Friday, January 3, 2014

Was Willie Mays The Most Underrated Player In History? Or Was It Wade Boggs? Is Albert Pujols The Most Overrated?

Click here to see the revised version of this. Mays slips from #1 to #2. Lou Whitaker is now number #1. 

To get a handle on these questions, I first compared career WAR and career MVP shares for a large group of players. In the first case I used WAR from Baseball Reference. In the second case I used WAR from Fangraphs (and only each player's seven best seasons).

They were everyone who had 5000+ PAs since 1931 (I excluded anyone who played more than half a season before 1931 because that was the first year of the baseball writers MVP award).

Then I included everyone who was in the top 200 in MVP shares (only position players). The lowest career WAR of anyone in that group was 17.3, belonging to Cecil Fielder. So I then also added in everyone who had 17.3+ WAR since 1931. Total players was 810.

Then I regressed MVP shares on WAR. A second order polynomial was a better fit than a straight line regression. Click here to see the scatter plot with trend line. Here is the regression equation

MVPShares = 0.0003*WARSquared + 0.011*WAR - 0.1198

Then I estimated each player's predicted MVP shares and found the difference. Click here to see the entire results. The 20 players with the most negative differences are listed below. Willie Mays had a career WAR of 155.9. So he was predicted by the equation to have 8.89 MVP shares but he only had 5.94. So his differential is a -2.95.

Rank
Player
Career WAR
Award Shares
Pred
Diff
1
Willie Mays
155.9
5.94
8.89
-2.95
2
Rickey Henderson
110.6
2.46
4.77
-2.31
3
Lou Whitaker
74.8
0.21
2.38
-2.17
4
Wade Boggs
91
1.2
3.36
-2.16
5
Eddie Mathews
96.1
1.61
3.71
-2.10
6
Hank Aaron
142.3
5.45
7.52
-2.07
7
Willie Randolph
65.6
0.04
1.89
-1.85
8
Ozzie Smith
76.5
0.65
2.48
-1.83
9
Bobby Grich
71
0.43
2.17
-1.74
10
Buddy Bell
66
0.18
1.91
-1.73
11
Willie Davis
60.8
0.1
1.66
-1.56
12
Scott Rolen
69.9
0.57
2.11
-1.54
13
Bobby Abreu
60.5
0.17
1.64
-1.47
14
Carl Yastrzemski
96
2.23
3.70
-1.47
15
Graig Nettles
67.9
0.56
2.01
-1.45
16
Kenny Lofton
67.9
0.58
2.01
-1.43
17
Chet Lemon
55.2
0
1.40
-1.40
18
Johnny Damon
56.4
0.07
1.45
-1.38
19
Darrell Evans
58.5
0.17
1.55
-1.38
20
Cal Ripken
95.5
2.31
3.67
-1.36


This approach is not perfect. Some players might have long careers and so they compile a high career WAR. But if they never have any great seasons, they might not get many MVP votes. Plus, it helps to play on contenders. But Mays had plenty of great seasons and played on many contenders. There is also the possibility that if there are other great players around compiling high WAR seasons, you won't do as well in the voting.

Now here are the players who got more MVP Shares than predicted.


Rank
Player
Career WAR
Award Shares
Pred
Diff
791
Cecil Fielder
17.3
1.67
0.16
1.51
792
Mike Piazza
59.2
3.16
1.58
1.58
793
Albert Belle
39.8
2.38
0.79
1.59
794
Harmon Killebrew
60.4
3.23
1.64
1.59
795
David Ortiz
44
2.6
0.94
1.66
796
Pedro Guerrero
34.4
2.3
0.61
1.69
797
George Bell
20.2
1.92
0.22
1.70
798
Steve Garvey
37.5
2.46
0.71
1.75
799
Willie Stargell
57.3
3.3
1.49
1.81
800
Roy Campanella
34.2
2.52
0.61
1.91
801
Juan Gonzalez
38.5
2.76
0.75
2.01
802
Jim Rice
47.3
3.15
1.07
2.08
803
Hank Greenberg
57.6
3.69
1.51
2.18
804
Ryan Howard
18.9
2.49
0.19
2.30
805
Yogi Berra
59.3
3.98
1.59
2.39
806
Dave Parker
39.9
3.19
0.80
2.39
807
Frank Thomas
73.6
4.79
2.31
2.48
808
Joe DiMaggio
78.3
5.45
2.58
2.87
809
Miguel Cabrera
54.7
4.25
1.38
2.87
810
Albert Pujols
92.9
6.9
3.49
3.41


Pujols got 3.49 more shares than predicted, making him the most overrated player by this measure.

Then, using data from Fangraphs, I found all the players who had 4000+ PAs since 1931 and found their WAR from their seven best seasons combined (each player's WAR in 1981 was increased by 50% while it was 40% for 1994-this is due to player strikes). Total players, 931. Click here to see the scatter plot and trend line. Again, a second degree polynomial was better than a straight line regression (if you look closely, the line slopes downward for very low WAR players, which should not make sense-but this is avoided with a sixth degree polynomial whose results are essentially the same, so I used the simpler one here). Here is the equation

MVPShares = 0.0018*WAR7Squared -  0.041*WAR7 + 0.2683

Here are the most underrated players. Boggs was actually number 1 in WAR 3 straight years while his team came if first twice. He was second in WAR 3 times. He reached the post season a total of six times. But the best he ever finished in the MVP voting was fourth. Mays was 117th here. Click here to see the entire results.


Rank
Name
WAR7
Award Shares
Pred
Diff
1
Wade Boggs
56.1
1.2
3.63
-2.43
2
Ron Santo
52.9
1.23
3.14
-1.91
3
Eddie Mathews
55.3
1.61
3.51
-1.90
4
Bobby Grich
46.15
0.43
2.21
-1.78
5
Rickey Henderson
59.55
2.46
4.21
-1.75
6
Chase Utley
46.7
0.73
2.28
-1.55
7
Arky Vaughan
50.2
1.23
2.75
-1.52
8
Scott Rolen
44.7
0.57
2.03
-1.46
9
Bobby Abreu
40.9
0.17
1.60
-1.43
10
Buddy Bell
40.65
0.18
1.58
-1.40
11
Brian Giles
40.4
0.2
1.55
-1.35
12
Andruw Jones
47.8
1.1
2.42
-1.32
13
Robin Ventura
39.9
0.26
1.50
-1.24
14
Chet Lemon
36.95
0
1.21
-1.21
15
Ron Cey
39.35
0.25
1.44
-1.19
16
Darrell Evans
38.3
0.17
1.34
-1.17
17
Jim Edmonds
45
0.9
2.07
-1.17
18
Kenny Lofton
42.24
0.58
1.75
-1.17
19
Carlos Beltran
43.8
0.76
1.93
-1.17
20
Graig Nettles
41.6
0.56
1.68
-1.12

Now the players who got more MVP shares than predicted

Rank
Name
WAR7
Award Shares
Pred
Diff
912
Barry Bonds
76.7
9.3
7.71
1.59
913
Brooks Robinson
45.1
3.69
2.08
1.61
914
Eddie Murray
41.1
3.33
1.62
1.71
915
Willie Stargell
40.7
3.3
1.58
1.72
916
George Bell
20.8
1.92
0.19
1.73
917
Hank Aaron
56.4
5.45
3.68
1.77
918
Pete Rose
43.4
3.68
1.88
1.80
919
Stan Musial
64.7
6.96
5.15
1.81
920
Jim Rice
38.2
3.15
1.33
1.82
921
David Ortiz
31.7
2.6
0.78
1.82
922
Steve Garvey
28.3
2.46
0.55
1.91
923
Dave Parker
36.9
3.19
1.21
1.98
924
Frank Robinson
50.8
4.84
2.83
2.01
925
Joe DiMaggio
54.6
5.45
3.40
2.05
926
Frank Thomas
49.7
4.79
2.68
2.11
927
Juan Gonzalez
27.2
2.76
0.48
2.28
928
Miguel Cabrera
44.1
4.25
1.96
2.29
929
Ryan Howard
20.6
2.49
0.19
2.30
930
Yogi Berra
40
3.98
1.51
2.47
931
Albert Pujols
58.9
6.9
4.10
2.80
 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you try a log function instead of quadratic relationship? Seems WAR7 is better through R-squared alone. Is this your assessment?

Cyril Morong said...

Yes, I tried the log function but it wasn't as good. Maybe the WAR7 is better for the reason you give but I am not sure. Thanks for dropping by and commenting