Changes in fielding runs above average from W1 to W2 show league quality. WARP sees Doyle as being a terrible defensive second baseman in a weak league.

Generally, I know, Davenport follows Dick Cramer in measuring league quality differences.

But I know that only where I know what it means; in principle, regarding interleague differences in offense and in defense. So I know that approach for interleague differences in batting quality and in pitching quality only if "batting" is offense and "pitching" is defense. In a more complex model, where batting and baserunning cooperate to score runs, pitching and fielding cooperate to prevent runs, I don't know the approach.

I suspect that Davenport has hacked his own path through the brush in order to infer both a fielding difference and a pitching difference from the data that bears pretty clearly only on defense, namely scoring data. (He leaves batting and baserunning conflated, I think, and that's fine by me.)

From now on, before writing "there was a discussion somewhere" everyone should check the Nellie Fox board.

FWIW - I uncovered last night a file I had showing the avg positional adjustment in runs by year (or increments of years). Many of you have seen this before; it shows how catchers were originally the worst-hitting position (1800s), but since then it has been shortstops. Second basemen have typically shown up in the order SS-C-2B-3B-OF, but from about 1950 through the laste 1970s, 2Bmen actually hit worse than catchers.

As to Nellie Fox, this could be argued either way. For those who uae RCAP, a nay-sayer might point out that RCAP overstates Nellie's value just because other second sackers happened to hit poorly in his career. OTOH, one could postulate his value as a smooth-fielding pivotman was enhanced because it was tougher to find a good 2Bman, and so his mediocre bat should be held less against him; hence, his many all-star and 'best 2Bman' accolades represent true value to his team.

Simply because I have the data, I thought I'd post it. You'll find on the Mazeroski thread a description of how I calculated a Fielding Range+ rating, comparing a player against the league average for his position. I wondered, given that the data I had showed more radical ups and downs season-to-season than I expected, whether a 2b lost range when accompanied by a good shortstop (or vice versa). I had some data for Luis Aparicio on my spreadsheet, so here is a comparison of their ratings during 1956-62:

Year      Fox      Aparicio
1956       96      103
1957      106       88
1958       89       93
1959      109      100
1960       98       99
1961       86       96
1962       91       92

How 'bout if all the whining goes here from now on?

Oh, and BTW, it's not as if there hasn't been a bit of discussion on this player.

Good idea, sunnyday2! DON'T VOTE FOR FOX. THERE ARE NUMEROUS ELIGIBLE CANDIDATES WHO HIT AS WELL, FIELDED BETTER, AND PLAYED SHORTSTOP. Send your love to Rizzuto, Bancroft, and Concepción.

Thanks!

Could you get more bold and more caps in there, we're pretty ####### dense.

I might be wrong, Marc, but I think Dan's post was meant to be good-natured.

Oh, and BTW, it's not as if there hasn't been a bit of discussion on this player.

True, but there is a lot of other stuff on this thread. Unfortunately I can't easily read what I wrote myself; it needs more study.
--

from the 1997 Ballot thread
112. David Concepcion de la Desviacion Estandar (Dan R) Posted: April 16, 2007 at 01:04 PM (#2336250)
I do find the support for Fox, a second baseman, over all-time great defensive shortstops with similar OPS+ like Concepción, Rizzuto, and Bancroft entirely inscrutable--given equal bats, the preference has to go to the player whose defensive value is overwhelmingly superior.

I suppose Fox supporters agree with that generalization about batting for Bancroft only, and he did not play every day like Fox. Many voters do value playing "every day" and Fox is in the second tier there, where the first tier is Gehrig, Ripken, and maybe Everett Scott.

BTW I rank Fox below those three. I thought he was a marginal choice for the Hall of Fame (As I thought of Rizzuto, whom I know how has the "lost peak" argument --a recognized argument for the Hall of Merit if not Fame-- that Fox does not have.)

sunnyday2, take a joke! Although, I'm right. Muahahahaha.

Oh, OK, I get it now. Sorry.

I've commented on the RCAP numbers before that they just don't make sense to me. According to bbref, McGraw is credited with 728 runs created during his career; does that imply that the average third baseman in 1100 games would have been credited with only 269 runs created? That hardly seems possible.

I use OUTS (2662 for McGraw) as opposed to PA's for comparison, but here is McGraw vs. 'average' 3B:

McGraw
RC -1101
OWP - .727
PA - 4939

Average 3B
RC - 631
OWP - .493 (Note: WITH McGraw included)
PA - 4087

Good idea, sunnyday2! DON'T VOTE FOR FOX. THERE ARE NUMEROUS ELIGIBLE CANDIDATES WHO HIT AS WELL, FIELDED BETTER, AND PLAYED SHORTSTOP. Send your love to Rizzuto, Bancroft, and Concepción.

Thanks!

to bad there there all different players