I'm curious about a couple of things:

1) Now that Santo is in, who is the most obvious exclusion by the BBWAA that needs to be rectified? Ted Simmons? Joe Torre? Bobby Grich? Alan Trammell? Tim Raines? D. Evans? Maybe I don't have the right names here, but what I'm trying to get at is this - one of the things Bill James frequently talks about in HOF discussions is the "If this guy, then that one" approach. Most people use the argument in the sense of "If Player A is in the HOF, then Player B should be in as well". Unfortunately, the problem with this argument is that often Player A was a mistake to be in the HOF in the first place, so you're really not helping Player B's case by using this argument. But what about situations where Player B isn't just borderline and maybe equivalent to a HOF mistake? What if Player B isn't just better than a few marginal HOFers, but pretty clearly better than a whole bunch of HOFers? Are there any players out there still unwanted by the BBWAA that seem to be pretty clearly at least mid-level HOF if not necessarily inner circle?

2) For several years, Pie Traynor wasn't just viewed by the writers as a clear-cut HOFer, but as the best third baseman ever. Yet it seems to me that several third basemen that have come along since aren't just better than Traynor, but significantly so. I would think Mathews, Schmidt, Brett, Boggs, Santo and others aren't just better, but much better. Is there a timeline effect here? And while it may seem blasphemous to some, should we think of other positions in the same way? Is the reason Babe Ruth was so dominant in his time because the level of competition he faced was really about the same as minor league baseball today? Just wondering...

I vote for Tim Raines. Then Trammel. I wonder what WAR says.

And let me be the first on this chain to note that if Jack Morris gets voted in, the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers. I believe that if Morris is elected, he will be the worst (starting) pitcher elected. Right now it is a toss up between Pennock and Catfish. Morris blows right by them in unworthiness. (Note that 'unworthiness' does not mean he was a bad pticher. Just bad for a HOFer.)

Wow. Just getting that off my chest makes me feel better.

Now that Santo is in, who is the most obvious exclusion by the BBWAA that needs to be rectified?

I realize this isn't what you mean, but very soon it's going to be Barry Bonds.

Lou Whitaker, Trammell, Raines. Possibly both Dewey & Darrell Evans.

Lou Whitaker falling off the ballot after one year is a bigger embarrassment for the HoF voters than any of the undeserving guys they have voted in.

Wow. Just getting that off my chest makes me feel better.

Big Fan - glad to provide a forum for relief! Actually, on one of the other Morris threads a while back, I showed how from 1983-87 (Morris' peak seasons for W-L record which, basically, is his case plus the game 7 World Series in '91) Blyleven actually pitched better than Morris did, and no one is claiming that '83-'87 was even remotely Blyleven's peak!

I realize this isn't what you mean, but very soon it's going to be Barry Bonds.

Voros - touché! I'd love to delve further into that discussion later...

Now that Santo is in, who is the most obvious exclusion by the BBWAA that needs to be rectified? Ted Simmons? Joe Torre? Bobby Grich? Alan Trammell? Tim Raines? D. Evans?

Whitaker, Grich, Simmons and the Evans boys are no longer under the BBWAA's jurisdiction, and in fact Whitaker and the Evanses are in HoF limbo for a few more years before a Vet's committee can tackle them.

I'd like to see Grich at least make the next Vet's committee ballot for his time frame, which would at least give him the chance to be considered (something that's never really happened for him). He and Simmons are really the only players from his era (as defined by the Veterans' committee) that are rock-solid HoF candidates.

Trammell has no shot of getting inducted via the BBWAA, but I think he's got a good chance via a future Vet's committee. Raines still has a chance of getting elected (he's probably the most worthy of a Lederer-style campaign). Guys like Bonds, Roger, etc. aren't going to be kept out because their contributions are undervalued, so an individual campaign isn't really worth it (though tackling the de facto ban on juicers/suspected juicers is a worthy endeavor).

I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the upcoming Pre-Integration (1871-1946) Veterans Committee ballot. "Bad" Bill Dahlen seems to be the best saber candidate of that group while Wes Ferrell had the most votes of the holdovers from last election of players from that era. (Allie Reynolds came one vote shy when Joe Gordon got elected in 2009 but he got lumped in with the Golden Era candidates when the HOF re-did the Vet Comm, so he won't be in the upcoming vote.)

Rich Lerder actually said he'd like to bring Grich's overlooked career to Vet Comm voters attention (in one of his last blogs, not sure why his site hasn't had new material for months). I support Grich's candidacy but sadly don't see him making the ballot.

Trammell's support is growing due to his career's similarities to Larkin & if '84 WS teammate Morris gets in, this may put more focus on his candidacy. I agree with SoSH & feel he will fall short but have 50% or more of the vote by the time he's off the ballot & be quickly voted in by the Vet Comm--which in turn will help Sweet Lou.

Dewey will get a good look on the next Exp Era Vet Comm vote, he's got much better counting stats than any of the holdovers from the previous vote (Concepcion, Garvey, Staub, Oliver, Simmons) & absolutely overshadows those players in saber stats but that ballot will be crowded with mgrs Torre, Cox, & LaRussa. Concepcion was the only holdover who got 50% of the last Exp Era vote. Simmons may get (& is deserving of) more support on the next vote.

And let me be the first on this chain to note that if Jack Morris gets voted in, the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers. I believe that if Morris is elected, he will be the worst (starting) pitcher elected.

I still think it's Rube Marquard. Take away his 19-game winning streak and he was 5 games over .500 for his career, and his ERA+ would have probably been 96 or 97.

And let me be the first on this chain to note that if Jack Morris gets voted in, the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers. I believe that if Morris is elected, he will be the worst (starting) pitcher elected. Right now it is a toss up between Pennock and Catfish. Morris blows right by them in unworthiness. (Note that 'unworthiness' does not mean he was a bad pticher. Just bad for a HOFer.)

Perhaps, but Morris' candidacy is largely built around Game Seven. No Game Seven, no serious HOF discussion.

I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the upcoming Pre-Integration (1871-1946) Veterans Committee ballot.

Didn't we have that discussion in the Hall of Merit a few years ago? Or something very close to this discussion? Why, yes we did. Links are in order:

Discussion thread.

Ballot thread.

Results thread.

If you don't want to follow the links, here are our results:

1. Bill Dahlen
2. Deacon White (Dahlen got 15 of our 23 1st place votes; White got 7, and 13 2nd place votes)
3. Paul Hines
4. Jack Glasscock
5. George Gore
6. Joe Start
7. Ezra Sutton
8. Heinie Groh
9. Hardy Richardson
10. Bob Caruthers
11. Charlie Bennett
12. Sherry Magee
13. Stan Hack
14. Joe Gordon (at the time we did this, Gordon wasn't yet in the HoF)
15. Jimmy Sheckard
16. Charlie Keller
17. Harry Stovey
18. Cupid Childs
19. Wes Ferrell
20. Charley Jones
21. Pete Browning

Now, I think a lot of you wouldn't exactly vote the same way as we did, with the particular issue being the treatment of 19th century players. Our top 7 and 10 of our top 11 had careers that peaked in the 19th century. If your preferred boundary line lies at 1893 rather than 1901, then 9 of the top 11 had mostly pre-1893 careers, with the two exceptions being Dahlen and Groh.

Dahlen's career straddles the turn of the century. The best shortstop of his generation was Honus Wagner, but who was the second best of that generation? Dahlen can be most closely compared to George Davis. Of the two, Dahlen was the better defensive player, Davis the better offensive player. (Davis, like Wagner, was a multi-position player early in his career who settled at SS rather late.) There was a brief run of research-informed Vet Committee picks in there (I've forgotten which particular HoF employee was doing the research and the informing, but there was one man behind this.) George Davis got selected under those conditions. Then those picks stopped; it's not hard to imagine that Dahlen would have been next. When we debated this in the HoM, we found it very hard to choose between Davis and Dahlen. The became eligible for the HoM in the same year and finished in a very close race with each other. (Of course, we selected both as soon as we could.)

Putting both Davis and Dahlen in the HoF would rectify an age-old injustice, which you could perhaps personalize to the fact that Joe Tinker got elected to the HoF long, long ago. Now, I happen to think that Tinker wasn't all that bad of a a choice (although he got nowhere in HoM voting), but no one should ever have thought that Tinker was better than Davis and Dahlen.

In response to Big fan's quote: "And let me be the first on this chain to note that if Jack Morris gets voted in, the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers."
The only pitchers I think may benefit from that argument are Kaat, John, & maybe Tiant. It may help speed up Mussina & Schilling's candidacy but I see those pitchers making it anyway. I don't see Kaat, John, or Tiant making it as a bad thing.

8. Heinie Groh

Heinie's one of those players I always mistakenly assumed was in the Hall of Fame already, like Pepper Martin and Johnny Pesky.

OCF, thanks for taking the time to respond. Dahlen got less than 25% of the vote when Gordon got elected in '09, as always with the Vet Comm it will boil down to who presents the research & who does the voting. It will interesting to see if he gets more support this time around.

OCF and SOSH made a bunch of points I wanted to make, so I'll just say I agree.

On Pie Traynor - there are many reasons he looks like less than a Hall of Famer in retrospect but one of the main reasons is because his defensive statistics don't match up to his defensive reputation. Traynor was supposedly a SS playing out of position at 3B because his team had Rabbit Maranville and because Traynor's arm was erratic. He was recognized as the best fielding 3B of his era but the numbers don't match up. Of course there are myriad problems with fielding numbers in that era.

One thing that would boost Traynor's reputation to a contemporary observer is the effect of the improvements in fielding gloves. I'm completely confident that when a contemporary said he saw Traynor make plays that no other 3B had ever made before he was correct. Nobody could have made those plays without a webbed glove. The problem is that many players matched or exceeded that level of play after Traynor.

Another big factor is Traynor really was arguably the best MLB 3B of his era, though not by all that much. The other secret is the best overall 3B of his era were Negro Leaguers. Jud Wilson was a terrific player and John Beckwith was also better than Traynor.

Traynor was also a high batting average player in contrast with Stan Hack who had a better OBP.

To sum up - Traynor is one of those players who is clearly not a Hall of Fame "mistake" but whose accomplishments have been surpassed by players who came later and whose value does not look as impressive when evaluated in a modern context.

Oh, and all the people who called Traynor the best 3B ever were clearly unfair to Frank Baker.

Perhaps, but Morris' candidacy is largely built around Game Seven. No Game Seven, no serious HOF discussion.

If Morris, then Paul Derringer.

Actually, if memory serves, Derringer also has a couple of Morris's patented MLB-high win totals over 10-year spans.

Traynor was supposedly a SS playing out of position at 3B because his team had Rabbit Maranville

...and Glenn Wright, who actually moved Maranville off of short in 1924. Rabbit was traded to the Cubs at the end of that year; it was the only season in which he played more than 20 games at second base until he turned 40.

Oh, and all the people who called Traynor the best 3B ever were clearly unfair to Frank Baker.

The Received Wisdom that was provided to me as a boy in the 1960s (through Big Time Baseball books and all such):

- Pie Traynor was without question the best all-around third baseman of all time

- Frank "Home Run" Baker was a good player who is best remembered for being hilariously given the nickname "Home Run" for a couple of World Series homers, when in fact he was a line-drive hitter who rarely hit the long ball

That's what it was.

I didnt read the article. But what does that mean "confirms" it? Like Santo needs his statistics to jump through some sort of hoops to pass a test. Which brings up the obvious, will the "new" numbers be used to "verify" all the other members. I mean I guess that's why I didnt read the article, but what else can it possibly mean?

In a sort of unrelated note: I think there is a disconnect between what stat oriented people want/desire in a hall of Fame and what the powers that be; common fans, real ball players, exectives, etc think it should be.

If fame matters you have to start giving guys who can hold down the position at 3B (or get statistical credit for PT) for e.g. 22 years that both Nettles and Dar Evans achieved. (Darrell is 21 yrs, I think). The pt. is they were obviously playing at a high enuf levelt to justify their presence on good teams, and they are both probably as effective as Santo for far longer period. It's entirely possible that if Santo was a very good player for 12 years out of his 15; it's possible that Dar Evans and Craig Nettles were also very good for 50% longer.

I mean what I am supposed to make of that? I am supposed to cite OPS+ for Santo and feel good about myself?

On the fame, thing I would think Nettles is more famous than Evans, but just a guess.

If you want to go the statistical route, then you really need to find a defensive metric concept that doesnt contradict all the other metrics out there. From what I read Bill James knew it wasnt adequate and today I still dont find the situation at all convincing of anything. Plus, there are lots of bits of runs being won or lost on the basepaths owing to base running skills that are not showing up in simple CS/SB. There's also making contact with the ball which so far I dont see it as being as importantasthe first two but it's lurking there too .

The tone of the article is like the current tone of Sabermetrics in general. "We've won the fight, or at least we've got one for our side on the strict objective merits of it all. " Right? I mean its total complacency that's what the article says;

"VIctory for sabermetrics. Numbers confirm it."

Except its' really not true either. You measure offensive power and you measure OBP precisely. You've corrected it for park effects and era. You've nailed down like 2 tools out of 5 and you want to call it a day.

Look at the thread. "Who's next?" "What do the statistics say?"

This whole Santo thing bothers me. Not to mention Ken Boyer but that's for another thread. Then we get to Eddie Matthews. For the first 8 or 10 years of this guys career, he's like Mike Schmidt or something. I think he was the same age as K. Boyer but may be wrong. But anyhow if you look at the entire second half of his career I cant really say he's better than Boyer at 3B. I cant say how much Boyer is worth, but I feel a lot more comfortable in saying an excellent 3B might save x runs vs a very good 3B. I have a fairly good idea of how much defensive range might be worth. Also speed, and judgment on the bases. In fact, I think I can make the argument: that Boyer is probably better than and cant be proved to be worse than Matthews after their age 31.

I dont know how famous Matthews was back in the day. I dont think he was more famous than Adcock, or Aaron, or maybe Torre. And I really dont know what that says about Matthews and his election or Santo's election or Ken Boyer not being elected. I am pretty sure there's not a lot of difference between them.

I guess it’s the idea that you guys can now sort out these guys and pick out the best based on statistics that you know are incomplete and theories that you know are not completely understood or complete in themselves. Because even now you have to admit that. SO what happens ten years from now when you've put in all these "saber famers" and then a new computer with better theories and better data says "oh these guys werent the right ones?"

Im just talkin 3Bmen. Agree about Raines, Trammel, Dewey Evans.

Frank "Home Run" Baker was a good player who is best remembered for being hilariously given the nickname "Home Run" for a couple of World Series homers, when in fact he was a line-drive hitter who rarely hit the long ball

Baker did lead the league in home runs four years in a row. He was a hell of hitter.

His career was shorter than it could have been because he twice took a year off. The first time, 1915, when he was a big star, was over a salary dispute with Connie Mack. He only came back after the league ordered he be traded to the Yankees. Then he took 1920 off, still a good player, after his wife died of scarlet fever and left him with two young children.

He had an excellent career, but it could have been that much better.

He had an excellent career, but it could have been that much better.

He was Eddie Mathews, in every significant way.

I really dont know what that says about Matthews and his election or Santo's election or Ken Boyer not being elected. I am pretty sure there's not a lot of difference between them.

What a load of BS. Matthews would have to be an impossible butcher to get down to Boyer's level. 10,000 PA at 143 OPS+ vs. 8,772 PA at 116 OPS+. And it's not like you have to time line -- they were contemporaries.

Bill Dahlen seems to be the best saber candidate of that group while Wes Ferrell had the most votes of the holdovers from last election of players from that era.

As for Wes Ferrell: of all 20th century pitchers (who remained primarily pitchers throughout their major league careers), Ferrell was the best hitter. As you can see from my post #11, he finished 19th of our 21 candidates. I had him 16th on my ballot; the following is quoting myself from that ballot:

"Nice early peak, flamed out young as pitcher, stopped hitting as well. The fact that he pitched in the highest average run environment of any ballot-worthy 20th century pitcher puts his 2600 IP in perspective, since high-scoring innings are more stressful. On the basis of his pitching statistics alone he wouldn't even be a candidate. By raw RA+ I have him as 167-124, which is about equal to Hershiser or to the starter-only version of Eckersley. Include the hitting, and I get 177-115, which is Saberhagen/Cone territory, and with a bigger peak."

I'll add a couple of thoughts. One is that I think I was overdoing the magnitude of the correction for his hitting, and if we were to do this again, I would rank him clearly behind both Saberhagen and Cone (but both Saberhagan and Cone are in the HoM, so that's not such a bad thing.) The other is this: why did the 1920's-1920's players do so badly in our poll? Because their generation is already over-represented in the HoF. Yes there are a few issues about the edges: Wes Ferrell makes a better candidate than Rick Ferrell. Heinie Groh got overlooked compared to Pie Traynor. But there is no slam-dunk unrecognized player from that time. There's no Blyleven or Grich of the 30's, no Whitaker of the 20's.

Matthews would have to be an impossible butcher to get down to Boyer's level.

I think I meant in the second half of their career there's not much difference. If Boyer is getting to more balls, and has better baserunning, he is probably at his level, at least in the second part of their careers. I know the first half Matthews power is outstanding.

But I think the overall pt. is I dont know what to think of Mathews or any HoFer, where the first half is certainly HoF wothy and the second half is good but not especially great. Or what it means if Santo is like the later Eddie Matthews is that enuf to be HoFer?

"VIctory for sabermetrics. Numbers confirm it."

Except its' really not true either. You measure offensive power and you measure OBP precisely. You've corrected it for park effects and era. You've nailed down like 2 tools out of 5 and you want to call it a day.

I think you're missing the point. The reason Santo was more than a deserving player is due to the concept of replacement value and positional scarcity. THAT'S the sabermetric principle that validates Santo's election. Of course all you really need to do is count heads and figure out that there are far fewer 3B in the Hall of Fame than just about any other position (maybe C). That's really all you need to know to justify electing Santo - there aren't enough 3B in the Hall and he's the best one.

Now that Santo is in, an interesting debate is who is the best 3B not in the HOF. Darrell Evans, Nettles, & Bell were contemporaries & all relatively close. Bando was underrated but short on counting stats. Boyer was good but didn't add much value after he left STL. Hack was good too. Really,none of them are glaring omissions but I'd be ok with any of them making it. Evans is probably the closest but some of his value was at 1B. Defensive metrics help Bell a lot. Chipper will obviously make it in but then Rolen & Beltre will add to the debate.

I think Scott Rolen will soon take up the mantle. I don't see him getting elected though he is certainly deserving.

Agree with Dahlen and Grich/Simmons as the right players to promote for their respective Veterans Committees. Joe Torre will get in eventually due to his managing though he deserves it solely as a player.

DL,the problem is the last Exp Era ballot didn't even include Grich nor did it include Darrell Evans, Nettles or Bell. There is a screening committee that makes the ballot & those high WAR players were overlooked for lower WAR guys like Concepcion, Oliver & Garvey. Unfortunately sabermetrics did not play the role it needed to. I hate that owners & gms are on same ballot. I really didn't expect Gillick to get in (at least so soon).

OCF, was looking at Groh, interesting that former teammates Frisch & Terry didn't get him in via the Vet Comm like so many of his Giants teammates, perhaps since he was a Reds player slightly longer

The lobbying has to start now to make sure Grich gets past that screening committee next time. It would help if some of his former teammates (Palmer, Carew?) would get onboard.

The lobbying has to start now to make sure Grich gets past that screening committee next time.

Agreed. It would help to know who comprised the screening committee. I know the HoF released the names of the committee after their work was done (ballfan was one of the committee members), though I don't know if they make that public in advance.

The lobbying has to start now to make sure Grich gets past that screening committee next time. It would help if some of his former teammates (Palmer, Carew?) would get onboard.

Also Brooks and Frank Robinson, Reggie Jackson, Don Sutton, HOF teammates of Grich. I doubt Reggie would be much help though.

That's really all you need to know to justify electing Santo - there aren't enough 3B in the Hall and he's the best one.

except you don't know that. Not in any absolute sense. You've got power and OBP numbers very well defined. They're corrected for park and era and that makes them quite useful. But no one has quantified speed/judgment on the basepaths; nor are the defensive metrics refined enuf to have any confidence, nor is the abilty to contact the ball even considered. So we dont know all that.

I like Santo, no reason to think he's not among the best of those 3B not in. That seems fairly obvious. But he's in a pot with at least 5 or more other guys and they dont seem very distinguishable. This whole idea that he's "confirmed" is absurd. to me at least.

Peter Morris' Catcher soundly convinced me Deacon White is the Hall's largest player omission.

But he's in a pot with at least 5 or more other guys and they dont seem very distinguishable. This whole idea that he's "confirmed" is absurd. to me at least.

And you seem to be alone in that determination, at least in these parts. In the Hall of Merit's vote on the best third basemen of all-time, HoMers/not HoFers such as Evans (14th) Hack (16th), Beckwith (15th), Nettles (17th) and Boyer (18th) brought up the rear. Santo ranked 7th.

Grich, Dewey, & Whitaker would be great Vet Comm picks. It isn't often the Vet Comm has such a great chance to fulfill one of its purposes of giving a 2nd chance to overlooked candidacies. Sabermetrics (which played little to no factor in helping them when they were on the BBWAA ballot) shed a positive light on each of their HOF credentials. Also, in Dewey & Whitaker's case they were on the ballot when the Steroid Era was already making their career numbers look paltry by comparison.

But no one has quantified speed/judgment on the basepaths

Sure they have.

Ron Santo was on first base for 524 singles in his career. 307 times, he stopped at second; 198 times, he made it to third. That leaves 19, which I expect were mostly outs of some kind, but you'll occasionally see something weird like scoring from first on a single.

He was on second for 237 singles; he stopped at third 52 times and scored 172. That leaves 13, probably all outs.

He was on first for 118 doubles - stopped at third 60 times, scored 52, probably made 6 outs.

During his career overall, he made 156 outs on the basepaths and took 208 extra bases on wild pitches/passed balls.

bWAR takes all of that information, compares it to league average in various ways, and gives him -6 total runs of baserunning value, which is probably mostly from his 35 SB, 41 CS basestealing. It also does the same thing for all other players for whom similar data is available; it's pretty complete back to the mid-'50s.

OK and if you work all the times Boyer:

a) reaches base on error more than Santo (0.3% x c.700 AB = 0.66 Runs)*,
b) beats out a throw on the basepaths (other than a) more than Santo (est. 1/month but call it 5)= 1.5 Runs;
c) takes an extra base on a hit to the outfield (4% x approx 60/yr= 0.75 runs)
d) GIDP less, 3%, or 1 run;

So that more than makes up for what we calculated on the other thread as what? 4 Extra Doubles per year (3.2 runs) for Santo. But it's not 3.2 runs, because Boyer gets OB at the same clip as Santo so I think (correct me if wrong) you have to substitute 4 walks for Boyer while Santo gets doubles, so 3.2 - 1.2 = 2 Runs. 2 Runs per year more for Santo.

I dunno about advancing on wp/pb its probably very small, but if it's not lets just say it's already subsumed under b.

Boyer should already have that beat with just base running skills. Oh and Boyer makes more productive outs too (34% to 28% x 60 for about 1/run per year). THis should account for the contact factor, and the difference in KOs. As I think that advancing the baserunner is the only positive thing you can do if you dont strike out, but feel free to correct me.

Santo has 1200 more AB than Boyer and Boyer spend 2 years in the military right before he broke into the majors, which would have put him at virtually the same age (maybe a year older) than Santo had he not gone military. No reason to think he couldnt have had about the same length.

Oh, and Boyer can covers CF at least in the early days. And he also played SS. And he didnt show any decline in speed until after age 32, I think. So Boyer it appears can cover 7 positions in the field at least up to age 32. That's a lot more versatility than Santo. So there's two guys, both were effective for very nearly the same time period, they were almost dead even offensively and defensively; and the one guy could play 7 different positions...

You're all certain posterity will be on your side?

And you seem to be alone in that determination, at least in these parts

Right. WHich either means: A) I am totally crazy, and all possible ways to look at baseball/player abilities have already been solved. Or B) I am the only still looking at data, and being skeptical, while everybody else is complacent about it. Either outcome is possible, I grant you, but if we keep debating it, we might get closer to the truth. The fact is I am not afraid of being wrong about it all.

Hitler once got like 500 physicists to sign a paper saying that Einstein's theory of Relatively was wrong Einstein laughed and said if it was really wrong it would only take one physicist to prove that.

*Note also on this error thing, as well as b, it's quite possible that errors occur more when people are on base. I mean that stands to reason, with holding runners, runners in motion, etc. So when someone gets on with an error, it's also more likely that an above normal numbers of runners are on base, presumably they too were safe because of the error, so the value of getting on base with an error must be somewhere between the linear weight of walk and a single. The same reasoning is true for b, since by def'n at least one guy is already on base. The whole pt. is that these baserunning abilities to move up one base are probably a little higher than strict linear weight of a walk (what .3?). I didnt try to factor that in above, but it helps to buttress my pt. if you just allow a little more wt for these sort of events.

You're all certain posterity will be on your side?

Pretty sure, yes, because I still don't see anywhere in this post that you're accounting for the fact that Boyer played in a substantially higher offensive context.

i don't know how to take a post seriously when it would take about 3 seconds to do a google search and find out that he was on the first cover of sports illustrated, had ty cobb being quoted as saying eddie had one of the few perfect swings he had ever seen, was regularly regarded as one of the strongest guys in the league and had women flocking to braves games.

i work to refrain from being dismissive of other posters but the level of ignorance displayed here defies explanation.

edit:

i don't need teh google search since i was there and know these things by heart. but i would think someone here would understand the concept of google and give it a go.

Pretty sure, yes, because I still don't see anywhere in this post that you're accounting for the fact that Boyer played in a substantially higher offensive context.

we already did that on the other Santo thread, the one with the clicking heels video. They explained that Santo had a much betters OPS+ even though the raw ba/obp/slug were very close. Someone else did the correction for the different run context and would up giving Santo 15 pts higher in slug. I assume that this would have taken in the off. environment as that was the context of the discussion. Which amounts to 4 doubles in a season, unless I am dreadfully off.

Now I dont know if the 15 pts in slug. was the only difference in batting. I assume the guy would have told me that. In the event, the raw OBP was about the same and Boyer had some advantage in ba. All of which I think was subsumed under the +15 pts in slug. from that thread. But if it's not feel free to explain.

Also if anyone can explain how they did that conversion (from raw OBP/SLUG/BA to some sort of adjustment based on park effects/off environment) I would appreciate it. I mean can you take Aaron in County Stadium and compare his slug. to Clemente in Forbes Field. Is there some formula based on OPS+? or can you input it into Baseball Ref?

the raw OBP was about the same

Santo's raw OBP is 13 points higher. The league OBP contexts are about the same. Meanwhile, their raw SLGs are about the same, but Boyer's league context SLG is 13 points higher. So it ends up being about 15 points to Santo in both OBP and SLG, in a career that's over 1000 PA longer.

Also, Boyer had 31 games at short in his career; Santo had 18. I don't see much of a difference there. Boyer did play center field for a year, so you can give him some nebulous versatility bonus, but center and third usually come out around the same place on the defensive spectrum. And while it's reasonable to assume Boyer could also have gotten by at second, he never actually played there; Santo did, making a partial transition to the position in his last season at age 34.

I find it funny that baseball fans have always used numbers to determine players’ worth, yet many are so resistant against using numbers that more accurately gauge that worth. Santo’s 1,331 RBI and his five Gold Gloves were brought up over and over Sunday; I don’t remember anyone mentioning his career 79.3 wins above replacement (per Fangraphs) or his lifetime .366 weighted on-base average.

I hope no one ever mentions war as part of a hall of fame ceremony, and it would be silly to put it on a plaque. How many times has Santo's war changed over the past 5 years? I'm positive more than once, and he hasn't played a game in that time frame. Heck some dead people's war has changed. On top of that, who in their right mind uses fangraphs war for anything?

ow that Santo is in, who is the most obvious exclusion by the BBWAA that needs to be rectified?

I vote Ted Simmons. I am pro Raines for the hof, but he is just barely above the borderline and who's real strength is that he's equal to Gwynn and didn't get close to the same love.

Non-Cardinal bias and I'm looking at the Tigers cornerstone as both Trammel and Whitaker are fairly obvious oversights.

In response to Big fan's quote: "And let me be the first on this chain to note that if Jack Morris gets voted in, the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers."
The only pitchers I think may benefit from that argument are Kaat, John, & maybe Tiant. It may help speed up Mussina & Schilling's candidacy but I see those pitchers making it anyway. I don't see Kaat, John, or Tiant making it as a bad thing.

Really? You don't think the best pitcher of Morris's era, Dave Stieb isn't going to get a boost? Saberhagen? Dennis Martinez? etc... Basically every pitcher who is clearly better than Morris by era+ with similar innings pitched is going to have an argument, or those who are massively better but only short about 600 or so innings are going to have a different but equally valid argument.

On the fame, thing I would think Nettles is more famous than Evans, but just a guess.

So is Bo Jackson. Who cares about who is already famous, if you are voting for who's famous, then you are going to have a hof dominated by Tino Martinez, Paul O'neil and Jorge Posada while missing out on guys like Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and Ted Simmons.

But I think the overall pt. is I dont know what to think of Mathews or any HoFer, where the first half is certainly HoF wothy and the second half is good but not especially great. Or what it means if Santo is like the later Eddie Matthews is that enuf to be HoFer?

What don't you know what to make of it? The guys who post hof worthy seasons every year of a long career are inner circle hofers, Great players post 8-10 hof years and then basically coast by on reputation as an average or slightly above average player for another 8-10 years and finish up with a couple of crappy years. Their last years doesn't diminish their first years, it just adds to the story. It pads the counting stats.

As a Cardinal fan, it's obvious that Santo was the better player than Boyer. I don't remotely see how anyone can look at the two players and conclude anything different. Mind you Santo is a legitmate, solid hofer who had to wait, while Boyer is a borderline on either side type of guy who could be argued belongs in the hof, but no one can seriously argue him ahead of Boyer as a player.

bWAR takes all of that information, compares it to league average in various ways,

I'll have to look at the def'n later. I used to study this stuff 20 years ago but I admit I am out of the modern stuff.

I thought they were using OWar in the discussion on the other santo thread. .

I thought they were using OWar in the discussion on the other santo thread. .

oWAR (Offensive WAR) is part of bWAR (Baseball-Reference WAR).

Santo's raw OBP is 13 points higher. The league OBP contexts are about the same.

OK I was going from memory of the other santo thread. But if I give credit for Santo's 15 pts. of slug. and give him 4 extra doubles, doesnt that make up for the OBP difference? So if I give Santo 4 extra doubles and everything else is even, that would be an approx. of the differences in batting between the two. Sorry I misremembered it, but I think the 4 doubles would subsume the OBP difference. Yes? So I cant use the 4 walks for Boyer and subtract from the weight of the 4 doubles. It's just plain 4 doubles or about 3 runs/season. huh?

Eyeballing the numbers, if you bump Boyer's per 162 averages by 4 doubles, you increase his SLG by 14 points but his OBP by only about 6 (which makes sense because a double is 2 total bases but only one time on base). If you give him 6 extra walks on top of that, the OBP and SLG both work out about right, at least if you're willing to keep ignoring the good-sized difference in career length.

cardsfanboy, I don't believe Stieb or Sabes will get much of a boost because most Vet Comm & BBWAA voters still look more at counting stats rather than saber stats to make their HOF decisions. Morris has 254 wins, three 20 win seasons, & fame (his '84 & of course '91 WS exploits). Tiant is a little short on wins (229) but has stats similar (& in many ways better than) to current HOF Catfish, four 20 win seasons, a memorable '75 WS performance, intimidating facial hair, & spent most of his career with a popular franchise in Boston. Kaat won 283, had three 20 game win seasons, but may have hurt his legacy by pitching too long. Same with Tommy John, he won 288, had three 20 win seasons, had a surgery named after him but like Kaat his last several years didn't add much except getting them closer to 300. Blyleven's overdue election hasn't helped Kaat or John yet. Blyleven got in partially due to being so close to 300 (287), partially due to having over 3,000K's (Kaat & John are far short of 3,000) & partially due to sabermetrics & Rich Lerder making writers feel they were smart to jump on his HOF bandwagon.

Stieb, Sabes, & others such as Reuschel & Dennis Martinez won't see much of a push except from the most sabermetrically inclined voters. Stieb played in Canada, never won 20, & has 176 wins. Sabes won 20 twice, has the 85&89; CYs as well as the 85 WS feats but like Stieb being so far short of a counting stat like 200 wins (167) has & will continue to stunt his HOF candidacy. Reuschel & Martinez both won 200, Big Daddy (214), El Presidente (245) but are short on memorable postseason apperances & big seasons.

You & I may not 100% agree with how much voters rely on counting stats to make HOF decisions but it is due to the factors they seem to most take into account while voting that I feel Morris' election will not open the floodgates for more than just a select few such as Kaat, John, & maybe Tiant.

cardsfanboy, I don't believe Stieb or Sabes will get much of a boost because most Vet Comm & BBWAA voters still look more at counting stats rather than saber stats to make their HOF decisions.

And there's the little matter that Stieb and Sabes can't get any kind of boost in the BBWAA. They're done there.

As for the Vet's committee, if Jack doesn't get elected through the BBWAA (which is still a decent possibility), I suspect he's going to sail in through the Vet's committee anyway.

I used to say the hall didnt matter since.santo.wasnt in, now that he is in I have revised.my opnoon that the hall doesnt matter at.all since.they.took so long.to.elect him amd the future rejections will.prove my point

at least if you're willing to keep ignoring the good-sized difference in career length.

I thought I mentioned that Boyer was 2 years in the military. The difference between the two guys is 1200 AB. Does those two years not matter to you? How the hell is that me ignoring it?

If you give him 6 extra walks on top of that, the OBP and SLG both work out about right

Well that's fine, that adds another 1.6 runs or so, but Boyer had a higher ba. so dont we have to do some sort of adjustment there? or did we already do that with the 4 doubles?

EDIT: Wait a second wouldnt it be 4 walks? Cause you said he was up 13 pts and the doubles were 6 pts that leaves us with 7 pts in OBP to make up. That's like 4 walks I guess..

Moreover, I am still not clear on how we take raw OBP/Slug/Ba and do a conversion based on park effects. Is there an equation for that? Or do we start with OPS+ and extrapolate that into extra hits or HRs or whatever?

As a Cardinal fan, it's obvious that Santo was the better player than Boyer. I don't remotely see how anyone can look at the two players and conclude anything different

Let me make it simple: Does WAR take into account those factors listed in post 40 or doesnt it? This seems to be easy to answer.

The best I came up with in a few minutes of searching is this page provided by fangraphs:

http://wahoosonfirst.com/war-calculator/

which gives some sort of numerical value to baserunning. It doesnt seem to account for productive outs either.

I'm a logical person, really I am. So please show me where this is accounted for.

Boyer did play center field for a year, so you can give him some nebulous versatility bonus, but center and third usually come out around the same place on the defensive spectrum

I did not know Santo played SS so that's fine. But dont you have to quantify Boyers ability to play OF in some way? You cant jsut wave your arms and say it's nebulous. If you want to do a logical comparison doesnt it have to be quantified in some way?

By just leaving it hanging and saying "nebulous" it seems you are avoiding the issue.

I thought I mentioned that Boyer was 2 years in the military. The difference between the two guys is 1200 AB. Does those two years not matter to you? How the hell is that me ignoring it?

He did miss 2-plus years from his baseball career, but I'm not sure you can say he lost two years from his big league career. He played in 1954, but he spent the entire year in AA. Now he may have lost some big league service time as his military service created a lag in his developmental curve, but I don't think you can realistically credit him for two full seasons lost.

But dont you have to quantify Boyers ability to play OF in some way? You cant jsut wave your arms and say it's nebulous. If you want to do a logical comparison doesnt it have to be quantified in some way?

He was a starter in center field one season and played 105 games there. Outside of that one year, he played six games in the outfield. If it was an ability that he had, it made very little impact for the majority of his career.

cardsfanboy, I don't believe Stieb or Sabes will get much of a boost because most Vet Comm & BBWAA voters still look more at counting stats rather than saber stats to make their HOF decisions

I wasn't saying that they would get a boost, the original comment was

the "If A then B" argument will open up the HOF to literally dozens of pitchers."

And in the cases of Stieb or Sabes, they are much better pitcher than Morris so yes, it opens up that argument for them.

Let me make it simple: Does WAR take into account those factors listed in post 40 or doesnt it? This seems to be easy to answer.

Don't know, don't care, War isn't necessary for this discussion, simple ops+ is all that is needed. didn't really read the comments.
Start with the obvious
Ken Boyer has 8272 pa at .287/ .349/ .462/.810/116
Santo over similar number of pa(8375) posts .280/ .367/ .474/ .841 /129
That is a clear offensive quality advantage to Santo, then add he lasted in the league another 1000 pa.
Even giving Boyer the defensive edge, Santo still comes out ahead.

Then you have the best seasons, Boyer's best season is on par with Santo's fourth best season.(use whatever metric you want, they aren't remotely comparable offensive seasons)

Boyer-----Santo ops+, with the note that Santo also had the higher opb each of those years
143------164
136------161
130------153
124------146
123------136

Santo, is the better career player, the better peak player.... I'm not seeing how Boyer is in this discussion?


Edit: reading those comments in 40...and it's like the argument is coming from the assumption that they were close offensive players... .that is hilarious.

He did miss 2-plus years from his baseball career, but I'm not sure you can say he lost two years from his big league career. He played in 1954, but he spent the entire year in AA. Now he may have lost some big league service time as his military service created a lag in his developmental curve, but I don't think you can realistically credit him for two full seasons lost.

IT's hard to be sure of much, especially when you deal with lost seasons like that. Two years at that pt. early in his career would have definitely had an impact on his progress. I dont really know how to quantify such a thing. But the main pt. I am making or one of them, is that certainty that Santo would have more longevity than Boyer given the same environment. Or the same oppurtunity or whatever. It takes a lot of the steam out of the career argument if you really cant be sure that Santo would have more total AB, given equal oppurtunties. Or what if say Santo had two years of military in his early years? WOuld he still be a HoFer?

Don't know, don't care, War isn't necessary for this discussion, simple ops+ is all that is needed

Does OPS+ account for those factors listed in post 40? If not how on earth can you be so sure of things?


Do you know of any way to convert OPS+ differential to a straight OBP differential or Slug. differential? I realize it could be either or both, but is there some linear way to do this?

Ken Boyer has 8272 pa at .287/ .349/ .462/.810/116
Santo over similar number of pa(8375) posts .280/ .367/ .474/ .841 /129
That is a clear offensive quality advantage to Santo, then add he lasted in the league another 1000 pa.

THis is faulty logic, as you've managed to cut off 1000 AB from Santo's decline phase. Boyer and Santo IIRC both aged at about the same rate, and both retired at about the same time. Regardless of whether exactly the same or not, you've worked Boyers last two decline years into that and deleted Santos.

What if say you chopped off the first two years of Santos and compared these two players for exact same time and for exact same part of their aging curve? Isnt this more fair than what you done?

How about this, age 24-33:

Boyer: 296/359/485 121 OPS+, 5 gold gloves
Santo 285/378/487 136 OPS+, 5 gold gloves

Santo had a better ballpark to hit in, but also played in years that were more pitching-dominated. His main advantage on Boyer was taking about 30 extra free passes every year. There really isn't much difference between them though. Give Boyer back those 2 war years and his career WAR (currently 10 behind) is close enough to call them even. Don't you just hate what war does to WAR? One more reason to be a man of peace.

I can tell you why WAR doesn't include productive outs. It's really no more work than adding net DPs.The thing is that after you adjust for context (IE opportunity) productive outs turn out to be insignificant (since we do track SF and sac bunts). And I mean that in the statistical sense of the word.

And you can convert OPS+ to runs. But why would anybody bother? It's a pretty mediocre method when all is said and done (standard error is in the 8-9 run range for a full-time player.) OPS+ does not in fact account for any of the factors listed in #40. And if you have evidence that any of those factors markedly favors one player or the other, by all means share it with us. I don't mean this sarcastically. People do research these things and bring them up.

THis is faulty logic, as you've managed to cut off 1000 AB from Santo's decline phase. Boyer and Santo IIRC both aged at about the same rate, and both retired at about the same time. Regardless of whether exactly the same or not, you've worked Boyers last two decline years into that and deleted Santos.

The faulty logic is that Santo was better longer, so it's not a fair comparison? I don't get that.


It is not faulty logic, it is what happened, It's Santo's value compared to Boyers value after a similar number of plate appearances, why should Santo be penalized for sticking around longer? Note: I'm not playing hypothetical war credit with you, it's a silly exercise, that only purpose is to give a player more credit. The only discussion I'm interested in having is comparing the two players directly to each other, and in that comparison, Boyer falls way short.

We can delete Boyers last two years if you want, but we have to delete Santo's equivalent plate appearances. And no matter how much you keep deleting, Santo is going to come out ahead on a equivalent plate appearances basis. I wouldn't even do what Arom did in post 62. To me it doesn't matter what the ages are, it's about their best stretch compared to the other guys best stretch in similar plate appearances. But Arom does point out, that it's still a clear Santo advantage.

A few more minor points on Boyer's side versus Santo:

--Boyer played most of his prime during the 154-game schedule.
--Boyer's early years were in contracted MLB, when most of the top "Negro league" talent was in the NL.
--Santo padded his stats in two expansion eras; Boyer enjoyed only one such period.

Most "all-star" years for 3B. Years of 4.5+ WAR with 100 G at 3B:

The thing is that after you adjust for context (IE opportunity) productive outs turn out to be insignificant (since we do track SF and sac bunts). And I mean that in the statistical sense of the word.

OK how do we know this? I cant just take your word for it. From memory Boyer struck out less; it seems that he was able to make contact better.

Do you not think that the ability to make contact is yet another skill that is not measured by slug/obp? It seems that you don't. I'd like some reference or some logic to this.

"It is not faulty logic, it is what happened, It's Santo's value compared to Boyers value after a similar number of plate appearances, why should Santo be penalized for sticking around longer? Note: I'm not playing hypothetical war credit with you, it's a silly exercise, that only purpose is to give a player more credit. The only discussion I'm interested in having is comparing the two players directly to each other, and in that comparison, Boyer falls way short."

Santo didn't stick around longer, Boyer did. Santo has more playing time because he started earlier. If you're not interested in war credit I take that as an admission that you aren't interested in having a serious discussion about relative playing ability. Stan Musial created more runs in 1943-44 than Ted Williams did. I don't think that makes him a better hitter in that time just because their life circumstances ( and therefore draft eligibility) were different.

#66 Well we're not guessing. ESPN (and BP) have published raw productive out numbers for years (and you can get historical data from retrosheet data files)

I know Tango doesn't approve of the use of regressions, but I've tested including productive outs and they come back as statistically insignificant. If you want more, you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourself.

It's pretty easy to see why they can't be that important. You can ignore all PAs with two outs or with nobody on. In those cases, all outs are of equal value. Non sac fly (and these are already accounted for) base advancement on flyballs are not common. Likewise, lineouts and popouts. And an awful lot of groundballs with a runner on first and less than two outs end in DPs.

Now there are some decent metrics that do penalize Ks (thus implicitly adding value for productive outs). Our own beloved Jim Furtado's extrapolated runs for instance. It's a tiny penalty. And including it adds nothing to the overall accuracy

Short answer: don't worry about productive outs. Focus on not making outs.

And in the cases of Stieb or Sabes, they are much better pitcher than Morris so yes, it opens up that argument for them.

Better pitchers by ERA and ERA+, sure, but Morris threw 1000 more innings than Stieb and 1300 more than Saberhagen. He may have been a worse pitcher and still had a better career.

EDIT: I realize Morris is well short of the other guys in WAR.

And if you have evidence that any of those factors markedly favors one player or the other, by all means share it with us. I don't mean this sarcastically. People do research these things and bring them up.

I tied to did this in post no. 40. I appreciate your interest and from the rest of your post I guess you read it; maybe I missed something or counted something twice, but I tried to do it carefully although certainly I didnt spend a lot of time on it. Is there something wrong with what I did there?

And you can convert OPS+ to runs. But why would anybody bother? It's a pretty mediocre method when all is said and done (standard error is in the 8-9 run range for a full-time player.) OPS+ does not in fact account for any of the factors listed in #40.

The reason I did it, is because we had an earlier thread (the one with Cubs clicking their heels, it's only a few days previous to this) where I gave the raw ba/obp/slug for the two players and it was pointed out that you have to correct for park effects and run environment (the latter probably small). Which perfectly reasonable critique. So someone gave the difference in OPS+ between the two and said it amounted to 15 pts of slug. which I guess I took for granted; but now I wish I had the equation or whatever I need to convert this. So we trying to factor the difference between the two guys on that basis and trying to convert like 4 doubles into 3.1 runs or whatever. And then I came in and used baserunning to give Boyer some runs....I'll try to get the quote for you; but it's not hard to find the thread.

OPS+ does not in fact account for any of the factors listed in #40.

Is WAR better? I'd guess I'd like to look at both to be complete. Can we get complete definitions of each? ANd also how can we do this conversion from OPS or OWAR into some sort of raw slug/obp. The reason is Id like to just pull the linear weights from there and come up with runs. THen look at baserunning and convert that to runs.

I dont like these black box methods where I cant see where the final result is coming from. I do appreciate park effects and run environment so I'm not trying to dismiss that. I accept whatever park factors and run environment we come up with because I know those are calculated objectively.

#67 Put me down as no military service credit for Boyer. I just don't see it as likely that he was major league ready at 21 or 22. The question as to whether he was good enough actually doesn't interest me much. I'm doubtful he was good enough to move Ray Jablonski, and there's nio chance he'd have added to his extended prime (as I'm sure I've made clear before, I care not at all about a player's total value)

know Tango doesn't approve of the use of regressions, but I've tested including productive outs and they come back as statistically insignificant. If you want more, you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourself.

Cant you just post what you came up with? Any numbers on any players at all? What method did you use to test significance? What sort of amount did you get? Geez; is this too much to ask?

My previous question to you was: Do you believe in making contact as a significant batting skill? Apparently your answer is "no". I dont see that, and throughout history I think most commentary on that issue says it is.

Product outs are listed on Baseball reference. It is there for everyone to see and the def'n is given. I havent given it too much thought as to whether it misses stuff or whatever, but I used it as a starting pt and perhaps we can tweak it. Boyer had a 6% edge 34-28%. There were roughly 60 opp. per year so I get about 3.5 events. I guess these would be worth about 0.3, since because an out was made and a base was gained, it's probably less than the weighted value of a walk. So I gave Boyer 1 more run than Santo per year.

Sure, it's not alot, but for one thing, I wanted to put it in there for sake of completeness because lots of people (but not you) speak of ability to move the runner up. And also because I really didnt think Boyer would have an advantage because from the sampling I did he seemed to foul out a lot and get caught looking at strike 3. So if Santo had an advantage here I wanted to account for that too. Basically I was just interested in it because I dont think oWAR accounts for it (Where the hell is that defn?)

Also, you watch enuf games and you see lots of little events that lead to crucial runs. I'd really like to know what is going there; is it an illusion? is it too small to measure? Does it wash out?

I also think (and said above) that productive outs should be able to subsume strikeouts, since once you measure slug/obp the only productive thing left for you to do is to move up the runner. Otherwise a strike out is same as a regular out; once you correct for productive outs. So instead of using KO rate (and trying to weight it) I am using productive outs.

Also found that CLemente had a 6% advantage on Aaron over their careers. I grew up watching CLemente and not sure how much differential there was between the two, so another interest of mine.

Santo has more playing time because he started earlier

Santo has more playing time because a) 162 game schedule, and b) he was incredibly durable. From 1961-1971, Santo averaged 159 games played. He holds the record (with teammate Billy Williams) for the most innings played in a season when he played every inning of a 164 game season in 1965. Boyer played as many as 159 games only 3 times, and even in the 154 game schedule, he routinely missed 5-12 games per year.

EDIT: Wait a second wouldnt it be 4 walks? Cause you said he was up 13 pts and the doubles were 6 pts that leaves us with 7 pts in OBP to make up. That's like 4 walks I guess..

I actually ran the numbers; it works out to 6 walks. The increase of 4 doubles was worth 6 points; Santo's adjusted OBP edge is 15 points (13 points of raw and 2 of context), so it takes 6 walks to make up the remaining 9.

As far as the military service goes, as others have pointed out, we're not talking about Johnny Mize or someone here. Boyer's service was at ages 21 and 22, and his debut wasn't until 24. If you want to give Boyer extra credit for development during those years and therefore posit that he makes his debut earlier and/or more effectively, you can do that, but it's not nearly as clear cut an argument.

Versatility credit: The nice thing about comparing players to replacement level is that replacement players are (by definition) equally easy to find at all positions. So Boyer's time in center field should be considered (relatively brief though it was), but bench third basemen actually hit worse than bench center fielders during Boyer's career, which indicates that third was actually the tougher position to fill.

Contact: Making contact is of course a batting skill. It's just a skill that is already evaluated in OBP and SLG, because batting average affects both of them. If you strike out a lot, your OBP and SLG will go down unless you make up the difference in some other way.

The factors listed in post 40: WAR accounts for at least most of them. It handles baserunning, reaching on error, and double plays at least. Baserunning and GDP are their own categories; ROE used to be, but the new version of WAR has engulfed them into batting.

Santo didn't stick around longer, Boyer did. Santo has more playing time because he started earlier. If you're not interested in war credit I take that as an admission that you aren't interested in having a serious discussion about relative playing ability. Stan Musial created more runs in 1943-44 than Ted Williams did. I don't think that makes him a better hitter in that time just because their life circumstances ( and therefore draft eligibility) were different.

By sticking around longer, I'm referring to plate appearances. Age doesn't matter, quality towards the end doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is plate appearances. Santo got 1000+ more plate appearances, any comparison between the two players on the basis of their relative quality has to delete those 1000 plate appearances when comparing final career numbers. If you want to help Boyer save face because he had some decline numbers, you can delete those, but you have to delete enough of Santo that you are comparing similar sized career. It's disingenuous to compare career totals, and not factor out the plate appearance differences.

In the discussion of Santo vs Boyer based upon Santo being roughly equal to Boyer, war credit doesn't figure into it. Boyer would have gotten a little more career value if he played, it wouldn't have been anything exceptional or enough to move the needle, and it's a very big if to begin with, that war credit factors into this discussion. (I agree perfectly with your Ted Williams vs Stan Musial example)

Santo on a one year, two year, three year, four year, five year, six year, seven year, eight year, nine year, ten year, eleven year(etc) peak, beats out Boyer. Regardless of how you measure peak as consecutive or best years, it doesn't matter, Santo still wins.

#77 Actually I can't post much of substance right now. I'm in the process of a two part move and won't actually be in my new place until Sept. (and of course in the new place and unpacked are not the same thing)

Still,what I did was pretty simple. Got the productive outs for as many years as I could, got the other stuff the Lahman database doesn't have (reached on errors in particular) and then ran multiple regressions. Same basic method Jim used to come up with XR. Productive outs come back as statistically insignificant. (And I flat guarantee that if AROM got different results he'd include them in WAR. He already parses the raw data files to get context for his DP adjustments. No more work to include a productive out adjustment if it provided useful information)

It's actually not that hard to get the info from Retrosheet data files. The takeaway point is as AROM says, it doesn't much matter how you make outs. Roughly 89% of the variation in team run scored is explained by OBP and SLG (properly weighted -- OPS+ under-values OBP). Standard error for team runs scored using just those two components is about 28 runs. Including base stealing, base running, reached on errors, sac flies, sac hits, DPs gets it down to about 15 (just under). Almost all of that is luck/clutch/timing (with park adjusted numbers there's also the whole issue of the noise in park factors. Eric Walker wrote a great article on the subject in one of the BBBAs)

#73 The offensive side of WAR is basically linear weights. He's just added reached on errors and net DPs (IE DPs adjusted for the frequency that the DP is in order -- WAR is the first major method to handle DPs in a way that isn't a systemic error) and baserunning. So, black box in the precise details, but pretty easy to see what's going on. I'm pretty sure he doesn't use Pete Palmer's slope correctors.

I know AROM made a decision to discuss the broad details but keep the precise weights to himself when he first started baseballprojection.com -- and he's been totally open as to why. I trust him enough (because his results are within spitting distance of what I come up with whenever I've checked a specific player) that I'm not worried about not knowing the weights he's using to the second decimal place. For all I know now he may not be contractually permitted to discuss the exact weights used. (but it wouldn't be tough to reverse engineer to within spitting distance)

Age doesn't matter, quality towards the end doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is plate appearances

HOw is this a logical argument? You want to dismiss what doesnt fit your pre defined notions.

Including base stealing, base running, reached on errors, sac flies, sac hits, DPs gets it down to about 15 (just under). Almost all of that is luck/clutch/timing...

HOw do you count something, actually put a value on it, as opposed to saying it's not stat. significant; and then say it's luck or something else or whatever...

What is that supposed to mean? You cant count it? You just did. It doesnt matter? Why wouldnt it matter?

1) You (or someone like you) said: taking extra base/getting on with E/advancing on fielder choice/GIDP

is not countedin WAR.

2) We already agree that there's value in speed/alertness on the bases. Or are you now saying: Speed on the bases doesnt matter?

3) It has to matter. I tried to count it. Maybe Im wrong. If I am wrong maybe you can show me where I did not count the running game correctly.

4) If you cant show the math is wrong; then you dont really know how many runs boyer accounted for on the bases.

5) If you dont know that; you dont know the relative value of the players.


So summmarize:
I've tried to take the raw OBP/SLUG adjust for time/park and convert that into some sort of differential in terms of hits or walks or whatever. They seem to have a difference of about what 4 doubles (3.1 runs); 4 walks (1.2 runs) Giving Santo 4.3 runs per year on avg.

I've tried to show where base running may be undervalued running. I got 3.9 runs for Boyer.

And I believe making contact matters. I gave one more run for that. TOTAL: Boyer by 0.6 runs/year.

What is wrong with my math?

I've used the raw numbers (hopefully with correct adjustments for park) in order to avoid coming to these conclusions e.g. 6 Wins per year. I get the feeling that WAR has overinflated the OBP/Slug. in order to get win numbers that make sense. When in fact they didnt get enuf mileage out of the running game. This is just a hunch, but the reason I feel that way is that I put the raw OBP/slug. and get a few runs. Same players and someone comes back and does this black box, WAR and comes up with 6 wins. That's where I'm having the problem with the counter argument.

So, black box in the precise details,

Holy crap! THe whole thing is proprietary! And you guys buy into this. This is how we got to this pt.

Jesus. Yeah I shoulda figured that when no one could provide the equation.

"Hey can someone tell me the actual equation for WAR, I'd really like to see how they go from the raw numbers..."

"They factored all that. The work's all been done. Santo's way ahead."

"Yeah but is there like a reference to this?"

"Yeah here's a link from fangraphs to a little calculator you can plug in your own numbers. Just use numbers 1-6 for speed. And there's no contact factor."

"But do they explain how this is done?"

"That's a clown question, bro."

HOw is this a logical argument? You want to dismiss what doesnt fit your pre defined notions.

My argument arguing that you compare players based upon equivalent number of plate appearances is illogical?

#80 Do I sound like a trusting guy? Before I (and there are a lot of guys who've looked under the hood of various methods) start to use a method, we test it. Sean Forman's implemented it on baseball-reference. He's a professor of mathematics by training. You think it's possible he checked whether the damned thing worked before adopting it?

But here's the point of WAR. It's a modular structure. Don't trust a black box method? Pop out batting runs and stolen base runs and pop in (say) Equivalent runs (or any method you like. You could use Jim Furtado's extrapolated runs and you'd replace one linear weight system with another. The difference won't be large.

You can use Charlie Saeger's defensive system. It's published and it yields broadly similar results (AROM is conservative since the best you can do with historical data is some form of adjusted range factor and there are limits to what you can get from such an approach

Now as to your question in 79, you can make an extremely accurate estimate of the weights used by taking the known factors that are included (not sure if he uses Sac bunts. There a context issue. It's generally not a discretionary play and generally speaking base for an out is a loss of overall value. Kind of moot. Few position players sac enough to even move the dial)

Anyhow, batting runs are derived from the standard offensive events. Phil Birnbaum has a good discussion here on the general approach I believe AROM uses. I'm a sinner. I've always used regressions. I don't believe the extra work gains you anything significant, but I think Phil's argument is that having done the work once (to test the hypothesis) it can be repeated at will so why not go with the more accurate method.

And the topic of luck/clutch/timing is worth its own post. I prefer to use timing because the offensive sequence single, home run is a solid bet to produce more runs than home run, single.

And if you do any kind of simple sim (say basic game stratomatic) The same set of players used with the same batting order and playing time will produce very different results. Every time you play you'll find "clutch" and "choke" cards even though the cards don't vary with the situation.

At the same time I don't dispute that for any given definition of clutch, there are players who will meet that definition. For instance, over a 15 year period Paul Molitor hit quite a bit better with RISP than overall. To the point that he's underrated by about 2 runs a year by most methods (statistical theory predicts a certain number of players will do this even if they don't happen to have a special ability in the clutch. Which is why some people object to the use of the word clutch) My point would be that if your outliers are worth 2 runs a year then it's just not that important.

Incidentally if you got the impression that challenging that which is generally believed to be true is wrong, far from it. If I communicated that in any way, my bad. I'm tired (taking a break from the endless move) I encourage you to try and prove me wrong. The Lahman database is a great place to start playing with regressions and then you can see about adding more fields (IE productive outs) to your model.

AROM would cheerfully include productive outs (which by the way do seem to be significant in deadball baseball. At least strikeouts are. Not surprising when you consider that there were a lot more errors, a lot fewer DPs turned and runs were generally hard to come by) if he found them significant. (He's done original research that seems to refute Keith Woolner's findings on catcher's defense. IOW he's open to new ideas)

As to why they come back insignificant, it's mostly a function of the overall accuracy of offensive metrics. Say they matter but they turn out to be worth .04 runs. Well there isn't an offensive metric that has a standard error smaller than 5 runs (for a full-time player). So you need both large numbers of them and a wide variation among players for them to matter. Otherwise you're just tightening up something you shouldn't be displaying. And any statistical package you use will tell you this. (I use R, but you can run multiple regressions using Excel)

Santo > Boyer. Duh. Ron Santo is not the minimum standard for being a hall of famer. If he was, they'd have to tear down more than half the plaques.

As for war credit, Boyer lost his age 21-22 seasons to military service. He came back and ran roughshod over the Texas League competition in 1954 before hitting the ground running in his MLB career in 1955. I credit him with 1+ years for this lost time.

Ken Boyer should be in the Hall. He is easily better than 40 players currently enshrined. Two problems:

--There are 25+ eligible candidates in line who are better than him.
--He's already dead so there's no great urgency to put him in.

#85 That's the way I look at it. Indeed if a player isn't among* the 10 best players not in the hall I don't support his candidacy. (VC or regular election)

* First, I'm not a career voter, I'm an extended prime voter, and second I extend my top 10 to any player within method error of the top 10. That's somewhere around 4-5 wins for career voters and maybe 3 for extended prime.

If I get the time, I should publish the batting weights used by team/year. Forman isn't using those with the latest WAR update, he's using Pete Palmer's system. There is a big difference in cost of strikeouts vs other batting outs in early baseball, because there were so many errors. Difference is minimal in modern times.

#73 The offensive side of WAR is basically linear weights. He's just added reached on errors and net DPs (IE DPs adjusted for the frequency that the DP is in order -- WAR is the first major method to handle DPs in a way that isn't a systemic error) and baserunning. So, black box in the precise details, but pretty easy to see what's going on. I'm pretty sure he doesn't use Pete Palmer's slope correctors.

How on earth can you describe WAR as black box in details? The only thing not excrutiatingly explained on our website is the DRS and TZR numbers. Everything on the offensive side is spelled out in very great detail here.


http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_wraa.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_pitch.shtml

It's only 30 pages of documentation.

Yeah, only 30 pages. I think some people want a full length novel.

Hey Sean, sorry about that. I my defense it was initially open in concept/proprietary in detail. I knew you'd made changes after housing it (IE switching the defensive system) but I thought you were still using the same (proprietary) version of linear weight. My bad.

Also in my defense you're so damned fast and responsive that it's a full-time job keeping up with the new features. Keep up the great work. And 30 pages doesn't

There is a big difference in cost of strikeouts vs other batting outs in early baseball, because there were so many errors. Difference is minimal in modern times.

But the other guy is saying it's not statistically significant. is that the same thing?

based on field %; the rate of errors in MLB in 1918-19: 3.5%

MLB rate 1960: 2.25%
1965: 2.25%
1970: 2.25%

SO I dont get it

based on field %; the rate of errors in MLB in 1918-19: 3.5%

MLB rate 1960: 2.25%
1965: 2.25%
1970: 2.25%

What is also the difference in babip... Early days of fielding, fewer balls were gotten to and more errors were made, making the cost of strikeouts higher.

#91 Strikeouts are unambiguously statistically significant up to about 1920. After that ... Well it looks like I'm wrong. They are bothering to calculate a strikeout penalty. It's a heck of a lot of work (Under the link Sean gave for explaining WAR, look for Advanced wOBA? and then look for the section that starts "If look at this long enough, hopefully you'll see the logic in the following equation") for something that I'm still unconvinced is statistically significant.

Whatever. I'm wrong. They are in fact dealing with Ks and even if it's not significant, it's certainly not harmful to include the adjustment.

How on earth can you describe WAR as black box in details? The only thing not excrutiatingly explained on our website is the DRS and TZR numbers. Everything on the offensive side is spelled out in very great detail here.

sorry we did not catch this earlier, I will try to go back and study these to bring more to the disussion.

Also looking at the Park effects on fan graphs. They break out the park effect in terms of 1b/2/3b/HR. The factor for HR is quite large e.g. 1.24 whereas singles and doubles are not as impacted as much. If this sort of imbalance also existed in the 60s could it be skewing Santo's oWAR and or OPS+ numbers in a way? I havent studied how they adjust for park effects (is that explained in AROMs links? ) but if they are doing an all around adjustment rather than adjustment for each type of hit would it skew more in favor of HR hitters?

What is also the difference in babip...

So you're saying that BABIP increased .125 from between 1919 and whenever E rate got to 2.25% (not sure when exactly I was just sampling) WHich would suggest that the decrease in errors would manifest itself in increased ba. So that with whatever was increasing fielding efficiency (say bigger gloves) these were letting them get to balls that were right on the verge of being hits. Say hard hit balls that just ticked off gloves. As opposed to dropping pop flys in the sun? Something like that.

Well it looks like I'm wrong. They are bothering to calculate a strikeout penalty.

As I mentioned above, there is more than one way to factor this. One is to measure strike out rate. Another would be to use the productive out rate, since as I said, if you dont strike out or get a hit, the only thing positive that you can do with makign contact is to make a productive out. It's not as if you would be losing something by using ProOut vs KO rate.

But you might be gaining a better measure of contact. Clemente for example has a high KO rate but he also made productive outs at a rate of 36% about 3 pts above avereage. He might have changed his approach to the plate with runners on. I am also seeing batters like Stargell 27% and WIllie Mays 26% where perhaps they didnt change their approach at all with runners on; just continue to swing hard. I guess Stargell struck out alot anyhow, but didnt think Mays did.

Clemente for example has a high KO rate but he also made productive outs at a rate of 36% about 3 pts above avereage.

He might be changing his at bats, where now he isn't getting as many hits as he would with a normal swing. Not sure why you would want to reward a player who is sacrificing hits and strikeouts to get more groundouts. As far as I know, the studies usually show that a high percentage of productive out hurts a teams ability to score runs, not sure how it works on the individual level.