Fantasy Baseball Advice

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.

Name	Sum	Rbat (Batting)	Rbaser (Running)	Rfield (Fielding)
Trammell	+221	+124	+21	+76
Larkin	+301	+189	+85	+27
Smith	+171	-150	+82	+239

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.

Name	# of Gold Gloves	Rfield
Roberto Alomar	10	-32
Ryne Sandberg	9	+60
Bill Mazeroski	8	+147
Frank White	8	+121
Joe Morgan	5	-47
Bobby Richardson	5	+15
Craig  Biggio	4	-71
Bret Boone	4	-39
Bobby Grich	4	+83
Orlando Hudson	4	+23

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.

Name	MVP Top 10s	WAR Top 10s (excluding Pitchers)
Alomar	5 – 1991 (6th),1992 (6th),1993 (6th), 1999 (3rd), 2000 (4th)	4 – 1992 (4th), 1993 (9th), 1999 (3rd), 2000 (4th)
Larkin	2 – 1990 (7th), 1995 (1st)	6 – 1998 (5th), 1990 (9th), 1991 (4th), 1992 (8th), 1995 (5th), 1996 (6th)
Trammell	3 – 1984 (9th), 1987 (2nd), 1988 (7th)	6 – 1983 (7th), 1984 (3rd), 1986 (5th), 1987 (2nd), 1988 (8th), 1990 (3rd)

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.

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.

This week, the best shortstops are identified and elected.

The third installment for the inaugural list of inductees into the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame looks at shortstops, a position which has undergone much churn since 1980.  Previously a non-hitting position, shortstops are now arguably the strongest in fantasy baseball and this is reflected in the inductee selections.  Aside from Catchers, the shortstops have historically been one of the two weakest positions and their representation in the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame is minimal – only two made the cut.

Below is a chart the bears some explanation.  To figure out which positions have historically outperformed the others, I combed through the scores of each fantasy worthy player, determined the player’s position, and then derived the average score for each position, each year.

To make sure we are all on the same page, I:
- Took all “fantasy worthy” shortstops in 1980 and figured their group average score.
- Repeated the process for the 1980 crew of 1B, 2B, 3B, and OF.
- Then derived a similar set of scores for every other season.
- Almost done.  Next I determined the ranking of each position for each year when compared to other positions.  For example, in 1980 going across the diamond (1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF) the average scores were 5.6, 3.7, 4.9, 4.2, 5.0.  This gives a ranking (across the diamond again) of 1st, 5th, 3rd, 4th, 2nd.
- Finally, I summed the number of instances for each ranking for each position.  The result:

Please note that I excluded Catchers since they are easily the worst position and there is no need to spend any time confirming this.  I also only looked at the period of 1980 through 2002 since we don’t need to look at the most recent 5 years because any player who came to the majors just 5 years ago will not be in the hall of fame.  (Please note however that in the last 5 years the shortstops have had the best ranking three times).

What I found is not surprising.  First basemen followed by outfielders are the strongest positions historically.  Middle infielders take up the rear while the third basemen lie somewhere in between.  The point?  Shortstops rarely help your fantasy team to a great extent.  If they rarely help it stands to reason that there won’t be many elite players, especially when only looking at players who are great for at least five year stretches.   Many shortstops have had very good seasons, but not so many have done it at least five times.

Need further evidence?  After looking at this data for quite some time it has become apparent that a HOF worthy seasonal score is about 10 FBHOF points.  This is the minimum.  Here is list of the number of 10 point seasons for each position from 1980-2002:

214:  OF
81:  1B
50:  3B
37:  2B
30:  SS
19:  C
5:  DH

Shortstops just don’t help you win as much as other positions and as a result, only two make it in today.

Starting things off is arguably the best fantasy player of all time, Alex Rodriguez.  It seems it has been a lifetime since Rodriguez has had shortstop eligibility, but in his career just 31% of his seasons have been at third base.  The rules therefore require that he goes in as a shortstop and so he will.

Rodriguez’s FBHOF score is a whopping 86.9, second only to Barry Bonds for offensive positions and fourth overall.  His Peak Score of 81.2 is the best ever for a batter and his career total is third.  All told, Rodriguez has been the most dominant fantasy player of the era.  It’s worth looking at his stats season by season, here are his 5 best:

He has been so good that his 2002 season where he smacked 57 home runs doesn’t make the cut into his peak score, the core metric used for induction.  Additionally, every season in which he was a full time player Rodriguez has recorded a FBHOF score of at least 10, something no other player has even come close to duplicating.

As one of handful of players to accumulate 85 or more points, the Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame will have more on A-Rod’s prowess in a special write-up in the coming weeks.

The second Hall of Fame shortstop is no stranger to greatness either.  Cal Ripken is said to have revolutionized the position and while I am not so sure about that (see Banks, Ernie) I do agree he was really, really good for a long time.

Ripken had two great seasons, 8 years apart no less.  In 1983 he batted .318 with 121 R, 27 HR, and 102 RBI.  In 1991 he was even better attaining a .323 average, with 99 R, 34 HR, 114 RBI, and 6 SB. Both of these seasons scored in high 13’s for FBHOF points and both were of Top-5 overall quality.  In between these years he churned out three other very good to great seasons which makes his peak score 61.0, second to only Rodriguez.  Ripken also joins Howard Johnson and Robin Yount as the only shortstops prior to Rodriguez to finish more than one season rated in the Top 5 overall.

His peak 5-year average batting line is .302 AVG, 107 R, 28 HR, 99 RBI, 3 SB and for those that look at this and see Miguel Tejada keep in mind the context of Ripken’s achievements.  The average league minimum during Ripken’s peak was just .247 AVG, 47 R, 7 HR, 42 RBI, and 6 SB.  This shows how suppressed offenses were while Ripken was one of the greats.

There are several shortstops who could have arguably been elected, but in the end their core FBHOF wasn’t close enough to the magical 65 points to bend the rules.  The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame is for great contributors, not just the very good.

Derek Jeter – Cap’n Jete’s was the closest to election with a solid 60.2 FBHOF score.  In the end however, he’s about a half a season away from enshrinement, and is certainly hurt by the high offensive era he has played through.  Jeter has 3 great seasons (FBHOF scores of 12.6, 12.3), one very good (10.3), and another just below the cut (9.7).  Comparing Jeter to Ripken, we find Ripken’s best was indeed superior to Jeter’s – the Oriole has two seasonal scores above 13.5 which is the difference maker between the two.

Can Jeter make it in?  With a great season, yes, of course.  He also has a chance based upon the longevity bonus that can be awarded (1% for every Fantasy Worthy Season).  Assuming he doesn’t increase his peak score, he’ll need a total of 12 non-peak fantasy worthy seasons to be inducted.  He currently stands at 7.  He’s 34 years old this year, so if he plays at league minimum standards until he’s 38, he’ll make it.  Seems likely to me.

Howard Johnson – Players like Johnson likely deserve their own section at FBHOF.  Johnson was elite for two years, finishing as the #1 and #2 ranked batter in 1989 and 1991.  During these two seasons he averaged 106 R, 37 HR, 109 RBI, 35 SB, and a .273 AVG.  He also finished first or second at his position 4 times.  However, that key 5th season isn’t close to greatness as he finished 43rd overall and this wipes out any chance he had for election.

Nomar Garciaparra – Garciaparra is in almost the same boat as Jeter, he had many very good seasons and not enough great ones.  During his peak he averaged a final ranking of 13th among batters; Ripken averaged 9th and Jeter 12th.

Alan Trammell – The Detroit Tiger isn’t all that close to election and his real baseball skills are much superior to his Fantasy Baseball skills.  He’s also hurt because he perennially seemed to miss 20 or more games so his counting stats don’t quite measure up.  In his 3rd and 4th best years he averaged 67 RBI which simply isn’t Hall of Fame material.

Barry Larkin – The National League version of Trammell:

Miguel Tejada – It surprised me how far away Tejada is from legitimate consideration.  His 2002 and 2004 seasons were great, finishing among the Top 10 batters and either 1st or 2nd at his position.  But his 2005 and 2006 campaigns fall just short as both result in less than 10 FBHOF points, and his 5th best is well off the mark.  He finished 41st among batters in 2003.  He’s off to a great start in 2008 though, so we can’t quite count him out forever.