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Hall of Merit — A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best Thursday, May 05, 2016Most Meritorious Player: 1993 DiscussionThe Blue Jays beat the Phillies in the World Series. MLB expansion adding the Rockies and Marlins means we will vote for 14 this year. Player SH WS BBR WAR Barry Bonds 44.9 9.9 Ken Griffey Jr 32.2 8.7 Rick Wilkins 28.5 6.6 Mike Piazza 30.8 7.0 Jay Bell 28.3 6.2 Chris Hoiles 27.6 6.8 John Olerud 37.1 7.7 Darren Daulton 28.5 5.0 Len Dykstra 35.1 6.5 Rafael Palmeiro 32.1 6.9 Kenny Lofton 26.6 7.6 Frank Thomas 34.2 6.2 Jeff Blauser 27.7 5.7 Robby Thompson 27.8 6.3 Juan Gonzalez 30.1 6.5 Travis Fryman 25.4 5.2 Matt Williams 27.1 5.8 Rickey Henderson 27.8 5.0 Tim Salmon 25.0 5.2 Greg Vaughn 22.3 6.7 Craig Biggio 26.2 4.3 Mike Stanley 22.1 4.8 Jeff Bagwell 22.8 5.4 Roberto Alomar 31.4 6.1 Ron Gant 23.5 6.5 Marquis Grissom 30.8 5.3 Mark Grace 22.7 4.7 Paul Molitor 27.3 5.7 Lou Whitaker 19.0 4.1 Robin Ventura 21.7 5.3 Alan Trammell 16.9 4.3 Tony Phillips 25.5 5.6 Albert Belle 27.0 4.7 Luis Gonzalez 20.5 5.3 John Valentin 17.5 5.3 Tim Raines 20.0 3.7 John Kruk 26.6 4.7 Gregg Jeffries 26.5 5.1 David Justice 25.5 5.1 Larry Walker 24.3 4.4 Pitcher Jose Rijo 26.1 10.2 Greg Maddux 27.5 5.8 Kevin Appier 26.9 9.3 Randy Johnson 22.7 6.8 Mark Langston 20.0 8.7 Jimmy Key 21.9 6.3 David Cone 21.1 7.2 Alex Fernandez 19.9 5.4 Danny Darwin 19.5 5.7 Jack McDowell 20.0 4.4 Mark Portugal 17.9 4.3 Chuck Finley 18.5 7.2 Wilson Alvarez 17.3 5.0 Steve Avery 20.6 3.8 Bill Swift 18.9 5.3 Tom Glavine 21.5 3.5 Dwight Gooden 13.0 4.2 Erik Hanson 15.8 4.6 Cal Eldred 16.2 4.5 Ben McDonald 17.1 4.5 Frank Viola 15.5 4.3 Tom Candiotti 14.2 4.9 Tommy Greene 14.9 4.4 Jeff Montgomery 22.4 4.4 John Wetteland 20.6 4.2 Bryan Harvey 17.5 4.0 Greg McMichael 17.2 2.6 Duane Ward 16.6 3.1 Roberto Hernandez 15.3 2.6 Jim Gott 13.1 3.0 Pedro Martinez 11.6 3.0
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1. DL from MN Posted: May 05, 2016 at 11:10 AM (#5213287)1) Jose Rijo - I would like someone to explain why Win Shares doesn't like him
2) Barry Bonds
3) Ken Griffey Jr
4) Rick Wilkins - Best year I can remember for catchers
5) Mike Piazza
6) Kevin Appier
7) Jay Bell
8) Chris Hoiles
9) John Olerud
10) Darren Daulton - Catcher #4
11) Greg Maddux
12) Len Dykstra
13) Rafael Palmeiro
14) Randy Johnson
15-20) Kenny Lofton, Frank Thomas, Jeff Blauser, Mark Langston, Robby Thompson, Juan Gonzalez
1) Rijo didn't lead the league, much less the whole game, in anything except strikeouts, K/9IP and Games Started (tied with Greg Maddux)
2) He trailed Maddux in IP, ERA, and ERA+. Maddux led the league in all of those.
3) Win Shares probably doesn't care much about this, but Rijo went 14-9, while Maddux went 20-10.
Probably because of the W/L, Rijo finished fifth in the Cy Young voting, although Win Shares doesn't care about that at all.
Win Shares doesn't fail to like Jose Rijo - it has him ranked third in all of baseball, second in the NL, and a whole 1.4 Win Shares (about half a win) behind Maddux.
My questions would be 1) Why anyone or any system would think that Rijo had a better year than Maddux (Win Shares has Maddux ahead of Rijo, with Kevin Appier (from the AL) in between the two), and 2) How on earth WAR came to the conclusion that Maddux was only worth 5.8 WAR, while Rijo was worth over ten (10.2). That's a staggering difference (4.4 WAR, which is about 13.2 Win Shares), and I don't see how you can even try to justify it.
So, IMO, it's not a matter of why Win Shares "doesn't like" Jose Rijo, who they have ranked second in the league and third in the game, but why WAR really hates Greg Maddux. The difference between the two in Win Shares is NOTHING compared to the difference in WAR. It's WAR that has some 'splainin' to do. - Brock Hanke
Remembering Rijo's One Big Year
One thing that's jumping out at me is Rijo's really high strand rate, but I believe WAR would account for that to some extent.
I'm not sure that the unearned vs. earned runs is the best measure of the team defense, in this case.
According to Baseball-Reference he Braves had the highest TZ rating in the NL; the Reds were in the bottom three.
Fangraphs has the Braves TZ in 1993 as one of the best team seasons of the 1990s (and one of the best of all time - through 1993 it was in the top 20). The Reds' season was not historically horrid, but still among the worst of the 1990s (#254 of 278).
The Braves were loaded with strong, reputable fielders (Lemke, Belliard, Pendelton, Otis Nixon ; even Dave Justice, Ron Gant, and Deion Sanders in the outfield had quality seasons defensively according to fangraphs) and didn't really have any regular defenders besides Fred McGriff who were sub par (in 1993 at least).
The Reds had some known butchers (Juan Samuel, Kevin Mitchell). They also had Joe Oliver and Barry Larkin, but overall their team defense was not great by any measure.
For what it's worth, Rijo and Maddux both had great fielding seasons in 1993.
Also, for what it's worth, fangraphs has Maddux and Rijo about even in fWAR.
2. Ken Griffey, Jr. - Bondsian offense and solid CF defense; easy pick for AL MVP
3. John Olerud - an all-time great batting season, .363/.473/.599 (docked slightly for defense and position); believe it or not he almost replicated the season in 1998 (.354/.447/.551), only with better defense
4. Chris Hoiles - for catchers, a top 10 hitting season... of all-time; really the only better catching seasons are by Piazza, Fisk, Carter, Bench, and Campanella (and Mauer in '09 - but he DHed a whole lot that year, too)
5. Lenny Dykstra - pretty big regular season (though his 1990 was better); HUGE post-season bump (6 homers)
6. Mike Piazza - one of the best all-around seasons in a HOF career
7. Rick Wilkins - three catchers already! - with more playing time, he could have hit nearly 35 bombs and might have been a few spots higher here for me
8. Kenny Lofton - 25% above average with the bat, one of the best defenders in the game, THE best baserunner
9. Frank Thomas - for him, a slightly down year offensively, compared to the league, but still one of the top hitters in the game; 112 BB and 54 K's is awesome; as always, docked for defense
10. Greg Maddux - led NL with 8 CGs and a 170 ERA+
11. Jay Bell - best SS in baseball
12. Roberto Alomar - post-season bump (.388/.455/.510)
13. Randy Johnson - 10 CG and 3 shutouts
ThickieDon - you get 14 slots this year. Add Jose Rijo?
Definitely considering adding Rijo and shuffling things around a bit before the final ballot - him and Appier were my last cuts. I had a hard time including them, since there were quite a few surprisingly excellent position player seasons (those catchers, Robby Thompson, Jay Bell, Jeff Blauser) in 1993, but both pitchers did have pretty great seasons that would rank among the best of the 80's and 90's.
I'm still trying to parse out what happened with Rijo's WAR and all that. Originally I had him #6 ahead of Piazza, then dropped him below Maddux and Johnson, then below Appier.
Another unrelated note:
Paul Molitor's 1993 deserves a mention here. While he won't get much support as a Top 14 player - his offense was great as usual but not overwhelmingly so and he gets the steep DH penalty - I had him somewhere in my Top 25 or so, boosted by this postseason line:
.447/.527/.851
Obviously it was only 55 plate appearances, but it was among the best stretches of all-time.
For each player's average WAR, I then plug it into a DanR-style peak-rate salary estimator (the Sfrac for all pitchers is 1). I don't give an additional catcher bonus since most don't play a full seasons worth of games, and the missing games are already built into the rate part of the salary estimator (note: this hurts catchers like Bench and Berra who did tend to play full seasons since they played their "off" days at positions other than catcher). I do not include a post-season bonus except as a final tiebreaker.
1993 prelim:
1. Barry Bonds, lf, SF - the 2nd of what will be many PMMPs
2. Jose Rijo, sp, Cin - MMPitcher
3. John Olerud, 1b, Tor - AL MMP
4. Chris Hoiles, c, Bal
5. Rick Wilkins, c, ChC
6. Ken Griffey, Jr., cf, Sea
7. Mike Piazza, c , LA
8. Kevin Appier, sp, KC - AL MMPitcher
9. Juan Gonzalez, lf, Tex
10. Greg Maddux, sp, Atl
11. Lenny Dykstra, cf, Phi
12. Rafael Palmeiro, 1b, Tex
13. Frank Thomas, 1b, CWS
14. Robby Thompson, 2b, SF
15-20. Roberto Alomar, Jay Bell, Darren Daulton, Rickey Henderson, Randy Johnson, Travis Fryman.
Not sure how exactly this applies to this particular conversation re: Maddux/Rijo, but I've always felt that unearned runs due to error and/or situation are too arbitrary to really matter.
For example, if Derek Jeter only makes 10 errors in a season, but his lack of range causes him to miss 20 or so other plays entirely, only the unearned runs due to an actual scored error would show up on the pitchers' ledgers. The fielder is totally to blame for bobbled balls and overthrows, but easy grounders in the hole that should have been fielded are the pitcher's fault?
Basic stuff, I know - a big reason why FIP is useful, of course. And in terms of fangraphs pitcher WAR, which is fielding independent, Maddux and Rijo are close (7.5 to 7.1 respectively). I'll look further and try to figure out why bbref and other WAR calculations seem to differ so much. As I said earlier, Fangraphs rates the Braves defense that year very highly, and the Reds pretty poorly.
I would guess that Maddux got "docked" a lot for the Braves having a stellar D that year, while Rijo - in terms of WAR - "benefited" from his team's shoddy D.
1. Barry Bonds - the start of the steroid era, apparently; greatest offensive season since 1961 Mantle (and Norm Cash, guess he 'roided in the winter of 1960, too, then stopped immediately); only McGwire and Mantle had better seasons from 1950-2000
2. Jose Rijo - all-time great pitching season; 9.3 RA9 has only been topped 14 times since 1993, mostly by folks like Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson
3. Ken Griffey, Jr. - Bondsian offense and solid CF defense; easy pick for AL MVP
4. John Olerud - an all-time great batting season, .363/.473/.599 (docked slightly for defense and position); believe it or not he almost replicated the season in 1998 (.354/.447/.551), only with better defense
5. Chris Hoiles - for catchers, a top 10 hitting season... of all-time; really the only better catching seasons are by Piazza, Fisk, Carter, Bench, and Campanella (and Mauer in '09 - but he DHed a whole lot that year, too)
6. Lenny Dykstra - pretty big regular season (though his 1990 was better); HUGE post-season bump (6 homers)
7. Greg Maddux - led NL with 8 CGs and a 170 ERA+
8. Kevin Appier - led MLB in WPA for pitchers
9. Mike Piazza - one of the best all-around seasons in a HOF career
10. Rick Wilkins - three catchers already! - with more playing time, he could have hit nearly 35 bombs and might have been a few spots higher here for me
11. Kenny Lofton - 25% above average with the bat, one of the best defenders in the game, THE best baserunner
12. Frank Thomas - for him, a slightly down year offensively, compared to the league, but still one of the top hitters in the game; 112 BB and 54 K's is awesome; as always, docked for defense
13. Jay Bell - best SS in baseball
14. Roberto Alomar - post-season bump (.388/.455/.510)
1. Barry Bonds, LF, Pittsburgh Pirates: monster year with 206 OPS+, 172 Runs Created and +9 defense
2. John Olerud, 1B, Toronto Blue Jays: he fell short of batting .400 but a 186 OPS+ is nothing to sneeze at
3. Ken Griffey Jr., CF, Seattle Mariners: 3rd in AL OPS+ and RC while adding +8 in centerfield
4. Mike Piazza, C, Los Angeles Dodgers: 2nd in NL in OPS+ with 153
5. Chris Hoiles, C, Baltimore Orioles: 162 OPS+ but loses out to Piazza due to playing time (126 games to 149)
6. Frank Thomas, 1B, Chicago White Sox: 2nd in AL in OPS+ and RC but that -8 defense stings
7. Greg Maddux, P, Atlanta Braves: leads NL in ERA+ (170) and MLB in IP (267)
8. Rick Wilkins, C, Chicago Cubs: the year of the catcher continues
9. Kevin Appier, P, Kansas City Royals: leads MLB in ERA+ (179) with a respectable 238 IP
10. Jose Rijo, P, Cincinnati Reds: 162 ERA+ in 257 IP
11. Rafael Palmeiro, 1B, Texas Rangers: +13 defense helps him stand out from the other batters
12. Roberto Alomar, 2B, Toronto Blue Jays: speed kills- +6 baserunning and 125 runs created
13. Darren Daulton, C, Philadelphia Phillies
14. Lenny Dykstra, CF, Philadelphia Phillies: great offense and positional bonuses help the Phillie pair
15. Juan Gonzalez, RF, Texas Rangers
16. Mark Langston, P, California Angels
17. John Wetteland, RP, Montreal Expos
18. Chuck Finley, P, California Angels
19. Jay Bell, SS, Pittsburgh Pirates
20. Paul Molitor, DH, Toronto Blue Jays
Crazy year for catchers.
My intent is to construct MMP ballots that conform as closely as I can make them to these old memos without feeling ridiculous. Call it the voice of contemporary opinion. (Of course, it's the contemporary opinion of one person: me.)
My sources at the time were probably mostly the stats in USA Today, or perhaps the baseball weekly that USA Today put out. Those had the basic offensive stats, but didn't have such things as HBP, Sac, SF, or GIDP. I processed these into Runs Created and Runs Created/27 outs. For pitchers, I had RA and RA/league, and I was already working on the idea of RA equivalent records. There were, of course, a considerable number of blind spots. One is that I mostly didn't have defensive stats. I did occasionally compute range factors (PO/A/E were in the raw stats) but I was probably mostly going on defensive reputation. Another is that while I was very much aware of park effects, I didn't have a systematic source for park factors. And when I tried estimating park factors myself, I was probably overdoing it - that is, I wasn't taking into account that a Denver player's road stats weren't in league-average parks, they were in non-Denver parks.
There are also some oddities about those 25-man rosters I should mention. They each had 15 position players and 10 pitchers - which is very much a 1960's ratio, not a 1990's ratio. 1990's teams already had more pitchers than that. For the pitching staffs, I named a 5-man rotation, but of the others, only about 2 were actual relief pitchers; I was filling up the bulk of the bullpen with other starters. I named a DH in both leagues. I was very free with position changes - if I liked the shortstop pool of choices better than the 3B or 2B available, then you were going to see a SS playing 3B or 2B. Mostly I at least respected the defensive spectrum, but maybe once in a while I'd stretch a corner outfielder into CF. And the people named as DH's were mostly regular position players - who could hit, of course. The 25-man roster wasn't necessarily the best 25 players in the league, because there were roles that had to be covered. There had to be a backup C, a backup SS, and a backup CF. And sometimes there was someone in a specialty role, like early-in-the-inning PH.
I'll start in with this when you post the 1994 discussion thread. Either I didn't write a 1993 document, or if I did, I can't find it. Sure, Barry Bonds is #1 on the 1993 ballot, but it's not like that was a point of disagreement.
1) Barry Bonds: Best ML player and left fielder - in complete domination mode.
2) John Olerud: Best ML first baseman.
2) Juan Gonzalez: Best AL left fielder.
3) Mike Piazza: Best NL player and ML catcher.
4) Rafael Palmeiro
5) Frank Thomas
6) Jose Rijo: Best ML pitcher.
7) Lenny Dykstar: Best ML center fielder.
8) Kevin Appier: Best AL pitcher.
9) Roberto Alomar: Best ML second baseman.
10) Chris Hoiles: Best AL catcher.
11) Rich Wilkins
12) Darren Daulton
13) Ken Griffey Jr.: Best AL center fielder.
14) Greg Maddux
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