|
|
Hall of Merit— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best
Monday, February 27, 2012
|
Bookmarks
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
Ranking Right Fielders in the Hall of Merit - Discussion thread (42 - 10:46pm, Feb 02)Last: Howie MenckelRanking Left Fielders in the Hall of Merit - Discussion thread (94 - 6:37pm, Feb 02)Last: Howie MenckelReranking Left Fielders Ballot (20 - 3:38pm, Feb 02)Last: Tiboreau2024 Hall of Merit Ballot Discussion (53 - 6:06pm, Feb 01)Last: DL from MNJoe Mauer (19 - 8:38pm, Jan 27)Last: Bleed the FreakChase Utley (17 - 7:44pm, Jan 17)Last: Eric J can SABER all he wants to2023 Hall of Merit Election Results (46 - 10:53am, Jan 11)Last: Mark A Shirk2023 Hall of Merit Ballot Discussion (375 - 9:11pm, Jan 06)Last:  Bleed the FreakAdrian Beltre (14 - 7:14pm, Jan 06)Last: The Honorable ArdoFred McGriff (38 - 11:55pm, Jan 05)Last: What did Billy Ripken have against ElRoy Face?2023 Hall of Merit Ballot (40 - 10:35pm, Jan 05)Last: Howie MenckelOur Constitution (396 - 7:12pm, Jan 04)Last:  cookiedabookieMost Meritorious Player: 2022 Discussion (29 - 2:38pm, Dec 30)Last: bookbookHall of Merit Book Club (11 - 3:41pm, Dec 16)Last: gehrig97Mock 2023 Hall of Fame Election Results (8 - 4:09pm, Dec 14)Last: Howie Menckel
|
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Did any of the HoF NeLs play before 1910?
That's exactly how confidence intervals work. Assuming this range is 2 standard deviations, then we'd have an 68% chance he's between 145-165, and about a 5% chance that he's outside this range (either way).
That's all I ask. Thanks.
That's exactly how confidence intervals work. If 1 standard deviation = 10, then there's a 68% chance he's between 145-165, and a 5% chance he's under 135 or over 175.
Yes. And we would not reject the null hypothesis that Piazza was as good as Gibson.
My guess is a Satchel career where he got to play MLB from the start and was motivated to pitch as long as he could would look like Bert Blyleven or Don Sutton, without a great peak, but he pitched so long he makes Sutton look like a flash in the pan.
How do you account for the relative lack of pitching talent vs. hitting talent among American blacks?
After integration we got scads of good to all-world American black hitters, and very few good pitchers (only Gibson and Newcombe off the top of my head). It can't be discrimination by coaches, since the NeL obviously had lots of pitchers.
Why do you say this?
True. I'd leave it simply as: It's more likely than not Gibson was a bit ahead of Piazza.
Yes.
HoF & HoM - Frank Grant, Pete Hill
HoM - Grant "Home Run" Johnson
That form of discrimination started after integration. You obviously could not discriminate positionally when in the Negro Leagues. Because somebody had to pitch, and to catch, etc. But these days when you see a black player it's most likely he's an outfielder.
I have Joe Williams as the best NgL pitcher and I still think Willard Brown sucks.
HoF & HoM - Frank Grant, Pete Hill
HoM - Grant "Home Run" Johnson
OK, never heard of them.
True. I'd leave it simply as: It's more likely than not Gibson was a bit ahead of Piazza.
I'd go stronger that that (it's very likely he was better than Piazza - probably 80%) but it's more likely he was worse than Piazza as it is he was better than Hornsby.
Right.
But that means the NeL pitching couldn't have been very good relative to the hitting.
You didn't see the pitching equivalent of Mays, Campanella, Aaron, Robinson, Irvin, etc. pour into MLB after integration.
Oh, he was unquestionably great, Snapper, but just not the greatest of all-time as some claim. At least based on his NeL stats, that is.
Yeah, Smokey looks like the best - think Pete Alexander.
Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Newcombe
I assume you're just considering hitting. If you add in fielding I don't see any way Piazza could match Gibson.
Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Newcombe
Sure, but if you look at hitters vs. pitchers, from 1947-70, 8 of the top 20 OPS+ (min 3000 PA) were black, only 3 of the top 20 ERA+ (min 1000 IP), Gibson, Marichal and Jenkins.
It's not controversial to say that American born black talent skewed towards position players from the very beginning of integration.
Hell we can't even evaluate catcher defense for the guys playing today.
Other aspects of catching? Quite literally unknowable. Piazza sure caught an awful lot of very successful staffs despite spotting the league a fair number of runs due to his weakness against the running game.
I don't think Yadier Molina would agree with this.
I don't think Yadier Molina would agree with this.
But his brother is way better, at 1/15th the cost.
Gary Ashwill deserves somewhere between 95% - 99% of the credit for the Negro Leagues research, with a few others of us making minor contributions.
Players who played in MLB and Negro Leagues (1940s-1950s)
Izzy Leon P
Larry Doby CF
Hank Thompson 3B
Jackie Robinson 2B
Dan Bankhead P
Willard Brown CF
Roy Campanella C
Satchel Paige P
Minnie Minoso LF
Don Newcombe P
Monte Irvin LF
Luke Easter 1B
Sam Jethroe CF
Willie Mays CF
Sam Jones P
Bob Boyd 1B
Harry Simpson RF
Luis Marquez CF
Ray Noble C
Artie Wilson SS
Sammy Hairston C
George Crowe 1B
Sandy Amoros LF
Joe Black P
Dave Pope CF
Bus Clarkson SS
Hector Rodriguez 3B
Quincy Trouppe C
Ernie Banks SS
Connie Johnson P
Dave Hoskins P
Jim Gilliam 2B
Al Smith RF
Jim Pendleton LF
Gene Baker 2B
Bob Trice P
Jay Heard P
Chuck Harmon 3B
Jose Santiago P
Curt Roberts 2B
Tom Alston 1B
Brooks Lawrence P
Bill Greason P
Joe Taylor RF
Charlie White C
Hank Aaron RF
Joe Durham LF
Bob Thurman LF
Webbo Clark P
Lino Donoso P
Elston Howard C
Roberto Vargas P
Milt Smith 3B
Billy Harrell SS
Pat Scantlebury P
Joe Caffie RF
Charlie Peete CF
Charlie Neal 2B
Frank Barnes P
Larry Raines 3B
John Kennedy SS
Bob Wilson RF
Hank Mason P
Pancho Herrera 1B
Marshall Bridges P
Armando Marsans CF
Rafael Almeida 3B
Mike Gonzalez C
Jack Calvo LF
Al Cabrera SS
Dolf Luque P
Ricardo Torres C
Jose Acosta P
Pedro Dibut P
Mike Herrera 2B
Oscar Estrada P
BALLPARK LF LC CF RC RF
Griffith Stadium 405 393 421 457 320
Greenlee Field 338 -- 410 -- 342
Forbes Field 365 403 435 408 300
DIVISION 1: The top tier clubs, such as the Baltimore Dry Docks, Brooklyn Bushwicks
and Tesreau’s Bears. Between AA and AAA minor league quality. If I ever find a semipro team of
Major League caliber (which I haven’t, thus far), then perhaps there would be a Division
1-A.
DIVISION 2: Second class clubs, but minor league in caliber. Between Rookie and
Class A minor league caliber. Most of the famous House of David clubs would fit into
this category. They were pounded on a regular basis by the Division 1 and Negro league
clubs.
DIVISION 3: Clubs ranking somewhere between college and American Legion ball in
caliber. The best Negro league limited their bookings versus D3 and D4 teams, because
they usually didn’t draw well and the competition was too soft. The famous All-Nations
teams of the 1910s made a living feasting on D3 and D4 teams, as did other travelling
clubs, such as the Gilkerson’s Union Giants, the House of David and the Nebraska Indians.
DIVISION 4: Bush league. Amateurs. High school ball to small college. Again, mostly
avoided by the best teams for the all the logical reasons: no money to be made, no challenge,
usually located in obscure small towns.
LEVEL WINS LOSSES TIES PCT.
Negro League 91 110 6 .452
AAA 464 265 21 .636
Military 129 50 5 .721
AA 362 132 13 .733
HI A 302 85 7 .780
Semi-Pro 690 155 17 .817
LO A 140 23 2 .859
College 143 11 0 .938
Courtesy of Outsider Baseball Bulletin
Gibson played in 58 of the teams 63 games that have boxscores vs. other Major Negro league teams.
Prorating to 154 games, Gibson's season would look like this:
TOTAL GAMES PLAYED: 142
CATCHER: 96
FIRST BASE: 10
THIRD BASE: 10
LEFT FIELD: 20
RIGHT FIELD: 6
Gibson was 21 years old. Scott noted the similarity to the season of a 22 year old Catcher:
TOTAL GAMES PLAYED: 158
CATCHER: 139
FIRST BASE: 12
THIRD BASE: 1
LEFT FIELD: 15
CENTER FIELD: 2
RIGHT FIELD: 7
This is how the Reds deployed Johnny Bench in 1970.
Here’s Josh Gibson’s splits for 1933:
AS CATCHER: .370 (51-138), 12 doubles, 3 triples, 7 home runs, 36 rbi
OTHER POSITIONS: .493 (33-67), 3 doubles, 4 triples, 8 home runs, 29 rbi
The only other catcher for Pittsburgh was Bill Perkins, noted defensive specialist.
Estimated Stolen Bases per Game:
Gibson - .55 per 9 innings
Perkins - .29 per 9 innings
Over the course of a full 154 game season, Pittsburgh would have stolen
about 275 bases, while holding their opponents to less than 65.
Data again from Outsider Baseball Bulletin.
CATCHER G INN CH PO A E DP Fld% RF/9
Josh Gibson 39 312.0 253 225 24 4 6 .984 7.30
Bill Perkins 28 236.6 220 191 24 5 6 .977 8.37
TOTALS 63 548.6 473 416 48 9 12 .981
Pos 1933 Crawfords G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BB BA OBP SLG
C Josh Gibson 58 205 57 84 15 7 15 65 2 13 .410 .437 .771
Pittsburgh Craws 63 2183 396 635 96 43 36 364 48 157 .291 .332 .424
Courtesy Outsider Baseball Bulletin
There should be additional data with players who played in AAA/AA and the Negro Leagues.
Heh, somehow I thought he was a Jim Lemon-like white lumbering LF.
EDIT: He was on the Reds in '59 when I was 8 and followed the team religiously. Of course my whole experience was via the radio and box scores and I never had one of his baseball cards, so my lack of racial knowledge can hopefully be forgiven.
Gibson played in 58 of the teams 63 games that have boxscores vs. other Major Negro league teams.
Prorating to 154 games, Gibson's season would look like this:
TOTAL GAMES PLAYED: 142
CATCHER: 96
FIRST BASE: 10
THIRD BASE: 10
LEFT FIELD: 20
RIGHT FIELD: 6
Gibson was 21 years old. Scott noted the similarity to the season of a 22 year old Catcher:
TOTAL GAMES PLAYED: 158
CATCHER: 139
FIRST BASE: 12
THIRD BASE: 1
LEFT FIELD: 15
CENTER FIELD: 2
RIGHT FIELD: 7
This is how the Reds deployed Johnny Bench in 1970.
Thanks for the work.
I think the issue that remains is how was he used in barnstorming.
The pro-rating only represents real wear and tear if he was catching 70+ 9-inning barnstorming games in addition to his league games.
Do you know why the Shades of Glory stats show many fewer games for Gibson? (38 games on his wiki page) Do you think those are a subset or that both sets might contain unique games?
You say you have data for 63 games vs other Negro League teams with boxscores. Any idea of how many games like this there were? Could there be 80 Negro League games and we only have boxscores for some? 100? 120?
I was thinking about this and it is striking how many Negro League pitchers could really hit and their hitting is a big chunk of their value. Guys like Paige and Cannonball Dick Redding who were strictly pitchers were the exceptions. I think a lot of this is opportunity and part of it is due to limited roster slots. If you're playing baseball and hitting often you're going to get better at it. I think we would see better hitting pitchers today if they practiced it in the minors. With a 16-20 man Negro League roster a guy who could pitch and play LF was pretty valuable.
Yes, and I have most of those guys identified too, although I haven't yet started on any statistical comparisons. Also didn't want to post such a long list here...
It's my understanding the NLRAG (whose data is used in Shades of Glory) used ONLY sanctioned Negro League games. There may also be an issue where they were still missing some boxscores that we now have.
The problem with using only sanctioned games is that 1933 was the re-start of the Negro National League, and some of the top teams, with the top players, had not joined (or rejoined) the league. This includes the Kansas City Monarchs, Pollack's Cuban Stars, Philadelphia Stars, Cuban Stars, New York Black Yankees, Bacharach Giants, Birmingham Black Barons, and a few others. We (seamheads.com researchers, such as Gary Ashwill, Scott Simkus) include those games as being 'major' Negro League games.
We have data for 63 games. There were actually 101 Crawford games vs. other major Negro League teams, and they wwent 54-35-2. The Crawfords also played another 26 games against top white semi-pro teams (going 22-4). They probably played even more barnstorming games against lesser (Division 2 or 3 classification above) teams, but those were likely never reported in any major paper.
Pitching is the most specialized position in baseball. I suspect that one thing that becomes hard when training and practice time is scarce, and rosters are small, is to specialize. I'm guessing a lot of great black athletes who could have been pitchers were instead made position players in the Negro Leagues since position players could play every day, thus being more valuable. And those that were pitchers also had to play RF or 1B, and work on their hitting, so there were only a few of the best (like Satchel Paige) that were allowed to concentrate just on pitching.
Bell actually WAS a pretty good pitcher before he converted to the OF. He was his teams #2 starter in his rookie year, and he was the NUMBER 1 starter in 1923.
Great information. So if Gibson caught league games at the same rate overall as for the games we have boxscores, that's probably 65-70 games caught. Plus however many exhibition games he caught (where he may have played more at other positions, but probably caught at least some of them.) Does it seem reasonable to assume his catching workload would be similar to guys like Bill Dickey and Mickey Cochrane, about 120 per year?
Do you have home/road splits for any of his seasons? I know he played mostly in big parks, but my guess is that he personally won't show a huge home/road split. Seems like the great ones are less affected by parks (their homers tend to be no doubters) than mid range power hitters.
Come to think of it, it's probably in The Book, but I can't remember and don't have my copy with me.
When you think about it, it might have something to do with the nature of pitchers used in the late innings of close games. There are plenty of closers who are basically hopeless against the running game (almost ignoring it), but they're also murder to attempt to run any form of sequential offense against. (Cue Roberts/Rivera. True enough, it can work. Just doesn't seem to happen often enough to matter)
Did Luque actually play in the Negro Leagues, or just the Cuban winter leagues - which were integrated right?
Luque on Seamheads
I was just reading that Jackie Robinson stealing home thread on Hardball times site. I think it was 32 lifetime attemps, with about half them in +/- 1 run games. Not that this has much to do with stealing second for the average MLB player, but it got me to thinking about it. He actually succeeded I think 74% when you take out certain miscues.
He definitely played in the Cuban Winter Leagues, which where integrated, and some seasons I think had more U.S. black players than Cuban players.
He played for what would later be considered a Negro League team - the Long Branch Cubans, in 1913, but they were playing in the New York/New Jersey league that year, and not in the "negro leagues". He susposedly played for the Cuban Stars in the U.S. in some season, but we haven't found any games yet where he played for them against other major Negro League teams.
Road here includes a few 'neutral site' games in a couple of parks where balls hit over the fence were ground rule doubles and not home runs:
1933:
Home: .390 ba 22/g 77/ab 30/h 5/2b 3/3b 6/hr 4/bb
Away: .422 ba 36/g 128/ab 54/h 10/2b 4/3b 9/hr 9/bb
The journal is $25 (shipping and handling included) and can be purchased at http://infinitecardset.blogspot.com/p/how-to-buy-21-illustrated-journal-of.html (Books will be shipped starting on Saturday April 9th)
You've seen some samples of the statistics above from Scott Simkus, and if you've never seen the baseball illustrations of Gary Joseph Cieradkowski you should definitely check them out http://infinitecardset.blogspot.com/
Outsider Baseball Bulletin
End of advertisements.
To the extent that this represents the consensus view of the members of the HoM project, I think it's one of our biggest mistakes.
The MLEs for Paige (and for most other NeLg players) were done before the results of the Hall of Fame (NLRAG) study were published for selected players. They were based mostly on Holway's Complete Book, supplemented in some cases by data from Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican leagues and from a couple of seasons that Gary Ashwill had tabulated. For pitchers, that means the MLEs were mostly based on W-L records relative to team, supplemented for a few seasons by R/9 data.
For batters, the results of the early MLEs have held up pretty well when we've compared them to the more complete NLRAG data. For pitchers, and especially for Satchel Paige, that isn't true. The MLEs show Paige as a very good pitcher during the 1930s, then dropping to an average or below average pitcher during 1940-47. That result appears to be an artifact of how he was used during that period and how it affected his W-L record. During that period, he frequently started and pitched for about three innings to take advantage of his drawing power as a gate attraction. The effect was that he seldom received credit for the wins in those games, but was charged with many of the losses.
As far as I'm aware, the NLRAG project has published 1920–1949 pitching statitics for 16 pitchers who were either Hall of Famers or candidates (I didn't include players like Oscar Charleston who pitched occasionally, but weren't regular pitchers): Cool Papa Bell, William Bell, Chet Brewer, Ray Brown, Bill Byrd, Andy Cooper, Leon Day, Martín Dihigo, John Donaldson, Willie Foster, José Méndez, Satchel Paige, Cannonball Dick Redding, Bullet Rogan, Hilton Smith, and Cyclone Joe Williams. Against this group of elite pitchers, Paige compares very well. Here are the top 5 in several categories:
R/9
1. Paige 3.31
2. Foster 3.36
3. Smith 3.37
4. Rogan 3.66
5. W. Bell 3.86
ERA
1. Smith 1.68
2. Paige 2.02
3. Foster 2.40
4. Rogan 2.59
5. Brewer 2.89
K/9
1. Paige 7.4
2. Rogan 5.3
3. Smith 5.2
4. Day 5.1
5. Foster 4.9
BB/9
1. Smith 1.1
2. Williams 1.1
3. Cooper 1.4
4. Byrd 1.4
5. Paige 1.5
K/BB
1. Smith 4.9
2. Paige 4.9
3. Williams 3.8
4. Byrd 2.5
5. Méndez 2.5
H/9
1. Paige 7.0
2. Foster 7.4
3. Smith 7.5
4. Day 7.7
5. Rogan 8.0
A caveat is that we don't have league averages or park factors from the NLRAG data, so comparisons remain somewhat risky. But I'm comfortable rejecting the HoM MLEs as flawed, especially for Paige's 1940-47 period. Here are the MLEs:
1927-37: 2678 IP, 3.56 DERA (ERA adjusted for defense), 126 DERA+, 193-122 neutral W-L
1940-47: 1512 IP, 4.93 DERA, 91 DERA+, 81-97 neutral W-L
In comparison, here are his rate statistics from the NLRAG data:
1927-37: 3.38 R/9, 2.28 ERA, 7.1 H/9, 7.2 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, 4.5 K/BB, .667 W-L pct
1940-47: 3.15 R/9, 1.45 ERA, 6.7 H/9, 7.7 K/9, 1.3 BB/9, 5.8 K/BB, .547 W-L pct
Every rate statistic except his W-L percentage is better during the 1940s than in the 1930s. While it's possible that the 1940s were a better pitching environment, I think the main anomaly here is the W-L record. While I can't quite be sure exactly how good Paige was at his peak, I'm confident that he was an excellent pitcher for a very, very long time.
His usage statistics for 1927-37 are similar to the average of the 16 pitchers from the NLRAG study. Keep in mind that Negro league teams had small rosters and they generally didn't carry dedicated relief pitchers. That meant that their top starters were being used in relief more often than top major league starters of the same era. During 1927-37, 69% of Paige's appearances were starts; he completed 76% of his starts; and he averaged 6.2 IP/G. In comparison, the averages of the 16 pitchers for which we have NLRAG data are: GS/G = 69%; CG/GS = 72%; and 6.3 IP/G.
In contrast, during 1940-47 Paige's statistics were GS/G = 85%; CG/GS = 28%; and 5.0 IP/G. So it's true that he was pitching fewer innings per game and was less likely to complete a game, but he was also making many fewer actual relief appearances. So, some of the change was that they were substituting short appearances at the beginning of a game for short appearances at the end, which meant that the overall drop in innings pitched per game (from 6.2 to 5.0) wasn't huge. My guess is that about half of his starts (probabaly against weaker opponents) were of the 3-inning variety, while he was expected to pitch deep into the game in the other half. He continued to pitch quite a few complete games. (In fact, he was still pitching many complete games in Class AAA for Miami at ages 49 to 51.) I don't think that the relative strength of his strikeout and walk statistics during the 1940s can be explained by the change in usage; he was not being used like a modern relief pitcher.
That is all
Negro League 91 110 6 .452
How good were these Negro Leagues and MLB teams relative to the average team in each league? Did MLB teams play primarily the best Negro League teams? Did they tend to rest some of their players more often? I'm wondering if we could use this data to estimate an MLE factor for the pre-1940s Negro Leagues (as it stands, the conversion rate would be greater than 1, which seems implausible).
It would be hard to do using the MLB vs. Negro League games. Certainly, the conversion factor shouldn't be greater than 1, but it does provide evidence that the Negro League teams were better than top minor league teams. The problem is you'd have the "Lefty Groves All-stars" (later the Dizzy Dean All-stars, etc.) playing the Baltimore Black Sox. Lefty would have some A's teammates, but it wouldn't be the entire A's team. You might have a guy from the Senators along. Then you'd have a couple of International League players too. On the other side, you'd have most of the Black Sox, but then they'd get Judy Johnson and Frank Warfield from Hilldale to supplement their lineup.
There is also data of Negro League teams vs. minor league teams. In these games, you were much more likely to have the 'real' teams playing each other. In those games, the Negro League teams won the majority vs. the highest minors (like IL, American Assoc), then even higher percentage vs. Eastern League (next level down), etc. just like you would expect as the competition lessened. I would put a lot more faith in those numbers personally.
Now that I think about it, it seems that if there are enough known games versus PCL opposition it ought to be possible to calculate some kind of conversion factor. Devil is as always in the details, since you'd have to know who was actually playing in any given game (for both sides).
Seems to me you could use Arpad Elo's methods. Problem being that you'd need ~30 games to get any kind of meaningful results and I don't think they were playing 30 times within any kind of useful time period.
Pos 1932 Crawfords G AB R H 2B 3B HR SO BB BA OBP SLG
C Josh Gibson 123 490 114 186 45 16 34 41 31 .380 .417 .745
1B Oscar Charleston 135 430 104 156 22 19 13 37 75 .363 .457 .593
1932 Crawfords 135 4513 898 1449 263 109 101 500 407 .321 .377 .495
from the Pittsburgh Courier, January of 1933.
LEVEL WINS LOSSES TIES PCT. RF RA
Major League 110 91 6 .547 4.44 4.07
AAA 45 23 2 .662 4.52 3.36
AA 28 17 1 .622 5.97 4.85
Hi A 20 6 0 .769 5.42 3.42
Lo A 42 9 1 .823 7.83 3.21
Semi-Pro 1682 911 49 .649 5.78 4.09
College 28 7 0 .800 8.03 4.20
Homestead Grays 184-47 .797
Chicago American Giants 136-37 .786
Kansas City Monarchs 81-24 .771
Pittsburgh Crawfords 58-19 .753
Data courtesy Scott Simkus and Outsider Baseball Bulletin
Pos 1932 Crawfords G AB R H 2B 3B HR SO BB BA OBP SLG
C Josh Gibson 123 490 114 186 45 16 34 41 31 .380 .417 .745
1B Oscar Charleston 135 430 104 156 22 19 13 37 75 .363 .457 .593
1932 Crawfords 135 4513 898 1449 263 109 101 500 407 .321 .377 .495
from the Pittsburgh Courier, January of 1933.
That's a pretty high offensive context.
Was the whole league like that?
I'm surprised the W% isn't much higher.
If that data represented average strength teams in each leagues and was a reliable sample of games, that .55/.45 split in wins would be equivalent to a very slight adjustment at the player level. Something like a guy hitting .300 with 30 homers in the weaker league would hit .285 with 28 in the tougher league.
I think we can get a reasonable estimate from the data of Negro league players who went on to play MLB, by age adjusting the data points. Some of my initial attempts at this show that a player would lose a lot in BA but gain a bit in power and more in walks. MLB in those years saw a change in style of play to lower BA and more power/walks thanks to a generation of power pitchers. So a league adjustment is needed as well.
One thing to be careful of though - this will tell you what a player who played in the 30's/40's in NLB might have hit in the 1950's MLB.
It does not tell you what they would have hit in 1930/40's MLB. Both MLB and NLB leagues before 1947 were weaker than the integrated league that followed.
Got that part mixed up and edit won't work. A guy hitting .300 with 30 homers in the weaker league would hit .285 with 28 in the tougher league
Couldn't we use the opponents' data to try to figure this out? Since the barnstorming data is from 1901-1950, we could get a pretty good idea of the Negro Leagues' quality through the whole time period. To adjust the data, we could calibrate it against direct estimates based on players' stats--we'd multiply the 1940-1950 data by some constant to force it to equal the players conversion rates, and then multiply the 1901-1940 data by the same constant.
I'm surprised the W% isn't much higher.
There is a severely disproportionate amount of Brooklyn Bushwicks and other NY teams included in the Negro Lg vs. Semi pro data. From memory, there may be 600 or 700 such games, which skew the data. The winning percentage goes way up against other teams. This is all a work in progress, and has actually been updated quite a bit since originally published in the Outsider Baseball Bulletin.
Remember, the 1932 data is not of the same quality as 1933 - it is ALL games, not just 'league' games, and based on contemporary stats tracking. Unfortunately, pitching for the Crawfords wasn't reported, but I would guess the opponent offensive totals would be MUCH less than the Pittsburgh offense totals, which would bring down the offensive context for Crawfords games quite a bit.
MLB average run context was 9.8 that year, down from 11.1 in the crazy 1930 season. So there's nothing unusual at all about that team's run environment, that was just baseball in the 1930's.
Using .2 runs for a SB and .5 for a CS, Piazza cost his teams about 70 runs over his career. That's giving him 100% of the blame and not adjusting for pitchers.
I have his game calling being worth a bit more than that. Max Marchi is working on a similar metric and I can't wait to see what he comes up with.
My apologies for laying low. Between working two jobs and commuting, I burn 80 hours a week.
On to the good stuff:
As AROM mentioned, Max Marchi formerly of The Hardball Times, has moved on to Baseball Prospectus, and has done studies on historical catching value.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16199
Catchers improving pitching staffs - runs prevented:
248 - Tony Pena
210 - Mike Scioscia
205 - Javy Lopez
205 - Mike Piazza
191 - Carlton Fisk
178 - A.J. Pierzynski
161 - Russell Martin
150 - Jim Hegan
150 - Jose Molina
146 - Andy Etchebarren
When I get an opportunity, I hope to run through the revised Baseball-Reference WAR rankings and share my findings.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main