Mike Mussina And The Hall Of Fame

Jen Mac Ramos has a good article in support of him at "Beyond the Boxscore." See Mike Mussina and the Hall of Fame argument.

One thing Mussina had going for him was a great strikeout-to-walk ratio. He had 3.58, while the league average was 1.80. So his relative score, according to Lee Sinins Complete Baseball Encyclopedia, was 199 (3.58/1.80 times 100). That was 9th best all-time for pitchers with 3000+ IP through 2012 (130 pitchers in that group).

Mussina had pretty good peak value. He had 7 top 5 finishes in WAR for pitchers at Baseball Reference. Click here to go to his page. 

Now maybe pitchers should be judged on what they largely control: HRs, strikeouts and walks. So I created a crude fielding independent ERA relative to the league average for all pitchers with 3000+ IP. It was based on a regression with a pitcher's relative ERA being the dependent variable and HRs, strikeouts and walks (all relative to the league average) being the independent variable.

The equation was

ERA = 47.38 + .167*BB + .253*SO + .17*HR

So, taking Mussina for example, his relative HRs was 113 (he gave up 13% fewer HRs than average), relative BBs was 174 and strikeouts 114 (struck out 14% more than average). Plugging those numbers into the equation we get 124.49 (almost exactly his actual relative ERA of 124). So he was about 24% better than average. Curt Schilling & Kevin Brown both do even better here and on the next list.

Here is the top 20

Rank	Pitcher	Pred Rel ERA
1	Lefty Grove	133.96
2	Walter Johnson	133.59
3	Cy Young	129.70
4	Roger Clemens	129.36
5	Tim Keefe	128.91
6	Amos Rusie	128.82
7	Nolan Ryan	127.90
8	Greg Maddux	127.55
9	Curt Schilling	127.18
10	Randy Johnson	127.05
11	Jim Whitney	126.83
12	Kevin Brown	126.82
13	Christy Mathewson	126.57
14	Eddie Plank	126.25
15	Eppa Rixey	124.69
16	Bob Feller	124.64
17	Mike Mussina	124.49
18	Paul Derringer	123.27
19	Three Finger Brown	122.87
20	Grover C Alexander	122.80

So he ranks pretty high (again, out of 130 pitchers-Jack Morris was 96th and Morris only had 261 more career IP). Here are the Hall of Famers he is ahead of that he also exceeds in IP:

Three Finger Brown
Dennis Eckersley
Chief Bender
Stan Coveleski
Don Drysdale
Whitey Ford
Herb Pennock
Catfish Hunter
Rube Marquard
Juan Marichal
Joe McGinnity

I might have missed one or two. None of the stats were park adjusted. Using the Bill James Handbooks, I came up with a rough estimate of his HR park rating for his career of about 108, meaning his parks allowed about 8% more HRs than average. So he got no help here.

The Sinins database does have a park adjusted stat for pitchers called RSAA or runs saved against average. I put that into a per 9 IP stat for this group of pitchers. Here is that top 20:

Rank	Pitcher	Per 9 IP
1	Lefty Grove	1.53
2	Roger Clemens	1.34
3	Kid Nichols	1.21
4	Randy Johnson	1.15
5	John Clarkson	1.01
6	Cy Young	0.99
7	Greg Maddux	0.99
8	Walter Johnson	0.98
9	Curt Schilling	0.95
10	Whitey Ford	0.91
11	Grover C Alexander	0.91
12	Carl Hubbell	0.89
13	Amos Rusie	0.88
14	Kevin Brown	0.84
15	Three Finger Brown	0.84
16	Mike Mussina	0.82
17	Stan Coveleski	0.82
18	Bob Gibson	0.81
19	John Smoltz	0.81
20	Christy Mathewson	0.76

Again, Mussina does very well, saving .82 runs per 9 IP compared to the average pitcher and it is park adjusted (Jack Morris was 104th). Now it is not fielding independent, but it is impressive how high he ranks in both cases. Here are the guys he is ahead of in this last one and IP, too, who are in the Hall:

Juan Marichal
Joe McGinnity
Don Drysdale
Dennis Eckersley
Herb Pennock
Rube Marquard
Catfish Hunter
Chief Bender
Stan Coveleski

VIDEO: Jim Maloney's 1965 No-Hitter vs. Cubs

Click here to watch this great video posted SB Nation Bleed Cubbie Blue

Its 31 Degrees In Denver Right Now

The low is supposed to be 29. Accuweather also says "Snow flurries late tomorrow night." So its good that the World Series is not there. Minneapolis has 39 with snow before dawn. Low is supposed to be 32

Its 37 Degrees In Cleveland Right Now

They have a 50% of rain tonight and a chance of snow, too. If the World Series was there, they might not be able to play.

Cincinnati is also 37 with a low of 27 forecast. They have a good chance of rain and snow, too.

It is 40 in Pittsburgh. Wind is 14. Chance of rain and snow.

Weather In Some Major League Cities

With the World Series starting tonight, I wondered what the weather was like in other cities and what the conditions would be if the series was not in Boston or St. Louis.

Right now it is 35 in Minneapolis with a forecast low of 25 (according to AccuWeather). At least there is no snow. The wind is supposed to be under 10 mph all night.

It is 57 in Denver with a low of 35 tonight. Winds are light and no precipitation.

It is 41 in Chicago with 50% chance of rain. The low is supposed to be 33

It is 41 in Cleveland with a chance of rain and snow. The low is supposed to be 35.

Pittsburgh is at 39. They also have a chance of rain and snow with a low of 34.

Cincinnati is 40 with a low of 31

So things could be a bit worse than the 49 in Boston. It is 41 in St. Louis right now with a 40% chance of rain.

Is Ben Zimmer Right About Intangibles?

See I Can't Say What It Is, but He's Got It from today's Wall Street Journal. You might need to be a subscriber to read it. Excerpts:

"When Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell made the decision to keep light-hitting left fielder Jonny Gomes in the lineup against the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series this week, he acknowledged that his choice had nothing do with the numbers. "The one thing that we can't fully measure is the intangibles that Jonny Gomes brings," Mr. Farrell said.

Last week, another Red Sox outfielder was hailed in a similar way. Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon, whose team lost to the Red Sox in the first round of the playoffs, had this to say of Shane Victorino : "He just drips with intangibles.""

"The first player who was routinely praised for his "intangibles" was the scrappy second baseman Eddie Stanky, nicknamed "The Brat." In the words of Leo Durocher, who managed Stanky with the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants, "He can't hit, can't run, can't field... All the little S.O.B. can do is win.""

"When Stanky joined the Giants in 1950, he was keenly aware that his value to the team was hard to measure."

"Intangibles" have persisted in baseball despite the advent of complex statistical analyses that seek to capture all facets of a player's on-field talents. For stat-heads, talk of "intangibles" is a fuzzy-minded refusal to grasp empirical data. But until baseball is taken over by robots, there will always be a need to label natural gifts that elude quantification."

Luck or randomness will always play a role in baseball. The best team does not always win and then we start spinning to stories to explain why on team did win. Were the Mets better than the Orioles in 1969? Maybe. But the Orioles won 91 in games in 1968, 109 in 1969 and 108 in 1970 (winning the World Series). The Mets win totals were 73-100-83. They did not even win their division in 1970, let alone the Series.

The 1927 Yankees had a 4 game losing in streak in the middle of the season, all against teams with losing records (both at the time and at the end of the season). The two teams were the White Sox and Indians.

The article says Jonny Gomes is light hitting but he had an OPS+ this year of 111. 100 is average. Last year he had 142.

Victorino had a WAR of 6.1 this year, 9th best in the AL among position players. He was 10th in the NL in 2011. It seems like he looks pretty darn good based on quantitative measures.

Stanky is famous for not being good at anything but still helping his teams win. He had 4 top 10 finishes in WAR in his career, including a 1st in 1950. He had 7 top 10 finishes in fielding WAR. He had 5 top 5 finishes in OBP, including to 1st place finishes. Maybe back then getting walks was not recognized as a skill, but it sure is now. He led the league in walks 3 times and had a total of 7 top 10 finishes. Maybe he was not fast, but the numbers sure show what skills he did have that contribute to winning.

Branch Rickey did not think much of intangibles. Here is what he wrote in LIFE magazine in 1954:

"But somehow baseball's intangibles balance out. They reflect themselves in other ways. Over an entire season, or many seasons, individuals and teams build an accumulation of mathematical constants. A man can work with them. He can measure results and establish values. He can then construct a formula which expresses something tangible..."

Haven't We Seen This Movie Before?

A pitcher named Kelly is added to the St. Louis rotation and he plays a big role in their making the post-season.

That is basically what happens in the movie "It Happens Every Spring" starring Ray Milland.

In the video below, go to about 34:30 and then watch for about 20 seconds. You will see what a great pitcher Kelly (Milland) was and why his team won the pennant. Click here to go to a page where you can watch the whole movie

Bob Melvin Said Coco Crisp Is His Best Clutch Hitter

Or maybe he said favorite. This is what one of the announcers just said during today's game. Crisp then got a single to drive in a run in the 7th which put the A's ahead by one run. But here are his career splits from Baseball Reference. He does not look like much of a clutch hitter.

Split	AVG	OBP	SLG
RISP	0.286	0.347	0.415
None on	0.273	0.328	0.418
Men On	0.272	0.333	0.399
Late & Close	0.267	0.335	0.394

Who Held The Single Season Record For Isolated Power Relative To The League Average Before Babe Ruth Came Along?

George Hall. He did it in 1876. Below are the top 10 seasons from 1876-1918. Hall's ISO divided by the league average is 3.14 (.179/.057). Times 100 is 314. This comes from the Lee Sinins database and there may be some rounding issues here. Ruth broke the record with 353 in 1919. Hall's 316 is still 9th all-time. Only Ruth and Gehrig ever did better (Ruth has the highest with 433 in 1920).

Player	YEAR	REL ISO	ISO	LG ISO
George Hall	1876	316	0.179	0.057
Fred Dunlap	1884	292	0.209	0.072
Ross Barnes	1876	285	0.161	0.057
Ned Williamson	1884	283	0.276	0.097
Buck Freeman	1899	280	0.245	0.087
Dan Brouthers	1881	269	0.222	0.083
Honus Wagner	1908	265	0.188	0.071
Lip Pike	1876	263	0.149	0.057
Tip O'Neill	1887	261	0.255	0.098
Tom York	1878	260	0.156	0.060

Hall's team scored 7.61 runs per game at home in 1876 and only 4.76 on the road. So his park might have helped him. But they allowed 9.09 at home and 9.00 on the road. Baseball Reference gives him an OPS+ of 204 that year, 3rd highest in the NL from 1876-99 after Barnes (235, 1876) and Brouthers (208, 1886).

Hall's last year was 1877 at age 28. His OPS+ fell but was still a good 132. Wikipedia reports he was banned from baseball for betting. The Baseball Library has similar information.

The Best Teams In OPS Differential All Made The Playoffs

Here are all the teams ranked from highest to lowest. The top 8 teams are all in the playoffs right now and the top 11 teams all made it to at least one kind of playoff game. HOPS is the OPS  a team's batter achieved and POPS is what their pitchers allowed.

TEAM	HOPS	POPS	DIFF
Detroit	0.780	0.681	0.099
Boston	0.795	0.710	0.085
Oakland	0.745	0.678	0.067
Pittsburgh	0.709	0.650	0.059
St. Louis	0.733	0.680	0.053
Atlanta	0.723	0.671	0.052
LA Dodgers	0.722	0.670	0.052
Tampa Bay	0.737	0.686	0.051
Cincinnati	0.718	0.683	0.035
Texas	0.735	0.701	0.034
Cleveland	0.737	0.708	0.029
Washington	0.710	0.683	0.027
LA Angels	0.743	0.736	0.007
Baltimore	0.744	0.749	-0.005
Kansas City	0.694	0.699	-0.005
Milwaukee	0.708	0.713	-0.005
San Francisco	0.702	0.710	-0.008
Arizona	0.715	0.731	-0.016
Toronto	0.729	0.750	-0.021
Colorado	0.741	0.763	-0.022
Chicago Cubs	0.693	0.718	-0.025
NY Mets	0.672	0.709	-0.037
San Diego	0.686	0.725	-0.039
Seattle	0.695	0.736	-0.041
NY Yankees	0.683	0.731	-0.048
Chicago Sox	0.680	0.730	-0.050
Philadelphia	0.690	0.746	-0.056
Miami	0.627	0.703	-0.076
Minnesota	0.692	0.770	-0.078
Houston	0.674	0.792	-0.118

Which Players Had The Most Imbalanced Careers Using OBP & SLG?

Like the last post, I used relative values. All players here had 5000+ PAs through 2012. Kingman's career SLG of  .478 was 22% higher than average while his OBP was 9% below average. So his ratio here is 1.34 (122/91).

Player	RELSLG	SLG	RELOBP	OBP	SLG/OBP
Dave Kingman	122	0.478	91	0.302	1.34
Juan Gonzalez	133	0.561	101	0.343	1.32
Tony Armas	114	0.453	88	0.287	1.30
Babe Ruth	171	0.690	133	0.474	1.29
Joe DiMaggio	142	0.579	112	0.398	1.27
Hank Greenberg	147	0.605	116	0.412	1.27
Matt Williams	118	0.489	94	0.317	1.26
Andre Dawson	123	0.482	98	0.323	1.26
Lee May	119	0.459	95	0.313	1.25
Sammy Sosa	126	0.534	101	0.344	1.25
Willie Stargell	137	0.529	110	0.360	1.25
Johnny Mize	144	0.562	116	0.397	1.24
Albert Belle	134	0.564	108	0.369	1.24
Ernie Banks	124	0.500	100	0.330	1.24
Alfonso Soriano	119	0.505	96	0.323	1.24
Wally Berger	128	0.522	104	0.359	1.23
George Bell	118	0.469	96	0.316	1.23
Joe Carter	113	0.464	92	0.306	1.23
Hank Aaron	140	0.555	114	0.374	1.23
Hal Trosky	126	0.522	103	0.371	1.22
Al Simmons	128	0.535	105	0.380	1.22
Lou Gehrig	151	0.632	124	0.447	1.22
Jimmie Foxx	146	0.609	120	0.428	1.22
George Foster	124	0.480	102	0.338	1.22
Jeff Heath	130	0.509	107	0.370	1.21

Now the lowest ratio

Player	RELSLG	SLG	RELOBP	OBP	SLG/OBP
Eddie Yost	94	0.371	114	0.394	0.82
Chone Figgins	86	0.364	105	0.349	0.82
Jason Kendall	88	0.378	108	0.366	0.81
David Eckstein	83	0.355	102	0.345	0.81
Ozzie Smith	83	0.328	102	0.337	0.81
Don Blasingame	80	0.327	99	0.329	0.81
Mark Belanger	74	0.280	92	0.300	0.80
Muddy Ruel	81	0.332	101	0.365	0.80
Donie Bush	85	0.300	106	0.356	0.80
Craig Counsell	80	0.344	100	0.342	0.80
Ron Hunt	90	0.347	113	0.368	0.80
Jim Gilliam	86	0.355	108	0.360	0.80
Richie Ashburn	93	0.382	117	0.396	0.79
Paul Radford	84	0.308	106	0.351	0.79
Johnny Temple	85	0.351	108	0.363	0.79
Miller Huggins	92	0.314	117	0.382	0.79
Willie Randolph	89	0.351	114	0.373	0.78
Mark McLemore	80	0.341	103	0.349	0.78
Roy Thomas	97	0.333	126	0.413	0.77
Walt Weiss	79	0.326	104	0.351	0.76
Bud Harrelson	75	0.288	100	0.327	0.75
Luis Castillo	81	0.351	108	0.368	0.75
Max Bishop	88	0.366	118	0.423	0.75
Otis Nixon	76	0.314	102	0.343	0.75
Eddie Stanky	89	0.348	120	0.410	0.74

The Most Imbalanced Seasons Using SLG & OBP, Part 2

This time I used relative values. First, the highest SLG/OBP ratios but using the relative stats (divided by the league average, pitchers not included). In 1976, Kingman's SLG was 35% better than average while his OBP was 13% below average. So the 135/87 = 1.55

Player	YEAR	SLG	REL	OBP	REL	SLG/OBP
Dave Kingman	1976	0.506	135	0.286	87	1.55
Dave Kingman	1975	0.494	129	0.284	84	1.54
Matt Williams	1994	0.607	141	0.319	93	1.52
Dave Kingman	1979	0.613	154	0.343	103	1.50
Walker Cooper	1947	0.586	144	0.339	97	1.48
Juan Gonzalez	1992	0.529	137	0.304	93	1.47
Tony Armas	1983	0.453	113	0.254	78	1.45
Buck Freeman	1899	0.563	149	0.362	103	1.45
Tony Armas	1984	0.531	133	0.300	92	1.45
Hank Greenberg	1946	0.604	159	0.373	110	1.45
Hal Trosky	1936	0.644	147	0.382	102	1.44
Babe Ruth	1921	0.846	201	0.512	140	1.44
Ernie Banks	1968	0.469	132	0.287	92	1.43
Frank Howard	1968	0.552	157	0.338	110	1.43
Johnny Bench	1970	0.587	144	0.345	101	1.43
Babe Ruth	1920	0.847	212	0.532	149	1.42
Juan Gonzalez	1993	0.632	155	0.368	109	1.42
Lou Gehrig	1927	0.765	186	0.474	131	1.42
Sammy Sosa	1996	0.564	134	0.323	95	1.41
Matt Williams	1993	0.561	136	0.325	97	1.40
Andre Dawson	1987	0.568	136	0.328	97	1.40
Joe Adcock	1956	0.597	143	0.337	102	1.40

Now the highest OBP/SLG ratios

Player	YEAR	OBP	REL	SLG	REL	OBP/SLG
Yank Robinson	1890	0.434	121	0.281	72	1.68
Walt Weiss	1995	0.403	119	0.321	76	1.57
Max Bishop	1927	0.442	122	0.323	78	1.56
Goat Anderson	1907	0.343	108	0.225	70	1.54
Rickey Henderson	2000	0.368	105	0.305	69	1.52
Miller Huggins	1913	0.432	129	0.317	86	1.50
Richie Ashburn	1960	0.415	126	0.338	84	1.50
Mark McLemore	1998	0.369	109	0.317	73	1.49
Desi Relaford	2000	0.351	100	0.300	67	1.49
Max Bishop	1926	0.431	119	0.325	80	1.49
Max Bishop	1929	0.398	111	0.316	75	1.48
Gregor Blanco	2008	0.366	108	0.309	73	1.48
Otis Nixon	1996	0.377	108	0.327	73	1.48
Rickey Henderson	1996	0.410	121	0.344	82	1.48
Richie Ashburn	1959	0.360	107	0.307	73	1.47
Rickey Henderson	1997	0.400	117	0.342	80	1.46
Roy Thomas	1900	0.451	130	0.335	89	1.46
Steve Jeltz	1986	0.320	96	0.262	66	1.45
Walt Weiss	1993	0.367	109	0.308	75	1.45
John Cangelosi	1986	0.349	106	0.299	73	1.45