhoff	34.4	34.4	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Raul Mondesi	32.2	27.2	0 (+0)	1 (+5)
Tino Martinez	32.2	27.2	0 (+0)	1 (+5)
Lee Smith	30.3	30.3	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Charles Johnson	27.0	22.0	0 (+0)	1 (+5)
John Franco	25.8	25.8	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Benito Santiago	23.8	23.8	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Bobby Higginson	21.4	21.4	0 (+0)	0 (+0)
Carlos Baerga	21.0	16.0	0 (+0)	1 (+5)
Kirk Reuter	12.1	12.1	0 (+0)	0 (+0)

The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame in conjunction with Razzball.com, are electing the All-Star teams of the Fantasy Era. For every season from 1980 to today full 23 man rosters will be created and analyzed. In the second installment the 1983 through 1985 seasons are identified.

Year: 1983
First Time All Stars: 11 – John Denny, Carlton Fisk, Pedro Guerrero, La Marr Hoyt, Jack Morris, Jesse Orosco, Jim Rice, Dave Stieb, Lou Whitaker
3 Time All Stars: 5 – Cecil Cooper, Andre Dawson, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, Robin Yount
5 Time All Stars: N/A
10 Time All Stars: N/A
Future FBHOF’ers: 8 – Steve Carlton, Dawson, Henderson, Dale Murphy, Murray, Tim Raines, Cal Ripken, Yount.
Snubs: Ron Guidry (8.5), Lloyd Moseby (10.9), Mike Schmidt (11.1), Willie Upshaw (11.2)
16 Pt Season: 1 – Murphy (16.6)

By 1983 several players had emerged as recurring fantasy greats. Steve Carlton, Cecil Cooper, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray, and Robin Yount each were elected to their 4th consecutive All-Star team, and all but Cooper would eventually be inducted into Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame. Cooper falls just short of FBHOF requirements only since his 5th best season came one year before the 1980 cutoff.

On offense, Dale Murphy was king, enjoying his best season as a professional – .302, 131 R, 36 HR, 121 RBI, and 30 SB for the #1 batter ranking that year. His 16.6 FBHOF points rank 16th in the fantasy era. The rest of his outfield peers were solid themselves, finishing 9th in the positional rankings from 1980-2007. Two other stars of the 1970’s – Jim Rice and Dave Winfield – joined FBHOF’ers Tim Raines and Andre Dawson to give the outfielders an average of 13.5 points between them.

The 1983 bullpen ranks #1 all time. The names do not conjure up memories of the best seasons ever, but from a fantasy standpoint Dan Quisenberry, Jesse Orosco, and Al Holland delivered over 340 innings of 0.99 WHIP, 1.88 ERA baseball, along with 26 wins and 87 saves.

Starting pitching was relatively weak as Mario Soto, the #1 starter, had just 13.5 FBHOF points, the 5th worst mark for the #1 pitcher in a given year. He’s joined by first time All Stars Jack Morris, La Marr Hoyt, John Denny, and Dave Stieb. FBHOF’er Steve Carlton is the 6th starter, though this was his last great year.

Joe Altobelli’s Baltimore Orioles would win the World Series in 1983, topping the Philadelphia Phillies in just 5 games. Murray and Ripken are their representatives.

Positional Ranking Among the 28 Teams
C: 7th
IF: 21st
OF: 9th
SP: 21st
RP: 1st
Overall: 9th

Year: 1984
First Time All Stars: 8 – Tony Armas, Bert Blyleven, Mike Boddicker, Dwight Gooden, Willie Hernandez, Don Mattingly, Tony Pena, Juan Samuel
3 Time All Stars: 5 – Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken, Mike Schmidt, Mario Soto, Tim Raines
5 Time All Stars: 2 – Eddie Murray, Rickey Henderson
10 Time All Stars: N/A
Future FBHOF’ers: 9 –Gooden, Henderson, Mattingly, Murphy, Murray, Raines, Ripken, Ryne Sandberg, Schmidt
Snubs: Bud Black, Jim Rice
16 Pt Season: None

1984 wasn’t a prime year for great baseball lines and it shows when constructing the fantasy All Star squad. Instead of an all time great Mike Schmidt leading the league in home runs like he did in 1983, it was Tony Armas. Instead of Jim Rice and the RBI crown, it was Armas again. Dale Murphy was a stud in 1983, amassing 16.6 FBHOF points after batting .302 with 131 R, 36 HR, 121 RBI, and 30 SB. One year later the best line in fantasy was just 13.6 FBHOF points when Ryne Sandberg batted .314 with 114 R, 19 HR, 84 RBI, and 32 SB.

Two young players from New York did have a major impact on the game however, and would eventually become greats, if just for a short period of time. In the National League, Dwight Gooden threw his first major league pitch in April, becoming one of the finest pitchers in baseball over the next 3 or 4 years. The same is true for the Yankees first basemen, Don Mattingly, who won a batting title and drove in 100 runners in his first full time season.

Overall though, the Infielders, Outfielders, and Staring Pitching all rank in the lower half of FBHOF scoring, with the latter two positions coming in with some of the worst scores on record.

A positive about 1983, and of the period between 1982 and 1985, was the quality of the catching crew. The only better 4 year period of the fantasy era was 1997 to 2000 thanks to the likes of Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez. In the early 80’s it was six time All Star Gary Carter (and he’s not in the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame?) along with Lance Parrish and Carlton Fisk, both three time all stars.

In the World Series the Detroit Tigers cemented their place in history as one of the great single season teams, winning 104 games and easily dispatching the San Diego Padres 4 games to 1. Not one regular Tiger is on this team, though closer Willie Hernandez was spectacular, reaching 10.5 FBHOF points thanks to a line of 140 IP, 9 W, 0.94 WHIP, 1.92 ERA, and 32 saves. Those were the days for relief pitching.

Positional Ranking Among the 28 Teams
C: 5th
IF: 15th
OF: 26th
SP: 27th
RP: 2nd
Overall: 22nd

Year: 1985
First Time All Stars: 9 – Kirk Gibson, Tommy Herr, Orel Hershiser, Bob James, Willie McGee, Donnie Moore, Dave Parker, Bret Saberhagen, John Tudor
3 Time All Stars: 3 – Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken, Fernando Valenzuela
5 Time All Stars: 3 – Gary Carter, Rickey Henderson, Eddie Murray
10 Time All Stars: N/A
Future FBHOF’ers: Dwight Gooden, Henderson, Don Mattingly, Murphy, Murray, Cal Ripken, Saberhagen, Ryne Sandberg, Valenzuela
Snubs: Tim Raines (11.5)
16 Pt Season: Henderson (16.6), Gooden (18.3)

This was a fun team to explore, one riddled with great seasons. Only 1997 saw more 15-point campaigns, and 1985 is also ranked 4th in 10-point seasons. Rickey Henderson, Dwight Gooden and Don Mattingly were each at the height of their successes while Orel Hershiser, Eddie Murray, and Dale Murphy were in the midst of their second best seasons of the Fantasy Era. Additionally, Gary Carter joins Henderson and Murray to create our first team with three 5-time all stars.

The standouts of 1985 were the infielders who combined to average 13.6 FBHOF points. In the 18 year period between 1877 and 1996, Don Mattingly was the only major leaguer to drive in 145 runners; Sandberg stole 54 while contributing 26 HR and 113; George Brett went .335 / 108 / 30 / 112; Ripken hit 26 HR and had 100+ R & RBI; and finally, Murray drove in 124 and hit 31 HR. Only middle infielder Tommy Herr had less than 12 FBHOF points and he was very good regardless – .302 AVG, 97 R, 110 RBI, 31 SB. Only one infield of the fantasy era ranked better, the 2005 squad of Albert Pujols, Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Young, Derek Lee, and Chone Figgins.

The outfield was great too, ranking 6th overall. Again, only one player scored less than 12 FBHOF points and their collective average stats were 110 R, 28 HR, 100 RBI, and 32 SB.

While not exactly week, starting pitching was an area where the 1985 team did not rank well above average. Gooden was amazing – 277 IP, 24 W, 0.97 WHIP, 1.53 ERA, 268 K and John Tudor and Hershiser made a formidable 1-2-3, but at the tail end Bret Saberhagen and Bert Blyleven couldn’t match Gooden’s FBHOF score between them. And for the first time not a single closer reached 6.5 points, ranking 23rd of 28 teams.

The Kansas City Royals, thanks in large part to All Stars Brett and Saberhagen, bested the St. Louis Cardinals in a hard fought 7 game series. Cardinal All-Star and starting pitcher Tudor, was shelled after two great performances in games 1 & 4.

Positional Ranking Among the 28 Teams
C: 3rd
IF: 2nd
OF: 6th
SP: 13th
RP: 23rd
Overall: 4th