1993 Prelim

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

Should be Bonds on top again. The big question for me is whether Griffey's all-around play catapults him ahead of Olerud's crazy good hitting year.

FWAA generally considers Rick Wilkins an above average catcher but it has him as the Gold Glover in 1993 ahead of Ron Karkovice and Kirk Manwaring. Anyone have any opinions on Rick Wilkins' fielding ability?

Jose Rijo not only led the league in strikeouts and set a personal high for innings pitched, he hit .268/.294/.354 in 1993 which is outstanding for a pitcher. 0.9 WAR from his bat alone.

DL - I can't answer for Win Shares, because it's too complex for me to sit down and try to figure it out for one player in one year, but here are some pertinent possibilities:

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

I think that rWAR would ascribe the majority of the discrepancy to team defense. Rfield has the Reds at -52 runs for the year and the Braves at +82.

1.0 WAR between Maddux and Rijo is batting.

DL - I believe the batting, but it's only 1 WAR, and Win Shares counts pitcher hitting, too. The WAR system has Maddux ranked 4.4 WAR behind Rijo. Win Shares has Rijo ranked very close to Maddux; just not quite as good; in fact, I'm not certain at all that Win Shares "doesn't like" Rijo, the gap being so small. But it is very obvious that WAR really DOES dislike Greg Maddux. They have him behind all kinds of guys, not just Rijo. I'll buy a win's worth of hitting, although, as I said, Win Shares counts hitting, too. I'll buy some of the issue being unearned runs. But 4.4 WAR? 13.2 Win Shares? That's a huge gap to overcome. By comparison, Win Shares' preference for Maddux over Rijo is nothing. - Brock Hanke

I just took a look at BB-Ref on a flier, and found that they do print the number of total runs allowed and also earned runs allowed for each pitcher. In 1993, Greg Maddux gave up 15 Unearned Runs. Jose Rijo gave up five. If anybody's defense was killing him, it was Greg's. - Brock

Here is an article explaining (or attempting to explain) the huge discrepancy between Rijos's and Maddux's WARs in 1993.

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.

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. 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

Norm Cash admitted to using a corked bat in 1961.

ThickieDon - you get 14 slots this year. Add Jose Rijo?

Nice. Expansion!

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.

Didn't realize Cash corked. He should have kept doing it.

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.

Starting last "year" I did a slight revision to my system. I use an average of bbref WAR (but with DRA averaged with TZ/DRS for the defensive component), DanR WARP (substituting BP for pre 1893 and post-2005 years), and Win Shares (crudely adjusted to a WAR-like value) . For pitchers, I also add in the average of the FG WARs (FIP and RA-9 based). For catchers post 1948, I use Max Marchi/BP game-calling numbers for defensive values.

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.

I have been thinking about the Mddux/ Rijo thing too, and an old memory came to me from some years ago in the Hall of Merit discussion of, of all people, Will White, the guy who actually holds the record for most IP in a season. He does not do well by WAR or any other ranking system, including W/L. I wondered why. Someone who had done some research and who knew the details of WAR (forgotten who) said that WAR treats UNearned runs as being absolutely the responsibility of the PITCHER, not the fielders, and then makes "adjustments" for fielder responsibility. I may not agree with this, but, if the version of WAR used in DL's header does this, and the people who work it up don't have the time to do the "adjustments" for every pitcher every year, then Maddux' 15 UNearned runs would cost him severely, especially compared to Rijo's five, because WAR would be assigning all the responsibility for the unearned runs to the pitchers and not to the fielders. Even with adjustments, assigning large responsibility for unearned runs to pitchers would cost Maddux a lot. - Brock

Maddux did seem to have a fairly out of the ordinary number of unearned runs in 1993. Compare his to 2013: 2013 Unearned Runs Leaders

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.

Actually it looks like fWAR's fielding independence is all about balls in play and strand rate - they don't adjust anything for quality of defense, whereas bbref does adjust for team defense. See here (you have to scroll down to the pitching section).

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.

Updated list:

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)

1993 Prelim

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

Mike Stanley and Mike Macfarlane each had career years; Tigers had Tettleton with a Tettleton year and Chad Kreuter hitting out of his mind (130 OPS+).

Crazy year for catchers.

ThickieDon (a great name for what would have been a great player absent injury) - Thanks for the link to BB-Ref's About section. I was able to find out exactly how they do the adjustments for fielding to unearned runs allowed. For seasons before 2003 (which includes 1993, of course), they use Total Zone to compute the TEAM's Defensive Runs Saved. Then they assign runs saved from the team pool to individual pitchers. They do that by figuring out the number of Balls In Play allowed by the pitcher as a fraction of the BIP allowed by the team. So the formula is PITCHER BIP / TEAM BIP * TEAM DRS. It's actually more complicated than that, because they include starter/reliever adjustments in the same equation, but that's how they adjust for defense, starting by assigning all unearned runs to the pitcher. I have no idea how well Total Zone does in assigning defensive runs saved for 1993, so I can't really come to a conclusion, but that may be why WAR ranks Greg Maddux so low. He wasn't exactly Nolan Ryan at striking men out, walking them, or giving up homers, so his BIP may be not the best measure to use for assigning his opportunity as a percentage of the team's. He gave up a lot of BIP for a pitcher of his quality. - Brock

It's about time for me to come out of hibernation and start participating in MMP elections. My reason for doing so: a collection of documents I can still find in my computer files (some somewhat butchered by software changes but I can still make them out) - a collection of season-end baseball memos I wrote to a small circle of friends. In those memos, I had votes for NL and AL MVP and CYA, and for each league I named an All-Star roster; a regular lineup plus a set of reserves. These memos cover the years from 1994 through 2001.

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.

bjhanke: That's great. I would imagine that all of the Braves starters benefited from their strong defense that year, but at the same time, it does appear that Maddux was hit hardest on bWAR. I always figured at least some of his outlier BIP skills were due to lack of good contact being made.

On second thought: I can't find a 1994 post-season all-star document. Maybe that one doesn't exist either. OK, so I start back in with 1995.

1993 ALCS

Player Name  G  AB  R  H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  SO  BA  OBP  SLG  OPS  SB  CS  E
Roberto Alomar  6  24  3  7  2  0  0  4  4  3  .292  .393  .375  .768  4  0  0  
Paul Molitor  6  23  7  9  2  1  1  5  3  3  .391  .481  .696  1.177  0  0  
John Olerud  6  23  5  8  1  0  0  3  4  1  .348  .464  .391  .856  0  0  1

Tim Raines  6  27  5  12  3  0  0  1  2  2  .444  .483  .556  1.038  1  1  0
Frank Thomas  6  17  2  6  0  0  1  3  10  5  .353  .593  .529  1.122  0  0  0  
Robin Ventura  6  20  2  4  0  0  1  5  6  6  .200  .370  .350  .720  0  0  1

Pitcher Name  G  GS  ERA  W  L  SV  CG  IP  H  R  ER  BB  SO  WHIP
Duane Ward  4  0  5.79  0  0  2  0  4.2  4  3  3  4  8  1.714

Wilson Alvarez  1  1  1.00  1  0  0  1  9.0  7  1  1  2  6  1.000
Alex Fernandez  2  2  1.80  0  2  0  0  15.0  15  6  3  6  10  1.400
Jack McDowell  2  2  10.00  0  2  0  0  9.0  18  10  10  5  5  2.556

1993 NLCS

Player Name  G  AB  R  H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  SO  BA  OBP  SLG  OPS  SB  CS  E
Darren Daulton  6  19  2  5  1  0  1  3  6  3  .263  .440  .474  .914  0  0  0
Lenny Dykstra  6  25  5  7  1  0  2  2  5  8  .280  .400  .560  .960  0  0  0

Jeff Blauser  6  25  5  7  1  0  2  4  4  7  .280  .379  .560  .939  0  0  0
Ron Gant  6  27  4  5  3  0  0  3  2  9  .185  .241  .296  .538  0  1  1

Pitcher Name  G  GS  ERA  W  L  SV  CG  IP  H  R  ER  BB  SO  WHIP
Tommy Greene  2  2  9.64  1  1  0  0  9.1  12  10  10  7  7  2.036

Steve Avery  2  2  2.77  0  0  0  0  13.0  9  5  4  6  10  1.154
Tom Glavine  1  1  2.57  1  0  0  0  7.0  6  2  2  0  5  0.857
Greg Maddux  2  2  4.97  1  1  0  0  12.2  11  8  7  7  11  1.421
Greg McMichael  4  0  6.75  0  1  0  0  4.0  7  3  3  2  1  2.250

1993 World Series

Player Name  G  AB  R  H  2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  SO  BA  OBP  SLG  OPS  SB  CS  E
Roberto Alomar  6  25  5  12  2  1  0  6  2  3  .480  .519  .640  1.159  4  2  2
Paul Molitor  6  24  10  12  2  2  2  8  3  0  .500  .571  1.000  1.571 1  0  0
John Olerud  5  17  5  4  1  0  1  2  4  1  .235  .364  .471  .834  0  0  0

Darren Daulton  6  23  4  5  2  0  1  4  4  5  .217  .357  .435  .792  0  0  0
Lenny Dykstra  6  23  9  8  1  0  4  8  7  4  .348  .500  .913  1.413  4  0  0

Pitcher Name  G  GS  ERA  W  L  SV  CG  IP  H  R  ER  BB  SO  WHIP  
Tommy Greene  1  1  27.00  0  0  0  0  2.1  7  7  7  4  1  4.714  

Duane Ward  4  0  1.93  1  0  2  0  4.2  3  2  1  0  7  0.643  

Official 1993 MMP Ballot (no postseason bonuses):

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