The Yankees 2009 infield isn't even a sure bet to be the best infield in the city.

I did some envelope figuring using WARP3, which was the best thing I had handy. Of the infields mentioned, plus a few others I could think of, the best were clearly the 75-76 Reds (Perez, Morgan, Concepcion, Rose) and the 82-83 Brewers (Cooper, Gantner, Yount, Molitor), who combined for mid-30s wins. The Brewers were better top to bottom. The Reds had Perez, a step down (in WARP3) from the other seven players those years, but they also had Morgan, who was just insanely great.

The 2009 Yankees infielders combined for 32.7 WARP3 in 2008, which is upper echelon among the rest.

That longtime Dodgers infield (Garvey, Lopes, Russell, Cey, 74-80) peaked in 78 at 32.7. They were remarkably consistent, always in the high 20s-low 30s. And Cey was always better than Garvey. Considering all the guys who get talked about a lot in Hall of Fame discussions, Cey ought to get mentioned once in a while. He was really good.

The Orioles IF mentioned in the intro was similar, good for a long time and peaking at 30.2 in 69.

The Mets of the last three years have gone 30.6, 31.5 and 30.9, and that's with the weak link Castillo at 2B the last two years. Valentin was pretty good in 06 but Reyes wasn't as good as in 07 and 08. With a solid 2B and Delgado still being among the living, they'd be a good bet to be better than the Yankees.

The 99-00 Indians (Thome, Alomar, Vizquel, Fryman) were a step down, mid-20s.

You're assuming that Cano is going to utterly suck again and that Delgado won't decline at all at age 37, King.

Ah the 1982 Brewers. Harvey's Wallbangers. I saw them outslug the Red Sox at Fenway that season... I was 12 at the time.

WARP3 includes a significant timeline - I think it's usually best to use WARP1 for cross-period comparisons of this sort. The '76 Reds have 40.5 WARP1 from the infield and 38.3 WARP3. The '09 Yankees infield had 29.3 WARP1 and 32.7 WARP3 in '08. I guess it's not a really super-huge difference, and it doesn't affect the outcome too much either way, but it's worth noting. The '69 Os, for instance, put up 32.7 WARP1, well better than any of the recent Yankee or Mets numbers.

You're assuming that Cano is going to utterly suck again and that Delgado won't decline at all at age 37, King.

Well, he did say "with a solid 2B and Delgado being among the living". Neither is a safe assumption, to be sure.

As far as Cano goes: his career progression to date is not a lot unlike Carlos Baerga's, although Baerga hung on to the BA a little bit longer. I'd like to see what comps ZiPS comes up with for Cano, but I have a feeling that there is no more than a 50-50 chance that Cano will bounce back significantly.

-- MWE

Very interesting. If you consider catcher as part of the infield, the Reds advantage only grows more conclusive I'd assume.

Heh, this is the first time, I believe, that Mike's guessed a comp off the top of his head for a player that wasn't in the ZiPS Top 10 (Baerga's 13th).

The top comps are Jorge Orta, Johnny Hodapp, Jose Vidro, Tony Kubek. Orta would almost be lapping the field as a comp if he were slower.

As far as Cano goes: his career progression to date is not a lot unlike Carlos Baerga's, although Baerga hung on to the BA a little bit longer. I'd like to see what comps ZiPS comes up with for Cano, but I have a feeling that there is no more than a 50-50 chance that Cano will bounce back significantly.

Everyone seems to be assuming that he will bounce back strong - I think youre correct. For some reason his first couple seasons apparently convinced most people that his posting very lucky BABIP fueled high AVGs was some sort of repeatable skill. Essentially people assumed that because he did it twice it couldnt be a fluke. Decent chance its a fluke. Very strong probability he has already hit for the highest AVGs of his career. He looks more like a .280-.290 hitter to me, not the .342/Rod Carew crap that people were touting... but probably higher than this season's .271 most of the time.

Some decent pop and the ability/tools to play good defense (although he has been maddeningly inconsistent with the glove) and he's a pretty good player... just not Rod Carew... and not a #3 hitter/future MVP. I got real sick of hearing that stuff. There are a number of 2B in the AL alone that pretty much every team would take over Cano. Kinsler, Pedroia, Roberts, Alexei Ramirez and Polanco come to mind immediately. At least Kinsler, Pedroia and Ramirez I would take going forward, too... (ie team control considered). That's just the AL, too. It seems not so long ago people were crowning Cano as the future best second baseman in the game...

very lucky BABIP fueled high AVGs

BABIP is a skill for hitters.

Essentially people assumed that because he did it twice it couldnt be a fluke. Decent chance its a fluke.

The only time in Cano hasn't had a high BABIP is in 2008. He had a .318 BABIP in his rookie year. So it was three full seasons. And even in the second half of '08, he had a .330 BABIP. The first half of 08 is the outlier here, not the other three and a half seasons of Cano's career.

Heh, this is the first time, I believe, that Mike's guessed a comp off the top of his head for a player that wasn't in the ZiPS Top 10 (Baerga's 13th)

It wasn't a great comp, I didn't think, largely because Baerga managed to sustain his performance a couple of more years before the falloff. But the performance shapes were very similar through their early careers.

Orta's age-25 decline wasn't as steep as Cano's, but he didn't bounce back to his age 23-24 level of performance afterward; he sustained the age 25 performance for three more seasons, then fell even further and except for one brief flash was a below-average performer for the balance of his career. Hodapp's fall was very similar to Cano's, although the shape was a bit different, and he never did bounce back; he was done two years later. Neither Vidro nor Kubek looks like a particularly good comp in terms of their career shape.

Cano lost about 55 points of in-play BA on fly balls a year ago, and his HR/FB rate dropped by about a third; his ground ball numbers didn't change much at all. I honestly don't know what to make of that.

-- MWE

I think what can't be translated from numbers is that Cano's play was very often "lazy" -- he didn't put nearly enough effort into his play. When he was focused, he was fantastic, but when he wasn't, he was terrible. How much Girardi and the coaching staff can keep him focused will play a large part in how much he rebounds, and how good he is in the future.

While recognizing that Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have slipped defensively in recent season, that duo has already done enough to qualify for entry into Cooperstown,

Now Alex is a given here, but Jeter....
If he never played again does 2500+ hits, 1000rbi, 120+ OPS for a gold glove(bwaa-haa-haa) ss do it? I know he'd be a lock from the HOF voters as he's a media darling, however from the BTF community?

I think he'd deserve enshrinement at this stage, but where would he rank amongst the SS already in the hall?

Oh I thought it was WARP3 that was best for cross-season purposes and WARP1 for a given year. I had that backwards? Maybe I'll re-do my little "study" next time I'm procrastinating about something.

I learned from a Google search that Bill James did this same exercise using Win Shares in the New Historical Abstract, and looking at all of (I think post-1900) baseball history, not just last 30 years. He mentioned some of the teams above, and a bunch of others. It would be interesting to look at all of those that he mentioned too. It's all in the Ken Boyer comment.

He has the 1914 A's as the best all time. The best of this period we're talking about here, which I just noticed seems to be more like the last 40 years, not 30, is the 1982 Brewers, just nosed ahead of the '75 Reds. Using WARP3 it went 76 Reds, 82 Brewers, 75 Reds, 83 Brewers.

Jeter has more hits than all but 5 HoF SS, more RBI than all but 4, and a higher OPS+ than everyone but Wagner and Vaughn. I think he's probably in today, and deserves to be.

Incidentally, I also think Cano will bounce back, because to some extent he did bounce back, he hit .300 the last 6 months of the season in '08.

Reading the definitions of WARP1 and WARP3 at Baseball Prospectus, it looks like WARP3 is an attempt to adjust for different "league difficulty" and lengths of season. Neither definition is written very clearly, but from what I can gather, when comparing players from one era to the next, you should use WARP3. Within one season, use WARP1. Here's what the definitions say:

WARP1: Wins Above Replacement Player, level 1. The number of wins this player contributed, above what a replacement level hitter, fielder, and pitcher would have done, with adjustments only for within the season.

WARP2: Wins Above Replacement Player, with difficulty added into the mix.

WARP3: WARP-2, expanded to 162 games to compensate for shortened seasons.

Jeter has more hits than all but 5 HoF SS, more RBI than all but 4, and a higher OPS+ than everyone but Wagner and Vaughn. I think he's probably in today, and deserves to be.

Even if you're in the "his D is terrible and always has been" crowd, he's deserves to be in now, I'd have to think. Also, without looking too closely, I'd guess I'd have him ranked somewhere #6-10 among all-time SS.

You can also put me in the bounceback from Cano camp. Nothing great, but I think he can probably manage a .300/.335/.460 type of line, something roughly on par with his post-April 2008.

Among those players who saw at least two-thirds of their time at SS, Jeter is:

6th in HR
7th in Hits
2nd in Runs
8th in RBI
18th in SB
3rd in BA (1000 games minimum, as for all rate stats)
5th in OBP
4th in OPS+

The rate stats will go down a bit, but he figures to climb even higher as time goes on in the counting ones.

@ Larry, #9:

BABIP is a skill for hitters.

No snark intended: how so? It's been my understanding that BABIP is largely luck-based; is there any evidence that batters have a non-marginal ability to affect BABIP?

No snark intended: how so? It's been my understanding that BABIP is largely luck-based; is there any evidence that batters have a non-marginal ability to affect BABIP?

I'm somewhat out of my depth here, but I'm pretty sure that BABIP correlates year-to-year for hitters in a way that it does not for pitchers.

No snark intended: how so? It's been my understanding that BABIP is largely luck-based; is there any evidence that batters have a non-marginal ability to affect BABIP?

That's a misconception. BABIP varies largely for *pitchers* because they have less control over it than walks, strikeout and home runs. Batters have a great deal of control over their BABIP because a large part of it is line drives, which is absolutely a skill for batters.

BABIP will fluctuate from year-to-year due to luck, but it will fluctuate around a different baseline for different players.

For example, Randy Johnson's career BABIP against is .297, Tim Redding's is .309. Not a huge difference.

Vlad Guerrero's BABIP is .322, Enrique Wilson's is .264. There a clear difference in skill there.

No snark intended: how so? It's been my understanding that BABIP is largely luck-based; is there any evidence that batters have a non-marginal ability to affect BABIP?

Some guys just hit the ball a lot harder. Line drives are hits > 80% of the time, so LD% is a huge contributing factor to BABIP.

Go to FanGraphs at look at ARod. His BABIP is .327 for his career. It's over .300 vitually every year. Pujols, .323 career BABIP. We don't expect these guys to regress to the league average (between .290 and .300 IIRC).

Ah so. Thanks for the explanation, folks; I appreciate it.

For those looking for a frame of reference here is a contemporary look at the 1982 Brewers:

1b; Morneau
2b: freddy Sanchez with more defense
Ss: Nomar at his best
3b; David Wright with less power and more speed who can really bunt

RB, thanks for running the numbers. Looking at those counting stats, he's certainly looking at first ballot, even from now.

If he never played again does 2500+ hits, 1000rbi, 120+ OPS for a gold glove(bwaa-haa-haa) ss do it?

Easy.

Looking at players with 1800+ games at SS, Jeter ranks 2nd in OPS+ at 120. Cronin is right behind him at 119, but Jeter already has more games at SS (but 139 fewer games overall). Larkin's at 116 but Jeter's only 100 SS games behind him so he should stay ahead of him. though he'll probably fall behind Cronin (119 in 139 more games as a SS). He's basically tied with Ripken through the same number of games.

I am worried that Larkin won't make it (c'mon MVP cred!!) and Trammell looks like a real longshot at this point so, in some sense, there'd be precedent for keeping out a SS with Jeter's career credentials, but they shouldn't (and of course won't).

Peak is hard to figure using P-I but using at least 1100 games at SS (to make sure Banks gets in) within the first 9 seasons of a career as a proxy ... well, I somehow lost Wagner and AROD so let's try 10 years ... y'know, sometimes P-I frustrates me cuz it doesn't do what I want and I can't figure out why not ... so trying 1000 games at SS through age 30, I still don't get Wagner but we have AROD at 145 (will include time at 3B), Banks & Vaughn at 138 and Jeter is #7 at 120. Close enough.

About the only argument you could try to make against him is that SS has become a much more offensive position in the modern game. 3 of the top 8 in that peak list, Tejada being the 3rd, are current SS. This comes after Yount, Ripken and Trammell. So in that sense, Jim Fregosi's 114 might be more impressive than Jeter's.

Anyway, in terms of offensive value, Jeter would seem to be top 10 in peak (at least a good 7-8 year peak) and already top 5 or so in career value -- if you look just at games played at SS (i.e. AROD's seasons at 3B don't count). Defensive value and how far that drops him down the peak and career lists? Got me.

Plus, much as I hate the bugger, Jeter's just a cool name. I'd gladly vote for Johnny Jeter if he were eligible.

Reading the definitions of WARP1 and WARP3 at Baseball Prospectus, it looks like WARP3 is an attempt to adjust for different "league difficulty" and lengths of season. Neither definition is written very clearly, but from what I can gather, when comparing players from one era to the next, you should use WARP3.

To me, that depends on (a) the question you're asking and (b) whether you trust Davenport's timeline. Certainly, WARP3 is meant to be adjusted for league difficulty, such that players in more recent decades and in more integrated leagues are given more credit for their performance against better opponents.

However, first, if I were trying to determine the best infields of all time, I'd probably be more interested in the question of which infields were best within their specific league than which infields are best when you account for league difficulty. Both are worthwhile questions, but the former requires WARP1.

The other problem is that I'm deeply unconvinced there's any good way of accounting for league difficulty. I'm generally skeptical of WARP because so much is unexplained and undiscussed, and the timeline adjustment changes things by full wins or more. I prefer, generally, to use metrics that work within a particular league setting, and then if necessary to make secondary adjustments qualitatively rather than quantitatively.

22. snapper Posted: January 04, 2009 at 07:38 PM (#3043159)

No snark intended: how so? It's been my understanding that BABIP is largely luck-based; is there any evidence that batters have a non-marginal ability to affect BABIP?

Some guys just hit the ball a lot harder. Line drives are hits > 80% of the time, so LD% is a huge contributing factor to BABIP.

Go to FanGraphs at look at ARod. His BABIP is .327 for his career. It's over .300 vitually every year. Pujols, .323 career BABIP. We don't expect these guys to regress to the league average (between .290 and .300 IIRC).

it's not just that, some speed guys also end up with much higher BABIP.

Ichiro: .356 (lowest season .319, every other year is over .333)
Crawford: .330 (lowest season .301)

Jeter also sort of falls into this catagory, they beat out a ton of infield dribblers. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Ichiro is much more likely to beat out infield hits (12.2% career) than Bengi Molina (2.7%) and that is obviously a repeatable skill.

As for Cano, we shall see, I highly doubt he's had 3 years of fluke BABIP, that being said, his poor walk rate and gapish power makes him a lot more prone to BABIP flux than most other players.

If he never played again does 2500+ hits, 1000rbi, 120+ OPS for a gold glove(bwaa-haa-haa) ss do it?

Last time I looked, there was 1 shortstop in MLB history with 2500+ hits, 200+ HRs and a .300+ batting average. That should be good enough for all but the most strident Jeter-haters.

However, first, if I were trying to determine the best infields of all time, I'd probably be more interested in the question of which infields were best within their specific league than which infields are best when you account for league difficulty. Both are worthwhile questions, but the former requires WARP1.

Fair enough. I'm interested in the latter question. If WARP3 isn't meant for that, I don't know what it's for.

By the way, of the teams I've looked at so far -- been doing them here and there throughout the day -- the best I've found is the 1913 Philadelphia A's, followed by the 1948 Indians, then the '76 Reds.

Last time I looked, there was 1 shortstop in MLB history with 2500+ hits, 200+ HRs and a .300+ batting average. That should be good enough for all but the most strident Jeter-haters.

What if Jeter's batting average were to somehow decline during the last six (?) years of his career?

What if Jeter's batting average were to somehow decline during the last six (?) years of his career?

If Jeter were to have the same number of ABs in the next six years as the last six (unlikely, but let's go ahead and assume that), he'd need to hit .265 to fall below .300 for his career.

I don't think Jeter would keep playing if he's a .265 hitter, let alone stick around long enough for that to be a 3600+ AB average. He'll finish with a career average over .300.

I also think he has a good shot at finishing in the top-5 all-time in hits, and an outside shot at finishing in the top-three -- maybe even challenge Rose if he rebounds to a .320 hitter this season, stays a .300 hitter into his late 30s, and hangs around for a few years. That's a very long shot, though, especially if the Yankees are still a top team.