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

The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame (in conjunction with Razzball.com) is a new website dedicated to recognizing the accomplishments of Major League ballplayers during the “fantasy era” (1980-present). The greatest of these players will be elected to the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame.

Only five pitchers of the fantasy era have attained the 65 point bogey the FBHOF uses as the baseline for batter inductions.  The reason for this is simple – the best pitchers contribute in just four categories while the best batters contribute in five.  The question then becomes – is it fair to hold this against those players who make their living 60 ft 6 inches from the batter?

I don’t have a great answer.  One on hand I routinely thought back to the class of Catchers while formulating the pitcher induction process.  This class as you will recall enshrined just one lone inductee, Mike Piazza.  I tried to justify this way of thinking for use on the pitchers, if it’s acceptable to have one catcher, is it not also acceptable to have a relative few pitchers?  On the other hand, a catcher has the potential to contribute in each of five categories but usually do not since the position is so specialized and demanding.  A starting pitcher however, can not accumulate saves due to the manner in which he used by the team – it’s not for a lack of ability on his part, they simply aren’t used in that fashion.

As a result, I decided the 65 point mark needs to be reduced and basic math skills make this a straightforward matter.  A batter must accumulate, on average, 13 points in each of the 5 offensive categories to reach 65.  A pitcher therefore, should need to accumulate 52 points (13 x 4 = 52) to be considered for the FBHOF.

Still, some issues arise for which I have no great answer.  For example, the best pitcher of the fantasy era, Randy Johnson, easily has the best FBHOF score and best Peak Score ever, even when adding batters to the mix.  While contributing in just 4 categories, Johnson outperforms Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, etc.  That is impressive.  Almost as impressive is that three of the top four peak scores belong to pitchers as well, with Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux coming in at 3rd and 4th.  Is it then fair to reduce the pitching overall requirements if pitchers have the 3 of the best 4 peak scores of all time?

In the end I think Johnson, Martinez, and Maddux were the exceptions that proved the rule.  Only a handful of starting pitchers over the past 28 years have been good enough hang with the batters and we therefore need to adjust.  By moving the minimum score down to 52, eight more starters are enshrined to give us a total of 13.

Since there are so many pitchers we’ll break the inductions out into two articles.  Today we’ll look at the 13th through 6th best fantasy pitchers of all time, saving the elite five for next week.

David Cone
One thing we are to find is only the rarest of pitchers don’t have significant flaws when looking at the five year peak.  Take our ‘worst’ pitching Fantasy baseball Hall of Famer as an example. Cone was very good for a long time, but never great.  He was never the best overall pitcher in any one season, nor was he ever the 2nd best.  He did achieve 3rd twice, but on average, his rank was 4.8 in his five year peak.

What Cone has over his peers is the fact that he was very good for a long time (by pitcher standards anyways) as only 5 other pitchers have more “7 point FBHOF” seasons than Cone does.  Yet Cone’s best season is ranked just 69th best of the Fantasy Era.

Bret Saberhagen
Without his hallmark season of 1989 Saberhagen likely falls just short of FBHOF requirements.  “Sabe’s” easily won the Cy Young award this year garnering 27 of 28 possible first place votes.  It was warranted too.  With a line of 23 W, 0.96 WHIP, 2.16 ERA, and 193 K’s he led the league in all but strikeouts.  He was also great in 1994 (2.74 ERA, 1.03 WHIP) but, like Cone before him, never had the 3rd elite fantasy season, even ranking a fairly low  20th best in his 5th best season.  And if 20th doesn’t sound that bad, realize that it’s also 89th overall when considering all positions.

Fernando Valenzuela
Raise your hand if you remembered Valenzuela’s fantasy worthy season in 1996.  Mine is down, and I surmise most of yours are too.  We all know how good the man was in 1981 and 1982 (2.65 ERA, 1.10 WHIP if you forgot) but what strikes me the most interesting was his ‘96 season of 172 IP and 3.62 ERA.  It only fractionally helps his FBHOF case, but I had thought he was done in the late 1980’s.  Overall, Valenzuela has four Top-5 seasons to his credit with a fifth season ranked 12th before he faded into mediocrity.

Dwight Gooden
Gooden’s rookie campaign in 1984 (17 W, 1.07 WHIP, 2.60 ERA, 276 K) promised one of the brightest futures in memory.  One year later the assurance of greatness was all but guaranteed as the 20-year old New York Met pitched through the second most excellent fantasy season of all time.  “Doc” led all starters in Wins, ERA, and Strikeouts and placed a close second in WHIP behind John Tudor, who was having a career year of his own.  This gave Gooden back to back titles for fantasy pitcher of the year and a two year FBHOF point total of 32, a mark bested by only a select few.

Gooden was still Top-10 Quality the following year when 17 Wins, a 2.84 ERA, and 200 K’s placed him 8th among pitchers.  His dominance was diminishing though.  The graph below charts Gooden’s K/9 rate throughout his career and while it was perennially very good, there was also a world of difference between his rate of 11.4 in 1984 and 7.2 two years later.

Still among the better class of pitchers for the remainder of his 5 year peak, Gooden turned in 3 more Top-25 quality seasons, amassing 61 wins and 647 K’s between 1987 and 1990.

Steve Carlton
Carlton’s FBHOF case is likely the most interesting one we’re to come across.  His career started in 1965, eliminating a full 15 years of his career due to the 1980 cutoff.  During these 15 years, the real life HOF’er racked up 225 wins and over 2600 strikeouts, all of which have no bearing on enshrinement here.  Further, his fantasy career was effectively over in just his 6th year and worse, Carlton’s career as a top-40 pitcher lasted only 4 seasons.  He makes the grade because he made the most of these four seasons between 1980 and 1984.

In ‘80 and ‘82 he was the best fantasy pitcher on the planet – averaging 24 Wins, 286 K, with a 1.12 WHIP and 2.72 ERA.  In 1981 he finished 2nd among pitchers and his three year peak score totaled 45.7 points, 5th highest on record.

Carlton was still very good in 1983 – 7th best thanks to 15 Wins and 275 K’s, but was woefully close to average in 1984, which is all to understandable given the fact he was 39 years of age.  His career was over 3 years later and was a non-fantasy impact from 1985-1987, but for the early part of the 1980’s Carlton left his mark on fantasy baseball as one of the inner circle elite.

John Smoltz
The lifetime Atlanta Brave has had two careers with the organization.  The first was as a starter from 1988 through early June of 2001 and then again between the years of 2005 and 2007.  During this time Smoltz pitched like a Hall of Famer, frequently finishing among the best pitchers in the game (he has ten Top-15 seasons) and ended 1996 as the best pitcher in fantasy baseball.  Between these periods he became one of the best closers in the game as well, compiling 154 saves, with a 2.65 ERA and 1.10 WHIP.

The saves end up not mattering all that much however, as his value to fantasy owners was almost entirely as a starting pitcher.  His best year as a closer came in 2002 when he reached the 55 save mark, yet this resulted in just 4.7 FBHOF points, just the 12th best season of his career.

This brings us to his FBHOF achievements.  Smoltz’s five year peak score of 52.4 hails from a lone stellar season (1996) and 4 other very good ones (1992, 1997, 2006, and 2007).  Incredibly, this gives Smoltz quite a long tenure as a high end fantasy pitcher, with 15 years between his ‘great’ seasons.

Johan Santana
Santana hasn’t had five full seasons in the majors yet is already ranked in the top half of the best pitchers of the fantasy era.  Sooner, rather than later, he will no doubt eventually move up to claim a top-5 position all to himself.

Interestingly enough, despite three great seasons from 2004-2006, Santana attained the #1 pitcher ranking just once in 2006.  During the three years, he averaged 18 Wins, 249 K’s, a 0.96 WHIP, and 2.75 ERA but in 2004 was out shown by Rand Johnson and the following season, Chris Carpenter bested him too.  This is by no means a fault of Santana’s, as after all, he was pitching in the Hitters League at the time.

Kevin Brown
Kevin Brown had some fantastic seasons that slipped my mind (likely after his dismal ALCS appearance with the Yankees in 2004) and frankly his name rarely enters a discussion when naming the great pitchers we’ve been blessed with over the past 15 years.  In truth, only Pedro Martinez was a better fantasy pitcher during Browns peak years of 1996-2000, and Martinez is a 1st ballot Hall of Famer most often compared to the immortal Sandy Koufax.

1988 was Brown’s best season.  He struck out 257 batters in the same number of innings, won 18 games, and recorded a 2.38 ERA.  This provided him with 13.9 FBHOF points, 29th best all time.  In 1996 his rate stats were off the charts (0.94 WHIP, 1.89 ERA) but struck out just 159 batters in 233 innings, holding down his fantasy value considerably.  Most important to his FBHOF resume are his two other seasons where he achieved the oft sought 10 point season:  1999 (18 W, 1.07 WHIP, 221 K) and 2000 (0.99 WHIP,  2.58 ERA).  This is important because it marks Brown as is the first pitcher we have seen with four double digit FBHOF seasons plus a very good 5th best.

Next week we finish the starting pitchers with the Elite Five, the few that could have been inducted even if we left the requirements at 65 points.  For now, a summary of the peak scoring of today’s honorees: