Friday, January 30, 2015

Using Runs Above Average To Determine The Best All Around Seasons

Using the Baseball Reference Play Index, I called up the best seasons in fielding (Rfield), base running (Rbaser) and batting (Rbat). But when I called up the leaders in one category, they also had to meet some minimum level in each of the other two stats (more details at the end of the post).

To rate "all-aroundness," I used a geometric mean. For example, if a player was 10 runs better than average in all three stats, I multiplied 10*10*10 = 1000. Then I took the cube root of that, which gives us 10. The geometric mean rewards balance, so a guy with 20 in all three stats is better than someone who had 100 in batting and just 1 in each of the other two.

Here is the top 25. It seems heavily weighted to 1980-2001 (15 cases) and it seems that base running usually had to be pretty good. There were only two seasons from 1911-1960. There were 8 cases from 1996-2001, by 8 different players.


Rank Player Rfield Rbat Rbaser Year Rating
1 Rickey Henderson 13.2 47.5 17.7 1985 22.30
2 Mike Trout 21 52.5 9.8 2012 22.10
3 Eddie Collins 24 33 9.9 1910 19.86
4 Rickey Henderson 24.1 32 10.1 1989 19.82
5 Joe Morgan 13.7 54.9 10.1 1975 19.65
6 Willie Wilson 23.9 18.6 16.5 1980 19.42
7 Rickey Henderson 18 41 9.3 1980 19.00
8 Willie Mays 15.1 54.5 8.3 1958 18.97
9 Willie Mays 16.8 53.5 7.3 1964 18.72
10 Rickey Henderson 16.1 61.5 6.1 1990 18.21
11 Craig Biggio 18.7 43.5 7.2 1997 18.02
12 Alex Rodriguez 15.9 58.1 6.1 2000 17.79
13 Barry Bonds 9.9 69.8 7.8 1996 17.53
14 Darin Erstad 28.8 35.3 4.7 2000 16.84
15 Ellis Burks 12.4 47.9 8 1996 16.81
16 Larry Walker 9.6 69.6 6.6 1997 16.39
17 Ken Griffey 32.3 39.8 3.4 1996 16.35
18 Carl Yastrzemski 23.3 69.4 2.7 1967 16.34
19 Willie Mays 19.9 55.2 3.9 1962 16.24
20 Frankie Frisch 37 23.1 5 1927 16.22
21 Ichiro Suzuki 15.2 29.9 9.4 2001 16.22
22 Lenny Dykstra 25.4 29.2 5.7 1990 16.17
23 Hank Aaron 23.4 43.9 4.1 1961 16.14
24 Carl Yastrzemski 24.7 47.3 3.6 1968 16.14
25 Al Kaline 29.2 39.3 3.6 1961 16.04


Click here to see the complete rankings. After the top 50 or so, you might start to see duplicate entries. That is because as I called up these lists, some cases appeared on both of them and then I merged them all together and sorted them to get the ranking.

Criteria:

Seasons with 44.1+ batting runs, 0.1+ fielding runs, 0.1+ base running runs (197 cases)
Seasons with 0.1+ batting runs, 17.9+ fielding runs, 0.1+ base running runs (198 cases)
Seasons with 0.1+ batting runs, 0.1+ fielding runs, 5.8+ base running runs (190 cases)
Seasons with 30+ batting runs, 3+ fielding runs, 3+ base running runs (161 cases)


Sunday, January 25, 2015

Introducing A New Stat: Weighted Gray Ink (WEGRI)

Like we need another one. Maybe this will secure my sabermetric legacy. Well, Larry Granillo did something like this back in 2009. Click here to see it. But I did something similar back in 2006 and mentioned it on the SABR list. Someone (Rosen380) also just mentioned it in a discussion at Tango's blog. Click here to go to it.

The idea is a point system based on finishing in the top 10 in a stat. A guy gets 10 points for 1st place, 9 for 2nd and so on. Ties split the difference. If you are tied for 1st you get 9.5.

The stat I used is TRAA from Lee Sinins (Total Runs Above Average). Click here to read what Sinins has to say about this. That combines RCAA or runs created above average with FRAA or fielding runs above average. RCAA is park adjusted. I called up all the top 10 lists for the AL & NL (it goes back to 1893). Then summed each guys's points and ranked them. Here is the top 25:

Rank Player Points
1 Barry Bonds  149.5
2 Ty Cobb  148.5
3 Tris Speaker  143
4 Babe Ruth  142
5 Willie Mays  136.5
6 Ted Williams  136
7 Stan Musial  132.5
8 Hank Aaron  128.5
9 Honus Wagner  120
10 Rogers Hornsby  118.5
11 Mel Ott  113
12 Mickey Mantle  111.5
13 Lou Gehrig  104
14 Mike Schmidt  102
15 Nap Lajoie  97
16 Albert Pujols  94
17 Rickey Henderson  88
18 Frank Robinson  86.5
19 Jimmie Foxx  84
20 Joe DiMaggio  77.5
21 Ed Delahanty  77
22 Johnny Mize  76
23 Eddie Mathews  71.5
24 Paul Waner  69.5
25 Elmer Flick  68.5

Click here to see the complete rankings. It might be useful to take into account a player's position. For example, Piazza is the highest ranked catcher at 109.

Here are some interesting tidbits:

Ted Williams could have been first but he missed so much time in military service. Of course, Ruth would do better if I included his years as a pitcher.

Elmer Flick at 25th. Wow. So guess who is 26th? Keith Hernandez. Joe Jackson is 40th despite being banned at age 30. Todd Helton is 41st. And that takes park effects into account.

Tim Raines is 47th and is having a hard time getting into the Hall of Fame. Edgar Martinez is 49th, despite being mostly a DH.

54-56: Jimmy Sheckard, Sherry Magee, Gavvy Cravath.

Charlie Keller-60, Joey Votto-62. George Foster 68. Roy White 76.

Jackie Robinson is 79th and only played 10 seasons.

There are a total of 819 players listed so you can check to see how your favorite did.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

The Base in Baseball (sabermterics from 1935)

This is a very early kind of sabermterics. It was from Esquire in 1935. It is kind of like run expectancy. Baseball Think Factory has had it up on their site for many years. I am posting this in case anyone has missed it and is interested. Click here to read all of it.

Excerpt:
"We worked out a system with the base as a unit.  We gave the batter credit for the number of bases he achieved for his team, compared to the number of bases it had been possible for him to achieve.  If he came to bat with no one on base his “possible” was four bases. If he singled, then, he got credit for 1 base—.250; if he hit a home run he earned 4—1.000.  If there were men on base he got credit for the bases he advanced them—a homer with the bases full would give him 10 bases (count it for yourself) out of a possible ten.  We were actually measuring a player’s performance in realistic terms, as accurately, we thought, as figures could do it."